Fast Five (D-)

I generally reserve my DVD reviews for limited releases that no one got a chance to see in theaters. However, for a movie like Fast Five, I’ll make an exception. The reason: It was well-reviewed, made a ton of money, and was really bad.
Anyway, this movie is really bad. It doesn’t try to be anything amazing, it just wants to be a not-to-serious adventure. It is a really bad not-to-serious adventure.
While I admit I have not seen every entry in the Fast and Furious saga, from what I have watched I can say this is not particularly worse than the others. The center of the story has been moved away from street racing, probably because the number of explosions and sheer scale of location damage shown on screen has eradicated any credulity to an illegal sport of 200+mph racing in downtown LA (or Tokya, or Mexico City, or whatever exotic location the current film is shooting in). Not that we don’t see the occasional crowd—of easily 200 people—gathered for this mythical event in downtown Rio.
Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) escapes from his lengthy prison sentence in the opening scene when his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) and her boyfriend Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker)swerves a car in front of the prison bus he is in. The ensuing collision flips the bus over, but leaves Walker’s car unharmed, because he is very skilled at this sort of thing. He learned it when he was working for the FBI to infiltrate street racing gangs.
Now the three of them become mercenaries, and decide to steel some cars taken from drug-dealers. However, when they try to renegotiate the terms of the agreement in the middle of the act, their “teammates” lose it and end up killing three government officials. Angry at the brutality of these gangsters, the Torettos and O’Connor decide they are going to use the intell they stole to rob the entire fortune from the gangs, which is well over $100 million.
Unfortunately, a US agent (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is intent on capturing them. The Rio official (Elsa Petaky) helping him begins to suspect that maybe they didn’t kill those federal agents after all, but is told that “our job is just to hunt down names we are given.” What isn’t noted is that if the Torettos hadn’t been working with the gangsters no one would have died, and in many countries they are just as guilty regardless of who pulled the trigger. Also, Toretto deserved to go to jail in the first place because organized crime and smuggling drugs is illegal.
$1.3 billion is the amount of our taxes that was used to help fund Mexico’s work in fighting organized crime that is distributing weapons and drugs and perpetrating violence in both nations. While the majority of viewers are totally safe from this, it is pathetic to glorify gangs and smuggling. There is no such thing as “good gangsters” and “bad gangsters.” There is a such thing as people who openly support and aid a corporation that is actively fighting the US and Mexican government, and then there is a such thing as honest people trying to catch them. Then there are rich Americans who try to act like the gangsters or pretend they are some kind of heroes and inadvertently hide the atrocities they are doing.
Fast Five has several other flaws. To begin with, the dumb plot holes. There is no effort in making a coherent story. Sure, the movie is better than most at writing interesting situations and interactions. But it is terrible at explaining how the police chief can make sure only the corrupt cops arrive at the massive explosion filled car chase that is leveling city blocks in downtown Rio.
When two of the good guys must gain a crimelord’s fingerprint, the female one (Gal Gadot) says “never send a man to do a woman’s job” and then strips to very skimpy underwear and seduces the criminal, gaining the fingerprinton her panties when he massages it. Seeing as this is her single contribution to the entire heist, I think some offense should be taken that that is what “a woman’s job” is.
Lyndon B. Johnson once said “Organized crime constitutes nothing less than a guerilla war against society.” I hope when the next Fast and Furious film hits theaters, viewers keep that idea in mind.

Overrated/Underpraised: Kick Ass & Super

Nathan Adams of Filmschoolrejects has started a cool new column which pits a film with undeserved love against an unfortunately ignored or ridiculed one. I'm making a similar blog, and by similar I mean the exact same. :)

For the first entry in my Overrated/Underpraised, I hope to shed the light on an overlooked picture from this year as well as tackling one of last year's disappointments that received lots of undeserved praise.

In order to see all the flaws in Kick-Ass, it is imperative to read the comic book first. Written by Mark Millar (who generally does actual super-hero books), it is a very dark but extremely funny look at the psychology of a society as shown through an original take on the vigilante/super-hero tail. With all its in-jokes and unique (and yes, sometimes shocking, subject matter) it was perfect for the comic community, but perhaps not a good fit for a mainstream film audience. Matthew Vaughn (who was then known for Layer Cake) was a die-hard fan of the series, but was obviously too nervous to carry the story all the way through. You see, the overall story of Kick-Ass the book is of a well-meaning (though perhaps self-centered) person who's attempts to inspire justice leads to anarchy and recklessness that leads to countless preventable deaths. The characters in the book are living a fantasy life, and the irony is that they never realize it, taking on the mantle of Batman, Spider-man, and Joker rather then live their boring actual lives. It is rather depressing if you think about it, and Vaughn either chose not to or decided no one else would want to.

The movie plays as a tongue-in-cheek yet at heart straight-forward action tale with "originality" provided by R-rated violence and language. At first it seems like good fun, but on closer inspection one sees glaring inconstancies. The book shows through hear and there, and it doesn't fit the atmosphere of the movie.

In addition to these faults is Vaughn's typical obsession with adding sex and nudity that wasn't in the source material. It is all PG-13 level, but it is gratuitous and unhealthy and a totally unneeded and unwelcome addition to the story. Also, the picture could do without the marijuana use.

Those who enjoyed it were not thinking deeply enough into it, which is lazy and unhealthy. (You should always try to be aware of what a movie telling you, or else you are susceptible to a subliminal message. Also, you get to sound pretentious as you tell everyone about it.) Those who didn't were met with the response by Vaughn and his fans that the adult subject matter wasn't there thing. Vaughn had the nerve to say this to Roger Ebert, except Ebert clearly states in his review that he is disappointed because he liked the book and the movie didn't live up to its source material.

If you try to explain to a fan why the movie isn't all that good, you will definitely here the statement above. However, if you press, you will be told that some of the books elements had to be compromised in order to reach a mainstream audience (the always optimistic Millar said just that).

Enter Super, a film that refuses to compromise anything. Released about a year after Kick-Ass, it was never intended for a large audience. However, with its impressive cast (Rainn Wilson, Ellen Paige, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon…) writer/director James Gunn (Slither) must have hoped for a better reaction than he got. The picture made just $324k and received middling reviews. The picture certainly has its flaws, but this tackles the same idea as the renowned Kick-Ass and comes away with something far larger.

Wilson plays a developmentally-challened, mild-mannered man approaching middle age who is heartbroken when a nasty drug dealer (Bacon) reintroduces his wife (Tyler) to drugs and steels her away. After a few weeks sobbing in his bedroom, the person everybody laughed at has garbed a super costume and taken to the streets to bring justice vigilante-style. The picture is a comedy, but it is hard for people to reach it as we see people we genuinely care about suffer humiliating and miserable circumstances. Kick-Ass gives the audience a distance from its story by making it a revenge-fantasy, Super makes us feel the horror as we see our hero lose himself in something entirely relatable but irrevocably violent. We do get to the humor though, and it is in much the vein as Kick-Ass--when the hero, aka the "Crimson Bolt," is approached by a young woman (Paige) wanting to be a sidekick we see how so much of the desire to "protect justice" is more a desire for a more exciting, adrenaline-filled life. The vigilantes begin doing totally unheroic activities, and like Kick-Ass the public takes a macabre glee in it all.

Unlike Kick-Ass, we get a character driven conclusion. I am not going to spoil it, but what we see is a window into why we really dream of super-heroes: A world where good really does win, but also a deep longing for personal connections. It sounds corny here, but the movie makes us feel the message due to our intense connection with the characters. A connection Kick-Ass the book never intended and Kick-Ass the movie tried to tack on but utterly failed at.

Super isn't necessarily a flop. It could hopefully find its footing on DVD. And I assure you it is a far superior, far more poignant tale than Kick-Ass, and due to this is far funnier. So, shut up crime and let it get recognized as the true vigilante-comedy.

3-D Report: October

3-D movies can be done well and they can be done badly. Unfortunately, people have seen too many movies with the bad kind of 3-D and thus think that they hate the format when in fact they really don't know it. I am compiling a report of the quality of 3-D for every month. Some of the movies could still be in theaters so you could consider seeing them based on this, or watch these if you have a 3-D player when they arrive on DVD. Or at least read this years later when 3-D home viewing is easier to come by. Still, the biggest reason I write this is that I hope readers who have seen the movies in 3-D will know how that movies' 3-D compares to other movies' 3-D. Then there might be less of a negative view towards what is in truth a great new invention. Before reading this some people willlikely think "I hate 3-D because the glasses darken the image so much." Sometimes this is the case but I will tell you if it is. Now, obviously, if you watch the movie in 3-D and take off your glasses in the middle you will notice how much brighter the screen is. THAT DOES NOTE MEAN THE 2-D IS THAT BRIGHT--a well-made movie will lighten the 3-D version with the expectation it will be darkened by wearing glasses. It sounds simple but you would be surprised how many people think that a 3-D version viewed without glasses is the same as an out-of-focus 2-D one. The movies are presented in chronological order.

3D has another quiet month with only two of October's films being releases in the format.

The Three Musketeers

Director/Producer Paul W.S. Anderson is most known for making the visually dark Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat movies, but here he decides to experiment with a whole new color scheme. I can't recall the last time I saw a non-animated action film with all of these bright, cheerful colors. It is not very realistic, but neither is the rest of the movie, and it makes far more sense than the absurdly dark palette of, say, Pirates of the Caribbean. This is such an unusual approach nowadays that it might turn some people off, but it is certain to be a boost in the arm to the 3D genre. After seeing this it is hard to pretend 3D means dark and grimy imagery. Just in case you are still skeptical, you can check online and see that the 2D version is identical. If it was any brighter than its 3D counterpart the viewers would be blind.

The focus is perfect and the 3D (much of which is not converted) never causes any of the problems with the imagery. The background is occasionally digitally blurred (or the scenes set in claustrophobic settings), but this is probably a good idea seeing as if there is too much focus in the objects in the background the viewer will get a headache. On the downside this means that you don't always see the location stretch out before your eyes, but there are enough scenes for it not to be a big flaw.

The 3D may not be quite at the level of Transformers 3 or Pixar fare, but it is still very high quality and definitely a great addition to the entire picture.

Puss in Boots

CGI animated movies generally have the best 3D around. Everything is done in a computer, so the absolute perfect focus, depth, and colors can be created. Puss in Boots is no exception. Never is any imagery unrealistic (except for talking cats) and never do the colors make you sick. There is always an added depth from the technology, but in typical Dreamworks style it never interrupts or distracts.

The one flaw is small, but worth mentioning. A very small group of pictures--Legend of the Guardians, Kung Fu Panda 2, Cars 2…--use 3D relentlessly not by throwing objects at the audience but making every detail of the world stretch out before the audience. This is virtually impossible with non-animated films, but it is definitely a beauty to behold. Puss has a few shots like this, but for the most part the 3D only shows you the extent of the scene you are in, not the mountains miles away as in Panda. This isn't a problem with the technology, it is just a lack of something extra.

Even so, a Dreamworks Animation (aka Dreamworks animated films) movie can never have "bad," "mediocre," or even "good" 3D--it has to be great. That little boy on the moon fishing means something, and Puss's visuals never tarnish that reputation.

Real Steel (A)

Hugh Jackman has taken on werewolves, mutants, and Count Dracula himself. At the start of Real Steel, however, we see he has met his match. Jackman is Charlie, a once promising boxer who was forced to retire once the sport was taken over by ten-feet-tall metal robots. This is probably for the best—in every one of his professional fights he fought until either he or his opponent was unconscious, and he lost a lot more than he won. Now, though, he is living a depressing life remote controlling the robots in mechanical battles that usually, thanks to Charlie’s impulsiveness, end with his droid a smoking piece of scrap metal. The problem is these machines cost minimum $50k. Charlie is deeply in debt and has been forced to bring his robots to rodeos and MMA fights rather than the more gentlemanly boxing.
Suddenly, though, things in his life take a turn for the better. He gets a call saying his eleven-year-old son Max (Dakota Goyo), who he has never seen, recently lost his mother. Max’s Aunt Deborah (Hope Davis) wants to adopt the boy, and that is fine with Charlie. However Deborah’s wealthy husband Marvin (James Rebhorn) wants to have a final vacation with his spouse before becoming a father. Charlie offers Marv a deal: For $100,000, Charlie will babysit Max for the summer, and will then sign him away forever. Marvin agrees, but Max isn’t too happy about being sold. He bickers back and forth with his dad until finding an abandoned robot in the scrap yard. Charlie agrees to let him take it to a fight despite being certain the machine will be demolished. However, things don’t quite turn out the way he thought…
Real Steel is a formulaic family story, but it is done so well it is one of the most touching and entertaining tales I have seen in a while.
Shawn Levy takes the director’s chair. As he has shown with the Night at the Museum projects and Date Night he brings fantastic visuals, exceptional cinematography, and impressive acting to the table, but completely ignores anything having to do with the script. Fortunately, he is working from an excellent screenplay by sports movie pro John Gatins (Coach Carter, Dreamer) based on a story from Dan Gilroy (Two for the Money; the Fall) and Jeremy Leven (The Notebook; My Sister’s Keeper), who are themselves inspired by some Twilight Zone episodes. The story is perfectly structured and hits every note it should while adding in some surprising depth; even going so far as to have several subplots that will make a sequel a continuation rather than a cash grab.
Levy doesn’t slack off on his part. His work with Cinematographer Mauro Fiore, who gained prominence with Training Day and won an Oscar for Avatar, and the art and visual departments makes Real Steel look great, with thrilling action and yet an inherent believability and relatability. Just as important is Levy’s ability to pull fantastic performances from his cast. Evangeline Lilly has had few roles to date (she is probably best known as a supporting actress in Afterwards, but she does such an exceptional job here it seems impossible she will continue to be ignored. Goyo, another unknown, never fails to avoid the typical traps of child actors—at no point is he remotely annoying—and brings surprising depth to his character. Jackman is famous as Wolverine and Van Helsing—roles he very much deserved and executed perfectly—but this proves once and for all it is time for him to become one of Hollywood’s heavy hitters. He has never been nominated for an Academy Award and he very much should be here. He won’t, but hopefully some producers will notice that it is ridiculous he hasn’t starred in anything since 2009. After all, he was the best thing in X-Men: First Class and he wasn’t even a credited actor.
Real Steel is not without its flaws. While it avoids the trap The Fighter fell into by glorifying reckless behavior (by replacing human fighters with machines), it still features lots of fights that are possibly illegal and lots of gambling that is most definitely illegal. Gambling is not something that should be treated as a get-rich-quick scheme, and illegal gambling rings should never be condoned. However, it is worth noting that Charlie’s gambling gets himself beaten up and once the robot starts winning it enters the big league where the fights are more for television ratings than betting.
There is also a quick scene implying Charlie might sometimes drink, and while it was during a time when he was depressed it is something families should keep in mind. Other than that, though, the movie is action-packed but not disturbingly violent. Disney—the distributor for Real Steel—has been doing a fantastic job of creating films with adventure scenes that are never dull but rarely scary (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Tron: Legacy), and they continue to do so here. It almost makes up for releasing four Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
One of the biggest faults with this movie is that despite being a big-budget action flick there has been no 3-D version of the picture released. With its exceptional combination of adventure and plot, Real Steel would be the must see event of the season, and it deserves the extra spectacle. There is no excuse for films of this magnitude and genre to ignore the new technology. Then again, it is better than doing it badly.
Real Steel is a remarkably genuine story framed in a thrilling action tale. It is suitable for almost all ages, but that doesn’t mean older crowds will find it any less enjoyable.

Ip Man 2: Legend of a Grandmaster (F)

There are some things we (Westerners) should tolerate about other cultures. What is polite to talk about. Political views. Marital and family customs. However, it is insulting to not object to a film as hypocritical and antagonistic as Legend of a Grandmaster: It not only knows it is bigoted, it has the audacity to then tack on a (fake) message about why bigotry is wrong.
A limited release in the United States, the second installment in the Ip Man saga was a big-budget and very successful Chinese blockbuster. The
choice in protagonist was an interesting decision, seeing as the real life Ip Man (a champion of martial arts and Asian culture who trained movie legend Bruce Lee) moved to Hong Kong due to his unpopularity and distrust of
communism. The movie centers around a fictional battle between Ip Man (Donnie Yen from Legend of the Fist) and British boxer Twister (a fictional character named after a Lethal Combat character who is played by the same actor, Darren Shahlavi) as well his rivalry with martial arts training tycoon (Sammo Hung) and father-son relationship with a hot-tempered pupil (Huang Xiaoming as real life street fighter Wong Leung).
Wilson Yip (Flash Point) has a nice camera style, and the picture has excellent action sequences, though they tend to deteriorate in quality and originality as the film progresses. The cinematography is well done (there are nice bright colors), with the exception of a ridiculous quantity of glaringly obvious orange-and-teal color scheme moments. The story (by Edmond Wong, who also did the original Ip Man movie) is terrible however, and Yip should be ashamed of the bigotry he displays.
There is a difference between celebrating nationalism (something less impressive in Hong Kong, where the
government has a huge influence in filmmaking) and deliberately slandering an entire race. The film divides its good guy-bad guy line solely based on skin color, with every British character a cheating, evil, abusive, and corrupt barbarian. There is no doubt the film is targeting all westerners—the vilification applies to the whole race, and there is no depth or motivation to the white people’s villainy. Yip even goes so far as to have the Union Jack prominently displayed to stress the point that the film is not just attacking an allegedly corrupt police force but an entire nation. Then, the movie goes the extra step and shows Ip Man (the character, I am not judging the actual person) giving a speech that he only wants the East and West to “respect” each other when the past 90 minutes have been as disrespectful as it gets.
Few people have dared to speak out against such racism for fear of seeming bigoted themselves. I perceive this as hypocritical—should Chinese films not be held to the same moral standard American ones are? I think they should, especially when they go out of their way to pick a fight. A 92% on Rotten Tomatoes! This is patronizing—everyone pretends that just because China made a film we are impressed. We should really treat people as equals and treat other cultures with the respect and interest we treat our own, not ignore their statements as mere rambling of a “different” race that is implicitly too stupid or irrational to know what polite or reasonable behavior is.
Further problems with the film are an inexplicably harsh rating, an acceptance of risking one’s life in a life-threatening and barbaric glory match instead of helping one’s family (Ip Man has two children and knows there is a good chance he will die in these combats), the fact that violence should be a way to defend one’s nations honor, and celebration of smoking as a form of coolness. I want to point out there is a law in Hong Kong banning public smoking, so I can say with certainty that Chinese (specifically Hong Kong) culture does not see this behavior differently.
Legend of a Grandmaster manages to not only be racist, but hypocritical as well. We would be the same if we tolerate this
obscenity.

Contagion (A) (and an explanation of where I have been)

Before I start my review, I will say that this site has been acting up and not only made some of what I have written (including my 3-D Report for August) unpostable but also caused my computer to freeze every time I tried to insert a link or even paste in a web address. I am thinking of maybe switching to another site, but for now here is a review for one of the few good recent movies.

Cold detachment and lack of a central story both enhances in inhibits its success. The story lacks a true plot or an emotional resonance with audiences, but it provides a very well-crafted and impactful look at how fragile society is and how quickly it could fall apart.

Contagion plays like Valentine’s Day from hell. Various people linked to each other deal with an outbreak of a deadly and very contagious virus. Pivotal roles involve Laurence Fishburne as head of a center for controlling epidemics, Kate Winslet as his newbie assistant, Marion Cotillard as a health advisor kidnapped in China by a village hoping to ensure the best medicine, and Jenifer Ehle as a scientist who thinks she may be able to develop a vaccine. The acting is all good, though Jude Law does not bring the extra touch he usually does to his role as an anti-societal blogger (possibly because the character is just the slightest bit underdeveloped). The best is Matt Damon as a man who loses both his wife and child son to the disease and must raise a teenage daughter (Ana Jacoby-Heron in what is hopefully a breakout role) in an increasingly chaotic world.

Writer Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum, The Informant!) is more concerned with the big picture than he is with individual characters or plots, and Director and Cinematography Steven Soderbergh (The Informant!, Traffic, Erin Brockovich) amplifies this with a very cold detached style and subdued color scheme. Every scene is cut away from as it gets intense, and the camera retains both a literal and figurative distance throughout. This will certainly anger some—Critic Peter Debruge of Variety stated “Without fully rounded characters, it's hard to care who lives or dies in what amounts to an extended procedural on how disease prevention organizations might respond to such a scenario.” However, there is certainly a lot gained by the film’s unique style.

By looking at the broad implications of it—by using that distance so as to truly get a scale of the chaos—the film gives a detailed look at how fragile the world is and how swiftly it could plunge into chaos. There are very few moments that sound unbelievable, and the viewer has the chilling feeling this could very easily happen. 2012 and the Transformers movies show us a world literally falling apart, but we are more amused by the absurdity than genuinely impacted. Contagion contains no explosions, no natural disasters, and no grand escape plans; but it is far more effective at making us, the audience, truly ponder that maybe we should rethink life—maybe it isn’t quite as secure as it seems.

Contagion is not for everyone. It is unconventional, not just in its originality but in its refusal to risk hurting its tone with human emotion. However, it is an artistically-foolproof and very powerful look at how quickly the world as we know it could end.

We Are What We Are (A)

While the audience for whom this picture would appeal is admittedly small, Jorge Michael Grau’s writing/directorial debut is both a well-crafted thriller and a look at cities so lost to corruption, fear, and poverty the people begin to lose sight of their humanity.

When his father dies, Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro) must lead his family, despite intense hatred from his mother (Carmen Beato) and a burning rivalry with his disturbed brother Julian (the late Alan Chavez). With the assistance of his sister Sabina (Paulina Gaitan), Alfredo begins to look through the Mexican ghetto he lives in for his prey. His family is made up of cannibals, who feel compelled to complete their bloodthirsty rituals in order to survive.

Meanwhile, corrupt and ineffective policemen Tito (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) and Owen (Jorge Zarate) see that they may be able to prove and redeem themselves by catching the murderers.

Grau (best known for the short film “Mi hermano”) constructs a chilling thriller. The audience is riveted to every minute. The opening is powerful and scary and the tension reaches fever pitch half way in and does not subside, even after the credits role. The cinematography (Santiago Sanchez) and art direction (Gabriel Tapai) never seem artificial, but it still reveals a depressing, dark world which is both lonely and crowdedly claustrophobic. Cinematic newbie Enrico Chapela manages to craft a frightening and strident score that amplifies the effect.

In another good choice, Grau (apparently with influence from Beato) chooses to leave most of the violence and nudity implied. Rest assured, the picture is graphically bloody, but these choices feel necessary and the audience is never distracted by gratuitous content.

The film is about the plight of urban Mexico, but its tale of people choosing loyalties and gaining bitter feuds in a desperate chance to survive can be applicable in many situations (inner city ganglands in the United States, for example). There are little solutions offered, and coupled with its violence the movie is unlikely to please much of an audience (with the exception of a few scares and a chilling ending which may please horror film fanatics). Nevertheless, the message rings true and the artistic quality is exceptional.

We Are What We Are is not for everyone, but it does offer some insights and constructs arguably the world’s best cannibal thriller.