Films Seen - May 2003
[Pre-'96 films not included.]
THE MATRIX RELOADED (49) (dir., Andy & Larry Wachowski) Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving [Couple of kickass action scenes - notably the fight with the hundred Agent Smiths, high-angle shots calling to mind Buster Keaton vs. faceless hordes in the abstract geometry of COPS or SEVEN CHANCES - so what's the problem? Maybe that THE MATRIX was a fable of release, an ordinary guy making choices (red pill or the blue pill?) that opened his eyes to a new way of seeing, whereas this is a tale of constraint and oppression : Neo is trapped between two competing systems, 'good' and 'bad' but equally deterministic - on the one hand the "prophecy", on the other (as revealed in a late twist) the Matrix itself, both of them agreed on the rigid, inflexible role he has to play ("the problem is choice") ; what the Wachowskis seem to have done is deliberately paint their hero into a corner, taking their cue from Agent Smith's 'Purpose vs. Freedom' speech. His only way out is to stop being Neo altogether, which presumably is what's going to happen in REVOLUTIONS - but it goes against the aggressively 'new' quality that gave the first instalment its cachet (closely linked to the late 90s promise of a new digital world, the information superhighway, etc) in a way that's not quite true for similar sagas (e.g. STAR WARS, which also opens Luke's eyes only to put him on the treadmill of Destiny) : the whole thing feels like a betrayal of the hi-tech MATRIX spirit - the sense it gave of a brave-new-world release from obedience - esp. since the incidentals have also become stiff and portentous, giving off the same stale vibe as ATTACK OF THE CLONES. Zion is a cheesy place where people are forever making speeches and addressing each other as "Captain" or "Councillor" (think 70s adventures like CAPTAIN NEMO AND THE UNDERWATER CITY) except for a startling bit when everyone dances in slo-mo, writhing bodies to the thump of a techno beat ; Fishburne looks constipated and sounds stilted, with weird pauses ("My. Apologies to all"), and even Lambert Wilson's suave villain-banter ends up mushrooming into a talky discourse (on the joys of swearing in French) that must've taken up a good two pages of script ; climaxes in a meeting with Wizard of Oz figure "The Architect", who uses windy words like "concordantly" and "assiduously" to prove his Evil Mastermind credentials and I'm sorry, I'm a little too old for this shit. When did Neo learn to fly like Superman, though? Maybe he and R2-D2 could fight crime or something...]
ABANDON (37) (dir., Stephen Gaghan) Katie Holmes, Benjamin Bratt, Charlie Hunnam [You can so tell it's a screenwriter turned director - in the way needless subtext is conscientiously piled up, like the many references to "selling out", "market forces" and a world ruled by money (meaning what, in the context of the movie? that people going for a yuppie career are in some way delusional?), and the way style is flashily slathered over everything, with random childhood flashbacks and a climax that confusingly cross-cuts between the Then and Now. Doesn't work, because the deeper meanings feel forced and pretentious, because plot and characters are never clearly established - I guessed the twist, which I hardly ever do, simply because there'd be nothing there without it - and above all because the heroine is a major character study that's been under-cast and under-written : brilliant yet sexy - "You're amazing" - insecure ("It's about the missing Dad," explains a classmate helpfully), restless yet secretly conventional, she requires the depth and complexity of some scarily precocious young diva - but what we get are the shiny eyes, crooked little smile and eager little voice of Katie Holmes. Gives the impression Gaghan, keen to capitalise on post-TRAFFIC clout, took an (over-)ambitious script out of the drawer without ever bothering to re-work it. Hard to classify, which I guess is something.]
WASABI (52) (dir., Gérard Krawczyk) Jean Reno, Ryoko Hirosue, Michel Muller, Carole Bouquet [On this evidence, Euro-cop movies can't quite get the climax right - this one's a damp squib compared to the half-hour extravaganzas Hollywood routinely comes up with - but have the edge in humour and refreshing political incorrectness (Spain's TORRENTE films are even more outrageous, apparently). Jean Reno is the cop as long-faced thug, blithely punching out a suspect in a nightclub then taking on a gang of transvestite robbers - cue effeminate mincing and squealing - in the first 15 minutes, before heading off to Japan and a retread of LEON (a.k.a. THE PROFESSIONAL) alongside hyper-hormonal teen Hirosue. Cheerful shenanigans ensue, also starring frequent references to the majestic Reno schnozz and Muller as the goofy comic sidekick who gets to mention the unmentionable, viz. that Ryoko's pretty hot even if she is our hero's long-lost daughter ("I didn't know you had kids that hot"). Tasty junk-food, with a sharp dab of wasabi.]
MIKE BASSETT: ENGLAND MANAGER (55) (dir., Steve Barron) Ricky Tomlinson, Amanda Redman, Philip Jackson, Phil Jupitus [Kind of incomprehensible if you don't follow football ("soccer", fine, whatever Yanks), esp. the English game - where there are indeed relatively few English managers in the Premiership, and the word 'glamour' juxtaposed with clubs like Hull, Darlington and Colchester does indeed sound quite funny, and the national team do indeed record a pathetic team song before each World Cup (or did, before "Three Lions (Football's Coming Home)" became an all-purpose anthem), and managers do indeed spout malapropisms like "I am a firm believer that if you score one goal the other team have to score two to win". Somewhat reactionary and Little Englandish in its attitudes, esp. in scenes like the ludicrous football 'Academy' (run by a foreigner, of course), though its sneaking affection for the "old-fashioned" manager who plays 4-4-2 and calls his players "lads" - as opposed to the tabloids that hound him and higher-ups who fail to support him - does make for heart-in-the-right-place comedy à la SPINAL TAP (Bassett's such an easy target, it'd be intolerable if the film weren't ultimately on his side). Jokes are good but often undersold, e.g. Bassett's phone interview where a technical hitch has him going out of sync so he's always answering the previous question (a trusty old gag that's barely milked at all) ; Tomlinson is flawless, though you get the (no doubt false) impression he could do this in his sleep ; spoof of TV-football conventions (snazzy graphics, gratuitous split-screen) another joke that's never quite developed. Lads done good, it's a game of two halves, etc ; those who don't know their Bobby from their Jack Charlton definitely at a disadvantage, though.]
THREE (47) (dir., Nonzee Nimibutr / Kim Ji-Woon / Peter Chan) Suwinit Panjamawat, Kim Hye-Su, Leon Lai, Eric Tsang [Rating's actually a - slightly generous - average for highly erratic trio of unrelated tales of the supernatural (individual ratings are 24, 46 and 66, respectively). Saw them in the order cited (Thailand / Korea / Hong Kong) due to faulty DVD listing - the correct order should be with the first two reversed, so the feeble Nimibutr short gets sandwiched in the middle : couple of pleasing light-on-water shots, but far too disconnected and just incoherent really. Kim's short automatically an improvement in that it's actually scary - gloriously creepy opening, with another of those unnerving Oriental women with her face obscured by long straight black hair, plus a trick-shot of a harmless-looking doll that had me jumping out of my skin - but the direction ends up seeming over-fussy (lots of jump-cuts and gratuitous cross-cutting) and the sound design overdoes the pregnant pauses shattered by crashing chords and sudden screams. Something's missing, though it wasn't till the final short I realised it was simply 'interesting characters' (there's a lesson here for all budding horrormeisters, I do believe) : Chan's grips from the get-go - the surprisingly gruff photographer (who actually turns out to be a minor character) is the trilogy's first glimpse of human interest - though somewhat compromised by the baffling structure, whereby what appears to be the film's main character disappears completely halfway through the narrative. Sleek, even poignant drama, also featuring indirect plug for 'Chinese values' and what has to be the most convincing car-hits-pedestrian bit in recent movies (as shocking in its suddenness as the fender-bender at the start of ERIN BROCKOVICH) ; you'll know it when you see it.]
HERO (43) (dir., Zhang Yimou) Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi [Everyone happy with the subtext here? The Emperor [Chinese Communist Party] is ruthless in wanting to clamp down on diversity [impose state control], finding it absurd e.g. that the rules of calligraphy allow a word to be written in 20 different ways [rules of democracy allow a multi-party system] when there should be only one way of writing it. His enemies [forces of change / free-market reforms] have slowly managed to edge closer to success, from the regulation 100 paces away to a mere 10 paces [Deng-era controlled development to the current run-amuck capitalism], and are now in a position to kill the Emperor [overthrow the Party] - but must choose to preserve him, because only the Emperor represents unity and order ; only in this way can they truly become "heroes", by putting aside personal grievances and doing what's (allegedly) best for the country. Fairly objectionable stuff (esp. since the Emperor's the notorious Shih Huang Ti, of burn-every-book-in-China fame), mostly overshadowing what's in any case quite an inert (if good-looking) movie, prone to a certain gigantism as if trying to impose itself by sheer force of numbers : troops stand in serried ranks, stretching as far as the eye can see ; Jet Li ascends enormous staircase, myriad soldiers scuttle about like a horde of rats, hundreds of archers tense their bows letting fly hundreds of arrows (incl. slightly dopey I'm-an-arrow-watch-me-fly POV effect). Striking colour-scheme no doubt has a larger purpose, though I couldn't say what - possibly a visual representation of the various elements, given that one fight is primarily an air-battle, another clad in fiery colours of copper-red and autumn-leaf orange, another is in blue and unfolds to the patter of falling water drops, etc - though it could just be a case of pretty pictures for their own sake ; martial-arts as spiritual journey, allied with music and mental discipline (best scene has the combatants fighting the entire battle in their heads), also kind of interesting, but surely nothing new. 'Was This Shot Worth The Hassle?' Dept. : eight-foot-high ring of wooden shelves collapses like a house of cards, gracefully - and narrowly - missing Jet, Tony and Maggie as they stand in the middle.]
CHAIN OF FOOLS (46) (dir., Traktor) Steve Zahn, Salma Hayek, Elijah Wood, Tom Wilkinson, Jeff Goldblum, David Cross, Kevin Corrigan [Why did I watch this again? Oh yeah, the cast (also, it's directed by a Swedish collective). Gives the impression that someone decided to write a farce by having various characters chase after a McGuffin (ancient coins, in this case), have their paths criss-cross as often as possible, keep the whole thing constantly moving and then that would be farce. No attempt is made at set-up or consistency, characters behave with complete illogic often shading into out-and-out stupidity (e.g. trying to dispose of a corpse in a crowded park in broad daylight) ; director(s) mostly aim for jokiness, introducing characters via humorous captions ("Optimist"; "Hoodlum"; "Expelled From Oxford"), flashing inserts of things we've already seen when someone happens to mention them and aping Tarantino (a few years late) in occasional Time-shuffling and the same events seen from different viewpoints, kind of like when Jules quoted Ezekiel 25:17 in PULP FICTION. So why did I kind of enjoy it, and don't regret having watched it? Oh yeah, the cast - even though Zahn as the hapless-loser protagonist mostly says "Hey-yyy!" and "Nooo!" a lot, and Wood (who's the best thing in it) is going to have a problem when he loses that fragile adolescent vulnerability. Dunno about that Swedish collective, though...]
BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS (55) (dir., Alan Rudolph) Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte, Barbara Hershey, Omar Epps, Glenne Headly, Lukas Haas [Kind of an ironic coincidence when Finney - as eccentric author 'Kilgore Trout' - talks about a planet that "became unpleasant because there was too much creation going on" : what Rudolph does with the material is astonishing - can't think of any other recent film with this kind of unhinged comic desperation, except perhaps the first half of PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE - but it's just too much, and ends up toppling over into a kind of neurotic bittiness. Animal noises, Hawaiian music, stray bits of TV commercials for back-care treatments and "Relax" pills, out-of-nowhere bits of animation (e.g. showing us the contents of our hero's mind), special effects and Dutch angles, all contribute to a sense of a man - and a sick, materialistic society - on the verge of implosion ; actors really go for it, esp. Willis as used-car salesman Dwayne Hoover - he has a way of ranting and raving while holding his body very still that's seriously deranged - and Nolte as his twitchy, cross-dressing sales manager (they share a wacky talking-at-cross-purposes scene, culminating in the line "I've never let the fact that you have the name of a Buick come between us"). One gets the sense of a labour of love, actors and director sticking their necks out because Vonnegut's novel meant a lot to them once (Nolte's also starred in MOTHER NIGHT, so he's quite the Vonnegut groupie), but bizarre behaviour wears out its welcome and it's hard to find much meaning beyond basic capitalist satire, yearning for serenity and Forrest Gump-y maxims like "Till you're dead, it's all Life". Best shot : Finney's face reflected in a truck's side-view mirror just as a magical rose-coloured vision - childhood flashback? glimpse of Heaven? - gradually materialises in the bottom of the mirror. Biggest shock : Owen Wilson in a tiny part as smiley talk-show host 'Monty Rapid'.]
TEARS OF THE SUN (40) (dir., Antoine Fuqua) Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser [Someday they'll be screening this in Political Science courses, as an artefact of the muddled days when the US briefly toyed with the idea of playing 'global cop' to the world's evil regimes - or maybe it's just a Western, with a couple of fighter planes as the Cavalry riding to the rescue at the last moment (or maybe it's blatant propaganda, unless of course you believe the official line that the depredations of Saddam and Milosevic were the main or only reason for American intervention). Willis, once again digging out the expressive in expressionless - he's such a consummate film actor - follows his conscience THREE KINGS-style, saving a bunch of refugees for reasons unarticulated ("When I figure it out I'll let you know") but pretty explicitly because that's what the New America does now, refusing to allow oppression and ethnic cleansing (closing caption quotes Edmund Burke - "The only thing necessary for the triumph of Evil is for good men to do nothing" - which Bush and Co. might've chosen as their rallying-cry against Iraq). "This one's for all the times we were told to stand down" in the bad old days, says our hero ; "For our sins," he adds, tying in with the film's odd religious undertones - or maybe not so odd in this day and age, since the bad guys are Muslims and finger a priest's cross disdainfully before killing him. Very much a film of the moment, and a well-made one (Fuqua obviously feels it, though just as obviously thinks Africa's being neglected in the tussle for the Middle East), with memorably moody visuals - thick hellish murk of darkness, sun-baked intensity in the daytime - and at least one scene (where heroes wait in dead silence for a rebel patrol to pass) almost as tense as the poker game in TRAINING DAY. But we all know Western troops seldom have to fight in these conditions (outgunned and outnumbered, hanging on for dear life), and we all know Nigeria is hardly the "once-peaceful country" claimed in the exposition, and we all know foreign policy can never be a matter of nice vs. nasty ; and we know the local woman (symbolically named Patience) is only there to explain how bad things used to be and give her blessing to US intervention, and we know the enlightened President's son who gets saved along with the refugees is only there to provide the fig-leaf of 'restoring democracy', and it's just a bit late in the day for this kind of RAMBO yahooism. "How can they do this?" asks a soldier, shaking his head at the rebels' atrocities ; "This is what they do," replies Patience, thoughtfully supplying a demonic Other - and a handy reminder that Bruce Willis (born 1955) is probably just a tad too young to remember much about Vietnam.]
HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (27) (dir., Donald Petrie) Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, Kathryn Hahn, Bebe Neuwirth, Adam Goldberg [Hi kids. I'm a working journalist, here to give my 'expert opinion' on the new romantic comedy HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS, starring Kate Hudson as a journalist for a glossy women's mag. As a working journalist, one thing I need to point out is that when you write a fluff-piece in real life - say, a piece on how to lose a guy in 10 days - you will not generally get 10 days in which to write it, nor will you have to write it as if you were reporting news or doing a school report or something, i.e. you can pad it out and play it for laughs and whatnot ; so that if e.g. you find yourself unexpectedly falling for the guy that is pretty much a non-issue, you can just explain the situation and take it from there. Also, speaking not as a working journalist but just a human being, I feel I should point out that if you're at a basketball game with about a minute to go and your annoying date insists you go get her a soda, you do not actually have to get the soda - thereby missing the end of the game - you can just pretend to go get the soda then find a place further up the stands from where you watch the end of the game then tell her there was a long line or something. Also, speaking as a person who's met various men and women over the years, I would like to point out that women aren't always weepy and weight-obsessed, and men don't necessarily hate commitment and talk about sports all the time, this only happens in bad sitcoms (and movies that feel like bad sitcoms). Finally, speaking as a film buff, I must say I hope Burr Steers does more with his promising career than just script rewrites for silly comedies like this one. Well that is my 'expert opinion', just remember films are sometimes different from real life, this is why we sometimes call Hollywood the 'Dream Factory'! Thanks kids.]
REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES (34) (dir., Patricia Cardoso) America Ferrera, Lupe Ontiveros, Ingrid Oliu [Real women - girls, actually - have body issues, but finally stand up and strip down to their panties and shout, "I happen to like myself! How dare anybody try to tell me what I should look like or what I should be, when there's so much more to me than just my weight?". Real women have demanding, domineering mothers who make them feel bad about their bodies and want to stifle their lives but they (the real women) refuse to be stifled, talking back and speaking out against the sweatshop conditions at their local workplace. Real women have rascally grandpas, sharing tales of the Old Country in order to make it clear they (the real women) are not ignorant or ungrateful. Real women find sensitive awkward guys who won't even try to make a move till they (the real women) are "ready". Real women live in 'vibrant' Latino neighbourhoods with "Productos Mexicanos" signs and murals on the walls, and live their lives to the beat of a Latin-music soundtrack. Real men think real-women films are tendentious, simple-minded pap, and say so in snarky non-reviews on personal websites. Real women ignore them so they (the real women) can flock to the theatre and whoop and cry, 'You go, girl!'. Just as well, probably.]
X2: X-MEN UNITED (50) (dir., Bryan Singer) Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Brian Cox, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Alan Cumming [Better than the first one, but still ... Maybe it's lack of familiarity with the characters (or maybe it's a title that sounds like an engine lubricant) but I never quite got into their problems or the admittedly well-crafted action scenes : various special powers seem frankly excessive, borne of violent adolescent-type frustration at the world - they come with a kind of take-that exaggerated glee, wiping out impossible odds in a single explosive burst - and it's hard not to wonder why, e.g. Iceman doesn't do his wall-of-ice routine as the raid on the school is beginning instead of when it's almost over, or why Jane Grey couldn't have mind-shifted the enemy planes themselves instead of just diverting a torpedo at the last minute. X-Folk seem oddly remote and self-enclosed, both from each other and the audience (the Cyclops-Jane and Iceman-Rogue liaisons never come alive, nor is there much in the way of teamwork), making for a film that's effective but kind of joyless ; if it were a drink, you might say it had a metallic aftertaste (or maybe it just needed someone as soulful as Tobey Maguire, or a bit of the full-on emotion in the Dunst-Maguire upside-down kiss ; Iceman turns away decorously when Rogue is undressing, and he doesn't even think about peeking) (*). Obvious all-purpose anti-discrimination subtext, given specifically gay twist in Iceman's 'coming-out' scene - though you'd think the folks would've noticed at some point in his 17 years that everything he breathed on turned to ice - complicated by Wolverine's status as a man-made mutant (**) (making Stryker a variation on the homophobe who's really a closet case?) ; Cox gloriously evil, Jackman growing in poise and confidence, Paquin underused, Berry a waste of space. Question for rabid X-Geeks who've doubtless seen the film a million times : did I just imagine it, or does the "X" in the "20th-Century Fox" opening logo linger onscreen just a split-second longer after everything else has faded away? (***)]
(*): Got this wrong, as it turns out. Huge thanks to Matthew Durand of the Department of X-Menology at Smith College (or something) for pointing out that Iceman "does turn away when she first starts undressing, but then once her back is to him the camera moves in closer and he actually does turn around and look at her, not just peeking but actually holding his gaze on her for a few seconds before the scene ends". So there you have it. Apologies, mea culpa and so on, though I still think it needed more emotion - and Matthew does graciously add that "it's played about as chastely and soberly as it's possible to play a watching-my-girlfriend-undress-for-the-first-time moment, so I can see why you'd remember it differently". Thanks bud.
(**): Thanks to former (currently lapsed) X-Geek Chris Stults for pointing out that Wolverine is actually a man-augmented mutant: "Wolverine's mutant powers are actually his powerfully fast healing skills (plus some animal-like instincts and tracking senses). Because of his high tolerance for pain and nearly regenerative skills, he was operated & experimented on. His bones were augmented with a super-hard metal & the same metal was inserted to give him his claws. It's brushed over most of the time by the film & by the book - but each time he uses his claws, it gashes open his hand which quickly reheals after he retracts". Thanks bud. Still no answers on the 20th-Century Fox question, though...
(***): Scratch that last bit! Thanks to astute reader Reint Scholvinck, who confirms that the 'X' does linger onscreen just a little bit longer, "as it did at the beginning of the first 'X-Men' film". Thanks bud. No idea why I've had more mail on this film than any other film in 7 years, but it's either because I screwed up the review or because these X-Geeks are so fuckin' sharp. Do not mess with the X-Geeks in my opinion.