Independence/Warcraft June, 2016

Independence day: Resurgence

To be totally honest with you, dear reader, I really, REALLY loved Independence Day: Resurgence the first time I saw it back in 1996. Yeah, you heard me right. The major problem with the script to Independence Day: Resurgence is that the production company didn’t bother writing a new script; they just used the original script and made a few awkward changes two it. Most of the scenes in this awful “sequel” were burgled from the original script. Yeah, sure, they made a few changes here and there, instead of the “good guys” flying an alien craft to the mother ship, they fly alien enhanced fighter jets to go and . . . piss on mama alien. Yep, flew all that way just to urinate on the alien spacecraft. THEN when aliens get all mad about it and destroy the alien enhanced fighter jets, our spaceship pissers commandeer THREE alien ships and the chase is on just like in the original.

One of the great things about the original was the sense of humor. And of course, this “sequel” has lots and lots of “funny” lines, lines so “funny” that I forgot to laugh. The humor in the original was organic. In Resurgence the jokes are forced onto the script, and most of them have actually nothing to do with the action. There are two characters (I junior fighter pilot and a computer guy of some kind) that appear in the middle of this battle between humans and alien bug-people to tell jokes. No, seriously, they have no reason to even be in this movie other than to come up with some witty little thing to say about what’s going on. And their witty little remarks are “not funny.

Warcraft

As we were leaving the theatre right after watching Warcraft, my friend Khoo said, “Well, the moviemakers had a real problem. They had to please two audiences, the movie goers and the gamers.” That pretty much hit on the head for me. This movie was more video game than it was a thought out movie. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing video games. But just sit and watch a video game it gets uninteresting to watch very fast. The script for Warcraft is bad; it’s just too thin. Feels more like the first draft and not a complete script and lacks detail. And the actors are really not up to the task. Except for Ben Foster, the entire “human” cast just doesn’t have the vocal chops for the period acting style suggested by the dialogue. The only thing of interest in this movie is the CGI and that’s not enough to sustain the audience’s attention.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows June o3, 2016

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

At ten years old, I was already the biggest horror/sci-fi movie freak I knew! One of my favorite flicks was the original The Fly (1958). It was all about this science guy who invented teleportation in his basement. One day he decides to take the trip from one of the basement teleporters to another teleporter one twenty feet away in the same room. And wouldn’t you know it, a damn fly inadvertently got in the teleporter with him; on their trip they swap some DNA and the scientist winds-up with a fly head and a fly arm! Eeeeew! Definitely scary. That movie stayed with me forever! Well, at least until twenty years later. So, I’m going to college, I’m living with this other drama geek, and guess what? The Fly comes on cable TV. I was so excited. I mean, I hadn’t seen it since that one time back in 1958. I told my roomie about it and he got excited too. We popped off some popcorn, grabbed a few beers, sit down on the couch, started watching The Fly and . . . damn, how disappointing. What an awful movie. I couldn’t understand why even at ten years old I could’ve been so off the mark. The movie wasn’t the horror masterpiece I had thought it was. The special effects were laughable and the acting was atrocious. I couldn’t believe how horrible this beloved movie of my youth turned out to be.

If I had seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows when I was ten years old, I might have really liked it. Unfortunately, I didn’t see it as a kid. I watched as an adult in the 21^st century, and let me tell you . . . it was awful. Don’t get me wrong, it was sort of okay. It was put out by Nickelodeon, and it did stay true to the idea of the comic book TMNT image, very flashy, VERY cartoonish, insipid dialogue, scary but not too scary. It was almost refreshing to see a movie that didn’t try to terrorize the audience but tried extremely hard to be funny and “kid friendly.” Yeah, it was almost refreshing but no cigar. I mean, it wasn’t even good sized cigarette butt of a movie.

The biggest problem with this particular movie was the very amateurish CGI. The movements of the Ninja Turtles were way too fast, too blurry to even see what the hell was going on! Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I’m old and my eyes aren’t what they use to be. Turtle-poo to that, buddy. It was just very bad CGI. From the very first scene where the Turtles free fall from the Chrysler Building, whooping it up as they plummet towards Madison Square Garden (to catch the Nicks), the action just stopped! Yeah, how can that be? Well, basically, you couldn’t see it. The Turtles are moving so fast that they’re just a globular blur! The movements are all mushed together. As I said, it was just really bad CGI. ALL the action scenes were so incoherent I fell asleep. No, seriously, I don’t sleep in movies. But the action sequences in this mess were so tedious and so long and so disconnected and so DAMN blurry, my eyes rebelled! “Screw it! We’re going to sleep.” My head almost beat me to death with its nodding off!

The only good thing I can say about this movie is that it did use the New York City environment really well. There were lots of great shots of the streets, the different areas of New York and the beautiful, iconic buildings and bridges. The opening shots of the skyline were breath taking. This production was able to capture the mystical, mysterious arura of NYC. But that was all it was capable of doing well.

The Nice Guys May 2o, 2o16

Abbott: Strange as it may seem, they give ball players nowadays very peculiar names.

Costello: Funny names?
Abbott: Nicknames, nicknames. Now, on the St. Louis team we have Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third--
Costello: That's what I want to find out. I want you to tell me the names of the fellows on the St.

Louis team.

Abbott: I'm telling you. Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third--
Costello: You know the fellows' names?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: Well, then who's playing first?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: I mean the fellow's name on first base.
Abbott: Who.
Costello: The fellow playin' first base.
Abbott: Who.
Costello: The guy on first base.
Abbott: Who is on first.
Costello: Well, what are you askin' me for?

Who in his proper mind would ever think to blend elements of slapstick comedy, vaudeville and film noir all together into one movie AND then set that movie in the cocaine candy world of 70’s Los Angeles, AND on top of that, I mean, what director/writer with just a cat lick of sense would even imagine casting Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as a classic comedy team?! Shane Black, you’re clinically insane.  A genius for sure, but you are totally mental.

The Nice Guys is a brilliant Comedy/Thriller/Action/ Film Noir Detective movie that doesn’t misstep in either script or acting. Seriously, I haven’t seen a 21^st century movie as of yet that can take iconic bits and pieces from popular movies from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, sew them all together and create something that’s fresh and overall “entertaining.” Yes, I know, you’re checking the basement for seed pods because I never use the word entertaining . . . ever. But this movie is a rollercoaster ride of laughs, intrigue, chills and thrills! Hell, it’s just damn entertaining! Yes, it’s a story we’ve seen before, read before in many Raymond Chandler classic gumshoe novels or any  Mickey Spillane potboiler, but the creative filmmaker can figure out a way to take an old plot and twist it just enough to make something new, fresh and timely. He knows how to suck you into a scene by making it predictable in the beginning and then slapping a new spin on it. For example, his two main characters Holland and Jackson are pinned down in a house by a machine gun totting bad guy named John Boy (and if you don’t get the reference, stop reading this review. You are too young. This review is not for you). Jackson has lost his gun and asks Holland to toss him his and Holland does but with such force that the gun sails passed Jackson’s head and out the window. In the trailers for The Nice Guys they always show this bit from the movie and I can’t help but laugh at it no matter how many times I’ve seen it.

Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe are casted perfectly as a couple of wannabe gumshoes who are less Sam Spade and Mike Hammer as they are Abbott and Costello. I kid you not, these two playoff each other as well as any of the great comic couples in film history. Gosling in particular shows a mastery of the physical comedy that rivals the greats of silent film. Russell Crowes gives us the threatening thug character he created in L.A. Confidential but about sixty pounds heavier and a hell of lot more world weary. And all though the whole film belongs to Gosling and Crowe, Angourie Rice as Holly March, Holland March’s thirteen year old daughter, takes command of every scene she’s in. As a sort of cute Moe Howard type, she alone is able to control our beloved duo of bungling detectives to such a degree that they finally bring down the bad guys and save the day . . . almost.

There’s a lot of movies out there this summer that are packed with thrills and humor and action. But none of them are quite as clever and freaking funny as The Nice Guys. Hopefully, The Nice Guys will find a bigger audience than it appears to have right now and then maybe there’ll be a The Nice Guys 2. I’d definitely go see it.  

Captian America: Civil War May o6, 2o16

THERE MAY BE A FEW SPOILERS! BEWARE!

All week long on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Fallon was gushing all over Captain America: Civil War. “Oh, man, it is so action packed! I mean, it is NON-STOP ACTION!” Well, actually, Jimmy, it’s not. I know, you have an obligation to get people into the theatres to see a movie and the best way to do that is to hype the ACTION! But Civil War is a different kind of action movie. Most of the scripts depicting Marvel’s super hero universe use dialogue to set up the action sequences. This script differs from those others because it uses the action sequences to set up the scenes of thoughtful dialogue between the characters. In fact, the weakest parts of this movie are the action sequences. Wait a minute, my Marvel Universe Geeks, don’t get you pocket protectors in a bunch. Yes, the BIG action sequence at the airport, GREAT, well thought out, well-choreographed and filmed perfectly. But most of the other fight scenes and chase scenes were clumsy and awkward. They used too many camera tricks that only blurred the action so the audience really couldn’t see what was going on. And what’s up with the frigging camera shaky stuff? Yes, I know the documentary footage from Vietnam was all shaky, but that wasn’t an artistic choice on the part of the filmmakers. The shaky camera, the jump shots, filming the fight scenes on high speed film really just makes a muddy mess of the scene.

And while I’m bad mouthing the visual effects, the worst action sequence (the idea stolen by the way from the movie G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) from CA:CW has got to be the foot chase through the tunnel between Bucky, Black Panther and Captain America.

Okay, I get it. Super Heroes are faster than cars, faster than trucks, more powerful than a speeding motorcycle, but the running and jumping over cars and under trucks shouldn't look like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon gone crazy. Only saving grace in the whole laughable sequence was when Bucky (with the good hair) plucked a flying motorcycle out of the air and rode off on it. THAT was cool. In that specific moment  the jump cuts worked for the action sequence instead of against it.

But let me get back to the good stuff, the script. I don’t think there’s a more literary action movie out there. This isn’t a movie just about fighting and blowing things up. It’s about ideas, particularly the moral implications of war. AND even more to the point, this script deals with the ramifications of “collateral damage.” Yeah, you know that phrase. Every time Obama sends a drone out to KILL the bad guy in some foreign country we never heard of, some innocent civilian winds-up getting killed. And whenever that happens, the State Department comes out with some sort of glib statement about collateral damage. “Hey, you know, we didn’t mean to kill little Suzie Q while she was outside her house bouncing her red rubber ball . . . But accidents happen! The good news is we KILLED the bad guy.” There’s also a lot about revenge in this movie. In fact, the whole story is motivated by the need to kill the people who killed somebody's a loved one either intentionally or by accident. And the script isn’t just a casual debate about war and its horrors. It’s not just an intellectual exercise. The issues are discussed in very human ways leaving the audience not sure just who are the good guys and who are the big guys. It’s neither pro-war nor antiwar although it does layout both sides of the argument in clear and precise strokes.

The acting has never been better. Chris Evans and Robert Downy Jr. never played these characters better. But they did have a kick-ass script to help them along. All the head-butting these two characters have done in every movie they’ve both  been in has finally come down to the final show down. I know the movie is called Captain America: Civil War, but it’s just as much about The-Rich-Kid-From-The-Penthouse as it is about The-Poor-Boy-From-The-Bronx. Sabastian Stan’s Bucky (with the good hair, see? I’m pretty hip to the new century’s pop! Hee!) is psychotically charming as the Winter Soldier trying to come in from the cold. And I’m pretty sure his horrifying journey is a metaphor for PTSD. And the rest of the cast is just brilliant even though they don’t have much screen time. But one standout in this supporting cast has got to be the new (and improved?) Spider-Man played with wonderful, teenage awkwardness by Tom Holland. 

So, except for my constant hounding about phony baloney action sequences (which I’m hard pressed to understand WHY more people aren’t complaining about it) Captain America: Civil War is probably the best executed Marvel movie we have seen yet.

Grade 89% = B+

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice March 2o16

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Alfred: You're gonna go to war?

Bruce Wayne: That son of a bitch brought the war to us.

Let me go back to 2o15 for a minute. My favorite movies of last year are: Ex Machina, Room, Brooklyn, Carol and Trumbo. They are my favorites because all five movies are more character studies than anything. Yes, they’re different genres, but they all delve into studying and (perhaps) understanding the way individual human beings interact with each other. And much to the chagrin of many Batman and Superman fans, Batman v. Superman tries to explore what it might really be like IF there really were super heroes living among us. How would we respond to them and how would they respond to each other, and how would they respond to the actions of their individual selves?

What the production team of Batman v. Superman has done is to explore the lives of these comic book heroes as if they were real people living in America.  The Superman character gives the director a chance to talk about one of the hottest, button pushing topics that’s as old as America itself, immigration. Oh, yeah. America has always hated and loved immigrants. Hate and suspicion of foreigners, you know, “THOSE people NOT like us,” has never been more heightened than in this 21^st century America we all love! And Superman IS the ultimate “illegal alien.” Where the comic books and movies about the Man of Steel always show the relationship between “law abiding” humans and Superman as an everlasting love fest,  this movie looks at Superman with a suspicious eye. I mean, come on! This super powerful dude shows up one day and starts protecting us? Why? I mean, he’s an alien! Why is he messing in our business? What does he really want?  But the real fuel for this suspicion, this xenophobia  is the fear itself. The unknowing of what someone who is “different than us is up to.There’s a small scene in the beginning of BVS where Lois Lane is being held captive by a gun toting terrorist and Superman crashes through the roof and without much effort slams the terrorist into a brick wall. It was one of the most horrifying scenes I’ve ever seen because it highlights just how powerful Superman is, and if he wasn’t habitual  “nice guy” he could destroy this planet, kill everybody on it breaking a sweat.

And then there’s the Batman played to demonic perfection by Ben Affleck. Yeah, we know all about batman, don’t we? He’s whole reason for existing is to protect the innocent, stop the “bad guy” and all that because he witnessed the murder of his mother and father when he was a kid. In this movie, Bruce Wayne is tormented day and night by the image of his parents’ death, tormented to such a extent he becomes totally obsessed with protecting the good and defeating evil to the point where his actions are psychotic. So, when he witnesses the battle between General Zod and Superman (Man of Steel 2013), sees the carnage, the loss of life caused by this frigging aliens, he snaps. He’s not going to bring Superman to justice because there is no justice for a genocidal maniac with super powers, no. Death, execution is the only way to stop this monster. I had reservations about Affleck playing the Batman, but his interpretation of the Dark Knight is a masterpiece of darkness and insanity.

However, as much as I loved the ideas in this movie, how much I enjoyed the performances of Affleck and Henry Cavill (Superman), there are problems with this movie which are caused primarily by the director, cinematographer and the film editors. The biggest mistake was in expressing the intimacy (that any character study needs to be considered a character study) with only one set of rhythms and tempos for all the quiet, scenes, and then putting those scenes so close together that there’s no sense of life, no sense of movement or growth. Every scene seems to be saying the same thing in the same way over and over again, and that is extremely boring to an audience. Even if a scene is dealing with the same ideas as the one that went before it has to be different, it has to be a scene that just doesn’t repeat what went on before, but digs deeper into the subject. The other fault I find with this movie is a pet peeve of mine. Directors, action directors in particular, think you create intimacy between characters by putting them in close ups! “How do I know this is an intimate, personal scene? Well, they have the actors in a two person close up, it MUST be personal.” But the opposite is really true. The movies I mentioned above, the ones from last year that I really liked? They are very personal, very intimate, and very human and all those films have only a few close ups of the actors. The directors of my favorite movies know that creating the connection between characters is primarily the work of the actor and not the camera. Yes, camera angles, camera movement can enhance the work of the actors, it can help to develop the emotion in a scene, but first and foremost the camera is there to support the work of the actors as is every element of movie tech.

A lot of my friends really dislike Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice because the pretentious production team had the NERVE to mess with the mythology of their beloved super heroes. I mean, Batman killing people on purpose with a . . . with a GUN?! Planning the “execution” of Superman without any remorse at all? Come on! Batman’s not like that. He stands for justice not murder. And Superman, he runs around (flies around) in this movie like a love sick puppy dog. “Oh! My girlfriend is in harm’s way!  You people in that burning house are gonna have to fend for yourselves, gotta go!” Swhoosh!  I can see why my friends are upset by this hoodlum director coming in and destroying these iconic characters. But they got to remember, the Batman and the Superman of old no longer exist. Over the years both characters have been developed to be more human, have more faults and darker sides. Like I said, I don’t have a problem with the changes they made in these characters, but I do believe the movie was just not realized as a solid study of human (and inhuman) existence.

Fantastic Four August o7, 2o15

See, the problem with us fan boys is that we tend to hold Marvel Comics in very high regard. Probably it’s because we got hooked on them at a very young, a very impressionable age. We take our comic books seriously because they have gotten us through those rough teenage years as

"the-kid-who-doesn't-fit-in." We were bullied by the bigger guys, invisible to girls, we looked funny, we were awkward, skinny (and fat), and Stan Lee and Marvel Comics wrote directly to us, for us, about us. Marvel Comics weren’t about superheroes; they were about very human beings that just happened to be superheroes. They lead tortured lives that mirrored the real life miseries that we the outcasts of teenage society faced on a daily bases. So, you’ll have to excuse us when we appear to get unreasonably angry when a movie studio (like 20^th century Fox) takes our beloved treasures of hope and turn them into celluloid sludge (I know, "celluloid" is an outdated word for film stock . . . but it sounds so cool!).

In a nutshell: Why The Fantastic Four Sucks

Lacks human interaction

When're you studio guys gonna get it? The ONLY reason people go to the movies is to see human beings interact with each other. Scripts need to be active and not passive. We want to see on the screen people struggling to overcome obstacles and reach (hopefully) whatever objective they are struggling to achieve. We don’t want you to tell us about the struggle, we want to SEE the struggle, hear it and feel it. For example, late in the movie when Reed is captured by the Evil Government Agent (a very Snidely Whiplash stereotype played by Tim Blake Nelson), he tells Ben, “Ben . . . you are my best friend.” Okay, that’s nice and everything, everybody NEEDS at least one friend, but there’s no exploration of that relationship. it doesn't seem to be more than a master/servant arrangement; Reed’s the boss and Ben is his unpaid employee. There's plenty you could have done in the beginning of the movie where Ben and Reed meet in grade school to show that “best friend relationship” without making the movie any longer than it is already. But the production team thought . . . well, there's the problem . . .  they didn't think the concept out. They don't think in terms of action when it comes to characters.

Another example: The Dimensional Traveling Machine is finely up and running and the “Evil Government Agent” comes in and announces that NASA is taking over the project “. . . and there’s nothing you eggheads can do about it! Woohahahaha!” 

 (Okay, the actor doesn’t really say that, but it comes off as something like that.) Anyway, the science boys are pissed. Victor Von Doom (Why is Dr. Doom in this movie?) pulls out this teeny tiny flask of whiskey(?) and everybody takes a sip and they’re drunk! And they decide to “Screw The Man! We’re gonna be the first to use the Dimensional Traveling Machine!” and . . . Well, and then it’s a breakneck run to get to the final scene where we “finally” see the BIG CGI action sequence that is so flat and cartoonish, so excruciatingly dull that I wished I had a Dimensional Traveling Machine so I could beam myself to another theatre in another dimension where I’m sure Fantastic Four would be a much better film.

If there’s a point to this “review” it’s that you can’t just sit down and write a script without exploring the specifics of human behavior in dire situations, and then figuring out a way to effectively express that human behavior in very clean, sensory images. I mean, you CAN be superficial if you want because that’s exactly what the producers of Fantastic Four (2015) have done. But there’s a price to pay for it. Ironically, the producers made this movie primarily to make a lot of money off the Fantastic Four franchise. And the rush to get the product out there to the public, to throw it together without truly exploring the world of the characters, hurt their bottom line.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation July 31, 2o15

Here’s a little secret that a lot of screenplay writers don’t know: ALL movies—no matter the genre, no matter the topic, no matter the setting—are action oriented. I’m not talking about gun battles and car chases and buildings imploding or scenes full of physical violence from the moment the credits roll, I’m talking about those smaller scenes where people . . . just talk. Yeah, that’s what I said: there is (or should be) A ton of action, verbal action in scenes where people sit in chairs, stare at each other and just talk. I know! Revolutionary idea, right, that the “dialogue scenes” in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation are just as action filled as that beautifully insane Moroccan motorcycle chase in MI5? Well, it’s not really a “new” idea to make dialogue scenes “active.” The ancient Greeks knew that the actor’s voice with the right words to say could create in the audience’s mind a wonderful sense of movement and activity. And the GREAT acting coach, Constantin Stanislavski, made this a major point in his teachings:

Acting = Action

Writer (and director) Christopher McQuarrie delivers a script that is “nonstop” action. No, Seriously. Every scene is geared towards action. The characters are actively trying to accomplish something in an extremely active manner in EVERY scene. And whether it’s the very intimate scenes when Ethan and the mysterious Ilsa try to figure out if the other is an ally or a deadly enemy, or the bigger than life scene where Benji pleads with Ethan to let him go into the field it’s all an exciting/edge of your chair time for the audience.

But as grand a script as this is, it also takes an extremely skilled group of actors to make it work. And this ensemble of Thespians (Okay, I just had to use the old high school term for theatre geeks at least once in a review) are working together like a
well-oiled acting machine. There are no real stars here, and much to his credit Tom Cruise works extremely well fitting in with this group. But I have to single out one actor cause the character he created for this movie, Solomon Lane (which is real close to sounding like Robert E. Howard’s character, Solomon Kane), is one scary frigging psychopathic villain. Listen, I’m an ex-Marine and Vietnam veteran (Okay, okay, I was a cook . . . Semper Fi; stir and fry . . . but still a vet.) and this character scared the crap out of me. It was a brilliant performance by English actor, Sean Harris.

However, as wonderful as the movie is, there are a few glitches.

1. Too many damn close ups! Don’t you filmmakers get it? Close ups kill tension in a scene. It’s that simple. And you shot most of this film in one of the most beautiful, intriguing places in the world, Morocco, and all you want to show me are close ups of the inside of Tom Cruise’s nose? Okay, it is pretty nice the septum . . . but I’d rather see Morocco! So back that damn camera up!

2. Extremely uninteresting hand-to-hand combat scenes. It’s got to stop these uninteresting, chopped-up, unwatchable fight scenes. They really slow down the action. If the actor can’t do the stunts, then hire someone who can. Or if the problem is you just don’t know HOW to shoot a fight scene, go watch—John Wick (2015), Kingsman: the Secret Service (2015)—to see how it’s done!
3. Stop jump cutting intimate dialogue between characters. It’s extremely annoying to try and follow intimate dialogue scenes when you keep jump cutting back and forth to each character when he/she speaks!  There’s a scene in a café when the MI Team sits around a table to discuss their strategy to take out the ever evil Syndicate and the camera keeps jumping back and forth, back and forth to whomever is talking.  They do it ALL THE TIME! Again, it’s annoying and totally uninteresting to watch from an audience member’s point of view. Back the camera up, make it a static shot if you like, and just shoot the damn scene. Everybody doesn’t have to be seen face-full just because they’re talking.

Although the above gripes are artistic ideals I’m passionate about . . . I really liked the script and the work of the actors in this movie. And it’s saying something about the power of a good script and damn good acting when I can forgive technique faults.