Unstoppable (2010)

It's no secret that a) I love Denzel Washington, and b) I always feel a little bit guilty about not having time between September and May to update this site regularly. So when I got a chance to catch a preview screening of Tony Scott's new Denzel vehicle (pun intended) Unstoppable, I jumped at the chance.

That's right, kids; we're reviewing this one a day before it hits wide release. You're welcome.

In Unstoppable, Denzel's fifth collaboration with director Tony Scott, Washington plays engineer Frank Barnes, a company man who's feeling the economy's generational burden - a fact further emphasized when he's paired with young conductor Will Colson, who's fighting family issues and the perception that he got the job more on the strength of his family name than his qualifications. When dispatcher Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson, in a part that could have been played by anyone) reports that there's a fast-paced runaway train carying hazardous materials on their track, Frank and Will have to decide whether to follow orders and detour their train or take on the 70 mph beast behind them.

The trailer for this one had a few people groaning; the dialogue ("a missle the size of the Chrysler building") and the compounded escalation of the peril (toxic chemicals, a train full of children, a horse) led a few skeptics to raise a wary eyebrow. And I'll concede that there were moments in the lead-up to the film's debut where I wasn't sure whether this would be a formulaic race-against-the-clock. But it was silly of me to doubt Denzel Washington and Tony Scott. Denzel brings his characteristic charisma to the screen, and Scott deploys his moving-train cinematography to great effect here.

All this is not to say that Unstoppable is one of the greatest films of 2010 (I'm sure that, come the end of the year, Inception and Toy Story 3 are going to top my list). But it works. And it's a whole heck of a lot of fun. I've said many times before that Denzel, like Johnny Depp, is one of the best living actors; unlike Depp, though, who's often as bizarre as he is compelling, Denzel is always a great deal of fun to watch, exuding vibrant charm and exuberant personality in everything he does - without sacrificing an iota of craftsmanship (see Malcolm X if all you know about Denzel is the Jay Pharoah impression from SNL a few weeks back). It probably says something about the contagious nature of his personality that I'm referring to him by his first name. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that only Denzel could take the word "Me" and turn it into a line that gets the biggest laugh in a packed cinema. So when the screen isn't filled with a train careening on the tracks, Denzel's either getting the audience to crack a smile or tugging at their heartstrings with his earnest recounting of his backstory.

But the moments when the focus of the film isn't on the action are few and far between. It's interesting that Tony Scott, whose recent movies (Domino, Deja Vu) always looked like they were filmed from a moving train, has shifted to making movies about trains (here and in The Taking of Pelham 123). Now, in movies like this, there are only two ways this can end - either they stop the train, or they don't. I won't spoil which ending Scott chooses for Unstoppable, but I will say that the film lures the audience into a sensibility that all this will turn out all right; the catastrophe is precipitated when a portly railyard employee (Kevin Smith standby [and stand-in, as in the underrated Art School Confidential] Ethan Suplee) goofs, a scene played for laughs until we realize that the air brakes aren't connected and the train can't be stopped remotely.

From there, Scott introduces a number of complicating factors that make the threat more credible - and more palpable - than I was ready to give the film credit, based on the trailers. Sure, we know that the schoolkids on a field trip aren't going to collide head-on with the renegade train, but we're not so sure about the automotive stalled on the tracks. In some ways, the latter is far more effective, upping the stakes by suggesting what the train could do (a variation on Hitchcock's bang-v.-anticipation theory). My apologies to the people seated next to me on either side in the theater, because I'm sure I was hooting and hollering throughout the movie; even though I kept telling myself that the movie had to turn out all right - the cavalier comedy of the first reel suggested as much - I found myself holding my breath, gritting my teeth, and then inhaling sharply at each turn.

When the film ends - after two heartstopping climaxes - Scott wisely lets the audience breathe and, rather than end with a last-second one-last-scare moment, decompresses by revisiting the lighter moments of the film: scene-stealing engineer Ned (Lew Temple) takes center stage at a press conference, Denzel gets one last wisecrack (which honestly tipped the scales in favor of my enjoyment of the movie), and we're treated to another shot of Ethan Suplee falling on his ass. At the end of the day, then, Unstoppable isn't just an action movie; it's an action movie that's willing to have fun, both with itself and with its audience.

If you're on the fence about this one, I'd encourage you to climb aboard; you might be pleasantly surprised. Denzel alone is worth the price of admission.

Unstoppable is rated PG-13 "for sequences of action and peril, and some language." Obviously, the train barrelling down the tracks might unsettle some, as will the repeated complicating factors thrown in the path (often literally) of the train. A few F-bombs get tossed around casually, but they're negligible in the big scheme.

The Social Network (2010)

I think we can all agree on two things: David Fincher is a solid filmmaker (even though I'm probably the only person on the planet who isn't keen on Fight Club [long story], I'm considering giving it a second watch), and The Social Network is kind of a step out of bounds for Fincher, whose filmography - including Se7en, Zodiac, and The Game - reads more like a list of "creepiest movies of our generation" than an application to direct a biopic-of-sorts about the founders of Facebook. But Fincher's nothing if not dextrously versatile, and The Social Network adds another notch to Fincher's "here's what I'm capable of" belt.

The Social Network is a highly unflattering portrait of the people who claim to have "invented" Facebook, arguably the most high-profile Web site since Google - the antisocial and nominal founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), his financier and best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Napster founder and Facebook's demi-PR guy Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), and rowing team twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer), who claim intellectual property rights - and the lawsuits that divided all of them. The film cuts between legal depositions of the main characters and the events they describe, methodically and deliberately leaving the audience to interpret what went wrong and who (if anyone) stole from whom.

Fincher does a solid turn directing here, deftly keeping the pace moving as characters register slights as betrayals and as alliances crumble under the weight of paranoia and profit. Though the film's first cuts between testimonials and actual events are a little jarring for those who didn't follow the Facebook news feed (pun intended), Fincher quickly sorts out who's after what but wisely refuses to spoonfeed us a good guy/bad guy dichotomy. True, the film and its Aaron Sorkin screenplay cast Saverin in a more sympathetic light than Zuckerberg receives, and the Winklevosses are portrayed as jock heavies more than intellectual heavyweights, but it's not clear by the end of the film how we're supposed to feel about the whole thing.

In particular, the film functions a great deal like Cobb's top at the end of Inception (the significance I won't reveal, so as not to spoil it for the DVD-waiters); it means whatever we project onto it, particularly the ambiguous final shot, scored at least somewhat ironically to The Beatles' "Baby You're A Rich Man." It seems, in the opinion of this reviewer, that The Social Network is a kind of light jeremiad against the ugly irony of using the Internet as a way to increase, not detract from, social interaction, and it appears more than slightly condemning of the sort of person who creates something only for public acceptance and the label of "cool." To these people, money is secondary to status, which also subordinates (again ironically) human companionship. One could, of course, read the film's ending as hopeful; title cards let us know that everyone got a little bit of what they wanted all along, but the uncertainty etched into the film's closing cut-to-black is more wobble than topple. It's a testament to Fincher's skill, then, that the ambiguity that pervades the film is more conducive to interpretation than to accusations of waffling.

Fincher also does a fine job pulling together a few "rising stars" (I use the term somewhat skeptically), giving me faith in at least some of the careers-to-be. Jesse Eisenberg, of course, is the undisputed star here, and for good reason; I've decried him as "the B-List Michael Cera" for his turns in Adventureland and Zombieland, but here he's starting to come into his own. The simultaneous wave of revulsion and sympathy you'll feel toward Zuckerberg by the end is equal parts Fincher and Eisenberg, with the latter now wielding a more promising future than his character. Andrew Garfield is more sympathetic as Saverin, pulling out all the stops on the road to pathos by plausibly depicting all the ambivalent feelings of his best friend's so-called betrayal; reminiscent of a young James Franco (wow, how old does that make me, then?), Garfield's making me less nervous about his front role in the Spider-Man reboots (that and the rumored casting of Emma Stone as Mary-Jane). Justin Timberlake's performance is a little more complicated, however, as I'm not sure if it's Timberlake or the character that's a touch hammy; while Sean Parker is flashy and flighty, my perception of Timberlake is much the same. So it's unclear to me whether what I'm seeing is either very poor or very convincing acting.

Maybe this is just me reading a little too much Gail Simone and other feminist theory, but I'm a bit disappointed with the treatment of the female characters in The Social Network. This is a boys'-club movie, with the facts forcing an aspect on the men of the story, but all the female characters are fairly one-dimensional and ultimately little more than impetuses for men to act. Case in point: Sean Parker's introductory scene finds him in bed with a Stanford girl, a fact we learn from a lingering shot of her panty-clad derriere; we learn her name (Amy), her major (French), and little else. Though Amy is an inconsequential character in the big scheme, she's indicative of the role of women at large in the story, which is a shame when you have such a talented female cast on board. I'm dying to see Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but it's a shame that all she does as Erica Allbright in this film is break up with Zuckerberg and incite him to start an online revolution after his heart breaks (well, maybe). Brenda Song finally gets a chance to break out of the Disney playhouse (after the unfortunate departure of Ashley Tisdale, I gave up on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and Song's ditzy heiress London Tipton), but she's essentially window dressing as Saverin's girlfriend Christy Lee; while she's certainly very pretty, Christy isn't asked to do anything else but hang on Eduardo's arm. We're told that she's psychotic and controlling, but there's only one scene where she's allowed to be that - her last one, which is unfortunate considering how well she does in it. And Rashida Jones, of The Office and I Love You, Man (whose misogynistic title, curiously, gave her more material than here) fame, is credible as a second-year legal associate who delivers the film's closing monologue - and eulogy of sorts - with sangfroid and aplomb; sadly, that's the first time she does anything more than offer meaningful glances and eat a salad. Ultimately, the film hinges on what Erica Allbright will do next, but it's too little/too late for a film that's so masculine-dominated.

This is not to say that The Social Network is anti-feminist or flawed beyond salvation. It's merely a disappointing (and for this reviewer, distracting) sin of omission that doesn't really hurt the finished product. Fincher does such a good job with the rest of the movie that he almost atones for the negligible treatment of the fairer sex. What Fincher has made here is a work that examines both a particular true story and the nature of "true stories" themselves; wisely, the movie is credited as "based on" a book about the true facts rather than on the "true story" itself, which invites a whole host of questions about what's true and what isn't. Like Rashomon, The Social Network suggests that truth is subjective, and (like Lost) argues that who the characters are and how they interact with each other is ultimately more important than what they're doing.

If nothing else, the film might lead a few viewers to go home and deactivate their Facebook profile, so unflattering is the creation myth behind the social networking site. As for the movie itself, though, I can do little else than invoke the already-labored Facebook pun and state simply, "Like."
With content friendly for the Facebook generation, The Social Network is rated PG-13 "for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language." The film implies more than one sexual rendezvous with nothing shown beyond hasty disrobing to the undergarment level; characters abuse marijuana, alcohol, and cocaine frequently, and approximately three F-bombs are dropped.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

It's not spoiling anything to reveal that Quentin Tarantino's most recent film, Inglourious Basterds [sic], closes with one character remarking to another, "I think this just might be my masterpiece." The film is punctuated with moments like this, when one character says to another (as Hitler to Goebbels, for another example), that the other has just achieved his crowning glory. While I'm not convinced that Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino's magnum opus (it's tough to top Pulp Fiction, for my money), it does represent a return to form after indulgent experiments like Kill Bill and Death Proof.

Inglourious Basterds is, per Tarantino's description, a spaghetti western with World War II imagery, with the story divided into five semi-standalone chapters, each revolving around one set of character interactions. The film follows, separately, a ragtag team of Jewish-American soldiers scalping Nazis on the orders of their quirky Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt, channelling Foghorn Leghorn); Jewish fugitive Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), who plans to use her movie theater to kill Nazis during the premiere of war hero Fredrick Zoller's (Daniel Brühl) biopic; British Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), commissioned by Winston Churchill to aid German actress-turned-secret-agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) in an attempt to blow up the Nazi premiere, ignorant of Shosanna's plot; and SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz, in a performance well-deserving of its Supporting Actor Oscar), the ranking Nazi official standing between Hitler himself and all these plots, which converge in a stellar finale that's as fun as it is fantastic.


I've voiced my discomfort with labeling Inglourious Basterds Tarantino's masterpiece, but if it's not Number One it's certainly Number Two (although I may change my tune once I rewatch Reservoir Dogs). The screenplay is one of Tarantino's best, in the "interconnected disconnect" tradition of Pulp Fiction and, to a lesser extent, Kill Bill, in which vignettes are tied together as part of a narrative thread but are easily (re)watchable outside the context of the film as a whole. The script is a taut exercise in dramatic tension, deceptively composed of long scenes of dialogue (often subtitled from German or French) but which bring to a simmer intense anxiety about if and when each character's deception will be revealed and cause events to boil over into a brutally gory yet classically Tarantino shoot-'em-up sequence (which, don't worry, happens more often than not).

Perhaps, then, we can ascribe a masterpiece to Tarantino, but with the caveat that it isn't his only one. If we're hellbent on labeling Inglourious Basterds the masterpiece, we can always excuse Pulp Fiction for being partially co-authored by Roger Avery. But Basterds is all Tarantino, showing a maturity level that heretofore has been absent (but, in retrospect, showed signs of nascency in Death Proof); rather than clutter his work with blatant homages and showy stylization, Tarantino wisely pulls back on both, creating a work that's more subtle than I think most of us knew Tarantino could produce. It's not for nothing the film nabbed a Best Picture nomination, you see. It stands as the perfect intersection of a first-rate screenplay and a more-than-capable cast.

The true star of the film is Tarantino's dialogue, which manages to transcend the drudgery of subtitles by leaping off the screen without calling attention to its own built-in flair (from what I've been told, the translation work isn't bad, either). But the members of the cast are all so good that it's difficult to find a star made of flesh and blood. Is it Pitt, who takes first billing bcause of his name recognition but whose star power is dwarfed by the comparatively small role he plays? Is it Laurent, a protagonist in the tradition of The Bride who does a solid job portraying all her character's fears and determination? Is it Waltz, who obviously dominated the public imagination about the film with a delightfully nuanced and delectably wicked performance as the Nazi with as many cards up his sleeve as held close to his chest? Or should we merely throw our hands up in uncertainty by saying it's an ensemble cast? Well, it is. But they're all so good that you won't notice, for example, that Pitt is absent for the first, third, and most of the fourth acts; actors like Fassbender and especially Waltz take control of their screen time such that you'll forget that it isn't entirely their movie.

It's a movie that isn't really about anything. It's about World War II, sure, but it's more the story of a group of very radical figures fighting it on different terms, on different fronts, and for different reasons. One of the most significant features for me is the way in which the film brilliantly cheats itself; it contains the single most creative way I've ever seen for dealing with a film in which the objective is to assassinate Hitler - even though we know Hitler was never assassinated (Bryan Singer did an equally solid but different job with Valkyrie, though it's nothing on the scale of audaciousness that Basterds brings to the table). Hint: the first major clue comes before the first scene of the film; pay attention.

Oh, what the heck. High tension, tight scripting, fantastic performances - maybe it is his masterpiece, after all.
Inglourious Basterds is, like every Quentin Tarantino movie, rated "R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality." Obviously, the language and the violence are pretty extreme, with F-bombs and scalpings all over the place, as well as the sporadic bloody shoot-out. There's an implied sexual liasion between Goebbels and his translator, and Fredrick flirts heavily with Shosanna, but it's pretty tame compared to other Tarantino films in this regard.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

This review has probably been a long time coming. Edgar Wright's first filmic collaboration with Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead has been referred to more times on this blog, I would estimate, than any other non-reviewed film herein. Well, no more. Here below, for your reading pleasure, is a treatise on why I love Shaun of the Dead.

In a film that calls itself "the first rom-zom-com" (romantic zombie comedy), Pegg stars as the titular Shaun, who's grappling with a lackluster job as an electronics salesman and a precarious relationship with girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), who wants more out of life than nights out at local pub The Winchester with Shaun's coarse roommate Ed (Nick Frost). Then zombies attack, and Shaun is forced to deal with his possibly-infected stepfather Phil (Bill Nighy) while attempting to win Liz back amid a mob scene of bite-happy undead.

It's no secret to loyal readers of this blog that I'm absolutely mad about Shaun of the Dead - in an all-encompassing delirious love sense of the word (appropriately, the British definition). The film remains Edgar Wright's finest hour (or hour-forty, to be precise), rambunctiously entertaining and unflinchingly satirical without ever becoming distractingly parodical (I'm looking at you, "Reference Movie" crowd). Blame the airtight screenplay by Wright and Pegg, which teases zombie film conventions while foreshadowing its own plot growth. The script's greatest virtue, though, is its repetition of memorable dialogue and eye-popping (sometimes literally) visual gags that get funnier each time they're executed.

The performances are also credible, with the players doing their parts without relying on comedy crutches like mugging or pandering. Because the cast takes itself seriously while simultaneously recognizing the absurdity of their situation (the epitome of this being Shaun's heated exclamation, "Oh, give us a f---ing break!" as a second wave of zombies encroaches on his position), the comedy is played for more than just a knowing chuckle. Instead, we're treated to great rolling-in-the-aisles fits of laughter which comes not in small doses but in almost every scene. Pegg leads the cast, but it's Frost who will elicit the most laughs from filmgoers, with his gruff yet endearing portrayal of the unpolished Ed; if nothing else, his impression of "Clyde" (it'd be spoiling to tell who Clyde is) will get a few giddy giggles. Even Bill Nighy takes his droll self and drags it out into a plausible caricature of the unlikeable survivor with a heart of gold.

Where the film really succeeds, though, is in its childlike enthusiasm for its subject matter and the gleefully chaotic way in which it plays out, non sequitur humor amplifying the already farcically absurd nature of the film. Who else would think that Queen fits perfectly with a zombie invasion? (Spoiler: it does.) Where else would ice cream and smoking be priorities while surviving a zombie attack? (Spoiler: only in Ed's mind.) And where else would you find a zombie invasion film where the invasion itself happens off-screen and is only a MacGuffin around which the characters can chase each other?

I'm inclined to say that Shaun of the Dead is my favorite zombie movie ever (sorry, Zombieland, but it takes more than a Twinkie to win my heart), and I'm even more ready to claim that it's one of the better films overall made in the last ten years. It's certainly one of the most entertaining.
Shaun of the Dead is rated "R for zombie violence/gore and language." The zombies themselves are grotesque enough, but there are bludgeonings and arterial sprays all over the film, prompting the unforgettable one-liner, "You've got red on you." F-bombs and C-words abound, all played for laughs but nonetheless fantastically inappropriate.

The Expendables (2010)

"Getting the band back together" ought to be a genre in and of itself, with Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables standing as a good (but not quite great) example what a metafictional throwback film - and a late summer blockbuster - should do.

Writer and director Stallone also leads the cast of "Expendables" as Barney Ross, co-headlining with Jason Statham as Lee Christmas and Jet Li as Yin Yang. The Expendables, a team of mercenaries for hire, are contracted by the shadowy Mr. Church (a fun cameo by Bruce Willis, accompanied by an equally entertaining cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, late of the governor's office) on an apparent suicide mission: take out the dictator (David Zayas, of Dexter fame) of jungle island Vilena and his American backer (Eric Roberts, slathered in smarm). What follows is a fairly typical action adventure, but its nostalgic nature is kind of the point, so it's a good thing The Expendables has its action sensibilities screwed on straight.

I realize that this review is a little long in the tooth, so the target audience for this film has probably already been to the theater and back by this point. Which is to say that The Expendables has a very clear immediate target audience who will lap this right up - this being an action movie with a eye waxing on the past, a bygone era of action stars whose movies were essentially interchangeable. But there's a second sense about the film, one of old vs. new in which the old generation can fight side-by-side with the new in tacit approval of the second coming of the action hero. Seeing Stallone and Statham bumping fists and riding into combat feels cool, and it's exactly that sensibility that will draw filmgoers. Fortunately, The Expendables delivers.

The biggest surprise isn't the who's-who roster of action stars, nor is it the explosive action sequence lineup (which is precisely explosive, thanks to a few warhead-equipped bullet rounds). What I found genuinely surprising precisely because it seemed so incongruous with a movie promising guys with guns. Mickey Rourke appears as Tool, a liasion of sorts who helps accrue gigs for The Expendables, and he has a long-take monologue about why he's not an active part of "the life" anymore. It's a strange moment, unsettling because of its seeming displacement in a shoot-'em-up smackdown. Here, the movie takes a little breather, offers up a moral compass, and gives Mickey Rourke a chance to put a little extra polish on his Best Actor Oscar in a way that Iron Man 2 never could. For this moment alone, the film is worth the cost of admission.

But there's plenty else to enjoy. The performances (Rourke aside) aren't restrained - Stallone hasn't lost any of his bulked-up hero factor, and Roberts is one of the more entertaining one-note action villains in recent memory - but neither is the action scaled back. There are plenty of viscerally appealing battle sequences, with exaggerated gunshots and high-speed knife fights aplenty. There's a plot in here somewhere and a few competing agendas at play, but the film is more like Once Upon a Time in Mexico in that the movie is a vessel for a healthy dose of action (notice that word recurring throughout this review?).

If there's a complaint about The Expendables, it's that the film seems to be holding back a little bit. Sure, there are fun nods to where the stars are now (Stallone remarks of Schwarzenegger, "He wants to be president") and metafictional references to the action flicks of the past (that Stallone/Lundgren rematch you've been waiting for plays out here), but it seems a little less quantitatively than one might expect. There are no memorable one-liners, as there ought to be in a "next installment" throwback picture, and the action is fun but not particularly groundbreaking. What's more, Willis and Schwarzenegger are bit players in only one scene - the scene depicted in the film's marketing - but there's untapped potential there. With rumblings of a sequel already following the movie like aftershocks, here's a tip for Stallone & Company: Next time, don't be afraid to turn it up to 11.
The Expendables is rated "R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language." The blood flies fast in the film but doesn't dominate it; F-bombs are sporadic but negigible. As far as inappropriate content goes, it's like a tamer version of Sin City but in color.

Machete (2010)

Attention Alexandre Aja and the rest of the crew who owe penance (or at least a partial refund) for Piranha 3D: Robert Rodriguez's Machete is how you do a B-movie.

Straight from the Grindhouse trailer, Danny Trejo leads one of the most eclectic casts in Hollywood history as federale-turned-day-laborer Machete Cortez, who immigrates illegally to the United States after his family is murdered by Mexican drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal). Once stateside, Machete is hired by Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey) to kill border reformer Senator John McLaughlin (Robert DeNiro). Double-crossed, Machete allies himself with immigration officer Sartana (Jessica Alba), taco vendor Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), and his brother/priest Padre (Cheech Marin) to avenge himself on the men who betrayed him. The ensemble cast also includes wild child April (Lindsay Lohan), bounty hunter Osiris (Tom Savini), and minuteman vigilante Von Jackson (Don Johnson).

Like all of Rodriguez's best work, Machete is brutally violent and equally brutally fun, ignoring the laws of physics in favor of scenes that are so breathtakingly cool that you'll find it tough to swallow your popcorn for all the raucous guffawing you'll be issuing. Rodriguez finally turns the leading man reins over to Danny Trejo, who proves himself adroit at being more than meancing window dressing on the sidelines of films like Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Having cut his teeth in Rodriguez films, Trejo is a perfect fit for the off-the-wall sensibility that governs the film, delivering lines like "Machete don't text" with a deadpan humor that belies a recognition of the film's own campy nature. It's here that (and I'll try not to do this too frequently in the course of this review) Machete succeeds where Piranha 3D failed - by carrying itself off without mugging vigorously for camp appeal, Machete is a true homage to B-movies precisely because it keeps its tongue - and not its entire mouth - in cheek.

With Trejo as the star of the film, second billing really ought to go to the trademark Rodriguez style of relentlessly accelerated action, which comes out here in full force. There are moments when a plot about illegal immigration and a heavyhanded political statement (heavyhanded only because it's never given time to develop beyond a rapid boil), but these are mere placeholders to allow for a little downtime between high octane action pieces like Machete's escape from a hospital using only a bonesaw and an enemy's intestines. With characteristically improbable violence - such as one character, stabbed through the gut, delivering a nihilist monologue - surrounding delightfully hammy dialogue ("God has mercy; I don't"), Machete is a winner for knowing that delicate balance between entertainment value and legitimate dramatic style.

Machete is also remarkable in that it manages to assemble the strangest cast of actors and actresses - and make them all fit together like jigsaw pieces in a movie that shouldn't work but does. There's no question that some of these people can act - Robert DeNiro and Don Johnson have more than proven themselves, and Jeff Fahey is always a hoot (between this, Planet Terror, and his turn on Lost) - but Rodriguez finds a place for Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan, who are, shall we say, significantly less talented. The strangest thing is that Steven Seagal even manages to fit into the movie, despite being entirely one-note and bogged down with personal baggage and a history of parody as long as my grocery list. This is less a credit to the cast than it is to Rodriguez, although I must give a hearty handshake to the cast for not appearing too cool for the room; we know DeNiro is practically slumming to do a movie directed by the mind that brought us The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, but at least he's a good sport about it and steps into the spirit of things (which is to say, larger than life in very broad strokes) fairly quickly.

Notice that I've not made claims to the film being a "great" film. That's because it's not. Nor does it pretend to be. What Machete professes to be is exactly what you'll find underneath the wrapper - another of Rodriguez's "Mexploitation" films, made on the cheap but with an earnestness that excuses the meager budget and dazzles the eye with a cast who's interested in having as much fun on this playground of a picture. If you're willing to leave your disbelief at home (merely suspending it probably won't do), Machete will be as much fun as you're looking for. If nothing else, it's far and away the B-movie of the year. (Nice try, Piranha 3D.)
Machete is rated a hard "R for strong bloody violence throughout, language, some sexual content and nudity." Blood flies everywhere and everywhen, with knife fights and a few spats of gunfire dominating the action of the movie. F-bombs pepper the dialogue like a tangy mole sauce, and Machete (spoiler warning?) lands in bed with pretty much every woman in the film, resulting in some toplessness and rear nudity in three scenes.

Piranha 3D (2010)

When all is said and done, one of the big entertainment headlines at the end of the year will undoubtedly be, "Piranha 3D scores 80% - and above - on Rotten Tomatoes." If you don't believe me, go ahead and look it up. I don't blame you, because the movie is as unmitigatedly terrible as it sounds.

It must come as some surprise that The Cinema King voluntarily sat through what must undoubtedly be one of the worst movies of this year; I'm still a little bit surprised myself that it happened. But, on the advice of a friend who had heretofore never been wrong about pop culture (a fan of Lost and one of the parties responsible for introducing me to Dexter), I plopped into a seat as the lights began to darken and readied myself for a movie that would prove all my suspicions unfounded.

As the lights came back up, I was still waiting for that movie. Because what I got was exactly what I expected - a B-movie (not to impugn the B-movies that originally initiated that descriptor) with a pitiable premise, predominantly poorly acted and largely without the tongue in cheek nature that would have been needed to pull off the picture. Sorry, buddy, you're now on my grain-of-salt list.

Piranha 3D almost defies the convention of a premise, because all you need to know is in the title - there are piranhas, and this movie is in 3D. The film takes place during spring break on geographically ambiguous Lake Victoria, where scores of party-prepared college students let loose their inhibitions and dive in for the time of their lives. But, as Horatio Caine famously noted of spring break, "It should have been the time of her life... *dons sunglasses* ...instead of the end of it." After devouring Richard Dreyfuss (present, it seems, as an oblique homage to the aquatic horror genre's granddaddy Jaws), the aforementioned piranhas set their fangs on the aforementioned college students, Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) and her deputy (Ving Rhames), adult film producer Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell, who chews scenery like a human piranha), and Derrick's new albeit reluctant stars Jake (Steven R. McQueen) and Kelly (Jessica Szohr, who seems to be standing in for Vanessa Hudgens). Oh yeah, and Christopher Lloyd is in it as the resident piranha expert/exposition wholesaler.

The biggest problem with Piranha 3D is that there's just no life in it. On the surface, it all seems like a good idea, as though there's going to be some rip-roaring good satire at work, with riotously overdrawn characters in preposterous situations spouting off one-liners that will become part of the cultural lexicon. But instead what we get is something that claims to be that but carries itself off fairly straightforwardly, adhering religiously to all of the horror film tropes that it should be lampooning - first attack, innocuous setting, sexy teens vs. authority, last scare (in fact, this is played for laughs, but it's so overwrought that it's tantamount to when Joel McHale photoshops people getting hit by a bus on The Soup), &c. Though it's supposedly a comic horror film, there's little to laugh at in the first hour or so of the movie; O'Connell is so hammy you'll start to smell pork chops after a while, but it's so overblown that all I could muster was a dismissive eye-roll at how hard he was trying.

It's not until the last twenty minutes or so (I know, because I checked my watch periodically - something I never do during movies I even close to enjoy... something I didn't even do during Nic Cage's The Wicker Man, my favorite bad movie) that Piranha 3D starts to have fun with itself, introducing wildly fantastic Robert Rodriguez-style sequences that are so over-the-top that the film should have been littered with them. For example, Ving Rhames at one delightfully giddy moment, tears the motor off a boat and uses the propeller as a chainsaw to fend off encroaching piranhas (piranhi? piranhae?); had the movie been comprised of more scenes like that - and had Adam Scott been given more lines as the geologist with a sardonic wit - the movie might have been more of a success. But no, instead we get two minutes of naked water ballet, a moment whose only function in the film seems to be to inspire word of mouth: "Hey, let's go see Piranha 3D." "I don't know; I heard it was bad." "Who cares, dude? Naked water ballet!" "I am so there!"

That's another chief complaint about Piranha 3D - the nudity. I should have known going into it that this was a movie that wasn't going to hold back, but I was expecting the go-for-broke attitude to come from a degree of satire. Not so; the film is apparently governed by the mentality that, if your film is starting to sink, just throw some skin up on the screen. Now, it's a spring break movie, and I get that it would have probably earned the filmmakers some critical ire if they did a spring break movie that didn't include at least a bit of gratuitous nudity (the old standby of the horror genre, after all), but it's just so exorbitant here. I don't want to come off as some sort of puritanical nut, because that's not it at all; it's just that the film uses nudity as a crutch, and it comes off as excessive, exorbitant, distracting, and desperate. Where nudity has been used as a deceptive counterpoint to violence/horror to come or as a way to elicit a cheap laugh, Piranha 3D seems to have taken its storyboards, thrown darts at them, and inserted a naked person wherever said darts landed.

There are other offenses at stake here, too - Christopher Lloyd is criminally mis- and under-used here; I haven't seen him in a very long time, but it's a shame that he's here instead of somewhere where his talents would be well-served. Moments of peril are very predictable, such that it's very easy to identify which of the four characters on screen will be eaten, and in which order. And the gore is used so heavily and with so little moral compass that some of the aftermath scenes play out more like Schindler's List than Shaun of the Dead. But the greatest sin that Piranha 3D commits is that it's not fun enough to justify the upcharge for 3D glasses. Indeed, the 3D effects aren't all that great, either. There's one moment where a character throws up directly into the camera that at least gets that visceral reaction, but most of the 3D effects rely on recycled gags from old Dr. Tongue bits from SCTV (the difference being that Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Beef had punchlines and class). Piranha 3D marks the first time that I've really noticed a murky and unpolished look to movies that have been converted to 3D - a problem I've never encountered with, say, Disney's 3D effects. Perhaps it's just that, like everything else about this movie, the effects aren't very good at all. In fact, they downright bite (sorry).

For the first time since I don't remember when (possibly ever), I was inspired to ask for my money back as the credits rolled on Piranha 3D. But it soon occurred to me that all I would get would be a blank stare, a blink or two, and the response, "Look, you volunteered to see a movie entitled Piranha 3D. What'd you expect, Shakespeare?" I also chickened out because I realized I would have to admit to another living soul that I shelled out money to see this movie. Oh, wait.
Piranha 3D is rated R "for sequences of strong bloody horror violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language and some drug use." This is probably the least appropriate theatrical release this year, with many graphic feeding scenes in which the piranhas chomp away pieces of people until all that is left are bloody skeletons. There's toplessness and rear nudity galore, F-bombs a-plenty, and enough alcohol and cocaine to make Ozzy Osbourne look up. Even though there are kids in the movie (added, doubtless, as an attempt to build suspense even though we know kids are invincible in horror movies), leave yours at home.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

I can say this for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - it is unlike any other movie director Edgar Wright has brought forward.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 20-something Canadian vagabond whose life is filled with his garage band Sex Bob-omb and his 17-year-old girlfriend Knives Chao (Ellen Wong). One day, though, Scott meets the literal girl of his dreams - Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who rollerblades through his dreams because there's a superhighway shortcut in his subconscious. But as Scott and Ramona grow closer, she clues him in to the fact that, to continue to date her, he'll have to defeat her "seven evil exes," a league of former flames that includes a Bollywood-esque sorcerer, a model-turned-action-hero (Chris Evans), a vegan bassist (Brandon Routh), an angry ninja (Mae Whitman, formerly Cera's girlfriend Ann on Arrested Development), Japanese musican twins, and the big one - record mogul Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman).

What Scott Pilgrim does very well is create many memorable characters that have, at the very least, spin-off potential if not a direct sequel. I can't speak for the movie's relationship with the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley, but the characters in the movie have got real personality. The supporting characters, that is; the main characters aren't very lively. Scott is, unfortunately, still more of the same Cera character - a gangly, awkward, "if that's okay with you" type who mumbles and falls in love with a girl far out of his league - but at least Cera is still doing a good job; I'm very curious, though, what the right director could do with him. And Winstead, as a thematic sequel to Kate Winslet's character in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, falls flat without very much enthusiasm; she's pretty and therefore easy to fall for, but I think supporting player Anna Kendrick (who's charming and involving as Scott's sister Stacey) might have done a better job - but that's probably, as I've said before, because I'm a little bit in love with that girl. At the very least, Cera and Winstead are no Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, Wright's previous collaborators.

Fortunately the supporting cast is very entertaining - not the best ensemble, but the supporting talent is more talented, I'd say, than what Cera and Winstead demonstrate here. The standout supporting cast member here is Alison Pill as world-weary drummer Kim Pine, a variant on the Juno brand of snarky; Pill is a scene-stealer, with deadpan delivery of memorable lines like, "Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it" as well as signature moves like her clacking drumsticks and her feigning suicide by pistol with only her fingers and a dramatic flourish. Chris Evans, too, as Ex #2, is probably my favorite Ex, a gleeful caricature of the action star who can't actually act; he growls his dialogue - all of it puns - with a tongue firmly in cheek. And Jason Schwartzman, as the seventh and final Ex, is suitably smarmy and deftly loathsome.

But unlike Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim takes itself seriously - perhaps too seriously. Where Wright's previous films had a satirical bent and often acknowledged incredible plot turns with characters exclaiming, as Simon Pegg did in Shaun, "Oh, for f--k's sake!" Scott Pilgrim has none of this self-conscious edge. Characters don't bat an eye when "extra lives" or swords of love and self-respect appear out of thin air, and only Scott's roommate Wallace (a wonderfully droll Kieran Culkin) expresses incredulity at the increasingly improbable fight scenes with dry murmurs of "Scott, fight, go." There's a shameless showiness in the film that's doubtless an homage to the story's comic book nature, but it's all bang and very little substance. The very premise is built on thinness - Scott must fight these characters because he must - and it never attempts to be anything more than shallow eye candy. Where the scenes with Scott and his friends are clever and well-written, the battle scenes which dominate the film play out like watching someone else play a video game. It's a bit like watching a Quentin Tarantino film in German (no, not Inglourious Basterds); there's a sense that there's a lot of flair going on that other people can appreciate, but for the immediate audience in the moment, something's lost.

There's also a problem with pacing. The first Ex battles don't begin until about an hour into the film - when little more than half of the film remains. Consequently the film feels bisected - a comfortable and cutesy comedy with quirky characters, followed by the video game montages to which I just couldn't connect. By treating the audience to so much of the avant garde "quirky" plotline - directed with innovative quick-cut flair and punctuated by thought bubbles and floating onomatopoeia - Wright practically spoils his audience to the point where the second half just doesn't live up to the first. Indeed, the second half feels bloated and over-long, as though so much action is being thrown at the viewer because the filmmaker realized halfway through that there was still the matter of the seven evil exes to cover in about an hour's time.

But I think the other half of the movie - the one that doesn't have you grabbing for a joystick that isn't there - is worth seeing. It's got Wright's comedic sensibilities with an American edge, and it's got some of the cleverest dialogue and editing gags (like Lisa Miller, who swears but has the ability to somehow censor herself with a black box and a record scratch). Maybe you'll want to go for popcorn during the combat scenes, because it's not as though Scott isn't going to win. Spoiler warning?
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is rated PG-13 "for stylized violence, sexual content, language and drug references." There's some canoodling in underwear, as well as mild talk about sex and the problems of and with dating a minor. The combat scenes are visually dynamic, with no blood but with plenty of people hitting each other, some of whom explode into coins. Drugs and alcohol are mentioned, but only abused once; the F-bombs in the film are all comedically censored.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

Welcome to Wednesday 2, the final day of Depp Week. It's been an amazing journey, a real tour de force through the recent work of one of the greatest living actors, and I'm happy to have shared the journey with you.

But, in the words of many a pirate, you may not survive to pass this way again, and these be the last friendly words you hear. Meaning: The following review unavoidably contains spoilers for Dead Man's Chest, as At World's End picks up right after the cliffhanger ending that preceded it. (Oh, hell; the picture kind of gives away one surprise.) So, for those uninitiated who haven't seen Dead Man's Chest but want to know more qualitatively about At World's End, let me say this for it: At World's End is my favorite of the Pirates trilogy, a restoration of the thematic balance that made The Curse of the Black Pearl so appealing which also maintains the "go bigger" attitude of Dead Man's Chest. It's also just plain fun, escapism which the increasingly heavy Hollywood offerings so desperately need to bust up the monotony.

With Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) trapped in Davy Jones's locker after his encounter with the kraken, his former nemesis Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) - himself back from the dead - mounts a rescue effort with Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). As if rescuing Jack from the land of the dead weren't hard enough, the pirate world must contend with the ever-tightening grip of Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) and the East India Trading Company, which now controls the heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy).

Now this is my favorite of the Pirates films, but it's also unique because it's tonally very different from the first two films; perhaps, then, that's my main gravitation to it. Johnny Depp doesn't appear for more than half an hour into the film, allowing the movie to build up steam and firmly establish the necessity of his character to return. In some ways, this feels like a response to the critical backlash against Dead Man's Chest, as many characters run around in this film invoking the necessity of getting things back to the way they were. This film is darker - it opens with a small boy ascending the steps to the scaffold, and several very important characters are killed, brutally, on-screen - and consequently it feels more like the first than the second film, which you'll recall I critiqued for being too funny. Here the tone is one of urgent action punctuated by moments of levity (as when the crew sails over a waterfall and transports the audience, albeit briefly, to the Disneyland attraction that spawned the franchise), a return to form and a more fulfilling moviegoing experience. There are no scenes of audacious slapstick, but there are plenty of moments of entertaining comedy to keep you smiling throughout.

And where Dead Man's Chest did more of the same as far as performances go, At World's End dials it up for almost every main character. Now Jack Sparrow has a form of split-personality disorder, with "multiple Jacks" on his shoulders and in his hair, and Depp does a marvelous job at imbuing life into all the different Jacks we see on screen (at least twenty). Will has a renewed sense of purpose, and Bloom shoulders the responsibility with a grim but resigned countenance the whole way through. With a rousing speech on the nature of freedom, Elizabeth finally makes her decision between citizen and pirate, and it's a turn that feels completely natural in Knightley's hands. And it's a delight to see Rush again, who nuances his character's malicious nature by adding in a note of reformation and making it more palatable to root for the character who had previously been the villain. And Nighy continues to impress, even underneath all that CGI, by conveying through his words the anguish Davy Jones feels as a consequence of his betrayals at the hands of his lover and Cutler Beckett. Chow Yun-Fat joins the cast as Sao Feng, pirate lord of Singapore; though his character is done in broad strokes that might offend the PC crowd, Yun-Fat does an immersive job with the character, and there's a sense that all pirates are in effect stereotypes, somewhat legitimizing the Fu Manchu-esque nature of the character. And it'd be remiss of me if I didn't note that Keith Richards puts in an appearance as code-keeper Captain Teague, who shares a vitally important scene with Jack Sparrow.

The standout feature in At World's End, though, is an extended battle sequence which runs approximately forty minutes long and features the Black Pearl fighting the Flying Dutchman in the midst of a maelstrom. For most of the film, we're told that the pirates will have to face a last stand against Beckett's armada, and the subsequent battle that ensues more than lives up to the expectations raised by the rest of the film. Director Gore Verbinski (who, sadly, won't be returning for On Stranger Tides) does a masterful job of coordinating the action and keeping the action moving - even tossing an impromptu wedding into the mix. Hans Zimmer, too, is at his finest here, crafting an instrumental suite that runs for pretty much the whole length of the battle and integrates all the important themes (Jack's, Davy Jones's, Barbossa's, the love theme) from the trilogy in an expertly and elaborately written piece that you'll be humming for days. It's the kind of action sequence you can appreciate even out of context; a forty-minute combat sequence never hurt anyone, especially when it's as well-executed as this one is.

And the film brings to a satisfying conclusion the plotlines begun in the first film while still leaving open the possibility for a fourth film. The ending is remarkable in that it's sort of cliffhanger-ish, but at the same time it's the only way for these characters to end up; Will and Elizabeth are still together, despite a few obstacles, and Jack and Barbossa are still deadlocked in combat over the ownership of the Black Pearl and future treasure on the horizon. It's an immensely satisfying ending, one that validates the almost nine hours it takes to watch this epic sprawling trilogy unfold. Even taken on its own, though, At World's End is positively divine, an abundantly enjoyable flourish of a film.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is, like its predecessors, rated PG-13 "for intense sequences of action/adventure violence and some frightening images." In terms of content, there's not much different from the previous two installments, although the tone is much darker, and there's a pervading sense of danger that the more whimsical first two films lacked.

Well, folks, that's the end of Depp Week. It's been a marvelous journey, and I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on the whole affair. Would you be interested in seeing another themed week on The Cinema King (perhaps one that isn't gloriously gushing of its star)?

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Welcome back to the only week with two Tuesdays in it - Depp Week. Right now we're going to set sail into the penultimate entry on the docket, the second installment of director Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

Dead Man's Chest picks up a little bit after The Curse of the Black Pearl, with the wedding of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) disrupted by the arrival of the East India Trading Company's villainous representative Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander). Beckett detains Will and Elizabeth for assisting pirate Captain Jack Sparrow in the last film but later separately dispatches them to retrieve Jack's compass. But Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has bigger problems; the tentacled Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) holds a claim to Captain Jack's soul, owed to Davy Jones for 13 years as captain of the Black Pearl. With the land controlled by the EITC and the seas manned by Davy Jones, Jack Sparrow faces mounting challenges and learns, like Neil Gaiman's Sandman, that he must change (meaning confront his problems) or die.

I think that Dead Man's Chest is the most polarizing of the Pirates films; moviegoers are divided almost exclusively between those who love it and those who hate it. But there's room for a more honest appraisal, one (which I'll offer here) that gives credit to the film's strengths but acknowledges the fact that Dead Man's Chest is not perfect - at least, not in the sense that The Curse of the Black Pearl was.

Let's start with the bad news first. The bad news is that, as far as middle entries in trilogies go, Dead Man's Chest is no Empire Strikes Back. (Which is, I concede, a bit like criticizing water for not being cranberry juice.) Perhaps the worst thing that I can say about Dead Man's Chest is that it doesn't stand on its own very well. As a sequel, one can hardly criticize it for not restating a lot of the plot elements that were developed in the first movie - the relationship between Will and Elizabeth, the character of Jack Sparrow, the role of Weatherby Swann (Jonathan Pryce) in all this - but as a second of three, it ought to end without moviegoers feeling obligated to attend the third film in the franchise. In that respect, then, Dead Man's Chest is more Matrix Reloaded than Empire Strikes Back in the sense that the two former movies end on a cliffhanger which leaves nothing resolved. (To be fair, Empire ends on a cliffhanger, too, but it's one that goes for emotional tethers rather than plot twists.) Here, Dead Man's Chest ends with a major character deceased, another character back from the dead, major emotional connections seemingly irreparably severed, and a bevy of new characters thrown at us with no ultimate resolution on their storylines - such that one feels a bit like an empty keg of rum at the end of the picture, adrift in a sea of plotlines that, we're promised, the third movie will resolve. (It does, fortunately.)

My other major grievance with Dead Man's Chest is that it is, at its most basic, simply a turned-up-to-11 version of The Curse of the Black Pearl. With the exception of Elizabeth (and perhaps wooden-eyed Ragetti, who evinces concern for his newly-mortal soul), no returning character (or new one, for that matter) gets much depth added; Jack is still his same capricious self, Will is still that charming novice swashbuckler, and that dog still has the keys in his mouth. Even the new villains aren't very nuanced, with a mirthless one-dimensional evil separating them from Geoffrey Rush's evil-but-still-fun Barbossa. (Note that this critique of the unsubtle villains is distinct from the praise, which I'll be offering below, of Hollander and Nighy. Stay tuned.) Of course, evil villains are all well and good - in fact, they're essential - but they're contrasted with the turned-up-to-11 tone of whimsy that the picture sets up; nothing truly bad, it suggests, can happen to the characters as long as they keep us laughing. Consequently, when something truly bad does happen, it feels almost like a betrayal, a violation of some code somewhere. Then again, the first film did teach us that codes are "more like guidelines, anyway."

In sum, Dead Man's Chest doesn't engage in any emotional advancement of any character, but returning screenplayists Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio do a solid job of advancing the trilogy on a plot level, expanding the franchise's mythology and introducing a whole host of new characters - and doing so in a clear manner. As with the former film, there are complaints from the moviegoing public about a confusing aura around the film. But how the film could confound anyone is beyond me. Lunkheaded comic relief Pintel and Ragetti fill in for Navymen Murtogg and Mullroy as far as summarizing important action to each other and to the audience, and Naomie Harris joins the cast as Tia Dalma, a voodoo practitioner whose only purpose in this film, it seems, is to provide exposition on Davy Jones and the plight of Jack Sparrow. (Fortunately, she's given more to do in the final installment of the trilogy.) Again, there are many competing agendas here, but if you don't go out for a popcorn refill you should be fine. The script also does an outstanding job at building on what the first film introduces; throwaway elements like Jack's compass and his brief line "And then they made me their chief" from the first film get new meaning, making for a more comprehensive filmgoing experience. Most notably, though, Bootstrap Bill makes an appearance, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgard; if you noticed the plot hole of how the first film claimed that Bootstrap, cursed by the Aztec gold, could have drowned, the film addresses that.

And director Gore Verbinski does a firstrate job of topping a lot of the action sequences in the first film by kicking it up to 11 with swordfights on top of a spinning water wheel, a monstrous kraken attack, and a delightful re-introduction to Captain Jack Sparrow. Verbinski again keeps that sense of moving forward with sweeping shots of sailing ships and (doubtless) a little help from Hans Zimmer, who pens what might be his best film score to date in terms of listenability outside of the context of the film.

Continuing the train of good news about Dead Man's Chest, all the performers are still doing very good work. Even if they're not called on to do much more, they're still doing a good job at what they'd previously done: Depp is audaciously immersive as ever, replete with a slightly improved accent (something closer to a drunken Brit than previously), Bloom is still his charming roguish self, and Knightley is still doing a deft job at straddling that line between pirate and proper citizen (and she's probably the prettiest here of the three). Of the new cast members, all of them step into their roles like a good pair of slacks. Harris is almost unrecognizable as the grungy obeah priestess, with her blackened teeth and Jamaican dialect creating a vividly believable new character. On the side of evil, Bill Nighy is utterly engrossing as Davy Jones, lending a Scottish accent and a series of facial and verbal tics that are so human that you'll probably forget that the character is almost entirely created with CGI effects (honestly, the effects are that good). And Tom Hollander is perhaps the best villain of the series, because he's so joylessly evil that he's instantly detestable; his overconfident and avaricious qualities are brilliantly portrayed by the diminutive Hollander, who evokes Napoleon and all the worst qualities of British imperialism.

I've given what might be a mixed review of Dead Man's Chest, but I want to close with the note that this film contains my absolutely favorite shot of the entire trilogy. It's a small scene, maybe one that won't even be noticed by many audience members, but it's a pivotal one - one that is perfectly directed by Gore Verbinski and one that Jack Davenport (playing ex-Commodore Norrington) pulls off with aplomb. It's a silent scene, with only Hans Zimmer's rousing score to fill our ears, but it uses visual language like a fluent speaker uses French; with shots of only a rowboat, a swordfight, and a few finely detailed expressions from Davenport. It's a scene that says nothing and yet says everything we need to know about what's going through Norrington's head at that particular moment. It's so aesthetically effective that it, too, gives me chills.

If you've made it all the way through this review, first of all congratulations. Second, I hope the disenchantment of the earlier paragraphs has worn off. Really, this is an enjoyable movie for those of us who enjoyed the first. But my disappointment registers only because from a sequel I often expect so much more. I enjoyed this because I enjoyed the first movie, but I wish that I could have enjoyed it regardless of the first; I suppose in the end I was looking for more than more of the same. But perhaps that's just a case of my expectations being too high, in which case this is an issue I'll have to self-examine. But if you liked the first film, certainly the second is just as good (but not better).
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is - like its predecessor - rated PG-13, this time for "intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images." As with the first, standard pirate swashbuckling occurs. Here, though, some creatures may be more frightening than previously; Davy Jones's crew are all monstrous amalgamations of men and sea creatures, and his kraken is genuinely fearsome with tentacles and sharp fangs. Watch out for an early sequence at an island prison, which is surprisingly gruesome as ravenous birds attack caged prisoners.

Keep a weathered eye on the horizon, mates, because Wednesday we'll close out Depp Week with a look at my favorite of the Pirates films - At World's End.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Thanks for staying with us, loyal readers. And a good, good morning to you in the wee small ones of this bright and sunshiney Monday morning. Depp Week (or rather, Depp Half-Week II) begins right now, with a look at Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the film that jetted Johnny Depp to super-stardom and netted him an Oscar nomination, while simultaneously getting an entire generation of moviegoers to start asking, "Why is the rum gone?"

Depp stars as Captain Jack Sparrow, an off-kilter pirate with no ship, no crew, and no treasure. What he has are a keen wit, a poor sense of balance, a compass that doesn't point north, and improvisational skills that ought to earn him a lifetime spot on Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Captain Jack finds his way to Port Royal in search of a ship, where he's promptly locked up for piracy. Meanwhile, Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and his undead crew of cursed pirates-turned-zombies come to Port Royal in search of blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) - but end up abducting the governor's daughter, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), instead. Will, smitten with Elizabeth, strikes a deal to free Captain Jack in exchange for his help, but what Will doesn't know is that Captain Jack Sparrow only ever has his own best interests at heart

Developing a movie based on a low-velocity flume ride should have been an impossible feat; after all, The Country Bears and The Haunted Mansion all sank like stones when Disney unleashed them in theaters around the same time as Pirates. But what Pirates has that those movies didn't is a trifecta of what I believe are the three key components to any truly great motion picture: a charismatic and fantastically gifted cast, a solid and well-crafted screenplay, and a governing mood that combines the utmost sincerity with delightful notes of whimsy that prevent the movie from getting bogged down in its own gravitas (sorry, Quantum of Solace).

The obvious headliner here - the reason for Pirates being reviewed at this specific moment in time - is Johnny Depp, who gives a performance of a lifetime. And not just his lifetime, though Jack Sparrow certainly makes that grade; Depp's turn here is one of the greatest performances I've seen committed to film in my lifetime, right up there with Ledger's Joker and RDJ's Iron Man (perhaps it bears investigation that I've selected two comic book roles). It's immersive like diving into a swimming pool, yet so spot-on that it fits like a glove. Of Depp's role here I can only speak in superlatives, each of them deserved; there's an earnestness that goes with Jack Sparrow that goes a long way toward allowing the audience to forget "it's only a movie." Jack feels real because, in the hands of Johnny Depp, he is real. Every gesture (and there are many, from wild gesticulation to nuanced missteps), every inflection, every unfocused glance contribute to a portrait of a character larger than life and yet so unmistakably human.

Depp is backed by a wonderfully able supporting cast, the greatest of whom is Geoffrey Rush. Where Jack Sparrow is so finely crafted, Barbossa is all broad strokes, harkening back to the Errol Flynn pirate pictures where there was no question about who the bad guys were. But Rush manages to pull off the portrayal without ever feeling like he's resorting to cheap pirate stereotypes; even when he does employ those old standbys - as when he snarls the trademark pirate "Arrgh!" for no apparent reason - it feels less like a shortcut and moer like a facet of his character, who clearly enjoys theatricality. Our two romantic leads - Bloom and Knightley - do a fine job of drawing a line down the middle of the film between pirate and civilian, and their chemistry is palpable; that is, romantically, we get it between these two. (It doesn't hurt that Knightley is probably at her most attractive here, and it's no wonder that I had a major crush on her when the film first debuted in theaters.)

Of course, any talented actor will run around aimlessly without a taut script to guide him or her, and fortunately Pirates is one of the best written action films in recent memory. Credit Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio for penning a screenplay that triumphantly inverts a lot of the old pirate movie tropes - the mutiny occurs off-screen, and these pirates are returning treasure rather than taking it - while still seeming to adhere to the ideal platonic form of a pirate movie. In much the same way as the film is divided between pirate and citizen, the script is divided between action and comedy, such that I've invoked the Pirates name when talking about films that similarly split their time between comedy and action. The script is funny when it needs to be and exudes a sense of breathless urgency, such that we genuinely believe that there is a threat to the safety of the film world. In addition to being endlessly quotable, the film is also very clever with its dialogue, such that I actually got chills when a character in the film justified the audience's attachment to the pirate Jack Sparrow by saying, "Perhaps on the rare occasion pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy, piracy itself becomes can be the right course?" In addition, Elliott and Rossio do a first-rate job of keeping the disparate plot elements from becoming muddled in a tangle of plot soup. We have at least four competing agendas (five, if you count Commodore Norrington) at any given time in the film, but it's apparent who's fighting for what and - even more tricky - who's double-crossing whom. There are those who bemoan the film's confusing nature, but I feel those concerns are misguided and stem from something short of a full attention span. (For more on how clever the script is, take a look at LiveReal's take on the film.)

But the best script in the world can be tragically mismanaged, and so a hearty helping of kudos ought to go to director Gore Verbinski for making a film that's endlessly (re)watchable, which remains entertaining and nearly immortal as the film approaches the 10-year mark. If the script is a juggling act, Verbinski is the juggler who deftly keeps all the requisite plates spinning, to the perpetual amusement and amazement of the moviegoing public. What's even more remarkable is that Verbinski knows the perfect balance between action and comedy, even within the same scene - as when Jack and Barbossa duel with swords and with wordplay simultaneously. Though scenes like these are side-splitting, they're also intensely and precisely coordinated to attain that perfect edge-of-seat ratio. Doubtless this position of the audience on the precipice of their chairs (recliners, folding chairs, it doesn't matter) requires at least some small credit be given to the rousing score composed by Klaus Badelt, known disciple of Hans Zimmer (whose influence is very acutely felt); here's another Depp flick whose tune you'll be humming long after the credits roll. (Speaking of which, be sure to stick around for an after-credits treat, which actually has some bearing on the second film of the trilogy.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love this movie. It's got an audaciously charismatic performance by Depp, but it's also a solid movie in and of itself. If nothing else, if you ahven't seen this movie, consider it part of a "Great Books" curriculum in which the objective is to become fluent in popular culture. If this country should ever be subject to a full-scale pirate attack, you'll at least know what to tell them so they don't kill you. (Hint: It's not parsley. Not palu-li-la-la-lulu, either.)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is, rare for a Disney flick, rated PG-13, here "for action/adventure violence." There's some typical swashbuckling swordfighting afoot, a few zombie pirates that may prove unsettling for younger viewers, and an unusual fascination with eunuchs that arises periodically throughout the trilogy.

Depp Week Delayed

Ahoy, folks. Bad news on the docks. Due to unforseeable consequences - namely, being hijacked by pirates in search of bewitched treasure - Depp Week is being postponed until at least the weekend, if not Monday/Tuesday.

Keep a weathered eye on the horizon, mateys. Here there be Pirates of the Caribbean reviews soon as we be returnin' from Davy Jones's locker.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

2003 was a big year for Johnny Depp, if only because that's the year that Captain Jack Sparrow sailed into our hearts, propelling Depp to the top of the A-list. But Pirates of the Caribbean isn't until tomorrow, folks, so let's take a look at Depp's other 2003 film, Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico - which I predict will become a cult film (if it isn't one already) on the strength of Depp's performance alone.

Nominally, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is Antonio Banderas's film, the third entry in his and Rodriguez's "El Mariachi trilogy" (which began with El Mariachi and Desperado). In practice, though, it's Depp's: Depp plays CIA agent Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, who hires gunslinger El Mariachi (Banderas) to prevent General Marquez from successfully staging a coup against the Mexican president. But there are many other factors at work here: El wants revenge against Marquez for the murder of his wife Catalina (Salma Hayek), while Marquez is being paid by cartel lord Barillo (Willem Dafoe) and his henchman Billy Chambers (Mickey Rourke), and Sands is working the case from every angle - including police officer Ajedrez (Eva Mendes), one-eyed informant Bellini (Cheech Marin), and retired FBI Agent Jorge Ramirez (Ruben Blades).

If it sounds a little confusing, don't be alarmed. On first viewing, there are parts that don't immediately make sense; it's not that the film is intentionally puzzling, but the fast pace and the "crank it up to 11" sensibility toss the plot twists at the viewer faster than might be comfortable. What's more, the plot is the kind that lends itself to plot twists, with betrayals, double-crosses, and downright duplicity governing each principal character's actions; in fact, you'll have trouble enough just trying to figure out where Sands's loyalties lie (hint: like all great Depp characters, Sands is principally looking out for Number One).

But, in the opinion of this reviewer, none of the action-on-speed mentality hurts the film. Indeed, the film challenges itself to top itself, topping a rousing gun battle in the streets with an epic one in the presidential palace. Moreover, by beginning the story in media res, the film creates the suggestion that the plot is actually secondary to the exciting explosions and innovative visuals, that what these characters do is less important than how they do it.

Thank goodness Rodriguez has assembled a cast who can pull off a film that's all about flair. And rather than remain as mere straight action fare, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is often genuinely funny, adding a challenge to the actors, albeit a challenge they can all meet. Banderas is dynamite as the strong but silent type, but his character is crafted in such a way that it never feels out of place when he breaks his silence for a wry witticism. Hayek, who appears often in flashbacks and whose presence is acutely felt even though her character has technically died, is the perfect "straight man" to the occasionally ludicrous action sequences, and her screams of terror at the precarious situations Catalina finds herself in are genuine and hilarious at the same time. Of course, though, Depp steals the show (partially because it feels like he has the most screen time of any other character), because Sands is one of those ultra-compelling supporting characters that comes along once in a blue moon. As his loyalties flip and flop, there's something endearing at the heart of his character; it's quite possible that he's a bad guy (he does, after all, kill a cook simply for making a piece of slow-roasted pork that's too good), but the way Depp behaves makes us want to root for Sands, if only so we'll see him on screen more often.

This is an ensemble piece, and while the three leads are all doing fine work, they're backed up by a supporting cast that carries the rest of the film one piece at a time. Willem Dafoe is admittedly a strange choice for a Mexican drug lord, but once you see him as Barillo you'll either think, "Why didn't someone cast him as a Mexican before?" or "Well, Willem sure can act." Mickey Rourke isn't really acting so much as performing his trademark confident swagger on-camera, but his broad personality fits right in with the rest of the outlandish tone of the film. Eva Mendes finally gets to play a cop rather than a cop's love interest, and there's something compelling in that pout of hers where she's surprisingly believable as a hard-as-nails rookie. Cheech Marin floats in as embodied exposition (and recap for those who missed the other entries in the trilogy), and it's always a delight to see Danny Trejo chewing scenery as a tough guy.

One final character in the film bears mentioning - the gaudy and vibrant action sequences. There's a shootout in a marketplace, replete with exploding fruit and sudden auto collisions, that is impossible to watch without getting a little keyed up. Blame the soundtrack, too, which is filled with catchy Latino tracks that you'll be humming until you run out and grab the CD (which stands on its own very well, indeed). But even when the characters are simply sitting around and chatting - as Sands does for most of his screentime, until he picks up his guns and joins the fight against the coup (with a bonus twist, extra-cool, that it'd be criminal to spoil) - there's still a sense that firecrackers are going off. The dialogue, equal parts Rodriguez and ad-lib, positively crackles, with quirky mannerisms and stylistic turns of phrase that might make Diablo Cody sit up and take a few notes; perhaps the best of these come about due to Sands's apparent refusal to swear, substituting "screw the pooch," "sugarbutt," and "oh, gosh" at markedly incongruous moments.

But the intentional flashiness and the quest for spectacle make the film a dazzling vision that doesn't even require a viewer's cognitive powers to be switched on. Indeed, the film practically asks the viewer to switch off, kick back, and enjoy the ride. Typical rules of science no longer apply, and the film doesn't need to be understood so much as it needs to be absorbed. And that is the film's greatest strength - it's engaging, with performances and action pieces that are just plain fun.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico is, naturally, rated R "for strong violence, and for language." Most every character uses F-bombs quite liberally, in English and Spanish; you can't swing a bat without hitting some bloody violence in this film, so leave the less mature kiddies at home.

Depp Week continues into Thursday with The Cinema King's take on the role you've been looking for - Captain Jack Sparrow in 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (sequels to follow). Stay tuned!

Charlie St. Cloud (2010)

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Depp Week programming to bring you Charlie St. Cloud, Zac Efron's latest - and lightest - box office outing.

Efron plays the eponymous Charlie, taking off his dancing shoes and donning a winter coat of angst as the troubled teen who blames himself for the car crash that killed his younger brother Sam (Charlie Tahan). Charlie would have died too, were it not for the prayerful intercession of paramedic Florio Ferrente (Ray Liotta), but now that he's alive, Charlie has the unique ability to communicate with ghosts - particularly with Sam, with whom he had promised to practice baseball every day before college. But as Charlie wallows in his grief, working as a caretaker in a graveyard and throwing away his potential, he meets Tess Carroll (Amanda Crew), a spirited sailor who teaches Charlie the meaning of life - and letting go.

Allow me to first begin by saying that there is a very specific type of audience for whom this movie will hold almost unanimous appeal - and I'm not referring to the two old ladies I met this weekend who raved up and down about how "fantastic" and "spectacular" this picture was. For fans of the emotional catharsis, for Lifetime subscribers who can't get enough "life is for the living" morals, for people who just want to see Zac Efron take his shirt off - this movie offers all that in spades. But for more discerning viewers, I think Charlie St. Cloud comes up wanting.

Let me also add by way of preface that this isn't necessarily a bad movie. It's not terrible, but it's just not very good; on a scale of 1 to 10, it's probably a four or a five. The film itself is not very well-made, consisting mostly of fluffy emotions and hints of a story with more potential (potential perhaps lived up to in the Ben Sherwood novel on which the movie is based) than is acted upon. The biggest distraction in the film is Efron himself; I've admitted that I'm a fan of his career, and I think he's on his way to at least B-list stardom. But Charlie St. Cloud as a movie seems determined not to let him advance; for all the emoting and performing that Efron seems willing to do, the film spends far more time on shots that director Burr Steers (of 17 Again fame) must have consciously orchestrated in order to elicit maximum attractiveness out of Efron. There are a myriad of shots such as Charlie walking toward a window as soft light streams from the drapes and brings out the baby blue in his eyes; college students may one day craft a drinking game in which participants imbibe each time Efron takes his shirt off - two shots if the disrobing is not essential to the plot (which is, to say, always).

There are other people in the film, too; chief among them is Amanda Crew, who isn't asked to do very much in the film but who seems like she might be the next Jessica Biel if given the opportunity and a better haircut. Tahan is similarly unchallenging as ghostly Sam, but there's a sense of sibling chemistry between him and Efron which lends their scenes a genuine sense of authenticity and are some of the less improbable scenes in the film. As is often the case, Ray Liotta is criminally underused; though he makes the most of his two scenes in the film, the fact remains that he is only given two scenes in the film - hardly the stuff of a comeback, though he's an able caretaker of the film's "second chances" message, which is hammered repeatedly throughout the movie. Oh, yeah - and Kim Basinger's in here too, though I think the crew forgot about her during production as her character simply disappears with little more than an oblique "She moved" reference.

For a discerning viewer, a lot of the film will come off as very unsubtle. Dialogue consists mostly of characters shouting morals at each other - "Life is for the living!" and "You have to let go!" and "You were given a second chance for a reason!" among them. More notably, there's a plot twist borrowed wholesale from The Sixth Sense (no, Zac Efron's not actually dead, so I didn't spoil it... or maybe I did), but it's so blatantly obvious that the textbook foreshadowing barrels through the film like the freight train from Inception. But the most important lesson the film can teach us, it seems, is that Zac Efron has dreamy good looks that will plop ticketholders into seats faster than Dennis Miller can craft a metaphor.

If you've got a craving for eye candy, please see Charlie St. Cloud, if only to send a message that we're done with this whole Twilight business. Discerning moviegoers? You can still catch that Inception matinee.
Charlie St. Cloud is rated PG-13 "for language including some sexual references, an intense accident scene and some sensuality." I actually thought the innuendo was pretty tame, though parents might not like the "romantic interlude in a graveyard" scene, in which nothing but shadowplay is seen. The accident scene is startling but in a way that's been done to death; some mild blood accompanies this and another accident scene.

Stay tuned, folks, because your regularly scheduled programming for Depp Week continues next on The Cinema King as we go south of the border for Once Upon a Time in Mexico.