Monday at the Movies - July 29, 2013

Welcome to another edition of “Monday at the Movies” – this week, we backfill some of our missing Pixar coverage.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) – After A Bug’s Life didn’t inspire audiences the way Pixar might have hoped – although Toy Story 2 did – Pixar’s third original idea had a lot riding on its shoulders.  Aw, never mind, you know it worked; we’ve had Pixar movies galore since then, including a Monsters, Inc. prequel back in June.  But the one that started it all?  The original monster-buddy picture finds Sulley (John Goodman) and Mike (Billy Crystal) tearing up the Scare Floor, racking up the big screams in a private competition with slithery serpentine Randall (Steve Buscemi, in a wonderfully scummy villainous role).  The movie’s real soul, though, comes when an adorable toddler named Boo wanders into the monster world – a strict no-no for the creatures from our closets.  Though the animation isn’t as astounding as recent turns, the deliberately cartoonish nature of the characters engages us in an endearing way, especially (once again) the innocently chubby cheeks and spastic arm movements of Boo.  It’s not that she’s the only ray of light in a dismal feature film; Goodman and Crystal are perfect as the opposites-attract team of scarer and engineer, and Buscemi is a revelation as always as the antagonist.  But Boo is that one character in ten thousand who completely eclipses the rest of the movie; like Heath Ledger’s Joker or the monkey puppet Monk on HBO’s Family Ties, Boo steals not just the film but your very gaze in every one of her scenes.  She’ll make you laugh, and if she doesn’t make you cry that Randy Newman score almost certainly will.

Ratatouille (2007) – There comes a moment every time I rewatch Ratatouille where I sit back in my chair and think to myself, “My God, I really love this movie.”  It’s not always the same moment every time – usually it’s Remy’s silent plea not to be drowned or it’s Anton Ego’s big monologue evaluating whether or not anyone actually can cook (which, yes, still brings a tear or two of aesthetic sublimity) – but there’s something about Brad Bird’s second Pixar film that just hits you right square in the feels in a way that The Incredibles never did.  That’s not a slight to Incredibles, which I love, but Ratatouille manages to transcend a hokey conceit (talking mice?) and a clichéd message (follow your dreams) in one of my favorite Pixar movies.  Patton Oswalt voices Remy, a mouse with sensitive taste buds and a desire to cook, while Lou Romano plays Linguini, the clumsy but well-intentioned janitor-cum-chef who brokers a deal with Remy so that both can achieve their goals and feed Paris.  Naturally, the plan butts heads with Head Chef Skinner (Ian Holm), who resents both Linguini and the rat infestation, while top critic Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole, in a brilliant performance) fumes at the resurgence of a restaurant he once damned.  There’s so much this film does right – the friendship between Remy and Linguini, the familial bonds amongst the kitchen staff, the characterization of Ego – that makes Ratatouille an A-Number-One feature, topped with a score by Michael Giacchino (Pixar’s best, for my money) so perfect that you’ll be downloading recipes and wishing you had a “lil chef” to help you out.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Top 10 Reasons Man of Steel Is Better Than Pacific Rim

I haven’t done a Top 10 list since Christmas, but I have to intervene at this moment in history.  As I write this, Pacific Rim (which, as you saw on Wednesday, really disappointed me) is tracking 15 points better on Rotten Tomatoes than Man of Steel (which, side by side with Iron Man 3, is a strong contender for “Best Summer Movie”), and I’ve read several reviews that agree with this consensus.  In fact, my first thought as the credits rolled on Pacific Rim was, “There are people in this world who liked that better than Man of Steel”?

My intention here isn’t to put Man of Steel on a pedestal or tear down Pacific Rim as the worst movie ever; I wouldn’t do either in any circumstance.  But I do think it bears further explanation why I preferred one over the other.  So without further ado, I give you:  “The Top 10 Reasons Man of Steel Is Better Than Pacific Rim”!

(Spoilers, definitely.)

Pacific Rim (2013)

If you’ve ever wanted to watch someone else play a video game, or if you’re one of those people who thought Transformers could have used a little more Godzilla, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim is exactly the movie for you.  As for me, I think I need a little more from a movie.

After the government decommissions the giant robot “Jaeger” program, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) seeks out former Jaeger pilot Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) on the eve of the next big kaiju attack.  The kaiju, enormous monsters, have been rising from the ocean and attacking coastal cities for years, leaving humanity desperate to turn the tide.  As Becket is paired with skilled rookie Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), the kaiju attacks increase in frequency, with multiple monsters rising at once.

Readers know that I’m always a bit uncomfortable dismantling expensive passion projects from behind my keyboard, so I’ll say this about Pacific Rim – it’s entirely unpretentious, inoffensive, and governed by an obvious sense of the creators’ enthusiasm.  And as far as big-dumb-loud movies go, Pacific Rim is undoubtedly the most earnest and the most triumphant.  The trailers promise big machines punching big monsters, and you get that promise fulfilled to the nth degree; once you surrender to them, the action sequences are fun and imaginative – at least, within the parameters of “How could one CGI thing beat up another?”

So for a film that had to have been storyboarded by playing with action figures and making sh-boom noises, Pacific Rim is about as diverting as the trailers make it out to be.  It passes that lower bar of “summer popcorn flick” but in a summer where we’ve seen action films that grapple with important issues alongside stellar beat-’em-up sequences Pacific Rim pales by comparison.  Upon leaving the theater, the one adjective that dove to mind was “distanced.”  At no point did Pacific Rim convince me to care about what was going on.  Instead, it relies on the assumption that the audience already thinks that the premise is cool and, by extension, worthwhile.  Yes, the premise is mind-numbingly cool, but the film never convinces the audience to invest in the concept.

For one, you can forget about character development beyond Michael Bay levels of cliché and central casting stock.  It’s a shame that the characterization in the film is so poor, because it’s almost a waste of Idris Elba.  Elba, an actor so good he convinced fans of The Wire that he wasn’t British, does the best he can with the script, even when lines like “I’m a fixed point” draw attention to the script’s dearth of personality.  I don’t begrudge the film its five minutes of introductory exposition; I do, however, shake my head at characters who make Ellen Page’s “exposition queen” in Inception look like Molly Bloom.  Charlie Day’s only plot function is to shout science at us, and Kikuchi – who is, like Elba, doing the best she can – actually yells her character’s motivation, even though the script’s already given intelligent audiences that answer.  (Hint:  she’s an orphan.)  Why do we root for the main character?  Because he’s the main character, duh (and total first-act trauma, duh).  We deserve compelling protagonists, and Hunnam ain’t it.  (Sidebar:  was Garrett Hedlund busy?)

Then there are the tonal inconsistencies, which make me wonder if this isn’t actually a Michael Bay film signed by Guillermo del Toro in some weird Howard Roark/Peter Keating pact.  The introductory montage sets up a grim future for mankind against the kaiju, while the first action sequence plays like a tragic buddy picture.  Enter the exposition scientists (Day and Torchwood’s Burn Gorman), a pair comprised of a Justin Hammer knockoff and a grotesque caricature of a foppish snob; as my father remarked, “What movie do these two really belong in?”  Finally, I’ve said nothing about Ron Perlman’s black marketer Hannibal Chau, in part because he’s another tonal inconsistency (included, I’m sure, because of Perlman’s Hellboy history with del Toro); Perlman has compelling screen presence, and his character is just the right amount of bizarrely-out-of-place, but Pacific Rim becomes an entirely different movie whenever he’s on screen.

It’s not that I went into Pacific Rim looking for brilliant character studies and subtle storytelling; I went in looking for characters and plots – y’know, the things we expect from a movie.  What I got was a big, dumb, loud movie about pixels punching pixels.  If that’s your thing, Pacific Rim is right up your alley.  Me?  I’ll pick substance over style any day of the week.

(Go ahead, take to the comments and tell me I’m missing the point.  Just be sure to tell me what the point of the movie actually was.  That’s not a joke.  What is the point of this film?)

(Also, if you know the point of tofu, that’d be helpful, too.)

Pacific Rim is rated PG-13 for “sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief language.”  Giant monsters fighting giant robots:  the former bleeds fluorescent blue flubber, while the latter get torn apart like papier-mâché.  A few civilians get eaten (bloodless), and an F-bomb gets dropped amid other milder profanities.  Oh, and my eardrums hurt.

It turns out that there are people in this world who liked Pacific Rim better than Man of Steel.  I can’t fathom such a poor life decision, but be sure to click back here on Friday for my list of “The Top 10 Reasons Why Man of Steel Is Better Than Pacific Rim”!

Red 2 (2013)

Red 2, the closet comic book film of the summer, has been marketing itself as the antidote to the monster/superhero bombast of the summer season, and while that’s certainly true it might have been wiser to play up the film’s strengths – its exuberant sense of fun executed by professionals who aren’t afraid to take themselves a little less than seriously.

Enjoying retirement to the dismay of his girlfriend Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), former special agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is pulled back into the life by his old partner, the mentally dispossessed Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich).  While another old friend, Victoria Winters (Helen Mirren), takes a contract on their lives for MI6, these Retired/Extremely Dangerous agents scramble to find a nuclear device mislaid during the Cold War before engaging Edward Bailey (Anthony Hopkins), the criminally insane genius who built the bomb.

Let’s get the obligatory stuff out of the way.  Red 2 bears none of the gravitas of Skyfall and probably won’t be making any best-of lists come December (although it’s #1 on my list of “Top 10 Movies of 2013 Where Helen Mirren Blows Stuff Up”).  And while the concept demands aging actors, there are moments when an abler, more spry spy might have shaved about fifteen minutes off the plot; there are moments in Red 2 where Willis seems tired and not, I suspect, because his character needs a breather.  (I hesitate to say “phoning it in,” although it’s clear he’s not having as much fun as everyone else at all times.)

But even though the director’s seat has a new occupant this time (Dean Parisot replacing Robert Schwentke), screenwriters Jon & Erich Hoeber return to make sure that the Red franchise keeps its identity secure.  This is a film that knows itself well and in the end does right by itself.  The Hoebers don’t lose sight of what made the first film work – its melding of no-frills action and an infectious sense of fun.  But a movie premised just on being fun doesn’t quite cut it.  Fortunately, Red 2 is also deft at including the other elements – plot, character, acting – that a film needs to “work.”

The plot is, admittedly, a little thin – we’ve seen “ticking time bomb” plots before – but it succeeds at giving events a sense of significance rather than just a skeleton on which to graft special effects sequences.  That is, we care about the stakes, and the characters are compelling enough to bring it to life; we want to see them defuse the bomb not because they have to but because the narrative structure imbues importance on the issue.

Much of that work of significance comes from the acting cast, who are as resplendently entertaining as they were in the first outing.  Willis, Malkovich, and Mirren continue to do well in their roles (the latter practically demanding a spin-off with a near-cameo Brian Cox, whose infatuation with her never gets old), their taut chemistry losing none of its fizzle in the interim, but it’s Parker who’s the surprise hit, amping up her damsel-in-distress with a strong shot of thrill-seeking.  Parker’s everything you want in an unlikely action heroine – strong, sexy, hilarious, and just the right amount of clumsy-yet-capable.

New face Catherine Zeta-Jones is somewhat less inspiring as a Russian femme fatale, though her scenes with Willis allow the latter to play a stellar moonstruck.  The other big additions, however, are much more pleasant.  Byung Hun Lee is a treat as an assassin with a revenge plot for Frank Moses, and his fight scenes get the blood pumping where the older stars can’t.  But by far and to no one’s surprise, the best addition to the cast is Sir Anthony Hopkins as the insanity-addled scientist, who’s gone mental after years of solitary confinement.  If Red 2 is understood as a space where scenery chewing isn’t just permissible, it’s encouraged (cf. Malkovich), Hopkins goes to the head of the buffet line for an all-you-can-eat performance, greeting invisible cows while distractedly fidgeting with nerve gas.  It’s the kind of role that exudes entertainment, with Hopkins’s gleeful mania suggesting not just the depths of his character’s insanity but also the sheer enjoyment factor that must come from playing such a part.

At the end of the day, Red 2 doesn’t break much new ground, nor does it distinguish itself as mind-numbingly brilliant.  But what it does, it does quite well – entertain, distract, and divert for two hours with a serviceable plot, a solid ensemble cast, and a breathless sense of fun.  Count me in for Red 3 (especially if you get someone like Michael Caine in there)!

Red 2 is rated PG-13 for “pervasive action and violence including frenetic gunplay, and for some language and drug material.”  Yeah, that’s a weirdly specific rating... certainly lots of guns get fired and plenty of stuff blows up.  The profanity is pretty tame, and Marvin’s history with LSD is cited a few times.

Check back with us on Wednesday for another action film, Pacific Rim!

This Is The End (2013)

You can read it as a scathing critique of self-obsessed celebrity culture, or you can take it as the payoff to a decade-long string of actors playing the same character over and over until they give up and play themselves.  But whichever way you choose to take it, This Is The End proves to be childishly crude, incredibly narcissistic, entirely self-indulgent – and, in the end, more fun than it has any right to be.

Trapped at James Franco’s house when a block party turns apocalyptic, a team of Frat Packers – Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, and Franco – struggle through the Biblical apocalypse while navigating their own petty differences and personal insecurities.  For example, with a demon at the door, the men argue about where to masturbate and whether anyone is entitled to a fifth of a Milky Way bar.  Satirizing the apoca-porn genre, which fetishizes death and destruction in disturbing ways (thank you, Roland Emmerich), This Is The End takes several surprisingly earnest turns, even while its leads are giggling about drinking urine.

Let’s be honest – taking This Is The End to task for its blatant and unapologetic immaturity is a little like scolding an infant for soiling himself.  Lest we forget, the writers – if indeed we can call “improvisation facilitators” such – were the savants (emphasis on the idiot) behind Superbad, a gleefully enjoyable movie that was quite obviously written by ten-year-olds.  So of course you’re going to get jokes about genitals and more weed gags than you can shake a joint at.  Of course.  And if that’s your thing, this movie has it in spades.

I’m of mixed feelings on this one.  It’s feel-good in the sense that you’ll probably end up laughing, even in spite of yourself if you go in deliberately trying not to have a good time (why you’d do that is anyone’s guess, but such people seem to exist).  Let’s be honest (the refrain of the day, it seems) – the earnest marijuana giggles Rogen delivers like a puttering engine are infectious, especially when it’s apparent that the rest of the cast are having as much fun making the film.  The cast are all fairly engaging as overblown caricatures of themselves (including an incisive turn by Jonah Hill as the “Hollywood fake” nice guy), though the standout performance award goes to Craig Robinson, who sells it to the back row with the same gregarious delight that made Hot Tub Time Machine more of a success.  There’s something about his mumbled confessions and oblivious non-sequiturs that gives him a fantastic screen presence.

But at the same time, I have trouble giving a good review to a film that contains a five-minute rape joke.  While the masturbation location conversation has a certain victimless immaturity to it, This Is The End takes on a very uncomfortable tone when Emma Watson becomes the subject of a hypothetical-rape conversation.  Though it’s played for laughs as a series of escalating misunderstandings, the scene is made all the more distasteful by McBride’s (admittedly) self-aware scummy self-caricature; and as the rape accusation is bounced around among buddies, the film’s brutal rejection of the Bechdel test is thrown into sharp relief.  I’m willing to excuse many of the film’s excesses  (including the bizarre detail that every demon has pronouncedly enormous genitals), but I’m at a loss as to why the film couldn’t have included Kristen Bell or Aubrey Plaza or – for God’s sake! – Melissa McCarthy among the survivors.

Perhaps I’m overthinking it.  There’s a certain ad hoc insanity to which you have to surrender in order to appreciate a film like this one, a go-along-for-the-ride resignation that carries with it a kind of intoxicating bliss while the lead actors bumble their way through arguments about the quotidian aspects of morning-after survival.  While certainly not for everyone, This Is The End has enough entertainment value that most people will find something worth enjoying – be it the catchy enthusiasm, the high stakes action-comedy, or even the exaggeration of excess (note the mild-mannered Michael Cera, rendered here as an oversexed addict).  A martini glass of urine never looked so funny.

This Is The End is rated R for “crude and sexual content throughout, brief graphic nudity, pervasive language, drug use and some violence.”  Every sexual and profane epithet you can imagine gets trotted out to excessive effect; alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine are abused throughout.  We see Cera’s rear end and the aforementioned demonic genitalia (twice), while many celebrities die in quick but intense fashion (played, you guessed it, for laughs).

World War Z (2013)

Did anyone expect a zombie movie from the director who brought you Stranger Than Fiction (one of the best metafictional films) and Quantum of Solace (one of the less inspiring Bond films in recent memory)?  Maybe I expected a talkier film from Marc Forster, especially because of the epistolary format of the eponymous Max Brooks novel, but what I got was something more engaging – an entertaining blockbuster-lite with some thrilling zombie set pieces.

Brad Pitt stars as Gerry Lane, average joe with classified UN experience which comes in handy when teeming hordes of the undead take over Philadelphia – and, Gerry learns, most of the world.  In exchange for his family’s safety, Gerry agrees to escort a leading physician in search of a cure, a harrowing search which will take Gerry around the world and face to face with speedy, deadly zombies.

Devotees of the Brooks book will likely find fault with the fact that the film streamlines the book’s narrative, eliminating most of the political commentary and torqueing the story toward a more action-based plot.  (In fact, I suspect you could change the name of the film and those folks might like it better.)  While I miss the governmental satire Brooks brought to the genre, portraying political leaders as bumbling naysayers until it’s too late, I found the book a bit repetitive, duplication which the film eliminates by focusing on Gerry Lane and not his interviewees.

This change allows Forster to focus more on in-the-moment experiences of the zombie apocalypse rather than reflect nostalgically on the experience.  While the latter has its advantages in a literary form, it’s hard to imagine that being a compelling film (perhaps as a mockumentarian experiment?).  Instead, Forster drops us in on the day of the zombie disaster, literally in the middle of a traffic jam with only pancakes to prepare us.  Granted, this comes at the expense of character development; we don’t know much about what makes Gerry or anyone else in the film tick beyond basic survival.  Conversely, the film mercifully avoids padding out the cast with stock survivor characters (see Shaun of the Dead for a gleeful vivisection of these tropes) by following Gerry.

It’s likely Pitt’s star power that elicits the audience’s sympathies more so than the strength of the script, but Forster makes up for the script’s shortcomings (with Brooks, five writers – too many cooks?) by prizing spectacle over protagonist.  By staging a series of progressively more intricate and more terrifying zombie confrontations (I counted seven), Forster creates a deeply personal involvement with the audience, who can’t help but hold their breath once it becomes apparent that zombies react to sound.  Simultaneously, the shifting setting creates a global feel for a genre that too often has been bogged down by the stale locked-room plot (cf. Mulberry Street done wrong, Dawn of the Dead done right).

Want zombies in the metropolis?  Sure, you’ve seen it before, but rarely with the terror-of-the-unseen rendered here.  Zombies on a plane?  (Where’s Sam Jackson when you need him?)  WWZ’s got those, too.  And if you liked those two, Forster outdoes himself with the film’s final big zombie scene, which collects all the bits the film introduces to the mythology and throws them together into a tense sequence requiring silence and sharp reflexes – almost like a video game level but without the passivity that often plagues such moments.  Here especially, Forster knows when to go for the jugular and when to pause for a moment of levity (thank God for Pepsi, that’s all I’ll say).

Taken holistically, World War Z isn’t the “complete package” that zombie aficionados might expect from the genre, but what WWZ lacks in innovation it atones for with execution.  With those house lights dimmed and nothing between moviegoers and the screen, the bumps in the dark create an effective cinematic experience that ends up being more fun than I expected.

World War Z is rated PG-13 “for intense frightening zombie sequences, violence and disturbing images.”  The zombies are pretty freaky – pale veiny skin with translucent eyes, snarls and gnashing teeth with dried flecks of blood.  The blood doesn’t flow as freely as elsewhere in the genre, but plenty of bodies are felled by biting, gunfire, and blunt force trauma; in an intense but brisk moment, a hand is amputated.

The Lone Ranger (2013)

Although it’s not a catastrophe by any stretch of the imagination, the biggest problem with Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger isn’t the perceived cultural insensitivity of the “redface” casting of Johnny Depp as Tonto.  It’s that the film is longer than it needs to be and short on that relentless charm that made the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise such a winner.

Following the death of his brother and given a second chance at life, whitebread lawyer John Reid (Armie Hammer) dons a mask and a badge to become “The Lone Ranger.”  He teams with offbeat Cherokee Tonto (Depp) to apprehend the outlaw Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner) while railroad tycoon Latham Cole (Tom Wilkinson) works to complete his cross-country line.

With Pirates, Verbinski and Depp distilled a pitch-perfect blend of high-octane action and quirky character comedy (I’m on record as being of the opinion that the franchise has done no wrong).  A kind of revival of the Indiana Jones brand of action/comedy, Pirates also launched Depp into the household imagination as “he of the strange faces.”  But it’s a long shadow into which The Lone Ranger rides, which means the film’s shortcomings are either the result of detrimentally heightened expectations or simply a case of a film not living up to its predecessors.

The Lone Ranger has been called “bloated” by more than one critic, which accurately describes (but maybe embellishes) the principal problem with the film, which is one of length and pacing.  At 2:29, the film is longer than The Curse of the Black Pearl, and it takes even longer to get started; scene three of Pearl introduces us to Captain Jack Sparrow in one of cinema’s best introductions, yet it takes nearly an hour for Armie Hammer to don the mask.  And while Hammer is a good fit for the milquetoast pacifist Reid, charismatic he’s not, which forces the film to be Tonto’s.  Indeed, the film is often confused about who the star is; Depp’s name is above the title, but Hammer is the eponymous Ranger, though Depp headlines a (largely unnecessary) frame story.

Let’s back up and clarify here.  Hammer and Depp are fine choices for their respective roles.  Though one suspects this won’t be the start of the franchise Disney may have wanted, the two have good chemistry together, and the begrudging partnership that forms would make for interesting sequels that deconstruct the idealized 1950s partnership.  (If anything, the frame narrative sets this up as the “true” account of The Lone Ranger.)  Hammer is good at repressing his personality when he’s riding into battle atop Silver (here, a “spirit horse” with intractable charm in the vein of Fritz from Django Unchained).  As for Depp, this is “strange character #43” in his repertoire, albeit with more depth thanks to a surprisingly nuanced script that goes places of which the marketing campaign seemed blissfully unaware (and which those crying “racism” – at least, those who’ve seen it – seem willfully to ignore).

And the villains of the piece are delightfully hammy; classic bandit Fichtner snarls it up and isn’t apologetic about eating human hearts, a far cry from his blue-collar bank managers in Heat and The Dark Knight.  And I don’t need to tell you that Wilkinson is as always a treat, pouring the syrup on the scenery in lieu of twirling a mustache; you know he’s evil the moment you see him, though the inevitable revelation is played off with an additional, unexpected twist.

So with all these ingredients – including a near-cameo by Helena Bonham Carter as a one-legged brothel madam – what is it that doesn’t hit it for The Lone Ranger?  In large part, it’s an issue of length; like Pirates, there are several action set pieces, and the plot becomes quite complicated as the disparate story elements entangle themselves.  But unlike Pirates, Verbinski and company seem to have, sadly, listened to those who bemoaned that Pirates was too confusing; consequently, plot twists are recapped to death, and the status quo is reevaluated at the end of each.

When the film’s on, though, it’s on.  The action scenes are Pirates quality – particularly a harrowing canyon ambush, a barnyard shootout, and a horse-vs.-train duel set to a rousing reinterpretation of the William Tell Overture – and the performances, as I’ve said, are reliable.  In the end, The Lone Ranger is a bit like walking a mile when a run would do; you’ll get to the same place and feel about as good, but darned if it doesn’t take longer than need be.

The Lone Ranger is rated PG-13 “for sequences of intense action and violence, and some suggestive material.”  There’s some blood here and there, but most action sequences are bloodless and more exciting than gruesome.  A bandit speaks provocatively about a woman, while other men visit a brothel (which looks like a Disneyfied Moulin Rouge).

Loyal readers:  be sure to come back on Thursday for The Cinema King's take on World War Z!

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Having stepped out of the shoes of the world’s greatest superspy for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Sean Connery makes his (first) return to the role.  It’s a milestone, to be sure, and there’s no doubt that Connery is back by extremely popular demand (and a lofty salary, even by 1971 standards).  As the 007th official James Bond film and Connery’s last outing, it ought to have been a moment to celebrate the franchise and its leading man, but Diamonds Are Forever proves to be something less than immortal, a strong contender for “Worst Bond Yet.”  (Remember, though, Roger Moore coverage starts next month.)

After seemingly disposing of his archnemesis Blofeld (Charles Gray), James Bond (Connery) is dispatched to infiltrate the organization of suspected diamond smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John).  The case takes him to Las Vegas, where the diamond stockpiling scheme turns out to be something much more sinister, with an old foe at the helm.  (Hint:  it’s not spoiling anything to say that Blofeld doesn’t die in the pre-credits sequence.)

There’s so much about Diamonds Are Forever that ought to work – another outing with the best Bond villain since Goldfinger, a final fling with the man who is (for my money) still the best Bond in 50 years, and the glitz-and-glamor of Las Vegas. Yet the film falls flat, a tepid knockoff a decade too late of Ocean’s Eleven (1960), channeling only some of that film’s imagery while lacking in the most basic element that made that ensemble piece a hit:  the fun.  In all fairness, Connery is still a good bit of fun as Bond, smirking his way through the one-liners with that divine accent of his.  But despite his best efforts to power through it, Connery’s age is beginning to show here; while I’ve nothing against a gray-templed Bond, the bedroom scenes with St. John look odd and out of place.

It doesn’t help that St. John is entirely uninspiring as the female lead, offering little by way of character development beyond a bikini body and a collection of wigs.  It’s mostly the script’s fault that Tiffany Case doesn’t get to distinguish herself as the character did in the eponymous Fleming novel, but St. John’s line readings are frequently uninspiring.  And she’s not the only one at fault; Connery aside, no one does much acting in the film.  Even Gray, tasked with following two stellar Blofelds (Donald Pleasance and Telly Savalas), drops the ball, turning in a Blofeld who’s more reclusive gentleman than master criminal; this is especially disappointing since the film barely plays with the fascinating idea of surgically-modified Blofeld doppelgangers (still a neat special effect when multiple Grays take the screen).  Instead we get a non sequitur gag about Blofeld as an unconvincing transvestite.

Blofeld raises an important point in this film.  When last we saw him, Blofeld had murdered James Bond’s wife, but when the film begins with Bond in pursuit, it glosses over Tracy entirely; the search begins with Connery in Japan, suggesting that Diamonds Are Forever is actually a sequel to You Only Live Twice while glossing over OHMSS entirely.  The last in the so-called “Blofeld trilogy,” Diamonds Are Forever contains none of the urgency it ought to – while the initial scene is played with sufficient contempt and obsession, Bond later seems nonplussed that the murderer of his wife remains at large, less “You monster!” and more “Oh, you.”  Even Bond’s final revenge on Blofeld doesn’t play as vengeance at all, especially given the artificial and implied nature of Blofeld’s fate.

With Shirley Bassey crooning the title track and Guy Hamilton retaking the director’s chair, so much of the film seems designed to channel Goldfinger, right down to the chase across America.  To Hamilton’s credit, the action sequences are quite good.  Again, the beginning sequence with 007 pursuing Blofeld is among the best in the Bond canon, and the car chases (including the implausible but fun two-wheelie) work well enough, trading on the stellar John Barry score and some clever direction on Hamilton’s part.  Ultimately, though, Diamonds Are Forever is a film that both shows its age and appears terribly dated.  With a hint of tired resignation in Connery’s otherwise implacable persona, it’s a shame that he goes out on this note since we know – we’ve seen – he can do so much better.

Diamonds Are Forever is rated PG.  In addition to the scantily-clad opening credits ladies, Bond courts no fewer than three women, seen in lingerie; two more female bodyguards appear in skimpy workout clothes.  A few fights display blood, but most of the violence has a cartoonish edge.

Roll on, Roger Moore!  James Bond and The Cinema King will return in a review of Live and Let Die (1973) on August 7, 2013!

Monsters University (2013)

Aside from Cars 2 (which, if we’re being honest, felt a little like a cash grab), Pixar’s made a name for itself for high quality original material, only dipping a second time into the well when the story merits it.  We go all the way back to (before) 2001’s Monsters, Inc., which gets the prequel treatment with Monsters University.  And like a matriculating monster, Monsters U stumbles at first but finds itself and recovers by film’s end.

Set to fulfill his lifetime dream of becoming a professional scarer, Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) heads to top college Monsters University.  There, studious Mike meets James P. Sullivan (John Goodman), son of a top scarer and more party-hearty than study-buddy.  Antagonized by the stern Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), the two enter into the college’s olympian Scare Games, with their reputations and their standing at the college on the line.

Entering prequel territory for a buddy picture like Monsters, Inc. verges on predictable in the sense that the film has to cover the “adversaries turn amigos” plot beat in order to feel narratively fulfilling.  Monsters U hits those moments without feeling too forced; remember, Mike and Sulley were hardly birds of a feather in Inc.  Monsters U does not, however, spend too much time making Mike and Sulley polar opposites that meet in the middle, casting them more as contrasting types who begrudgingly work together.  (More interesting for the prequel enthusiast:  the way that Monsters U recasts the tension between Mike and in-crowd wannabe Randall [Steve Buscemi], now college roommates divided by fraternity loyalties.)

There are lots of very interesting things going on in the movie, which aren’t explored at much length in order to focus on the intramural Scare Games.  I see the value in concentrating on the Scare Games; the episodic nature of an event-based competition helps us to see how Oozma Kappa (Mike’s fraternity) improves, and it allows the filmmakers to expand the Monsters world by showing various other creatures (plus it boosts the toy line significantly).

But even in spite of the parts where Monsters U feels paint-by-numbers – which, in Pixar’s hands, is still plenty enjoyable if more generic than usual – there are moments of pure genius that remind us why Pixar movies are still the pinnacle of animated film (or, perhaps, even above most live-action storytelling).  I’ll pit the last twenty minutes of Monsters U against any of the other great Pixar moments for genre-bending imagination and exuberant pathos.  It’s almost too good to spoil where the movie goes, but the film quickly shirks that cliché you feel it’s embracing before contorting 180 degrees into a monster-inflected take on the “Play nice” scene from Toy Story. 

It ends with a callback to a bit of Inc. you didn’t expect to see, but the real heart comes when Dean Hardscrabble – in a turn delivered strongly by Mirren – warms up ever so slightly to our heroes.  It’s comparable to Anton Ego’s change of heart in Ratatouille, and as with Peter O’Toole it’s a reminder that the film needs as much of these top thespians as we can get.  Otherwise, the voice cast is what you’d expect from Pixar – pitch-perfect and full of aural treats (like Aubrey Plaza’s laconic sorority president, though Nathan Fillion’s swagger is more distracting because of how larger-than-life his voice tends to be).

In the end, I find myself having written a more positive review than I anticipated, in part because there’s nothing about Monsters University that is entirely irredeemable; even when they’re not pulling out all the stops creatively, the Pixar team is still lightyears (pun intended) ahead of the competition.  But when they do, Monsters University is a real scream.

Monsters University is rated G.  A few monsters have tricks and skills that might scare the wee babies, but overall most kids can handle it.