Monday at the Movies - February 24, 2014

Welcome to another edition of “Monday at the Movies.” This week, we’re back to what we do best – reviewing comic book movies.

Justice League: War (2014) – Based on the revisionist New 52 incarnation of the Justice League, War gets the band back together again for the first time to repel the invading Darkseid, the literal god of evil.  Where the New 52 comics rebooted the DC Universe back to a publishing line of first issues, War is a reboot for the animated movie universe and – more notably – its prominent and quite popular stable of voice actors.  Gone are Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy; in are Alan Tudyk and Jason O’Mara as Superman and Batman, respectively.  Tudyk is mostly unremarkable as Superman, capturing this incarnation’s cockiness. O’Mara, meanwhile, is the more controversial choice, as Conroy’s an incredibly tough act to follow; O’Mara does lack Conroy’s bass-heavy gravitas, but he brings the Bat into a gruffer territory a la Harrison Ford.  So count me among the pro-O’Mara camp for now.  The big success in the casting, though, comes from Justin Kirk’s turn as Green Lantern.  Kirk gives the role all the braggadocio that forms the core of Hal Jordan, a swaggering portrait of masculinity that gets destabilized in a great “death wish” moment.  (It’s almost a shame he’s not playing Guy Gardner.)  We also get a comparable triumph with Wonder Woman, who's played by Michelle Monaghan as a hack-and-slash newcomer to man's world; this portrayal should appeal to audiences who want a strong female character without that being her defining attribute.  (Keep your eyes out for the foreshadowing of a romantic relationship with Superman.)  While the apocalyptic threat of Darkseid never quite carries the full weight of the comic’s incarnation (or Michael Ironside’s earlier voicework), it fulfills the plot function of “big enough threat” to get the Justice League to unite.  Indeed, the film’s great success is in introducing each Leaguer individually and positing a threat large enough for these disparate elements to join together.  If the rumors about the Man of Steel sequel are true, perhaps this is a good model for how to bring many big figures together without prior solo films.  In this respect, Justice League: War is the other side of the Avengers coin, but it works as well as DC’s other animated successes.  Except, of course, Mask of the Phantasm, which remains the gold standard.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week (and again when Jason O’Mara stars in Son of Batman, which adapts Grant Morrison’s popular “Batman and Son” plotline)!

The Lego Movie (2014)

It’d be a very short putt to brush off The Lego Movie as an extended toy commercial, but it would have been even easier to make that version of the film.  Instead, and fortunately for moviegoers, The Lego Movie more than lives up to its theme tune, “Everything Is Awesome,” by being exuberantly fun, deliciously creative, and containing a whopper of an important message.

Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) is your average-joe Lego minifigure, indistinct in every way until he finds the Piece of Resistance, an object which freedom fighter Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) tell him is the key to saving the Lego universe from the dastardly plans of President Business (Will Ferrell).  Emmet joins the other Master Builders – including spaceman Benny (Charlie Day), Unikitty (Alison Brie) and Batman (Will Arnett) – to discover his awesome destiny.

Critical approval of The Lego Movie is currently holding at 96% over on that tomato-based review site, and it’s no wonder.  Rather than pander to what we’d expect from a film based on a toy (looking at you, Transformers), The Lego Movie does some very creative things while building that creativity into the very fabric of the narrative, literalizing what amounts to a cogent critique of the current state of cinema.  The dystopia of The Lego Movie is the consequence of a cultural apathy for innovation, a contentment to follow instructions, ingest empty pop music, and consume expensive coffee.  The Lego builders rely on old formulas, stable sets of instructions to shape their world.

As a remedy for the plight of creativity, Emmet learns to build outside the box, without the crutch of directions.  Like the rest of the Master Builders, Emmet has to think in new ways, assembling extant pieces into original and fantastic shapes, utilizing the old forms only when absolutely necessary.  It’s a wonderful commentary on Hollywood’s remake-happy philosophy; rather than give moviegoers something they’ve never seen before (Emmet’s double-decker couch), filmmakers are all too reliant on proven formulas (cars with a wheel... and three other wheels).

It’s perhaps ironic that Batman is included in the Master Builders in the film, as he’s one of the most frequently deployed “pieces” in Hollywood’s toybox.  But even in the case of Batman, The Lego Movie proves its point.  We’ve seen possibly every incarnation of Batman on the silver screen – a deliberately campy one in 1966, Tim Burton’s comic-booky version, Schumacher’s homoerotic-inflected hero, and back to Nolan’s ultra-gritty realism – but The Lego Movie avoids falling into the stereotype of any of the previous incarnations by taking Batman in a new direction, guided by Arnett’s perfect voiceover work.  Taking a satirical bent on the “Dark Knight” and all his grim trappings, Arnett’s Batman is performative and growly, but it’s moments like Batman’s hatred of rainbows that add something new to the character.  Taking the pieces that filmmakers have already used, The Lego Movie shows us how to be creative by reinterpreting and revising (emphasis on “vision”).  Take note, Zack Snyder!

The Lego Movie is so delightfully self-aware, casting Morgan Freeman as an omniscient sorcerer but continually undercutting the character with delightful one-liners.  The film is full of surprises, best experienced and not spoiled, so I’ll refrain from my usual litany of review bullet points and conclude by saying that The Lego Movie is, simply put, awesome.

The Lego Movie is rated PG “for mild action and rude humor.”  Really, the movie is quite tame, and were it not for a scene or two where Lego figures are threatened with being melted, it’s entirely appropriate for all audiences.  I mean, my goodness – the characters won’t even say “gosh” as a swear word (Emmet spells it out to avoid speaking it).

Monday at the Movies - February 10, 2014

Welcome to another edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ve got another musical on the docket, but how does it compare to High School Musical 2?

Moulin Rouge (2001) – I’m really not the target audience for this. I’m quite certain of that. Having said that, my reaction to Moulin Rouge is really quite lukewarm. In Moulin Rouge Baz Luhrmann invents the velvet-vomit aesthetic with a rock opera take on fin-de-siècle Paris starring Ewan McGregor as an aspiring playwright and Nicole Kidman as the cabaret courtesan who loves him. The film might have made a bigger impact had I seen it earlier; thirteen years after its release, it feels like a lot of what I’ve already seen, especially in the wake of Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (about which I felt similarly ambivalent). Both films opened with their protagonist/narrator on a typewriter, the words zooming across the screen. As for the central conceit, the gimmicky pastiche of pop tunes and prewar visuals, it’s clever initially, and the use of Elton John’s “Your Song” is actually quite perfect for a romantic film. After a while, though, it gets tedious and at one point – the moment at which Jim Broadbent, otherwise engaging in the movie, is forced to sing Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” – quite demoralizing. Throw in John Leguizamo’s brutal caricature of Toulouse-Lautrec and a runtime that feels much longer than its two hours, and Moulin Rouge will have you seeing red. Unless of course you’re into this sort of thing. If you surrender to the chemistry Kidman and McGregor clearly have between themselves and overlook the fact that the film tries to compensate for its lack of substance with an overabundance of style, you’ll have yourself a blast. As for me, I’ll be over here with the more convincing flicks.

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

Never Say Never Again (1983)

We’ve been doing this review series for fourteen months now, and I always tease the next installment by saying that “James Bond will return,” but it’s been a bit of a downward spiral these past few months as we hit the doldrums of the Roger Moore era (or should we say reign of error?).  Finally, with 1983’s Never Say Never Again, we can officially say:  James Bond is back, baby.  And with Sean Connery back at the helm, it’s almost enough to overlook the film’s faults.

Essentially a remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again finds Connery as an aging 007 pulled out of therapeutic retirement to counter SPECTRE’s latest plot for world domination.  While investigating Domino Petachi (Kim Basinger), the sister of a dead Air Force pilot, Bond realizes that two missing warheads are in the possession of Domino’s domineering lover Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer).

It seems odd to remake an entry in the canon less than twenty years after Thunderball, but the success of Never Say Never Again is largely due to the work of two men – Sean Connery and director Irvin Kershner (who, of course, helmed The Empire Strikes Back).  Kershner keeps the film moving, avoiding the dull bits with a good action sequence or attractive cinematography, and Connery slips back into the role with all the charisma we’d expect from a veteran thespian.  The decision to foreground Connery’s return as a crucial plot element is an inspired one, and it’s woven quite seamlessly into the tapestry of Thunderball for a film that seems familiar yet cleverly updated. 

The graying Bond plotline fits perfectly with the spa retreat portions of Thunderball, also giving Connery a solid action sequence after a frankly lackluster opening (the jungle infiltration here fails to live up to Thunderball’s jetpack funeral crash).  And Connery’s roguish sense of humor plays well opposite a frustrated M; though the “upper management loathes Bond” plot doesn’t quite mesh with what we’ve seen from previous films, a more welcome change is the newer camaraderie with Q – whose previous frustration with 007 gives way to a warmer embrace when he realizes how much fun it is to have Bond/Connery back.

Indeed, Never Say Never Again is an extremely fun outing for Bond.  It mercifully avoids the slapstick comedy of, say, Octopussy (released the same year), but Connery plays the role with a wry wink and a powerful penchant for opportune one-liners.  Brandauer too, as a contemporary Peter Lorre type, plays his madman baddie with gleeful insanity (which he proudly admits when one character labels him as such).  The big surprise here is Basinger’s Bond girl; while I’m not the world’s biggest fan of hers, she plays second fiddle to Connery without succumbing to the empty-headed bimbo stereotype, instead offering a Domino whose anger at her brother’s death is palpable.  More importantly, Bond’s seduction of Domino is entirely plausible, even in spite of the wiry gray tint in Connery’s sideburns (okay, maybe even because of the gray).

It’s not a perfect Bond film – Goldfinger can rest easy in that regard.  Because it’s a one-off in a sideways universe version of James Bond, we never get closure on Blofeld, who remains at large; it’s a shame, since Max von Sydow’s master criminal role is a treat and mixes menace with that classic British smug satisfaction.  Perhaps the biggest crime, aside from a motorcycle in place of an Aston Martin, is that the score is wholly devoid of the classic Bond theme.  For legal reasons, of course, it couldn’t have appeared, but in this regard Thunderball has the advantage; nothing beats a John Barry score.

If someone somewhere layers a Barry soundtrack over this film, though, we might be looking at a solid silver to stand beside Goldfinger.  As it stands, though, Never Say Never Again is a pleasant detour away from the catastrophe of the mainstream franchise, and I’ll never say never ever to more Sean Connery.

Never Say Never Again is rated PG.  Bond beds three different women, one of whom wears a translucent leotard.  The typical amount of fistfights and gunfights transpire, though with a little more blood than in the mainstream series thus far; one person explodes.

James Bond and The Cinema King will return in a review of A View to a Kill (1985) on March 7, 2014!

Monday at the Movies - February 3, 2014

Welcome to another edition of “Monday at the Movies.” This week, we are (as The Beatles would put it) fixing a hole in our coverage of a very special trilogy.

High School Musical 2 (2007) – It’s quite surprising that I never formally reviewed this film, as it’s my personal favorite in the trilogy.  The summer after High School Musical finds the Wildcats working at Lava Springs Country Club; Troy (Zac Efron) and Chad (Corbin Bleu) are on kitchen duty, while Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) lifeguards for pampered twins Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan (Lucas Grabeel).  What I like best about this film is the way it deepens the character relationships significant.  Troy and Chad get a trial-by-fire when the former’s future calls, and Ryan gains some self-confidence by stepping out of his sister’s shadow (indeed, Grabeel steals the show with a layered performance).  It’s not that you’re looking at Oscar-caliber performances, but after the first film the crew clearly know the strengths of their cast and play to those strengths, as when Troy and Sharpay get the duet you didn’t know you wanted from the first film.  The songs, too, are catchier, capturing the exuberance of summer vacation balanced by a fear of an uncertain future.  Wisely, Disney keeps the angst at bay, never surrendering the zeitgeisty just-have-fun of the plot and maintaining a high-energy infectious enthusiasm.  If you’re not smiling during Troy’s “Bet on It” number (or, more likely, guffawing at the goofiness), then you’re likely too cool for the room, a resident of Hipster Central, Population: You.  The hallucinatory “Humuhumunukunukuapua’a” alone is worth the price of admission for that weird moment when Disney meets David Lynch.  More of the same, really, from the first film, just bigger and better, setting the stage for the third installment in the trilogy with, finally, a big kiss on the Lava Springs golf course.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.”  We’ll see you here next week, but don’t forget to tune in this Friday for the Double-Oh-Seventh of the month with a very special returning star!