Monday at the Movies - July 2, 2012

Welcome to Week Twenty-Four of “Monday at the Movies,” in which I tie up a few loose ends on movie series whose final installments haven’t been reviewed yet on this site.

Hulk (2003) – If I’m not yet on record as saying that Mark Ruffalo is the definitive Hulk actor, quote me on that because I’ve just rewatched Ang Lee’s Hulk, starring Eric Bana as the jade giant and don’t have a lot of good things to say about it.  For one, the plot is overfilled with antagonists with competing interests; consequently, none of them (save, maybe, Nick Nolte as Bruce Banner’s evil father) becomes terribly compelling – not Josh Lucas as a cutthroat corporate scientist, nor Sam Elliott as General “Thunderbolt” Ross.  What we do get is the curious directorial choice to drain the film of any positive emotion; all the characters are either broken or emotionless (or both), which allows some of the acting to walk the line between nuance and flatness.  Unfortunately, Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross is the worst offender here; at moments, her affection for Bruce is touching, but at others she looks like she’s staring at cue cards written in a foreign language.  But the film’s worst offense isn’t its emotional flatness or sense of bleak despair, but rather it tampers with Bruce Banner’s canonical origin in a way that fundamentally alters the character.  I can pardon the 2008 film’s link to the Captain America super-soldier serum as an exercise in world-building, but the connection to the father is purely imagined and ultimately unfulfilling since it never quite makes sense – especially at the end when a deus ex militia ends a major fight that, once again, is more about which can be out-angst the other than it is about superheroic adventuring.  I wanted to like this, but it fell flat and ranks below the Norton interpretation.  Long live Ruffalo.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) – It’s no secret to readers of this blog that I’m a huge fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and for my money the series goes four for four with this soft reboot, which finds Captains Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) in a quest to find the Fountain of Youth – or at least prevent the dread pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his shifty daughter Angelica (Penélope Cruz) from reaching it.  The film is instantly accessible, building a new world without relying on or scrapping entirely the preceding trilogy.  Instead, the series goes off in an exciting new direction, promising a healthy spirit of competition between Jack and Barbossa for future films.  One of the highlights of At World’s End was seeing Depp and Rush out-pirate each other, a plot element that recurs here to great success.  What’s more, personal favorite McShane is delightfully menacing, unequivocally embracing his character and reveling in his mischief; think of the unswerving evil and odd syntax Al Swearengen of Deadwood, but with an enormous smoldering beard and far fewer F-bombs.  And Cruz’s Angelica brings a fun new character to the franchise, carrying on impressive repartee and even occasionally matching Depp, who brings his A-game as always.  Indeed, if I have complaints, it’s that Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack is more recycled than original, and Judi Dench has far too small a cameo role as a royal lady wooed by Captain Jack.  Though it didn’t receive much critical love, On Stranger Tides is more than satisfying, and its box-office receipts thankfully made a fifth film (allegedly in the works) a viable prospect.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) – While the fourth Pirates film proved the franchise still had steam, Superman IV took a critical drubbing and continues to be hammered by superhero fans who regard its very name as shorthand for the worst in the genre.  But when I finally watched it this week, to my surprise there’s actually a lot in the film that works, making me wish that had been given a bigger budget and a better script editor.  Christopher Reeve is back for his last outing as the Man of Steel, facing Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor and evil clone Nuclear (“Nucular”) Man.  The film is incredibly brief, meaning that the story is overly compressed, with characterization shortchanged for protracted and uninspiring action pieces which often cut away from the action (the film’s only explosion happens off-screen).  The screenplay, too, is weak in places, with Superman manifesting bizarre new powers and breaking his own rules several times; the secondary villains, moguls who buy the Daily Planet, are overdrawn and poorly performed, and the filmmakers apparently forgot that humans can’t breathe in space.  But there’s a good amount of the film that does succeed; Reeve and Hackman in particular are fantastic (even if the latter is saddled with Jon Cryer for a sidekick), their performances feeding off each other and nailing the heart of their character’s relationship with expressive frowns and shrugs.  Additionally, Jackie Cooper gets a terrific character arc as Perry White, who refuses to compromise his values in the face of the changing landscape of journalism.  Though the script is excessively preachy about the woes of nuclear weaponry, I’m surprised to say that I enjoyed it more than I thought it would – at least, more than the unfortunate Superman III.

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

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

I'm still not quite sure what to make of Ang Lee's critically lauded Brokeback Mountain. At the insistence of a few friends and the confidence in Heath Ledger's acting ability that I acquired like a booster shot thanks to the trailers for The Dark Knight (in which Ledger plays the best damn Joker, period), I finally gave the movie a try.

And the jury's still out on the movie for me.

In his essay "In Critical Condition," David Bordwell draws a distinction between "an excellent film" and a film that is "to your liking." (I direct you to the entire article, a fascinating look at how movies are reviewed and analyzed: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=2315. Thanks, Karl.) This is the distinction I've been trying to sort out with this, the story of a complex love that begins between two sheepherders (Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, as Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist) in the 60s. Most everyone in the critical circle saw it as an excellent film, yet I'm not sure if I can dislike an excellent film. I'm not even sure if I dislike Brokeback Mountain.

Let me air my laundry about this one and hope that I'll come to some conclusion about the movie by the end. First the good news. The movie is consistently paced, lending a pastoral fairytale atmosphere to the whole work. If this was Lee's goal, he succeeded; if not, then the film dodges "boring" by a few feet. Acting in here is for the most part sterling (see the bad news for the notable exception), with a powerhouse performance by Heath Ledger that made me want to melt in my seat. Why he didn't win the Oscar I'm not quite sure - Hoffman's Capote was so-so but falls flat when compared with Toby Jones's a year later in Infamous. The two wives, Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams, are suitably layered, but it's Ledger's performance that you'll take away for a while.

I've commended Lee for his ability to keep the flow of the film moving while maintaining a slow and deliberate pace. Yet I have to mention one scene in particular as a stand-out visual, the one I'll probably keep with me for a while. Ennis takes his wife (Williams) and daughters to a picnic/firework show, only to be met by foul-mouthed truckers who won't keep their language at a family-friendly level. When Ennis attacks the truckers, fireworks go off behind him while the camera rests at a Citizen Kane-like ground-up angle. The result is stunning.

Now the bad news. The crux of the film is obviously the relationship between Ennis and Jack. So it hurts the movie greatly that Jake Gyllenhaal is not a terrific actor and seems out of place against the vastly more genuine Ledger. Gyllenhaal seems like a child playacting in his father's cowboy uniform, and it seems that his only character development comes by growing a porn star mustache. Although I have to give him some applause for the "I wish I knew how to quit you" scene, Gyllenhaal is overall disappointing in here. (Randy Quaid, too, is lackluster, but his part is so small that he's barely noticeable.)

The other key flaw in the film is that it asks the viewer to be accepting of a relationship that betrays two marriages. I'm sorry, but I draw the line there. Had Ennis and Jack divorced their wives to be together (or at least not married until false pretense), I would have been more positive about their relationship. But the heartwrenching performance by Michelle Williams, especially when she realizes that her husband is in love with another man, makes it difficult for me to enjoy the film when I know that this relationship is making people so unhappy. Call me old-fashioned, but I disapprove of marital dishonesty and find it hurts my enjoyment of a work.

In the end, I think I have to concede that the film wasn't quite to my liking, mostly because of the flaws that - in my analysis - prevent Brokeback Mountain from being an excellent film. That said, I didn't want to stop watching at any point once I realized that the slow pace seemed intentional. I suppose I'd have to recommend it, if for nothing else than to see what all the hoopla is about.

Just don't expect an excellent film. Be content with a "pretty good, but could have been great" movie that will stick with you for a long time.

You'll wish you knew how to quit it.