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The Way Back - Movie Review
Grade: C
If an epic comprises of too many repetitive details, it would be best to keep it short and to the point. These were the thoughts that went through my head when watching Peter Weir’s The Way Back. With that said, by no means is this film lackluster, the cast is strong and the plot fascinating; But it is a disappointment that this compeller of a story is only half of the epic that it is intended to be.
Academy Award nominated director Peter Weir returns from a seven-year hiatus with the quasi film adaptation of “The Long Walk,” a proclaimed true story of six men who walked 4000 miles from Siberia to India. While the validity of this story still remains questionable, Weir uses solely the premise of this epic, substituting the characters with ones of his own creation.
The beginning of the film we see the main protagonist Janusz (Jim Sturgess [21, Across The Universe]), a Polish prisoner of war who has been accused of sabotage and espionage towards the Communist Party. He is then sent to serve twenty years at a Siberian gulag. There he meets an American, Mr. Smith (Ed Harris) who insists “kindness can kill you here.” Janusz and Mr. Smith, along with four other men including Russian criminal Valka (Colin Ferell), devise an escape plan to escape the gulag. Peter Weir is really brief in this portion of the movie with the escape being described in under half an hour. As a result, the characters are hastily developed, placing a subtle wall between the audience and the main figures. After the escape, Janusz leads the party through 4000 miles of different terrain with obstacles opposing their will to survive and attain freedom. They also encounter a young Polish girl, played by the rising star Saoirse Ronan (Atonement, The Lovely Bones), who joins the party in their venture for freedom.
While the premise is strong, the walk is long (yes, it rhymes). The film goes into an hour of directionless plot, while also maintaining a “rinse, wash, repeat” style of story telling. The plot direction is as follows: walk one terrain, face natural obstacle, look at another daunting terrain. While the direction in which the story is told is ultimately weak, the cast and the cinematography surely make up for it. Even though the cast is not as emotionally involved with the audience as it should be, the performances are solid. Ferrell and Harris are multi-dimensional as there is a mystery within both of the characters. If any emotion is involved with the characters, it will be towards these two. Saoirse Ronan, who by the way I am a big fan of, plays a small role but provides the much-needed pathos. The main protagonist played by Sturgess is somewhat of a bland character, but it is he who creates the most dramatic moment at the end of the film. Another strong point of the movie, as said, is Russell Boyd’s cinematography. The Way Back is from National Geographic Entertainment (which also produced March of The Penguins), resulting in images that illustrate nature in an eye-pleasing and interesting manner.
Overall The Way Backis a superbly well-made film. Even though it has it moments of monotony, the cast and fascinating plot contributes to an entertaining experience as well providing a small commentary on communism. It may not have the strong emotional connection seen in Weir’s other films (The Truman Show, Master And Commander),but the cast’s efforts make the film compelling enough for a watch. Grade: C
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The King’s Speech Movie Review
GRADE: A-
I admit it, I usually commence my movie reviews with a pretentious introduction that most people will stop reading after the second sentence. Film snobbery set aside, let me say this in a simple statement: Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech is in my opinion the best film of 2010.
Director Tom Hooper’s (known for John Adams) The King’s Speech is a British period piece depicting the speech impediment of King George IV (Coling Firth). After the death of his father and the scandalous resignation of his brother King Edward VIII, George is abruptly given the royal position. Taking on the country on the brink of World War II, the King, with the help of speech therapist Lionel Lugue (Geoffrey Rush), must overcome his stammer to address a country ready for battle.
Let’s start with script, The King’s Speech is a light-hearted and passionate approach to a small aspect in one of the most major events in history (I am of course referring to World War II). The film’s dialogue masterfully combines elements of wit with serious dialogue. The use of Rush as comic relief provides a nice balance between the otherwise grim deterioration of Britain’s parliament and the protagonist’s struggle to find success. Screenwriter David Seidler’s script does not quite reach the brilliance of David Fincher’s The Social Network; but the difference is that The King’s Speech succeeds in combining more than an one-dimensional emotion.
Performance-wise, Colin Firth steals the show. Coming from his nomination in A Single Man, Firth returns with an Oscar in mind. Firth plays his role as George VI with apparent repressed emotion and humor that still maintains the character’s dignity. Geoffrey Rush, who plays George’s speech therapist, and Helena Bolena Carter, the future Queen Mother, respectively deserve a nomination for their support of Firth’s character.
Overall, The King’s Speech blends great film making with a story full of inspiration with no cliche present. Firth’s character is a character that most will sympathize as we can all see ourselves in King George VI’s personal struggle.Although somewhat predictable, The King’s Speech will grab you, inspire you, and uplift your soul. GRADE: A
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Black Swan - Movie Review
GRADE: C+
Coming from a successful award circuit with The Wrestler - which consequently restarted Mickey Rourke’s acting career - director Darren Aronofsky returns with the ballet-based psychological thriller Black Swan. Following in the footsteps of Aronofsky’s previous films (Pi, Requiem For A Dream), Black Swan is a dark psychological nightmare with disturbing cinematography that freely crawls underneath the skin of its audience. In his newest venture, it seems as if Aronofsky took stylistic notes from Jean-Luc Godard and at the same time attempted to make a vague statement. Essentially, Black Swan is a film that has too much style and pretentiousness rather than its implied substance.
Like The Wrestler, Black Swan converges most of its attention onto a single character. Natalie Portman strays from her archetypal roles and impeccably plays the innocent character of Nina; an aspiring ballerina who receives the star role of the “Swan Queen” in an upcoming rendition of Swan Lake. The production of Swan Lake requires the queen to play the innocent White Swan and the provocative Black Swan. Primarily, the film focuses on Portman’s conservative character, who must under pressure, contrastingly channel her inner malevolence to “perfectly” perform her role. Portman IS the highlight of this film. Like with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, Portman defines herself as an actress in this film. Although it takes an excessive amount of time to buildup to Nina’s breakdown, the final half of Portman’s performance is flawless. The spectrum of emotion and insanity she displays is so real, she has truly locked the “best actress” category for the upcoming award season.
While Portman’s performance is flawless, this brings to question the real point of the film. Aronofsky places symbolism in the film that is vague and at the same time obvious. With different scenes of shocking imagery such as the sensual scene between Kunis and Portman, it is really difficult to grasp why the film possesses such figurative scenes. There are various points of blatant symbolism, giving the impression that the film attempts to be deep. An exemplification of this complaint is the non-stop sensuality seen in the film. I acknowledge that it is to bring out Portman’s immorality and show the effects of a disturbed artist, but there is just so much that it overshadows the brilliance of the film. There are too many figurative aspects in Black Swan. That is where the film loses substance, it tries to be cerebrally abstract even when it is not. The film really should have focused on Portman’s mental breakdown rather than employing figurative imagery.
Even though the film’s “figurative” impression refrains itself from being a masterpiece, Black Swan is one of the better technical films that 2010 offers. Set aside the excessive focus on deepness, Aronofsky’s film is visually gorgeous and its intensity immense. The visual imagery is the disturbing essence that you expect from the director. It digs into your emotions, and it stays there throughout the movie. Black Swan is gritty and raw, and the usage of handheld filming is subtle yet effective (unlike movies like Hancock, which uses it in an irrelevant fashion).
Overall, Black Swan is a visually striking film and a unique one at that. Black Swan disturbs, but that sadly is solely what drives the film as a whole. Arronofsky attempts to place an nonexistent underlining meaning that tries to intertwine itself with an arthouse feel. It can essentially be seen as a pretentious failure in an attempt at that genre, but hopefully audiences will just ignore the film’s senseless statement. Grade: C+
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Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World - Movie Review
Grade: B-
Whenever Michael Cera is in a movie, there is always a connection between the Independent world and mainstream media. In other words, Cera usually stars in movies with an “Indie” theme but is geared towards the general audience (i.e Nick And Norah, Juno). In this case, Edgard Wright’s (Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz) Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World explores the world of pop culture using a combination of video games and indie rock.
Scott Pilgrim is an adaptation of the obscurely-known comic book series of the same name. Pilgrim, the bassist of the fictitious band Sex Bomb-omb, is a somewhat socially awkward Canadian that always finds himself in a bad relationship. He later meets a dead-pan hipster named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and soon dates her. But before Pilgrim can continue to date the mysterious girl, he must defeat her seven-evil exes in glamorous video game-like sequences.
The aspect that makes this movie stand out is its beautiful and clever art direction. Edgar Wright, who is famous for multiple cult hits, directs a film that thoroughly emulates the feel of a comic book/video game. From the apparent onomatopoeias to the video game life bars, the audience gets the feeling that they are watching something truly unique.
The other main characteristic that makes this film work is, as stated earlier, its countless references to pop culture and the Independent-music genre. With music composed by alt-rocker Beck, Canadian band Broken Social Scene, and Metric, this music is stuffed with Indie goodness that will make a hipster smile in their plaid cardigan and wayfarers (Small easter egg: Pilgrim’s roommate was reading a fake newspaper with a Neko Case advertisement in it. This is totally irrelevant but it made me smile). It also occasionally ridicules the subculture in a friendly joking manner poking fun at veganism, “mainstream” labels, and common memes (“The first album was so much better than the first first album”). It also obviously succeeds in channeling the video game world with its boss battles and the occasional Zelda reference.
While all this said, the film is far from perfect. The concept of the boss battle gets stale quick; What is amusing at first becomes repetitive and dull. The number of exes, although accurate to the comic book series, is just too much to handle in two hours that it made me wish the final battle would happen twenty minutes earlier. Additionally, the battles are equally immense so its hard to discern that Cera’s character is conquering anything significant. The film has a run-time of 112 minutes, and it lost its steam at the three quarter mark. What also is flawed is that the movie is simply brainless and does not have much substance. While I do not expect a movie called Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World to be much of a thought provoker, I just thought that it was too silly for its own good. With an outlandish amount of slapstick humor, it was really hard to see this movie as more than a summer movie.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a blast. It is filled with so much action and humor that it is definitely worth the price of admission for music and video game lovers alike. There is no doubt that it will become a cult hit just as Edgard Wright’s other movies have. But with its lack of substance and excessive silliness, it is disappointing that the movie could have been so much more than a fun two hours to spend. Grade: B-
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Summer Movie Guide
Summer is the time of the year where most of the films released are huge blockbusters, with outlandish budgets and CGI. I do not particularly like the fact that 2010 has been the year of the 3D movie, because the quality of film have obviously been diminishing. But alas, I still find myself going to the movies and paying eight dollars to fill my Summer weekdays. Since I do not particularly have the time to make extended reviews of each Summer film, I have created small tidbit reviews of Summer movies. While some are just simply “not good,” there are some highlights of this ill-fated year.
Iron Man 2: I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the predecessor of this Iron Man franchise. Well it was not exactly cerebral as The Dark Knight (its Summer opponent of 2008), it was fast-paced and indeed had enough action to fill its run time. I wish I could say the same about the sequel, Iron Man 2. What was a franchise known for its action, is now a dull plot-developing movie. The majority of the movie focused on the foolishness of Robert Downey’s character. Although well-acted, I wish there was more “Iron Man” than of Tony Stark. The final scene of the movie does go back to it comic-book roots with the duo of War Machine & Iron Man, but it feels empty because there was not much to support it. It is an acceptable and somewhat enjoyable blockbuster, but I could not get over the mindless drama and lack of action. Grade: C-
The Karate Kid: The original Karate Kid is not necessarily a classic in my eyes, but it is a film that I remember watching it as a child. So I was not too ecstatic watching it except for the fact Jackie Chan was in it, an actual fighter (sorry Pat Marita). The film does an adequate job in recreating the “classic” film with its somewhat altered story of the cliched “boy gets girl” and “boy gets revenge.” But what makes this film from being a good movie is the age of the characters. While I am not saying Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith, is an unsuited actor, but the age of the children is too young to be effective. Is a 10 year old vengeance really valid, or is it just an act of impulse? What made the original movie lovable was that the audience connected with the main character and ended up rooting for him. It is kind of difficult when the person you are cheering for is fighting for simply a frivolous rivalry. Grade: C-
The Last Airbender: Horrible. Do not waste your time with this incoherent mess. M. Night, stick with your plot twists that no one enjoys. Grade: F
Toy Story 3: Aside from the occasional mishap such as Cars, Pixar is one of those companies that is downright consistent. Toy Story 3 follows the tradition of Up and Ratatoullie, in which an animated film is capable of tugging at the audience’s emotions with its unbelievably imaginative stories. Toy Story 3 delivers with its original voice cast and the characters children growing up in the 90s have grown to love. Even though the 3D animated genre has been used to almost near death, Toy Story 3 strays away from the mediocrity because it creates an experience that does not solely isolate the entertainment of young children. The significant flaw that comes to mind with the film is that it does not feel as fresh as its predecessors. Yes, I do acknowledge it is a sequel, but it feels as if we have already been exposed to this world many times before. Grade: B+
Inception: Christopher Nolan is no stranger to making movies that will send the audience in utter confusion (i.e Memento). Inception is one of the movies that will have audiences thinking long after the movie is over. It will allow you to question your surroundings, and will cause you to question what reality truly is. The production value of the film is incomprehensible as almost every aspect of the movie is fully-thought out. Hans Zimmer has been the soundtrack producer for previous Nolan films, and here delivers a soundtrack that compliments the action and suspense of the movie as a whole. Perhaps one of the highlights the film is the ensemble of actors. Within the ensemble are three Oscar nominated actors (Di Caprio, Page, Watanabe) and two winning individuals (Cotillard and Caine). There is no doubt that it is well-acted and it adds to the reality of the film, where in fact should be absent. The minimal flaw in the film is that Nolan attempts to put too much to try to confuse its audience, but in the end this is just a small flaw in an immensely great but pretentious film. Grade: B+
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