Month: July 2010

A woman named Evelyn Salt is held captive in North Korea. The North Koreans believe her to be a spy and even under extreme torture, Salt denies it (though it is true), maintaining that she’s an executive with a petroleum company. Eventually though she’s released in a spy exchange. It was something that she hadn’t expected, but it was done thanks to efforts of her boyfriend, Mike Krause, a German arachnologist who is something of a big deal. His looking into this threatened to make a huge international stink, and so Salt’s CIA superiors decide to arrange for being freed.

Two years later, Salt’s cover is still good and things are going well for her. One day though, a defector comes in from the cold. A master Russian spy named Orlov who reveals a plot to kill the Russian president scheduled to happen in the United States. Orlov tells that this will happen due to a deep cover operative placed within the CIA- an agent named Evelyn Salt. Now Salt is on the run in order to supposedly clear her name.

Salt is the latest movie from director Philip Noyce and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer. Noyce is best remembered for his work on two of the Jack Ryan movies, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Wimmer is certainly no stranger to the action genre, having written movies like Law Abiding Citizen, The Recruit and the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. Wimmer’s better known (at least to me) for the two movies that he wrote and directed, Equilibrium and Ultraviolet. I think they’ve delivered a pretty fun movie here, with just a few quibbles on my end.

It’s been awhile since seeing Philip Noyce do this kind of big action movie, and he hasn’t lost his touch. The action scenes here are genuinely thrilling with one of the big highlights being a chase scene near the start of the film. The pacing of this film is pretty balls to the wall all the way through, though you never get lost in it.

Salt’s story revisits the days of the Cold War in a big way, offering up it’s own comic book take on a huge Russian master plan. Now I’ve seen some complaints regarding it’s realism, or lack of, and I have to say, this didn’t bother me. It might’ve if this had some sort of mocking quality to it, but it doesn’t. It’s all handled very straight with some solid conviction all around.

Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt and I think she does one hell of a good job here. She looks terrific (as always) and she’s one of the few actresses around who I think can pull off this kind of action and make it convincing. She’s backed up with some fine support from Liev Schrieber and Chiwetol Ejifor. Daniel Olbrychski plays Orlov and does a nice job as this Russian master spy. He’s mainly there for story exposition, but certainly carries the authority to pull it off.

Some of my quibbles though are in the casting. I think this should’ve gone a little bigger with it’s casting of both Mike Krause and the President of the United States. I’m sure that both August Diehl (Krause) and Hunt Block (the president) are doing just what’s asked of them, but there’s not a whole lot more. And while their casting doesn’t really hurt the movie, having actors who could’ve brought a bit more to it could’ve added a lot more. Andre Braugher is cast as the Secretary of Defense and he’s only seen in a single scene near the end where he barely has anything to do- and so to me, an actor of his calibre is wasted. He could’ve served this movie better being cast as the President of the United States.

Now the next quibble goes into spoiler territory, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, then skip this paragraph. Almost from the moment he’s introduced, you sort’ve suspect that something is up with the character that Liev Schrieber plays. Indeed by the movie’s end, you find out that there is indeed something going on with him. Now I really like Schreiber and I think it would’ve actually been pretty cool had they defied convention with his use and maybe have had another CIA agent introduced at the start to take on what Schreiber ends up doing. It would’ve been nice to see him more in the good guy role here. Again, like with the casting of the president and Mike Krause, this doesn’t really hurt the movie, but it really could’ve improved if this had just defied convention a bit.

Still, even with my quibbles, Salt is a lot of fun and hopefully the start of a new franchise for both Jolie and Philip Noyce. I had a great time with this.

Dom Cobb specializes in the world of corporate espionage. He has a reputation for being the best in the business for finding the deepest of corporate secrets. He does this through the infiltration of dreams and using a specialized technology that lets him and his associates construct a shared dream world. Once their target is in this world, then their secrets are pretty much Cobb’s for the picking, but only because of Cobb’s advanced use of the technology and deep understanding of the human subconscious.

Cobb’s talents though have made him a wanted man in the United States, and since the death of his wife Mal (related to their work in dreams), he’s desperate to be able to come back to the States and be a real father to their children. Dom gets his chance thanks to a ruthless corporate head named Saito. Saito wants Dom and his associates to infiltrate the dreams of a corporate rival. But instead of taking a secret from him, Saito wants Cobb to implant an idea through a process that they call Inception. Inception has never been performed successfully, but Saito has promised Cobb that if he can perform this, Saito will use his connections to clear Cobb’s way to get back to his family.

Of course, Cobb accepts the mission and what follows is one hell of a terrific and extremely smart ride.

Inception is the much awaited new film from director (and writer) Christopher Nolan. Nolan of course made huge waves with his second film, the low-budget Memento and has since become a real power player with Warner Brothers since helming Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (and about to go even further with him shepherding the next iteration of Superman for film). Inception, from what I understand, has been an idea that he’s been developing since making Memento. That long thought and planning is very much evident on the big screen.

I tend to think of this film as the sort of thing you might get if you mashed art house guys like Peter Greenaway (who’s been known to make movies where he’s set himself some specific rules for how his films unfold) and David Lynch (who’s readily dealt with dream interpretation in his past work) with just a touch of a hardcore action filmmaker. This combination doesn’t exactly make for what one tends to think of as a typical summer blockbuster. Yet, it really does work. And further, this harkens back to Memento, giving you the type of movie that you can watch again and again just to see how all the pieces work together.

This film is a mix of two things: an intense character study and your classic caper film. On one end, we get a very intense character with Dom Cobb and Cobb has a pretty dark past with the death of his wife, Mal. This is so ingrained in Dom that even in the midst of a shared dream world, Mal will manifest herself and threaten the entire operation. As this progresses, Dom must come to grips with his involvement in his wife’s death while still staying on point with the task at hand.

On the other end, we have the classic caper film- and as with all good caper films, we have some clear rules for how things are supposed to play out. Of course though, nothing ever sticks to the plan in the end of these movies and everything gets incredibly screwed up.

Add in the idea of dealing with deep layers of the subconscious and you’ve got some pretty impressive meat to chew on here.

It’s all skillfully handled and a lot of credit has to go to the editing of the film- especially in the film’s second half where eventually we end up seeing Cobb’s team dealing with the main dream and then three stages of dreams within the main dream. This could easily become confusing if you don’t have a deft touch on the cutting room floor. As complicated as this becomes, it’s never confusing to follow- as long as you’re paying attention. Kudos to Mister Nolan and film editor Lee Smith (Smith should get an Oscar nomination for his work here).

Inception certainly looks terrific thanks to some pretty smart production design and the sure eye of cinematographer Wally Pfister (who’s worked on every Nolan film except for Following). I also have to give high marks to Hans Zimmer for a knockout score- it’s not atypical of his previous action work and it’s particularly effective as the caper plays out.

None of this would work if you didn’t have a cast that’s ready to convict to the ideas here in spades, and fortunately Nolan has that cast. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb and there’s a lot of similarities here to what we’ve seen from him earlier in the year with Shutter Island (I wasn’t that taken with Shutter Island on the first viewing and certainly owe it another shot down the road). The difference here is that it wasn’t as apparent to me what his final resolution was going to be as it was in Shutter Island. What DiCaprio brings to this though is a an intensity that feels authentic to a man who spends a deep amount of time and study to the dream world and knowing just how harmful that world can be. He’s the anchor here, but as we find out, you’re just not sure how sturdy that anchor is and DiCaprio is pretty convincing on that end.

DiCaprio’s got a lot of excellent support. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays his right hand man, Arthur. Gordon-Levitt’s certainly come a long way since Angels in the Outfield and Third Rock From The Sun. Now he’s strictly support here and does a solid job of being Cobb’s second. But even as support he gets a true area to shine in one of the film’s most innovative and imaginative action scenes in the caper’s second dream stage. This scene, even though it’s skillfully edited with the other layers, is a standout and you have to figure a lot of credit goes to Gordon-Levitt’s conviction to make this play just right. Ellen Page plays Ariadne who becomes Cobb’s new Architect for building a dream world. Page is one of those actors that you can always see has a brain in her head when she’s on-screen. It pays off here handsomely as she tries to figure out everything she can about Cobb’s demons.

Tom Hardy and Dileep Rao make up the rest of Cobb’s team. Hardy plays Eames who acts as the Forger and can literally shapeshift himself in the dreamworld to play specific people in the subconscious. Dileep Rao plays Yusif who acts as the sedative supplier to the team and has his own special concoction that can work through three layers of the subconscious as well as connect up to 12 people at one time. Both are solid, but Hardy really stands out here with his own brand of self-confidence.

It doesn’t stop there either. Ken Watanabe plays Saito, the man who wants Cobb to do the job. There’s just one catch, Saito wants to go in with Cobb’s team and see firsthand that the job gets done. Now Watanabe’s good here, but I have to admit I had a little trouble following some of his dialogue in some places. Some of that though I chalk up to the theatre that I saw this in and where I sat, so I expect something different when I’ll next see this. Cillian Murphy plays Robert Fischer, Jr.- the Mark. Up to the point where we first see him, this whole film has centered around Cobb and his team. So Murphy has to do his best to give you a pretty rounded character in a short amount of time and he certainly does here. Tom Berenger (man, it’s cool to see Berenger in a movie like this- sort of like how cool it was to see Rutger Hauer in Batman Begins) plays Browning, Fischer’s advisor and he’s certainly good there, but he gets to go in for double duty when Eames assumes Browning’s identity in the dream world and he brings in some nice subtleties.

Finally though, I have to give extremely high marks to Marion Cotilliard who plays Mal, Dom’s wife. First, she’s just gorgeous, an absolutely beautiful woman but that’s just the surface. She’s the root of Cobb’s own problems and so whenever she comes on screen, then she’s got to carry a lot of weight and a lot of presence and she certainly does. And as we get further and further in, she has some pretty heavy and harrowing moments that are indelible.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve seen a movie that has dealt with the world of dreams and the perception of reality. Dreams have been dealt with in things like Dreamscape and the anime Paprika. Reality has certainly been dealt with in things like The Matrix movies, The Cell and Vanilla Sky. But rarely do we get to see something that takes it as far as what Inception does (The Matrix[ films being the ones that next do it best in my mind). This is the sort of film that demands being seen again and again. Oh, I certainly had a satisfying experience the first time, but there’s just so many layers of depth here that certainly makes me want to see it again). Don’t miss this one, make it a point to see it in a theatre on the best screen you can- you’ll be glad you did.

Without a doubt, another film that will definitely figure in as one of the best that I’ve seen for 2010. Inception is highly, highly recommended.

When you see the logo for Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios, you can pretty much bet that if you enjoy genre entertainment, you’re in for a good time.

Producer Robert Rodriguez was pretty much given carte blanche from 20th Century Fox to do something with the Predator franchise. And I think that he and director Nimrod Antal have got something pretty cool here.

Predators starts with our main character, an American mercenary, plummeting from the sky to the ground below. He’s just wakened up and realizes that he has some sort of parachute around him, but he can’t activate it. It activates on it’s own at the last moment and this mercenary lands in the midst of a steaming jungle. One after another, others also land. All of them are warriors from other cultures with one seeming exception, a doctor. They all form a reluctant truce to try and find who tossed them out of an airplane. Well, soon our little band of warriors find that they’re no longer on Earth and they’ve been brought to an interplanetary game reserve. They realize that they’re the game and they’re being hunted by the most fierce hunters in the galaxy, the Predators.

What follows is a pretty cool cat and mouse chase story with this fierce band of prey trying to outwit and escape from the Predators. Oh, there’s really nothing new here, though a new twist is thrown in with the Predator race, but that doesn’t really matter. If you’re familiar with the other Predator movies, you pretty much know what you’re going to get, and that’s some slick and brutal science fiction action.

Predators delivers on that count for sure. While this isn’t anything overly complex in how it’s set up, director Antal manages to have his action unfold logically and for the first half hour of the film, really builds up a nice sense of dread. Our characters are all of the two-dimensional variety, but again, with this series, that’s not really a detriment. And there are some nice bits thrown in along the way, though you really won’t find yourself necessarily identifying with any of these folks, other than just through their desire for survival.

It all really looks good, and in some scenes, I almost get the feeling that Antal and Rodriguez are channeling the art of Frank Frazetta in some places. The visual effects are really nice and of course, with a movie like this, the main standout is more in make-up effects. When you have the best in the business, KNB EFX Group, handling that, you know you’re in good hands.

Another huge plus for the movie is it’s musical score by John Debney which is basically repurposing Alan Silvestri’s scores from the first two Predator movies. With this series, it’d be wrong to do anything any different.

Now as I said, the characters are all two-dimensional (again not a bad thing) but still you want a cast that can give it all some credibility and fortunately, they have a good cast here with a couple of surprises for me anyway.

Adrien Brody leads the cast as our American mercenary (and yeah, he does have a name, but it’s left unrevealed until the end of the film- the name itself isn’t really a big deal, but it’s revelation is something of a turnaround point for this character, so I’m not going to reveal it). Now I’d never expect to see Brody head up this sort of action film, but I have to say, he’s really got the chops to do it. His character seems the most hardened out of the entire cast, so much so that he’s the most ready to sacrifice everyone else for his own survival. As far as I’m concerned, he’s had a pretty good year this year with genre entertainment with both this movie and earlier this summer with Splice. He’s an intense character, not a lot of joy in this man, but you definitely get the feeling that he’s having a good time doing this sort of part.

He’s backed up with a solid supporting cast that includes Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Topher Grace and Laurence Fishburne. Fishburne comes into the movie a little later as previous bit of prey who’s managed to survive in this environment for quite a long time, and as such, he’s a little off his nut. It’s still good work from him though, and again, he’s just the right sort of guy to give this some credibility. the real surprises for me though were Alice Braga and Topher Grace. I’ve not necessarily been a fan of either previously. The last thing that I saw Braga in, Repo Men, she was quite the drag in that film. But here though, she holds her own well with this group of hardened guys, being both tough and having a little maternal quality to her. Topher Grace was really unexpected. He plays the doctor amongst this crew. I really don’t want to reveal anything further about his character, but I’ll just say that for me, this might be the best thing that I’ve ever seen him do, so take from that what you will.

And of course, this wouldn’t be a Robert Rodriguez film if Danny Trejo wasn’t in it in some way or another. Trejo’s here and doing just what we want him doing, playing the badass. Even better though, is that running with Predators we get the trailer for the next Rodriguez movie, which will be Trejo’s starring vehicle, Machete which we first saw with Quentin Tarantino’s and Rodriguez’s Grindhouse and is already looking like it might be some of the most fun on the big screen this year, but I digress…

Predators is just a whole lot of B-movie fun and it really helps to put this franchise back on the map again. I’m not going to denigrate the Aliens Vs. Predators movies (I actually really enjoy them), but it’s nice to see them back in their own movie. You’ve got a rock solid cast here, a great look, terrific visual and make-up effects, and the music that you want to hear with this franchise. By all means, see this one.

M. Night Shyamalan, I really was rooting for you.

After making a big splash with movies like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs, an M. Night Shyamalan movie was something like a mini-event when it would come along. These were nice movies that embraced genre filmmaking and all punctuated with a twist of some sort, and they resonated with audiences Then came The Village and Lady In The Water. Things got a little more ponderous. While I like these, I don’t like them to the same extent that I like the other three movies. Then came The Happening, Shyamalan’s only venture into R-rated territory and things really devolved. The movie was ill-cast, there was little credibility to what was on screen and overall it was just plain laughable… and not in the good way.

But I like M. Night Shyamalan, I really do, and so when I heard he was going to adapt the Nickelodeon cartoon, Avatar, The Last Airbender, I was hoping that he was going to succeed with something that didn’t rely on his past formula.

With it’s alternate history setting, The Last Airbender tells the story of the four nations of the Earth, each represented by different elements- Water, Air, Earth and Fire. All are kept in check by a being known as the Avatar, who has mastery over all of the elements. 100 years ago (from the present day shown in the movie), a young boy named Aang was chosen to be the next Avatar. Aang was part of the Air Nation and has mastery over the element. Aang didn’t want the responsibility and ran away. He got into trouble and found himself encased in ice only to be discovered 100 years later by Katara and Sokka, two siblings part of the oppressed Water Nation. In the time that Aang was gone, the harmony that the other nations had was no longer in place. The Fire Nation sought domination over the rest of the tribes and now rule the world. Aang now accepts his responsibility, but in order to succeed, he must first master the other elements. He sets off on a journey with Katara and Sokka at his side to first master Water.

The Last Airbender is a loose adaptation of the first season of the animated show. Shyamalan’s got a difficult task here in that he has to encapsulate that first season (20 episodes) into something that can run a reasonable time in movie theatres, and honestly, I think it was more than he could handle. The way the movie plays out, it’s almost as if the season was broken down into a bare bones outline without any of the glue that binds it all together. Of course liberties are taken, and I expected that they would, but some just seem to come out of left field. The biggest of these is just a mispronunciation of Aang’s name. I mean this is just about as basic as it gets- you already have 20 episodes of a show that pronounces the main character’s name in a pretty exact way. That’s right in front of you, so why ignore it?

So that’s the starting point and from there, everything else falls. Characterization hardly exists here. One of the big charms of the animated series is that Aang likes to have fun along the way and he develops a real bond with Katara and Sokka. Well, that fun aspect of the character is almost entirely lost here. There’s little bits in Noah Ringer’s performance as Aang, but it’s real threadbare (and no I don’t blame Ringer or any of the other actors for this). The bond with Katara and Sokka is just there. There’s nothing to show how it develops, it’s just there to move things forward. The only character to have any real sort of development is Prince Zuko played by actor Dev Patel (best known for his role in Slumdog Millionaire). Zuko is the disgraced son of the leader of the Fire Nation. He seeks to gain redemption by being the one to find the Avatar and bring him back for his father to control. Patel does a pretty good job with the character and at least by what’s shown on-screen, he gets the chance to show that he’s not just one-note.

The rest of the cast I think looks really good here, this script just uses them more as placeholders more than giving you something to really care about.

Now I might be willing to forgive the lack of characterization if there was more flow in how events happen here. Like I said above, this plays out as if it was just a plot outline with high points to hit. It hits the points, but it’s disjointed in how it goes from point A to B, it just happens without any real continuity. And when there is continuity, it’s told to us in either narration by Katara or long passages of dialogue by other characters. There’s nothing else to give us any real resonance, it just moves forward.

The animated series is also known for it’s action and the action on the show is quite good. It looks like Shyamalan has studied the action work of directors like The Wachowski Brothers and Zack Snyder and he tries some pretty cool stuff here, but it just doesn’t carry the same impact that you’d get from the Wachowskis or Snyder. They have a real affinity for action and I just don’t think that’s in Shyamalan. He’s never really been a guy to deal with this sort of fast-paced action in the past and I just don’t think that’s something that’s been real important to him. It shows here.

Now I only recently started to watch the animated series. I never watched it when it was on Nickelodeon originally. I only watched the show because I knew this was going to be Shyamalan’s next movie and I wanted find out a little bit more about it before going into the movie. I thought this whole thing was going to be little too “kiddie” for me. I was pleasantly surprised. The series is a whole lot of fun and it’s really sucked me in. Everything is there to craft a good live action movie out of it and yet Shyamalan misses the boat on just about every point. To it’s credit, as I said above, the cast certainly looks good in their parts. The production design is pretty decent and overall the visual effects are very nice. James Newton Howard provides a pretty stirring score. All nice parts, but the man in charge just can’t bring them all together. As the credits roll, the first thing you see is “Written, Produced and Directed By M. Night Shyamalan” and so there’s only one person to blame for the whole thing and that’s really unfortunate. I really did want him to succeed with this and get back on the right track.

One final note, this movie is being presented in 3D. I did not see it in 3D. After seeing Clash Of The Titans, I was pretty much in the camp that if it was a movie where the 3D was simply being tacked on- I was going to avoid seeing the 3D version and save myself a bit of money. I read a few things about the 3D in advance of this and if there was anything that was universal in what I read, it was just that the 3D wasn’t very good. So obviously, I can’t comment on that. It doesn’t matter though, all of the other elements are so far gone here, that even a good use of 3D couldn’t save this mess.

I’d still like to see M. Night Shyamalan succeed, but after the universal drubbing this movie has been getting (and justly deserved), I’ve little hope that that will ever happen again in a big Hollywood production. This one’s right up there with Robin Hood and Jonah Hex as one of the worst that I’ve seen this year.