Month: March 2011

It’s August of 2011 and the world is gripped by the news of groups of meteors headed to Earth.  The meteors are poised to hit 12 major populated seaport areas around the globe. The evacuation of these cities is taking place under military control and soon they reason that there’s more to this than an act of nature.

U.S. Marines Staff Sergeant Mike Nantz is a 20-year combat veteran.  Though his last mission was a success, he lost men to achieve it.  Nantz is ready for retirement and on the day before the meteor strike, he gets it, but is quickly called back into service.  He’s set to fill in for another sergeant for a group of men under the leadership of a green lieutenant.

As Nantz and his men learn of the true nature of the meteor strike, an alien invasion, they’re given a mission to rescue a group of civilians who have found shelter in a police station deep behind the front lines of combat.  Now, Mike Nantz and his men have a limited amount of time to rescue the civilians and get back to safety before bombs are dropped along the coast line of Los Angeles.

That’s the premise to Battle: Los Angeles. When I first saw the trailer to this, I thought I was seeing an immediate sequel to last year’s Skyline. Other than the idea of an alien invasion centering around Los Angeles, this is totally unrelated.  Thank goodness, I wasn’t the biggest supporter of Skyline though I do think there’s a lot of good stuff in it, but where it failed for me is that I didn’t care for it’s main characters at all.

That’s not the case for Battle: Los Angeles. Here, I did give a damn over what happened to these people.  While deep characterization isn’t necessarily director Jonathan Liebesman’s central focus, he gives you enough for most of them to make you care. With the case of Michael Hantz, he gives you a lot more. But more on that in a moment.

I just have one little gripe about the movie and that’s it.  This is primarily shot in a shaky camera style that suggests the idea of a cameraman being imbedded with the men.  For the most part, this really works for me here and in other movies, but where it didn’t work was near the beginning of the film.  Before going into combat, the movie flashes back to the day before to set up Nantz and each of his men.  I found this style of shooting a little annoying here because it really wasn’t necessary.  This is the calm before the storm and here we’re given bits and pieces about each of the men.  The shooting style becomes just a little too intrusive during this brief period.  This is a pretty moot complaint though, the set-up doesn’t take too long and the rest of the style works tremendously well with the rest of the film.

On the whole, the movie looks terrific.  It has great production design and the special effects are about as top drawer as it gets.  That terrific look gets punctuated with a great musical score from Brian Tyler.

As you’re watching this, you’ll certainly see similarities to other movies out there.  I thought it was like taking military movies like Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan or We Were Soldiers and mixing them with movies like the above-mentioned Skyline or Independence Day. Is it derivative?  Sure it is, I certainly recognize that and I don’t mind it at all when it’s well put together, and Battle: Los Angeles is well put together.

Before this, Liebesman directed movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and Darkness Falls neither of which I’ve seen or didn’t really care to see, and so I wouldn’t necessarily think I was going to get something that great from him for this big film.  Obviously I was pleasantly surprised.

Aaron Eckhart plays Mike Nantz.  I’ve been a big fan of his ever since first seeing him in Neil LaBute’s In The Company Of Men. While I’ve not seen everything he’s done, I’ve seen quite a bit of it and Eckhart always brings in some standout work.  I mention In The Company Of Men because in that, Eckhart plays about as vile an individual as it gets.  With Battle: Los Angeles he goes to the other end of the spectrum to play what I think is his most heroic role to date.  Eckhart was always my pick to play Marvel Comics’ Captain America on the big screen, and Battle: Los Angeles shows he would’ve made a great one, but I digress.  Mike Nantz is the most fleshed-out character in the movie, and though he does have this heroic exterior, Eckhart is a strong enough talent to show you that there’s more to the man than just that.

The trailers that I’ve seen for the film only show Eckhart clearly in a few brief moments.  He’s not the big push for the film, that belongs to the special effects and big action.  I actually think it’s a good way to push it, that will be a clear draw for the audience going to see this and further, I hope they’ll be satisfied with it.  They’ll be further rewarded though with this fine bit of work from Eckhart.  This may not stand out in the same way as In The Company Of Men or The Dark Knight, but still it’s a solid and grounded performance.  Hell, I’d follow him to hell and back after seeing him in this movie.

The rest of the cast is filled with some solid younger acting talent that I’m not really that familiar with, with a real standout for me being Ramon Rodriguez, who plays the young lieutenant leading this mission.  Other recognizable faces include Michael Pena and Bridget Moynahan as two of the civilians.  Pena gets a nice chance to step up to the plate as a brave father, and I wish Moynahan would’ve had  a similar type scene, just because I like her.  She doesn’t do anything wrong here and the movie isn’t necessarily wrong to not do more with her, she’s just someone who I like and would’ve liked to have seen a bit more of.  Also in the cast is Michelle Rodriguez who plays an army Tech Sergeant who joins up with Nantz and his crew on their mission.  Compared to what she did in Machete this is quite a bit restrained, but it still works.

Now even though I said that deep characterization wasn’t the focus here, that’s not to slight the cast (or the writing) by any means at all.  I think it’s evident by just how physical this movie is that there’s a tremendous amount of hard work put into this.  Further, I’ve got to hand it to Liebesman and writer Christopher Bertolini to not burden this cast with a character who would be there to deliver the snark.  You’d almost expect that with a movie like this, but it’s played totally straight and for that, I really applaud these guys.  It’s very cool to see a story about people heroically stepping up to the plate played with a totally straight face.

Battle: Los Angeles is a whole lot of big screen big fun.  It’s an intense ride that rarely lets up, but when it does, it does at the right periods and for the right amount of time.  It’s look and special effects are fantastic and it’s held together by a terrific lived-in performance from Aaron Eckhart.  Don’t miss this… highly, highly recommended.

David Norris is an energetic New York Congressman who’s now making a bid for one of the state’s senatorial seats.  David is an amiable guy, running on the idea that he’s more appealing to a younger voter and he has great plans for the future.  David’s got a bit of a past though and it catches up to him, giving him a sudden drop in the polls which of course results in his losing the election.  David wants some time alone to prepare his concession speech and quickly makes his way to what he believes to be an empty men’s room.  As he’s talking to himself and working things out, he hears a noise from a stall, and realizes he’s not alone.  An attractive woman named Elise steps out, and after they converse a bit, David is inspired.  All through this, David is being watched.

When he makes his concession speech, David comes clean with all of his supporters and talks about how his entire campaign was so focused group engineered that it got him away from showing his true self.  He’s cheered by the crowd and from there makes his way to working in the private sector.  In the background, the watchers are making sure that something needs to happen to David at a precise moment.  The watcher assigned to David falls asleep on the job, and doesn’t cause the event that is supposed to happen.  Instead, as David is getting on a bus to go to work, he suddenly comes across Elise again.  And the two strike up a further conversation both being enchanted by each other.  Now the mysterious watchers are scrambling to do what they can to fix things, because David’s involvement with Elise is not in their master plan.

And that’s the starting point of The Adjustment Bureau the newest movie starring Matt Damon and the first movie directed by George Nolfi, who’s been better known as a writer for film’s like The Bourne Ultimatum and Ocean’s Twelve. This is probably better described as a light romantic drama with some fantastic overtones.  It has a few good points, but for the most part, this just didn’t work for me at all, but then I don’t think I’m it’s intended audience either.

For me, the draw for the movie was twofold:  this was based on a short story by Philip K. Dick and it’s star, Matt Damon.  While I’ve not read the short story, I’ve managed to have a pretty good time with other movies adapted from Dick’s work.  I’ve also always liked Matt Damon and have really admired his work in most all of the movies I’ve seen from him.  So, that’s what got me in the door.

What made me want to run for the door was the way this was all put together.  The way I see it, there were three elements that basically just don’t jibe for me here. One being the passage of time and character development considering that, another being the attempts to explain the Adjustment Bureau itself, and the final just being the tone of the film.

Let’s get to the Bureau itself first, and a warning there are spoilers here, so if you want to see this cold, I’d suggest skipping the next paragraph or so.  What we’re led to believe about the Bureau is that they’re some omnipotent force that’s out there to make sure that we humans run our lives to a carefully laid out plan.  While it’s never said directly (one would assume not to offend anyone’s religious beliefs), it’s implied that the bureau are agents of Heaven who work for who they call The Chairman (who as explained in the movie, we know by many different names, but let’s just say God and get it out of the way).  The Bureau’s agents can freeze time and move quickly between destinations thanks to the cosmic placement of key doorways and the mysterious hats that they wear (which leads to the funniest line in the film, though I doubt it’s intentionally so).  But they also have a problem with water and that sort of disrupts their ways of tracking their targets.  They don’t have enough manpower to cover every single human, though they do the best they can with who they’ve figured to be the key people to keep us from screwing things up further.  And as the movie plays, we have one key scene which tells us that the plan has been rewritten once for David’s destiny.

Now if you’re sitting back and thinking about all of this while it’s playing out, you can’t help but ask a lot of questions that point to some pretty dramatic holes in the logic of the whole thing.  Part of the promotion for this movie has been calling it “more mind-bending than Inception” and at least for me, that opens the door for picking this thing apart.  Inception’s rules are clearly laid out and everything works within, Christopher Nolan takes the time to make sure they do.  Thanks to The Adjustment Bureau’s breezy nature, this isn’t concerned with making it’s rules work in a logical manner, but more in just being conveniences to make sure that Matt Damon and Emily Blunt can overcome the whole thing in the end.  The big picture isn’t the concern, at least for the filmmakers’ idea of what they think the audience wants.  The biggest question looms though, that if this is a major master plan for how we’re supposed to survive, wouldn’t you at least think that there are numerous back-up measures set in case certain key things don’t play out?  Well, that was a key question for me anyway.

Second, the passage of time and character development.  After things have been revealed to David about the Adjustment Bureau and it’s master plan, three years pass and in this three-year period, nothing at all has really changed for David as a character except that he’s getting ready to make another bid for a senator’s seat.  He’s still single-minded about Elise after what amounts to maybe somewhere between 5-7 minutes of talking and pure animal attraction.  On top of that, there’s been nothing further brought up around the idea that this mysterious group of divine figures have been following him.  David does manage to find Elise again, and this time he really does get further involved.  This escalates things for the Bureau, and now a top agent has to get involved to really put the fix in.  Once this happens, David and Elise are separated for another 11 months before they come together again.  Even though David is still single-minded about Elise, he’s managed to overcome all of his past personal indiscretions and now it looks like that senatorial seat is a lock.  To me, this sort of obsession along with what would be a grueling campaign would, I’d tend to think, drive a guy a little bonkers.  But exploring that isn’t this movie’s concern, it’s the idea that we’ve got to get these two kids together.

Finally, we get to the tone of the film.  As this starts, it all seems very light and fluffy.  The movie’s score is this sort of lyrical stuff that I’d expect to hear in a romantic comedy (James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News is what came to mind) and the dialogue and banter is all on the light and friendly side, basically it’s all very non-threatening.  That non-threatening feel though also extends to the Bureau itself.  Oh sure, they make the attempt to say that if everything fails, they (the Bureau) will make a complete mindwipe on David.  But it’s all talk, and no action like this is ever shown, which brings us back to the basic contradictions of the nature of the Bureau itself.  When the film builds to it’s climax, it tries to escalate everything so that there should be some danger present, but it doesn’t work and so I never felt there was any risk of anything at all.

Now, some might think that I’m asking too much out of this.  I don’t think so, especially considering that it is adapted from a Philip K. Dick story and it’s promotion does make the comparison with Inception. With these two factors in place, I really do think this opens itself up to dissection.

To be fair though, I do think the film has a great look.  It’s extremely well shot and the effect of traveling through these doorways to faraway areas in New York City is terrific.

In addition, I think the performances are just fine, they’re just left to the mercy of Nolfi not wanting to go into any great depth with them.  Emily Blunt (who plays Elise) certainly does a fine job, though she’s not given altogether that much to do other than just enchant Matt Damon.  Damon is certainly affable enough and he and Blunt have some good chemistry together.  Anthony Mackie plays Mitchell, the Bureau agent who’s been assigned to David and he plays this as if he’s certainly troubled by all that he has to do to keep the plan running.  Terrance Stamp plays Thompson, the higher-grade agent who has to come in after the three-year period has passed.  Though he’s very two-dimensional, his authority does come through.  The best of the cast for me though was John Slattery who plays Mitchell’s superior, Richardson.  Though I disagree with the tone of the movie, I think Slattery is the one member of the cast who does the best with trying to balance it all out.

I’ve been told by some that I just don’t have any sort of affinity for a romantic movie at all.  There’s some truth to that, but I think it’s just more that I don’t have much of an affinity for them the way they’re told today.  I mentioned Broadcast News above, and I think that’s a terrific film.  Even though I didn’t much care for The Adjustment Bureau, I don’t think that will be the case for most people who see it.  Still, I think it’s tone, it’s lack of logical character development with considerable time passage and the very nature of the Bureau itself all are contradictory to the type of fluff that I think this move is poising itself to be, that being a love conquers all film (and there’s nothing wrong with that when it’s done well).  With that said, I’d certainly like to offer up a few alternatives that deal with some similar elements.  Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait and Albert Brooks’ highly underrated Defending Your Life deal with some of the same things seen here in a far more satisfying manner, and yet they don’t leave much to question at all.   For me, that can’t be said about The Adjustment Bureau.