Skyfall

I am currently sitting here, looking at the computer screen, and trying to bluff my way through this movie review.  I so desperately want to talk about Skyfall, the 2012 James Bond film that took the franchise to new financial highs and celebrated the 50^th anniversary of Bond in films.  I personally feel that it is a movie that demands to be dealt with respect, and the best that I can do is admit that I viewed it while feeling incredibly ill and dealing with a fever.  During that time most of what happened around me seemed to be quite surreal and distant, so viewing a movie to be analyzed was much harder than I imagined.

Even though it was just a few days ago, there is very little that I can recall about my experience, which may seem like it should be forfeit from review but I still feel compelled to at least talk about what did stick with me.  It was the first James Bond movie that was able to capture the same excitement in me that I experienced when I saw A View to a Kill as a young child.  Back then, I remember being enraptured by the energy of James Bond and caught up in the thrills of international espionage to the point of deciding that I wanted to become a spy when I grew up (while I am sure most kids wanted the same thing, my reasoning was because it would mean I could hide in garbage cans – don’t ask me why I believed that, I just did).

The feel of the James Bond franchise shifts and moves through time, and evolves around the various actors who put on the tuxedo and drink the martini.  When Daniel Craig took the reins in Casino Royale, the tone was set for a more gritty Bond, one that looked at his character in a way it had not been dealt with before.  While I slept through some of Quantum of Solace, Skyfall was a return to brilliance as 007 was pushed to his limits in order to once again save the world.  The energy and pace of Skyfall was so well executed that it never felt like there was much down time, even though the action was not on-going throughout.  I have struggled with being entertained with a number of Bond films from start to finish, but that never happened here as the script, performances (Judi Dench and Daniel Craig are near perfect in their roles), and visuals were always at the top of their game and providing fistfuls of entertainment.

Every great Bond film needs a great Bond nemesis, and playing the part in Skyfall was Javier Bardem as Silva, a particular thorn in the side of MI6.  I have always felt that a good villain in a Bond movie needs to have a distinct physical appearance, and a distinct delivery on their lines.  Bardem has both of those, as he was able to speak with a tone and a cadence that elevated him from the typical to the land of the obsessed antagonist.  His performance was right up there on par with Christopher Walken’s, so perhaps that is a reason why it compared so well to my memories of A View to a Kill.

From the opening action sequence, through the intro and song (Adele’s Skyfall is most likely the best Bond song to date), right through to the finale, it was a film that has set a bench mark for the potential of this franchise.  It won two Oscars, was nominated for another three, and is currently the eighth highest world-wide grossing movie of all time, and when you watch the film it is so easy to understand why it has achieved what it has.  It is a film that sets the scene for the future of the series, as well as tipping its hat to the origins with the inclusion of the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger, and it raises excitement for what lays in wait for the super spy to tackle.  While I knew for sure that I could not do this movie justice because of the state I viewed it in, I did want to make sure that I at least communicated how much I enjoyed it and just how much fun it was to view.

Rating – 3.5 out of 4 stars

Starcrash

I had written this much earlier in the day, but then everything was put aside because of snow tires and potlucks.  Both of those are good reasons to be busy, especially the potluck.  When it was all done, I got a bit distracted from posting this because video games with a friend came a knockin.'  All of this is to say that here it finally is, after being proof read by some very tired and weary eyes...

While most of the movies that I watch are either seen in theatres, rented, borrowed, or on Netflix, it was Youtube that supplied the gem that is Starcrash for me.  When Star Wars arrived on the scene in 1977 it inspired the minds and imaginations of many people and had an effect on the science fiction genre.  It was this all-time classic movie that Starcrash was essentially attempting to rob, plunder, and pilfer, as it tried ever so hard to ride the coat tails of a film that had grabbed the public attention in such a way that it borders on mockbuster territory.

The film is about Stellar Star (Caroline Munro), who is a smuggler pilot, and her navigator Akton (Marjoe Gortner) who is… well, her smuggler navigator.  Essentially the duo is the equivalent to Han Solo and Chewbacca, but Akton is more than just a wookie who plots the course.  First, and most importantly, he sports the films best afro, one that cannot be defeated by conventional weaponry.  Secondly, he seems to have all sorts of crazy powers such as being able to see into the future, shooting asterisks from his eyes, and being unable to be killed when shot or bludgeoned over the head by a nasty villain.  He also wields a lightsaber, so he is part Luke Skywalker.  Even though the movie establishes him as being unbeatable, he perishes a slow and unstoppable death when his arm gets lightly seared by a lightsaber.

So, we have some smugglers who are then brought into the midst of a quest to save the galaxy and are aided by a robot named Elle.  He kind of combines the qualities of C3PO and R2D2 into one package that is also part Cajun Darth Vader, if that makes any sense to you.  If it does not, that’s alright because there is very little about this film that will make any sense at all.  Christopher Plummer is in it and plays the Emperor, a decent ruler if ever there was one.  His son, Prince Simon, is played by David Hasselhoff, who brings out the movie’s second best afro.  A rumour I heard is that Plummer got involved with this movie because it meant he could be in Venice for a few days.  I suppose I would do the same if given the chance.

Most campy movies have a few moments here or there that create memories for the viewer, instances that are so poorly executed that it baffles the mind and provides great deals of entertainment.  Starcrash has those moments in abundance, but what where it excels over most B-movies is the fact that it is never not laughably bad.  Every sentence, every delivery, every single scene brings about an embarrassing level of joy that makes this movie entertaining from start to finish.  That is extremely hard to come by with movies like this.

I could go into the specifics of the movie, but I doubt I would really do it justice.  I could try and describe the giant robotic amazon that attacks Stella, or an attempt could be made to try and mention all the unpractical intergalactic space-wear that Stella sports, but words would fail.  It really is a film that needs to be seen to be believed, as anything I could say may just be taken as hyperbole.  ‘Nothing could be that bad,’ I had told myself when I started watching it, but I really only needed to hear the first two or three lines of dialogue to know that my framework of cinematic failure was about to be stretched beyond belief.  While it is not as bad as some films that are made by people in their spare time with whatever gear they could assemble, this is a film that had Christopher Plummer in it which takes it to a whole other level of where the bar is set.  When he did this movie he already had a Primetime Emmy award and two other Emmy nominations to his name.

This is not a movie that I was able to find on Netflix or iTunes, but I did find it lurking around on YouTube.  If you are a fan of B-movies and have not seen this film before, you are in for a world of wonder and magic as you can follow the adventures of Stella Star, Akton, and Elle through a series of improbable scenes that you just have no reason to care about other than the fact that they are a symphony of unbelievable failures which will delight the side of you that enjoys watching disaster strike.  While it stole from Star Wars greatly, one could argue (very slightly) that it influenced Empire Strikes Back with Hoth and Cloud City.  That would be giving this film too much credit, though.  There is a reason why it is hard to find for rent, and that is because it is just that bad… and that is why you should watch it.

Cheesy Movie Rating – 4 out of 4 stars

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

While it is always best to view a movie for what it is you see and not what has been anticipated, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug makes that very hard to do.  I best like to think of it as entering a dating relationship with someone who carries a lot of baggage – it is impossible to accept them without having to deal with many other factors and variables that have shaped them.

Firstly, many audience members enter into The Hobbit movies with an imprint of The Lord of the Rings trilogy burnt into their minds.  Second, the movie is based off of a book which is written in its own unique style and tone.  Third, An Unexpected Journey came out last year and has laid the groundwork for what The Hobbit trilogy will be like.  With all three of those factors, it is extremely hard to walk into the theatres and view this film for merely what is presented in front of you. 

Of the three factors mentioned, the first one is the hardest to shake because in so many ways it appears that The Hobbit is being made to recapture The Lord of the Rings magic.  This brings about a very somber tone in The Desolation of Smaug, where everything is of the utmost seriousness and any whimsy from the book has completely vanished.  We also see the inclusion of the popular Lord of the Rings elf Legolas, who gets as many (if not more) significant scenes as the title character does.  Essentially, in trying to recreate The Lord of the Rings we get a movie that follows a number of different stories and characters instead of centering around Bilbo Baggins like the book does.

Where this was a main issue that I had with the ever so bloated feel of An Unexpected Journey, it was much more organic and smartly applied in The Desolation of Smaug.  While watching the movie, it came across as a much more focused effort with almost every scene having a point in terms of the larger story.  That is not to say that it was not longer than it needed to be, as it easily could have been forty minutes shorter (and to that point, it could have been one movie instead of three films and near nine hours of footage).  Even though it was longer than it needed to be, I never got completely bored… only remotely bored at a time or two, which beats the multiple times I was moderately to completely bored in An Unexpected Journey.

I do not personally have a problem with long movies, but they should be long because they are impossible to tell any other way.  The Lord of the Rings movies were indeed long, but they did not feel that way.  That is because they actually had to trim and cut the vast source material to create the movies, leading to every scene being of significance to the story or characters.  The Hobbit movies, however, do feel like they are long because Peter Jackson and company want to make them long so that they can be a repeat of the LOTR, and that is when a long movie can really feel like a slog to the viewer.

Going into this film, it seemed as though a lot of people were saying ‘it is a step in the right direction,’ and I was joking to a friend about how that actually may not actually be a positive thing to say.  However, after now seeing the movie, it really is the best way to sum it up.  It is a much more cohesive story than the first movie, but it never quite becomes an excellent movie.  There are moments and scenes that are great and wonderful, but the picture as a whole fails to be the sort of epic that Warner Bros. want it to become.

The visuals are, at times, wonderful and create Middle Earth in such a vibrant way for the viewer that it becomes easy to be lost in the journey that is unfolding.  At other times I found the visuals a bit hard to track do to constantly moving camera work and some blur during the action scenes.  On the topic of the action, purists of the book may have a hard time with the insertion of certain action sequences, but to me it never entered the realm of being too out of place and fit with the adventure that Peter Jackson was trying to tell.  When we finally meet up with the dreaded dragon, Smaug, we are treated to wonderful environment and images that can keep eyeballs fixated on the screen.

Just as with An Unexpected Journey, I absolutely loved Martin Freeman’s portrayal of Bilbo Baggins, but I do feel sorry for him as his character really takes a back seat for a lot of the movie.  Essentially, the dwarf king is the most important character in the movie which seems to be one of the many elements that Jackson is trying to re-live from LOTR.  If you don’t believe me, just look at the visual similarities between Aragorn and Thorin and tell me that Jackson does not have a certain look that he is trying to replicate.  Spitting image, I tell you.

Two other treats in this film were Benedict Cumberbatch who was the voice of Smaug, and Evangeline Lilly who played an elf named Tauriel.  While Tauriel’s character is someone who was not in the original book, her creation and implementation in the movie were a good fit.  The film certainly lacked quality female characters for one, and the inclusion of Tauriel brings a female strength to the dwarfish sausage fest.  Lilly’s performance brought independence, spirit, and compassion to the movie and I will not shy away from saying that she was a very believable warrior.  Also, on the Cumberbatch front, the man has such a great voice (very Alan Rickman like) and delivery for this kind of role.  I can’t wait for the day that he plays a James Bond villain, because he would be perfect for such a role.

It is sad when the best way I can frame my thoughts on a film are that it is far from its destination, but it is on its way and that is where I land on The Desolation of Smaug.  However, it is about as good as it could have been after being set up by the lackluster first film.  An Unexpected Journey is what established the tone and the pace, and this film could not deviate from that.  Considering that fact, it did the best it could.  When the lights came up at the end of An Unexpected Journey I had no interest in checking out what was laying around the corner for our heroes.  However, when the credits rolled last night and the crowed started scurrying out (opening night and not even a half full theatre, I may add) I was left with some mild curiosity of what would happen next.

Rating – 3 out of 4 stars

Appendix  -  Spoiler Alert

Now, in keeping with the style of The Hobbit movies, I only think it appropriate to have an appendix, because at times that is what we have been forced to watch and that is the majority of what the third movie will be.  I am not joking.  The Desolation of Smaug ends with him flying to destroy the town on the lake, so it can only be assumed that he dies within five minutes of that fight which will be kicking off the next movie.  There is no way it could be a long fight because, let’s remember this, Smaug breaths fire and that little town is made out of nothing but wood.

And after that, the only thing that we are left with is the battle of the five armies, which is actually being set up a bit nicely in The Desolation of Smaug, but there seems to be a huge insistence on putting events in motion (Sauron and such) that lead directly into the LOTR trilogy.  This leads me to believe that the majority of the third film will indeed be nothing but appendix style material that aims to connect the two trilogies.  I have also read this is true, so there we go.  I believe this idea even came about when Guillermo Del Toro was working on the films and wanted the book to be contained to one movie and then have a second film fill the gap between the two.

Personally, I like Del Toro’s idea better as it would allow The Hobbit to be completely separate from the other movies and could allow it to stay true to the distinctive flavour of the book.  However, because Peter Jackson is intertwining it all together, it becomes just an extension of The Lord of the Rings and not a story in of itself.  This is amplified by the lack of attention that is paid to the title character.  Really, as my friend pointed out after the movie was over, everything that is in the movie should be stuff that Bilbo sees first hand as we are lead to believe this is the tale that he is passing on from his own experiences.

It seemed that in so many ways these new movies were to completely be a recreation of the original trilogy, right down to the run times and the increasing length of the movies as the series progressed.  Luckily it seems that this idea was shed as The Desolation of Smaug was supposed to be three hours (exactly the same as The Two Towers, also the second movie in the trilogy) ended up being two hours and forty minutes.  This could be a good sign that they learned from the mixed critical response to An Unexpected Journey as well as the fact that it was the lowest domestic grossing of the entire franchise that perhaps some things needed to change.

This ends up being to the benefit of the viewer, as we got a movie that was much more focused and on task than the first film.  However, I cannot say this enough, it still does not need to be as long as it is.  It really should only be one film, and not three.  My personal opinion is that the focus for this trilogy was not on telling the tale of The Hobbit but recreating the success of The Lord of the Rings.  There are a great many indicators to suggest I am right on this, including the inclusion of Legolas and the attempt to get Viggo Mortensen to play Aragorn.  Essentially, those characters are similar to R2-D2 and C3PO being in the Star Wars prequels.

It could be that the damage has already been done, however, and that the hill that The Desolation of Smaug needs to climb is too great.  I sat in a theatre that was probably at one third capacity on opening night, and it was an audience that seemed to show no energy once the movie was done.  While original box office projections put this film at being able to make around $85 million dollars for its opening weekend (An Unexpected Journey made $84), at the time of writing this article the projections have dropped with an estimated opening weekend of $75 million (I do want to point out that on my weekly box office predictions on this blog, I predicted $78 million… everyone needs to revel in being right from time to time – pay no attention to the predictions I made for Madea’s Christmas movie, though).

Olympus Has Fallen

Well, I am finally back.  After having to take a bit of a break to allow my body the chance to work out the kinks of a prescription, I am ready to do the daily movie reviews.  I had attempted to keep it up when I started the prescription, but the side effects became rather unfortunate and life was reduced to simple things like sleeping (actually, it involved a heck of a lot of not sleeping – one of the fun side effects), yelling at cats, and watching movies.  Lucky for you, I have seen a few movies as of late that have left me with stuff to talk about.  Unlucky for you, most of those films were lacking any kind of depth and included a lot of films that focused on explosions and/or giant sharks.

Today’s movie is a film that I saw in theatre earlier this year when it first came out, and I managed to talk Rachel into viewing it when it popped up on Netflix.  The movie is Olympus Has Fallen, a film about terrorists who take over the White House and the one man who can stop them.  When attempting to convince Rachel that she should watch this movie with me I left out the fact that it was basically considered by everyone to be Die Hard but in the White House (Rachel fell asleep during Die Hard, so I made sure to never bring it up).

Tragically, not only is this film like Die Hard in its most base concept, but there are styles and moments taken right out of the beloved action film from the 80s.  One could see this film and interpret the thievery as laziness, and it would be hard to argue with that fact as laziness was what I was left thinking about in regards to a number of a of this movie.  For one thing, the CGI effects in this movie are lazy to the point of being on par with an Asylum production.  From planes to cars, the visual effects cook awful and like something out of a made for TV movie.  Also in the realm of laziness was the unfolding of the assault on the White House.  Apparently an unidentified military plane can fly into American airspace and get to within a stone’s throw of the nation’s capital before a mere two planes are scrambled to ‘intercept’ it.  After those measly planes got shot down, it seems it would take another five minutes to finish the job.

One thing that had me worried going into this film was gratuitous amounts of flag waving, since it is a movie about taking back the White House against evil foreigners (Koreans, to be exact).  Not being an American, movies with an overabundance of patriotism can cause some near fatal eye rolling and I was sure this film would be wandering into that territory.  While it did have its moments of flag waving patriotism, it was not too hard to digest and was kept to a minimum.  The hardest pill to swallow was the fact that they called the White House ‘Olympus,’ essentially referring it to the mythical place where the gods lived and ruled over the earth.  That seemed more than a tad ethnocentric, but if you can get past that you can get to meet…

Mike Banning… Secret Service badass with emotional baggage and a need to prove to himself that he can protect the president.  Really, that’s all you need to know about him, but I will tell you more.  Mike Banning does not doddle.  Mike Banning takes no prisoners.  Mike Banning believes in asking questions first, shooting second, and then shooting third.  Gerard Butler plays the role of Banning (a great name for a one man wrecking ball, if ever there was one) and is where the real heart of this movie is.  The dialogue is cheesy and uninspired, but Butler makes this film fun and it is easy to let all of the previous laziness fall to the side and just join in on the fun of a very angry Banning ripping his way through baddies on route to saving the world.

What would otherwise be a laughable movie actually ends up turning into a great revisit to the feel of the eighties action movie, you just have to make it through what I thought was a slog for the first thirty minutes.  If you can endure the predictable beginning and awful special effects during the siege on the White House, you just may end up having a blast with this action flick.  Because so much of the production of the movie felt lazy (I should mention that once the movie started taking place within the White House, it tightened up significantly), the burden lands on the shoulders of the great cast to give it some life and they do just that.  It is full of acting veterans such as Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Dylan McDermott, Melissa Leo, Ashley Judd, Robert Forster, and Morgan Freeman.  It is a heck of a deep cast, and they all slide right into their roles and are what really makes this movie work.

In a year that has seen some monumental flops from former action stars of the 80s attempting to recreate their charm, it is an 80s action movie knock-off that is able to hit the mark.  While there are so many aspects of Olympus Has Fallen that we can criticize and find fault in, it is the cast and the action scenes that happen from within the White House that allow the viewer to find enjoyment with a mindless action movie.  Where some films have convoluted plots to try and seem smart, this film has a convoluted plot that simply exists to be a vehicle for gun fights, fist fights, knife fights, cheesy lines from the hero, and attack helicopters.  That’s exactly the kind of plot that Mike Banning likes.

Rating – 3 out of 4 stars