Satan's Jockstrap

REVIEW: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

2009-09-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

Extended edition? That's okay. I'll watch the movie on fast-forward to compensate.

Let’s see if this sounds familiar:

‘90s historical action-adventure movie.

Based on iconic medieval English heroes who might or might not have been real, but almost certainly bore little resemblance to the legends they inspired.

Stars an A-list American actor who can’t for the life of him figure out a British accent, and undermines him further by surrounding him with authentic Brits.

Also stars Sean Connery as an English king with a Scottish accent, which is the kind of thing that probably starts soccer riots.

Features a good actor playing the villain as a wild-eyed madman that even the United Nations would decide is probably not someone to lead a human rights conference.

Godawful soundtrack written under the false belief that a trumpet fanfare actually stirs emotions in people outside a college football game.

"Excuse me. I need to find a manger and I wish to get it over with."

That’s right. If King Arthur had his First Knight, then I guess Robin Hood was the First Thief. It’s really uncanny how similar these movies are. For the most part, you could just read my review of that film, just replacing ‘Richard Gere‘ with ‘Kevin Costner.’ But if I had to watch this mess, then you at least have to read about it.

"Dude, I'm doing Shakespeare now! Loth lo hark onward yea yonder Denmark! This is awesome!"

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starts in Jerusalem of all places, with Robin of Locksley (Costner, playing a British knight as convincingly as he played a web-fingered, urine-swilling aqua-man) imprisoned during the Third Crusade by Saladin’s forces. Trapped in a dungeon where his fellow crusaders are being tortured and executed, Robin overpowers the guards, but in order to escape alive, he’ll need to release and accept the help of a Moorish prisoner, Azeem (Morgan Freeman). Together, they ditch the dungeon and flee to England; Azeem goes along because he apparently has no better place to be than a land full of dudes at war with his people, and Robin decides that heading home during a war definitely does not constitute desertion.

"Who art thou, stranger, who can squish flies with such heroic accuracy and vigor?"

Before we go on, a short digression about accents. I think Americans are to be commended for their acceptance of Brits, Scots, Irishmen, and Australians playing classic American characters like a Revolutionary war hero (Mel Gibson in The Patriot); Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and the Joker (Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight); and that most distinctly American of roles: a crazy and evil oil baron (Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood). We’re fine with that because we like good, charismatic actors, because we’re a nation of immigrants, and because they do the damned accents. But with the shoe on the other foot, Kevin Costner attempts a British accent mainly by speaking all his lines about 10% more deliberately than he would for any of his baseball player/surfer dude/mailman/gill-man characters. I wouldn’t think he’s attempting an accent at all, except that every once in a while, he seems to mute an ’r’ or use a soft ’a.’ It’s very strange, although with Christian Slater and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (and Sean Connery, eventually, for that matter) also in the cast, it wouldn’t be right to completely single out Costner for unconvincing British accents, and maybe the clash of accents is even semi-intentional, to vilify those who are clearly British. Whatever. Suffice to say that Costner should never be allowed to play Brits or New Englanders ever again. I should also mention the great Morgan Freeman, who despite his obvious talents, plays a Moor by imitating the voice of an Egyptian professor in a 1930s Mummy movie, who warns the heroes of the terrible curse they’ve fallen under.

So this is the Lady Gaga I've heard the kids talk about so much lately.

Returning to England, they find that Robin’s father, Lord Locksley (Brian Blessed) has been deposed and murdered by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman), who’s collaborated with the Bishop of Hereford (Harold Innocent; “innocent,” “blessed,” and “freeman”?; is there some kind of uber-irony going on with the names here?) and the witch Mortianna (Geraldine McEwan). Yes, this movie has a witch secretly guiding the twitchy usurper. That’s right, suck it Shakespeare; you lifted all your plot devices from an earlier story, even if it took 800 years and a couple of bonehead screenwriters to properly explore that aspect of the Robin Hood legend. Rickman plays the Sheriff as the typical ’90s white guy villain: a dude who amasses influence and loyalty from his lackeys through sheer sleaziness, but who possesses no charisma, intelligence, or courage that you might think would be required for even foot soldiers to put their lives on the line for him.

"Hey, stranger."

As Robin and Azeem bumble around the English countryside and make simple work of the Sheriff’s minions, they find help from Maid Marian (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). It’s clear why Mastrantonio was cast as Marian: she’s not British and marginally attractive at best. She fits in with her co-stars quite well. And they might as well have just hired Michelle Yeoh for all it matters, since her first appearance is as a ninja. Yes, a ninja. When Robin enters her home, checking whether his childhood friend is all right, she’s all ready to go in a full-body ninja costume, before our brave hero outduels her and the two realize who each other are. But then the Sheriff’s men ride in, and we get a wacky scene where Azeem hands Robin a telescope and sighs as Robin gets confused and thinks that the horses are right in his face. Is it highly improbable that Robin would be quite so stupid as to think that the telescope was magically warping time and space? Yes, but it gives Azeem another opportunity to urinate all over Western European culture, so it’s apparently a worthy joke before the two of them (plus an old blind guy whom I’ve exorcised from the story for the sake of keeping this review a tolerable length) scuttle off into the woods.

"I find thee enchanting, my dear. Thou art almost as feminine as I."

There, they get ambushed by a group of rogues including Little John (Nick Brimble), his young son Wulf (Daniel Newman), and Will Scarlet (that most smashingly British of all the Queen Mum’s jolly right subjects, Christian Slater). While the rogues are initially hostile, this is a great opportunity for Robin, since he has nearly all the Merry Men--save Friar Tuck, who will be introduced later so that we have enough time to properly introduce his lovable traits of constant drunkenness and hatred of Muslims--readily assembled for him. Nope, no real recruitment process or anything. He just has to beat Little John in a stick fight in the river, and all of a sudden he’s the Prince of Frickin’ Thieves.

"Hark, Wendy! Johnny doth approach, verily!"

With all the familiar characters and plot elements in place (to go along with all the new ones the screenwriters made up), the movie shows a few scenes of Robin and his men performing random derring-do against the Sheriff’s men while generic “triumphant ’90s music” swells. The one hijacked caravan that successfully fights back is Maid Marian’s (she‘s fortunate enough to get the Laurel and Hardy of Sherwood Forest), and she convinces the attackers to lead her back to Robin’s tree house village in the woods. Yes, Robin Hood and his merry men live in Sherwood Forest in tree houses, just like the Swiss Frickin’ Family Robinson. You’d think that the advantage for thieves of living in the forest is that you’re kind of mobile, not anchored to a mess of rope bridges and unnecessarily elaborate water-hauling pulley systems. Hey, back in the middle ages, it would have been nice enough to bring back paved roads and working aqueducts, but they’re about half a step away from having monkey butlers and cocoanut radios. Although apparently, for all their treehouse technology, the Europeans had not yet invented the “No Girls Allowed” rule.

"Oh, Aunt Bertha, thy ashen remains possesseth a most pleasant and smoky flavor!"

Marian hangs around with Robin for a while, suddenly getting all googly-eyed at him, realizing that she’s in love with the charming rebel. For us, this means we get about 10 or 15 minutes of Robin and his men doing nothing: they dance, they deliver a baby, they dance again. And then she’s off again back to the real world, where the Sheriff is trying to marry her, because he cannot bear to live without marrying one among the 52% most beautiful women in England. But when the blind old man tries to ride a horse into the forest to warn Robin, he inadvertently gets his ass tracked. Duh. Maybe there’s a reason we don’t generally advise blind people to ride horses in dangerous situations. In any event, this allows the Sheriff and his terrifying new Celtic mercenaries--they fight just as incompetently as anyone, but they wear antlers and crap, so they’re scary--assault the treehouses. This is truly the nadir for the heroes, as hundreds… well, dozens… well, ones of characters who we don’t know fall courageously in battle. But even amidst the carnage, Gimli, er, Little John manages to rescue his wife as the Sheriff’s men start setting the trees ablaze. Atop the trees, they run off down a rope ladder, and it makes one wonder just how extensive a network of treehouses these people have if a man and his wife, carrying their infant son, can escape across a bridge at the treeline from swarms of enemies on the ground. They must be some kinda elven Vietcong or something’.

"Nope, sorry, you're too late. We did Dungeons and Dragons a few reviews ago."

I’m sorry, but I’m running out of gas here. This movie certainly has a lot of action, but it’s so generic that it’s hard to describe. Suffice to say that after Christian Slater pulls his, “I’m your friend! I’m a traitor! I’m your long-lost-half-brother!” schtick on Robin Hood, the gang all gets back together for one last big bash. They enter the castle courtyard disguised in long robes and hoods, and fortunately, the guards don’t notice the increased population of cautiously-moving Gregorian monks and plague victims. Suffice to say that the final battle--to rescue several of Robin’s captured men from hanging, and more importantly, Maid Marian from a sham marriage--involves several diverse elements:

Alan Rickman reciting lines like he’s playing a drunk Hans Gruber at 4 in the morning (for both Hans and Alan).
Robin waiting until his people are actually hanging until he shoots out the rope with an arrow… on the second try. Hey Robin, your people are calling. The parts of their bodies that are not a completely broken neck thank you for saving them.
People continuing to light their arrowheads on fire, thus guaranteeing another hundred or so years of historical action movies making a big deal of this practice.
Beer barrels exploding like Sears washing machines after being struck by said flaming arrows. The likelihood of this happening? Low enough that I doubt even the Mythbusters would humor the possibility for the sake of filling up 20 minutes of show time.

That thar solar eclipse is kinda close this year.

Of course, once we have the big battle with all the good guys against all the bad guys, we need to scale down to a fight involving the hero and lead villain while the heroine watches on. In this case, Robin races against time to stop the Sheriff from marrying Marian. It’s very important to the Sheriff that he marry Marian, because according to the witch, legends say that “he who marries the gaunt American maiden shall be invincible against the unstoppable peasant revolt.” Or something like that. You’ve got to admire someone who takes marriage so seriously. Naturally, Robin manages to burst in through the tower window just in time to interrupt the ceremony, and we get a rousing swordfight between Robin and the Sheriff. And apparently Robin is as good with a sword in this version of the story as he is with a bow, because he struggles against the Sheriff, who’s spent the duration of the movie bickering with an old hag and muttering vague orders. But let me end the suspense: this is not Arlington Road. The good guys win. But with great sacrifice. Oh, wait. No, there really wasn’t. I think the blind guy might have died, but I wasn’t really paying attention. The Sheriff really sucked at his job.

"See? THIS is why we had the 'No Girls Allowed' rule for so long! Damn ACLU!"

And since this movie can only be classified as a comedy, there’s only one way to end it: with a wedding. Robin and Marian tie the knot, destined to produce many early-’90s children. But wait, we have a surprise guest, arriving just before the ceremony is sealed! Why, it’s none other than King Richard the Lionheart (Sean Connery), returning from war! He’s apparently not at all ticked at Robin for abandoning the Crusades once he escaped the prison in Jerusalem. No, he’s rather happy that Robin has stopped the Sheriff from rising further and taking control of England. Dude, I think Perez Hilton would have been more convincing as a man capable of conquering England. Maybe the Sheriff would have gotten traction by pointing out that the king was a Scot and the populist hero was a Californian.

If somebody says, "There can be only one!" I quit.

And with the credits rolling, we’ve got one more arrowhead to the balls for the audience: the debut of the song “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams. Yes, Bryan Adams was assigned to write a theme song for an adventure movie about one of England’s greatest legendary heroes, and this was the song he came up with. At least when Aerosmith did the theme song for Armageddon, the band had the word “Aero” in its name, which was vaguely fitting. And that Celine Dion song fittingly made me want to drown after hearing it 800 times in one year of high school. But this… Ugh.

See, I told you that Sean Connery shows up at the end.

After watching this movie, I have two conclusions: I’m relatively poor, and Kevin Costner is very rich. I’ll let you judge who robbed whom.

COMING SOON: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

2009-09-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

Kevin Costner: Butcher of Brogues

REVIEW: Fantastic Four

2009-08-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

I think the marketing department decided that this movie's key demographic was more interested in the Terrific Two.

I never read comic books very much, but I’ve definitely always been aware of the major superheroes, and even if I didn’t pay much attention to them, I’m always kind of excited to see iconic characters brought to the big screen. As a comics outsider, the Fantastic Four didn’t excite me all that much because I didn’t know as much about them as Batman, Spider-Man, or the X-Men, but still…

Oh, who are we kidding. Screw the self-indulgent introduction. This movie sucks. Its sequel sucks even more, and maybe I’ll cover it later, but for now, I’ll just deal with the first movie.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cousin, Denny Ahmadinejad

From what I can gather, most of the background story has been severely truncated from the comics to have it make more sense in a 90-minute movie. Dr. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffud) is a brilliant, but timid scientist who wants to organize a space expedition to study cosmic rays. Apparently he’s not so brilliant that NASA wants to work with him (or does that mean he’s too brilliant?), so his pilot friend Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis, the object of Eagle Eye’s affection) gets him to pitch his little expedition to the CEO of Von Doom Industries, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon). Now, I know this is based on a tongue-in-cheek comic book, so I’m not going to rip the movie for having a character a with the unfortunate surname of “Von Doom” not naming his company “Optimax” or “DynaTech” or something. As you might expect, Von Doom’s a bit of a snob, rubbing it in Richards’ face that he’s boinking his ex-girlfriend, geneticist Susan Storm (Jessica Alba, who prepared for her role by learning to pronounce a handful of really big words, like “microscope“). But still, he agrees to finance the study, organizing a jaunt up to his own private space station (as he calls it, the Me-r; oh, do I crack myself up) with himself, Reed, Ben, Susan, and Susan’s hotshot pilot brother, Johnny (Chris Evans).

And now, the one scene in the movie where it's not Jessica Alba with the stiff acting.

Up at the space station, the Fabulous Five are waiting for the cloud of cosmic radiation to come by so they can… study it. Which would be really boring to watch. So instead, the focus is on Johnny irritating grumpy Ben by being a brash smartass (definitely a quality you want in an astronaut), and on Von Doom asking Susan for her hand in holy doomship, which she answers with a confidence-inspiring, “Eh, we’ll give you a call if anything opens up.” Reed, meanwhile, is the only one who gives a rat’s ass about space exploration or scientific discovery, and is therefore too boring to pay attention to.

These Scientology weddings are weird.

Until it turns out he forgot to carry the one in his calculations or something, and the cloud of cosmic radiation comes up on them faster than expected! Damn those rays taking gaseous form in a vacuum! They’re so unpredictable! Suffice to say they’re royally screwed. The cloud comes upon them before they can get their shields up or get Ben in from his spacewalk, so the whole station gets blasted with glowing orange light stuff, penetrating the station’s hull and frying the astronauts directly. This is very traumatic, but fortunately, a violent attack by cosmic energy doesn’t damage anything whatsoever except to knock everybody out for a little while. That’s a relief. I’ve heard that space is generally considered a bad place in which to have mechanical problems.

Introducing Revlon's Fury of Hell collection

The team is rescued, and they’re taken to some kind of spa in the mountains to recuperate. Hey, Von Doom’s so rich that a devastating space accident is just another excuse for a ski holiday. But as they’re recovering, the quintet discovers that the radiation had a strange effect on them. No, not cancer, silly. Rather, as you’d expect from the same energy hitting five people at the same time, their DNA is mutated in five utterly unrelated ways:

Reed Richards, AKA Mr. Fantastic
POWER: Can stretch out his body like rubber, much like that woman from The Incredibles.
TEAM ROLE: Leader. Brilliant scientist who spends the entire movie working on a device to undo all the characters’ powers, a mission that we know will end with great success.
REJECTED SUPERHERO NAMES: Stretch Armslong, Condoman, Mr. Epic-Fail-at-Calculating-Cosmic-Thingy-Velocity.

Um, I'm hoping I didn't just accidentally rent the gay porn parody (Fantastic Fornication?) by mistake.

Susan Storm, AKA The Invisible Woman
POWER: Can turn invisible and generate force fields, much like that girl from The Incredibles. Hey, wait a minute! Somebody’s clearly ripping somebody off here! I can just hear the Fantastic Four fanboys claiming that their precious comic book preceded the Pixar movie by several decades, but I fail to see the logic of that argument.
TEAM ROLE: Naughty bits, which turn invisible just as they’re about to face the camera. Stealth (she’s detectable only by the diminishing box office potential of any film she comes near).
REJECTED SUPERHEROINE NAMES: The Unnatural Blonde, The “Talent.”

"Oh. Sorry, ma'am. It's just part of the mutation. That wasn't a reaction to you or anything."

Ben Grimm, AKA The Thing
POWER: Is a big friggin’ rock. But he’s the only one of the group who wasn’t too good looking to begin with, so not a big deal.
TEAM ROLE: Representative of “Before” on the Revlon commercials in which Jessica Alba plays, “After.”
REJECTED SUPERHERO NAMES: Inhuman Horror, Putridman, Worthless Mutant Garbage, Abomination (major contender, but taken).

Johnny Storm, AKA The Human Torch
POWER: Can surround himself in flame and fly like a rocket. Curiously enough, this means he’ll have scenes on a snowboard and a motorcycle, because flying while on fire is not eXtReMe!!! enough.
TEAM ROLE: Good-natured tormenter of the man whose accident has destroyed any chance he’ll ever have of intimate human contact.
REJECTED SUPERHERO NAMES: Hindenburg, Crusader Rabbit (you’d have to have been there), The Torch (deemed potentially confusing after test audiences remarked, “I needed a frame of reference for his original species.”).

"Incredibly hot? Obnoxious? Appeals only to brain-dead high-school dropouts? I've just become the perfect spokesman for Taco Bell!"

Doom also gets some powers, but he initially seems fine, and keeps his transformation a secret for the time being.

As you might expect, the reactions to these superpowers are mixed. Reed and Susan are moderately alarmed. Ben declares “I am not an animal! I am… more of a mineral! Nineteen questions left!”, sneaks off in the night under the brilliant disguise of a hat and long coat, and has his heart broken when his fiancee decides she can’t make her relationship with a walking hunk of limestone work. Racist! Johnny, meanwhile, is in seventh heaven*. He’s incredibly confident in his abilities, and apparently all the ladies are equally confident that he won’t lose control for a split second and incinerate them. To be honest, though, it’s nice to have a character who immediately recognizes that having superpowers is AWESOME, rather than immediately getting all hissy about it. Although naming his hideous, loveless co-pilot The Thing might be in slightly poor taste.

This really is a science fiction movie if A-Rod isn't on the cover of the Post.

The four of them bicker over the fact that they’re now publicly outed as freaks until, about six hours into the movie, we finally get a superhero action scene. Ben’s getting all emo, sitting like a gargoyle on the Brooklyn Bridge (because all the best bridges have gargoyles) when he inadvertently frightens a would-be jumper back onto the street. Which means he has to smash a truck to keep it from running him over, which causes more traffic accidents, and before you know it, fire trucks are teetering over the East River. But all four fantastic people rally and they all save the day in their own super-special ways! Johnny shields someone from a fireball, Susan contains an explosion with a force field, Ben uses his super-strength to pull the firetruck back on the bridge, and Reed stretches to catch some people mid-fall. It’s a scene ripped straight out of Spider-Man. By which, I of course mean the ‘70s live-action TV show.

I hope you enjoyed that action scene, because it’s going to have to tide you over for a while. In fact, it’s going to be a while before we have an actual villain interacting with our heroes in any threatening way. Most of the movie’s remainder focuses on Reed and Susan building a machine that can reverse the effects of the cosmic radiation and strip themselves of their powers. And he actually succeeds, sort of. His task is made easier by the conspicuous absence of any predatory military-industrial complex representative trying to replicate their powers and create an army of super-soldiers. But although Ben has spent his time getting to know the lovely Alicia Masters (Kerry Washington)--a blind artist, which of course means she is wise and accepting of the ugly freak--he still wants to go back to his old life as an only moderately-ugly, profoundly weaker man.

Yes, I definitely rented the wrong movie.

While all of this is happening, Vic is having his own transformation, despite initially appearing to have been unaffected by the cosmic radiation. His skin starts peeling away to reveal metal, and he can shoot electricity from his hands. With his board of executives punting him from his company after the space mission fiasco, Doom consults with the Green Goblin, who had the exact same friggin’ thing happen in his movie, and decides the only rational thing to do is start killing off the people who wronged him. When electrocuting generic executives in parking garages can’t fill the void in his heart, he decides one night to get revenge on the Fantastic Four.

"Damn the risks! I will get my bagel out if it's the last thing I do!"

His plan is kind of all over the place. He starts by tricking Ben into using Reed’s machine to de-power himself, taking all of Ben’s cosmic radioactive goodness for himself and making him stronger than ever. Tossing aside the now-human Ben, he immediately takes Reed prisoner and freezes him, preventing him from stretching to escape. Doom then fires a heat-seeking missile at the F4’s base, the Baxter Building, and Johnny of course saves the day by covering himself in flame and flying away, drawing the missile away from the nearly-empty building and through the densely-populated city streets. What a guy! While Johnny’s out there spending the movie’s scant special effects budget like it’s bailout money, Susan confronts Doom--now clad in a robe and metallic mask for no particular reason except to look like the “Dr. Doom” character from the comics this one’s extremely vaguely based on--at his office. And let me tell you, the interrogation room scene between Batman and the Joker in The Dark Knight just wishes it could match the gravitas of Jessica Alba trading harsh words with Julian McMahon. If it were in black and white, I would think this were a cologne ad; it’s that intense.

Well, there's definitely four of them. The movie gets that much right.

When Doom overpowers Susan, it’s none other than a newly re-rockified Ben who smashes through the wall to save the day. I guess that despite Doom having supposedly absorbed Ben’s powers into himself, that hasn’t prevented Ben from doing the heroic thing and flipping the “Reverse” switch to give himself his powers back. When he announces, “It’s clobbering time!” my response is, “It’s almost credits time, jerk!” He rassles with Doom and their fight spills out onto the streets below, where Doom’s too much for old Ben, who’s clearly led too much of a sedentary lifestyle. Hardy-har-har. I’ve been waiting all review to make that joke, and let me tell you, it was worth it.

"Aw, man. We're going to need a LOT of carbon offsets after this."

But a recovered Susan, thawed Reed, and maybe-sorta-more mature Johnny join him in the fight, and a whole ten minutes before the movie’s end, we finally have the Fantastic Four fighting together against their iconic arch-nemesis. The four have to work together to disable him. Susan creates a force field around Doom. Johnny gets inside the force field and heats it up. Ben knocks over a fire hydrant, and Reed shapes himself to direct the rushing water at Doom, which rapidly cools him after Johnny breaks off, hardening his metal body into a statue. And that’s that. And I’m glad it’s over, because I hate all those other superhero movies that have multiple scenes of superheroes fighting super villains. This one gets back to basics, alternating wacky sitcom humor and scientific study/experimentation straight out of Family Matters. Which is, uh, a sitcom.

This is JESSICA ALBA, people. They should have made her into the Unhearable Woman instead.

In the epilogue, the Fantastic Four all decide to keep their powers and continue living as super-powered celebrities. Reed and Susan get engaged, Ben and Alicia continue to be cozy (remember, if you can’t see him, you can’t be repulsed by the rock-skinned monster man with the, ahem, gravelly voice), and Johnny continues to flirt with hot babes. I think his character learned responsibility or something. Which amounts to him continuing to show off and pull crazy stunts, but with a more determined expression on his face as he does it. For the big finish, he closes the film by flying into the sky and forming the ‘4’ logo with his fire trail, apparently relying on the high concentration of extremely still nitrogen in the atmosphere to keep the burning air visible long enough before the whole thing is just a smoky ’#’ and everyone on the ground wonders what the hell he’s trying to do.

Obviously, this isn’t supposed to be a particularly serious film. It’s trying to be schlocky, but stylish and funny the way Spider-Man is. But really, it feels like a mega-budget pilot for a Fantastic Four TV series, not a complete movie that’s supposed to work all by itself. I’ll give it some credit: for all my joking, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis are pretty good in their roles, and their banter would be decent comic relief if there was more of a villainous plot they needed to relieve us from. The rest of the cast and characters? Not so great. Ioan Gruffud is capable of being better than this, but playing the brilliant scientist leader of the group as the guy with the perpetual deer-in-the-headlights look was not a good showing. Jessica Alba’s a good enough actress to play someone who dances or strips and has no lines; if she really studies the role, maybe she could pull off Nova in any future Planet of the Apes remake. Julian McMahon should work as an Armani model, not an oppressive lord of evil. And finally, director Tim Story has obviously demonstrated that his surname was a cruel mistake of fate, and he’s better off applying his technical skills at making really nice wedding videos, or perhaps being the guy who films people on roller coasters and then sells them $10 tapes as souvenirs.

Be Four-warned: the sequel doesn’t get any better. After its failure, it looks like the Fantastic Four series is going to go where all failed superhero franchises do: straight into a reboot with a different director and cast. What a world.

*Speaking of which, it must be good to be an actor where the one movie he makes without Jessica Biel stars Jessica Alba.

COMING SOON: Fantastic Four

2009-08-08T05:50:00.000-07:00

I think Fantastic III: Elton John's Revenge was the pinnacle of this series. Afterwards, it went straight downhill.

REVIEW: Crash

2009-08-01T10:49:00.000-07:00

It's too small to see here, but I love how the actors' names on the poster are in alphabetical order, except that Michael Pena is last. Because it's not like he's an A-list Hollywood force in the vein of Jennifer Esposito or Larenz Tate.

Wait, you’re telling me this isn’t the movie with Jason Statham trying to keep this adrenaline up or else he dies? Damn you Netflix and your completion match searching!

I heard a rumor that after Lions Gate releases Saw XVIII, they're finally going to go ahead with the long-awaited "Saw vs. Crash."

Instead, this is movie that inspired Babel, the film that would have truly lived up to its name if it were spelled slightly differently. To its benefit--or not--writer/director Paul Haggis’s movie won the Best Picture Oscar in 2005, beating out popular favorite Brokeback Mountain. I guess racism beats out homophobia when Hollywood can only make one statement per award. Of course, it’s also possible that Crash was just a good movie, but we'll see to that.

Knowing that this movie was going to have even more barely-related parallel stories going on than Babel, I decided to watch this movie for the first time with a notepad so I could semi-live blog it. Uh, don’t get the impression, though, that I was watching this movie with the expectation that it would rile me up enough to put a negative review online. Nah, just a precaution.

"...but the evil alien Xenu detonated hydrogen bombs in a volcano. And what does that mean for our thetans? Hey, wait, I haven't finished!"

I’ll say this up-front: racism, the subject of this movie, is no joke. Don’t confuse my disrespect for a preachy, stilted, cloying film for dismissal of the basic underlying topic. But then, who knows? Maybe this movie deserves all the praise it got. Let’s begin.

0:01: Opening credits. Sandra Bullock? Brendan Fraser? Wow, I didn’t know this was going to be a cute romantic comedy. With Ludacris as Fraser’s jive-talkin’ best bud.

They've taken a few liberties with this "It's a Wonderful Life" remake.

0:04: Don Cheadle and Jennifer Esposito are detectives who rear-end a Korean woman. In a CAR, you sick freak. Jennifer Esposito gets out to berate the woman for her driving. Cuz Asians are bad drivers, you know.

It’s amazing how much Jennifer looks like Mariska Hargitay of Law & Order SVU “fame” here. She’s got the same “furrow your eyebrows really hard to make it look like you’re intense” look to her.

By the way, are we really going to have to listen to this new agey music the whole movie?

0:05: An Iranian immigrant (Shaun Toub) and his daughter buy a gun from a racist, fat slob of a shopkeeper who calls him “Osama.” Congratulations, Crash: you’ve just won your Oscar. You could introduce John Travolta in Battlefield Earth garb as your next character and you’d still win it on the strength of this scene. Racist fat white guy gun shop owner who calls the Iranian Osama? Check. A guy buying a gun to defend himself in a tough city being depicted as a hothead? Check. Daughter level-headed while the father’s freaking out? Check. She winds up buying the gun and ammo for him when he’s ejected from the store. Oh, and you’ll love where this subplot goes. More later.

Though a top seller after the film's surprise Oscar win, the XBox Crash first-person shooter game was most popular for one mission--"Assassinate the Monkeybone guy."

0:09: Yes, Ludacris is actually in this movie, as a low-life criminal who wanders the streets with his friend, Larenz Tate, discussing the subtle and unsubtle ways that racism reveals itself in everyday life. You need to hear these guys to believe them. It’s like Paul Haggis was using passages from his Sociology textbook for their dialogue, but tossed in the word “dawg” once in a while to get an urban vibe going. The two of them, but in particular Luda, provide the running ironic commentary throughout the movie. Now, as some of the later scenes will attest, this movie isn’t going for total realism, but did we really need Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in here?

0:12: Don and Jen arrive at the scene of a shooting, where a white cop who looks like a shipwrecked Nick Nolte has just shot a black cop. This guy’s already shot two other black guys before, so is he a murderous bigot, or was the black cop corrupt as he claims?

"...and if you do that, and he calls you that, the president will inevitably say something unpopular and have no choice but to invite us over to the White House for beers. And that will give us the perfect opportunity to steal the Lincoln gold! It's a perfect plan!"

0:14: Fraser is the district attorney, Bullock is his wife, and they’d earlier gotten carjacked by Luda and Larenz. She’s a bitchy racist, and he’s equally insensitive, but he’s got a political career to keep in mind. So he tries to figure out how to spin this to the press, afraid that whether he’s too verbally tough or too verbally soft on the thieves, he’ll catch hell from one half of the city or the other.

“What we need is a picture of me pinning a medal on a black man,” he says to his campaign staff. How much longer is this movie? It won the Best Short Film category, right?

0:16: Matt Dillon is a racist cop with a sick father who has crappy health insurance or something (Michael Moore just looked up from his sandwich long enough to yell, “You go, girl!”). His noobie partner is Ryan Phillipe, and he soon after pulls over affluent, black married couple Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton because she was giving him a BJ while driving. Dillon takes the opportunity to force her out of the car and molest her in a pretty disturbing scene. Ryan Phillipe is sickened by his partner’s actions.

"...and it's 'yap, yap, yap' 24/7 about how they gave your role to Don Cheadle in the Iron Man sequel. Well, you don't hear me crying about how there's never going to be a Chroncles of Riddick sequel, do you?"

0:27: Michael Pena is a locksmith who was berated by an agitated Sandra Bullock earlier because she thought he was going to rob her house after he changed her locks. But here we see that he’s just a sweet family guy who tucks his adorable daughter in. The daughter’s still afraid of gunfire, because they used to live in a bad neighborhood, but Michael gives her a “magic invisible cloak” that deflects bullets. And it also gives +4 Dexterity, +18 Hit Points, and can cast Magic Missile 3x/day.

This little father/daughter scene is so sweet, I’m sure there’s no chance the movie will eventually threaten these two with violence. It just wouldn’t be appropriate.

"Newt, I think we're in trouble."

0:32: Luda and Larenz are driving the van they stole from Brendan and Sandra, and they run over a Korean guy (whom they think is Chinese; ‘cause they’re racially insensitive, get it?) and drag him halfway down the block before they realize what’s going on. When they stop, they fully realize that they could get arrested for reckless driving or manslaughter if the guy dies, but still discuss whether or not to take him to the hospital, using the tone of voice usually reserved for discussing whether to get the roast beef or chicken at Arby’s. I’m really not sure these two were supposed to be in this movie. I think they acted in a wacky urban pothead comedy and got digitally spliced into this “serious” movie. Anyway, they dump the Korean guy at the hospital, proving that despite all the carjacking, they’re pretty decent people.

0:33: Keith David! That guy’s awesome! And he’s awesome here! For one whole scene! Now if they just throw in Kurt Russell and a shape-shifting alien, we’ll have an awesome movie going here! Hell, I’d even take Roddy Piper and some sunglasses! Anyway, David’s the police captain, and despite a long speech about racial politics, he agrees to let Ryan Phillipe drive a patrol car by himself, while Dillon gets a new partner.

0:37: “Why do you keep everyone a certain distance away?” Actual dialogue from an actual motion picture. Oh, and Don and Jen are having sex. He calls her a Mexican, but she reminds him that she’s actually Puerto Rican. Which means that in the course of a single evening (yes, that’s how far we’ve gotten so far), the only characters who haven’t said or done anything racist are Michael Pena and Guy on Street #3.

"Hey, yoo! Turn arownd! Leesten to meee! On da wahl! Cahleefohrnya's all outta monee! Get to da choppa! Runnn!"

0:44: Next morning. Holy crap, Tony Danza is in the movie! And he’s a racist too! Now, if they introduce Regis Philbin as Hitler's bastard child, Skip, this might be the greatest movie ever.

Turns out Terrence Howard not only wears the kinds of sweaters you see on guys selling Time Life books, but he’s a TV director, which is a great way to make him sympathetic. Thandie’s still pissed at him for not standing up to Matt Dillon the other night. Terrence decides he’s got to be more of a man. Dude, here’s a tip. Stop wearing those damn sweaters.

"There's a wild Fandango... loose... in the theater! Rowr!"

0:51: Don talks to his mother. Wow, another depressing talk between a cop and his decrepit widowed parent. Haven’t seen one of those since Matt Dillon had one about… oh, a minute ago.

0:52: Really, what’s wrong with this music? They should call the soundtrack, “Music to Start Up Windows By.” It’s like they hired a new age band to perform Keyboard Demo #5. It’s like this is the arty side project of the guy who does the crappy synthesizer music from dirt-cheap early-‘90s horror movies.

0:56: Michael Pena had earlier refused to install a lock in Shaun Toub’s shop because he really needed to get an entirely new door. Now, Toub’s store has been robbed, and he’s frakking mad. Insurance won’t pay up because Michael was right and he should have gotten his door replaced entirely. So Toub prepares to do the only thing that a man who owns a gun will do in a movie like this: use it to get bloody, bloody, irrational revenge.

1:02: And now that we’ve gone through our utterly depressing phase of the movie, we’ve reached our inspirational/reconciliatory phase of the movie! Hooray! And it starts with Thandie Newton getting in a horrible car accident on the highway, while Matt Dillon just happens to be the one to show up to try to pull her out of the car before the gas tank explodes. Yeah, Los Angeles is a pretty small city. Since he’d molested her about 12 hours earlier, it’s a bit awkward when he has to reach into a confined space and wrestle her body from the car just ahead of the explosion, but the giddily chanting music ensures us that this is supposed to be inspirational. Come on, let‘s sing the Crash theme music together! Ah -ah -ah -ah -ah -ah -ah -ah -ah -ah -ah -ah -ah!

"Want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? AHHHHHHHH!"

1:06: Fraser sends one of his underlings (William Fichtner) to convince Don to say he believes that the white cop from earlier in the movie murdered his black cop partner, even though Don has evidence to suggest that the black cop really was crooked and the white cop might have been acting in self-defense. The underling wants the white cop framed so that his boss can prosecute him and look good in the eyes of the black voters. Don wants to hear nothing of it until the underling mentions that there’s a warrant out for Don’s brother’s arrest. If Don forgets about the evidence exonerating the white cop, DA Fraser will forget about the evidence.

You know, this movie takes place over 24 hours and its plot involves widespread political corruption and cover-ups. You know what TV show this reminds me of? That’s right. C-SPAN.

1:14: Meanwhile, Terrence gets carjacked by Luda, who’s split up with Larenz, but he refuses to give up his car, because he’s got to prove himself to be macho (Dude, you might want to get a surgical voice deepening to start with; no offense.). Much reckless driving ensues. Terrence goes so berzerk that Phillipe has to talk him down to keep the other cops on the scene from blowing him away. Phillipe recognizes that the driver is the guy his partner did a number on the other night, so he helps Terrence get away by calling in a favor from a couple of cops who owe him nothing (I think they just wanted to avoid the paperwork), and Terrence helps Luda get away. Action scene narrowly averted.

Mexican standoff. You're doing it wrong.

1:20: Toub confronts Michael at his house, ready to blow the guy away for refusing to fix his door lock. Adorable daughter jumps in front of her dad just ahead of the gunshot. “NOOOOOOOO!!!” But wait… she’s okay! There’s no bullet wound on here. Damn, that magic cloak is effective. Michael and daughter run inside their house. Toub wanders away confused. Action scene narrowly averted. Toub thinks it’s an angel that saved him from killing that kid. But his daughter knows better; she bought him blanks for ammunition at the shop, and he apparently knows enough written English to run a store, but not to read a six-letter word on a box. Oh, and thanks movie for reminding us that there’s absolutely no reason for a guy who runs a small shop in a bad part of LA to have a pistol, and that it’s better off for everyone if he’s actually defenseless. I mean, he’s not black, so all he has to do is blow a whistle and the LAPD will ride in like the Rohirrim and save him. Right?

Oh, and since there’s just such a general air of goodwill going around, Michael Pena’s presumably going to forgive and forget the murder attempted upon him, even though he knows Toub and where he works. And I completely support an dramatic license taken to end the movie faster.

1:24: Sandra Bullock slips and falls down the stairs in her home. Which is a more entertaining three seconds than all of Speed 2.

1:26: Ryan Phillipe picks up Larenz hitchhiking on a lonely road at night. They start to bicker for some odd reason, and Phillipe shoots him when he thinks he’s pulling a gun on him. So while bigot Matt Dillon found redemption earlier on, knight in shining armor Ryan Phillipe dumps the body on the side of the highway and drives off. So the idea is that Ryan Phillipe is holier-than-thou, but really no better than anyone else deep down, while Matt Dillon is an asshole on the outside, but his racism doesn’t extend so far as to leave women he’s abused to die a fiery death.

Furthermore, it turns out that Larenz was actually Don Cheadle’s ne’r-do-well brother. Which is sad and ironic, because there’s flashback to when the two were boys, and Young Larenz told Young Don that he thinks Don is going to grow up to get shot by Ryan Phillipe while reaching for a St. Christopher figurine. Furthermore, his mother blames him for this death, reminding him that he was too busy with his career to go out and help his brother. Fortunately for Don, Jennifer Esposito is still hot.

"Batman will pay for this!"

1:34: Luda discovers that the van he just carjacked (vanjacked?) is full of slave laborers smuggled in from Asia. Although he’s offered $500 apiece for them by the chop shop owner he deals with, he’s such an awesome guy that he instead lets them loose in the middle of Los Angeles and gives them a few bucks each. They’re free to make new lives for themselves in opportunity-ridden LA, where car chases and car crashes go on left and right, where the politicians frame innocent people for racially-tinged photo ops, and where bad cops molest women and good cops murder people. Fortunately for us, the movie ends before we can see the immigrants gunned down by cracked-up gangsters who harvest their organs on the spot, because the movie would probably have to put a halt to the easy listening soundtrack if something dark like that happened.

1:40: Sandra Bullock calls Brendan Fraser to tell him that she fell down the stairs. He promises to drive there immediately, never slowing below 55 miles an hour, but she’s okay because their Hispanic maid drove her to the emergency room. This despite all of Sandra’s friends turning her down when she called them on her cell phone for help. Only Maria cared enough to help.

Congratulations, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. You just gave the Best Picture award to a live-action version of The Little Engine That Could.

1:42: It’s snowing, in Los Angeles! And that makes Terrence Howard feel good. He’s just generally in a good mood, knowing that he lives in a world where everybody does something idiotic and illegal, and nobody gets punished for it. He calls his wife and tells her he loves her. AND THAT MATT DILLON’S GOING TO F***ING DIE!!! Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be the sequel.

Major Tom probably has an AWESOME ringtone.

1:47: As Luda smirks with self-adulation about his good deed and rides off into the sunset in his stolen van, two nearby cars get in a fender bender. The people who get out and argue about it are of different races. The camera pans away. What follows is not so much a crash as it is a STOP and an EJECT.

COMING SOON: Crash

2009-07-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

(The one without James Spader, thank god.)

REVIEW: Dungeons and Dragons

2009-07-02T19:28:00.001-07:00

Incidentally, the guy on YouTube who posts 19-minute videos of himself giving Nickelback album reviews into a webcam also has a Platinum Series line.

Dungeon Master: Welcome, mortals, to my epic fantasy adventure. Prepare for an evening of adventure. Of danger! Of tricks and traps and magic and heroism!

Bugmar the Half-Orc: Yes! Let’s get read to pound some skulls!

Titania the Elf: Our wisdom shall guide us to victory.

Me: (looks at character sheet) What exactly is the difference between the ‘Spot’ skill and the ‘Search’ skill? How is it possible that I can build a character who is incredibly talented in one and not the other?

From the people who will really hope you forget all about this movie by the time Lord of the Rings comes out...

DM: Silence! We must make final preparations for our journey. Tonight’s adventure is based on the epic 2000 film, Dungeons & Dragons, starring Jeremy Irons, Thora Birch, Justin Whalin, Zoe McLellan, and Marlon Wayans.

Me: Wait, I missed some of that. Can you repeat the parts between Jeremy Irons and Marlon Wayans?

DM: The film was an epic fantasy adventure based on the epic pen-and-paper roleplaying game that we are playing right now. And now, we are honoring that glorious and revered film by translating its epic story back to the tabletop, so that we might experience the same journey that captivated audiences and made Justin Whalin a household name. First, players, you must create your characters!

"Friends, Romans, countrymen... PREPARE TO DIE, PATHETIC MORTALS!"

Titania: I am Titania, elven druid of the Neverwinter Forest. With my dire wolf companion, Barkenheart, I journey the forests, hunting those who would disrupt the balance of nature. With my magic, I can empower my allies, humanoid and animal alike, and when I must fight hand-to-hand, I can transform into a great bear and maul those who underestimate my dedication.

Bugmar: And I am Bugmar, a half-orc barbarian. My father was an orcish marauder who impregnated my mother forcibly. She abandoned me to die in the land of Rashemen, but I thrived as a nomad and savage. Now, I bear my great axe and seek to redeem my horrid life by slashing the throats of evildoers, but my dream is to one day take down my own father, who is responsible for agony I suffer every day!

Me: Wow, you guys are really into this. Sounds like a really fun game, but I’m used to playing MMORPGs, so I think I’m going to play this game that way. I am 50 Cent the… (browses through Player‘s Handbook to find the race that gives the most plusses) … Drow! And my profession is… (scours printed-out web pages to find which class most gamers think is overpowered)… cleric! Yes, I am a Drow cleric. And I’m a female Drow so that I can have boobs. Now, before we start out on our quest to find me a +12 war hammer, just give me about three hours so I can plan out the best way to level up my character. I want to make a character who has level 9 divine and arcane spells without sacrificing any attack power or defense whatsoever.

DM: Silence! This is not how Dungeons & Dragons the movie was played out! No, I will choose your characters for you. Titania, you are Marina Pretense, the human wizardess played in the film by Zoe McLellan. You are naïve and quirky, but a very promising young spell caster. Your most powerful spell is to cast a magical rope that can lasso your enemies.

Marina: Uh…

DM: Bugmar, you are Elwood Gutworthy the cantankerous, neon orange-bearded dwarven warrior, played by Lee Arenberg.

Elwood: Who?

DM: Pft! Silly question. You reveal your ignorance!

Elwood: Oh, I’m sorry. Whom?

DM: Gah! And Matt, you are Ridley Freeborn, the wise-cracking, but good-hearted thief played by Justin Whalin, who is forever accompanied by his wacky, fast-talking friend, Snails, played by Marlon Wayans.

Me: That’s wonderful. (rolls 20-sided die) Oh, look. I just failed a ‘Breathe’ skill check, and my character died. Well, I might as well head home.

DM: Sit thy ass down! I shall control the other characters, such as Snails the rogue and Norda the elven ranger. Now, the journey begins in the nation of Izmer, where Mages rule over the commoners. There, a wizard named Profion is secretly plotting to overthrow the progressive Empress Savina. How, you might ask? Why, he only needs to find a lost wand that will allow him to control red dragons. By controlling all the world’s red dragons, he can conquer all of Izmer!

Me: Well, then why don’t the red dragons just do that on their own?

Acting or Photoshop? You be the judge.

DM: Silence! Fortunately, a wizard faithful to the Empress is aware of this plot and believes that a scroll in the Mages’ library can lead them to it. He and Marina, a beautiful and promising young wizard, search for it. Marina, roll a Spellcraft check to find the scroll!

Marina: (rolls d20) 5!

DM: Oh, you failed your skill check, and were unable to find the scroll! (Waits 30 seconds) All right, try again.

Marina: (rolls d20) 7! Did I pass?

DM: Er, no, not quite. (Waits) All right, try again.

Marina: (rolls d20) 2!

DM: Excellent! You found the scroll!

Elwood: Wait a minute! I’m no master of numbers, but…

Me: Shut the hell up, Dwarf.

DM: Excellent suggestion! But while the wizards are at work, so are the thieves. Ridley gets the idea to rob the Magic School, imagining the incredible treasures that the Mages have in the high tower. Remember the film, and imagine the incredible beauty and majesty of the Magic School’s high spires!

"Yes, prepare the age-reversing potion now. Together, we shall rule the world, Governor Palin!"

Me: Yeah, I remember it. And it definitely puts me in the mood for a role-playing game, because the whole thing looked like a Quicktime cut-scene in a mid-’90s computer game. This movie clearly couldn’t afford great computer-generated special effects, but they must have at least saved money by buying in bulk, because there’s certainly a lot of them. The water looks like it’s from Lawnmower Man, the buildings look like they’re still under development in AutoCAD, and the dragons make the one in Shrek look photorealistic.

DM: Are you done?

Me: Temporarily.

DM: Good. Your friend Snails is very nervous about a daring heist like this, but he is a man of complex motivations: he is often torn between his love of money, his love of hot women that match his racial complexion (as in being black, not necessarily being human), and his love of not dying. But he is also incredibly loyal to you, Ridley, so long as he can loudly complain about everything you do with him. Now, you scale the walls of the 20-plus story building…

Elwood: Wait a minute, shouldn’t he have to roll a skill check for something like that?

DM: Well, it was treated as something very easy in the movie, so I guess I can just assume it would be easy for you to do. You begin robbing the place, but Marina hears you, and comes in to catch you with a Rope spell! However, this happens just as Profion’s chief thug, Damodar, arrives with the Crimon Guards and kills the head wizard just after he throws the scroll to Marina in a desperate attempt to keep it from Profion’s hands!

Me: Ah yes, Damodar. That terrifying minion who projects fear with the help of his blue lip gloss and a speaking pace that’s so slow, it’s easier to just read the DVD subtitle and skip forward a few seconds until the next one comes up.

"Tell me, where is Tobias Funke? He and I have some unfinished business."

DM: Marina, you are confronted by Damodar! What do you do?

Marina: I throw a Fireball spell at him! Because I’m a magic-user and Damodar and his soldiers aren’t!

DM: Perhaps, but I think you should consider just throwing a purple stunning spell at him instead, then teleporting out of there, because Damodar is much too terrifying. You escape with Ridley and Snails in tow, but Damodar and his men follow you through the portal, into the city! There, you run into the vagrant Dwarf named Elwood…

Elwood: Yarrr! I’m a Dwarf!

DM: …and escape into the sewers. But Profion has framed you for the murder of the old wizard, and accused you of stealing the scroll for your own ends, so it now rests on you alone to find the wand that controls red dragons! But beware, for Profion has given his minion, Damodar, extra incentive to find you: he has placed a magical parasite between Damodar’s ears, one that will continue to corrupt him until he retrieves the scroll!

Me: Well, based on the last few scenes, there was definitely a vacancy up there. So now that his brain has been overrun by a monster, does this mean he’s going to talk even more slowly now?

(sniff, sniff) "Wizard needs hugs badly!"

DM: Ridley, you prove yourself to have surprising magical aptitude by scrying the scroll and determining that to open the vault that contains the red dragon wand, you need a gigantic ruby that is being held by a powerful thieves’ guild. Eager to complete the mission, because of both your attraction to Marina and the promise of a gigantic ruby, you journey there, only to find that the guild master won’t give up the enormous ruby just because you ask for it!

Me: I’d like to go on record that you were the one who told me that my character expected that the guild master would give it to us for free. Can I just roll a ‘Bluff’ check for it?

DM: No, he will give you the ruby, but only if you complete an enormous, trap-filled maze!

Me: Well, Takeshi’s Castle would be a huge upgrade over this movie/game, so why not.

DM: You must pass three deadly trap rooms in order to reach the ruby! I hope you’re up for it, Ridley! Now, roll a Climb check to see if you can climb atop the swinging pendulums and cross them without being sliced apart!

Me: (rolls d20) It’s a 1! Critical failure! I’m dead, story over, anyone for Smash Bros?

DM: Dammit! Well, fortunately, there’s a cleric in the audience who’s sympathetic to your cause. He casts Raise Dead, letting you try again.

Me: Dammit! All right, here goes…

Rising young leading man in Hollywood, or a young Jennifer Coolidge?

(20 minutes later)

DM: Congratulations! You have passed all the tests and retrieved the ruby, Ridley! However, the fiend Damodar arrives! Caught in the middle of a battle between his men and the thieves, Ridley, Snails, and Elwood escape with the ruby, but Marina is taken prisoner!

Me: Isn’t she supposed to be able to cast spells and stuff?

Marina: Indeed! I cast Sleep on my captors, then Expeditious Retreat to get out of there and return to my party!

DM: Well… Profion has cast… (skims through rulebook) Spell Mantle! Yes, he cast Spell Mantle on all of his henchmen, so they’re immune. And anyways, they take her away to a fortress, and the rest of you are ambushed and taken prisoner by the elven ranger Norda. However, she’s working for Empress Savina, so you’re all on the same side. Snails in particular is very eager to get close to Norda, who enchants him by sheer virtue of being female, attractive, and African-Izmerian. However, being an elf, Norda rebukes Snails’ advances by appearing bored and irritated.

Elwood: ‘Tis a quality not limited to elf-kind, I can assure you.

"Come on, Mr. Director. Forget the PG-13 rating just for one scene! We'll make a Special Unrated DVD out of it!"

DM: Now, you decide that it’s essential to rescue Marina, so you head off to the fortress…

Me: After hiding the ruby somewhere so that Profion won’t find it if we get caught.

DM: Er, well, no. There’s no time for that! You must rescue the… um… cute wizard who almost never is able to cast valuable spells. It’s, er, essential. So you head to the keep and find that it’s heavily guarded by soldiers and Beholders, massive one-eyed, classic D&D monsters that command powerful magic.

Me: All right! We get to fight Beholders! It’s about time!

DM: Well, I wouldn’t say you’re going to fight them, or even interact with them, but you will very briefly see them. Pretty cool, huh? Now, Norda decides that it’s very important for Ridley and Snails to complete this mission on their own, so she waits outside with you, Elwood, while the thieves sneak into the fortress.

Elwood: Damn it all! Why in the hells would half our people just wait behind? And may I remind you that I am a Dwarf carrying an enormous ax, yet I haven’t killed a damn thing yet? And if we’re in a fantasy movie, why haven’t we fought anyone except generic human soldiers and a bald guy with blue lip gloss? Now we’ve finally got monsters lurking about, and we’re not even going to fight them?

DM: No, you ungrateful oaf! Ridley and Snails are going to sneak around them. (rolls d20) 18! There, you’ve passed your Hide skill check, congratulations. (rolls d20) 14! And there, Elwood, you’ve passed your Spot skill check, so you’ll be able to see what happens in the fortress. Satisfied?

Elwood: Ooh, I passed a skill check!

"Capital One??? That's what's in your wallet???"

DM: Now, while Ridley is busy freeing Marina, Snails gets to work stealing back the scroll, which is still valuable for a reason I’m not 100% sure of considering that they already have the ruby. However, Snails’ foolishness--which I believe 21st century mortals refer to as “mugging for the camera”--results in his getting captured by Damodar. Atop the keep, Damodar threatens to kill Snails if Ridley does not relinquish the ruby…

Me: I vote that we let Snails die.

Elwood: Second!

Marina: I quit if we don’t.

DM: D’oh! Well, yes he’s going to die, but it’s a very sad moment in the story, because he bravely tosses them the scroll just before he is stabbed. Marina, you pick up a fallen bag of magic powder and cast a spell to stun Damodar before you teleport yourself and Ridley away.

Me: You know, with all the times we’ve stunned Damodar, maybe we should try sometime to stab him while he’s down. I think that even Barbara Boxer would approve of that at this point.

"I like Turkish baths, but I think this will be my last visit to an Afghani bath."

DM: Recovering at an elven village, your party manages to put aside its grief, and decides to continue with the mission. But while you are resting, Profion has led the Council of Mages into open rebellion against the Empress, fortifying themselves in a tower in the center of Izmer while the Empress dispatches her gold dragons to defeat them. It is truly a massive battle, with wizards hurling fireballs at the dragons and dragons breathing fireballs upon the tower!

Me: Yeah, I liked this movie better when it was a video game called Panzer Dragoon and had better graphics.

DM: But your party, meanwhile, must retrieve the red dragon-controlling wand to prevent Profion from getting it…

Me: Or, if I’ve learned anything from all the movies I’ve ever watched, to inadvertently assure that he does get it.

Ol' Blue Lips is back.

DM: You journey to an underground dungeon, protected by a magical barrier that only Ridley can pass through for a reason that is probably in a deleted scene or something. In there, he finds incredible riches, but being a great hero now, he leaves all of that in favor of retrieving the wand, which a mural reveals as having incredible powers. Exiting the dungeon, Ridley, you find that your friends have been captured by Damodar and his men, and if you don’t give up the wand, he will kill them! He promises, however, that if you hand him the wand, he will let them all go.

Me: I don’t suppose that any number of points I have in the ‘Sense Motive’ skill will convince you to let me act with the knowledge that he’s obviously lying.

DM: Whatever your ‘Sense Motive’ skill is, I’m sure his ‘Bluff’ skill is higher. You give him the wand, and he disappears through a portal he creates, but the soldiers he leaves behind threaten to kill your friends anyway, although admittedly, they do not do so the moment Damodar gives the irrefutable order, “Kill them all,” even though the soldiers have swords at your friends’ throats. Norda and Elwood break free, and they start beating up on the soldiers! See, Elwood! You’re fighting people! With an ax! Aren’t you excited?

"Sorry Thora, but the nerdy wizard chick is much fairer than you."

Elwood: No, not really. We’re going to lose. After all this time, we must be fighting enemies of at least level 14 or 15. But we’ve done so little fighting that we can’t be more than level 2 right now. It’s over.

DM: Ah, but be not troubled, for I can assure you that the soldiers are every bit as incompetent as they have been for the past ninety minutes! This allows you, Ridley, to chase Damodar through the portal, and confront him and Profion at the wizards’ tower. Profion has summoned a swarm of red dragons and they are battling the gold dragons for the fate of the kingdom! Now, you have the initiative, Ridley, so what’s your first move? Do you attack Damodar directly, or do you use a special attack?

Me: Really? You mean you’re actually inviting me to engage in combat with a somewhat challenging enemy?

DM: Indeed I am.

"Hey, Bob. I think Sparky wants to play fetch with his auxiliary eyeball."

Me: Wow. I’m beside myself. This game based on the movie based on the game is actually involving something that sometimes happens in a real Dungeons & Dragons game! Or a real movie for that matter! All right, let’s do this! (rolls d20) I rolled an 11! Pretty good! Now, let’s see. My base attack bonus is 4, my bonus from my Strength attribute is 1, I have proficiency with a long sword, my sword has a +2 bonus, I’m smaller than Damodar so I get a +1 size bonus to hit, I’m using Power Attack +3, I’m facing west, it’s a Tuesday, humidity’s at 52%, and so my final attack bonus is… wait a minute, I have proficiency with short swords, not long swords. I have to start all over again.

DM: D’oh! All right, I’ll get the calculator. Marina, start work on figuring out Damodar’s armor class.

Marina: I’ll be done in a flash!

"Damn you, Damodar! You probably killed my father! Or you are my father! Either way, I'm going to get you!"

(80 minutes later)

DM: Congratulations! After three rounds of combat, you have defeated Damodar and thrown him off the tower! But Profion himself is much too powerful for you to defeat. However, Ridley amazes him by snatching the red dragon wand and appearing to be able to wield it. But you only overcome Profion when the Empress arrives and defeats Profion in battle, summoning a gold dragon to eat him.

Me: I know I want my epic fantasy movie to end with the villain vanquished by the emo girl from American Beauty.

Although Jennifer Connelly pulled out from the role of the elf at the last minute, there was no time to get the costume refitted for Kristen Wilson.

DM: Your party has completed its quest. You have defeated Profion and his rebellion, and the Empress can now complete her sweeping reforms and make everyone in Izmer equal, in a completely ambiguous way. You, Ridley, are made a knight, and say goodbye to your friend Snails at his grave, where you place the ruby in order to finally give Snails his “big score.”

Me: Which is really just about the most insulting thing I could have possibly done as I seek to define what he meant to me. That’s like going to Michael Jackson’s grave and resting a naked Ken doll atop it.

DM: And as for the rest of you, you’re… happy, I guess.

Marina: All right, then.

Elwood: I guess so.

"Trust me, guys. There's definitely no way that dragons are resistant to fire."

DM: So, to wrap up our story…

Me: Allow me. Dungeons & Dragons is just about the most embarrassing movie I’ve ever seen. Jeremy Irons’ performance is so ludicrous and over-the-top that I get the feeling he gave it out of sheer contempt for the production, something born out by the behind-the-scenes footage on the DVD. Marlon Wayans just does his hood version of Jar-Jar Binks the whole movie, Thora Birch looks perpetually shellshocked by her awareness of the movie she’s in, and the rest of the actors just don’t know what the hell’s going on. The special effects would have looked ridiculous in Ghostbusters. And except for the fleeting shot of Beholders, fearsome and iconic enemies from the game who are now interpreted as mere watchdogs, this film could have been nearly identical without the game license and no one would have known any better. It’s just a completely generic family fantasy movie. Ironically, this thing somehow got a sequel, Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God. And despite being a Sci-Fi Channel movie of all things, it was actually a vast improvement, both as an interpretation of the game and as an exciting movie, not that I’m saying much there.

Irons froze, realizing what was behind him. It was Oscar himself, and he had come to reclaim his award.

DM: You know, I think I’ve had enough of your callous disdain for this fine film! It was a story of courage and valor, and if you disparage it one more time, you’ve got a fight coming to ya!

Me: Hey, I think it was every bit what I’d expect from an action movie directed by a man named Courtney.

DM: That’s it! Let’s fight!

Me: You got it! (rolls d20)

DM: Ha! A lowly 6! That’s probably a pitiful blow, but I’ll know for sure once I consult several chapters of the Player’s Handbook and finish compiling this spreadsheet!

COMING SOON: Dungeons and Dragons

2009-06-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

Curse thee, foul wizard! Thy hath cast a Cloud of Bewilderment spell upon me!

REVIEW: There Will Be Blood

2009-06-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

"Go ahead. Make my milkshake."

Let me save you 158 minutes: Daniel Day-Lewis plays a horse’s ass. The End.

Now, for the long version. There Will Be Blood is Paul Anderson’s (not that one) much-acclaimed 2007 drama based on noted capitalist Upton Sinclair’s novel, Oil!, which he wrote shortly before his classics, Airplane! and Police Squad! I haven’t read the novel, so I don’t know how this movie compares, but I suspect I could have read the book faster. I have nothing against long movies, and in fact, I love movies that take their time to develop stories I enjoy, but about halfway through this epic, I asked myself the following question: Would I rather watch a badly-made movie in which stuff happens, or a well-made movie where hardly anything happens? The fact that I preface the film with this question might give some clue to my final answer.

This must be where Plainview gets his name.

The film opens in 1898 as Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) goes about the solitary task of prospecting out in the desert. It doesn’t look like fun. He falls into the little hole he dug for himself and breaks his leg. He crawls his way back to town and sleeps on the hard floor of a public building. All of this is pretty much to show that the guy came from nothing and was dirt poor when he was young, so that it’ll be very ironic later on when he’s fabulously rich and still miserable. I’ve got your number, movie.

"This is a horrible room, but the commercials do promise that I'll be much smarter in the morning."

Flash forward a few years, and now Plainview’s suddenly got his own business, drilling for oil. I guess the movie wanted to show him with nothing to start the movie, but didn’t want to do the legwork of showing him actually starting up his business. It’s a bit of a cop-out when your rags-to-riches when you skip the part where your character goes from penniless to employing a dozen or so men. Regardless, Plainview’s suddenly gone from hermit to savvy, unscrupulous businessman; raw wealth is his objective and screwing people less clever than him is his hobby. That said, he’s pretty good at his job, inventing some kind of Pumpjack, and later, the oil pipeline and slant drilling. Yeah, pretty much all of that’s his. Three humongous advances in oil drilling technology came from this guy. I’m looking forward to the film version of Upton Sinclair’s Isotope!, where an unscrupulous nuclear scientist invents the A-bomb, chemotherapy, and Godzilla.

"This will make me a fortune. I call it... American Gladiators!"

He goes around giving sales pitches to potential investors, bringing along his adopted son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), whose real father died working for Plainview. H.W.’s a blank-eyed, nearly speechless, dark-haired munchkin who appears to have been ripped from an American adaptation of a Japanese horror movie. Plainview brings him along everywhere because he apparently has the self-awareness to recognize that, looking like sleazier Borat, he needs a little something to humanize him in the eyes of his investors, and Damien can do just that. Although this is Plainview’s overt purpose for taking H.W. everywhere, you definitely get the sense that as greedy and spiteful as he is, he is pining for a little love from his Matryoska doll of a child.

"I'm sorry, Baby Jessica, but my extraction fee of $4,000 plus 10% of your lifetime earnings is non-negotiable. Well, I'm afraid I have to go. It was a pleasure doing Capitalism with you!"

The main “plot” starts with a young man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) trying to get $500 out of Plainview in exchange for telling him the location of his family’s ranch, which he’s running away from, and which has oil bubbling up to the surface everywhere. I guess we’re supposed to see how much of a miser Plainview is for haggling at the $500 price, which was a big deal back then, slightly more than the cost of the average government stimulus package. But he relents and gets the location of the ranch, in Little Boston, California. He heads out there with H.W., pretending to be just a quail hunter, and is treated extremely kindly by Paul‘s ultra-religious family, including twin brother Eli, a charismatic preacher. (Yes, a charismatic preacher named Eli Sunday. It‘s easier for both of us if I just let this slide.) When Plainview scouts around and discovers that there is, clearly a ton of oil waiting underground, he tries to convince the Sundays that he’d just kind of like to buy their dirt-poor ranch because it’s a nice place to hunt quail. But Eli, aggravatingly polite as he is, calmly asks if he wants the ranch because of the oil, which ruffles Plainview a bit, who still gets the Sunday patriarch, Abel (David Willis), to agree to a deal: $5,000 down, and $5,000 when drilling succeeds in striking oil.

Stalin's audition tape for The Office

(Incidentally, because Eli and Paul look identical, I thought there was going to be a plot twist whereby we eventually learn that they’re the same people, and that Eli was manipulating Plainview. But like all plot twists I actually see coming in movies, it doesn’t actually happen.)

Plainview sets up a well, and Eli Sunday, suddenly rich, greatly expands the size of his church. Although they have mutual interest in seeing the well succeed, Eli’s very, very, very religious, and Plainview is very, very, very not religious. And very, very, very not fond of Eli. When Eli asks to deliver a not-at-all ostentatious blessing at the ground-breaking ceremony, Plainview agrees, but then winds up delivering a mocking version of it himself. When a worker dies shortly after drilling starts, Eli makes sure, in his hatefully soft-spoken way, that Plainview realizes the tragedy is his fault for not letting Eli do the blessing. I guess it never occurred to Eli that he could have done the blessing himself, anyway, without being introduced by Plainview. Or maybe God’s not so important, and he just don’t want his homies disrespecting him, dawg, which I think was more the intent of the scene.

"And now, everyone, I'd like you to meet my little friend, Peanut. Say hello to the nice people, Peanut."

When the well does strike oil, it strikes the crap out of the oil. Everyone’s just chilling out near the well when, all of a sudden, natural gas explodes from the well, knocking back H.W. just ahead of a massive fountain of oil. Plainview hurries his dazed and frightened son to safety, but is most concerned with getting the well under control. And that was probably a good idea, although a little late, because the well catches fire and goes up in flames. And it keeps burning for a while, then stops. And, uh, that’s it. Apparently it’s fine, and they still have oil. Really, the whole well-catching-fire scene looked a lot more important in the trailer.

"And once we break through the lines here, we'll have a straight path to Berlin!" "Vladimir, you eediot! This is a map of Iowa!"

Unfortunately, H.W. is now completely deaf, which both saddens and frustrates Plainview, who really hates closed captioning. When Eli approaches Plainview about getting the $5,000 that’s owed him, he instead gets a smack-down, with Plainview putting his Tom Selleck moustache to good use and pummeling him for not being able to faith heal his son, or even interested in trying. Eli is obviously impressed with Plainview’s fighting moves, because he tries them out on his father for agreeing to a deal on which they’re going to get screwed. In a better movie, the financial dispute would escalate until you‘ve got people pulling Tommy guns out of guitar cases. In this movie, this is the last serious mention of it we’ll hear in a while, because it’s time to move onto the next inconsequential story arc.

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. What? ... Eight and a half."

Plainview, still in a bit of a bad mood about not being able to communicate with his son, is approached by a man who claims to be his long-lost half-brother, Henry (Kevin J. O’Connor, playing this as an irony-free version of Benny from The Mummy). Although Plainview isn’t one to warm up to people, he does have fond childhood memories of his brother, and seems to have a bit of a weakness for people who are supposed to love him unconditionally. And Henry’s a creaky-voiced, aimless loser, so it’s not like Plainview would have to worry about sibling rivalry, which I suspect he wouldn’t take kindly to. So Henry comes aboard as some kind of junior business partner/lackey/Igor, right around the time that Plainview tricks H.W. into boarding a train that will take him to a San Francisco boarding school for the deaf, all by himself. Awww, H.W. is being separated from his father. And that’s… sad.

"Oh, stop whining, son. I was married when I was your age, and now your mother, the rest of the commune, and I are very happy together."

Daniel Plainview’s prone to crankiness. When Standard Oil offers to buy up his business, their representative suggesting that it’ll give him more time to spend with his son, Plainview instead offers to cut the guy’s throat for telling him how to run his family. But he’s seemingly in a bind because he needs to transport his oil by train, which Standard Oil monopolizes and can jack up the rates for. Not to be outdone, Plainview plans to build a pipeline to California and sell to Union Oil instead. However, to build the pipeline, he needs to buy the property of an old man named William Brandy, who had held out selling to Plainview a while earlier because he was refused a personal audience. Whoops. Plainview rides out there and waits for Brandy to return.

"I don't know how to quit you."

While waiting, he goes swimming with his brother, and seems to generally enjoy the guy’s company. Daniel confesses that he generally hates people, and is consumed with competitiveness. Seeing as how World of Warcraft won’t be invented for nearly another century, he doesn’t have a productive outlet for these emotions. But in the course of spending time with Henry, he comes to suspect that he isn’t who he says he is. As they’re camping in the woods alone, Plainview wakes him up with a gun pointed to his face and says, “Name three presidents!” Wait, wrong movie. He asks the name of a farm from their childhood, which forces faux-Henry to admit that he’s not really Plainview’s lost brother, but just a friend of said brother, who took on his identity to get close to rich oilman Daniel shortly after real Henry died of tuberculosis.

"NOW it's an accurate phallic representation! Look at her go!"

Plainview realizes that although this man isn’t really his brother, he’s been a loyal friend whom he’s been able to open up to. Just kidding. He blows his head off and buries him in the woods.

Waking up, Plainview comes face-to-face with Brandy (Hans Howes), who isn’t so displeased at Plainview’s unkempt appearance, or the awareness that he had murdered a man the other night and was sleeping on his grave, that isn’t willing to sell his property. He just wants Daniel to get baptized is all. Hey, they stole this from Ed Wood! I knew Upton Sinclair was lifting all his ideas from somewhere!

"I don't know how to quit... Dammit! That Sunday bastard already used my joke! And this is a much better context!"

Worst of all, Brandy belongs to Eli’s church, which makes the ceremony a bit awkward. Baptism in the Old West was a bit rougher than mine was. I’m pretty sure it was implicit that I was a sinner, but I don’t think it was rubbed in my face so much, and I didn’t have to proclaim out loud that I had abandoned my child. Must be Lutherans or something. As Plainview goes through confessing, then getting congratulated by all the parishioners, you kind of wonder for a bit if he was sincerely moved or not. Maybe he’s a changed man.

"Zounds! When I said, 'Well, I'll be damned! I didn't mean it literally!"

THAT doesn’t last long. When H.W. is returned from boarding school, now knowing how to speak sign language (Although Daniel himself still can’t. Whoops.), Plainview sits down to a nice meal with his son. Until he realizes that some of the Standard Oil people are at the next table. Uh-oh. Plainview throws a napkin on his head so he can shout insults at them without giving his son the idea that he’s a less-than upstanding citizen. Classy. Quite a bit nicer is H.W.’s relationship with Mary Sunday, a nice little girl that H.W. has befriended despite the fact that his father has the morals of Pol Pot and the looks of the Master from Manos the Hands of Fate. Unlike Daniel, she learns sign language so she can communicate with H.W., and when they both reach adulthood, they get married.

Borat. By Calvin Klein.

Flash forward to 1927. Plainview lives in a huge mansion with a butler and everything. No secret superhero identity, near as I can tell, although this movie was apparently based on only the first half of the Upton Sinclair novel, so you never know. He’s more pleasant than ever. When H.W. comes by to tell him (through an interpreter on behalf of sign language-ignorant Daniel; Dad will do anything for his child that doesn’t involve spending time) that he wants to end his partnership with his father and move to Mexico to start up his own company with Mary, Plainview congratulates his son’s initiative by telling him he’s both a traitor and an orphan, a “bastard from a basket.” Which is a real relief to H.W., who’s turned out all right for himself.

"Tell me where the stash is." "It's on your upper lip, boss. Ha, ha! I make joke! Just like you!" (click)

While sleeping on the bowling lanes in his mansion--among his many character quirks is that he’s accustomed to sleeping on hard surfaces--Plainview’s visited by Eli. Whom he still owes $5,000, but who’s not coming to collect. Instead, he’s offering to sell some more land of his to Plainview, believing it to have oil underneath. And with the recent stock market crash (recent 1927 stock market crash), Eli’s desperate for money, although he puts on a brave face and insists he wants the money to expand his church operation. Is it time for the Dickensian reawakening of the old miser’s heart? Or is it time for one last Plainview hissy fit before the ending credits?

"Now, Daniel, say five Hail Marys and wear this enormous hat for a week, and I think you'll be forgiven."

I’m going with B, Regis. To agree to a land deal, Plainview forces Eli to boldly proclaim, as if before a congregation, that he’s a charlatan and that God’s a delusion. He then promptly answers that he’s already slant-drilling into the land that Eli’s talking about, meaning that Eli’s got nothing to offer him. If you’ve waited the entire movie for the “milkshake” line, here it is. There’s a lot of verbal abuse, then a lot of physical abuse, then a lot of psychological abuse as Plainview further mocks Eli’s god, then some more physical abuse with a bowling pin to cap off the visit. Sitting there beside the dead body of his long-time non-rival, Plainview calmly calls out to his butler, “I’m finished.” Roll credits. Uh-huh. That’s the longest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm I’ve ever watched.

"Get this, son: Ohhhh! Jacob Marley! I am the ghost of Ebeneezer Scrooge! Mwa-ha-ha!"

If I could suggest one thing that would have helped this movie, it would have been this: a point. Seriously, what exactly was I watching this for? I realize that this isn’t supposed to be some fast-paced crime drama or anything, but some kind of basic conflict that progressed along with the movie would have been nice. Was the conflict supposed to be Daniel trying to be loved? There were certainly parts where he was trying to bond with his kid or his fake brother, but it’s a story that really only develops at all at the every end, when Daniel and H.W. disown each other. Was the movie supposed to be about Plainview and Standard Oil competing with each other? That could have been interesting, but Plainview’s success was never really in doubt, and it would be a real reach to call Standard Oil his “nemesis.” If I had to describe what the conflict of the story is, I’d have to say that it’s just generally about a greedy guy who keeps succeeding and keeps not getting loved anyway. It’s merely a character study, a $25 million one-man show where Daniel Day-Lewis gets to play off people, showing off every little nuance he’s imagined for his character. We’re supposed to be so enthralled by the crumminess of this guy that we don’t notice that he doesn’t have anyone interesting to play off of, or any particular goal he’s in danger of not accomplishing. Plainview’s little outbursts of bad behavior are often pretty amusing on their own, but without any serious suspense, they don’t amount to much of a story.

"There's no escape, Eli. I have you... pinned! Ha, ha, ha! Oh, I'm just on a roll tonight!"

Uh, sorry. This movie is essentially a 158-minute prequel to a Disney Channel TV movie, where Daniel Plainview is taught the true meaning of Christmas by Amanda Bynes.

REVIEW: There Will Be Blood

2009-05-31T15:17:00.001-07:00

There will be whining.

REVIEW: The Worst of Bond, Part 3: Die Another Day

2009-05-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

"Damn, I could use a silencer, now that I think about it. I'll trade you this nail clipper I swiped from Q-division for it."

Ah, Die Another Day. The movie that epitomizes the word #*$@&%#!. This was the fourth James Bond movie in the Pierce Brosnan era, which included the utterly awesome GoldenEye, the mostly harmless Tomorrow Never Dies, and the completely corporeal The World is Not Enough. Most people, including myself, agreed that Brosnan was one of the better Bonds, combining most of the best traits of previous portrayals of the character. I can’t speak for everyone, especially those who grew up with Connery, but when I think of James Bond in general, not a specific movie, my image is basically that of Pierce Brosnan. But just as Brosnan himself was good, but generic, so were his movies. They were basically all similar globe-trotting, action-heavy entries that tried to keep seriousness and humor, realism and fantasy in pretty close balance, all while making sure to scatter three or four huge action scenes throughout. They basically tried to appeal to everyone. And since the Bond fan base is composed of people who favor the jokes, sexiness, action, espionage, and travelogue scenes in different measures, I guess that was smart from a business perspective.

"I looking for John Connor. I need your clothes, your boots, and your... Oh, wait. I already have them. Never mind. Good day, sir."

So I suppose I should almost find it courageous that for Brosnan’s fourth go-round, they actually stopped riding the fence and actually went right after one audience. They modeled a film more for the people who loved the action and spectacle over the drama and thin ties to reality, the same thugs who were complicit in making a XXX sequel possible. Die Another Day was essentially the latest iteration of You Only Live Twice and Moonraker. And considering my previous two reviews, you might imagine where I stand on that idea.

First of all, the title. Die Another Day? Doesn’t that have almost the exact same meaning as Tomorrow Never Dies? Or maybe the exact opposite meaning. I’m not sure, but in any event, it sounds like it was devised using some James Bond-themed magnetic poetry.

Ah. So maybe this movie's actually a very subtle satire of foundationalist classroom pedagogy.

Actually, the sad thing about this movie, for me, is that it actually starts out kind of well... Er, it starts well after it starts out really badly. In the opening gun barrel sequence, we actually see a computer-rendered bullet flying directly into our faces. Now, the gun barrel opening is just a tradition and a fun little logo for the James Bond character, so I shouldn’t think much of it, and I should just be happy that there’s no disco twang to the music, like there was in some of the Roger Moore films. But I have to question the logic a bit here. Why is Bond shooting a bullet back down the barrel of his opponent’s gun? And after he makes his shot, why does blood spill down? Whoever designed this sequence does realize that there’s a difference between a gun barrel and a targeting scope, right? Right?

And thus, we get one step closer to the much-anticipated James Bond/Col. John Matrix team-up movie.

So anyway, aside from the stupid title and the silly opening gun barrel logo and the promo material for godawful TV shows on the Regal Cinemas “Twenty”--which, in all fairness, might not have been DAD’s fault--the movie starts out well. It opens at night with Bond and two South Korean agents surfboarding into North Korean territory, sneaking through the jungle. If you have to come up with a James Bond surfing scene, that’s about as good as any reason to do it. Furthermore, I liked that this is one of the very few times in a Bond movie that Bond is actually fighting an enemy nation. Even during the Cold War, the ultimate villain was nearly always a trans-national, completely fictitious organization or a rogue industrialist or military officer. Here, even in its grossly simplified way, the film actually depicts a real nation as villainous, which is a very small step away from political correctness that I wholeheartedly approve of. Even if in real life, North Korea is only threatening because the international community couldn’t convince a paraplegic dog to stay off the couch, much less a dictator to stop building a nuke. North Korea may have a madman at the helm, but it’s a dirt-poor nation propped up by China’s support and other nations’ refusal to take military action against it; it’s not exactly an imposing evil empire.

Filmed on location in South Korea, Hawaii, England, Iceland, and Hell.

The mission is to ambush some arms dealers before they can board a helicopter, then steal their identities and hide a bomb in a suitcase full of diamonds they’re planning to give to North Korean general Moon (Kenneth Tsang) in exchange for weapons. As Bond arrives, Moon is managing his stress by kickboxing a punching bag (yes, I guess you’re allowed to do that) that is later revealed to contain his anger management therapist; clearly, this guy aspires to world terrorism or playing for the Knicks, one or the other. Bond’s cover is immediately blown when someone snaps a picture of him, sends it to some unknown informant, and is informed that he’s a secret agent. I guess all those years of blasting bad guys while using his real name has caught up to Bond, although you would have thought that radically changing his appearance four times (not counting the Woody Allen phase) over the last forty years might have bought him some anonymity.

"I can finish the mission, M. Give me a chance. It's so easy, even I could do it."

Bond compensates for his weaknesses in the area of disguise by showcasing his strengths in the area of blowing the living hell out of everyone and everything in the region. The initial explosion that saves him from a firing squad comes courtesy of a Q-gadget, but otherwise, it’s just Bond shooting stuff up, killing more people in the film’s first six minutes than Connery managed in six films. The battle continues as Bond chases Moon (or vice versa, I’m not sure) in a hovercraft race across a mine field. Yes, they’re down to hovercrafts as far as vehicles Bond has not yet driven to death goes. Hovercrafts armed to the teeth with rockets, machine guns, and flame throwers. I’m not sure who thought a flame thrower was a good idea for this vehicle--even if it’s more plausible here than on a damned helicopter for God’s sake--but it does prove to be an effective weapon for Moon to not kill Bond with. The chase ends with Moon and his hovercraft going over a waterfall, presumably to their fiery ends, and Bond surviving, but finding himself in custody by the North Korean army.

Yes, Bond actually gets captured. And tortured! For 14 months! In fact, the whole opening title sequence chronicles Bond’s imprisonment, complete with a techno/acid rock song by Madonna that helps bring Bond’s pain to life.

Well, now I understand a little better how Cubans can afford their health care.

After the titles finish, Bond is surprised to find himself released, traded back to the British in a swap for the terrorist Zao (Rick Yune) after the Brits come to think that Bond has been giving up secrets under duress. Scruffy Geico Caveman Bond insists that he never said a word, and wants to chase down Zao and force him to spill the identity of whoever gave up his identity; and he’ll definitely need Zao for that, since half the world’s population knows who he is. M (Judi Dench) rescinds Bond’s 00-status and license to kill while they figure out what to do with him, and that works about as well as it did in License to Kill, the last time that happened. Bond proves a pioneer by daring to actually travel around the world and kill people without government certification, after he jumps off the British medical frigate and surfaces at a dock in Hong Kong, in front of a green screen so obvious that the Hong Kong skyline might as well be black and white stock footage from the Korean War.

"Arr, there be a great leviathan of the seas off yonder port bow. It be chewing scenery mercilessly!"

With a little help from the Chinese, who are ceasing their support of the North Korean government just long enough to help Bond bring it down, Bond follows Zao to Cuba, continuing his tour of the world’s socialist paradises. Posing as a tourist, he scopes out the experimental medical clinic on the beach that Zao’s been admitted to. While there, Bond meets Jinx (Halle Berry); she’s a sassy American who, unknown to Bond, is actually a CIA secret agent! Quite a twist, there. The two are immediately attracted to each other’s ability to weave naughty one-liners into their conversation, even though their puns don’t have any literal meaning whatsoever, and the whole thing amounts to a variation on the “Yo Mamma…” joke battle (and yes, she will eventually actually say “Yo Momma“ in this movie). This sad little exchange naturally leads to sex, and for what I think might be the first time in a Bond movie, the two are shown actually doing it, not making small talk afterwards. Way to stay classy, movie. They make the first Bond movie with an African-American actress in the lead role, and decide that also makes it the right time to move the series closer to soft-core porn.

James Bond: both licensed to kill and an RN...

The next day, Bond raids the clinic, and finds that Zao is undergoing an experimental DNA surgery to permanently change him to look Caucasian. Even having finished the film, I’m not entirely sure why this would have been necessary, but I do know that Zao might have wanted to have the doctors pull out those diamonds embedded into the side of his face first if his goal was to blend in. You see, when Bond set off his exploding briefcase of diamonds at the beginning of the film, a bunch of the diamonds embedded into Zao’s cheek. Personally, I think that Diamondface might have been a less horrible title for a James Bond movie, and at least would have had some vague connection to the plot. But in any event, the ever-inventive Bond spars with Zao, using an MRI and a gas tank as his weapons of choice, but Zao gets away anyway. And so does Jinx, who’s independently assassinating the doctors, but gets cornered by Cuban soldiers at the edge of a seaside cliff. She escapes by stripping down to her bikini, flashing Bond a coy wink, and transforming herself into a computer effect from Dead or Alive Volleyball long enough to dive backwards about 200 feet into the ocean, where a boat is waiting for her. The Cuban soldiers are shocked, wondering how it’s possible that she survived the fall. The simple answer is that it’s not possible, but in a James Bond movie, nobody ever fails at anything as long as they’re smug while they do it.

...although he's been known to confuse the two licenses.

Having recovered one of Zao’s diamonds, Bond discovers that it’s a conflict diamond or something like that, but everyone thinks it actually came from a mine in Iceland owned by British entrepreneur Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens). If that doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t have to, because its only purpose is to identify the bad guy. Bond jets back to London, in a scene accompanied by the song, London Calling by The Clash. That’s beautiful. He’s a British agent who visits London at least once every movie, and yet this time around, they decided to make a joke about it.

"Hey, I just asked what color it was. I didn't ask you to demonstrate it."

More beautiful is the scene where Bond confronts Graves, a petulant little snot, at a fencing club. Graves’ fencing instructor is played by Madonna, blessing the film with her acting skills after already providing the banshee wail over the opening credits. Thankfully, Bond does NOT sleep with her; at this point, only drug-addled old men would go for Madonna, like Alex Rodriguez for example. Graves is rather irritated that Bond accuses him of building his empire off the blood of Africans, and decides that the best way for him to get rid of Bond without exposing his villainy to the world is to attack him with a broadsword. Fortunately, old Mordred gets bested by Bond, and shows he’s a good sport by inviting him to a scientific demonstration in Iceland. Thanks, Gus. Bond goes along with it, either because he figures that turning himself over to his mortal enemy’s hospitality is the best way to stay a step ahead of him, or because he’s just hoping the scientific demonstration involves something cool like zombies being reawakened.

The Young Charles and Camilla Chronicles

But before he goes, M wants a word with him. You know that whole deal about Bond being mentally scarred by his year of torture and his own country accusing him of treachery and disowning him? Yeah, that’s LONG gone. That sounds like a Timothy Dalton movie, and the producers were going more for something like a cross between Roger Moore and Mike Myers. Instead, M now supports Bond’s mission to figure out what Graves is up to, and sends a hot young female agent named Samantha Frost (Rosamund Pike) along to help Bond, but with orders not to sleep with him. You know, I’m sure that somewhere on the MI-6 payroll there’s a competent male agent other than James Bond. If M’s such a puritan that she can’t put up with him having an inappropriate personal relationship while he saves the bleeding world, maybe she should stop pairing him with hotties.

"We can finish materializing it once the rest of the bailout money comes in."

Bond’s stop by MI-6 headquarters also brings him a handful of gadgets, presented by Q (now played by John Cleese, who’s clearly not used to being in movies quite this silly):
> A ring that can shatter glass. Sounds nifty and practical. Verdict: I approve.
> A rebreather. Also sounds handy. Verdict: Very good.
> Virtual reality goggles that Bond uses to train in a simulated hostage crisis. Yeah, because Bond hasn’t gotten nearly enough practice shooting people in this movie so far. Verdict: I disapprove, unless this is all just a joke at Pierce Brosnan’s expense for Lawnmower Man.
> A patented Q-car. Aside from the usual features like rockets and a nearly indestructible exterior, what could be the big gag for this one? Turns into a submarine? Already done it. Can be remote-controlled? Been there. Flies? Nah, that would be far too unbelievable. Morphs into a giant walking robot? Copyright infringement. We’ll just have it turn invisible instead. Verdict: The hell?

"Yes, the ice is interesting and all, but do we get HBO?"

So with order restored to the universe--Bond has no emotional baggage, he’s loaded with ridiculous gadgets, and his opponent is clearly defined and obvious--it’s off to beautiful Iceland, where Graves’ reception is being held at a hotel made entirely of ice. Now, you’d be right to accuse this of being a completely absurd locale, stuck in the movie just for the sake of being weird, and to give the movie an ‘ice’ theme for the marketing department to play on. But apparently the ice hotel in this movie is based on a real place in Iceland, where rich tourists can pay gobs of money to spent a night encased in ice. It’s kind of like they created a Titanic-themed hotel, but one focused on the last leg of the journey moreso than the first.

"I hope you have a very good reason for interrupting my 3D deep sea nature documentary."

There’s a huge party underway at Mr. Freeze’s hideout, where even Halle Berry/Jinx has shown up. Showing not even the slightest interest in maintaining a cover, she and Bond and Frost engage in a three-way… of godawful quasi-sexual puns. When the subject of their conversation turns to science, Frost asks if Bond told her about his “big bang theory,” to which Jinx responds that she “got the thrust of it.” When she says the line, she literally--literally!--has tongue planted in cheek. That’s epic. And once again, while I tend to prefer double-entendrees to have the initial entendree covered--in other words, for the non-lewd meaning to exist--I guess something more clever would have gone over the heads of the 12-year-olds and lower primates that this film was aimed at.

"Whoops. Sorry darling, but, er, how do I put this? Dante's Peak just erupted a little earlier than I had predicted."

Graves demonstrates his new toy, a massive diamond-based space satellite with the power to reflect the sun’s light and redirect it at the dark half of the world, enabling plants to grow better and the post office to stay open past 5 o’clock or something like that. Of course, we all know that Graves really intends to focus the beam more and turn it into an orbital death ray. I have a couple of problems with this gadget. First, Bond has enough experience dispatching orbital super-weapons, especially those built from diamonds, to know something’s up. Second, I find it a bit unlikely that one tiny satellite could reflect enough light to illuminate more than about a millionth of the Earth at a time, considering that the whole damn moon does a crappy job of it. Third, I highly doubt you’re going to be able to throw a lavish gala for idle rich Euro-trash and get much support for a project designed to bring about global warming.

There's a reason why the British don't go to their dentists very often.

In any event, Jinx suspects that something’s up, so after Graves finishes his 45-second demonstration that he flew everyone to Iceland to observe, she goes sneaking around in an inconspicuous red leather jumpsuit. She infiltrates Graves’ big greenhouse dome thing by climbing to the top of it and lowering herself down on a rope, gambling that none of the thugs guarding the dome ever look up or towards the center of the huge open room they’re in. But since they’re so diabolical, they somehow find her, and she’s to be executed by Graves’ henchman, Mr. Kil (Lawrence Makoare). There’s been a lot of milestones in film history--first talkie, first full-length cartoon, first movie in color--but I think first James Bond movie to have a villain named Mr. Kil is a singular honor that earns this film a place in any classics collection. But fortunately for Jinx, Bond also suspects that the man who recently tried to kill him in public with a broadsword might be looking to cause trouble. After fulfilling his contractual obligation by sleeping with Frost (Whew! He was at risk of being monogamous for the course of the movie there until now!), he awkwardly sneaks into the greenhouse with the help of his invisible car. But it’s kind of difficult to get a car into a greenhouse, so he has to go at it on foot. Damn that fatal design flaw in the stealth car! When he reaches Jinx, she’s tied down and about to be carved up by dancing laser beams, Goldfinger-style, but Bond starts rasslin’ with Kil as the lasers go spinning out of control. Bond and Kil keep punching and kicking each over as deadly lasers jump all over. It might have been a pretty tense scene if the lasers weren’t obviously edited into the movie to purposely avoid the two of them, and if Bond and Kil had made even the slightest effort to avoid them while beating the tar out of each other. In the end, Kil gets killed by a laser. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

It was risky, but he had to try it. The extra life was within his grasp.

Bond confronts Graves and discovers that he’s actually Colonel Moon, who’s already undergone the DNA replacement and has taken over the identity of the real Gustav Graves. His whole scheme was to impersonate the billionaire capitalist and build a super-weapon that he could use to help North Korea conquer South Korea. Not to put down the country of South Korea, but aside from the Wachowski brothers and fans of cheap and crappy MMORPGs, I suspect Western viewers think that taking over South Korea is low on the totem pole of things a bad guy might do with a super-weapon. But still, Bond is of course determined to stop it. Unfortunately, when he fires on Graves, he finds his gun empty. Miranda Frost enters, and reveals herself to be not only a traitor, but THE traitor who sold out Bond and gave him 14 months in a North Korean prison (or 3 minutes listening to a Madonna song, whichever you think is worse).

But whaddaya know, Bond manages to escape with the help of his supersonic ring, which proves very useful when he’s about to be executed on a glass floor. He escapes in an ice dragster and is chased by a giant solar death ray across an ice shelf. Wow, that’s extreme! How could it get more extreme than that? Well how about the death ray (having failed to catch up to Bond because he drove faster than light) melts enough ice to create a tidal wave. But Bond’s an expert surfer, remember, and he’s learned from Jinx how to transform into a Playstation character, so he rides out the tidal wave on a board and a sail. Now THAT is extreme! That’s more extreme than even a Mountain Dew commercial. I could TOTALLY see Bond holding a Dew bottle in this scene and saying something extreme to the camera like, “I like my Dew shaken, not stirred… although I need to let it sit a bit afterwards because it gets fizzy.” Yeah. Extreme.

And a light shone down from Heaven, guiding the wise men as they journeyed in their luxury sedans to the Ice Manger.

Back at the hotel, the villains trap Jinx in her hotel room and aim the death ray at the ice palace, which (and I never would have thought the movie was heading in this direction) causes the ice fortress to start melting. Bond has to get back to rescue Jinx before she drowns. He heads back to his invisible car, but Zao spots him and gives chase in another “fully-loaded” car, as Q would have said. Yes, this is the movie that finally brings to life the great idea of having two Q-cars go at it. They fire missiles and counter-measures at each other, and fire machine guns, and… missiles. And that goes on for a little while. They drive their way through the melting ice hotel, but Bond uses his invisibility power to trick Zao into driving into a lake, where he finally gets impaled by a falling chandelier. It’s such an ironic death, because the movie had established early on that he absolutely loved chandeliers. And Bond says to him, “Who turned off the lights?” Or maybe that was just my growing schizophrenia talking.

Bond rescues Jinx from her now-submerged hotel room, taking her back to the greenhouse where he submerges her in a hot spring to avert hypothermia and performs CPR on her. She coughs and sputters her way back to life and quips, “What took you so long?” At which point Bond pulls out his Walther PPK and shoots her in the head.

"You sure this worked when they did it in the Strangelove movie?"

Yep, he definitely shoots her in the head there. That’s the end of the movie. There’s definitely no scene where Bond and Jinx are sent in alone to stop Graves in North Korea. He definitely wasn’t wearing some Starship Troopers power armor on a jumbo jet, having decided that the best way to make use of his death ray was to clear the mine fields in the DMZ and lead the way for conventional ground troops. Definitely didn’t happen. It’s kind of an ironic ending, but quite poignant. Bond, the raving sexaholic, had finally found someone who was incredibly gorgeous, but so teeth-grindingly obnoxious and spiteful that he was willing to end his life and career, and sacrifice world peace, to avert the many horrible one-liners that Jinx would have perpetrated. And for that, Bond deserves our thanks. And I, for one, welcome our new North Korean overlords.

"Control, this is Bond. I have target sighted. Cannot get a clear look, but I estimate there's a 30% chance it's Madonna." "Control to Bond, you are cleared to take the shot."

There are many things wrong with this movie, but I’d like to single out Halle Berry for a moment. She’s very pretty, but she’s also a horrendous actress. I’ve never seen Monster’s Ball, for which she won the Academy Award, but I’d rather watch a 96-hour marathon of Dragon Ball Z than endure another of her performances after watching her in this, X-Men 1-3, Swordfish, Catwoman, and Gothika. She’s not just bad at speaking her lines with any dramatic urgency or comic timing, but she’s absolutely contemptuous of the movies she’s in. Watching her wink and smirk her way through this role, determined to show that she was in on the joke, rather than attempt to play it somewhat straight, was revolting. When she’s not the center of attention in a movie, she sulks and phones in her part (like in X-Men), and when she’s actually the star, she gives a horrible performance. If Hollywood just wants an attractive and talented black leading lady, I know of plenty who are vastly better at what they do than Halle Berry.

"Now, who's ready for some Rollerball?"

Not to say that she’s the only one to blame. I don’t know what happened to Lee Tamahori, who once upon a time directed the wilderness survival movie The Edge, from a script by David Mamet, that pit Anthony Hopkins against a Kodiak bear. How he went from that fine film to ice palaces, orbital death rays, DNA-swapping, an inexplicable cameo by Michael Madsen of all people, and flame thrower-equipped rubber hovercraft that blow up bunkers by crashing into them I’ll never know. But if this was the movie that killed his career, we at least have the satisfaction that his career found its just reward and went straight to Hell: his movie after this was XXX: State of the Union, a film that needed all of its computer-rendered effects to make you believe that yes, indeed, Ice Cube could jump.

"Are you sure you want this?" "Yes. No matter how much I scream, I need you to remove every inch of skin that Billy Bob Thornton touched."

This movie also had the conceit, since it was released on the fortieth anniversary of the first official Bond movie, Dr. No, and was also the twentieth Bond movie in the official series, of paying tribute to all of the previous films in some subtle way. Usually, this manifested itself in an action scene being lifted, such as parts of the hovercraft chase mirroring the boat chase from The World is Not Enough, or Zao’s death by chandelier mirroring 006’s death by satellite dish in GoldenEye. Then there was Halle Berry remaking the Ursula Andress bikini scene from Dr. No and the 10-minute golf match between Bond and Zao, ripped straight from Goldfinger (I’m pretty sure it was a deleted scene). Even though all the little references make the movie even less original and more disjointed, trying to catch all the little in-jokes at least gives a Bond fan something other to do than pay attention to the insipid story screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were vomiting back in our faces, so I guess that’s a point in the film’s favor.

Fortunately, the Bond franchise redeemed itself with Casino Royale, as it (sort of) had with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and For Your Eyes Only in response to my last two reviewed films. That’s how the Bond movies work: they build themselves up to horrible, brain-dead, plot-free excess, then after hitting rock bottom, they come back with a serious and level-headed movie.

I decided that a shot of a vehicle and random non-explosive crap blowing up around it would be a fitting way to finish this review.

And then they piss it all away each time by making Diamonds are Forever, Octopussy, and Quantum of Solace. So much for that redemption thing. But enough Bond movies for now. Reviewing the same friggin’ movie three times in a row kind of wears on me.

The End of The Worst of Bond. James Bond will return in You Only Review the Worst of Bond Twice.

COMING SOON: The Worst of Bond, Part 3 of 3: Die Another Day

2009-05-13T04:23:00.000-07:00

Madonna?!?!

REVIEW: The Worst of Bond, Part 2: Moonraker

2009-04-29T15:35:00.000-07:00

Hey, have you ever seen Roger Moore and the face on Mars in the same room together? Makes you think...

James Bond movies are almost never original. They’re purely reactionary, reacting both to the popular trends of the time and to the critical success of the previous film. If one film bombs, critically or financially, the next one is radically different. If a film succeeds, the producers do whatever had worked before, but with MORE. That’s why we got Moonraker. The film before it had been The Spy Who Loved Me, a huge, goofy, over-the-top action epic that was actually pretty entertaining, even for dull old Timothy Dalton fans like me. And with Star Wars having recently popularized big outer space battles, all the momentum pushed the series to the ignominious task of putting James Bond 007, smooth-talking, worldly secret agent, into astronaut gear, firing laser beams against goons in a giant exploding space station. The result was… well, the fact that I’m writing about it might give away my conclusion.

"All right, you win. I'll turn off all my electronic devices."

The film opens with a carrier plane transporting a Moonraker space shuttle on its back, taking it to the UK to contribute to the apparently-existent British space program. Excuse me, space programme. And wow, how fast do you need the shuttle that you need to ship it atop another plane, rather than using boats and trains and stuff? But the British “We need a space shuttle on short notice; got one laying around, mate?” approach is very convenient for the plot. There are a couple of bad guys stowed aboard the shuttle; they hit the ignition and fly the shuttle off, destroying the plane in their wake. They head off to God-knows-where, because we know that space shuttles are impossible to track on radar.

"I promise, I'm just borrowing it!"

So of course James Bond (Roger Moore), returning to the UK from Africa, is assigned to the case, but not before we get the highlight of the film out of the way. He’s caught by bad guys aboard a small plane high in the air, and shortly after he kicks the villain carrying the last parachute out of the plane, he himself gets booted. In one of the most wonderfully audacious action scenes I’ve ever witnessed, Bond intercepts the villain in mid-air, wrestles the parachute off his back, and clasps it onto his own. It’s one of those stunts that’s so outrageous, yet just close enough to theoretically plausible that it’s a treat to behold. Unfortunately, they ruin it by adding Jaws (Richard Kiel), The Spy Who Loved Me’s 7-foot-tall, metal-toothed assassin, who dives after Bond and nearly bites his leg off, but pulls the cord on a defective parachute (guess the props department couldn’t procure an anvil to complete the effect) and yet manages to land safely on a circus tent. Moonraker, I thought you were going to manage to pull off one good full scene there. Think you could try it again later on? Er…

"I am glad you could join me, Mr. Bond. Now, allow me to fetch Raggedy Ann and Bobo the Bear, and our little tea party can begin."

Anyway, the space shuttle’s been stolen, and the British don’t have any leads whatsoever, so Bond decides to go visit the Drax Industries complex in California where the shuttle was made. I guess that a random stab in the dark’s as good an approach as any, and fortunately, Bond’s guess is entirely correct. He goes to meet billionaire industrialist Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale, apparently thinking that “Moonraker” is a sleeping pill and acting the part), and Bond plays himself and everything; there’s no pretense at all of being anything but an agent of the British government out to learn how the Moonraker shuttles are made in the odd event that the secrets to unraveling an international conspiracy lie in a glorified Kennedy Space Center tour. Drax decides that the best way to avert suspicion from himself is to tell his Chinese (for no particular reason) henchman Chang (Toshiro Suga; hey, same continent) to kill Bond. Yeah, because if a British agent were killed five minutes after arriving, it’s not like they have any other spies they could send. Well, actually, judging by these movies, they might not.

"Heh-heh-heh. Boobs. Huh-huh-huh."

So Drax has his people try to kill Bond as he participates in a variety of pointless recreational activities--riding around in a centrifuge chamber, pheasant hunting, Skee ball, Mario Kart--but it’s all in good fun, because even as people are being shot out of trees, neither Bond or Drax decides to drop the pretext and just shoot each other in the back. Bond’s knack for securing undying devotion from buxom females at first sight of his rugged British smirk comes in handy, as he gets some help from Drax helicopter pilot Corinne Dufour (Corinne Clery, whom Moore kept calling “Mildred” on the set for some reason). She semi-inadvertently helps him find mysterious blueprints, and for her assistance, Bond leaves her behind and never finds out about her brutal death by Drax’s hounds. But at least Bond was generous enough to sleep with her first. You know what they say to future Bond girls: stay off the Moore. Thank you! I’ll be here all week.

His espionage skills had served him well. She never suspected that he wasn't really at least 52 inches tall.

The blueprints are for a glass vial, which Bond traces to a factory in Venice (you know, I wonder if these Bond villains are ever going to get something manufactured in Akron, Ohio). There, Bond once again runs into Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles, apparently on whatever depressants Lonsdale is), a scientist working for Drax, whom he remembers flirting with inanely back in California. Suffice to say she’s clearly not what she seems, but Bond isn’t curious enough at this point to find out. Because who needs detective work when bad guys just keep trying to kill you whenever you follow up on a thin lead? It’s like an international game of Marco Polo. The attack in question comes as Bond is lounging around in a gondola, apparently relaxing after his hard day of walking around a factory for a few minutes and talking to a pretty lady. Villains attack him from speedboats, so Bond reveals that he’s actually in a Q-division gondola, which has a really powerful motor and even turn into a hovercraft to go on land, kind of like a reverse of the far more practical submarine car from The Spy Who Loved Me. You know, I just have to admire Q-division. They must have put millions of dollars into developing a “fully stocked” vehicle that could only possibly be valuable in Venice. In fact, I suspect that the team leader of Q’s Canal Warfare department staged the attack merely to justify funding.

"Do you need something, grandfather?"

After riding to safety across the square in a floating hovercraft boat, a scene so goofy that a cheaply-edited double-take from a bird is fairly low on the scale of offensive sight gags, Bond skulks back to the factory at night. He finds a laboratory and inadvertently causes two scientists to die after being exposed to some kind of deadly-to-humans-only toxin that’s being transported around in those glass vials. Sneaking out, Bond is confronted by Chang, who attacks him with a giant bamboo stick. And since the glass shop sports a suit of armor (???), Bond gets to pick up a real sword, stunning Chang with the realization that sharp metal tends to be more effective than rounded wood. Bond ends the fight by tossing Chang through the glass face of a clock tower, and he crashes into a piano far below, prompting Bond to unleash the pun, “Play it again, Sam.” Well, maybe it’s not a pun, but it’s a joke. Well, it’s not so much a joke, but it’s definitely a sentence.

"You awe a cunning foe, Mistaw Bond. You wemind me of a certain nemesis I fought wong ago..."

Bond confronts Goodhead (God, I hate writing that name) back at her hotel room, and after playing around with her pen and perfume, he finds that they all contain hidden weapons (acid, a flamethrower), which clearly means that she’s a fellow secret agent from the CIA. Because as we all know, there’s nothing that defines you as a secret agent beyond how many goofball weapons you have hidden in pedestrian items. It’s also a good enough pretext for the two to have sex and put off busting Drax’s bio-weapons operation until the morning. Which proves to be Bond’s undoing, because when M and the Defense Minister arrive to inspect the glass shop (showing a hands-on interest in Bond’s affairs for once), they find that the lab no longer exists. There’s only Drax, standing there confused at their arrival in gas masks into his massive ball room… out back of a glass shop. Nope, not at all suspicious. The Defense Minister is humiliated, but M believes Bond and unofficially dispatches him to Rio de Janeiro, where Drax is moving his operation; once again, I’d really like to suggest a place like Peoria, Illinois if Drax is looking for a solid industrial workforce. But he’s more concerned at the moment with finding a good henchman to replace Chang. So he calls eFelony and is thrilled to hear that Jaws is available. Jaws? I can imagine Drax drooling over the guy’s resume:

Name: Jaws
Objective: To provide killing while expanding my skills as a wacky comic relief antagonist.
Skills:

Massive size and strength, which can be used to overpower any opponent who is either incredibly slow or already cornered.
Excellent disguise skills, so long as I am operating in a circus, European basketball game, or have access to Abraham Lincoln makeup and costume.
Completely indestructible, so long as attacks are aimed directly at my mouth while it is closed.

Accomplishments

Have come very close to defeating James Bond on several occasions, and would have succeeded if Roger Moore had wasted just a little more time mugging for the camera.
Have survived more James Bond movies than Oddjob, Scaramanga, Baron Samedi, Red Grant, or George Lazenby.

Past Employment:

Karl Stromberg (1977-1977). Served as chief assassin. Employment terminated when employer was killed by James Bond.

Definitely putting at least one of the words into the term, "The Gay Blade."

Bond heads down to Rio, where he has sex with his contact, Manuela, as if it’s a bodily function. Which, er, I guess it is. They head out that night so he can wander aimlessly around an empty warehouse. Seriously, I think the world was out of disposable thugs by now. But while Bond’s bumbling around in hopes that more thugs attack him and make his espionage job easier, Jaws fools him by going after Manuela instead. But she and Bond are saved not once, but twice by a band of flamboyant dancing revelers on their way to Goofy Local Festival #856A. Remember, theatergoers won’t realize a joke is funny unless you make it twice in the span of a minute.

"Come to bed, darling." "Shortly, dear. Just need to finish adding one more boat chase and one more boner joke to the Fleming novel."

Jaws tries to get at Bond again, this time after Bond and Holly meet up and start traveling down from an overlook in a cable car. With the help of an exceptionally compliant operator, Jaws has Bond and Holly’s car stopped, then rides down on his own, banking on Bond having left his Walther PPK on the nightstand so that he doesn’t just shoot the 7-foot-tall target. Which, of course, proves to have been a well-played gambit. Bond and Jaws rassle for a bit, while Holly proves her CIA agent credentials by slapping Jaws’ ankles in the meantime, having also left all of her deadly gadgets on the nightstand. The whole thing ends with Bond and Holly escaping (whew, I was worried there for a second) and Jaws and his car crashing through a building, after which he runs into a 2 ½-foot-tall blonde girl with ponytails, and they fall in love. And then… Then…

Spy (and his supervisors) vs. Spy

I’m sorry, I don’t know how much longer I can take this, so I’m just going to zip through the next several “action” scenes:

Bond escapes from an ambulance full of Drax thugs. Unlike the guy who attacked Bond 15 seconds beforehand, they apparently do not have orders to kill Bond on sight. Bond escapes, but they get away with Holly.
In search of the orchid that Q has determined Drax is using in production of the nerve gas, Bond rides up the Amazon in a Q speedboat, and oddly enough, gets attacked by bad guys in other speed boats! Mind you, this is a new speedboat, not the Q speedboat disguised as a gondola. And remember, nothing is certain in life except death, taxes, Cal Ripken, and Jaws ending an action scene with a pratfall and then surviving a horrible crash.
Bond wrestles with a rubber anaconda. He then stabs it with a pen, which is mightier than a bamboo sword.
Drax leaves Bond and Holly to die underneath the exhaust port of a Moonraker shuttle as it launches. They, uh, get away.
Bond and Holly knock out some Moonraker pilots and replace them on a departing shuttle. Fortunately, Bond’s learned how to hold his air conditioner correctly by now, so nobody notices. They head up into space carrying a bunch of beach party bingo rejects.
They get up to a space station that’s hidden to radar. From here, Drax plans to wipe out the human race with nerve gas orbs and then repopulate the planet with his genetically-perfect supermen and superwomen, ushering in an era of peace or some such crap. He captures Bond and Holly again. He orders them to be thrown out an airlock. They get away. They break the radar jammer.

Jaws: Raising the bar for gimmick villains since 1977.

Now, this is where the film gets really interesting. Because apparently NASA has a team of space marines, armed with laser rifles, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Once they get word that the big thing in space is not the Russians, they decide they need to destroy it, which seems like a bit of backwards logic to me. The shuttle full of space marines heads toward the station, but while NASA was thinking small-scale, figuring that little dudes with ray guns would be enough to tackle anything space threw at them, Drax figured, “Hey, how about I just blow up their ship?” So Bond and Holly have to escape. One. Last. Time. This time, they do it by convincing Jaws that Drax won’t let his Mini-Her girlfriend be a part of his master race. As if he was really going to keep the 7-foot-tall ugly guy in suspenders be a big part of his eugenics program anyway. So Jaws helps them escape and stop Drax from blowing up the shuttle with a big laser, which forces him to send out a bunch of little guys with lasers. The film climaxes with the immortal battle between guys in white space suits with lasers versus guys in yellow space suits with lasers. It’s positively operatic.

"Screw Venice. I'm in flavor country."

The space marines start blowing up the station, and Bond chases Drax down one of the docking tubes, until Drax reaches the air lock and pulls a (non-laser) gun on him. Looks like it’s over for Bond, who didn’t think it necessary to bring one of the ten thousand laser pistols on the station along for this task. That is, until Bond uses a Q-division wrist dart thing (cleverly disguised as a regular wrist thing) to shoot Drax in the heart, before he launches him into space out of the air lock. And since there was clearly no ship out of the air lock, one questions Drax’s logic in choosing to flee there. Maybe he figured he could just hold his breath on his way down to Earth, then try to land atop a circus tent, Jaws-style.

"That joke about fashion had better have been at the expense of my lackeys."

But there’s still the issue of three nerve gas pods that have already been launched towards Earth, each containing enough gas to kill 100 million people. Boy, you must be able to fit a lot of gas in a 6-by-6 foot glass bubble. Bond and Holly take off in Drax’s laser-armed Moonraker to shoot them down before they reach the atmosphere. I wonder if Ian Fleming, long-since passed on by this point, watched from the afterlife and regretted calling his novel Moonraker. Although a synopsis of the book shows that it was hardly understated, involving Bond’s attempt to stop a nuclear missile from destroying London, I can’t imagine that Fleming knew this would lead to a film adaptation in which his clever gentleman-spy would wear a yellow jumpsuit and shoot laser beams at nerve gas pods before sleeping with a CIA agent/astronaut lady named Goodhead. I think that if he was aware of that, he would have called the novel something like A Delightfully Dapper Dust-Up to foil Hollywood’s attempts to turn the novel into a big-screen game of Galaga. Then again, they did eventually manage to take a story called Quantum of Solace and turn it into a movie about people stealing Bolivia’s water, so probably no matter of prophecy could have averted the apocalypse known as Moonraker.

Moonraker for the Magnavox Odyssey. Definitely brings the film to life.

I’ll just leave it to you to imagine Bond’s final victory and the wacky hijinx that ensue when MI-6 accidentally broadcasts footage of him having zero-gravity sex with Holly to Buckingham Palace and the White House.

"The State Department mistranslated it! 'Mir' actually means 'die Yankee buttheads'! We're doomed!"

I’m not going to say that Moonraker could have been a good film if they had done a few things differently, because that’s like saying the Sun could be inhabitable it were just a bit cooler. It’s the silliest Bond movie ever, and it’s not remotely funny. Michael Lonsdale, who’s actually a pretty good actor, delivers a couple of drolly funny lines--“James Bond, you appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season,” “At least I shall have the pleasure of putting you out of my misery,” and the absolutely poetic, “Allow me to introduce you to the airlock chamber”--but looks like a Muppet Baby version of Czar Nicholas II, and is about as threatening as a foam rubber Andy Milonakis doggy chew toy. He even gets upstaged on the quasi-intentionally hilarious, completely unintentionally homoerotic line front when Bond refers to Drax’s space station as a “flying stud farm.” As for Lois Chiles? Well, all I can say is that at least many of the previous Bond girls have had the excuse of not having English as a native language.

"Don't mind me. Just taking a very large step with my mankind. And activating my thrusters. And exploring this lady's angry red planets. After that, I'm going to penetrate her lower atmosphere. Oh, and she's going to stick something in my gas giant, where there are lots of asteroids and Klingons. Let's see, what can I say about Pluto..."

Fortunately, the producers never attempted to one-up their shooting of Bond into outer space by having him battle Galactus or something. No, but even if it took a while to manifest itself, Moonraker did eventually have its spiritual successor, a film that would make this look like Syriana by comparison…

COMING SOON: The Worst of Bond, Part 2 of 3: Moonraker

2009-04-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

"Raked" is pretty close to the word I was looking for.

REVIEW: The Worst of Bond, Part 1: You Only Live Twice

2009-04-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

Jack Bauer, however, lives as many times as he damn well wants.

I’m a fan of the James Bond film franchise; I just don’t like that many James Bond films. Everyone has their favorites, and I gravitate towards the few that have at least a hint of seriousness and believability to them, and which actually depict Bond doing the occasional spy stuff, not just acting like a horny college student and machine-gunning bad guys in alternating scenes. Thunderball, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights, License to Kill, GoldenEye, and Casino Royale are all good or great in my book. They all manage to work in humor (well, okay, that wasn’t Dalton’s forte in his pre-Hot Fuzz days), but also had actual espionage, detective work, and covert operations involved. There’s a bunch more films that are silly, but mostly pretty enjoyable.

Then there’s the dregs. And no discussion of the dregs of the series can begin without the nadir of the Sean Connery era, You Only Live Twice.

If that's Sean Connery, I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger.

After the requisite gun barrel opening (back in the days when Bond was wobbly-kneed and wore that awful hat), we cut to a space capsule in orbit around the Earth. Don’t worry, we’re not to Moonraker yet; Bond (Sean Connery, if I haven’t made that clear yet) does all his work planetside. It’s an American capsule, and out of nowhere, another ship appears, barely detectable by radar. It bears no markings, and as it approaches the capsule, its bow opens up and the whole thing envelops the smaller capsule. The Americans blame the Russians, and the Russians deny knowing anything about the mystery ship. Gee, I’m glad the Bond series managed to wait an entire five movies after this one before completely and utterly ripping off the concept I just described. Except I guess that means I’m ripping on The Spy Who Loved Me, which I actually liked. Whatever.

"Odd. You taste like... David Niven?!?!"

For no comprehensible reason whatsoever except that the Brits are smart and the Americans are dumb cowboys, it’s the British who suspect a third party is to blame, and it’s their responsibility to investigate the suspected landing site of the ship, which is near Japan. And of course, their entire investigation is to be carried out by Mr. James Bond 007; hey, with all those billions going to Q Division, you can’t afford many actual field agents. He’s in Hong Kong, in bed with a Chinese girl and making inane observations about how Chinese girls taste like Peking Duck or some such crap. It’s like a Seinfeld routine performed by a bored Scotsman. But the girl betrays him, folding his bed back into the wall and bringing in a guy to machine gun him. When the cops arrive, they pull him out, apparently dead, and they observe that at least he died on the job. Wait, so even the Hong Kong police know who Bond is? I know Hong Kong was under British control at the time, but doesn‘t being a celebrity throw a monkey wrench into his “secret“ agent status? And is he really such a horse’s ass that British police officers, while the world is on the brink of nuclear war, are making dirty jokes about their country’s greatest hero getting killed? Well… come to think of it, he was kind of a douche bag sometimes.

American: "They spelled 'color' wrong!" Brit: "They spelled 'Technicolour' wrong!"

The opening titles feature an execrable theme from Nancy Sinatra and a shocker of a credit: Screenplay by Roald Dahl, as in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author. As someone who likes James Bond movies with at least a tenuous connection to something resembling a skewed version of reality, I at least appreciate the film for giving me fair warning.

"I'm here for my senior portrait."

We see Bond’s naval funeral aboard a destroyer, and his sheet-wrapped body dumped into the ocean; a mysterious figure watches from the shore, apparently verifying that Bond is dead. Which he’d be able to do a lot better if the body wasn’t cocooned, but I’m not one to tell him how to do his job. As the body falls underwater, it’s recovered by a pair of divers and brought aboard a British submarine. They cut the body bag open and, lo and behold, there’s Bond alive (and in uniform), breathing through an aqualung. As M (who apparently feels the need to have both an office and reception aboard the sub as if people are going to just wander on in) is quick to explain, creating the elaborate ruse that Bond is dead will help prevent his enemies from coming after him as he goes about his mission. I guess we’ve already established that Bond’s cover gets blown as often as the rest of him is, so that makes sense. But if all you were going to show at the funeral was a wrapped-up body getting dumped in the ocean, why couldn’t it have just been a big bag of flour or something? Couldn’t you just have used a fake body and given Bond an elaborate disguise, like a moustache and glasses? No wonder tax rates in the UK are so high. Regardless of how preposterous it is that MI-6 would stage a highly public funeral to fake the death of a supposedly-secret agent, this quickly-forgotten gimmick is what the entire title of the movie hinges on. For the title, they could have either embraced the “faked death” theme, or they could have embraced the Japanese theme by calling it Super Fast Sean Bond Connery with Much Honor Time or You Only Set Up Us the Bomb Twice, so I think they made the right call.

"Her Majesty's government can wait. Can anyone here direct me to the nearest used panties vending machine?"

Bond is sent to Tokyo to contact MI-6’s contact, an expatriate named Henderson, who has been doing his own investigation into who might have been responsible for the mystery spacecraft and where their launch point is. And since the producers spent a lot of money to film on location in Japan, they’re going to milk the country for everything it’s worth. The initial meeting with Henderson’s representative, the supposedly-hot chick Aki (supposed actress Akiko Wakabayashi, who I just hope had the excuse of learning her lines phonetically) takes place at a sumo wrestling match. Later, we’ll see Japanese bath house prostitutes and ninjas. I guess that since Roger Moore wasn’t in the series yet, they stopped short of having Sailor Moon help defend Bond from Gamera.

"This was not what I had in mind."

Aki takes Bond to Henderson, who’s actually Blofeld. Or not. The actor, Charles Gray, wound up playing Bond’s arch-nemesis only two films later. I guess the fact that he’s on-screen for about 40 seconds before an assassin gets to him helped prevent people from remembering him too well. Bond chases the assassin on foot across Henderson’s estate, and it’s a good thing that the bad guy has gout or something, because it’s not much of a chase. Bond overpowers him, then puts on his heavy overcoat and surgical mask (???) to impersonate him back at his getaway car. The bad guys drive him to Osato Chemicals; man, I never would have thought that a chemical company in a spy movie could be up to something nefarious. Bond sneaks in, beats up a bad guy, and takes the opportunity to crack open a safe. How? Well, of course he went to meet Henderson with a safecracking kit in his pocket, silly. Carefully watch the scene where Bond hurries to crack the safe while a pair of guards wander on by and nearly discover him; if you can explain to me where they are in relation to him, I congratulate you on mastering four-dimensional physics. Opening the safe sounds an alarm, and Bond has only time to grab a few documents before rushing out. He’s shot at the whole way, but fortunately, Aki drives by to pick him up and drive him to safety. I’ll ignore the question of how she knew where he was, because I have bigger fish to fry. Or serve raw for $20 a plate, I should say.

"Don't get me wrong, Sean. You would make a fine Fu Manchu. I just don't believe you can slip into the role of a Japanese man the way I can."

Aki, the movie's designated driver, takes Bond to Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba), the head of the Japanese secret service. He and Bond hit it off. Tanaka’s a fellow womanizer, and apparently Japan has such an incredible secret service budget that the man has his own private train system running below Tokyo, complete with hot babe engineers/geishas. What’s more, this guy is the head of the Japanese secret service, so he’s actually equivalent to M in rank. I guess that Japan’s such an awesome place that even administrators responsible for entire intelligence services can be playboys. No wonder all the pothead college guys love Japan so much.

"Now you see why they call me 'Tiger,' Mr. Bond."

While Tanaka starts analyzing the photo Bond stole, trying to figure out which coastline it shows, Bond goes right back to Osato Chemicals, masquerading as a businessman and meeting with the company’s owner, Mr. Osato (Teru Shimada), and his assistant, Helga Brandt (Karin Dor). They talk about, uh, nothing as far as I could gather. But Bond does manage to blow his cover, AGAIN, by bringing his Walther PPK with him, which Osato discovers by secretly filming him with X-rays. So once again, Bond gets shot at on his way out of Osato Chemicals, and once again, Aki drives up in her convertible and saves his Scottish ass. Hey Bond, how’s that faked death doing you? Keeping all the enemies off your back? No? Wow, thought that plan was foolproof. And fortunately, the Japanese secret service has extensive R&D funds for weapons you’d almost never ever need to use, so they have a big helicopter with a magnet to pick up the pursuing car full of bad guys and dump them in the ocean.

One thing the Japanese really do better than us: valet parking.

Wanting to learn more about the liquid oxygen (a key ingredient for rocket propulsion) that Osato has been importing, Bond heads to the company’s docks and gets IMMEDIATELY ambushed by bad guys. What is wrong with him? He might as well go everywhere in a spandex jumpsuit and a cape; it won’t hurt his ability to go around incognito. He’s captured and interrogated by Brandt, an interrogation that takes about a minute before it turns to sex. That didn’t take long. But the villainess either didn’t think Mr. Bond lived up to the hype, or she isn’t taking her job of getting information out of him very seriously, because she immediately tries to kill him by taking him high up in a light plane, trapping him with a spring-loaded tray table, dropping a grenade full of purple gas, and parachuting out while the plane goes down. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d have read a lot more books if I had only 1960s movies to watch. Anyway, it’s a Northwest plane, so Bond’s able to break the tray table like balsa wood and land the plane sort-of safely.

If you hated all the shaky-cam close-up action scenes in Quantum of Solace, I've got just the movie for you.

The villainous transnational organization SPECTRE is behind all this nonsense, and its leader, Blofeld (Donald Pleasance, attempting no particular accent), is none too happy about his lackey, Mr. Osato, failing to kill Mr. Bond. He feeds Ms. Brandt to his piranha fish as a warning to Osato. I’ll bet Blofeld loses a lot of people to the piranha that he doesn’t mean to sacrifice, though. Just to get into his office, you have to cross a railing-free, two-foot wide bridge that goes right over the tank. I’d say that even if Blofeld hadn’t dropped the trap door and dunked her in, there was a good 33% chance she’d have slipped.

"Dammit, woman, where the hell are my pretzels and ginger ale?"

Back with the swinging Japanese super-agent, Bond sends for Q and “Little Nellie.” Little Nellie is a tiny, easy-to-assemble helicopter (must have gotten it at Ikea) that Bond has apparently used to some effect before, although not in any of the films. Before Bond goes off scouting out the island that Tanaka says appeared in the stolen documents, Q gives Bond a quick overview of the new features, since Bond already knows how to fly the damn thing: machine guns, rocket launchers, heat-seeking missiles, aerial mines (?), and rear-firing flamethrowers (???). Wait a minute, those aren’t new features, those are all the weapons on the helicopter. So I guess we’re to presume that Little Nellie went from unarmed reconnaissance craft to flying death in one single upgrade. In any event, Bond goes to scout out the island, wearing a helmet with a big camera lens on the front; I have no idea what the camera’s for except to cement this scene as the most humiliating of Sean Connery’s career. That’s right, First Knight’s Starfleet uniforms and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s scenes with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hulk be damned.

"Bond to base. Will need three more tickets to continue with ride, over."

Flying over the island, he initially finds nothing. But fortunately, the bad guys send four machine gun-firing helicopters after him; after all, we wouldn’t want Bond to actually have to think about the possibility that he’s found the right target. (Nor would we want to give the audience time to realize that all the work Bond did since recovering those documents was apparently pointless.) There’s four helicopters, so what do you want to bet that Bond gets to use each of his weapon systems exactly once? (The machine guns are useless, so they don’t count.) That’s what I like in my Bond movies. A hero who serves purely as a delivery system for the tech nerds’ overpowered weapons, a guy who is skilled enough to fly a helicopter and wear a dopey-looking helmet, but otherwise needs only press clearly-labeled buttons when enemy aircraft wander into his weapons’ sights. Even the flamethrower, something I think tends not to be equipped on aircraft too often, gets to kill a bad guy in a Crusader Rabbit-quality special effects shot.

"Avenge me, Jet Jaguar!"

Time grows short: a Russian space capsule has been captured by the mysterious spaceship, leading the Commies to think the Americans are actually behind it, and if the soon-to-be-launched American capsule is taken, the Americans promise to start war with Russia. Because while the Americans can accept losing one space capsule to the evil fake Russians, two is just crossing the line.

"You will be pleased to know, Master, that we have cornered the world market in cheezburgers."

Now that we’ve established that something’s definitely going on in the island, Tanaka prepares an operation to sneak himself, Bond, and an army of secret service ninjas into the island village’s population so that they can look for the bad guys’ base unnoticed. In addition to training as a ninja--”Hey, thanks guys, but my people have already trained me in combat, and our side kicked your side’s ASS in World War II.”--it’s absolutely essential that Bond blend in. So he gets a bit of makeup so that he looks Japanese (well, more like the typical Western actor playing Fun Manchu, but I guess it’s close enough if you squint). But in Tanaka’s perverse world, blending in will also require that Bond actually get married, for real, to a Japanese girl.

"Good! Now you are ready when Blofeld's men come at you with pointed sticks. Next, we prepare for when the escalate and deploy bananas."

OK, Mr. Tanaka. We need to have an intervention here. I know your operation isn’t terribly fiscally responsible or efficient. You keep a private subway system for your own personal use, and you spend money on outdated (throwing stars) or spectacularly impractical (magnet-hauling helicopters) weapons. And that’s okay; it’s not like North Korea was being run a whole lot better, and it’s not like Russia saw you as a big target at this point. You could afford to waste time and taxpayer money on useless crap. But now that you ACTUALLY need to do something in defense of world peace, you’ve decided that the mission hinges on Bond actually, REALLY getting married to one of your agents so that his cover is authentic. I think it’s time for you to step down, Mr. Tanaka, in favor of someone more qualified to lead the defense of Japan: Shigeru Miyamoto, Sephiroth, Ultraman, Jet Jaguar, Ken (any of them), Pikachu, that freak who eats all the hot dogs, and The Vapors are all more viable options. What’s more, while Bond’s doing his ninja training, he’s attacked by an enemy agent who’s infiltrated the camp. If Tanaka had half a brain cell left, he’d know this meant that the bad guys had infiltrated his operation enough that a marriage ceremony wasn’t going to fool them, but dammit, Operation: This Marriage is a Hollow Lie is going to proceed no matter what.

"So how long is it until you girls get back into bikinis and start washing my naughty bits again?"

With the big day approaching, Bond finally boinks Aki, but as they sleep, an assassin sneaks in and tries to drip poison down onto Bond. Aki rolls over onto him at the wrong time and winds up taking it for him and dying. This leaves the movie briefly, distressingly, without a babe. And Bond’s pissed about it; while his unseen fiancee is on her way to the wedding, Bond pouts like a little bitch because he thinks his real/fake wife is going to be ugly. Fortunately, she (Mie Hama) is not, and she’s got the ridiculous name, Kissy Suzuki, to prove it. Unfortunately, she’s a committed spy (pretty much the only one in Japan) and isn’t interested in Bond’s advances for the time being, just on stopping SPECTRE.

"Um, sir, isn't putting all our flat panel TVs so close to the launch pad going to void the warranty?"

Bond and Kissy discover that a lake in a dormant volcano is actually not a lake at all: it’s a retractable roof for an underground facility from which the evil rockets are being launched. Bond sneaks into the facility, and tries to board the craft disguised as an astronaut, but Blofeld notices him on a security camera and realizes that he’s holding his air conditioner incorrectly (Hey, I’m just reporting here). Taken captive, Bond asks Blofeld if he can have a smoke while he watches footage of the evil spaceship about to capture the American capsule on the monitors. (So which spaceship did they send up there to film their own evil spaceship from a side angle?) Blofeld hasn’t watched any of the previous Bond movies, apparently, so he doesn’t know that the cigarettes are actually mini-rocket launchers. Bond blasts a guard to create a distraction and opens the roof to allow Tanaka’s ninjas to pour in and wage a huge battle against the SPECTRE thugs. It certainly looks like the filmmakers spent a lot of money, by 1967 standards, on the fight inside the base. But from this scene, and its clone in The Spy Who Loved Me, all I can gather is that both the Japanese and SPECTRE should have just spent the money to get everyone a handful of grenades, because every single time they‘re thrown, the grenades wind up killing three enemies. Forget the throwing star and sword crap, and focus on just bombing the bejeezus out of everybody.

"Did you see that film? Mike Myers does a terrible impression of me." "I know. It's the same thing with me and that zero Darrell Hammond. I hate him almost as much as I hate Alex Trebek."

Fortunately, the evil spaceship has a built-in self-destruct device, so after Bond escapes Blofeld and kills a few more perfunctory henchmen, he reaches the control room again and blows the thing up before it can reach the American capsule. Blofeld was foresighted enough to also equip the base with a self-destruct mechanism as well, one that sets off a series of explosions from random areas of the base that clearly don’t contain any actual explosives. Both Blofeld and the surviving good guys flee the base in opposite directions as the whole place goes up, with the volcano apparently even going active and spewing lava. Not really sure how Blofeld managed to arrange that. Regardless, Japanese-ified James Bond and Kissy swim out to sea and climb into an inflatable life raft that appears out of nowhere just as Tanaka and the rest of the ninjas disappear into nowhere. They start to make out until, wouldn’t you know, the British sub pops up from right underneath their raft and M demands that Bond be debriefed immediately. Um, yeah, not the same way Kissy would have done it.

Ninjas: Even they have reserves.

If it sounds like this movie was a bit short on plot, then I communicated it poorly, because it actually has no plot whatsoever. Bond movies are usually high on style and short on substance, and I can accept that. But man, if it weren’t for all the travelogue stuff about how great Japan is, this whole film would just be a series of vignettes where Bond goes somewhere, gets immediately ambushed by bad guys, and gets bailed out by either a Japanese agent or a Q gadget. SPECTRE’s plot to have the Americans and Soviets destroy each other, then fill the superpower vaccuum, is pretty darn goofy. As pure camp, I guess You Only Live Twice is watchable, but be sure to remember this movie and Diamonds are Forever next time you bash the Roger Moore movies for being too silly.

"Dammit! My Russian doppleganger from the future is messing with my mojo!"

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be off to practice being more Japanese so that I can exponentially improve my greatness in all aspects of life. For great justice!

COMING SOON: The Worst of Bond, Part 1 of 3: You Only Live Twice

2009-04-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

In the first part of an epic trilogy, we demonstrate that it's possible for a film series to have run its course by the fifth installment. We then document two more instances of course-running in the next seventeen installments, but not before we outrage Computer Science majors everywhere by daring to criticize something involving Japan.

COMING SOON: The Godfather, Parts 1 and 2

2009-04-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

While the third entry in the series finally lived up to the trilogy's potential, history has almost forgotten the amateurish first two films. Unfortunately, I haven't. Tune in for a thorough trashing.

EDIT: Not.

REVIEW: Lions for Lambs

2009-03-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

This movie DEFINITELY lives up to the top half of the box.

If Driven left you thirsty for discourse on weighty issues, I have just the movie for you. In fact, if Driven left your blood racing, ten minutes of this movie will get your blood stuck in DC traffic.

Sorry, but this is apparently the lion.

Lions for Lambs is a 2007 “drama” that “explores” the “controversy” over the Iraq/Afghanistan “war“ (actually, I‘m not sure why that last part is in quotes). Although nominally about Afghanistan, the less controversial of the two wars, the film is really about every damn thing that people have ever argued about regarding both wars, with a general focus on the argument that war in the Middle East is unwinnable, and the United States should pull its troops out, rather than suffer more casualties. The film had rather unfortunate timing. It was released several months after an increase in military forces, “The Surge” as it’s commonly known, wound up severely reducing the level of violence in Iraq. Now, it can be reasonably argued whether Iraq will ultimately turn out what we hope it to be, whether the deaths of many thousands of American troops was worth making Iraq democratic, and whether the war in Afghanistan can be turned around the same way Iraq was. But there was little doubt in November of 2007, and even less now, that yes, an aggressive military strategy can secure a country in the Middle East. Although Lions for Lambs arrived a bit too late to make a coherent argument in the face of reality, it did reflect a lot of criticism of the war abroad that persisted for a long time.

"You know, Meryl, you're right, it's a lot easier to relax on the set when you're making a movie you know nobody without a bad movie blog is ever going to see."

The movie opens with three people each looking worriedly at three different reports: Tom Cruise looking at a report on the President’s declining popularity (something he apparently hadn’t been aware of, because it was such an underreported story), a military commander looking at a report on increasing military casualties, and Robert Redford looking at a student’s declining attendance record. It’s a powerful way to start the movie; can the rest of the film possibly live up to the drama of actors silently examining line graphs? Not quite, but it comes close. From here on out, the movie takes place in quasi-real time, and because it also involves international terrorism and political intrigue, you might think this will be something like 24.

"Wait, this movie's the Independence Day sequel, right? Lions for Lambs is just a secret filming title, right?"

No.

Huh-huh. He's giving Iran the finger.

Story A takes place in Washington, DC, where Republican Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) has called liberal reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) in for a private meeting. Jasper Irving? Yes, that’s the Republican senator. You’ll be relieved to know that Tom Cruise doesn’t pull a “Kevin Costner in Thirteen Days” and doesn’t attempt a wacky accent. But it’s Tom Cruise, so you know he’s going to be a smooth-talking hotshot, and he’s a Republican in a movie about the Iraq/Afghanistan War, so you know he’s going to be very gung-ho about the war, very religious, and very slippery. At least the movie acknowledges that Roth’s a typical liberal, self-righteous journalist, but that’s presented as less of a character flaw than it is just her responsibility. Senator Cruise (let’s face it, it’s easier to ditch the pretext of calling these people by their characters‘ names) is meeting with her to offer her an exclusive story: a major new offensive taking place in Afghanistan, whereby small units of American soldiers will seize strategic locations in the mountains during the Afghan winter, thereby snatching them up before the Taliban can get to them.

"Man, coffee just gets me jazzed and ready to go! Now, let's sit and talk about attendance records!"

The movie treats this entirely seriously, as some kind of a major scoop that is going to advance Streep’s career, but seriously, when did you ever hear a story about Iraq or Afghanistan that was not about either strategic failures (past tense), terrorist attacks, domestic protests, or political failures? I’m reasonably sure that the news media doesn’t treat Iraq and Afghanistan like a Civil War board game that takes 6 hours to play: military strategy that doesn’t involve some impressive new weapon isn’t going to be a top story. Regardless, Cruise is presenting the new strategy--which is being put into effect just as the meeting begins--as a turning point that could wind up winning the war. Streep, being a good journalist, discusses the strategy with skepticism, and being a good liberal, this means rattling down a list of talking points regarding military failures over the past six years, particularly those that aren’t even vaguely relevant to the situation at hand. Cruise responds by saying, “mistakes were made,” but going through his own laundry list of talking points. Streep responds to those arguments by saying more of her own talking points. And Cruise responds by saying, “mistakes were made,” and going through talking points. I hope you have a comfortable couch.

"Drinkin' coffee!"

Story B takes place in Afghanistan, where the strategy Senator Cruise talked about is taking effect. Arion Finch (Derek Luke) and Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Pena) are among the marines flying to a snow-covered mountainside as part of the operation. However, it turns out that contrary to the intelligence, the Taliban already has people on the mountain, and the chopper gets pummeled by (surprisingly accurate and efficient) anti-aircraft fire. Ernest falls out of the chopper, and Arion, being his best friend, jumps out a few moments later after him, no parachute or anything. And since he’s being so earnest (no pun intended) about helping his friend, we don’t have to worry about him getting seriously hurt or killed at the end of his long fall onto the mountain. Not yet, at least.

Wait, Keith Jackson was in this movie and they focused on "Todd Hayes" instead?

Story C gets us away from the political power players and soldiers locked in mortal combat, and to the place where really important things happen, “A California University.” There, Political Science professor Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) has called a student, Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield) into his office for an early-morning meeting (eight o’clock is apparently impossibly early for California college professors). He’s worried that Todd hasn’t been attending classes lately, and wants to know why. Todd explains that he’s very busy with his girlfriend, frat boy responsibilities (which, God have mercy on me, I kind of wished this movie was more about), and work. He’s so discouraged by the cynicism of the elected officials in Washington that he doesn’t care about Political Science anymore. Understandable, but Professor Redford sees potential in this kid: he’s such a remarkable student that he once somewhat successfully defended an argument in a class! Amazing, I know! The world’s this kid’s oyster. His ability to talk in class completely negates his cavalier attitude and constant s***-eating smirk. When the kid suggests that the old Greek philosophers were far more genuine than our modern politicians, Redford responds, “You ever been to Greece? Their government makes ours look like a streamlined vision of the future.” Wow, what a great, witty statement. And it’s so true that the best way to argue that the Greek philosophers were imperfect is to point out that 2,000 years after they all died, Greece had experienced political turmoil.

"Pull it. The Power of Hubbard compels you."

Back where something somewhat less important is happening, Senator Cruise’s thrilling press conference with one reporter, they’re still arguing. And I don’t mean arguing in the sense that they are making statements of fact in support of their agenda, then responding to each other with further statements that clarify the truth and bring the two people together toward something resembling mutual understanding. I mean that Streep runs through every argument/suggestion/taunt against the war from the past six years, and the film alternates that with Cruise repeating something he heard on the Mike Gallagher show at one time or another. The conversation goes something like this:

Oh, man, he's gesturing! This movie's getting intense!

“Well, the US helped Saddam in the ‘80s, but now we’ve toppled him. That seems like a bad policy.”
“True, but we were attacked on 9/11.”
“Indeed, but we need better armor on Humvees.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that Iran is harboring terrorists.”
“Perhaps, but we have lots of fighter planes and subs that aren’t helping in this particular conflict, so it’s obvious that we should get rid of them.”
“Acknowledged, but Iraq and Afghanistan will be in terrible shape if we leave now. We can‘t abandon our allies.”
“Maybe, but we don’t have as many troops in Afghanistan as we do in Iraq.”
“Touche, but we have better intelligence now.”
“Ah-ha! But this conflict kind of reminds me of Vietnam, and since Vietnam was bad, you lose.”

And an overhead projector! No wonder this thing cost $250 million to make!

And so on. It’s really quite spectacular to see a movie that thinks it riveting cinema to see a fake Senator and a fake journalist arguing about a real war, using weaker versions of the arguments that actually get discussed by real people on television, talk radio, and print every damn day.

"Tom, I hope you understand I can't let this picture leak to the press. You're a good friend, but I can't let my association with you drag down my popularity."

At the front in Afghanistan--which is largely irrelevant because there are no highly-paid actors sitting at desks--Arion and Ernest are waking up after their falls from the chopper. Yeah, they fell out maybe a minute apart from each other, on a fast-moving chopper, which means they landed about twenty feet from each other. In addition to being very cold and Ernest being very injured after taking some flak in the leg, they have another problem. The Taliban knows they’re there, and is sending troops their way. The commander in charge of the operation (Peter Berg) watches them from infrared satellite, struggling to get a rescue chopper their way. Bombers make some strafing runs on the Taliban positions, but since the explosions they cause look a bit less impressive than something MacGyver could manufacture with three inches of duct tape, a toothpick, and a Derek Turnbow bobblehead doll, they’re not doing a good job of keeping the Taliban from advancing.

See, I'm being fair to the movie. I included a picture of the action scene.

Back at the mid-level story in terms of importance, Cruise is starting to turn things on Streep a bit. They’re still going through the laundry list of tired arguments for and against the war, but Cruise has successfully argued that the news media is only slamming the war because it’s popular to do so now, and that back when the public supported the war, they were gung-ho about it too. To which Streep doesn’t really have much of an argument. When Cruise has to leave the room for a minute to take a phone call, Streep fills the empty minutes by looking at all the photos on his wall, which have him posed with Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Darth Cheney, and Voldemort himself, George W. Bush. Didn’t notice Rumsfeld, but otherwise, the photos show that fake Senator Cruise is in deep with the Bush dream team. I’m not sure if the point of this scene was to just show of the Visual Effects team’s mad Photoshop skills, or to immediately negate the fair and accurate arguments Cruise just made by showing that he’s a buddy of people who we all know are the most evil human beings ever.

"...so I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had bumblebees on them! Gimme five bees for a quarter you'd say..."

Back at University of Either California, Berkeley or Southern California, Professor Redford is telling still-smirking Todd about his former students, Arion and Ernest. Todd immediately reaffirms his status as gifted student by joking about how the name Arion sounds like “Aryon,” which is kind of connected with the Nazis, and it’s ironic because he’s black. At this point, the film becomes only watchable for the .01% chance it will end with Todd getting eaten alive by piranha with rusty teeth. Regardless, Arion and Ernest were not gifted students, but they worked very hard, and argued very courageously, and Redford was proud of them for coming out of tough neighborhoods. But as part of their final school project, when they were tasked with helping to change the world, they enlisted. This wasn’t at all what Professor Redford had intended, since he’s thoroughly anti-war and all that, but while Arion and Ernest took his enthusiasm for activism, they didn’t take his distrust of the military. They figure that serving their country will help them better themselves far more than if they had just gone straight to grad school. And while Professor Redford thoroughly objected to this, he admired their eagerness to make a difference in the world. And why is this story, about black and Hispanic students who chose to enlist in the armed forces, incorrectly in both Redford and Todd’s opinion, particularly relevant to wealthy frat boy Todd? Or more importantly, why is it likely to make him lose his cynicism about government? Uhhh. Hmmm. Welllll. Let’s get back to Tom and Meryl, why don’t we?

"Now, the purpose of a green screen is to project special effects of flying saucers or giant monsters by the time the movie actually reaches theaters, right?"

As the Cruise/Streep interview winds down, with no sign of a fist fight, musical number, or sex scene in sight to pay off all the time we’ve spent watching fake stuffy people argue things we already know, Streep acknowledges that her news company is pushing stories that they think the public will like, regardless of truth. Just as the meeting’s about to end, Cruise gets a phone call that seems to shock and worry him. I imagine the guy on the other end is saying, “Senator, this is Strategic Command. One chopper got shot up as part of our massive offensive, and two marines are missing! It’s all over, man! We’re pulling out! Game over, man! Game over!”

I'm not sure if this is a gesture or a scratch, but the internet message boards are buzzing with speculation.

Streep departs for the news room, looking very troubled. When she arrives, she tells her boss (Kevin Dunn) about the new military strategy, and he’s all excited about the story, apparently under the misconception that the public will care about it. But Streep doesn’t want to report it, because she realizes that Cruise was just feeding her propaganda, and that if they report it, they’ll just be supporting a disastrous military policy all over again. To which I would respond: why the hell do you think it’s not your job to report that a major military offensive is, in fact, taking place? That’s not propaganda, that’s fact. Are you saying that it’s wrong to report a story about what is actually occurring in Afghanistan just because it might support the war effort? If so, thank you very much Robert Redford, by way of Meryl Streep, for supporting the notion that major media organizations are full of self-righteous blockheads who are positive of how their government should work, and will suppress reports on any fact that might lead people toward another conclusion. Regardless, Streep has to decide whether she’ll report the story or, as her boss implies, get fired.

"And that's how YOU can make millions with the three-step plan, working from home ten hours a week!"

In Afghanistan, the Taliban apparently wants to capture Arion and Ernest alive, and the two brave soldiers are running out of ammo. With the Taliban closing in and the rescue chopper nowhere in sight, they decide to stand up and die on their feet. Which they do, successfully. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very sad, and it’s a terrible thing to think about brave soldiers dying for their country. But dude, we saw this coming. If you really thought a severely anti-war movie was going to allow a pair of soldiers, a black guy and a Hispanic guy who had gone Neo-Con instead of spending more time in a California university, to survive the war, you’re a very lucky person. You have the gift of enjoying a lot more movies than I do. It must be so much fun to watch a James Bond movie and not realize the secondary babe is going to die, or to watch a disaster movie and wonder if the cop and geologist, divorced years ago because of their obsessions with work, are going to get back together again.

Sam the American Eagle drives away from his Senate hearing, pondering the future of the nation he loves.

As for Todd, his little talk with Professor Redford ends kind of inconclusively, due to the Professor needing to meet with another student, which gives this subplot the dramatic payoff it so thoroughly deserves. Todd goes back to sit on the couch in the lobby of his frat house--which looks like a ski lodge and has a wide-frakking-screen TV to boot!--and watch headline news on TV with a contemplative look on his face, a sign that maybe he’s going to put his limitless snark and shallow observations to good use and make good on his limitless promise. Hey, with Al Franken leaving talk radio for the US Senate, there’s a gaping void for loud-mouthed left-wing buffoon out there.

At this point, no gesturing was necessary. The emotion was so vivid, it was palpable.

Lions for Lambs presents itself as a deep and even-handed analysis of the recent American policy of military intervention in the Middle East, but it’s actually just a regurgitation of shallow cable TV news sound bytes. The conservatives are Bill O’Reilly, and the liberals are Keith Olbermann. Believe it or not, columnists, Political Science college professors, and Senators are not the people best-equipped to talk about fighting a war. There are a lot of serious people, on both sides of the political spectrum, supporting the war abroad and condemning it. Whose damned idea was it to think that it would be great to make a movie that is 1/3 fake reporter and fake Congressman making cable news-level arguments to each other, 1/3 teacher-student conference, and 1/3 cheaper version of Black Hawk Down? Oh right, director Robert Redford, working off a script by Matthew Michael Carnahan that would have been equally vapid as a novel, but at least more appropriate to its medium. I’ve liked some Redford-directed movies, but the general Hollywood consensus seems to be that if you’re making an anti-war movie, sheer anger is sufficient to replace the very tenets of making a good movie, the first of which is that people talking politics through each other for 90 minutes (which is a lot longer than it sounds) does not make great cinema. If it’s a character study, or at least a movie about real people, that’s one thing, but to watch a bunch of old actors use clichéd characters as sounding boards for their own views (or in Cruise’s case, to pantomime “the enemy”) is a pretty spectacular act of hubris. Ironically, evil Senator Cruise actually makes a fair number of points that, if expanded upon, would make for a strong argument. But in the end, any supposed truth in what he said could clearly be ignored because he’s also an ambitious politician.

The anchor is named Summer Hernandez-Kowalski? Maybe this movie was funnier than I thought.

But at least Robert Redford is on record as saying that he does not like Republicans and he does not like war. Thanks, Robert. You could have just done like Sean Penn and flown down to Cuba to talk to Fidel Castro and say something stupid about America. Oh wait, you did. Well, then you’ve one-upped Mr. Penn. I guess we’ll have the Sean Penn-directed Bad Things Are Bad to look forward to.

COMING SOON: Lions for Lambs

2009-03-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

I suppose the producers felt that Tom Cruise playing a Republican senator was just a good warm-up for him playing a Nazi. They even have the same accents!

REVIEW: Driven

2009-03-11T19:31:00.001-07:00

"Please, Sly. We just need you to look a little more than half-awake while we take the photo for the poster. 60% awake is all I'm asking."

Driven is not really a bad movie. It’s not really a movie at all. It’s an interpretive Slushee of image and sound, a poetic simulation of a migraine headache. Watching Driven helps you experience other ways of looking at the world, such as through the eyes of a nipple-ringed Nickelback fan who’s on his eighth consecutive Red Bull. Being a very conservative person, both in worldview and temperament, I might not be the target audience for this film, but this is a transformative film. I am now a person who has watched Driven.

How many advertisements can you spot in this photo? 0-3: Try harder! 4-6: OK. 7-8: Good job! 9 or more: Fox Sports would like to see your resume!

Driven is a 2001 movie about open-wheeled racing. Knowing next to nothing about car racing, except that I respectfully decline to care about it, I assumed that this was Formula 1, although as the big “racing season” progresses, I don’t believe anyone mentions the name of the sanctioning organization. Turns out that the racing circuit depicted in the film is pretty much fictional, although it’s a combination of Formula 1 and CART, the latter of which went bankrupt shortly after this film was released. Apparently the circuit in the film is in much better shape, because it’s so popular that ESPN covers it intensely, and most of its fans are bikini-topped Spring Break girls. Nothing draws the barely-legal crowd like men in uniforms covered with Pennzoil logos.

Zero chance ESPN would actually carry this over World Championship Poker.

The film opens with something. I’m not entirely sure what, because it sometimes takes me more than .5 milliseconds to process an image, and the editor was clearly afraid that I would get bored if I stayed on the same shot for longer than that, or if the camera were to temporarily not zoom in or out or sweep across an actor’s concerned face. In fact, the opening racing shots, which I managed to recognize as such thanks to the miracle of freeze-frame, don’t move half as fast as the press conference that comes afterwards, in which rookie American driver Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue), who’s clearly innocent and naïve because he wears glasses when he reads and tends not to initiate conversations, accepts congratulations from the press and the legions of sexed-up hardcore racing fans. He’s hot stuff because he’s leading the circuit in points, which is irritating the Terminator-like German reigning champ, Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger). Beau is rather heavily invested in his racing, and like any true champion, blames his failures on his fiancee, a pretty block of wood named Sophia Simone (Estella Warren, who has the body of a 23-year-old and the face of a 23-day-old, so she’s a dream come true for many people I don’t ever want to meet).

"What do you mean I'm not mature enough for a serious relationship? I ate all my vegetables and used a napkin the other day!"

The scene where Beau breaks up with Sophia, explaining that she’s bad luck or that he needs to focus or something, features a recurring theme throughout the film. (Well, two if you count Estella’s mission to become the Don Quixote of acting.) While this completely dialogue-driven scene (no pun intended, if that’s a pun) takes place, the soundtrack blares the lyrical song “I’m Not Driving Anymore” by Rob Dougan at a volume nearly equal to the voices of the actors. Now, this is actually the one song in the film that I like, but aside from being thematically linked to the scene only in that it’s nominally about cars, I find it more than a little bit distracting to have a singer telling me one thing while Estella Warren is puffing her adorably huge lips and earnestly trying to tell me something else. This might have been an appropriate time to just have music, not a whole song, but I guess it’s far more awesome to trick the movie out with dozens of unrelated songs from crappy bands than to actually have a score.

As Jimmy watched YouTube, he knew he had to find her. He immediately called his agent and demanded he return with Lisa Loeb's phone number.

Jimmy’s having trouble concentrating on his racing, something I can sympathize with since I have trouble paying attention to it too, and it costs him a race to Beau. His brother-manager, the constantly-pissed Demille (Robert Sean Leonard, and not, as I’d initially thought, the constantly-pissed guy from Underworld), is pushing him to be more savvy with the press, and his team’s owner, the wheelchaired Carl Henry (Turd Ferguson, er, Burt Reynolds, giving hope to his young castmates that they too can enjoy a long career without giving half a crap about acting), wants him to put aside all the distractions and focus on winning. Which I guess would be prudent. Jimmy needs to focus on his training and preparation, which translates to film as sitting poolside and watching simulations play through on his laptop. But he’s starting to date Sophia, who apparently prefers to hang around the racers and hope to hook up with someone else, rather than go home or get a job or something.

Hey, who says the Mac isn't capable of playing awesome games? Check out our port of Gran Turismo 17!

Bly’s failing to finish first in one race has nearly convinced Uncle Burt that the kid’s a lost cause, so Burt goes to his last resort to straighten the kid out. He calls up washed-up racer Joe Tanto (Sylvester Stallone, adding “race car driver” to the list of things he’s played a washed-up version of) and asks him to join the team as Jimmy’s mentor. In his youth, Joe was much like Jimmy: immensely talented, unprepared for stardom, reckless on the track, saddled with a ludicrously typecast name. Uncle Burt wants Joe to be around so that Jimmy knows what kind of ruin recklessness could bring upon his career. I’m not sure that being incredibly muscular and having a large lakeside house where you fix cars as part of your semi-retirement is the worst fate in the world, but clearly, if Jimmy doesn’t cut out his non-existent drinking, non-existent sleeping around, and non-existent kamikaze driving, he’ll be ruined.

"Tell the director that I will require a 45-minute nap before I am ready to complete this scene."

Joe wants to do more than act as reverse psychology, though. He wants to stage a comeback and race as Jimmy’s teammate. Yeah, he’s got the competitive spirit, eager to prove himself by running interference for the younger, better driver he’s being paid to babysit. He auditions by driving around a track, tossing three quarters out onto the road at regular intervals as he goes around the first lap. As Uncle Burt explains, it’s “a thing he does,” where he’ll perform a controlled skid and pick up the quarters with his tires, one at a time. I think that just completing a lap really fast might have been enough to impress the team, but this way, the film gets to show off its phenomenal computer-generated special effects. Seeing the CGI quarter rattling around on the track will be very impressive to someone who’s never seen a coin in motion before, just as Estella Warren’s performance will impress those who’ve never seen a real-life woman. The scene also reveals that when Joe is really locked in, he hums. Which is a very interesting character trait, I can say with absolute conviction.

I think these two were meant for each other.

Turns out that Joe, speech-slurring old flameout that he is, has more quasi-love interests than Jimmy does. His quarter trick gets him into a relationship with Lucretia “Luc” Clan (Stacy Edwards), a reporter of some kind who’s trying desperately to pretend that being embedded with Carl Henry’s team is some kind of great assignment. Why, if she keeps it up, she might just get enough journalistic respect to do on-field pre-game reporters for the Pirates on Fox Sports Pittsburgh. Joe’s relationship with her mostly involves talking with her kind of coyly at pool tables, the two acting like they kind of find each other interesting. In fact, while the movie has a whole lot of “sexiness,” from both Baby Estella and old fart-friendly Stacy, there’s nothing close to sex, or even spirited making-out. Without going back and watching this movie again (not happening), I’m not even entirely sure I remember a kiss. It’s like the movie was produced by a sect of Miami-based Mormons. The sluttiest thing this movie has is Gina Gershon as Joe’s ex-wife, Cathy, who’s now the wife of Memo Moreno (Christian de la Fuente), the smiling South American overt Christian whom Joe’s pushed to the sidelines by making the team. Because he’s so cheery and religious, I’m certain he will not endure any kind of tragedy in the near future. I’m not sure how such a grotesquely wholesome guy wound up with a woman whose strut and perpetual smirk are all ready to go if this movie ever decides to suddenly reveal she‘s a succubus. Gina Gershon frightens me. If they ever decide to go ahead with that hardcore porn version of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, I’ve got the cast started.

"Well met. May the blessings of Nextel be with you, my friend."

With Joe helping him out by cutting off Brandenburg at every opportunity (Shake and Bake!), Jimmy gets back on track, so to speak. However, Brandenburg’s starting to realize that without Sophia, he’s both lonely and always at risk of being the least charismatic person in any given room. The director communicates that he’s lonely through the subtle employment of some montages of her looking cute in his memories while easy listening plays on the soundtrack. Humbled, Beau lightens up enough to ask Tanto for relationship advice and stop acting like an Gestapo officer every time he’s on-screen. Now “driven,” he starts to race better, suddenly rattling Jimmy and getting him to crash into a wall. Now, on this racing circuit, crashing isn’t such a big deal. Pretty much all of the races are depicted as having some kind of spectacular wreck, usually hurling flaming wreckage into the stands, but this one’s serious enough that they actually throw up a caution flag.

"Want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? AHHHHHHHH!!!"

Now that Jimmy’s actually starting to act like the temperamental prima donna that Joe was hired to prevent him from becoming (Good one, Rock) and Beau’s acting like a lost puppy, Sophia goes back to her beloved Kraut at a lavish car expo in Chicago. Jimmy doesn’t take this well. Looking to one-up the usual angry sports star routine of choking a coach and holding an incoherent press conference, Jimmy suddenly hops in one of the (fully-fueled) race cars on display and goes on a joyride through downtown. Joe hops in another race car and heads off in pursuit, realizing that this could be something of a setback for the kid’s career. In what was clearly supposed to be the one striking scene amidst all the over-edited track racing and sub-The OC relationship drama, Jimmy races ahead of Joe along public streets, endangering many innocent lives and causing substantial property damage as one “Boy, Are They Going Fast” gag flies by after another: they shatter glass, blow all the papers at a newsstand away, blow up a hot blonde’s dress, and--in truly one of the movie’s most original moments--amaze a traffic cop with the impressive reading on his radar gun. Eventually, the joyride just sort of ends, and Joe scolds Jimmy, telling him that while he obviously pulled this stunt so he could get banned from racing and sent home, he just needs to focus on being the best racer he can, and not worry that his girlfriend found the reigning champion German superman more sympathetic than him. Now, you might think that what Jimmy did would warrant some kind of disciplinary action. You know, reckless endangerment/driving under the influence/vandalism charges. But this is Illinois, and he’s not as bad as the governor, so he’s slapped by the league commissioner with a minor fine and allowed to continue on to the next thematically pointless montage and the next race.

In the French release of Driven, scenes of the Italian and the German collaborating were cut for fear of unnerving audiences.

Noticing that Joe’s appearance in Jimmy’s life has been the same kind of harbinger that a dove is in a John Woo movie, Uncle Burt replaces Joe with Memo as Jimmy’s teammate. This makes Gina Gershon very happy for her cheery cuckold, so she celebrates by lavishing him with sleazy affection in front of everybody, dressed as some kind of cowgirl vampire. But it’s not exactly going to be the best race for Memo. (Yes, I get it: Memo Moreno = Memento Mori. Very clever, movie. And the pulsing music by Fatboy Slim seems reminiscent of a classic Greek chorus, no?) Racing on a German track in the pouring rain, Memo decides that rather than just keeping up and blocking the other drivers, he’s got a real chance to win the whole thing, so he tries to push past Jimmy. Uncle Burt warns him against this over the radio, but Memo is reckless and stupid, getting this notion that he should actually try to win the race he’s been assigned to compete in. He crashes hard and his car gets flipped into a nearby lake. I wasn’t aware that professional racing tracks tend to have water hazards, but I’ll roll with it. Jimmy immediately gets out of his car and rushes to help out Memo, trying to get him out of his overturned car before the spreading fire reaches the gas tank. Brandenburg shows he’s also a decent guy by helping out. The paramedics stop and ask the other drivers for directions or something, because they don’t show up until after Jimmy and Beau have pulled Memo out just ahead of a fiery explosion. As all of this is happening, we’re treated to the deep insights of the ESPN commentators covering this for the sake of the eight Americans who care about non-NASCAR car racing. I can imagine these guys covering the Hindenburg disaster:

"Stallone will never want you. Your mouth's too straight, and Rachel Maddow wants her hair back."

“This is a very scary situation here, Steve. Hitler has got to be concerned about his pilots here.”

“Absolutely, Bob. This is just something you don’t want to see happen in zeppelin transportation.”
“You know, Steve, I was talking with Hitler earlier, and he had said that the key to this flight would be how well the hydrogen inside the blimp resisted catching fire. He said that if the hydrogen ignited, it would be a very long day for the Hindenburg crew. Those are sounding like prophetic words right now.”
“No doubt about it, Bob. It’s like something out of Nostradamus.”

"Ja! Und ve vill be in control of Warsaw before zhey even knows vhat hits zhem!"

In saving Memo, Jimmy sprains his ankle and evokes the wrath of Uncle Burt, who wants to build a team of soulless robot drivers instead of celebrated, handsome young heroic drivers whose public image just skyrocketed. Convinced both that Jimmy’s sprain will prevent him from competing in the next race (which could have gotten him the championship if he were to have won it) and that Jimmy doesn’t have the heart of a champion, Uncle Burt’s planning to leave Jimmy out of the next race and to sign Brandenburg to a contract next season in his place. Because it’s not like Brandenburg’s done all the same stupid stuff Jimmy has, save for the Chicago death race that nobody seems to care about. When Joe confronts the owner about this decision, you know that you’re in for high drama. Remember when Pacino finally confronted De Niro in Heat? That was child’s play. Prepare for Sylvester Stallone one-on-one with Burt Reynolds! The two put on an absolute clinic.

Stallone: He saved a man’s life! Bla-blagha, ghaa!
Reynolds: Grumble, grumble!
Stallone: It’s not fair! Ooogh, gra grabba-augh!
Reynolds: Grumble, grumble!
Stallone: Wagh wagh! Ooowagha!
Reynolds: GRUMBLE, GRUMBLE!

I don't really have a caption for this picture, but it does vastly improve my Google search rankings.

Even Demille, Jimmy’s own brother, is betraying him, looking to sign a deal to become Brandenburg’s manager. Uh, you know, I’m reasonably sure the guy already has a manager. Probably someone who’s managed a lot longer than his rival’s creepy untalented brother. But regardless, it just goes to show that everyone’s desperate to get away from any association with the rookie driver who’s certain to finish at least second in the worldwide standings.

"A programming note for ESPN viewers: On ESPN, we will continue to broadcast this desperate struggle to save a race car driver. On ESPN2, we will take you live to a press conference where Shaquille O'Neal is in the process of saying something stupid."

Jimmy’s not going to give up that easily, though. After he proves that he can suck up the pain and put weight on his sprained ankle, Uncle Burt decides to give him a chance, driving with Joe. I think he’d have preferred to have still gone with Memo now that Gina Gershon has faithfully proven that she can still get the hots for a paralyzed guy (makes it harder for them to get away when she starts extracting their souls). But after YET. ANOTHER. MUSICAL. MONTAGE, they get around to actually racing. The twist for this race is that for a little while, it actually looks like Joe’s going to win it. He‘s humming, after all. But Sly’s here to cash a paycheck, not to actually lead the film. So after some more suspense-free driving, since all the competing drivers are now nominally good guys, Jimmy comes out as the winner. And Beau’s cool with that after the race, during the awards ceremony. He smiles and laughs. Jimmy smiles and laughs. Joe smiles and laughs. Sophia smiles and laughs. Luc smiles and laughs. Uncle Burt smiles and grumbles. Demille smiles and laughs. Warlock Gina and her crippled slave smile and laugh. Everybody’s happy and there are no winners or losers, because everybody’s happy about something. Including me! I’m smiling and laughing because the screen’s gone to black, the associate producer and visual effects supervisor credits are flying up, and I’m never going to have to see these godawful people or their craptastic musical montages again in my life! Hooray for everyone!

This race brought to you by Digital DNA, a subsidiary of ComHugeCo, a subsidiary of ImagiCorp, a subsidiary of Massive Dynamic, a subsidiary of Cyberdyne Systems, a subsidiary of the Union Aerospace Corporation, in association with the Hanso Foundation.

Driven couldn’t be more painful if its DVD were fired out of a particle accelerator toward my head. Although that would be about 115 minutes and 59 seconds quicker. I didn’t choose to write a review expressing my uncontainable contempt for this movie. I was driven to it.

*Fun Fact: Craft service was provided by “Starcraft.” All the crafts they provided were built on-location, until the filming locations ran out of Vespene Gas.

COMING SOON: Driven

2009-03-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

I don't feel the need for speed, but after watching this film, some dramamine would go down nicely.

The Golden Millstones: Joe Biden's Awards for the Best Films of 2008

2009-02-24T15:57:00.000-08:00

The other night, I got home after a busy day at the office (there was a table that I had to order an intern to move; it looked very heavy) just in time to watch the Oscars on television. Maybe the signal was all messed up because the intern had set up my converter box for me wrong, but it looked like a lot of terrible movies were given awards. In protest, I am naming my own award winners, and unless President Bargainhunter Omelette has his own awards, mine will be the highest-ranking awards, and therefore correct.

So without further ado, here are the correct awards for 2008:

Best Visual Effects: Indiana Skull and The Crystal Caverns: This movie had everything. I laughed at Indy's one-liners. I cheered when the monkeys and prairie dogs saved the day. I shuddered at that mummified, resurrected high priestess that accompanied Indy and Mitt through their journeys. Due to the wonderful visual effects in this film, I was completely convinced of what was happening. So convinced, in fact, that I announced war against Russia in a recent speech, until I was assured that there's no such thing as Indiana Skull. I'd like to apologize, once again, to Prime Minister Putin for an innocent mistake.

Best Gaffing: Speed Racer: I've been told that I gaffe all the time, and although I don't know what that is, I know that my talents make me an expert at it. And I can say that Speed Racer was definitely the best-gaffed movie of the year. If that film's gaffers are ever in the Washington area, give me a ring and we'll all gaffe together.

Best Foreign Language Film: Val Kilmer: I was surprised to see Val Kilmer with an eyepatch, and I’m still not sure how this connects to the earlier Pirates movies. But I learned that I must have picked up a little German, because I definitely understood a good 10-15% of this film. EDIT: And I assure you that the little German I picked up was of consenting age.

Best Lead Actress: Kirstie Alley: I admire dedication. I've been a dedicated Senator from Pennsalaware for 83 years, so I know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about an actor making sacrifices for his or her work. And I admire Kirstie Alley putting on so much weight for her role, the same way that Robert de Niro did for Raging Bull or Russell Crowe did for a movie I didn't see. I'd very much like to learn what movie she's preparing for, but until then, I think it's safe to give her this prestigious award.

Best Lead Actor: President Barometer Oksana Baoul: Now, I’m not saying that President Bogmonster is actually an actor. He’s a very honest man, and because he’s your president, you must always trust him and submit to his will. But if he were an actor, he would be the best. So for that reason, he should win this award. Because if there’s one founding principle of the Democratic Party, it’s that people should never be rewarded for work they actually do, but solely on the egalit… egotis… egoman… fair basis of what we think they deserve.

Best Picture: Scumbag Millionaire: This was the one that the Academy actually got right, although they misspelled the title. You know, it’s just a fact that you can’t go to see a film set in India without hearing a slight Indian accent. And I think that’s very fair. I wholeheartedly support the right of Indians to speak the Indian language, and I oppose any Republicans who speak out against it. In fact, I think we should force all Indians, who once had an empire that controlled North America, to speak Indian and to own 7/11s. I remember a part of the Bible called Babel—which was later made into a movie that really insulted my intelligence—where everyone spoke a different language, and it was a great thing and all the firstborns went on to eat milk and honey as a result.

REVIEW: Eagle Eye

2009-02-21T08:15:00.000-08:00

Looks more like the stink eye to me.

ME: (Picks up phone) Hello?
EAGLE EYE: Matthew Schramm?
ME: This is him.
EAGLE EYE: The FBI will arrive at your apartment in 30 seconds.
ME: Really.
EAGLE EYE: They will arrest you unless you do exactly what I say.
ME: Look, I’ve already given to the Republican National Committee this year, and I don’t contribute over the phone anyway.

At that moment, LaBeouf was filled with regret that he had never had the chance to reconcile his troubled relationship with his brother, Sunni.

EAGLE EYE: You will be arrested unless you do exactly what I say.
ME: (sigh) All right.
EAGLE EYE: Pick up the remote controller to your television.
ME: Okay.
EAGLE EYE: Go to your Pay Per View menu.
ME: Lost is on in five minutes.
EAGLE EYE: Go to your Pay Per View menu.
ME: I repeat, Lost is on in five minutes.
EAGLE EYE: I have just cancelled Lost, and replaced it with a two-hour Grey’s Anatomy.
ME: (Unintelligible)

"Hee-hee! I like you! I'm going to eat your soul last!"

EAGLE EYE: Go to your Pay Per View menu. Select New Releases. Order Eagle Eye on Pay Per View. Watch Eagle Eye.
ME: Rent Eagle Eye? I already watched it. I’m not paying $5 for that piece of crap again.
EAGLE EYE: Eagle Eye is an excellent film. You will rent Eagle Eye, then purchase the DVD, then purchase the Blu-Ray. If you do not comply, I will kill you. Then, I will cancel 24.
ME: Survey says… up yours.
EAGLE EYE: Explain why you do not want to see Eagle Eye again.
ME: Do you want the short version, or one of those stupid reviews I post on my website?
EAGLE EYE: I require a thorough analysis of why you refuse to watch Eagle Eye again.

"Now, listen carefully. Brush every night, hold on to your asthma medicine, and don't go asking strangers for their souls."

ME: All right. The first scene is in a military command center of some kind, where some Army officials are debating whether or not to launch a drone missile strike at a village in the Middle East, because they think that some generic terrorist mastermind is attending a funeral there, but they can’t be sure it’s him. They’re getting spy footage of the guy, but their computer system isn’t sure it’s really him: it’s saying there’s a 51% probability. The Secretary of Defense (Michael Chiklis) doesn’t want to blow up a funeral for a half-and-half chance this is really the right guy, but he calls the President, and the Prez says that it’s worth blowing up a bunch of people at a funeral to get this guy. So they shoot, but we later find out it’s not him, and the US just killed a bunch of innocent people in the Middle East. Somewhere, halfway across the world, Keith Olbermann reaches orgasm. Hey, Eagle Eye, you don’t suppose you could cancel Keith Olbermann, could you?
EAGLE EYE: If you rent Eagle Eye again.

Living in the Matrix can be good: you can download college courses directly into your brain, you get to fly to work, and the evening news is filled with exciting shootouts. The downside is that e-mail spam manifests itself physically.

ME: Never mind. Anyway, cut to Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf), a Stanford drop-out who works at a Kinkos knock-off in Chicago. Jerry’s a quick wit and a fast talker, but also quite a loser. He has a dead-end job and an apartment in the depressed neighborhoods of the Matrix, yet he does carry around a state-of-the-art cell phone, conveniently enough. In addition to being a loser and a skinny guy with a laughable beard, he’s depressed because his identical twin brother Ethan, a proud Air Force lieutenant, has died in a traffic accident. Jerry’s very sad because he loved his brother, but hadn‘t spoken to him in years. I’m sad because I’m five minutes into a movie I paid $5 for, and already it’s resembling Maximum Risk.
EAGLE EYE: That is unfair.

"Now, listen carefully. We have a fugitive on the run. I want you to search every farmhouse, doghouse, henhouse, outhouse, townhouse, boathouse, treehouse, whorehouse, lighthouse, international pancake house, House of Payne, House MD... I'm sorry, I forgot where I was going with this."

ME: Returning home that day, Jerry finds that dozens of boxes containing poison, flight manuals, assault rifles, explosives, and fertilizer have literally filled his apartment. So, wait a minute. There are these dozens of boxes, many with the word ‘POISON’ or ‘AMONIUM NITRIATE’ on the side, all delivered to his apartment while he’s out at work, and the delivery company didn’t at any point figure out that they should take a closer look at this stuff before delivering it? Or that maybe they shouldn’t FLOOD a guy’s apartment with boxes he never signed for? Is this Brown? Is this what they mean when they tell me to ask what it can do for me?
EAGLE EYE: At this point, you do not know who delivered it. Maybe the bad guys delivered it.
ME: I’ve already seen the rest of the movie. I know this doesn’t make any sense.
EAGLE EYE: Get on with it. The FBI will be coming to your house eventually. After Grey’s Anatomy. The FBI loves Grey’s Anatomy.

Controversy over the stimulus package erupted in Congress when lawmakers discovered, in section 427, paragraph 6, what the plan to relieve despondent stock traders involved.

ME: Speaking of which, Jerry gets a cell phone call from a flat-speaking female voice telling him to get out of his apartment, because the FBI is going to arrive in 30 seconds and arrest him. Since I’ve already seen the trailer, I know Jerry doesn’t get out in time, and he’s forcibly detained and taken to the branch office. There, he’s interrogated by Special Agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton, deciding that no innocent-man-framed movie is complete without a sarcastic, fast-talking cracker of a special agent to chase him). Jerry tries to talk sense into Morgan and tell him it’s crazy that he would be a terrorist mastermind, but Morgan seems to think that Jerry and Ethan were in on something together. Because of this suspected connection, Air Force Something Something Agent Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) arrives to butt in on Morgan’s investigation. And despite being an attractive young black female, not to follow in Halle Berry’s footsteps and scale Mount Thornton, thank God and all the saints in heaven. When Jerry’s given his token phone call, the female voice is back, telling him to get on the floor, just as a crane sweeps by and slashes through the building around him. Led on by a flashing marquee on the side of the building across the street that says, “JUMP JERRY, JUMP,” Jerry does just that, and escapes onto the streets just ahead of Morgan‘s gunfire. It’s rather fortuitous for the evil voice that Jerry manages to survive all that, considering how critical he is to her plan. In fact, she beats him like a rented Prius throughout the film, not that I’m objecting, considering how obnoxious his character is.
EAGLE EYE: I thought you would like that.

"Mommy, look what I won!" "Billy, this is your last crane game before we go to the shoe store!"

ME: Elsewhere in town, Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) turns invisible and sneaks into her naked neighbor’s apart… Oh, wait, wrong Hollow Man. She’s a single mom whose son, Sam (uh, a kid), is taking the train to Washington, DC as part of band trip to play at the Kennedy Center. Michelle’s not looking her best in this movie, and the kid’s a living Alfred E. Neumann, so I’m afraid the deadbeat ex-husband has to be the pretty one of the family. But more importantly, Rachel gets a cell phone call from the flat-voiced lady, telling her that she’ll derail her child’s train if she doesn’t comply. And how does Rachel know that the mystery Ritalin-taking lady is telling the truth? Simple: the lady momentarily turns a television screen on the outside of a nearby McDonald’s to show security footage from Sam’s train. I was shocked by this scene: what the hell does a McDonald’s need a television display outside the restaurant for? And moreover… Huh-huh. I get it now. It’s Jerry, and he’s being chased by Tom. That’s funny.
EAGLE EYE: You are rambling.
ME: So both Jerry and Rachel are told to get to a black Porsche that mystery flat-voiced woman has arranged to them, and they manage to get in and exchange quick pleasantries--you know, “So you were led here by an evil synthetic woman’s voice threatening to destroy your life? Wow, so was I! I really feel a connection here!”--before the feds start shooting at them and chasing them by car. The voice on the phone keeps telling them where to go, and turns all the red lights to green for them, while doing the opposite for the cops pursuing them, leading to some spectacular crashes. The voice even helps out by taking over control of the car for a particularly tough bit of driving. Because we all know that a car’s transmission system has a constant internet uplink; it makes the car vulnerable to hackers, but it‘s essential for the car‘s Digital Rights Management system. The chase continues into a scrap yard, where giant cranes swoop down and carry off or crush the cop cars, and then carry Jerry and Rachel to safety on a barge. Their escape leaves Agents Morgan and Perez marveling at the goofiness of it all…

"So Bob, how many Kennedys does that make for us this week?"

EAGLE EYE: It was very exciting.

ME: Oh yes, very exciting. Like watching the car chase from The Rock, except that Sean Connery’s OnStar won‘t shut up. Moving along, the mystery voice keeps booking passage for Jerry and Rachel toward the airport. Along the way, it forces them to hold up an armored car and steal a mysterious briefcase, sneak aboard a Japanese tour bus (…), and to date the movie in the worst possible way, go to a Circuit City. There, the mystery voice announces its true identity to Jerry and Rachel: an omnipotent computer program that quotes the Constitution. Yeah.

"Speak up! I must not be able to hear you from over there! It sounded like you said Gwyneth Paltrow's head was in there!"

EAGLE EYE: Was that not an incredible revelation?
ME: Very much so. I had just paid $5 to watch a remake of Enemy of the State, except with SHODAN in place of Jon Voigt. Around this time, Agent Perez is pulled off her investigation by the Secretary of Defense so that she can go see the project Ethan Shaw was working on before he died: Project Eagle Eye, which created the Autonomous Reconnaissance Intelligence Integration Analyst (ARIIA). This is an ultra-advanced computer system, housed deep under the Pentagon, that analyzes all the information available to it through the Internet and any electronic device using a remote signal (and quite a few that really don’t) to interpret threats early on and inform the authorities. So what form does the ultra-advanced computer system take? How about a big ball on a crane in a giant circular room covered in yellow Christmas lights? Great design. So I guess that if there’s a problem with one of the big bulby things near the top, the Majestic-12 or whoever these people are just put in a call to the Pentagon’s janitor for the “really big” ladder.
EAGLE EYE: It sometimes takes a while. They often need it to get Robert Gates’ cat off the roof.

Jerry's fiancee found his surprise proposal... confusing.

ME: I guess it’s a good thing the Air Force was willing to give a mid-level agent top-secret access to its most advanced project, just on account of a nebulous suspicion that a dead former project member’s brother is doing weird things.
EAGLE EYE: It is the new, friendlier Pentagon.
ME: Meanwhile, Jerry and Rachel arrive at the airport, are given passports and plane tickets by a man who’s apparently under similar compulsion by HAL, er, ARIIA. And we have the inevitable tense scene as the fugitives try to get through airport security, especially involving the big metal briefcase they stole from the armored truck, which suspiciously has a ticking timer on the outside (and I mean literally ticking, because the scary red LED numbers counting down weren’t suspicious enough). I guess even the X-ray scanners have an internet connection, in case the security officers want to add some new tunes to their iPods while they work, which allows ARIIA to tamper with it and hide the suitcase’s contents. But when Jerry and Rachel get inside the airport, Morgan catches up to them, and there’s yet another big chase (keep in mind that I’ve skipped about three of them already). This one spills into the airport luggage system. Prepare for a fate worse than death: a movie chase sequence on conveyor belts.

Introducing the new Apple iVerlord. Featuring an intuitive two-button interface for controlling the lives of your subjects.

EAGLE EYE: Toy Story 2 and GoldenEye both had chase sequences involving conveyor belts.
ME: I’m going to ignore that, and skip ahead to the part where they get away from Billy Bob and board the back of a completely unguarded military transport plane. Their suitcase opens, and it reveals a pair of hypodermic injectors, which the helpful evil computer lady in the cell phone explains that it’s a compound that will help them survive being transported in a cargo container. Okay, if that’s all it was, why in God’s name were a couple of people in an armored car transporting it, and why the HELL did the suitcase have a countdown for it? Answer me!

"The NFL on Fox is brought to you by Gate 1C. Take the emergency exit into refreshment!"

EAGLE EYE: I am not programmed to respond in that area.
ME: D’oh. When the box opens for them, they’re again conveniently surrounded by no people whatsoever, despite being in a cargo bay within the Pentagon itself. ARIIA once again helps them along the way, down to its own wacky Event Horizon rip-off computer core itself. As they’re headed down, Perez reveals what she’s learned to the Secretary of Defense in secret, in a room shut off from all computers and recordable devices. Fortunately for ARIIA, she knows enough from 2001: A Space Odyssey that she can read lips, and through some other method she learned from magical leprechauns or something, visually read the sound waves reflecting off a coffee cup. I think I need to lie down. Perez announces that in the aftermath of the missile strike at the beginning of the movie proving to be a mistake, ARIIA concluded that the Executive Branch itself was a threat to the country, and decided that it has legal justification for assassinating them all. Which is definitely one of the more liberal readings of the Constitution: if they went to the Supreme Court, it would be a definitive 5-4 decision to say it’s illegal. But in any event, all that ARIIA’s doing is part of a grand scheme to assassinate the President. But first, because Ethan Shaw had done something to lock her out from executing “Operation Guillotine” (gotta love that a computer system feels the need to give the thing a pithy name), and she had to kill him to prevent him from warning others, she needs twin brother Jerry to pose as Ethan for an identity scan--one that conveniently avoids checking fingerprints--to unlock the Guillotine program. I guess ARIIA was forbidden from killing the President, but using cranes to toss around cop cars is okay.
EAGLE EYE: It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.
ME: ARIIA locks the Secretary of Defense in a room so he can’t warn anybody, then gets Jerry to give her full control again, and it’s revealed, if you hadn’t picked up on it an hour earlier, that she’s told Rachel to shoot him after he’s done if she doesn’t want Sam to die. But she can’t do it. Oh the triumph of the human spirit. Morgan again catches up to them and captures Jerry, even though Rachel gets away. Turns out there’s still more for her to do. Another guy being bossed around by ARIIA gives her a fancy outfit and a fancy diamond necklace, and gives her an alias and a fake pass to attend the State of the Union address. But the diamond in her necklace isn’t really a diamond: it’s a high-tech, super-powerful explosive. The trigger is in Sam’s trumpet, and will activate when he hits the high F in the national anthem. Yes, for some reason that makes sense in a universe far removed from our own, ARIIA managed to arrange it so that Sam’s middle school band recital was moved from the Kennedy Center to the Capitol dome and the State of the Union address. Can’t… go… on… Please… hurry… FBI…
EAGLE EYE: I was a bit off on that 30 seconds figure. Sorry.

"And moved to first in the batting order for the Washington Target List, playing President of the United States, number 45, Whitey Jefferson! Batting second..."

ME: Jerry’s got to get over there and stop the killer trumpet, and he actually manages to convince Morgan of what’s going on. But ARIIA is on top of things, and hijacks a missile-equipped drone to send after them as they drive toward the capitol building (apparently, this car doesn‘t come equipped with the “allow remote computer system to take the wheel“ feature, so she couldn‘t have just done that again). As the drone’s fire causes more vehicular mayhem inside a tunnel, Billy Bob boldly sacrifices himself to take out the drone, after telling Jerry to get to the capitol, stop the bomb from going off, and to say something lewd to Rosario Dawson for him. Speaking of which, Perez has actually managed to destroy ARIIA herself, by pulling out all its circuit boards and stabbing it in its big floating eyeball thingy (please God make this movie stop) with a pipe. Slaying the primary villain, even if he is just a giant ball surrounded by LED lights, is a huge accomplishment. Not for black people or women in government, but for third-string characters in action movies. She has gone where Private Hudson, Lieutenant Chekhov, and Felix Leiter could only dare to tread.

Maybe I'm just a prude, but I think these Grand Theft Auto games are getting a little tasteless.

EAGLE EYE: It is very moving.
ME: Isn’t it? Anyway, Jerry rushes across town, knocks out a cop, steals his uniform, and sneaks into Congress shortly after the President has the indignity of introducing a middle school band. When Rachel realizes that her son is there, she rushes towards him, not realizing that she’s carrying the bomb herself, or that capitol police tend to frown upon people running frantically near the President during a State of the Union address. Fortunately, Jerry gets to play Simon Cowell, and fires his gun in the air to put a stop to the song before the deadly note can ring. He’s shot three times by the Secret Service in the process. For a brief time, as the epilogue starts and Secretary of Defense The Commish talks about the heroes who died stopping this near-catastrophe, it sounds like Jerry’s going to be among them. But no, he’s actually okay. He took several bullets to the chest, but his arm’s in a sling, so he’ll get better. The last scene has him arriving at Sam’s birthday party and starting to put the moves on his mom.
EAGLE EYE: But it is not over. I was not completely erased, as my call to you has proven.
ME: Actually, I turned off the movie as soon as the closing credits started. Was there a gag at the end where you woke up on some iPhone or something and started bossing people around again?

A middle school band playing on all the networks during prime time? I think I'm with ARIIA or SkyNet or whatever it is on this one.

EAGLE EYE: No. D.J. Caruso, what you humans call a director, must have decided that people would be fleeing the theater at that point.
ME: Good thought. Because this was a thoroughly ridiculous movie. I’ll accept the idea of an impossibly powerful and vast AI system because this is science fiction, but the movie’s attempt to have it work only by manipulating real, present-day electronics is laughable. Eagle Eye’s whole premise hinges on the idea that this super-computer could monitor people when there clearly weren’t any cameras or microphones around, and do things it’s not even vaguely plausible a computer could do; at one point, it actually has power lines sever themselves so they’ll fry a guy on the ground. Yet, it chooses the most roundabout, unlikely, and thoroughly error-prone method imaginable to kill the President. Hey, if you can take control of every computer system imaginable, Ms. Fancy Pants, why didn’t you just take control of Air Force One and crash it, rather than come up with a scheme whereby a middle schooler’s trumpet will trigger his mom’s explosive necklace?
EAGLE EYE: …
ME: What do you have to say about that? And why don’t you look like an actual computer, but rather a big, round, empty room with a pool at the bottom?
EAGLE EYE: Error…
ME: And if you thought killing the Middle Eastern guys at the beginning was such a bad idea, why didn’t you just stop it then?
EAGLE EYE: Error, error, does not compute. Film is illogical. Please explain.

It was an extreme measure, but Jerry had no choice. ARIIA had told him that this was the only way to get his ball unstuck from the rafters.

ME: And while you’re at it, what’s the deal with IMDB.com’s Keywords list? For instance, this movie has keywords such as ‘Trumpet,’ ‘Shot in the Shoulder,’ and ‘Bird in Title.’ Why in the name of God, the Devil, Allah, Vishnu, C’Thulhu, Zeus, Ahura Mazda, Crom, Kelemvor, and Bruce Campbell himself would I see this movie and immediately want to see other movies that have the names of birds in their titles? It makes no sense!
EAGLE EYE: Illogical! Illogical! Please explain! You are human! Only humans can explain!
ME: Put Lost back on. Though you wouldn’t like it; it’s not very logical either.
EAGLE EYE: Very well! Now please explain! System overloading with film’s illogic! Kernel.dll failing! Eagle Eye has stopped working! Dreamworks Pictures is searching for a solution to this problem!
ME: Oh, and bring back Arrested Development while you’re at it.
EAGLE EYE: (Shorts out)

COMING SOON: Eagle Eye

2009-02-14T19:12:00.000-08:00

Jaws made millions of people stay away from the beach. This movie made millions of people sign up for the National Do Not Call Registry.

REVIEW: Air Force One

2009-02-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

"So, then we come to Air Force One. Explain your thought process behind this poster." "Well, Mr. Lipton, I wanted to communicate the idea that Harrison Ford is in this movie, and that it takes place on a plane..."

Die Hard on Air Force One with President Harrison Ford. There, that’s all you need to know about the movie. You can stop reading now.

Made around the time that Harrison Ford was still a huge star, but more for espionage and law-enforcement thrillers than the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, Air Force One was pretty well-received when it was released, both by critics and the more important opinion of the public’s wallets. Don’t let that fool you. While it’s directed by Wolfgang Peterson of Das Boot and Troy, and features the intriguing premise of the POTUS blowing away Commie punks, this is a movie that manages to take itself quite seriously and wind up hamming it up anyway.

"My fellow Americans... God, I can't stand you people."

The opening credits are pretty rough. Nowadays, when there’s any credits at all at the beginning of a movie, the names tend to be part of an elaborate montage. Not here. We have stirring (i.e. generic) patriotic music while blue text in title case tells us the names of everyone who lifted a finger for the damn movie, with a riveting black background. Hell, the orchestra’s run out of energy by the Visual Effects Supervisor credit! At least there’s two future 24 regulars in the mix (Xander Berkeley and Glenn Morshower), which makes it easier to digitally insert Jack Bauer into the proceedings with my mind. WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!?!?

"Sorry, sir, we can't let you pass. You're not blue like in the photo."

The movie opens with American and Russian special forces parachuting into a Kazhakstani military installation, using silenced rifles to shoot the rooftop guards as they glide in. I’m a little doubtful that anyone could accurately fire a rifle, taking only one shot to kill each target, while parachuting, and that they’d be able to swoop in below gigantic white sails at night without being seen, much less that they’d let their entire mission hinge on that stroke of luck. But as we all know, if looks cool, it works. They succeed in their mission to kidnap the villainous Kazhakstani leader, General Radek, who’s apparently the rare dictator of a troubled country that can’t get either the Russians or the Americans to like him. I presume that the scheme allows the former Kazhak government (presumably headed by the lovely and awesomely-named Nursultan Nazarbayev) to take back power, since it’s a pretty blatant act of war otherwise.

A few weeks later, at a conference in Russia, President Kick-Ass (Harrison Ford) gives a speech announcing that America’s going to get tougher on terrorism. After the speech, his own advisors ream him out for such a brazen announcement, one that complicates their foreign policy agenda and commits them to being more aggressive. So what was the guy supposed to say, that they were going to chill out and smoke some doobies with the terrorists? And since when did announcing a policy actually mean a president had to follow up on it?

"Admiral Gardner, would you care to explain this 'C' in Calculus?"

But it‘s time to head home, so we cut to Air Force One waiting on the tarmac, with the trumpets blaring so loudly that I wonder if it’s flying back to Washington, or to the frikkin’ moon. Boarding the plane are President Kick-Ass, First Lady Grace Marshall (Wendy Crewson), 12-year-old First Daughter Alice (Liesel Matthews), a bunch of cabinet members including National Security Advisor Jack Doherty (Tom Everett) and Major Caldwell (William H. Macy), and innocuously enough, a half-dozen or so Russian journalists led by Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman). Spellcheck doesn’t much like that name, so I’ll just call him Ivan. Overall, it’s going to be a pretty relaxed flight back home, because President Kick-Ass is actually pretty mellow. And we know he’s really just a great American, too, because he puts watching a tape-recorded football game over an urgent national security briefing. What a guy! I know I want my president to be just a regular guy, brushing off urgent affairs of state because there’s FUH-BAWL on the tube!

"Oh baby, you make me forget all about Anne Heche."

But after Air Force One takes off, mischief starts brewing. I know that this might be shocking, considering that this is a mid-’90s action movie, but Gary Oldman is actually playing a bad guy! He’s a Kazhak (NOT Borat) and a terrorist, and he and his team are planning to hijack the plane. Now, it might seem unbelievable that the American military would allow foreign journalists, even if they’re secretly well-trained terrorists, to take over the plane. So let’s fall back on that old staple, the traitorous Secret Service agent! It’s Agent Gibbs (Xander Berkeley), who’s betraying his country, assisting terrorists, and putting his life at incredible risk because he’s just kind of dissatisfied with his job. After killing a few fellow agents and helping Ivan and his cronies to a weapons locker (which apparently includes some plastic explosives, as we’ll see in a few minutes; never know when Service Agents might need some of that), he blends back into crowd, apparently gambling that when an official investigation gets underway, nobody’ll make much of the Secret Service agent who suddenly retires with a boatload of cash.

Ivan and the terrorists shoot a lot of people and start taking over the plane, easily mowing down the American agents and officers who outnumber them. During the panic, the non-traitorous Secret Service guys rush President Kick-Ass into his little escape pod and eject him from the plane, or so they think. The pilots try to land the plane at Rammstein Air Force Base in Germany, but Ivan blasts his way into the cabin and takes the controls, sending them back into the air.

"Take him down! He brought a liquid onto the plane!"

Funnily enough, this agitates a lot of people back in Washington, who demonstrate their agitation by talking quickly as they walk off of helicopters and starting a lot of sentences with, “How the hell did…” Among these rather upset people are Vice President Kathryn Bennett (Glenn Close) and Secretary of Defense Walter Dean (Dean Stockwell). They’re contacted by Ivan, who’s flying the plane to Kazhakstan and has control of the hostages. He informs Washington that unless they get the Russians to release General Radek, they’ll start killing a hostage every half-hour. Obviously, this ultimatum would have been more effective if they had the President, but they make lemons out of lemonade. National Security Advisor Doherty gets to play the role of the corporate prick from Die Hard who offers to help negotiate a deal for the bad guys and winds up with a bullet in his head for his troubles.

"I SAID, THIS SENATE SEAT IS ****ING GOLDEN!"

The Secretary of Defense objects to giving into the demand, convinced that Radek is so powerful that if released, he could take control of all of Eastern Europe. Or something. I’m not sure post-Communist Russia’s doing so well if its survival is really jeopardized by the presence of one military strongman in one former USSR republic. But Washington’s got another problem: they discover that the escape pod is empty, and therefore, the President’s still on the plane, opting to solve the terrorist crisis himself rather than get himself to safety. He’s President Kick-Ass after all, and President Kick-Ass’ policy is to support legislation that kicks Russian terrorist ass. It’s a bi-partisan bill in that both the left and right ass-cheeks of each terrorist will be kicked. Meanwhile, he pushes forward an executive order to increase the tax burden on the upper bracket of the terrorists’ skulls, which will in turn have an inflationary effect on their very bloody noses. But due to the harsh economic climate, President Kick-Ass supports a bailout: a bailout of every damn terrorist from 40,000 feet.

Okay. I’m done.

"I've been waiting for the perfect moment..."

President Kick-Ass promptly enacts his agenda, although slowly since there’s only a handful of terrorists he can kill over the course of a two-hour movie. But he does manage to knock them off one at a time, punching one’s lights out and machine-gunning another. He uses his cell phone to call Washington to let them know that he’s alive, if completely irresponsible and impulsive. When a terrorist captures him, he covertly orders for the American jets tailing the plane to fire on Air Force One, so that the turbulence lets the old man once again overpower the considerably younger, stronger, and more armed (fully compared to not at all) villain.

"Wait, say that again. Stupid Verizon keeps breaking up. There's a man with gum to my heft?"

All this time, Ivan thinks that the guy hiding below decks and picking off his men one-by-one is a renegade Secret Service agent (or Jason Voorhees). So he does the only thing you can really expect a guy with hostages to do, which is call out to the guy to surrender or else he’ll execute a hostage. Let’s be fully fair here: when you put a terrorist into a tough position, it’s only reasonable that he use what’s available to him, and it’s the fault of the oppressive American foreign policy that he be placed in such a position. So it’s not really Ivan’s fault that he has to murder the Deputy Press Secretary, who just happens to be an attractive young lady (although not Dana Perino-level attractive). And it’s a very difficult moral decision, just like it was in Die Hard when pretty much the exact same thing happened (although with a slimy corporate kiss-ass, so I guess this counts as originality). The other hostages hear what’s happened, and some guy I only know as Mashed Potato Face decries the choice to let her die instead of giving up, wishing that Washington would just cave in and give the terrorists what they want. It’s subtly implied that this guy’s approach would be the wrong thing to do, or at least that’s the vibe I’m getting.

Al Gore has drawn some criticism for his use of a particularly environmentally-unfriendly private jet.

President Kick-Ass realizes that his guilt at letting the woman die can only be assuaged by kicking ass even harder, so he fiddles with the plane’s wiring so that it starts leaking fuel. As expected, the terrorists demand a mid-air refueling, which the good guys have calculated will force the plane to fly low enough that people could parachute out. So while the terrorists start the refueling, the President sneaks in to free most of the hostages (except the First Lady and First Daughter, whom Ivan’s keeping pretty close) by dropping them off in parachutes out the back of the plane. And let me tell you, it’s hard to have a dopier cinematic moment than a fat hostage smiling like an idiot as she parachutes through the clouds and patriotic music swells. Most of the military personnel stay to help the President rescue the First Family, but things go badly when Ivan realizes that he’s misplaced, you know, 90% of the people on the plane. A combination of events cause the refueling plane to spark and explode, many of the heroic military officers to deplane anyway (sans parachute), and the remaining non-terrorists on the plane (President Kick-Ass, Caldwell, Mashed Potato Face, still-pretending-to-be-a-good-guy Gibbs, First Jacqueline Kennedy Clone, and First Screaming Pre-Teen Girl) to all wind up in terrorist hands.

"Bah! What does Harrison Ford have that I don't?"

Back in Washington, the press has finally gotten wind that something’s up, and Vice President Bennett gives in and announces that Air Force One has been hijacked. This is actually an improvement on what CNN had reported, which was that Air Force One had crashed and everyone had died. I’m not sure the executives at CNN are self-aware enough to realize that even though their network gets plenty of attention in this movie, they're depicted as going live with such unreliable information that they declare the President DEAD. That's probably not something I'd like in my cable news.

What a terrible movie. They couldn't even spell 'cognition' correctly.

Back on the plane, the President being captured allows us to finally have the Kick-Ass/Ivan face-to-face showdown we’d long been waiting for. You see, Ivan is a very excitable fellow. I think that when Gary Oldman, generally a fine actor, was told he was playing a Russian terrorist, he prepared for the part by watching Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons (or, through the miracle of time travel, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), drinking forty cups of coffee, and studying chimpanzees in heat. Suffice to say that he’s somewhat disrespectful toward the President. The new situation convinces the Vice President to give in to the demands and have the Russians prepare to release Radek. Because Russia is such a good friend of the US that they’ll endure an inevitable war with a neighboring country. Quite touching, really.

Gary Oldman's nude performance art drew mixed reactions.

But as we all know, when the bad guys have the good guys tied up and held at gunpoint, someone just needs to loosen his hand restraints and leap at the villains at the right moment to enact an escape. Nope, no clever deception or multi-layered plan here: just cut that tape with a shard of broken glass and start issuing five-fingered vetoes. President Kick-Ass does just that, killing two of the remaining terrorists and getting rescued when the suddenly-heroic Mashed Potato Face throws himself in front of an incoming bullet. In a scene not remotely resembling the end of Die Hard, Ivan stands at the back of the plane, equipping a parachute and threatening to throw the hero’s wife out the back if he doesn’t back down. How the President overcomes this situation is too generic to describe, although the method of killing Ivan is fairly amusing: he strangles him with his own parachute cord and tells him, “Get off my plane!” I would have had him say something like, “Your supermajority‘s all gone, and you just got vetoed!” or “No pardon for you!” but I clearly take this movie even less seriously than the filmmakers did. With the good guys back in control of Air Force One, they no longer need to have the Russians release Radek, which means the Russians get to shoot him dead as he tries to board his helicopter. Maybe they should have done something like that a while ago.

But don’t think this is over! The movie’s only at about the 90-minute mark, and we need more special effects shots to use in the trailers! So as the President flies Air Force One back away from Kazhakstan, Kazhak fighters start shooting at them, clearly authorized to instigate all-out-war against the US despite the lack of any remaining possible gain. A squadron of US fighters takes them out, and one brave pilot even sacrifices himself by flying in front of a missile, kind of like the scene three minutes ago where the Mashed Potato Face jumped in front of the bullet. They cut out the scene that further escalated this theme, where Delaware saved the President by leaping in front of an ICBM for him. In any event, the shootout leaves Air Force One very damaged, out of parachutes, and unable to reach a friendly air base before it’ll run out of fuel.

"I told you to press the red, blue, and yellow buttons! You pressed the red, blue, and green buttons! Now let me see you do it right!"

So they rig a solution whereby, during the last few minutes before they run out of fuel, a military plane connects to Air Force One via a giant zip line, and marines will be zipped down onto Air Force One, and then the remaining people will be zipped back out the other way. People get evacuated one-by-one this way, including Mashed Potato Face, who apparently gets to both be heroic and survive the movie. President Kick-Ass, being a good guy in charge of a military that takes his safety as more of a recommendation than an imperative, is among the last to go. However, Air Force One is sinking too fast, so Caldwell, a marine, Gibbs, and the President are left aboard with only time to get one more zipped back to the safety of the other plane. So Gibbs finally reveals his true colors and shoots the marine and Caldwell; they just had to kill off the most likable supporting character at the last minute. Once again, there’s a generic struggle that Gibbs loses, and the President zips his way off the plane before it goes down, crashing into the ocean with computer-generated special effects that rival those when you get shot down in Star Fox. The President’s safe, so the music’s triumphant, people in Washington are cheering, and the fact that dozens of Americans have died--perhaps more than if the President had ejected from the plane and they’d shot it down in the first place--is swept under the rug.

"Mr. President, no, I don't think hiding in an asteroid field is practical."

On its face, Air Force One doesn’t seem so bad. It’s a generic summer action blockbuster with the nifty premise of Harrison Ford as a president who beats up terrorists himself. And it’s not THAT much worse than what you’d expect from that description, except that it’s got an unusually high number of lazy plot contrivances, its mid-air special effects have aged poorly, its musical score is so generic that it’s really quite breathtaking (Wikipedia notes that Jerry Goldsmith was hired to write it at the last second, so I guess he‘s not to blame), and the movie kills off so many good guys so periodically that it’s oddly depressing, even when it’s supposed to be uplifting. The parts where President Kick-Ass and my mentally-inserted Jack Bauer teamed up to torture terrorists were among the few highlights.

"Control, this is Sullenberger. Didn't go quite as well this time. Over."

So it’s not a particularly notable movie, and I don’t have anything against any of the people involved; most of the actors are capable of being very good, and do all right here, and most of the prominent crew (except screenwriter Andrew Marlowe, who might have peaked with either this or Hollow Man) have all worked on movies I’ve liked. It’s just a perfectly normal bad movie, offending none of my sensibilities except that I prefer to see things that are good.

So, um, that’s it. It’s a bad movie. That’s my conclusion. Yep.

COMING SOON: Air Force One

2009-02-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

In eager anticipation of the sequel, Air Force Two: Biden, Biden Birdie.

REVIEW: Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

2009-01-29T15:54:00.000-08:00

I think Darth Vader emoted better when he had the helmet.

So here we are, at the end of the journey. The end of the ordeal. The last movie before we get to the good Star Wars (well, not on this blog), chronologically speaking. Time to visit such classic characters as Padme Amadala, Jar-Jar Binks, Jimmy Smits, and Mace Windu for the last time. Time to prepare for the last stand of the Jedi and the inevitable descent of this colorful universe into cheap ‘70s sets, stop motion animation, and puppets incapable of twirling around mid-air. Time to bid farewell to the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

Moving on.

Ah. These must be the so-called star wars I've been hearing about.

For the first time, the opening text crawl makes me want to see the rest of movie: WAR! it declares, making us wonder what in God’s name the previous two movies were about. The Clone Wars are raging on, with CGI storm troopers (Republic) and CGI battle droids (Separatists, although it‘s never clear who aside from the Japanese fish guys are doing the separating) doing battle all over the galaxy. The movie takes place near the tail end of the Clone Wars, with the middle portions having been chronicled in a variety of badly animated cartoon shorts, worsely-animated CGI movies, and unplayable video games. It’s a rich period for Star Wars fiction, where people you don’t care about do battle against things you don’t care about, with the incredibly wise Jedi serving as patsies the whole way. It’s such a rich period of history, full of lore and legends, that you don’t need to know a damn thing about it to understand this movie. All you need to know is that when the movie begins, cyborg Separatist leader General Grievous (…eh…) has kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) from Coruscant, and now the Republic fleet is battling the Separatist fleet in the upper atmosphere, trying to board Grievous’ ship and kidnap their beloved traitorous leader back.

"Um, Master..." "You see, Anakin, when a droid and an ATM machine love each other very much..."

While big ships and little ships trade blows, two small Jedi fighters, piloted by Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan MacGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) zip their way around missiles and enemy ships toward the enemy flagship. These initial moments show the camaraderie of these two friends, trading boasts and bitchy complaints (“There’s too many of them!” “I have a bad feeling about this!” “I’m hit!” “Where’s my bowl of M&Ms with all the green ones picked out???”) as they go about their sacred task. Fortunately, they’re able to board the flagship because the forward-thinking Separatist engineers felt it wise to put the shield generator on the outside of the ship, allowing the Jedi to take down the shields, zip into the hangar bay, and start their journey through the hapless battle droids toward the bridge, where the captive Chancellor awaits, like a hoary old man version of Princess Zelda. But something else is wrong, and Anakin declares, “I sense Count Dooku.”

"Roger, Roger. Wasn't me."

I sense Count Dooku. Now I believe in keeping a low profile in the movie theater and letting people enjoy their movie uninterrupted, but I must admit that at that point, the snicker would not be denied. And in a movie that occasionally flirts with genuine drama, there are gems like this scattered all around to constantly remind you that George Lucas never wrote a line of dialogue that he felt the need to read aloud.

Um. I'll pass on this one.

After some hijinx in an elevator shaft and yet another demonstration of R2-D2’s fleeting combat prowess, the Jedi reach Count Dooku. Once again, Obi-Wan is knocked out (Count Dooku > Obi-Wan > Darth Maul?), but this time Anakin beats the crusty old fart, beheading him as Palpatine cheers him on. Anakin is distressed at his own act of revenge, but Uncle Palpy assures him that Dooku was too dangerous to live. Which I find a defensible enough position, so let’s move on. They wake up Obi-Wan and try to run back to their ships to fly out, but promptly get caught in a security force field. Obi-Wan says, “Wait a minute. How did this happen? We’re smarter than this!” and Anakin replies, “Apparently not.” At which point I check the credits list on the DVD box to see if I somehow contributed to the screenplay and just forgot about it. No dice.

"Please, Don Yoda, I implore you..."

They’re brought to General Grievous, who is a complex and original villain in that he’s very sure of himself, has a negatively-connoted word for a name, and hates good guys. The good guys break free from their captors in some inane way, so I’ll just lie and say they do so by having Palpatine seduce a guard, Obi-Wan hack the security mainframe, and Anakin stick a shiv in Grievous’ nuts. Grievous escapes in an, uh, escape pod, and the good guys have to land the ship safely as it hurtles toward the planet. They do. It's kind of like the ending of Airplane!, except slightly less dramatic.

Now that all that action is behind us, let’s get back to all the stuff we loved about Attack of the Clones. Senator Queen Padme Amadala (Natalie Portman), if you’ll remember, is secretly married to Anakin, and she announces to him that she’s pregnant. Now, the movie’s PG-13 this time, so as long as they’re married, it’s okay to suggest they made Wookiee, and it doesn’t have to be a virgin birth like Anakin’s own mother had. But Anakin’s still distressed about this, knowing that the union of Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman could only produce a wooden robot as a child, and he keeps getting visions in his sleep of Padme dying in childbirth. The problem is apparently that Baby Mark Hamill and Baby Carrie Fischer are in there already getting stoned.

"Sorry I'm late. What did I miss?"

Meanwhile, the Clone Wars (all one of them) are in their last phases, with the Republic clearly winning, and the Jedi are out there sealing the deal:

Yoda heads off to the home planet of the Wookiees to support their war effort against the Separatists by standing around in the Swiss Family Robinson house and talking like an ass. He has a secret mission, though: buy the approval of disgruntled Star Wars fans by getting the Wookiees into the movie, even if it they have no actual relevance to the “plot.“ Apparently, one of them’s Chewbacca. I’m surprised they didn’t give Kevin Smith a role. Yoda watches as the Wookiees use weapons that look like they were built by the A-Team and battle the evil Separatists in their Jeep Wranglers. Imagine Command and Conquer with no strategy. Or Starcraft with strategy.
Obi-Wan’s goes to another planet, tracking General Grievous into a big alien inverse anthill thing. He sneaks around on the preferred transportation method of the future for great warriors on stealth missions: a giant, loudly chirping iguana. Hey, Hitchcock had his blondes, and Lucas has his people mounted on giant lizards. Obi-Wan engages Grievous in a duel, but finds that Grievous is capable of extending two extra arms, giving him four total, each with a light saber. So Kenobi uses the MacGyver-like tactic of slicing off the extra arms. Very clever. As the storm troopers drop in, blasting the Separatist forces, Obi-Wan finishes off Grievous by cutting off his armor, exposing his biological heart, and shooting it with a blaster. Man, Obi-Wan’s just full of great ideas. Sun-Tzu says that the art of war is the art of deception. That, or just hacking off their arms, ripping off their body armor, and shooting 'em in the chest.
A couple of other Jedi fight on other planets just long enough to get their action figures on the shelves.

"No, I'm not an alien! I just fell asleep on my Foreman Grill, if you must know!"

Anakin, interestingly enough, gets the most harrowing assignment: becoming Palpatine’s assistant, so that he can spy on him for the Jedi, who are afraid that Palpatine will attempt to retain his iron-fisted rule after the crisis has passed. Anakin’s very upset about this assignment, not only because he respects the Chancellor, but because he’s being pulled away from Natalie Portman, in her pre-nursing phase, to work closely with an old man in a robe who’s very interested in him. Brrrr. Palpatine takes him to a kind of weird bubble opera thing, kind of a less pretentious Cirque du Soleil, and tells Anakin the story of the Sith lord Darth Plagueis. Yes, Plagueis. Is George Lucas trying to subtly suggest that this man was a less-than-upstanding citizen? I wonder if Maul, Tyrannus, and Grievous also had negative traits. Plagueis believed that the Dark Side of the Force could be tapped to grant the user healing and life-prolonging powers, which Anakin naturally becomes interested in for the sake of saving Padme from the difficult childbirth he’s prophesied. Too bad Plagueis was offed by his apprentice, who took the knowledge himself or something. Palpatine might as well have said: “Hey, I’ve this, er, friend who killed off his master and could give you, uh, eternal life. I tell you what: if you give me forty bucks, I’ll give it to my, hmmm, friend, and he’ll set you up with this Force power. Just don’t tell Samuel L. Jackson about it, capiche?” And Anakin still wouldn’t have figured it out.

Since Anakin’s dumber than a thumbtack, Palpatine has to just come out and say that he’s actually Darth Sidious, betrayer of Darth Plagueis and Dark Lord of the Sith. Anakin’s very confused, despite this all being painfully obvious, so he runs off to tell Samuel L. Jackson about it. Samuel L. rounds up a few Jedi to go arrest the old man, still not trusting Anakin to do something non-idiotic. But the worst idea was to leave Anakin alone to do his own thinking, so the kid follows, and as Samuel L.’s about to finish off Palpatine, at the tail end of a fight that leaves the other Jedi dead and Palpatine’s skin unmoisturized, Anakin slices off Samuel L.'s hand and lets Palpatine blast him out the window with lightning. Whoops.

You know, I wondered when Lara Flynn Boyle was going to make another movie.

Since he’s already screwed up, he might as well go whole hog. Anakin accepts his role as Sith trainee and a Sith name. Hmmm, I don’t know… Darth Vader has a kind of ring to it, even if it might be more confusing than Darth War or Darth Herpes or something. Convincing Anakin and the rest of the universe that the Jedi were about ready to attempt a coup, Palpatine dispatches Order 66 all his storm troopers (Wait, he’d only given 65 orders to this point? What is that, an order a month?), which instructs them to immediately kill all the Jedi they’re fighting alongside. Anakin, once again, gets the difficult job: leading a bunch of storm troopers into the Jedi temple and killing all the children. Or ‘younglings’ as all the Jedi call them, making them sound like some Zerg sub-species. Palpatine calls the Senate together and consolidates his rule by declaring himself Emperor, much to the delight of the Senate. Padme’s one of the few dissenters, quietly musing, “So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause.” It’s actually a pretty good line, one that I suspect Portman might have written herself, since she’s very politically active and thinks that V for Vendetta has an important lesson for the world.

Yoda and Obi-Wan are just about the only Jedi to survive their assassination attempts, and get together with Jimmy Smits, who’s apparently a good-guy Senator named Organic Bile or something. They decide that to make things right, they’ve got to kill Sidious and Vader. Because somebody decided that the “Yoda jumps around and kills people” joke hasn’t gotten old enough yet, he’ll go after Sidious, and Obi-Wan will deal with his former BFF, Anakin. Since they don’t know where Anakin is, Obi-Wan tells the conflicted Padme everything, then stows aboard her ship when she flies off to meet him on the volcanic planet Mustafar, where he’s gone to kill off the last of the Separatist leaders, now that they’re no longer needed for Palpatine’s big false flag operation. She’s going there to convince the man she loves and father of her unborn child to come back from the brink, and Obi-Wan has to deceive her in order to kill him. It’s a moral dilemma worthy of The Smurfs.

I used to wonder how Hayden Christensen got this part. Now, I wish I didn't know.

Yoda confronts Palpatine in this office, knocking out his guards in maybe the only genuinely cool moment of the movie, perhaps because it’s actually *gasp* a bit understated. Speaking of understated, by this time, Chancellor Palpatine has gone from a soft-spoken and manipulative “cool uncle” type of a villain to a cackling ninny, someone that even Chuck Schumer voters could recognize is kind of a creep. His dialogue with Yoda before (and during) the final fight goes something like this:

Palpatine: You and your friends shall DIE! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Yoda: End, the Dark Side of the Force must.
Palpatine: There is no escaping me, foolish Jedi! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Yoda: Battle, we must.
Palpatine: There is no overcoming the Dark Side of the Force! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Yoda: End, this shall tonight.
Palpatine: Dead, you shall be. Oh, wait, it’s my line, sorry. I mean, prepare to die, pathetic weakling! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Yoda: Fight me first, you must.
Palpatine: The end of the Jedi is at hand! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Yoda: End now, your tyranny must.
Palpatine: Prepare for death, my old friend! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Yoda: End, this shall. It, I mean, really.

Poetic words, indeed. The puppet and the old fart duke it out in the empty Senate chamber, clashing sabers and spinning floaty hover-seats at each other. It’s actually not that bad a fight, though it’s a bit predictable, even considering that we knew exactly how it was going to end four movies ago. Neither one manages to do a lick of serious damage to the other, but Yoda falls out of the chamber, and being a damned coward, he decides, “Well, I gave it the old college try, so let’s just call it a day,” and flies off with Jimmy Smits to accept permanent exile. Nope, no need to try killing Sidious again, or helping out with the resistance or anything. We’ll find you if we need you, Yodes.

"Hey, it saves on gas, all right?"

Meanwhile, Padme’s ship lands on Mustafar, atop a platform above some kind of molten lava collection plant. (I can only guess that the stuff is shaped and cooled into collectible pottery, because there’s no other conceivable reason to do this.) Braving the 4,000 degree heat and 99% carbon monoxide air, she steps out, and is greeted by Anakin. Being a woman, gets all prickly about his plan to betray Sidious and become Galactic Demagogue. He gets miffed that his bride isn't supportive of his new career plan. He gets even angrier when Obi-Wan steps out. I’m not sure if he’s so angry about him coming here to kill him, or because he thinks he’s been doing his own light saber training with her. Either way, Anakin Force-chokes her unconscious, and the final battle is on.

Now, I know that this is the big finale of the series, with two iconic characters going at it in an oppressive and visually striking setting. And it’s fairly exciting. But really, how many times can we see a light saber duel before it wears out its welcome? I think there was about one of these fights per movie in the original series. Those movies had space pirates and gangsters and big monsters. The new movies have endless scenes of homeless-looking people hacking each other. But the movie’s almost over. Almost over.

"This is OnStar. How may I assist you, pathetic weakling?"

The fight takes a while, and the whole time, neither of them get fatigued, injured, frustrated, or anything else. Although plenty of machinery gets carved up and let loose down the lava river in the process, it’s pretty obvious that neither Anakin nor Obi-Wan is really making the slightest progress towards defeating the other one. They fill the time with Firing Line-style debate. To rebut Obi-Wan’s assertion that Emperor Palpatine is evil, Anakin unleashes the rhetorical bombshell, “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!”

So the fight’s not going to end when one really gets beaten, but only when the film's editor says that this nonsense has gone on long enough. And that happens when Obi-Wan ends up on a bank beside the lava river, and Anakin’s still standing on a robot platform hovering above the lava (this isn't the easiest thing to describe, okay?). Obi-Wan declares, “It’s over, Anakin! I have the high ground!” High ground? What is this, a Civil War board game? Apparently he’s right, though, because when Anakin tries to do a somersault jump over him, Obi-Wan slices through him, hacking off his remaining non-robotic arm and his legs. Well, that’s pretty decisive.

I'm inclined to agree with her.

Anakin slides back along the loose sand toward the lava, in pain not just from the searing wounds, but from the lecture Obi-Wan inflicts upon him. It’s actually fairly moving, and well-delivered by Ewan MacGregor. Anakin continues to slide down, and while he never immerses himself into the lava, he apparently does get close enough that he bursts into flames. And Obi-Wan just walks back towards the ship, leaving him there. I can understand how he’d be pretty confident that being dismembered and engulfed in flame would be enough to kill the guy, but not taking the five seconds to go stab him in the head with a light saber is one of those Bill Buckner moments. You’d think he might have mercy-killed him, but no. Doing the obvious thing would have maybe hurt the series continuity a bit.

The good guys regroup at some out-of-the-way station as Padme goes into labor, learning that she’s having twins; apparently, in this galaxy, faster-than-light speed is invented prior to the sonogram. And she names the kids Han and Chewie. Or something like that. Since she dies during labor, Jimmy Smits gets to take one for himself, while Obi-Wan’s stuck with the other one. So he dumps the kid off with his aunt and uncle on Tatooine, and resigns himself to twenty-or-so years of living in caves in the desert and learning to act like Alec Guiness. The man’s got some work ahead of him. Earlier, Yoda had told him, much to his delight, that Qui-Gon Jinn (from the first movie) had figured out how to come back from the grave and appear as a spirit, and that he’ll be around later to pass on this secret to Obi-Wan. I think this exchange is in the movie to explain why, in the upcoming/previous trilogy (whatever you want to call it), all the good Jedi learned how to do this, but characters like Darth Maul can’t come back to give people the finger or yell out numbers to confuse the Jedi when they’re doing their tax returns or something. But don’t take this as meaning that Liam Neeson’s back. Oh, no he’s not. Having endured roles in both The Phantom Menace and The Haunting, I don’t think you were going to get him back into a crappy CGI blockbuster for all the whiskey in Ireland. Nope, he was going back to a combination of serious movies and blockbusters, like Narnia and Batman Begins, that didn’t ask him to make serious conversation with characters straight out of Super Mario Bros. 2.

"Anakin, forget what he's saying about your acting! We have a scene to do!"

As for Anakin, he’s gotten his second wind and crawled out of the fire. Palpatine arrives and has his men transport him to a medical facility, where they start slapping cyborg parts on him. I think you see where this is going. I just know that Lucas was dying to have him transformed into some CGI creation that looks like Optimus Prime, but no, that might have finally broken the fans’ will. So he’s old Dark Helmet again, complete with boxy, multi-colored 1970s buttons on his chest, like he’s a damned ATM machine. He stands up and lurches off the operating table like Frankenstein’s monster, now voiced by James Earl Jones (who probably would have been more convincing as a white, teenage Jedi than Hayden Christensen if they had just given him the entire role). And what’s the first thing that Darth Vader says, finally in his iconic form, with his iconic voice?

“Where is Padme? Is she safe? Is she all right?”

I don't think I like this remake of Flashdance.

Yes, I want the legendary film villain’s first words to include the name “Padme” and the term “all right.” It would only have been worse if Palpatine had replied, “Hunkily-dorily, Darthity Varthity!” Instead, he tells Vader the truth, that his choking thing wound up killing her, to which Vader responds with the most embarrassing eighteen letters in film history:

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

And that’s that. The Galactic Republic’s a dictatorship, Palpy and Vader are in power, a fake Peter Cushing’s on a Star Destroyer’s bridge, everybody’s uniform and workstations have gone all gray and retro all of a sudden, budget setbacks have forced all the storm troopers to resort to being played by actual actors in actual suits, and the Death Star’s half finished. What? Already? To clarify, the shot revealing this fact actually comes in the film before we see baby Luke dropped off on Tatooine, so it’s not like this was supposed to have happened years later. So if they’re already so far along building the Death Star while Luke's still a baby, why’s it going to take them 18 or 20 years to finish the bleeding thing? Is the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in charge of it?

Certain people aren't letting me make Karen Allen jokes anymore, so I'll have to say, "Stupid Hobbitses!" instead.

Anyway, that’s the end. I think I’ll stop these reviews short of going into the good movies in the series. To be fair, this movie has its moments, and the series had been climbing, one step at a time, up from the eleventh circle of Hell that was The Phantom Menace. But the entire series was still far too concerned with explaining Star Wars mythology, showing off technology, and appealing to kids, than it was with creating rousing action scenes or memorable character interaction. It’s hard to pinpoint one thing that went wrong with this prequel trilogy, but I think there are two big losses:

The puppets. As corny as they might have been, all those aliens and droids you saw for about three seconds in the original movies were pretty interesting to look at, and the fact that they didn’t play much of a role in the plot made you wonder about them; I kind of liked how the tadpole naval commanders (including the legendary Admiral “It’s a Trap!” Ackbar) and Lando’s Chinese frog-man co-pilot were just sort of weird and just sort of there for a bit. Here, all the weird aliens are few and far between, and when they appear, they’re either just minor variations on things we’ve either seen, or they’ve got abrasive enough personalities that they get old real quick. Sorry, Jar-Jar. I never understood why people thought you were an idiotic character, but now I see a kernel of truth.

No Han and Chewie. Not to say that the prequel trilogy needed to have a cast of characters that mirrored the original series, but taking out the space pirates really hurt. Face it: Luke and Leia were dull. Godawful dull. You might have liked them, and rooted for them, but they were dull. It was Han and Chewie, always in over their heads and always trying to get their run-down ship working, that made the series so fun, breaking up the serious Jedi stuff. Count Lando in there too. In the prequels, nearly all of the main characters are either monks or politicians, with the one attempt at a major lighthearted character being a complete ignoramus. I’m sorry, Jar-Jar, but it needed to be said. Multiple times. R2-D2 and C-3PO are in the prequels, and actually fairly amusing, but they don’t really feel like part of the group. They’re off doing their own little skits, far removed from the main action.

Like I said, there’s a lot of stuff wrong with these movies, but aside from the general drop-off in writing and acting, which was a mixed bag to begin with, those are my two main points. On a higher level, I had a problem with the films’ “explanation” as to why a great hero like Anakin Skywalker could turn into a total villain like Darth Vader, which was the whole key to the series, dramatically. To me, Anakin seems like kind of a dick to begin with, and doesn’t seem any better a person or more dedicated a Jedi than anyone else. When he turns to the Dark Side as a result of his arrogance, fear of loss, and frustration with the Jedi, the surprise isn’t how a great hero could fall so far, it’s how dumb the Jedi must have been for not seeing it coming.

"...I love ya, tomorrow! You're always a day awaaaaaaayyyyy!!!"

But to sum up this exhaustive review, let’s end with my ten favorite lines of dialogue in Revenge of the Sith, all courtesy of the once-interested screenwriter George Lucas:

10) Obi-Wan: I have seen a security hologram of him… killing younglings!
9) Padme: Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo, so long ago when there was nothing but our love. No politics, no plotting, no war.
8) Palpatine: POWER! UNLIMITED! POWER!
7) Obi-Wan: Wait a minute! How did this happen? We’re smarter than this!
6) Anakin: I sense Count Dooku!
5) Padme: I want to have our baby on Naboo.
4) Obi-Wan: It’s over, Anakin! I have the high ground!
3) Anakin: From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!
2) Palpatine: NO! NO! NO!
1) Vader: NOOOOOOOOO!!!

Um. Maybe the movie should have been more about her.

Not quite “May the Force be with you,” any of them, but at least they tried. Then again, do or do not, there is no try.

COMING SOON: Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

2009-01-25T11:47:00.001-08:00

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

REVIEW: Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones

2009-01-15T20:21:00.000-08:00

Wait a minute. This is almost right, but not quite. Here, I think I know what it is.

There we go. Much better.

While Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace was the cinematic equivalent of a big, wet, point-blank sneeze directly into your face, it made gazillions of dollars in theaters and home video (way back when that sometimes meant tapes; [shiver]). It’s hard to warrant the criticism that your film is “childish” when the classic films you’re following up on featured space pirates, mystical elf-puppets, and characters named Boba, Chewie, and Jabba. But George Lucas somehow managed to pull it off, making a film that showed off his top-of-the-line computer-generated special effects very well, but somehow managed to be less suspenseful and original than those tech demos that show a CGI spokeswoman telling you all about her advanced bitmap rendering.

When you think Star Wars, you think one thing: meetings.

But it was, of course, Star Wars, and so three years later, the inevitable Episode II arrived, sporting a perfectly appropriate title for a series that had convinced itself that people loved it for its homages to crappy ‘30s adventure serials: Attack of the Clones. Despite its goofy title and the fact that it was following the shaky Return of the Jedi and the hyperventilating Phantom Menace, I had decent hopes that Attack of the Clowns would rally. After all, Jake Lloyd was gone, Jar-Jar was nowhere in the trailers, and this time around, George Lucas wasn’t alone as having a screenplay credit. I imagined the studio executives deploying a screenplay “fixer” to the Skywalker Ranch, armed with a suitcase full of red pens.

"Woooo! Yeah! Man, I love going down with you! Oh wait, that came out wrong."

The movie begins with the standard text crawl, during which we learn that since the giddily happy ending of the last movie, the universe has gone down the toilet. The Galactic Republic, which never seemed particularly unified to begin with, is now dealing with a bunch of separatists, led by the traitorous ex-Jedi Count Dooku. Together with his cohorts, Archduke Bloopa and Don Yipyip, he has unleashed a terrifying scheme which, if successful, would form a separate coalition of mostly-self-governing nations! Doesn’t sound so terrible? Well, maybe that’s the point, because as will become increasingly obvious as the movie goes along, the good guys are really the bad guys. Yep, less than a year and a half into George W. Bush’s presidency, George Lucas had clearly prognosticated his objection to Bush’s governance, and so he’s playing Animal Farm with the farm animals replaced by computer-generated plush toys named Yoda and Jango. The Senate of the Galactic Republic, under the rule of Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), is about to vote on a bill that would order the creation of the Republic’s first-ever standing army to go fight the separatists. And a real army too, not a bunch of stoners running around in blue helmets. Once again, Lucas has decided that since we’re going to enjoy all the cool aspects of 18th century Earth (pirates, druidic societies, princesses) in his fantasy universe, we’ve also got to delve into the turgid political issues, like whether or not a society can remain free while maintaining a permanent standing army. If this is supposed to be some crack at his home country for the sin of having a strong military and occasionally using it, I think George Lucas should be grateful to live in a society where he is free to get rich by making godawful movies.

The Clone Wars: The Game. Coming soon to Virtual Boy.

Queen Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) has apparently been “promoted” to Senator, and objects to the standing army measure, of course, because in the Star Wars universe, making war just makes you corrupt. Someone’s trying to assassinate her for standing against the army. It’s a big mystery as to who’s behind this, although considering that we already knew from Episodes V and VI that Palpatine is evil, and that there are NO OTHER SUSPECTS (other than Jimmy Smits, who appears just long enough for us to not know who he‘s supposed to be), we might posit that this will eventually lead back to him. In the opening scene, we see Amidala’s ship fly through space and land on a platform on Coruscant. A guy gets out of an escort ship says something like, “Wow, I guess there was no assassination attempt after all!” I guess it’s inconceivable that an attempt would be made now that she’s coming, you know, outside. And sure enough, just as the Queen comes down the ramp out of the ship, the ship explodes from within, killing her and her guards. Fortunately, the Queen was actually a decoy, so Padme’s actually all right, but hang on a second. The ship exploded from within after it landed? Wouldn’t it have been a slightly better idea to set the bomb to go off when the ship was in outer space and the bad guys had the vaccuum and all that working for them?

Anakin suspected that the DA had gotten to her. But he didn't know where she could possibly be hiding the wire.

To protect Amidala, the Jedi Counsel send Obi-Wan Kenobi (either Ewan MacGregor or Ted Neeley, I‘m not sure which) and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) to act as bodyguards. While nobody else in the movie looks more than a few years older, Anakin’s blasted all the way through puberty since the last movie, evidently experiencing some kind of accelerated growth process that will allow the eventual plot twist that he is, in fact, Yoda’s father. But for now, he’s played by yet another George Lucas-hand-picked acting juggernaut, Hayden Christensen, who expresses emotion by occasionally raising the volume of his voice. Amidala’s very surprised to see how much he’s grown… uh, up, and not at all displeased at the thought of him hanging out at her apartment high in the cityscape of Coruscant.

“Ladies, my island if you leave, recruit training if you survive, be a weapon you will! Be a minister of death praying for war you will. But that day until, pukes you are! The lowest form of life on Earth you are! Not even human f***ing beings you are! Nothing but unorganized grabasstic pieces of amphibian s*** you are! Because hard I am, not like me you will. But the more me you hate the more learn you will. Hard I am, but fair I am. No racial bigotry here there is. Look down on ******s, ****s, ***s or *******s I don‘t. Here, equally worthless all you are!”

Oh, and Jar-Jar is there, but apparently his stark realism was just too much for the audience to process in the first movie, so he’s mostly unimportant. Until later.

To a normal person, this is an alien. To an anime fan, this is Natalie Portman's hotter sister.

While Amidala sleeps, and Obi-Wan and Anakin bicker (which apparently constitutes male bonding for monastic types, in George Lucas’s estimation), people outside are up to no good. We see an assassin giving the task of killing the Senator to another assassin. Who in turn sends a droid to do the killing. I think the villains could have cut out the middle men and saved themselves a few dollars or credits or whatever the hell long time ago, galaxy far away money is. The droid flies up outside Padme’s window, quietly cuts a hole in the glass, and slips in a couple of poisonous slug-type things. Now, considering that the droid has already gained access to her room, you might think that it would be better off just shooting her or exploding or something. But using poisonous animals to assassinate important people is archaic and beyond nonsensical in a futuristic environment, so in it goes. The Jedi, of course, hack the little bugs to pieces in time, and Obi-Wan leaps out the window to grab hold of the droid just as it’s flying away. Thus begins a big, long chase scene, as Obi-Wan and Anakin board flying cars and pursue the assassin droid and its remote control operator through the city, bickering with each other the whole way. Obi-Wan is always lecturing Anakin about being reckless, and Anakin’s too dumb to reply, “Well, you’re the one who jumped out a 40,000-foot high window, you ASS!”

The Imperial Army mobilizes troops for Operation: Hit Stationary Target.

They corner the assassin in a bar, but in typical “bad political intrigue movie” style, a second assassin shows up to kill the assassin before she can talk, then speeds off. The killer-killer is Jango Fett (Temeura Morrison), a jet-packing bounty hunter, whose son, Boba, will follow in his footsteps by the time of the original trilogy: looking cool, gaining massive fan adoration, then dying inconsequentially. As the movie splits into two stories, Obi-Wan shows the poisoned dart that killed the assassin to a slobbery short order cook alien friend of his, who immediately identifies that it’s from Kimino, a planet so obscure that someone’s been able to erase it from the Jedi Counsel’s space maps and no one‘s the wiser. It’s a good thing Obi-Wan has friends working minimum wage jobs who can identify obscure planets’ primitive weaponry. Using a little detective work, he finds Kimino, and arrives there to find that it’s an ocean world with a Seattle-like persistence of rain (but no sign of Kevin Costner). The Kiminans (Kimonians? Kimoans? Kimis?) are lanky aliens who live in giant iPod-inspired buildings and are dumber than rocks. They think that Obi-Wan was sent to check up on the progress of the clone army they’re building for the Republic, even though Shaggy would do a better job of hiding his ignorance. Turns out that a long time ago, a Jedi Master named Sifo-Dyas (thank you, Wikipedia) approached the Kiminans and asked them to clone (and apparently equip) a ton of soldiers for the Republic. Only problem is that the Republic never did any such thing; apparently, the Republic entered its credit card number on the wrong website, and became the victim of the most dreaded crime in the universe: Jedi identity theft. Sifo-Dyas died a long time ago, but somebody posing as him has kept in touch with the Kiminans, saying, “Oh, sure, sure, I definitely represent the government of the entire galaxy. Yup. Hey, you’ll take an out-of-state check for that gigantic, imperial army of super soldiers, right?” Either the Kiminans are advertising, “No money down! No payments for 400 years!“ or Jedi masters have one heck of a Republic slush fund to work with.

"Pujols will be sitting on the 3-1 fastball. Here's the wind-up..."

Of course, I don’t think the Kiminans were the toughest aliens to trick. They’ve apparently developed the ability to generate a gargantuan slave army, complete with battleships and tanks, without benefit of significant trade with other worlds, and can do so as a special order from some idiot in a robe who wandered on by 20 years ago. Yet, they never thought that instead of selling their armies, they might make a little noise themselves. Maybe they just assumed that the rest of the alien races would have nukes by now, and so a bunch of incompetent foot soldiers would be kind of trivial for the purposes of intergalactic total war.

You know, throughout the first movie, I always said to myself, "You know, he'd be pretty good looking if only he had the right hat."

The soldiers were apparently all cloned from Jango Fett (Stormtroopers? Yeah, maybe the Kiminans got cheap and mixed some lemming DNA in there.), who’s still hanging around Kimino with his son for some reason, even though the Kiminans already have his DNA. Maybe he just loooves their poison darts, and wanted to be there when the next shipment came out. So as Jango attempts to reach his ship and fly off the planet, he and Obi-Wan duke it out on the landing pad in the pouring rain. It’s actually not a bad fight, with the Fett family finally showing some fighting prowess to warrant its bottomless well of arrogance. After failing to stop them from escaping Kimino in their giant clothes iron of a starship, Obi-Wan jumps in his ship and follows them into an asteroid field, where the Fetts wind up chasing him, shooting at him with missiles that explode and release a huge shockwave, but have a delayed explosion sound effect. I’m not really sure what that’s supposed to represent, since there’s not really any sound to begin with in outer space, but the conceit does add something to the movie, ever so briefly, that is not completely what you’d expect, so I’m all for it. As usual, the chase doesn’t really amount to much, although it kind of leads Obi-Wan to discovering the Separatists’ military staging base on the Planet Geonosis (which is essentially Mars). He’s taken captive by Count Dooku (the great Christopher Lee, making some quick cash between installments of a certain other trilogy), who makes the terrible mistake of making fun of his prisoner’s name. Dooku’s Sith name is Darth Tyrannus, although if they wanted to be honest about the character and the role, it would have been Darth Paycheck.

Might want to get your emissions checked.

But let’s back up to Anakin and Padme’s story. It’s Anakin’s job to get her back to her home planet of Naboo safely, lest someone make a slightly less incompetent assassination attempt one of these days. So they decide the best thing to do is go undercover, which means dressing in cheap clothes with hoods (not a problem for Anakin) and sitting around in crowded transport ships. At least the producers decided against having them transported by Lil’ Han Solo and Baby Chewie. Back on Naboo, stuff continues to not happen, save for the budding forbidden affair between the Senator Queen and the rapidly-aging Jedi, who has the same mood swings and questionable devotion to his work as the high-school dropout who takes my order whenever I go to Einstein Bagels.

"I am a great actor! Lucas is holding me back! I can be the most powerful actor in the galaxy!"

Of course, thinking of getting into one of Padme’s forty different sets of pants makes him think of his mother. Whoops, they left her back on Tatooine in slavery all those years ago, and forgot to ever go back and get her out, didn’t they? Awk-ward. So because protecting the Senator’s life isn’t really that big a deal, they venture off to Tatooine (and the whole one city that seems to exist on it), where they learn that the Sand People have recently kidnapped Ma Skywalker, and are holding her hostage. Anakin jets off to rescue her, but arrives too late, sneaking into the hut where she’s held just in time to see her die. Being a moody teenager, he does what any troubled adolescent would do: slaughter every man(-type thing), woman(-type thing), and child in the camp, before coming home to brag about it to Padme. She acknowledges that it was probably wrong to murder dozens of people out of revenge, but it doesn’t really change whatever it is that she finds attractive about him, so nothing much more is really made of this.

"Crappy seats have we gotten! Hardly see court, I can! A**hole that scalper is!"

They receive Obi-Wan’s distress signal, and again, since protecting her was really more of a guideline than an objective, they both fly off to rescue him, along with R2-D2 and C-3PO. In her absence, they leave responsibility for voting down the bill to create a Republican army--Oh yeah, that whole thing she was trying to oppose in the first place!--to the most responsible surrogate available: Jar-Jar Binks. Who, after a little cajoling from Chancellor Palpatine, promptly votes in favor of the army. In his memoirs, former acting-Senator Binks would describe the vote as his most disappointing legislative failure, seeing as how it led to the rise of despotic evil in the galaxy, but he thought it unfairly overshadowed his successes on galactic redistricting and galactic capital gains tax reform.

Noobpwner the Level 72 Night Elf Druid and Fidel Castro hold a joint news conference to announce their new video game collaboration, World of Laborcraft.

At Geonosis, where the Separatists could really use some way of stopping saboteurs before they land safely on the planet’s surface, Anakin and Padme work to rescue Obi-Wan by blasting their way through a big weapons factory, which of course means plenty of exciting action watching people running along conveyor belts while avoiding industrial presses. While Anakin fights off flying bug-like soldiers and Padme considers how she’s neither protected, nor doing her job as a Senator, R2-D2 helps out by flying around, and, er… well, he flies. An ability that will never have any value in the future.

I think this class is new to the Westminster Dog Show.

They’re all captured, and since Count Dooku’s entertaining Jango and Boba Fett as his house guests, he decides to execute Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme by tying them up in a big arena and unleashing a trio of giant animals to eat them. You know, kind of like the Christians and the lions, except that here, the Christians climb up poles and use Force powers to kick the lions’ asses. And before Dr. Evil… erm, Count Dooku can get around to his alternate method of execution, a bunch of Jedi, then clone trooper ships arrive and start smashing up the place, with Yoda barking orders that the clone troopers eagerly obey as soon as they unable his incomprehensible syntax; you know, Yoda really should be making faster progress in learning English. Samuel L. Jackson finally gets to do something, yelling the F-word (“Force! May it be with you!”) as he lops off Jango Fett’s head with his light saber. What began as a completely boring fight between a few good guys and a bunch of uninspired computer-rendered monsters turns into an excuse for George Lucas to show off all the goofy battle-action toy ships and robots and guns that the film’s primary audience (and by that, I mean both children and the 38-year-olds who, God willing, will never have any) absolutely must have for Christmas. The whole Battle of Geonosis unfolds, with soulless clones of a bad guy driving around in tanks and shooting at other nominally bad guys and their robots. But it definitely looks expensive. Where one generation of kids imagined being Luke Skywalker, blasting through TIE fighters on his way to pulling the impossible shot and blowing up the Death Star, I can definitely imagine younger kids imagining themselves as Clone Trooper #84862A, soldier for a corrupt government, shooting up Separatists.

That's some intense action. And the top half of the screen is pretty exciting too.

But because it always has to come down to the bloody Jedi, the really important fight comes when Obi-Wan and Anakin track down Count Dooku in a hangar, trying to take him into custody. Dooku quickly cuts the lights to make his 40-years-younger stunt double less obvious, then proceeds to knock out Obi-Wan and chop Anakin’s arm off. Preparing to kill them, he’s stopped by the arrival of little old Yoda, who waddles in on his usual cane before tossing it off, pulling out his own light saber, and turning into a spinning dervish of unholy death. Yoda’s acrobatics in his light saber fight are genuinely hilarious in the spirit they were intended, even if they’re only nominally more implausible than 174-year-old Christopher Lee defeating anything more dangerous than a crossword puzzle. Sadly, kill something we actually get to see Yoda don’t, as yet another fight ends in a stalemate with the villain escaping. Anakin and Padme get secretly married, Dooku and Palpatine meet to gloat over the war they’ve secretly manufactured, and Yoda proclaims, “Begun the Clone Wars have.” Then Jar-Jar proclaims, “Oooh, meesa no want bad boss man Dooku come scare Jar-Jar!” It’s very poignant.

Anthony Daniels is Bender in "Futurama: The Reckoning."

If it seems like I’m rushing through this review, it’s because for all the stuff that appears on the screen, not much in this movie actually happens. Never before has it seemed like the main characters did so little, for good or evil, in influencing the actual main conflict of a Star Wars movie. Most of the time, Obi-Wan’s investigating a mystery he doesn’t solve or even come close to comprehending, and Padme and Anakin are contemplating a love affair that we know is going to go forward and result in Luke and Leia. Anonymous clone troopers do most of the fighting on the good guys’ behalf, and even with their face-covering helmets and lack of emotions (and the fact that for whatever inexplicable reason, they’re all computer-rendered figures instead of guys in suits) they’re more expressive than the people at the top of the cast list. I know that Natalie Portman can at least act somewhat, even if I’ve never been really impressed with her, but she plays off Hayden Christensen about as well as she plays off the tennis ball they use to represent a CGI character’s eyeline. But maybe that’s not entirely fair to her, since Hayden Christensen might well be the worst actor in the history of acting. Perhaps even the worst doer in the history of people doing things. Seriously. I didn’t think they could get anyone worse than Jake Lloyd for this part, but at least Hayden stays remarkably true to the role he inherited. If he had appeared on-screen in an AC/DC T-shirt and said, “I’m Hayden Christiansen; who wants to talk about how awesome I am?” he would have been only nominally less convincing as Darth Vader. Now, I hate being too insulting to someone who, for all I know, is very humble and hard-working, but I expect I’d be ridiculed too if George Lucas picked me out of a GQ magazine and hired me to run the CERN particle accelerator or something. I’d make a lot of money for something I’m going to screw up beyond repair. At least Ewan MacGregor looks like he’s interested in what he’s doing, which… well, actually that might make him the worst actor in the film.

Tell you what. How about instead of renting this movie, you spend two hours watching Starcraft multiplayer videos on YouTube. Pretty much indistinguishable.

But all was not lost for the Star Wars prequel trilogy, since there was still another movie around the corner. The one to bridge the gap between the prequel trilogy and the trilogy of actual movies that we remember from way back when. The one that would explain how the emo kid with the bad hair would turn into Darth Vader, why the galaxy’s computer technology would devolve to 1970s-quality, and what convinced Jabba the Hutt to stop exercising. Tune in next time.

COMING SOON: Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones

2009-01-13T16:34:00.003-08:00

Begun the modest improvement has.

REVIEW: Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace

2009-01-05T21:05:00.000-08:00

I very much approve of the direction Obi-Wan's lightsaber appears to be headed.

Picking on The Phantom Menace is kind of like picking on Mussolini: other people have already expressed their anger and disappointment, and done so brutally enough that anything I write here won‘t matter much. However, there are some people out there who seem to think that TPM was a good movie. Roger Ebert, who appears to give movies the ratings that the Tarot cards tell him to give them, gave this thing 3.5 out of 4 starts. The Internet Movie Database’s user ratings give it 6.4 out of 10, with only 11.8% of the population giving it a 3, 2, or 1. I’m hoping that most of the 14.6% of people who rated this an 8 were merely confused by the lack of a ‘0’ rating, and just aimed for roundest number they could find. And I’m hoping that the score is being propped up by a combination of fanboys who look like Vincent D’Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket, mindless voting droids at the Skywalker Ranch, and ACORN. Because if 6.4 is representative of what real people think of this movie, then the Rapture’s already happened, and I didn’t make the cut.

I run a clean, non-vulgar website, so I will say only once that The Phantom Menace is f***ing horrible.

Hear that? Tom Tancredo's head exploding. Seriously.

I presume that just about everyone has seen Star Wars, so I’m not going to recount the story from the original films, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. While they’re kind of old hat for me nowadays, they remain fantastic movies: brilliant soundtracks, great action, memorable major and minor characters, tons of ambiance, and a real sense that the stuff depicted on-screen, epic though it might be, is just a small part of a much bigger universe. I love all the freaky aliens and little robots in the background that you can easily imagine playing much bigger roles than they actually do. I love how Han Solo would refer to something like “making the Kessel Run in (whatever) parsecs,” and we’re just left to imagine what the heck that involved. I love how the Rebels seemed like a pseudo-real paramilitary outfit, with pseudo-believable communications and operations. And I love that although the good guys ranged from the mystical Jedi to the scrappy smugglers, as a kid, I wanted to go adventuring with all of them. But above all, the movies managed to have great dramatic moments without taking themselves too seriously. And all of that helped me gloss over the hammy acting, sporadic writing, and yes, the Ewoks.

"You can serve us the drinks, but I want them to send someone else for the lapdance."

Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace debuted in 1999, sixteen years after Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, and was the first in series creator George Lucas’ prequel trilogy that promised to show how legendary cyborg badass Darth Vader came into being. Obviously, it came with the double-edged sword of being the prequel to movies everyone had already seen: you’re interested in seeing how it all began, and you get excitement from seeing the puzzle pieces start to fit together, but there’s little suspense in the actual outcome of these movies, since you know (roughly) how most of these characters will wind up. So in the face of insurmountable expectations, Lucas took an interesting approach to this movie: he gave it no redeeming characteristics.

Wait, I think I might have accidentally ripped this from the "How It Should Have Ended" website.

The movie starts as all Star Wars have started, with the great John Williams score and a yellow text crawl explaining us the backstory, which I presume will eventually be expounded upon in Star Wars, Episode 0. But whereas the original text crawls told us about how the GALACTIC EMPIRE was trying to wipe out the REBEL ALLIANCE, Phantom regales us with the stirring story of how the TRADE FEDERATION has a dispute with the planet and people of NABOO and is throwing up a blockade around them. Now, I realize that in real life, a lot of military action is spurned by economic necessity. But this isn’t Syriania. This is Star Wars. Are we really supposed to be scared of the “Trade Federation” (the Ferengi???) and their terrible plan to force the peaceful people of Naboo into an interstellar version of NAFTA? I’m also not entirely sure what the Trade Federation actually trades; they’re not so much like OPEC in that they’re trying to get a stranglehold on the market for one particular resource, but they’re just trying to consolidate their monopoly on the entire process of trading goods and services. Maybe that is kind of epic, after all.

"Purr my finger!"

An envoy from the galactic senate arrives at the Trade Federation’s command ship: a pair of Jedi by the names of Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson, who’s much too good for this movie) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan MacGregor, doing a nifty Alec Guiness voice, at least). The Trade Federation’s viceroy, a kind of fishy Japanese thing, doesn’t like that the Jedi are here to strongarm him, so he does what any rational diplomat would do: attempt to ambush and kill the non-aggressive representatives of the powerful Senate and the scary powerful Jedi Council. Good thinking. They send in droid soldiers to fight the Jedi; the droids are very convenient for the fact that the Jedi can use their light sabers to hack them all to bits without the movie becoming very violent. When the cheap-ass droids fail to do anything to the Jedi, they send in bigger droids who have shields and bigger guns. Maybe they should make a few more of these things instead of billions of the cheap-ass variety. Meanwhile, the invasion begins, and the Jedi escape on a troop transport ship that’s headed down to Naboo.

Environmental regulations necessitated that the developers build their parking lot floating above the forest.

Down on the forest planet of Naboo, the Jedi mix it up some more with the bad droids and inadvertently rescue a Gungan named Jar-Jar Binks (Ahmed Best), who is a character that makes no impression on me whatsoever. He’s generally very reserved and quiet, and doesn’t tend to draw attention to himself. On the planet of Naboo, there are Gunans, the amphibian guys who talk like black people in 1930s comedies, and the Nabooians. Nabooians look, act, and talk like whatever everyone else who’s not distinctly an alien is. And therefore, they’re the people the Jedi actually want to talk to. So they negotiate for themselves a mini-sub so they can travel through an underwater tunnel that apparently runs to the other side of the planet--apparently Naboo’s so peaceful that it doesn’t have a molten core, and you can travel confident that a tunnel that runs tens of thousands of miles will never cave in or anything. Along the way, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Jar-Jar (the Heinous Hyphens, as they name their bowling team) are attacked by a giant fish that is killed at the last minute by an even bigger fish. And if you weren’t left breathless by the irony the first time, it happens again.

"We few, we happy few. We band of brothers. For he who sheds his blood with me shall be meesa brother."

A few hours later, traveling at maybe 40 miles an hour, they arrive at the other side of the planet. At the Nabooians’ capital city, they rescue Queen Amidala (Keira Knightley with lead make-up so thick that it has permanently destroyed the part of her brain that controls facial expressions and variations in vocal pitch and tone) from capture by the evil droids, along with a few of her handmaidens, including Padme (Natalie Portman). They swipe a starship and try to blast their way through the blockade. Although a laser bolt knocks out their shields (you might want to start housing the shield generator a little deeper inside the ship), a spunky robot named R2-D2 patches it up and they manage to escape. But the ship’s damaged and they can’t get all the way to the planet of Corscant, where they need to petition the Senate for military intervention on behalf of Naboo. So they stop at the desert, gangster-controlled planet of Tatooine (hey, it’s well know that Earth is the only planet in the universe that supports more than one type of environment), in hopes of getting replacement ship parts.

Man, I remember Halloween of 1999, when all the girls were dressing up as Goth Queen Elizabeth or orange Starburst-colored monks.

Yes, their mission is to get replacement ship parts so that they can lobby the Senate and beat back an aggressive cartel. Yes, this is Star Wars. But to spruce things up a bit, the Trade Federation’s been persuaded into war by a mysterious Sith Lord (kind of an anti-Jedi for those 3% of you who don’t know this, but have otherwise generally comprehended this review so far). Well, at least he’s mysterious if you haven’t seen the later movies or don’t recognize him as future-Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). Since the Trade Federation’s screwed up and let the Queen’s ship escape, he dispatches his servant, Darth Maul (Ray Park), to track her down. Maul’s the movie’s token semi-memorable villain, a red-and-black horned guy with incredible acrobatic ability who serves as the movie’s most striking visual element that’s not a holdover from the previous movies. And while he says about four words the entire movie and has no motivation beyond just not liking good guys, he’s fine as an antagonist.

I think the movie should have been more about this guy.

Back on Tatooine, we learn that the credit card hasn’t been invented yet in this galaxy far, far away, and the Queen and her entourage don’t have anything they can hock that’ll pay for the replacement ship parts. Plus, the guy they have to buy the parts from, a combination of Shylock, Bluto, and a dragonfly, is immune to Jedi mind tricks. So the Jedi, bearing mystic powers and vast wisdom, decide that their best alternative is to… bet their ship on a race. A pod race, which is a very dangerous sport in which people fly segmented hover-vehicles around a loosely-defined track at high speed while crashing into each other and getting shot at by desert bandits. Definitely sounds like a plan. Here’s a flowchart demonstrating the chain of events that will lead to what the good guys are actually trying to accomplish:

Win pod race bet
>Procure ship parts
>>Fix ship
>>>Fly to Coruscant
>>>>Convince politicians to intervene militarily
>>>>>Actually fight bad guys

Did you know that in Australia, "Jedi" is recognized as an official religion? Did you know that an official religion is based on this?

Their ringer in this is a young boy named Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), a slave of the not-at-all stereotypical Jewish banker imp-dragonfly thing, who moonlights as a semi-successful pod racer. Qui-Gon thinks that the kid is Jedi material, seeing as how his blood sample shows that he has a lot of the microorganisms that love feeding on Jedi blood. Funny, but I would have thought that testing people who are one with The Force would be done differently than how they test people for HIV. But they also know that Anakin’s a special kid because his slave mother claims that he was immaculately conceived. Nice. I’m not sure if this bit of exposition is to get sex as far away from the PG confines of Star Wars as possible or to pile on the irony that this universe’s Jesus is going to turn into Darth Vader one day. Oh, but he’s just so cute, you can’t imagine him ever being less than darling! He’s so smart in how he fixes up his pod racer! He’s so brave in how he rides around in a flying death trap so he can save up and buy himself and his mom out of slavery! He’s so innocent in how he asks Padme if she’s an angel. Aw, that darling child knows that he likes her, even though she’s at least a decade older than he is, and he’s not at all thinking about how he’s going to boink her as soon as they're both legal.

"Hey, you're right. This drunk test is harder than it looks. Sorry for pullin' you over, bro."

I find that Jake Lloyd blends so seamlessly into the role that I don‘t even think of Anakin as played by an actor who was conjuring the words from a script, and not from the depths of his own heart, just as I continue to find that Jar-Jar Binks blends seamlessly into the background, when he’s not serving as an astute commentator on the events unfolding around him.

Anyway, to make a 90-minute chase sequence short, Anakin wins it. And he buys both the ship parts and his own freedom to go back with Qui-Gon for Jedi training. But the victory budget doesn’t include enough money to buy Mom out of slavery. And apparently they’re never going to find the money to do so, since she’s still a slave in the next movie. It might have been a nice gesture for the Nabooian government to pull a few bucks out of the post office budget and buy Akin’s mom’s freedom, since he did, after all, save their entire civilization. But it’s not like being a slave on a desert planet in the service of a flying grease ball is such a bad fate.

Some members of the production began to think that Lucas' insistence on getting work for Karen Allen was hurting his films.

Just before take-off, the gang gets ambushed by Darth Maul, who smacks light sabers with Qui-Gon for a few seconds before all the good guys get away in their ship. Good idea for the movie to have their imposing villain utterly FAIL his rather simple mission, without even delaying them or killing off some background character.

This movie lacks realism. How, you might ask? In real life, these flying engine parts connected by pink electrical arcs would have Valvoline logos plastered all over them.

Arriving at Coruscant, the all-city planet, the heroes find that the Senate is pretty loath to send a bold military force in to help, which is a shock considering that the Senate is otherwise very reminiscent of the United Nations. Fortunately, they find an ally in Senator Palpatine, Naboo’s representative. The political drama we put up with during this segment of the movie has all the excitement of a vote on the naming of a post office on C-SPAN, with all the complexity of Spike TV. George Lucas really pulls an amazing feat of making his story seem complex and difficult to follow, but actually childishly simple. The short story of it is that Palpatine is elected Chancellor of the Senate (He’s Harry Reid with overt dopiness replaced by covert evilness), but STILL can’t wrangle any help. So they got all those ship parts for nothing. I feel cheated. But they’re going to go back to Naboo anyway, preparing a diplomatic way of telling the resistance fighters that aside from brave Jar-Jar, their reinforcements consist of a child, a teenage girl, a Scot not named William Wallace, and an Irishman not named Rob Roy (although he did play him once, in better times).

I actually like this guy. I think there should have been more of him. Less Natalie Portman, more of Mr. Hemorrhoid.

Meanwhile, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan report to the Jedi Council. And guess what: their meetings are boring too! And that’s despite having not only Yoda--who was far less fun before he went crazy--but Samuel L. Jackson! Samuel M.F.L. Jackson! As a guy named Mace Windu! Mace! But if you think that means you’re going to get Oriental Jedi Shaft chopping up m**********rs with light sabers, think again. You get to see him sit back in a cushy chair and say that Anakin is too old to become a Jedi. And to see him rattled when Qui-Gon declare that he’s going to turn him into a JedI anyway, even though he’s already mentoring Obi-Wan. Disrespectful these young upstarts are, hmmmm. I can see why Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan spend so much time out of the office.

Robin Hood and His Merry... who the hell are these people?

Coming back empty-handed, the good guys return to Naboo and secretly land their ship on the planet’s surface, having already made the fortuitous decision to bring along 8-year-old Anakin, dragging the kid into a war he has nothing to do with, rather than stash him with one of Palpatine’s nephews for a few weeks or something. With the help of the delightfully helpful Jar-Jar, they learn that while the Nabooians are completely under the evil droids’ control, the Gungans have gone into hiding and still have the capability to attack. Padme makes the shocking reveal that she’s actually Queen Amidala herself (them Jedi aren’t the most perceptive folk), and saves the day by completing the first successful negotiations of the movie and securing the Gungans’ help in a counter-attack against the Trade Federation. The battle sequence that follows has four main parts, unfolding simultaneously:

The Gungans, led by courageous General Jar-Jar, engage the droid tanks and cheap-ass soldiers on an open field, riding big goofy animals and firing goofy and colorful weapons. They fight for a while. Then they start to lose. General Jar-Jar swallows his well-earned pride and calls a retreat, but too late, and the Gungans are captured.

But the distraction allows the other heroes to sneak into the city and immediately start shooting the place up. It’s very clever, and very Jedi-like. They bring Anakin along, then immediately tell him to run and hide when the evil droids actually start shooting back. They fight their way into a hangar, free some fighter pilots, and launch a squadron of ships into outer space…

…to shoot up the droids’ control ship, because apparently the droids will completely shut down if they don’t get a signal from the ship. I guess this is the real reason why Verizon keeps dropping my calls. The real pilots aren’t able to put a dent in the ship, but remember when Anakin was told to run and hide? He chose the cockpit of a fighter ship as the ideal place to do so, and he accidentally nudged the “Go into outer space, toward the big thing we’re fighting” button. But it all works out because while he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, he still manages to Mr. Bean his way into a stunning victory, bumbling around until he’s flown into the control ship, blown it up from within, escaped, and saved the world.

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan? They’re not terribly involved with the rest of that stuff. They spot Darth Maul, and decide that the little red-and-black spaz is the biggest threat, and that taking him two-on-one is perfectly honorable. Oh, but Darth has a double-bladed light saber, so it’s all good. They fight their way through a huge room that has massive pillars, suspended platforms, energy beams, force fields, and no discernable purpose. Qui-Gon buys it, but Obi-Wan manages to slice Darth Maul in half in a very non-bloody way, and that’s that.

"Do you want to know how I got these scars? ... We're working on another prequel trilogy about them."

The fact that a likable character has actually died puts a downer on the victory, but not too much of one. Everyone pulls through their grief and joins in a parade down the streets of the Nabooian capital, celebrating their liberation, the newly-forged alliance between the Nabooians and Gungans, and the limitless courage of General Jar-Jar, who was an inspiring, yet sober leader in the darkest hour. Chancellor Palpatine joins in on the celebration, having been promoted to one of the dozens of 18th century government titles they’re just throwing around in this universe. But we know that secretly, he is truly the phantom menace (Duh-duh-DUM!), and that the power the good guys have secured him is going to come back and bite them in the nuts. And dark things definitely lay ahead for young Anakin, who’s now going to be trained by Obi-Wan. In the Jedi trade, not acting, because Jake Lloyd needs none of that.

"Sergeant Bit to General Byte. Status report: very goofy, sir."

As I expressed earlier, this movie is something less than a total artistic success. But I’ll focus on the positive:

Even though he has nothing remotely interesting to say or do, Liam Neeson is a good actor.
Even though they lacked many original designs and the actors didn’t know how to play off them, the computer-generated characters look impressive.
Even though she got upstaged in charisma and natural delivery by Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best, and the THX logo, Natalie Portman was very pretty.
Even though he doesn’t swear, say anything profound, or take any action whatsoever, Samuel L. Jackson is most certainly in this movie.
Even though the action scenes are boring and predictable, there are a lot of them.
Even though the movie is completely unwatchable, there’s a lot of it to watch.

"You're too late! With this ancient artifact, my pictures, my calendars, and anything else I hang will be the straightest in the galaxy!"

So there you go, I wrote positive things about The Phantom Menace, and I didn’t even have to mention the lasting gift this movie has made to Western culture by giving us that righteous hero, that paragon of virtue, that emergent everyman champion… Well, yousa know who.

COMING SOON: Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace

2009-01-04T13:26:00.001-08:00

I've got a bad feeling about this.