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August Rush is one of those rare movies that made me dislike it, then won be back over before the end credits roll. It’s not common to see a movie accomplish that roller-coaster ride that turns me away from the picture and then picks me back up, but somehow the story manages it and left me a giddy, sappy mess by the end.
The odd title of the movie comes from the lead character: a young orphan who sneaks away from the orphanage to find his real parents. The kid is convinced that he is still connected to his parents through a mysterious tune that comes to him through just about anything that makes sound, so he sneaks away from the orphanage and into the big city, where he is “adopted” by Wizard (Robin Williams), the leader of a collection of street performing children. Wizard sees the child’s gift for music, which he wants to use for his own personal gain. He renames the kid “August Rush,” and tries to manage the kid’s career. Meanwhile, fate is reuniting August’s biological parents, a concert cellist (Keri Russell) and a rock musician (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who actually only got together for one night eleven years ago; the night when August was conceived.
As a film that theorizes about a unifying theme in music, August Rush has a bit of a surreal edge to it. The movie breaks occasionally from narrative storytelling to reveal the music that comes from August’s world in slightly surreal editing. It’s slightly gimmicky, especially when you consider that acts like Stomp have been using everyday items for percussion sounds for years now. Oddly, as August actually starts to learn about music, these vignettes become less common. One could almost infer that the more August learns about music, the less he hears it, although I don’t think that’s the point; I think it just coincides with a need for the central story to become the primary focus. I think it could have been handled a little better though, mostly by removing some of the sequences earlier in the film. August hears this tune everywhere. We get it in the first few minutes of the movie, so hammering it home in semi-surreal sequences can be a bit obtrusive.
Of course, you can’t have a movie about music without a decent score, and August Rush’s Mark Mancini delivers one of the most intoxicating soundtracks I’ve heard in recent years. It’s a pretty tall order to ask a composer to come up with a sound for music that sounds like it connects to all humans – the music we’ve all heard somewhere in our dreams but never can truly recreate. Mancini lives up to the idea however, with one of the most intoxicating scores this year. It’s a soundtrack that felt so right, both its use in the picture and on a musical level, that I had to race out and pick up a copy. I can’t offer higher praise than that.
The big downside of the movie is that it is completely derivative. There is almost nothing in here that you’ve not seen before in almost identical stories. Child separated from parents, hoping something in the world will reunite them: An American Tail. Street urchins held together by a cruel gang-leader: Oliver Twist. The notion that some unseen “force” unifies the world: Star Wars. The talented Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland) even seems to be channeling Haley Joel Osment from about a decade ago. Just about everything in August Rush has been done before, but somehow, it still works and the deeper the movie gets, the more it draws you in to the point that you can look past the derivative nature of the film and enjoy it.
There’s no way to avoid saying it: August Rush is a “feel-good movie” with a bit of a fairy tale element with the story of the forlorn orphan seeking out his parents and finding a world of instant success along the way. Fans of sappy feel-good flicks should love it. It’s not tremendously deep, but it’s still entertaining despite the feeling that all of this has appeared before somewhere else. Even if the story lacks originality, at least the music is enjoyable.
Once upon a time Disney was renowned for making cinematic story-telling masterpieces that became instant classics. Lately all they’ve been known for is regurgitating those classics in the form of shameless sequels and ridiculous remakes. With Enchanted they’re still rehashing the past, but this time they’ve gone and done something we haven’t seen them do in a very long time: show a little imagination. And not a second too soon, either. Poor Walt’s corpse could use a break from all that turning over in its grave.
Instead of abusing past characters and plotlines by squeezing them into silly stories about enchanted Christmases or time-traveling evil step-mothers, Enchanted uses a different approach. It takes classic elements of Disney fairytales and mercilessly pokes fun by dipping them into the cold, harsh light that is the real world. While the tongue-in-cheek comedy plays a major role, there’s also a warm, charming story here that makes the movie much more than simple satire.
Giselle (Amy Adams) is a beautiful young woman who spends her days with assorted woodland creatures making dresses and singing hopelessly idyllic songs about the day when she and her true love will find one another. Naturally, the animals can all talk and have an uncanny talent for fashion design. When Giselle is rescued from a troll by the puffy-sleeved, chivalrous-to-a-fault Prince Edward (James Marsden), the two fall immediately and madly in love. Edward proposes and the animals begin frantically building Giselle’s gown for her happily-ever-after wedding, set to take place the very next day.
This first part of the story brings to the big screen something else that we haven’t seen from Disney in a very long time: hand drawn animation. Giselle’s perfect animated world is crafted from the very finest that Disney has to offer, harkening back to the glory days before computer animation came in and wiped out all the hand-drawn warmth and magic. I’m not going to say that the good folks at Pixar haven’t produced some pretty amazing work with their digital wizardry, but I miss the beauty of the old-school animation. Enchanted offers a fleeting remembrance of how good hand-drawn was and could be again.
As she makes her way to the altar, Giselle is side-tracked by Edward’s wicked witch step-mother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon). Fearing that Edward’s marriage will mean she will lose her crown, Narissa decides to eliminate the threat by pushing Giselle down a wishing well which is actually a gateway to the real world. When Edward learns of this, his natural instinct is to launch a rescue mission to save his damsel in distress. Both young lovers are determined to find each other in this bizarre new land, but strange (and hilarious) things happen when the real and fairy tale worlds are thrown together.
For example, despite being in the real world, Giselle still maintains her amazing gift for having the animal kingdom at her beckon call. Of course, New York City is short on fuzzy woodland creatures, so it’s the rats, roaches and one-legged pigeons that arrive to help her with the cleaning and mending. Also, her tendency to burst forth in song when the proper emotional cue line is spoken rubs some the wrong way, and yet people appear out of the woodwork to sing and dance for one of the best live-action musical numbers I’ve seen in a long time.
Before Edward can locate his lost true love, the hopelessly romantic Giselle is rescued from the ravages of New York City by the most romantically jaded man imaginable: Robert (Patrick Dempsey), a divorce lawyer whose wife abandoned him and his daughter years ago. At first I expected their relationship to become the ultimate cliché of cynical vs. idealistic. Instead I was surprised by a sweet love story that touches nicely on finding joy in the midst sorrow and not giving up on loving each other just because you’re not perfect. One of the characters sums the movie up nicely by pointing out that we all go through bad times, but we shouldn’t abandon the good because of them.
Hard core Disney enthusiasts have something else to celebrate besides the great comedy and endearing story. The movie is absolutely littered with nods and bows to all things Disney. Some of them are obvious, some are subtle, but if you’re watching carefully you’ll either see or hear something from another Disney movie in just about every scene. It’s a wonderful gift to fans who really know their stuff. Best of all, the songs and score for the movie come from none-other than the legendary Alan Menken, the man behind the music of some of the best Disney has made.
Roll it all together and you have a magically new fairy-tale with a clever twist. Of course, this momentary blip of creativity doesn’t necessarily mean Disney has learned its lesson. I fully expect Enchanted 2: Narissa’s Revenge to arrive direct-to-DVD summer 2009. Until then we can revel in the bliss of this magnificent anomaly and wish upon a star that it might spark some kind of new life in what used to be the happiest movie studio on earth.
Robert Zemeckis’ latest foray into his world of actor-based computer animation movies does for the classic tale of Beowulf what 300 did for the historic events of the Battle of Thermopylae: take tremendous artistic license, pump the story full of adrenaline and release it as an over-the-top, action-packed sensory-overload event.
You probably had to read the story in high-school but don’t remember it at all because, hey, who remembers all that old boring stuff, right? Well, I confess, I do. I even took an honors literature class in college on the likes of “Beowulf”. I could fill you in with the premise, but you’d probably just go all glaze-eyed like you did back in high school. Don’t worry. With this movie adaptation the plot isn’t all that critical anyway.
The movie tells what might have been “the real story” of Beowulf, adding in all kinds of juicy secrets that the original writer of the epic would never have been privy to. It also adds a few things in that tie the three great battles of the Beowulf tale into a single plotline. It might have been kind of cool if there were some substance to the embellishments, but in the end they’re basically just an excuse to turn Grendel’s mother into Stacey’s mom.
Whether or not you agree that this kind of movie is the way history or classic literature ought to be treated is a debate for another time and place (though I’ll warn you, if you’re any kind of a Beowulf purist, spare yourself the agony and stay far, far away). The movie is what it is and you’re either going to love it or hate it. It’s important you consider carefully which category you are. If you’ll hate it, avoid it like the plague. If you’ll love it, get out and see it now because this isn’t so much a movie as a visual experience that demands being seen in a big theater with 3D digital capability.
I should start out by explaining what makes this movie different from most computer generated films. A few years ago Zemeckis and his army of digital wizards began experimenting with a method of creating movies that use real actors’ appearances and movements as the basis for the characters. In their first attempt, The Polar Express, Tom Hanks had the chance to portray five different characters. Each one’s voice, movements and facial expressions were recorded directly from Hanks’ performance and then applied to the character in the computer. The movie wasn’t exactly a bust, but it proved that the technology still had a long way to go.
For Beowulf the same techniques were applied, but this time to a much larger cast of actors, all of whom look surprisingly like themselves in their computer generated form. Hrothgar, a king whose land is troubled by an ancient demon, looks and sounds just like a portlier version of Anthony Hopkins. Hrothgar’s savior Beowulf is the striking image of Ray Winstone, or at least what he might have looked like twenty years younger with the body of Mr. Universe. Even the deformed and monstrous Grendel bears an interesting resemblance to Crispin Glover. At times the near-photo realistic quality of the characters is incredible.
Despite that, I’m beginning to think that Zemeckis isn’t actually trying to create photo realistic movies with all his fancy actor-motion-capture and highly detailed CG models. His real motive is to give actors a chance to look and act in ways they would never be able to be in a live movie. Real-life naked Anthony Hopkins: icky. CG naked Anthony Hopkins: kinda funny. And heaven knows Ray Winstone must have signed up just for the chance to see his head on a body with flawless pecs and abs.
Speaking of nudity, the movie is rife with it…and violence…and gore. As a director this is the furthest Zemeckis has ever gone with out and out brutality. Characters are impaled, burned, squashed, and ripped in half, complete with each half being thrown around. And that’s just in the first fifteen minutes. A second battle sequence has a completely naked Beowulf taking on Grendel in extended hand to hand combat, with Zemeckis using every trick in the book to hide Beowulf’s CG genitalia from the camera. And then, of course, there are the famous scenes with Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother. Sure, she’s covered from neck to toe in gold, but there’s nothing left to the imagination. Make no mistake: this movie earns its PG-13 rating in a way that would make the likes of Braveheart blush. You can bet that if this had been live action instead of animation (even though a live-action appearance is kind of what they're going for here) it would have been rated R.
The technology has greatly improved since Polar Express but is still far short of perfection. There are fleeting moments (mainly close-ups that obviously received a great deal of attention) when you will swear you are looking at an actor, not a computer generated character. But then the scene cuts to a wide shot and the movements and appearances look as campy and hollow as something out of a Shrek film. That continuous back and forth from goofy to amazing and back again pretty much destroys any dramatic effort the actors are making, reducing the movie to nothing more than action movie eye candy. But, as eye candy goes, this one is a mind blower.
The other amazing part of Zemeckis’ CG effort is that he has obviously crafted it with Digital 3D in mind. Just like Polar Express this movie includes long visual effects sequences that are just plain dull in 2D because they serve no other purpose than to show off how cool the 3D technology can look. Half way in my eyes were sore from staring through those glasses, but the visuals are so stunning I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
With all that heavy reliance on action sequences and visual effects, there’s no way on earth this movie will hold up on the biggest of home television systems. See it without 3D if you must, but don’t even consider waiting on this one to hit DVD. If you can’t get out to see it in theaters, don’t bother seeing it at all.
Already cornering the award for “least hyped Tom Cruise movie ever,” Lions for Lambs has all the makings of an Oscar nominee; the ensemble cast du jour, three interlocking stories that don’t quite come together, and a very loaded subject matter. Yet, despite very strong performances (even from Mr. Scientology Cruise), a moving plot about the war in Afghanistan, and probing dialogue by The Kingdom writer Matthew Michael Carnahan, something is missing from this movie… oh right, the movie part.
Originally conceived as a play, and probably better off as such, Lions for Lambs is more of an elegy on the importance of standing for something than a film, relying on probing conversations rather than action to propel the story forward. The first and most engaging conversation takes place between Republican Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) and veteran TV reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep). Irving invites the skeptical Roth to his office for a one-on-one interview to discuss a new stratagem in Afghanistan that he is positive will decisively win the war on terror.
The stratagem, which began “ten minutes ago,” involves dispatching small teams of highly trained men to head off the Taliban at high points along the Afghani border. Irving insists that the military’s superior “intelligence” will reduce risk and increase reward, but the intelligence isn’t so accurate when the first copter sent to the mountains is shot down by a supposedly inactive machine gun. The scuffle renders the copter useless and strands two idealistic young soldiers, Arian Finch (Derek Luke) and Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Pena).
Meanwhile on the campus of an elite California University, Finch and Rodriguez’s former professor, Dr. Stephen Malley (Robert Redford), tries to incite slacker Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield) to follow their example and apply his incredible potential towards making a difference. The film unfolds in relative real-time as one member in each duo attempts to inspire the other to action, whether it’s to feed America “a win” without question, to go to class more, or simply to stay alive.
Because the film is inherently static, the majority of it taking place in someone’s office, the script relies on powerful performances to keep the audience engaged. Streep and Cruise are the most successful, with a realistic back and forth that probes deep into the flaws of the government and media without vilifying either side. Luke and Pena drive the emotional center of the film and do a good job establishing a friendship built on similar struggles and goals, but they serve more as catalysts for the other two conversations than as developing characters themselves. Redford and Garfield have the most difficult job, stuck discussing what it means to get involved on a philosophical level. Though both play their roles with conviction, at the end of the day, two guys drinking coffee debating questions with no answers just isn’t visually exciting.
Still, the overall strong performances help momentarily distract the audience from the fact that the film never really went anywhere. Sure it brought up (not entirely new) issues, it challenged us to take action, maybe it even made us cry (guilty), but did anything really happen? As a play, I would commend Lions for Lambs without question, but once it becomes a film isn’t there supposed to be a little thing called plot? Something more than discourse on loaded political issues that have already been attacked ad nauseam?
The problem with turning away from this movie is that you then by default prove the message the film is promoting: that when faced with challenges, our country would rather change the channel than get involved. In that sense, this is the most genius film ever created because it inherently guilts you into seeing it and thinking about the issues it ponders. Ultimately that’s a guilt-trip worth taking, since no matter where you stand, you have stand somewhere, and you won’t leave Lions for Lambs without discussing it.
There’s a moment early on in The Heartbreak Kid where Jerry Stiller, playing movie father to his real life son Ben Stiller’s character, suggests his boy stop worrying about romance and instead follow him to Vegas where they’ll pick up chicks for a double team. The Farrelly Brothers’ script goes the other way instead, but the movie’s too few moments between Stiller and Stiller are so gut-bustingly hilarious it’s hard not to wonder how much funnier the film might have been had it ended up being about a 40ish man and his elderly father chasing hookers around Sin City. Instead, we’re saddled with what is basically another formulaic romance comedy, spiced up with classic Farrelly Brothers raunch artifice. Oh how they make Ben Stiller suffer. And it’s funny, except we’ve seen this movie dozens of times before. Unfortunately we haven’t seen that better father and son buddy movie. It’s as if Heartbreak Kid’s script were a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and the Farrellys chose the less entertaining path to follow.
The possibilities of a different movie might be tantalizing, but The Heartbreak Kid is entertaining enough as is. Though it’s a remake of a 1972 Charles Grodin/Cybil Shepherd movie, it’s standard Farrelly Brothers/Ben Stiller stuff. Ben is Eddie Cantrow, an aging commitment-phobe who when faced with the frightening possibility that he’ll never find true love, marries the next woman that’ll have him. It’s not till they’re on their way to their honeymoon that he realizes he may have made a huge mistake.
Rather than correcting that mistake or god forbid, doing the honorable thing and trying to make it work, Eddie makes the same mistake all over again. With his slightly crazy new bride Lila (Malin Akerman) holed up in their bridal sweet nursing a sunburn, Eddie meets a new girl at the hotel bar and instantly falls in love with her. The girl is Miranda (Michelle Monaghan) and she’s blissfully unaware that the cute guy she’s just bumped into is actually a recently married man.
The movie’s best moments happen when Eddie’s being tortured, because let’s face it, he kind of deserves it. Ben Stiller is great fun when he’s getting the shit kicked out of him and the Farrellys are better at making him miserable than just about anyone. Stiller’s scenes with Malin Ackerman are varying shades of hilarious, with Ackerman willing to do just about anything to get the kind of sick uncomfortable laughs a good Farrellys movie deserves.
Sadly Michelle Monaghan will probably get all the credit, since she’s the movie’s token dream girl. But the story of Eddie and Miranda is really where the movie falls down. Ultimately it’s hard to care if they get together since, let’s face it, Eddie is kind of an asshole. We know that Miranda can and should do better so it’s hard to root for Eddie to win her heart. The first half is where The Heartbreak Kid works best, since that’s when we get the least of Miranda and more of Ben Stiller interacting with Ackerman, Jerry Stiller, or other comedic sidekicks like Rob Corddry and Carlos Mencia.
Again I come back to the movie that might have been, a movie that forgets the love angle and pursues killer laughs instead of a happy ending. At least the Farrellys have the good sense to make Ben Stiller suffer for his sins and, even though it ends on a high note, the Farrellys can’t resist setting Ben Stiller up for more failure just as the credits roll. No matter how many times we’ve seen it, there’s nobody I’d rather watch fall apart than Ben Stiller.
Don Cheadle has a neat, and apt, summation of the stages of a film career: "The first stage is 'Who the hell is Don Cheadle?' The second is 'Get me Don Cheadle.' The third is 'Get me a Don Cheadle type.' The fourth is 'Get me a young Don Cheadle,' and the last is again 'Who the hell is Don Cheadle?”
With all the progress John Cusack has made in his career, what is he doing now playing what Cheadle would call “a John Cusack type"? Cusack has been on the verge for several years of escaping Lloyd Dobler once and for all, and with December’s Grace is Gone, he finally seems poised to pull it off. Martian Child however, is a complete retread: Cusack playing Cusack, except this time he’s got a kid in tow. At least it’s coming out before Grace is Gone, so it won’t be called a step backwards for the star, who really does deserve a hit.
Martian Child is based loosely on a story by science fiction writer David Gerrold, about his adoption of an eccentric young boy. Gerrold is single and gay, but since this is Hollywood Cusack’s version is a widower, having begun the adoption process before his wife’s death. Ready to quit wallowing David goes through with the adoption process and winds up with Dennis (Bobby Coleman), a boy who spends his time in a refrigerator box (since he’s allergic to the sun) and wears a weight belt made of batteries (since, without it, the Earth’s gravity would not hold him down). David is a science fiction writer after all, so these quirks appeal to him, despite warnings from his sister (Joan Cusack), slacker agent (Oliver Platt), and a stern adoption agency employee (Richard Schiff) that he has to eventually help Dennis learn to live among the earthlings.
The one person supporting David in his efforts is his wife’s friend Harlee (Amanda Peet), and wouldn’t you know it a love connection comes about by the end. The fact that Harlee and David barely spend any time together on screen doesn’t matter, because that romantic subplot has to find its way in there somehow, dammit. In fact, nearly all of Martian Child takes place off-screen, with the film hitting the high points—spirited bonding! tearful fighting!—and leaving us to fill in the emotional development. David tells Dennis to “stop saying that” when he asks “Was I bad?” but we’ve never heard Dennis say it before. Director Menno Meyjes doesn’t want us to join David on his emotional journey, but just trust Cusack to report back all the relevant details.
Cusack and Coleman play well off each other as father and son, but you get the sense that their interactions would be a lot more fun to watch if we got to see their relationship progress naturally, rather than being crammed into an awkward plot about “being true to yourself” and “learning to love again.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course, but other movies have done it better. With the sci-fi element so glossed over and confused as to be almost irrelevant, Martian Child is just a generic version of any other dramatic comedy about familial love—that is to say, not terribly interesting. Hang on until Grace is Gone, when hopefully we’ll finally see a project worthy of Cusack’s talents.
The term “psychological thriller” has gotten tossed around a lot this year, being attached to films ranging from those more aptly described as “torture porn” (Captivity) to those that really had nothing psychological about them at all (I Know Who Killed Me). So, when a movie like P2 comes along, scarcely advertised and, frankly, left to someone like me to review, expectations aren’t set very high. Surprisingly, P2 exceeds those low expectations and actually puts on an enjoyable, albeit flawed, show.
The concept for P2 is incredibly light. Rachel Nichols plays Angela, an overworked businesswoman who gets trapped in an underground parking garage on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately for Angela, the parking attendant on duty, Thomas (Wes Bentley), is quite psychotic and rather obsessed with her. In short order Thomas kidnaps Angela, leaving the remainder of the movie’s running time for Angela’s desperate attempts to escape.
So what sets P2 apart from other abduction “psychological thrillers” out there this year? Surprisingly, the script from director Franck Khalfoun and producer partners Alexandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur , which cuts down on the expected gore factor and leaves time for the limited cast to actually build some characters, putting predator and prey face to face for a couple of lengthy scenes instead of just making the movie about Angela’s nonstop escape. Although there is some gore at times (and I think at this point Aja has taken down as many dogs in movies he’s worked on as Michael Vick), it’s not the sole focus of the picture.
The time left for performances isn’t wasted. Rachel Nichols already proved she could play a believable victim in the Amityville Horror remake and those skills are put to excellent use here. Her terror and desperation are almost tangible. Even better, however, is the psychotic performance of Bentley, who mostly avoids an over-the-top performance and portrays a character who obviously has spent too much time watching the world through cameras instead of interacting with people.
The downside of the movie comes in the story’s final act, when it looks like the writers couldn’t figure out what to do with the story they conceived and had to depart from the interesting characters they developed in order to reach a clichéd, somewhat satisfying ending. Suddenly Angela is a MacGuyver figure, all subtlety is gone from Thomas, and the visual effects artists take precedence over the actors.
It also might have been nice if the movie wasn’t titled P2 and given something a little more threatening as a title. It’s not that the title is bland, but anytime a character walks past a sign for the parking level (P2), you can’t help but think something terrible is going to happen. It gets annoying to the point that you wish more of the action would happen on the other levels of the movie’s parking garage.
P2 actually offers a satisfying show with some decent performances that make the movie a bit more compelling than previous genre entries this year. That’s actually pretty high praise for a film in a genre that is quickly getting worn out. It’s far from perfect, but at least P2 has a little bit of psychological thrill to it.
August Rush is one of those rare movies that made me dislike it, then won be back over before the end credits roll. It’s not common to see a movie accomplish that roller-coaster ride that turns me away from the picture and then picks me back up, but somehow the story manages it and left me a giddy, sappy mess by the end.
