Hesher

Hesher - Dir. Spencer Susser (2011)

Hesher is a movie I really wanted to like. The film stars the lovely Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Rainn Wilson. It garnered a healthy amount of buzz on the festival circuit thanks to screenings at Sundance, SXSW, and even Comic-Con. This should have been a cool, little indie flick instead of a Frankenstein-esque cinematic creature stitched together from disparate clichés.

Young TJ (Devin Brochu) has suffered a tragic loss due to the death of his mother in an auto accident. His father, Paul (Wilson), suffers from a crippling depression. Paul does nothing aside from popping pills and sleeping on the couch, unshaven and unkempt. Grandma (Piper Laurie) shuffles around the house in her nightgown and slippers mindlessly going about her daily business. Both are oblivious of the deep pain TJ is in, which is made all the more worse by a ruthless bully. Then, along comes Hesher…

TJ unfortunately crosses paths with the titular Hesher (Gordon-Levitt) while he was squatting in a half-constructed house. Hesher is the prototypical heavy metal burnout with tattered clothes and long black hair. He has a tattoo of an extended middle finger across his back and a stick figure man blowing his own brains out on his chest. He cranks Motorhead from his black van, the kind usually driven by serial killers and 1980's garage bands. At first you think Hesher might be some ethereal character existing solely in the imagination of TJ. He seems to be the boy's raw id unchained by a fragile psyche. Hesher even appears mysteriously into a scene to the blaring, opening guitar riffs of "The Shortest Straw" by Metallica.

Alas, Hesher is not the Kerrang! version of Harvey. He is all too real and he isn't the most genial person around. Hesher decides to crash at TJ's house. He strips down to his tightie whities, smokes like a chimney, and rigs the cable so he can get all the porn channels for free. When TJ protests, Hesher grabs him by the throat and threatens to do unspeakable things to the kid's genitals. He doesn't bother to help TJ when the bully shoves his face into a urinal. Nope, Hesher's response is to drag TJ along while he torches the tormentor's car, then ditches him to face the wrath of the authorities.

Portman (who also served as a producer) dons a pair of vintage nerd glasses to play Nicole, a supermarket clerk who saves TJ from a beating. TJ develops a crush on her (who wouldn’t?) so Hesher naturally shows up to sabotage their budding friendship.

Hesher somehow manages to put this broken family back together as they struggle through the various stages of grief. He is by no means a saintly big brother figure. He is violent and crude, but is infused with a semblance of humanity thanks to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance. The highlight of the film is easily a final act monologue delivered by Hesher that is darkly humorous and oddly affecting. Gordon-Levitt displays a lot of manic energy that director Spencer Susser (who also co-wrote the script with Animal Kingdom’s David Michod) is unable to properly tap.

Hesher is tonally inconsistent as it bounces around from black comedy to cornball drama. It feels like a metal song that whips back and forth between devil-horn headbanging chords to lighter waving ballad notes without a moment's notice.

Rating: ** (*****)

Super

Super - Dir. James Gunn (2011)

Shut up, crime!

The idea of ordinary folks becoming costumed crime fighters isn't a new one with the two most recent entries in the subgenre, Defendor (with Woody Harrelson) and Kick-Ass, seeing release in 2010. If you think loonies dressing up as superheroes in real life could never happen, just take a look at Mr. Extreme in San Diego or Phoenix Jones of Seattle. Let’s hope these kooks don’t imitate the ultra-violence perpetrated by the characters of James Gunn’s Super, which bears a superficial resemblance to Kick-Ass.

Rainn Wilson from The Office is perfectly cast as Frank, a short-order cook with a strong faith in god. God's existence is practically proven due to the fact that Frank is married to Liv Tyler as Sarah, a beautiful waitress and recovering addict. Frank's conviction is shaken when she has a relapse and falls into the arms of a slimy drug dealer named Jacques. After an extremely bizarre vision, Frank is literally touched by the finger of God (voiced by Rob Zombie) and creates the superhero identity of The Crimson Bolt. Armed with a mighty pipe wrench of justice, Frank gleefully dishes out brutal punishment to dealers, muggers, and child molesters. He even splits a man's skull open for cutting in line at the movies. Every good hero needs a sidekick and Frank finds one in Libby, an unhinged young woman working at the local comic book store. Libby fashions her own costume to become Boltie, whose first act as crime fighter is to nearly bludgeon a man to death for possibly keying a friend's Jetta. Even Frank (with an obviously tenuous grasp on reality) balks at Libby's gleeful disregard for human life.

Super is pure, low-grade shlock. Not surprising coming from a picture written and directed by a filmmaker who started out with B-movie purveyors Troma Entertainment. Gunn’s previous directorial effort was the underrated horror-comedy, Slither, with Super acting as something of a kindred spirit in terms of violent content. Whereas Slither was consistent in its attempt to create a throwback to early Cronenberg, Super is wildly uneven, shifting from tone to tone on a whim. Super opens with a cutesy animated title sequence (set to Tsar’s “Calling All Destroyers”) while the Crimson Bolt’s initial forays into vigilante adventures feature Three Stooges-level slapstick. That’s after the first few days when Frank spends entire nights sitting behind a dumpster waiting for crime to happen. His most exciting encounter being a cardboard box blown along the street. He vows to pick it up later. Shit gets real once we start seeing gaping wounds and gushing blood. After jumping from slapstick to dark comedy, the movie becomes just plain dark with a finale right out of Taxi Driver.

Gunn is hardly a subtle filmmaker and he tackles the film’s themes with the same blunt force trauma as the Bolt’s pipe wrench. Just as the masked protagonist continues to beat on his opponent long after he has been incapacitated, Gunn beats and beats his points and labored eccentricities. The “finger of God” sequence would have come off fine had it simply ended with a luminous shaft of light peering down on Frank. Instead, Gunn goes overboard in order to include hentai tentacles (badly rendered in CGI) clutching at Frank’s limbs while pulling his scalp open to expose his brain. There’s also a creepy scene involving Boltie seducing an unwilling Frank that’s supposed to symbolize the fetishistic sexual undertones of costumed superheroes, a topic already covered more deftly in Watchmen. When Frank inevitably kills someone, comic book style graphics pop up ala the 60’s Batman show as a further perversion of innocent iconography.

The fact doesn’t completely fail is in no small way due to the cast. Rainn Wilson is excellent as the sad sack hero, able to give a somewhat unsympathetic character a tragic edge. Every great hero needs an equally memorable villain and the Bolt does indeed have one in Kevin Bacon, who is hilarious as the smarmy Jacques. It’s true, everything is better with Bacon in it. Nathan Fillion is pure Nathan Fillion as a Christian TV superhero named the Holy Avenger, who serves as a muse for the Crimson Bolt. Without a doubt, the performance Super will be remembered for is Ellen Page as the homicidal anti-Juno. It’s a change to see Page play someone who isn’t the smartest girl in the room, but her part could have been better served with a little restraint.

The film also features cameos from Linda Cardellini, Zach Gilford, Steve Agee, Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, and William Katt from Greatest American Hero.

Super is a little behind on the times when it comes to deconstructing the superhero mythos. This is a movie desperately searching for a consistent tone, funny one minute and appalling by the next.

Rating: ** (*****)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Dir. Michael Bay (2009)

I previously thought Transformers was the most Michael Bay that Michael Bay ever Michael Bay-ed. But, the Bay actually out-Bays himself with the sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The second film based on the popular Hasbro toyline is bigger, louder and longer than every previous version of the property combined. It’s a two and a half hour assault on the senses. Notice I haven’t said anything about it being a great movie?

Like most sequels, Revenge of the Fallen has more of everything, more robots, more action, more characters, more explosions (including one that took seven months to set up) and more glamour shots of Megan Fox, etc. It actually has more story. Not a better story, just more half-ass subplots strung together into a semi-coherent narrative.

It’s been two years since the Transformers arrived on Earth. The Autobots led by Optimus Prime (voiced again by Peter Cullen) battle alongside an international taskforce led by Maj. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson) in hunting down any remaining Decepticons still in hiding. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) says goodbye to his Autobot protector Bumblebee and girlfriend, Mikaela (Megan Fox) as he prepares to go to college. I don’t remember what school he enrolled in, but every female student is thin, flawlessly beautiful, lathered in make-up, and horny for advanced theoretical physics. Sam’s new roommate is Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez), a tech head who runs a conspiracy theory website attempting to uncover the truth about the Transformers. Leo replaces Anthony Anderson’s character as the annoying, comedic sidekick computer nerd. Meanwhile, Sam’s long-distance relationship with Mikaela is put to the test by an overly aggressive co-ed (Isabel Lucas).

Sam barely makes it through day one before his hopes of a normal life are dashed. He breaks out into near-epileptic fits after touching a sliver of the Allspark that had been destroyed in the first film. He goes into John Nash mode, seeing ancient Cybertronian hieroglyphs everywhere. The Decepticons want what’s in Sam’s mind as it will lead them to a machine that can destroy the sun and harness it into their fuel source, Energon. The villainous robots resurrect their leader, Megatron (Hugo Weaving), who now takes his orders from the title character, the Fallen (voiced by Candyman Tony Todd). The Fallen was one of the original Transformers who betrayed his mechanical brothers. He’s the Palpatine to Megatron’s Darth Vader.

There’s also a government toady who blames the Autobots for all the death metal destruction and pushes to have them deported off-planet. John Turturro’s Agent Simmons is also back, now working the counter at his mom’s deli.

Where there were about a dozen Transformers in the first film, Bay ups the ante for the sequel with forty-six even including fan-favorites such as Soundwave (once again voiced by Frank Welker who also did Ravage), the Constructicons who merge into the much-larger Devastator, and Arcee, one of the few female Transformers. Many die-hard Transfans will likely be disappointed by their long-awaited appearances. Devastator is reduced to a lumbering quadruped whose main form of attack is to literally suck. There’s also Jetfire, a geriatric Decepticon who defected to the Autobots long ago. He’s nothing more than a plot device to move the characters from point A to point B and drop a huge chunk of exposition in the middle of the film. The biggest problem with the increase in the Transformer population is the fact that you can only tell a handful of them apart. This muddies up the action sequences when you have no idea who is who. Was that an Autobot that got destroyed or a Decepticon? The filmmakers don’t seem to have a clue either as some of the same Constructicons that formed Devastator can also be seen battling the Autobots elsewhere in the desert.

It also doesn’t help when Michael Bay directs the majority of the action with the patience of a ten-year old with ADD on a truckload of methamphetamines. Bay can’t keep the camera still for a second to allow the audience to actually watch the battle, instead choosing to pan the camera around and around in a dizzying pattern. Just because the camera constantly moves doesn’t make the scene more interesting.

With so many new characters, many of the original characters that the audience have known and become attached to are marginalized here. Lennox and Epps barely factor into the film. While Sam and Mikaela were able to get in on some of the action in the first film, they’re relegated here to screaming at the top of their lungs or running away from explosions in slow motion. Ironhide and Ratchet, two of the only Transformers I can actually recognize, hardly do anything either. Even the Fallen, who is supposed to be the big bad, maybe only gets fifteen minutes of screen time and hardly seems anymore menacing than any other Decepticon. No, the Transformers who appear to get the most screen time are the Twins, Mudflap and Skids (one voiced by Reno Wilson, the other by Spongebob Squarepants himself, Tom Kenny), who have garnered a lot of controversy in the press. The pair have big ears, bugged out eyes, buck teeth (one of them gold), and speak in Ebonics. They’re stupid, illiterate and on a level of annoyance that rivals Jar Jar Binks. Remember that annoying, unfunny little robot from the first film? Well, Bay throws in two. There’s an evil version of the microscope Autobot, Perceptor, in The Doctor, a Decepticon microscope that turns into a spider-like robot with glasses that speaks in a German accent. Always one to run a crappy joke into the ground, Michael Bay also throws in Wheelie, an RC 4x4 who looks like Wall-E’s evil cousin and inexplicably speaks like an extra from Goodfellas. He humps Megan Fox’s leg too, not that I blame him.

Does the idea of a robot humping a woman’s leg not seem funny to you? Michael Bay apparently thought it was so hilarious; he also threw in two scenes of dogs humping each other. Bay’s excesses and lack of originality run deeper than just recycling the same shots in every one of his films. He repeats the same lame jokes that revel in the fact that they target the lowest common denominator. We get the robots with bad teeth as well as a butcher with bad teeth trying to earn money for dental work. There’s dry-humping, Transformer testicles and an exceedingly long gag involving Sam’s mother tripping out on pot brownies. Curse words are liberally dropped into dialogue that’s already as clunky as the Transformers themselves. For a film that’s essentially selling toys to kids, Revenge is hardly family friendly.

There are some positive contributions in Revenge. The special effects are the usual top-notch work from ILM. The Transformers fit seamlessly into their surroundings and there are moments where you believe they are standing side-by-side with their human compatriots. Catching the film in IMAX and seeing Optimus Prime in scale was pretty cool. Starscream (one of my favorite characters) gets a bit more to do in the sequel and his additional dialogue brings him more in line with his G1 incarnation.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the perfect embodiment of every negative aspect of the summer blockbuster. It’s a film that panders to the bases, adolescent desires. It’s loud, obnoxious, and unrelenting. Its junk food and for some that’s more than enough to satisfy their appetites. The thing about junk food is, it gives you a quick fix, but you’re eventually left hungry for a real meal. Films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight proved you can be a big-budget action spectacle with a smart story and genuine emotion. Revenge simply substitutes noise and movement for any type of true emotional connection. The audience isn’t taken along for a journey as much as press ganged into it and yanked along. This is the type of messy sequel that was churned out of the Matrix and Pirates franchises. Whatever weak plot it possesses is only there to service a string of action scenes that are directed either blandly or nonsensically by Michael Bay.

Rating: * ½

Monsters vs. Aliens

Monsters vs. Aliens - Dir. Rob Letterman & Conrad Vernon (2009)


Imagine if the title characters from Attack of the 50ft. Woman, The Blob, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Fly, and Mothra all teamed up to fight invaders from space. Dreamworks unleashed yet another CG animated project to the multiplexes which seems to be a seasonal thing. Monsters vs. Aliens seems to have sprung from the minds of fanboys who cherish their bootleg copies of black & white B-movies and back-issues of MAD Magazine. It’s light on plot, but the kind of fun film that kinds will definitely enjoy and it won’t bore or annoy the adults.

Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is about to get married to Derek (Paul Rudd), a self-absorbed weatherman who is about to go to the big show in Fresno. Suddenly, a meteor from outer space conks Susan on the head and mutates her to just one inch shy of 50 feet. She’s captured by the military and shipped off to Area 51 which is under the command of Gen. W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland). For decades, Gen. Monger has been collecting monsters including fish-man the Missing Link (Will Arnett), the gelatinous B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), mad scientist Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), and an enormous bug known only as Insectasaurus. Together, they are man’s only hope against the evil alien warlord Galaxhar (Rainn Wilson).

Monsters vs. Aliens has all the trappings of the typical modern animated film with its all-star cast and numerous pop culture references. Aside from the original Shrek, Dreamworks hasn’t been able to match the heartfelt substance that their rivals at Pixar have repeatedly instilled in their films. The closest they’ve come was through their brief partnership with Aardman Studios which produced the charming Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and the underrated Flushed Away. No, most have been the same cookie-cutter talking animal pictures. Monsters vs. Aliens does stand out with its high-concept story though it takes a simplistic popcorn film approach to telling it. It touches on themes of friendship, alienation, and female empowerment yet is unable to fully explore them. The animation is, of course, exceptional. I’m afraid to admit I didn’t get the chance to view it in 3D. In one scene, the filmmakers are wryly self-reflexive to the process when they show a technician playing paddle ball.

The voice-over cast is good and none of the players feel like they were stunt cast. From Dr. House to Dr. Cockroach, Hugh Laurie seems like he’s having the most fun while Will Arnett channels his Gob Bluth character for the Missing Link. Seth Rogen, who is apparently contractually obligated to be in every movie made now, gets off some of the best one-liners and non-sequitors as the dim-witted B.O.B.

Rating: **1/2