Maleficent

Maleficent - Dir. Robert Stromberg (2014)

"Let us tell an old story anew and we will see how well you know it."

So begins Disney's latest attempt to mine their rich archives and re-imagine a classic fairy tale, both of which have become big business. Alice in Wonderland scored over a billion dollars at the box office to get the ball rolling. The House of Mouse has a live-action version of Cinderella coming in 2015 along with remakes of The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast in development. Maleficent is Disney's most radical interpretation of the classic tale of Sleeping Beauty, told from the point of view of one of their most iconic villain.

In a medieval fantasy land, there was an enchanted forest known as the Moors, which neighbored the kingdom of man. In the Moors, lived a young fairy named Maleficent (played as an adult by Angelina Jolie) who came across a farm boy Stefan (who eventually becomes Shalto Copley) as he attempted to steal a gem. The two grow close, but further apart as time goes on. Stefan is driven by his ambition to one day become king, a Herculean task given his station in life. Yet, he manages to worm his way into King Henry's (Kenneth Cranham) inner circle, just as his forces suffer a debilitating loss as they attempt to conquer the Moors. The dying King decrees that the one who brings him the head of Maleficent will inherit the throne. Stefan betrays Maleficent by drugging her though he is unable to go through with it. Instead, he cuts off her wings and brings them to the King. Maleficent awakens in horror and the forest grows dark in sync with her pain and anger. Meanwhile, Stefan is crowned the new monarch, marries King Henry's daughter, and they have a child of their own, Aurora (Elle Fanning).

Maleficent makes a grand entrance during the baby's christening and places a curse upon her. On her 16^th birthday, Aurora will prick her finger on the needle of a spinning wheel and fall into a deep sleep with true love's kiss the only thing that will awaken her. King Stefan orders all spinning wheels in the land destroyed and for Aurora to live in anonymity with three fairies: Knotgrass, Flittle & Thistlewit (Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville & Juno Temple).

Maleficent marks the directorial debut of Robert Stromberg, a veteran visual effects artist and production designer who won Academy Awards for his work on Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. Maleficent is certainly dripping with eye candy though anyone who has seen those aforementioned films, along with Oz: The Great and Powerful (another of Stromberg's projects), will see nothing new. The enchanted forest is a glowing world of pixies, goblins, and living trees, but there's not a lot to differentiate it from Pandora or Wonderland. The score by James Newton Howard feels just as rehashed, trying too hard to sound like the work of Danny Elfman.

Maleficent is practically a one-woman show with Angelina Jolie giving a towering performance as the title role. Makeup by Rick Baker accentuates her otherworldly beauty with pronounced cheekbones, cat-like eyes, and her trademark crown of horns. Jolie clearly has a passion for the character and relates to the movie's themes as an adoptive mother and a woman who underwent a double mastectomy. The film positions Maleficent as a tragic figure demonized for decades by patriarchal oppression. The scene in which she loses her wings is an obvious metaphor for sexual assault, but the screenplay by Linda Woolverton (who turned Alice into a Joan of Arc-esque heroine) never fully follows through with these elements. Even at a brisk 97 minutes, the plot feels padded out. The disjointed nature could be chalked up to multiple rewrites (including uncredited work by Paul Dini) and reshoots supervised by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks). The pivotal moment when Maleficent places the curse on little Aurora stands as a highlight with Jolie really sinking her teeth into the role. The rest of Maleficent never lives up to the promise of this sequence.

The second act derails the entire movie as it focuses on Aurora being reared by the bumbling fairies. It's not that these characters are stupid; it's that they are Homer Simpsons stupid. They are so idiotic that there's no possible way Darwinism hadn't already done them in. Maleficent secretly observes them in bemusement while making sure the fairies don't accidentally poison Baby Aurora or allow her to wander off a cliff. Disney was able to cast three splendid actresses for the parts, but have them do nothing but forced slapstick. When they aren't slapping each other like the fairy tale Three Stooges, they're trapped in the uncanny valley as computer generated creatures that never look quite right. The filmmakers also had the opportunity to create a complicated villain in Stefan, but chose to turn him into a one-note baddie. Stefan descends into madness and you wonder if he cares at all about his wife or daughter. He becomes a paranoid shut-in who hears voices in his head. At this point, regicide would be entirely justified. Elle Fanning as little to do as Aurora who is rendered as little more than a wide-eyed china doll. The inclusion of the dragon and Prince Phillip (Brenton Thwaites) are simply perfunctory nods to the original animated picture.

In recent years, Disney has done a fine job in creating stronger female characters after decades of pretty princesses passively waiting for their Prince Charming. Maleficent falls in line with recent releases such as Brave, Tangled, and Frozen, but doesn't do anything interesting with the subject matter aside from presenting a special effects extravaganza. This is the same story as seen before in Wicked, Oz, and Once Upon a Time. There was an aura of menace and mystique with the original Maleficent that disappears in the 2014 version. Darth Vader, Wolverine, and Michael Myers didn't benefit from an origin story and neither did Maleficent.

Rating: ** (*****)

Kung Fu Panda 2

Kung Fu Panda 2 - Dir. Jennifer Yuh (2011)

Dreamworks Animation has done a lot recently to shake off the stigma of being second banana to Pixar. Last year's How to Train Your Dragon was their best film to date and the house that Jeffrey Katzenberg built hasn't lost any momentum with Kung Fu Panda 2. Like many sequels, Kung Fu Panda 2 is a bigger and bolder production with Guillermo del Toro serving as executive producer and Charlie Kaufman (believe it or not) as script consultant. Jennifer Yuh, a storyboard artist on the original movie, directs off a script by returning writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. Unlike the diminishing returns of the Shrek series, Kung Fu Panda 2 is actually better than its progenitor.

While the first film opened with a vibrant pop art prologue, Kung Fu Panda begins with a somber sequence in a paper cut out style. The opening introduces us to the movie’s villain, Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), a peacock, who was banished by his royal family for an unspeakable act of genocide. A prophecy foretold that Lord Shen would be defeated by a warrior of black and white, so he wiped out the panda population.

Meanwhile, Po (Jack Black) has grown into his role as the Dragon Warrior, fighting alongside the Furious Five in protecting the Chinese countryside from marauding bandits. However, he is plagued by repressed memories coming to light and begins questioning where he came from. Shock of all shocks, Mr. Ping (James Hong), the noodle shop goose is not the real father of his giant panda son.

These dueling storylines collide when Lord Shen returns with an army of wolves and gorillas. Utilizing gunpowder, Shen plans to destroy kung fu in order to conquer all of China.

In addition to Black, all the main heroes from the previous picture are back including Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu, Angelina Jolie as Tigress, David Cross as Crane, Jackie Chan as Monkey, Seth Rogen as Mantis, and Lucy Liu as Viper. Joining them are Michelle Yeoh as a wise soothsayer, Danny McBride as the Wolf Boss, as well as Victor Garber, Dennis Haysbert, and Jean-Claude Van Damme as heroic martial arts masters. The voice-over work is solid all around. Black imbues the character with an exuberant energy that’s been lacking in his recent live-action ventures. Gary Oldman is gleefully villainous returning to the type of scene-chewing performance that made his turn in The Professional so deliciously evil. You half expect him to scream, ”EVERYONE”, at his henchmen. Jolie’s hardcore Tigress shows she has a soft and squishy side as the story hints at a blossoming romance between her and Po. The best performance though belongs to the prolific James Hong. His scenes with Black are funny, touching, and form the emotional core of the film. Unfortunately, with so many characters involved not everyone receives their fair share of the spotlight. Liu and Chan, in particular, only get a handful of lines.

The animation of Kung Fu Panda 2 is extraordinary. Dreamworks mixed CG with anime influenced hand-drawn animation and the result is a gorgeous feast for the eyes. The backgrounds are beautifully rendered from the misty mountains to the classic Chinese architecture of Gongmen City. This is one of the rare instances when I’ll say that the 3D actually enhanced the experience with the visuals possessing a very noticeable depth of field. The action is spectacular with elaborate fight sequences featuring the Furious Five battling wave after wave of enemies. The biggest set piece has to be a scene in which our heroes attempt to escape a toppling tower while fireworks explode all around them.

Kung Fu Panda followed the traditional hero’s journey and its sequel further explores the mythology of the universe. Kung Fu Panda 2 hits on a variety of emotions and is a darker than the original (Del Toro’s influence?) and a bit more surreal. A dream sequence involving Po battling a radish feels like it sprung from the imaginative mind of Kaufman. Even with all the amazing action sequences, Kung Fu Panda 2 never loses its sense of heart. Aside from a nod to Pac-Man, the writers avoid the snarky, anachronistic references that become the crutch for the uncreative. Highly recommended for adults and kids alike.

Rating: *** (*****)

The Tourist

The Tourist - Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (2010)

The Tourist is the kind of film that Hollywood used to make decades ago. This is the kind of film reserved for stars like Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Audrey Hepburn, and Grace Kelly. It's all about beautiful people doing beautiful things in beautiful places. A remake of the French film, Anthony Zimmer, The Tourist has the makings of a surefire with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in the lead. The director is Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck whose previous picture, the sublime Lives of Others, won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. Donnersmarck was one of three credited writers along with Christopher McQuarrie and Julian Fellowes, both are also Oscar winners, the former for The Usual Suspects and the latter for Gosford Park. Surprisingly, the A-list cast and high caliber creative team hardly delivers the masterpiece one would expect.

Johnny Depp plays the vacationing Frank Tupelo, an unassuming math teacher from Wisconsin. That's going to take a while to sink into your head because I doubt there are many math teachers out there who look like Johnny Depp. Hell, I doubt there is anybody from Wisconsin who looks like Johnny Depp. Anyways, while riding the train to Venice, Frank meets the exceedingly gorgeous and glamorous Elise (Jolie). Despite the enormous gap in social strata, they hit it off and Elise asks Frank to tag along as she rides the canals to her ritzy hotel. Unbeknownst to Frank, Elise is the lover of an international fugitive by the name of Alexander Pearce whose face is unknown due to extensive plastic surgery. Scotland Yard has been after Pearce and so has a notorious gangster named Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff). To throw his adversaries off the trail, Pearce tells Elise to pick some fool to act as a decoy. This leads to poor Frank (in his pajamas) being chased across the rooftops of Venice by gun-toting thugs.

The main cast also includes Paul Bettany as a dogged Inspector on Pearce's trail, Timothy Dalton as his supervisor, and Rufus Sewell as a mysterious fellow following Frank and Elise.

Johnny Depp has proven to be an incredibly versatile actor with his best roles being his most eccentric. Jack Sparrow, Ed Wood, Willy Wonka, and Sweeney Todd are all outlandish characters that Depp has brought his own flair to. Here, Depp is simply called upon to play it as low-key as possible, perhaps, a little too low-key. He alternately appears bored and downright narcoleptic. The strongest emotion Depp summons is annoyed bemusement. Jolie is given an equally undemanding role, one where all she has to do is look good in a slinky dress with her lips painted red. Donnersmarck takes every opportunity to shoot Jolie against the exotic Italian locales. Meanwhile, Steven Berkoff steals the movie right from under his more well-known co-stars. Berkoff will probably be remembered as the villain with a funny accent in just about every 80's action movie. Think Octopussy, Beverly Hills Cop (Victor Maitland~!), and Rambo: First Blood, Part II. Surprise, surprise, Berkoff once again plays the villain with a funny accent. He's a special brand of evil, a guy who surrounds himself with hard-ass Russian henchmen and strangles a man while getting a suit tailored.

The Tourist is a lightweight romp that recalls classic pictures like William Wyler's Roman Holiday, and Stanley Donen's Charade. On the surface, it resembles Hitchcock's North by Northwest and To Catch a Thief with its globe-trotting adventure of mistaken identity. However, The Tourist has none of the suspense and rests far too much on the shoulders of its stars. A predictable last minute twist doesn't make a lick of sense if you think about it for more than ten seconds.

Rating: ** (*****)

Salt

Salt - Dir. Phillip Noyce (2010)


Not so long ago, rumors floated around that Hollywood execs were no longer interested in action films starring female protagonists. This was in response to the box office failures of films like Catwoman, Elektra, and Ultraviolet. I’d wager the suckiness of those pictures had more to do with the lousy scripts than the gender of their stars.

Salt looks to buck the trend casting Angelina Jolie as the title character. Ironically, the film was originally conceived with a male protagonist. Tom Cruise was initially attached before dropping out to star in the abysmal Knight and Day.

Jolie plays CIA agent Evelyn Salt. The name seems to have chosen so critics could come up with headlines like, “Jolie worth her salt” or “Needs more salt.” Anyways, the picture begins with Salt being tortured in North Korea after her cover is blown. She is eventually freed and exchanged for another agent partly due to efforts from future husband Mike Krause (August Diehl), an etymologist specializing in spiders.

2 years later, Salt and her handler, Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber), interrogate a Russian defector named Vassily Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski). Orlov claims to have trained sleeper agents from childhood to infiltrate the United States. Apparently, one agent has been activated and charged with assassinating the Russian President. That agent…Evelyn Salt. On the run, she looks to clear her name and find her missing husband. If she’s the Fugitive, then Chiwetel Ejiofor from Serenity is Tommy Lee Jones.

Salt plays like a fast and loose version of The Bourne Identity with the plot existing only to service a string of action sequences. Not surprising since the script was written by purveyor of schlock, Kurt Wimmer, who also wrote and directed Equilibrium and the aforementioned Ultraviolet. The plot is thin, predictable, and lacking any real suspense. Wimmer dusts off the Russians as the film’s primary villains. While it may seem outdated, recent headlines have shown that the Soviets have been using hot women to spy on America.

The largely implausible action sequences are well done with Jolie bouncing off bridges and the rooftops of semi-trucks. She jury rigs a bazooka out of a fire extinguisher and blocks a security camera with her panties. Salt marks the welcome return of Phillip Noyce to the genre, Noyce previously directed Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, the latter featured an excellent shootout, before moving onto politically charged dramas such as, The Quiet American and Catch a Fire.

Jolie is instantly credible as an action heroine. Salt is a better display of her talents than Tomb Raider or Wanted though it’s no less silly.

Rating: **

Changeling

Changeling - Dir. Clint Eastwood (2008)



Eastwood is a rather populist filmmaker, more so this past decade. He’s directed four of my favorite Westerns, the first three being High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and the Shane takeoff, Pale Rider. The fourth is Unforgiven which took a less romanticized approach to the genre. Since then, he’s done the lovey dovey weepy (Bridges of Madison County), the crowd pleasing fluff (Space Cowboys), the serial killer thriller (Blood Work), the gritty crime drama (Mystic River), the inspirational sports film (Million Dollar Baby), and the war film (Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima). With each project, Eastwood takes a straightforward approach, evoking all the basic emotions of triumph and tragedy you expect from awards season fare. Sometimes this can be more insulting than the worst piece of garbage to infest the multiplex. At least, when you’re pandering to the lowest common denominator, you have no delusions over what you are. When you pander to the Academy voters, you have a self-important air about you and film.

Now, am I insulting Eastwood’s abilities as a filmmaker? Not my intention. He’s absolutely amazing at what he does. But, other than Unforgiven and, to a lesser extent, Letters from Iwo Jima, he hasn’t truly offered anything different than what is normally found during the pre-Oscar hype months. He’s just not taking risks.

Changeling just screams Oscar bait. It’s a period piece, has an epic runtime, renowned actors, and a woman in peril. In anyone else’s hands, the film would have been manipulative tripe. However, in Eastwood’s hands we have a great movie, an old fashioned L.A. crime film in the vein of Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. Changeling is based on the true story of Christine Collins whose case was immaculately researched by screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski (a comic book writer and creator of Babylon 5). Straczynski spent a year researching the material and even went as far as attaching newspaper clippings to the actual script. Both Eastwood and Straczynski are exacting in their craft and together they have created an immaculate production. The costumes and production design are authentic to a tee while Eastwood’s approach is in line with the classic Hollywood style.

The length of the film never bothered me and neither did the multiple false finishes as I was absorbed at every minute. The story is part-mystery and part-serial killer movie while the third act is predominantly a courtroom drama. The latter of which isn’t quite as strong as the previous acts.

Much like her in A Mighty Heart, Angelina Jolie is called upon to give a heart-wrenching performance. She definitely looks the part of a flapper girl with her slight frame, pale skin, and ruby red lips. She cries on cue as the mascara runs down her cheeks. She’s de-glamorized and disheveled after being unjustly committed to an asylum.

While I enjoyed the film, I wasn’t blown away by it. Changeling proudly hits all the right notes at exactly the right moments. It’s impeccably made, well acted with a riveting story behind it. This is the type of movie that critics eat up. But, it's the circumstances surrounding the true life events that are more interesting than the picture based on them.

Rating: ***

Wanted

Wanted - Dir. Timur Bekmambetov (2008)

Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is an office drone slaving away in a cubicle. His boss always yells at him and his girlfriend cheats on him with his best friend. His job is terrible, his life is terrible and he knows it. He just can´t or won´t do anything about it. If you couldn´t figure any of that out on your own, Wesley helpfully informs us through his Chuck Palahniuk-inspired narration. Wesley´s father ran out on him years ago and he´s never heard from him since. That is, until the sultry Fox (Angelina Jolie) drops into his life. She tells Wesley his father was one of the greatest assassins in the world and was just murdered on a rooftop. Wesley is inducted into a ancient order of killers known as The Fraternity who take their orders from the Loom of Fate which weaves the names of their targets into its cloth. "Kill one save a thousand," that´s their motto.

He meets the Fraternity´s leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), who helps Wesley realize his potential when he orders him to shoot the wings off a swarm of houseflies. Other members include The Gunsmith (Common), The Exterminator (Konstantin Khabensky), The Repairman (Marc Warren), and The Butcher (Dato Baktadze). I think The Baker and The Candlestick Maker are being saved for the sequel. Every member of the Fraternity has a heart that beats at extraordinary speeds giving them an adrenaline boost that allows them to perform superhuman feats. They can also curve the trajectories of their bullets. How? It´s all in the wrists.

Wesley´s assassin training consists of taking vicious beatings from his colleagues, shooting corpses strung up on meat hooks, and riding the roofs of Chicago´s elevated trains. The better to prepare him for the inevitable showdown against his father´s killer, a Fraternity turncoat named Cross (Thomas Kretschmann). That´s the plot in a nutshell. Sure, there are some twists and turns in the third act, but the story is incidental to the action. It´s as if the filmmakers came up with cool action sequences first and built the storyline around them. The first half of the film is Wesley´s training with the obligatory montage and a quick set of scenes following Wesley making his first kills. They might as well have just made Wanted entirely out of action montages set to Danny Elfman's pulse-pounding score.

The basic premise of the movie is completely ludicrous. We´re lead to believe that a small group of weavers a thousand years ago somehow discerned a secret code from the pattern in their cloth. How exactly did they do intel on their targets? They didn´t exactly have Google back then. And is the world of Wanted one without Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden? How does a secret society stay so secret when they´ve got members flying across skyscrapers, shooting it out in the middle of a crowded drug store, and evading swarms of police officers? While I´m all for, "It´s only a movie," but, come on, guys.

Director Timur Bekmambetov makes his American debut on Wanted after helming a pair of special effects blockbusters, Night Watch, and Day Watch, in his native Russia. Bekmambetov directs Wanted as if he were John Woo with A.D.D. after someone substituted his Ritalin for Jolt and Red Bull. Bekmambetov cribs heavily from The Matrix utilizing bullet time and making the simple act of a victim shot through the head an excruciatingly elaborate production. Bekmambetov dips into a deep bag of tricks to further spice things up. He uses freeze frames, slow motion, fast motion, zoom-ins, zoom-outs, fast forwards, and rewinds. Bullets strike each other in mid-shot and slick sports cars flip through the air like circus acrobats. Some moviegoers will be astonished at the eye candy while more conservative audience members will likely get a migraine. Throughout it all, Bekmambetov keeps a dark sense of humor. A man gets smashed in the face with the keyboard; the letters and a tooth break off to spell out an obscenity. A laser sighting dots a Hindi woman´s Bindi and a bullet is engraved with the word, "Goodbye."

As far as the acting goes, it´s better than you´d expect from a film like this. Much like Robert Downey Jr. and Edward Norton, James McAvoy appears to be an unlikely choice to anchor a big-budget comic book movie. Yet, he equates himself well though not as much as his contemporaries. McAvoy begins the film with the flabbergasted, deer in the headlights demeanor that you´d expect from the comic relief sidekick and not the action hero lead. But, the Scottish actor sports an almost flawless American accent and pulls off the transformation from nebbish pushover into buff killing machine. Angelina Jolie (she of the thick lips & spindly arms) plays up her image of steamy, sexpot as the tattooed, femme fatale Fox. She is everything a growing boy with raging hormones could want. The smoking hot, kick-ass fantasy girl you wished would drop into your life. When she kisses Wesley in front of his shrill ex-girlfriend, the guys in my theater cheered and hollered. And for those of you who thought they should have seen more when Ms. Jolie emerged from the water naked in Beowulf, you won´t be disappointed here.

Five years ago, I would have said it was impossible for an actor the caliber of Morgan Freeman to participate in such a profane and violent spectacle. Nowadays, the man seems content to appear in sentimental, crowd pleasers like The Bucket List and Evan Almighty, along with genre pictures like Wanted and the Batman franchise. As expected, he lends a bit of credibility to all the silliness and I did giggle like a schoolgirl when I heard Easy Reader curse up a Samuel L. Jackson storm. The filmmakers tried to throw the fanboys a bone with the casting of Terrence Stamp as the mysterious Pekwarsky. Like Freeman, Stamp brings a little extra gravitas to his miniscule part, but General Zod doesn´t get enough screen time and never makes anyone kneel before him.

Now, I switch into comic book geek mode. I pose the question, what is more preposterous? A hidden clan of assassins who take their orders from a giant sewing machine? Or a world where comic book super-villains actually exist and rule the world in secret after having defeated all the super-heroes in a massive war? The latter was the high concept premise of the original comic. Millar loosely based his creations on the rogues´ galleries of DC Comics to form an over-the-top, darkly humorous and nihilistic world.

Producers snatched up the rights before the first issue even came out and had the screenwriters behind 2 Fast 2 Furious and 3:10 To Yuma ditch the super-villain angle and go off in their own direction. I doubt Wanted would have benefited from a 100%, straight-on adaptation ala Sin City, but we´ve seen plenty of movies about assassins. The super-villain plot would have been more unique and given us far more outlandish characters compared to the dull, generic supporting cast of the film. Mr. X and the Repairman don´t compare to a poop monster made of the feces from the 666 most evil humans in history. Maybe mainstream audiences just weren´t ready for Johnny Two-Dicks, a mobster with an evil, talking penis. While I agree with toning down the sheer amorality of the comic, I believe the film lost some of the hook and the acerbic wit of the source material. We´ve had poor attempts at the post-modern comic book movie (Mystery Men, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Hancock), but I think Wanted could have been the one.

Films like Iron Man, Die Hard, and Terminator 2 have proven blockbuster action flicks can still be intelligent with heart and a sharp script. Wanted has no intelligence, heart or a sharp script. It is a loud, dumb action movie and sometimes that´s all I want. It might not be healthy, but I´ll pass on the filet mignon every once in a while for a Twinkie. Wanted is a Twinkie, a delicious, bloody, profane, bullet-riddled Twinkie. It´s a super-stylized, gun-toting guilty pleasure that´s not afraid to go for the hard R. It´s meant to attract the types of folks who love playing Grand Theft Auto. The action sequences were a helluva lot of fun and the movie appealed to my mentally deranged, inner child.

Rating: ***

Beowulf

Beowulf - Dir. Robert Zemeckis (2007)

Olde English poem translated into manly Hollywood action film.

Animation is alternately gorgeous and stiff.

Plastic faces may give you the night terrors.

Still, Angelina Jolie makes for one hot, nekkid cartoon character. The things she'd do with that tail.