Joe

Joe - Dir. David Gordon Green (2014)

Indie auteur David Gordon Green won critical acclaim for his first two films George Washington and All the Real Girls. The films were praised for their solemn depiction of small town America and beautiful, yet haunting, imagery reminiscent of Terrence Malick. It shouldn't be a surprise that Malick served as an executive producer on Green's Undertow, which owed a slight debt to Badlands and Days of Heaven. Green gained access to a star-studded cast that included Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale on the low-budget tragedy Snow Angels. Then, Green did a complete 180 and moved into the realm of mainstream comedy. He directed Seth Rogen and James Franco in the smash hit Pineapple Express, but neither of his follow-ups, Your Highness or The Sitter, met with similar success. Cinephiles eagerly hoped Green would return to his roots, which he thankfully did with Prince Avalanche, a remake of a 2011 Icelandic comedy. Green's latest production, Joe, is much darker fare.

Joe is based on the 1991 novel by Larry Brown and centers on the titular Joe Ransom (Nicolas Cage), an ex-con who served time for assaulting a police officer. Joe is content with being a hard-working, blue collar, well…Joe. He's foreman for a group of day laborers whose job is to poison trees in order for the lumber company to chop them down and replace them with stronger pines that will yield a bigger profit. These men see nothing wrong with what they do; it's honest pay for an honest day's work. Nobody sees the irony either in removing the undesirable as deemed by those above their station.

Gary (Tye Sheridan) and his family have just arrived in town and are squatting in an old abandoned house. Gary gets a job working for Joe in order to support his strung out mother and his mute younger sister. They'll get no help from patriarch Wade (Gary Poulter), a drunken lout with a frightening propensity for cruelty and violence. He regularly beats Gary in order to take his wages. What Wade does to a homeless man just to get a swig of cheap liquor is truly chilling.

Just as he did with George Washington and All the Real Girls, Gordon has captured all the beauty and loneliness of this rural area in Texas. The sun baked cinematography of Tim Orr accentuates the countryside full of abandoned cars, rusted railroad tracks, and snarling dogs.

If this is a return to form for Green, it's also a welcome return to the Nicolas Cage of old, the one who scooped up numerous awards for his turn as a self-destructive alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas. Cage has become a punch line due to his outlandish performances in turkeys like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance or the infamous Wicker Man remake. It's the rare filmmaker who can channel Cage's lunacy into positive directions as Werner Herzog did in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans. Here, Cage knows when to restrain himself and when to let loose. He becomes the kindly father figure Gary desperately needs. There's a tender sequence in which the pair bond while searching for Joe's runaway pitbull. Yet, Joe possesses a seething rage that even he is afraid of. Joe can barely contain his own base impulses when confronted by law enforcement or his scarred and violent rival Willie-Russell (Ronnie Gene Blevins).

Tye Sheridan has quickly become one of the finest young actors working today. He's excelled at playing these southern boys in troubled relationships with their father since debuting in Malick's Tree of Life. Everything about his performance is natural. The same can be said for the non-professional actors Green hired to provide local color to the supporting cast. Each one of them has a face that conveys a lifetime of hardships that the most poetic dialogue in the world could never accomplish. Some of the best moments in Joe come when the day laborers are just hanging around and shooting the breeze. There's an easy camaraderie to these scenes that serve as a balm for the heartbreak that is to come.

That heartbreak, both on and off-screen, comes from Gary Poulter, a homeless man the casting director discovered at a bus stop in Austin. Poulter had never acted before and his legitimate alcoholism was a concern for the filmmakers, but he managed to turn in one hell of a performance as the monstrous Wade. Sadly, Poulter's demons got the better of him. He was found dead in February of 2013, two months after the film wrapped. No question Poulter bared his soul. He even got the chance to show off his surprising pop locking skills in a playful scene with Sheridan, which makes their violent relationship so much sadder. Imagine if this man weren't such a monster.

Joe is a prime example of exceptional filmmaking anchored by three outstanding lead performances. Critics have taken to calling the genre "New American Realism," these indie dramas about the underclass that have fallen through the cracks of society. This would unquestionably make for a fine movie marathon with Winter's Bone and Mud.

Rating: *** ½ (*****)

The Croods

The Croods - Dirs. Chris Sanders & Kirk De Micco (2013)

Faster than you can say, "The Flintstones," Dreamworks offers their own take on the modern Stone Age family with The Croods. The Croods opened to boffo box office worldwide as moviegoers, thirsting for family friendly entertainment, flocked to theaters for a grand total of over $122 million.

The Croods live in a highly stylized version of prehistoric times where all of their friends have been killed off by animals or disease. The patriarch, Grug (Nicolas Cage), subscribes to the motto, "Never not be afraid." In order to keep his family alive, Grug moves them into a dark cave and spins cautionary tales about how curiosity will kill the caveman. Obviously this irks his teenage daughter, Eep (Emma Stone), whose adventurous streak is a constant concern for her overly protective father. One night, Eep notices a strange, orange glow that leads her into an encounter with Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a more evolved drifter who warns Eep about the end of the world, what we know now as continental drift. Guy disappears and the next morning, the Croods' cave is destroyed by a rockslide. They discover an incredible new world that had existed behind their backs. It's a beautiful, yet dangerous land with strange creatures like land whales, furry saber tooth tigers, and Piranhakeets, ravenous birds with razor sharp teeth. Guy saves the Crood family from a flock and leads them on a journey to a safe haven he calls, "Tomorrow." The Croods are awestruck by Guy and his newfangled inventions like fire, shoes, umbrellas, and snare traps. But, Grug is less than impressed and grows jealous of all the adoration heaped on Guy.

The Croods is fairly straightforward stuff with obvious themes about family and that trying new things is good. There are plenty of references to parents being overprotective, especially when it comes to boyfriends, and kids being embarrassed by mom and dad. What sets it apart is the presence of co-writer and co-director Chris Sanders, who previously brought us Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon. The similarities are obvious right down to the character designs, including an albino hyena and an adorable sloth named Belt, both of whom bare a resemblance to Experiment 626. Sanders brings real warmth and heart to the story along with his irreverent sense of humor and a steady stream of slapstick. The opening sequence with the Croods hunting for breakfast while fending off other wildlife sets the tone for the energetic pace to come. The animation is breathtaking with the world the Croods explore baring strong similarities to Avatar.

There is a small, but strong voice cast at work here with Nicolas Cage employing his own brand of off-kilter charm to the role of Grug. He gets in a toned down variation of the trademark Cage meltdown as Grug undergoes history's first ever mid-life crisis. Emma Stone is terrific in the lead and even looks a little like her character, who appears to be the freckle faced offspring of Pebbles and Bam Bam. Rounding out the cast are an underused Catherine Keener as mom Ugga, Clark Duke as dim-witted brother Thunk, and Cloris Leachman as the crotchety grandma.

It's a safe bet that the best animated films of 2013 will be Pixar's Monsters University, Universal's Despicable Me 2, and The Croods. The zany energy and colorful presentation will be more than enough to entertain youngsters as well as older audiences.

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

Stolen

Stolen - Dir. Simon West (2012)

When Liam Neeson's daughter is kidnapped, she's taken. When it's Nic Cage's daughter, she's stolen.

Stolen is the latest piece of cinematic schlock starring Nicolas Cage, who just cannot say 'no' anymore. Cage returns to New Orleans, his stomping grounds for past films Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans and Seeking Justice. Here, Cage plays Will Montgomery, the brains behind a bank robbery gang that includes Vincent (Josh Lucas), Hoyt (perennial character actor M.C. Gainey), and blonde bombshell Riley (Malin Akerman). His latest heist is boosting $10 million all while the gang is under surveillance by the FBI. The job might have gone down smoothly if Vincent hadn't tried to kill a janitor who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Will saves the man's life and leads the cops on a merry chase as his cohorts escape. He serves eight years in prison and returns to find his now-teenage daughter, Alison (Sami Gayle), wants nothing to do with him.

Vincent has also returned to kidnap Alison, locking her in the trunk of a stolen cab moving through the city. In exchange for the girl, Vincent demands the return of the $10 million. Poor Will burned all the money before being arrested to receive a lesser sentence. The feds don't buy his story and with no other choice Will enlists the aid of Riley for another heist to get the ransom.

Stolen is a low-rent effort for Simon West, who just came off The Expendables 2 and previously worked with Cage on Con Air, an enjoyably mindless flick from the Bruckheimer action factory. For all the shootouts and car chases, Stolen remains utterly lifeless. The script by David Guggenheim (who also wrote Safe House) is rife with plot holes and feels slapped together at the last minute. Apparently, nothing in New Orleans has changed in the eight years of Will's incarceration.

Even in his worst pictures, Cage can be an entertaining train wreck when he's allowed to be unleashed. Unfortunately, there's nothing for Cage to latch onto with such a bland protagonist. The only thing remotely resembling a Cage-ism is the character's penchant for listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival. If only he could have switched roles with Josh Lucas, who starred in another movie titled Stolen in 2009. Once a handsome bad boy, Vincent went off the deep end and resurfaces as a disheveled psycho with one leg. That's the kind of scene chewing part that could have given us another in a long line of loony Nic Cage performances.

Wasting away in the supporting cast are Mark Valley and Danny Huston as the FBI agents assigned to watch Will. For some reason, Huston spends the entire movie wearing a pork pie hat like he's Popeye Doyle.

If only someone had stolen the original negatives for Stolen and burned them. This is such a stinker that it makes you long for more masterful Nic Cage works like Season of the Witch or Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

Rating: * (*****)

Seeking Justice

Seeking Justice - Dir. Roger Donaldson (2012)

Nicolas Cage sure has had his ups and downs over the last several years. It's been a long time since he headlined a film that won widespread critical acclaim (Adaptation?) Cage seems content to star in lowbrow tripe like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, The Sorcerer's Apprentice or Season of the Witch. The Oscar winning actor can't say no anymore. Not surprising, considering he owes millions in back taxes to the IRS. The poor guy had to sell off extravagances such as an 18^th century castle in England, an island in the Bahamas, and his copy of Action Comics #1. I don't know what's worse, giving up a copy of Superman's first appearance or doing Z-grade direct-to-video schlock like Seeking Justice.

Cage is Will Gerard, a high school teacher trying to enlighten inner city youths about Shakespeare. One night, his wife, Laura (January Jones), is attacked and raped. While waiting at the hospital, Will is approached by the mysterious Simon (Guy Pearce), a member of a clandestine organization meting out their own brand of street justice. Simon offers to deal with his wife's assailant in a manner the police and the courts cannot. All he asks in return is a simple favor to be named later. At first, the favors seem innocuous enough - mail a letter and then observe a woman and her children at the zoo. Next thing you know, Simon orders Will to murder a supposed pedophile. Will and Laura find their lives in danger as they discover just how far reaching and powerful Simon is.

Call Nicolas Cage what you want: a human medical experiment or a living, breathing post-modern expressionist art exhibit, perhaps? Whether it's his bizarre inflections, crazed bug-eyed looks or psychotic twitches, he is entertaining in a unintentional way. There's bad and there's Nicolas Cage bad. Either way, you can hardly accuse him of being boring. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he is in Seeking Justice, boring. Despite returning to the Big Easy, the site of his manic performance in Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, Cage barely registers as if he were going through the motions until the check clears. Equally robotic is his co-star January Jones, who delivers every line with a blank stare and a monotone demeanor, much like her performances in X-Men First Class or Unknown. It's a wonder how she could be as good as Betty Draper on AMC's Mad Men.

The filmmakers may have done better by replacing Jones with Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter, who says barely a few sentences as Laura's best friend, Trudy. The supporting cast also includes Xander Berkeley as a police detective, Harold Perrineau from Lost as Will's best friend, and IronE Singleton from The Walking Dead as one of Simon's enforcers.

Much like Cage, director Roger Donaldson has had a rollercoaster career. He's been behind the camera of well-received films such as Thirteen Days and The World's Fastest Indian. Yet, he's also directed Species, Dante's Peak, the Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger remake of The Getaway, and the 80's camp classic Cocktail. Donaldson's last feature was The Bank Job, an excellent heist movie that gave Jason Statham a chance to stretch his acting muscles beyond his usual action pictures. Seeking Justice doesn't do the same for Nicolas Cage and is so forgettable; it doesn't even belong amidst Donaldson's weaker efforts. His direction is leaden with random canted angles thrown in to switch up things.

The screenplay credited to Todd Hickey and Robert Tannen is full of weak contrivances and ludicrous plot twists. The methods of Simon's vigilante organization are needlessly Machiavellian. There's a lot of silly cloak-and-dagger activity such as buying two candy bars from a vending machine as a go signal or using the code-phrase, "The hungry rabbit jumps," which was the movie's original title. This same association employs cops, reporters, and skilled thugs. It doesn't make a lick of sense for them to coerce untrained civilians.

As revenge thrillers go, one can do better: Haywire, Lady Vengeance, and Harry Brown being recent examples. Seeking Justice is a second-rate potboiler that is unworthy of even Nicolas Cage's notoriously feeble standards.

Rating: * (*****)

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - Dirs. Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor (2012)

Ghost Rider isn't one of Marvel's most well-known characters, but he is one of the coolest looking ones. Inspired by the popularity of Evel Knievel, Ghost Rider was created in 1972 as stunt rider Johnny Blaze, who is transformed into a fiery spirit of vengeance after making a pact with the devil to save the life of his mentor. During the grim and gritty era of the early-90's, the Rider was remade into a spiky leather wearing biker named Danny Ketch. The original Ghost Rider film featured a combination of both characters as played by the shamanic assassin of acting Nicolas Cage. You'd think it would be difficult to screw up a movie about a flaming skeleton on a badass motorcycle, but somehow Sony did thanks in part to the pedestrian direction of Mark Steven Johnson. The bane of comic book fans everywhere, Johnson also wrote and directed the poorly received Daredevil.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is Sony's attempt at a mulligan, dusting off an old script by David S. Goyer. Part reboot/part sequel, Spirit of Vengeance glances over the Rider's origins and is connected only tangentially to the original picture. Cage is back as Johnny Blaze, who has been living a nomadic existence in Eastern Europe. He is roped into protecting Nadya (Violante Placido) and her son Danny (Fergus Riordan), who turns out to be the spawn of Satan himself. Comic readers know that the Marvel version of the devil is Mephisto, played in the first Ghost Rider by Peter Fonda. Here, it's Ciarán Hinds in the role and he's simply known as Roark.

Roark needs the boy for a ritual that will allow him to walk unfettered on Earth. To defeat Ghost Rider and capture Danny, Roark transforms a nasty mercenary named Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth) into a creature fans know as Blackout. In his new form, Carrigan looks like a member of the Edgar Winter Group and has the power to sap light around his victims and decay anything he touches. Well, anything except a Twinkie and steering wheels because he still has no problems driving.

The first Ghost Rider was a slick looking blockbuster, but suffered from unimaginative action sequences. These problems should have been corrected since the sequel has the directing duo of Neveldine/Taylor behind the wheel. The filmmakers behind the Crank series utilized adrenaline junkie techniques during the shooting of Spirit of Vengeance. They bungee jumped off rooftops and performed handheld shots on rollerblades. Somehow, their set pieces aren't any more exciting than those of the previous movie or of any other generic action film playing on late night cable. It's mostly Ghost Rider whipping his chain around and burning armies of henchmen into ash. Only rarely do Neveldine/Taylor inject a bit of excitement into Spirit of Vengeance. There's a cool shot of Idris Elba flying backwards in slow motion off a cliff side while firing his shotgun and a sequence where Ghost Rider turns a gigantic construction machine into a demonic engine of death. Neveldine/Taylor also utilize some cool effects for Carrigan's blackout powers by switching to a distorted fish eye lens. They never make the most of the exotic locations either. The film was shot on location in Turkey and Romania where the setting could have lent a classic Italian Giallo flavor to the proceedings. Instead, Neveldine/Taylor shoot in such a manner that Spirit of Vengeance looks like a cheap Sci-Fi Channel movie-of-the-week.

The special effects used to create Ghost Rider have improved. He's grimier with a smoked out skull and a charred leather jacket. He's less intimidating the second time around. This is mostly due to Cage's motion capture work as he decided to have the Rider sway back and forth as if he were at a Bauhaus concert. Also missing is the Penance Stare, Ghost Rider's ability to turn his victims into a desiccated husk by forcing them to feel the pain they've caused a hundredfold. Johnson used fire and brimstone to capture the Penance Stare. Neveldine/Taylor just have Ghost Rider stare lovingly into the eyes of his enemies.

Cage fails to bring the Rider's alter-ego to life too. At least, he was eating jelly beans from a martini glass and listening to the Carpenters before. Here, he's just plain old Nic Cage and not maniacally hammy Nic Cage. His unique acting style can work if fired with precision like a hollow point bullet through a high caliber sniper rifle. So far, the only auteur to truly harness the frenzy of Nic Cage is Werner Herzog. Neveldine/Taylor surprisingly keep Cage tightly on a leash. There's no sign of the cartoony Cage that has become popular YouTube fodder ("Not the bees!"). The one time he does freak out is during an interrogation scene where Blaze threatens to release the Rider.

Picking up the slack in the ham department is Ciarán Hinds, who realizes how ridiculous it all is and plays it accordingly. Criminally underused is comic book mainstay Idris Elba as Moreau, a hard-drinking French priest, who mostly serves to spout exposition at convenient moments. There's also Christopher Lambert as a tattooed, sword-wielding monk and Buffy alumnus Anthony Stewart Head as another monk.

Was I expecting a masterpiece from Spirit of Vengeance? No. At the very least, I hoped for something similar to Punisher: War Zone, where the sequel upped the action and stood as an enjoyable B-movie. Unfortunately, there's nothing here, except a thin, poorly conceived plot that barely covers the scant eighty-plus minute run time.

Rating: * (*****)

Drive Angry

Drive Angry 3D - Dir. Patrick Lussier (2011)

How have we been subjected to two Nicolas Cage movies when it's only March? Drive Angry is exactly what it advertises, Nic Cage is angry and he drives. He drives angry.

Cage sits behind the wheel as John Milton. Yeah, because I wouldn't have taken this movie seriously unless they made a Paradise Lost reference. Anyways, Milton literally escapes from Hell to hunt down Jonah King (Billy Burke), a cult leader who murdered Milton's daughter and plans to sacrifice her baby for a satanic ritual. Milton blows bad guys away with his shotgun and is completely irresistible to every woman he comes across. Who could resist that luxurious head of greasy, stringy blonde hair? Milton receives assistance from a feisty waitress named Piper (Amber Heard), who drives a '69 Dodge Charger. Dogging their trail is The Accountant (William Fichtner), a demonic emissary, who is half-Terminator and half-Anton Chigurh. He cuts a swath of destruction across the south as he attempts to retrieve the errant Milton. David Morse also has a brief role as a former associate of Milton's by the name of Webster. I'm guessing his first name was Daniel, as in the Devil and…

Drive Angry is the latest film to try and recapture the exploitation magic of low-budget 70's grindhouse cinema, which has become so fashionable as of late. Unfortunately, it lacks the inventiveness of Machete and the hilarity of Black Dynamite. There is plenty of blood, bullets, and boobs to be found, but there's nothing particularly exciting or original about the action sequences. In a rip-off of Shoot 'Em Up, Cage kills a horde of henchmen while simultaneously banging a buxom blond. Later, the Accountant plows through a police blockade in a tanker truck while listening to "That's the Way (I Like It)." While shot in 3D, Drive Angry doesn't benefit a lick from the process with very little difference between it and conversion jobs. The 3D effects amount to nothing more than bullets and random debris flying at the screen.

When the writers aren't peppering in weak literary references to prove that they passed high school English, they’re concocting ludicrous dialogue like, "Hell is already walking the Earth," and Amber Heard's classic, "Ah'm gonna tell everyone what ah caught you doin' with mah pink dildo."

Speaking of whom, Heard's hotness is the best thing going on in Drive Angry. Director Patrick Lussier (who also helmed the atrocious My Bloody Valentine 3D) knows enough to give the male demographics a Megan Fox shot of Amber Heard with the young starlet dressed in cut-off denim shorts and bent over the hood of a car. The second best thing in the movie is William Fitchner, who resembles a younger Christopher Walken, gives a scene chewing performance as the Accountant. On the other hand, Cage is surprisingly restrained and this is one instance when you wish the cuffs were taken off. Every once in a while you see a gleam in his eyes as if Cage were about to go batshit bonkers. An unleashed Cage can be a sight to behold as evidenced in Wicker Man and Bad Lieutenant. Alas, he's just plain dull and uncharismatic.

Drive Angry is clearly marketed towards muscle car driving, meat eating, red blooded American males. Too bad for Summit Entertainment, they avoided it in droves. Drive Angry has gone down as the lowest grossing 3D movie given a wide release. The film all but disappeared from theaters a week after opening, pushed off 3D screens by an even bigger box office bomb in Disney's Mars Needs Moms.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Season of the Witch

Season of the Witch - Dir. Dominic Sena (2011)

Season of the Witch has little to do with the song by British folk singer Donovan nor does it bare any connection to George Romero's Season of the Witch or the threequel, Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Alas, it is another entry in the recent rash of period actioners that has given us Roman legionnaires (Centurion, The Eagle), Vikings (Outlander, Valhalla Rising), and medieval knights. Much like Christopher Smith's Black Death, Season of the Witch revolves around heavy handed religious themes and the Bubonic Plague of the 14th Century.

Nicolas Cage, sporting the same hairdo from The Sorcerer's Apprentice, stars as Behman, a knight in service of the Church alongside his wise-cracking sidekick, Felson (Ron Perlman). Together they rack up an impressive body count during the Crusades, but desert ranks when they are ordered to slaughter women and children. The armor-clad BFFs make their way back to England only to find their homeland stricken by disease. Unfortunately, Eric Idle never shows up shouting, "Bring out your dead."

Behman and Felson are called upon by an ailing Cardinal (Christopher Lee), who believes the disease is the work of a young witch (Claire Foy) they have captured. The witch is to be taken to an abbey where the monks hope to reverse the spell she has cast. Behman sees only a frightened girl and agrees to act as escort in order to ensure she is given a fair trial. Our intrepid heroes shore up their ranks with a collection of D-listers from the most unimaginative Dungeons & Dragons session ever. They're joined by another warrior in Eckhart (Ulrich Thomsen), Debelzaq the fanatical priest (Stephen Campbell Moore), Hagamar the swindler (Stephen Graham), and Kay (Robert Sheehan, looking like a Dark Age version of Jay Baruchel), an altar boy with dreams of knighthood.

The last time Cage teamed up with director Dominic Sena was in the god-awful remake of Gone in 60 Seconds so expectations are undoubtedly lowered here. The movie is a complete mess with bland action sequences highlighted by piss-poor special effects. A finale featuring the protagonists battling zombie ninja monks isn't nearly as cool as it sounds. No one can make up their mind about the dialogue as actors speak in either faux-medieval speak or corny, contemporary idioms ("We're gonna need more holy water."). Cage drones on with his trademark inflections as if he had narcolepsy and doesn't even bother with a British accent. Neither does Perlman who is easily the best thing in an otherwise dreadful picture. For some reason the English-born Stephen Graham doesn't speak with his natural voice, instead utilizing some indiscernible East Coast accent as if he were still playing Baby Face Nelson in Public Enemies or Al Capone on Boardwalk Empire.

The screenplay by Bragi F. Schut has bounced around Hollywood since 2000, went into production in 2009 and was originally slated for release in 2010 before being dumped into the theatrical graveyard of January 2011. If only studio execs had the same ardent devotion to superior projects that still lay dormant. For his part, Cage wanted to make a film reminiscent of both the old Hammer horror pictures and Roger Corman drive-in productions. Season of the Witch is nowhere near as creepy or fun. Ludicrously enough, Sena took inspiration from Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Cage playing chess with Death might have made a better movie. A completely unhinged Cage playing board games with the William Sadler Death from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey would have been awesome.

Rating: * (*****)

Astro Boy

Astro Boy - Dir. David Bowers (2009)


Osamu Tezuka has widely been considered to be the god of manga. His dynamic art style and penchant for drawing characters with large, expressive eyes are the images immediately associated with Japanese comics and animation. One of Tezuka’s most beloved creations was the rocket-propelled robot, Astro Boy, who starred in a long-running manga series and several animated shows. Unfortunately, whatever charms Astro Boy possessed were lost in translation for Summit Entertainment’s CG remake.

Set in the year 2108, a privileged few live in the shining metropolis of Metro City, a high-tech city floating above Earth where robots serve the human population. In other words, they live just like the Jetsons. One of the most brilliant minds in Metro City is Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage), the head of the Ministry of Science. Along with Dr. Elefun (Bill Nighy), Tenma works under the auspices of the militaristic President Stone (Donald Sutherland) who is constantly ready to go to war.

Tenma has recently discovered a blue energy source and its opposite and far more unstable red energy. While experimenting with the latter, a tragic accident occurs when Tenma’s son, Toby (Freddie Highmore), is completely vaporized. A mournful father tries to replace his dead child by creating a robot duplicate who, at first, believes he is the real Toby. Soon, Tenma realizes Astro Boy will never be able to replace Toby and casts him out just as Pres. Stone demands he be turned over to create new weapons. Astro Boy is cast out and falls to the world below where he’s taken in by a group of orphans scavenging the scraps tossed away by Metro City.

Animation-wise, Astro Boy has been crafted well with some cool visuals and action sequences. However, it lacks any discernable style or charm to set it apart from the rest of the computer animated films being pumped out every year. It doesn’t have the uniqueness or depth that Pixar has achieved on countless occasions. The quirky and squat look of Tezuka’s characters has been washed away in order to placate mainstream Western audiences. The big eyes are gone, but the machine guns in his buttocks are still there.

The formulaic plot is further hampered by heavy-handed political overtones pounded in with the hammer of obviousness. President Stone is pure Neo-Con odiousness who dismisses the namby pamby blue energy for the ruthless and erratic red.

Astro Boy is bland, inoffensive entertainment, but you could do better watching the works of Miyazaki or Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant.

Rating: **

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Dir. Jon Turteltaub (2010)


Two Bruckheimer productions in one summer? Thank the cinematic gods that the world has not ended underneath a torrent of special effects-laden schlock. Earlier, we saw the release of Prince of Persia, a loud and brainless movie based on a video game. Now, we have The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a loud and brainless movie loosely based on a Mickey Mouse cartoon which, in turn, was based on a poem by Goethe. Aside from a scene involving enchanted mops run amok, this Sorcerer’s Apprentice has very little to do with any of the previous versions.

The film opens in Arthurian times as Merlin (James A. Stephens) falls in a battle against the evil sorceress, Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige), after being betrayed by one of his apprentices, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). Merlin’s other apprentices, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) and Veronica (Monica Bellucci), manage to stop the evildoers. Veronica traps Morgana’s soul inside her body and Balthazar in turn traps them both inside a nesting doll. Over the centuries, Balthazar has captured over evil sorcerers (including Horvath) within layers of the doll as he searches for the Prime Merlinian, a magician with the power to destroy Morgana once and for all.

Flash forward to New York City in the year 2000 where a young boy named Dave Stutler (Jake Cherry) stumbles upon a magic shop run by Balthazar. Just as he realizes Dave is the chosen one, Horvath is accidentally freed from his prison. The wizards battle and entrap each other in an enchanted vase for ten years.

Flash forward again to the present day and both are finally released. Meanwhile, a grown-up Dave (Jay Baruchel) is now a physics student at NYU. Since that fateful day, he’s had countless hours of therapy and was forced to transfer to a new school. Dave still has a crush on fellow student, Becky Barnes (Teresa Palmer), who he knew back in grade school. Dave is thrust into the strange world of magic when he’s placed under the tutelage of the eccentric Balthazar. Together, they must stop Horvath from freeing Morgana and resurrecting an army of the dead to conquer the world.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice takes us on a Cliff Notes edition of the hero’s journey. Much as he did in his last film, She’s Out of My League, Baruchel is the gawky nerd who overcomes his doubts to win the day and get the pretty girl. Director Jon Turteltaub, who previously helmed the National Treasure films, makes sure to throw in plenty of whiz-bang special effects, a car chase, a giant steel eagle, a dragon, and even a few Hadokens for the Street Fighter II fans. Apprentice bounces from lengthy exposition to action sequence in breakneck manner.

Cage sports one of his least bizarre hairstyles for one of his least bizarre roles. It’s refreshing to see Cage restrain himself from his usual mugging of the camera. On the other hand, Molina realizes what a Z-grade film he’s starring in and acts accordingly with mustache twirling glee. The same goes for Toby Kebbell as a Criss Angel-esque illusionist.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the perfect movie for those of you who think Harry Potter could use more explosions and less of those pesky things like plot and character development.

Rating: * ½

Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass - Dir. Matthew Vaughn (2010)


”With no power, comes no responsibility.”

Comic book superheroes in a real world setting have been a hot topic for many recent action films. Iron Man and Christopher Nolan’s Bat-films have attempted to ground larger-than-life heroes in a more realistic setting. Watchmen took a heady approach in its depiction of the socio-political impact of costumed individuals while Hancock went a more comedic route. Now, Kick-Ass brings us a hero for today’s MySpace generation.

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is your everyday, run-of-the-mill comic book fanboy. He’s geeky, gawky, and dutifully hits his local comic shop every week with the only two friends he’s got. Dave’s only superpower is the self-described ability to be invisible to girls, especially his long-time crush, Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca). One day, Dave orders a green scuba suit off eBay and fashions himself a pair of batons in order to fight crime as a masked vigilante. Thus, Kick-Ass is born, not out of a childhood trauma or intricate revenge fantasy, but merely out of an idle musing.

As Kick-Ass, Dave’s first foray into crime fighting leads to him being stabbed and struck by a car. Unperturbed, dons the outfit once more to defend the victim of a gang beating. This time around, eyewitnesses record the fight via camera phones and upload the footage to YouTube. Suddenly, Kick-Ass is a viral sensation inspiring others to follow suit, no pun intended. Chief among them is former cop Damon Macready and his pig-tailed daughter Mindy who become the dynamic duo of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl. Together, they wage a brutal war against mob boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong). With a pair of caped crusaders taking apart his drug operation, D’Amico turns to his nebbish son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who becomes the Red Mist in order to lure the other heroes out into the open.

Kick-Ass was based on a creator-owned mini-series published by Marvel, written by Mark Millar (who also wrote Wanted) with art by John Romita Jr. Anyone familiar with Millar’s work will recognize his fingerprints all over the property, which was originally pitched as Spider-Man meets Superbad. Employing shock and awe tactics in his writing techniques, Kick-Ass is profane and unrepentantly violent. So much so that director Matthew Vaughn financed the picture independently after being turned down by every major studio. After raising the $30 million budget himself, footage was screened at Comic-Con to an overwhelmingly positive response and the film was picked up for distribution by Lionsgate.

At the center of the controversy is the character of Hit-Girl, played by a then 11-year old Chloe Moretz. She’s a scene-stealer with a confident presence rare in such a young actress. Plenty of comparisons to Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver have been made. She’s a pint-size, death dealing dynamo. She’s Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, but small enough to fit in your pocket. The fact that someone so one is inflicting violence and having violence inflicted upon her has gotten many in an uproar. Roger Ebert has labeled the film as “morally reprehensible” for its depiction of Hit-Girl. It may churn some stomachs, but it’s hard for me to take any of it seriously when she’s hacking and slashing baddies to the theme song from The Banana Splits Adventure Hour.

Hit-Girl is a logical extension of the slightly creepy comic book tradition of the kid sidekick. DC Comics introduced the first kid sidekick in 1940 as a way to include a character for children to identify with. Never made sense to me, why would anyone want to be Robin when they could be Batman? In any event, Robin was a huge hit and pretty soon nearly every superhero leapt into action with a pre-pubescent costumed cohort with names like Sandy the Golden Boy and Stuff the Chinatown Kid. Kick-Ass brings the idea of reckless child endangerment into the 21st century with a young girl raised completely on comics, violent video games, and John Woo movies. The point is hammered home during one of Hit-Girl’s flurries as the film switches to the POV of a first-person shooter.

Most of the actors understand the over-the-top tone of the film and play it so, especially Nicolas Cage and Mark Strong. The always idiosyncratic Cage brings his own flourishes to the character. In his civilian guise, he’s Damon MacCready, an ex-cop bent on revenge. Rather than playing him as Dirty Harry, Cage gives him a Ward Cleaver quality with a Revenge of the Nerds-like laugh and a penchant for referring to his daughter as “child” and “baby doll.” As Big Daddy, he speaks with a deliberate, uneven staccato in a clear-cut homage to Adam West. The go-to-guy for villains, Mark Strong is excellent once again as the bad guy. He’s everything you expect from a mob boss.

The action sequences are handled well. Vaughn doesn’t rely on the usual quick cuts and tight close-ups that only manage to obscure the on-screen action. Vaughn had previously been attached to direct X-Men: The Last Stand and Thor, but finally gets to cut loose on a comic book movie with Kick-Ass. Vaughn formerly worked as Guy Ritchie’s producer on Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch before making his directorial debut on Layer Cake (after Ritchie declined). He’s become a far more versatile director than Ritchie.

The main weakness of Kick-Ass lies in the love story between Dave and Katie. Under the false assumption that he is gay, Dave becomes Katie’s BFF and the pair engage in ludicrous activities like rubbing tanning lotion on each other while nearly nude. The end result is equally unbelievable and departs from the source material. A light spoiler for the comic, but the hero does not get the girl.

Kick-Ass subverts the trappings of the superhero genre then revels in them becoming pure nerd wish fulfillment in the end.

Rating: *** ½

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans - Dir. Werner Herzog (2009)


”It’s my lucky crack pipe. You don’t have a lucky crack pipe?”

Abel Ferrera’s original Bad Lieutenant was a gritty, unflinching portrayal of a corrupt cop with themes of Catholic guilt and uneasy redemption. Harvey Keitel played the unnamed titular character with an uncompromising bravery in depicting the Lieutenant’s disturbing demons. Werner Herzog claims to have not been aware of the original film and his version is neither a remake nor a reboot. The script was written by William M. Finkelstein whose credits include a number of television shows such as L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, and…Cop Rock. Under the unwieldy title of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, Herzog crafts a film that isn’t so much disturbing as it is an oddball black comedy hinged around the human medical experiment known as Nicolas Cage.

Cage’s eccentric, idiosyncratic performances have been both lauded and blasted by critics. At his insistence, he ate a live cockroach in Vampire’s Kiss (it was supposed to be a raw egg) and his ”Not the bees!” act in the Wicker Man remake has become popular YouTube fodder. Here, Herzog manages to harness the innate weirdo in Cage into a calculated craziness that is utterly compelling.

”What are these fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?”

Cage is Terence McDonagh, a police detective in New Orleans shortly after the city was savaged by Hurricane Katrina. During the storms, he rescued (though after much debate) a prisoner trapped in his cell as the water rose dangerously high. McDonagh suffers a back injury that leaves him addicted to painkillers and other drugs. It’s highly doubtful, however, that he was that nice of a guy before the injury. Awarded a medal and promoted to lieutenant, McDonagh is put in charge of a homicide case where a Senegalese family was murdered by local drug dealer Big Fate (rapper Xzibit). When he’s not investigating, McDonagh is stealing narcotics from the evidence room and suffers from addled hallucinations of iguanas. He’s deep in gambling debts and inadvertently pisses off a vengeful mobster. When McDonagh is investigating the case, he strong arms a wheelchair-bound, old lady by cutting off her respirator and waving a .44 Magnum in her face. One night, he rousts a pair of club kids and finds a miniscule amount of drugs on their person. He forces the boyfriend to watch as he smokes crack and bangs his girlfriend on the hood of his unmarked police car.

McDonagh has a high-class prostitute girlfriend, Frankie (Eva Mendes), who he eventually hides out with his father. Dad (Tom Bower) is a recovering alcoholic who lives with his ever-soused wife (Jennifer Coolidge) in a mansion in the woods. On the outside, the home is like something out of a Tennessee Williams play, but inside it has all the dark, gloomy charm of a double-wide trailer.

”Shoot him again. His soul is still dancing.”

Cage is at his bug-eyed best in Bad Lieutenant. He lumbers about in a stooped stride like he’s the love child of Dirty Harry and Quasimodo. His voice sometimes drifts into a high-pitched tone similar to the Pokey-inspired voice Cage put on in Peggy Sue Got Married. McDonagh is an ugly human being perfectly at home in the underbelly of a city still struggling to rebuild following a devastating natural disaster. While Cage goes as over-the-top as he possibly can, he’s balanced out by the understated performances of Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer as a fellow detective, and classic character actor Brad Dourif as McDonagh’s pony-tailed bookie.

Herzog adds a surreal touch to the picture with a reptilian fetish that includes a strange, yet haunting, scene at a traffic accident with a gator lying in the middle of the road with its intestines on the asphalt and a single leg twitching. There’s also an interlude of extreme close-ups of iguanas set to Johnny Adams’ “Release Me.”

Port of Call is at its weakest during the third act. The film’s resolution comes out of left field with its happily-ever-after denouement. Everything seems to end for the better and you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is this a happy ending or another one of McDonagh’s crack-induced fever dreams? Honestly, the story is secondary to watching Nic Cage at his Nic Cage-iest.

Rating: ** ½

Knowing

Knowing - Dir. Alex Proyas (2009)


Nicolas Cage continues the downward slide into direct-to-video limbo land with another lackluster effort. It’s not as bad a stinker as Bangkok Dangerous, but isn’t nearly as good (relatively speaking) as either of the National Treasure films. To his credit, Cage tones down the odd mannerisms and dons a believable hair piece for his role of John Koestler, an astrophysics professor at MIT. The son of a pastor, Koestler has turned away from his religious upbringing following the death of his wife in a hotel fire. He is left alone to raise his son, Caleb (Chandler Canterbury). He hardly speaks to his younger sister, Grace (Nadia Townsend), and never speaks with his father.

Koestler boils the film’s themes down to a classroom lecture when he poses the question, is life a series of calculated & planned events or does shit just happen? Determinism vs. Randomness. Koestler believes shit happens and a lot of shit happens in Knowing.

In 1959, a class of elementary school students draws pictures to place inside a time capsule which won’t be opened until present day. One strange girl, Lucinda (Lara Robinson), hears whispering voices that compel her to jot down a page full of numbers. Flash forward to 2009 and Caleb receives Lucinda’s letter. Koestler discovers the numbers contain the dates of tragedies and disasters for the last fifty years along with the death tolls. 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombings, Hurricane Katrina, they’re all there. Soon, Koestler learns that the final numbers point to imminent catastrophes. Plus, there are a group of pale strangers with sinister intentions for his son.

If G.I. Joe has taught us anything, it is that knowing is half the battle. Knowing is half a film or, at least, two-thirds of one. The film is a hodgepodge of The Twilight Zone, Close Encounters, X-Files, and Left Behind. It ramps up suspense and creeps while building and building towards a big finish that can’t possibly live up to the expectations it sets. The predictable finale is heavy on the special effects, but light on any sense.

I’m a fan of Alex Proyas’s work. I loved The Crow and Dark City, both inspiring in their stylized Gothic/noir look. Yes, I even liked I, Robot. Not so much for the flimsy story, but more for the stunning eye candy. I’m not Proyas’s only fan. One of his biggest supporters is Roger Ebert who championed the cause to raise awareness for Dark City. Ebert gave Knowing four stars in his review and called it one of the best sci-fi films he’d ever seen. I must not have been watching the same picture. Visually, Knowing is a strong production. The film features two amazing set pieces. The first (shot uninterrupted) is a plane crash in which we follow Koestler through the rubble as he futilely attempting to help survivors, some on fire. Another major sequence is a subway crash in which two trains derail and cause massive damage. Both scenes are extremely visceral, but the film goes off its tracks just as badly, fizzling out to an anticlimactic finish.

Rating: * 1/2