Sunday, July 27, 2008

Review: 3:10 To Yuma

This makes the 3rd review of 3:10 To Yuma to appear on this blog, which must mean something... I'm just not sure what!

I watched this Christian Bale / Russell Crowe testosterone-fest last night in splendid Blu-Ray, and found it to be quite an immersive - not to mention entertaining - experience. It's a familiar enough tale - gang of bandits terrorize region in post-Civil War Arizona, leader gets caught by law and has to be transported across country in order to stand trial, while gang members plot to free him - but sparkling performances by Bale, Crowe, Gretchen Mol, Peter Fonda and several others make it all come alive.

I always find westerns to be a little hard to take, and can count the ones I've enjoyed on the fingers of one hand. 3:10 To Yuma now joins that group, along with Unforgiven and... well, if I'm allowed to include Seven Samurai by Kurasawa (the inspiration for The Magnificent Seven, a western which I've actually never seen), then that may be about it. However, I think every movie genre has at least a few masterpieces in it that have crossover appeal for those who wouldn't normally enjoy a ______ (western / musical / romantic comedy), and Yuma seems to fit that bill here. As long as you can stomach the "ah, shucks, ma'am" dialogue, you'll find a fairly deep story here.

Bale and Crowe are both excellent, and the story is really all about them, as two sides of the same coin. Both undergo transformations over the course of the film, ending up more alike than different by the time it's all over. While that progression wasn't exactly unexpected, it was still pulled off remarkably well. The eyes of both actors carry one particular scene late in the proceedings, the significance of which is that each of the men - bitter rivals up to that point - begin to re-define themselves in terms of their relationship to the other. Bale's hapless rancher can finally earn the respect of his eldest son by doing something that no one else has been able to - bring Crowe to justice - while the other has finally met a truly good and honourable man after a lifetime of not believing in the mere possibility of finding such a thing in an era of such utter desolation and lawlessness. The ending may be corny to some, but I bought it and basked in the emotion of it all.

If anything bored me about 3:10 To Yuma, it was the formulaic setup in the middle of the film where the group of men transporting Crowe were clearly going to be picked off, one by one, in a tradition immortalized in countless horror movies over the past several decades. It's impossible to see that begin to take shape and not start guessing who'll go first, and who will be the last men standing (not much of a contest here, as it turns out). I hoped for some surprises along the way, but while the details were entertaining, the overall arc wasn't particularly unpredictable.

Still, the two lead actors were able to carry my interest throughout, and as the final credits rolled I felt that it'd been a couple of hours well spent.

Rating: *** 1/2

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Review: The Dark Knight

Incredibly... almost impossibly... this movie actually lives up to the hype!

In preparing to brave the crowded theatres for the already-critically-acclaimed The Dark Knight, wife Vicki and I took in our third or fourth viewing of Batman Begins over the past weekend. Christian Bale's first turn as the Caped Crusader has been one of my favourite movie-watching experiences since I first took it in three years ago, but I couldn't help but wonder: how would you ever top it? I mean, BB is the ultimate origin story, cut together perfectly by director Christopher Nolan as a series of flashbacks-within-flashbacks (almost but not quite venturing into the sort of territory that initially caught our attention within his first masterpiece, Memento). It does such a great job of making us believe that a childhood trauma, of the sort that befalls poor little rich boy Bruce Wayne could truly lead to a life of obsessive, not to mention dangerous, behaviour. And while the Scarecrow was a bit on the lightweight side as Bat-villains go, you can't beat Ra's al Ghul in terms of grandeur and scope. So with that kind of a kick-off, where could this latest Batman franchise really go, but down?

As it turns out, Nolan really was just getting started with Batman Begins (making the choice of titles all the more appropos). He took what could've been an onerous task - setting the stage for Batman to play upon, including an origin, a living, breathing Gotham City, and a stable of supporting characters, some old and some new - and turned it into an outstanding Bat-relaunch. But it's now apparent that Nolan, along with brother Jonathon and comic writer David S. Goyer, had much bigger tales to tell. And TDK is a huge movie: it takes larger risks, it plays for bigger stakes, and it asks so much of its viewing audience's intelligence and attention to detail that you'd better be able to control your bladder for a hundred and fifty minutes or you'll be left behind!

The last movie that I can remember ever holding me in its hands the way The Dark Knight did last evening was Alien, when I saw it for the first time in 1979. Back then, I went to the theatre expecting to watch a nice little science fiction film and instead got broadsided by one of the best horror flicks ever made. With The Dark Knight, I went into the experience with high - though somewhat skeptical - hopes, and had my mind blown by what I saw on the screen. I've gotten awfully used to watching comic book movies and knowing, more or less, where they're going... often because I've read most or all of the source material! But last night I was almost literally on the edge of my seat, waiting to see just what turn the story would take next. Yes, there's a bit of The Killing Joke in there, and fans of bank heist movies will recognize a cliche or two from that genre, but the vast majority of the plot came at me with the originality and wonder of earlier Nolan works, Memento and The Prestige. Almost every surprise was rewarding to me, none of which I'll spoil here for the uninitiated. As much as I loved Iron Man - and I did, and do - this latest Batman offering simply operates on a different playing field.

Somewhat paradoxically, the heart of The Dark Knight rests with the Joker. I'd heard rave reviews of Heath Ledger's grandiose performance here, but always assumed that he'd be acting in the shadow of Jack Nicholson (1989's big screen Clown Prince of Crime). About twenty minutes into the festivities, though, I came to realize that it's now the other way around. Nicholson was certainly very good as the Joker, but Ledger eclipsed him almost right out of the gate. This is an incredible, immersive acting job that may just have driven the actor insane. His body language, the unnatural rasp of his voice, his facial expressions and even the very cadence with which he speaks, all blend together to create a character that could believably push an entire city population to the edge of insanity themselves. The level of terror created in this film, obviously paralleling some of what's occurred in the U.S. since 9/11, provides the perfect antithesis to the sort of "comic book violence" that usually fills movies in the genre. Nolan touched on this theme in Batman Begins, with the fear gas that the Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul unleashed on "the Narrows," but here it's cranked up to a terrifying new level, with the Joker acting as the maestro / social commentator / cynic of it all. There's one scene in particular, toward the end of the film, where a look of resigned disappointment spreads over Ledger's make-up encrusted face, and damned if I didn't sympathize with him ever so slightly!

Whether you go to see Heath Ledger as the Joker, Aaron (Thank You For Smoking) Eckhart as heroic District Attorney Harvey Dent, another great set of performances by Bale, Caine, Freeman and Oldman, or just for the incredible action sequences, I don't expect that disappointment will spread over your features at any point. This is an amazing movie, in an unbelievable year for comic book movies, and I can hardly wait to see it again... maybe even in the theatre!

Rating: ****

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Fans of Joss Whedon's wonderfully-warped mind - you know who you are, and yes I'm one of you - will almost certainly want to check this out. Right now it's just a trailer, but then over the course of next week 3 video installments of Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog will be available, before disappearing again after July 20. Looks like something worth giving a few minutes of attention to, anyway...

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Review: The Incredible Hulk

Marvel Studios is on quite a roll these days...

While not quite as engrossing or funny as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, under the direction of Louis Leterrier and starring Edward Norton (Bruce Banner/The Hulk), Liv Tyler (Betty Ross), William Hurt (General "Thunderbolt" Ross) and Tim Roth (Emil Blonsky/The Abomination), delivers the goods! It's a great mixture of what we used to get from the old Hulk TV show - a fugitive Banner, always on the run from the authorities as he roams from town to town - and what we'd expect from modern day, big-budget film-making. That last bit can be summed up in two words: Hulk smash! And there's lots of that to be found here (with nary a Hulk-dog nor super-villain Banner, Sr to be seen anywhere, thankfully!)

Liv Tyler is gorgeously emotive as Banner's love interest, although I wish they'd spent a little more time building up some credibility around her role as brilliant scientist. Roth is fine as gonzo would-be Hulkbuster Blonsky, despite being upstaged in the final act of the movie by a CGI-proxy. The two stand-out performances, for me, though, were Norton as Banner and Hurt as his army nemesis. Neither one of them has a great deal of deep material to mine - did I mention that Hulk smashes?! - but both stellar actors make the most of what they're given. True to the comic book character, "Thunderbolt" isn't really the villain of the piece: after all, he thinks that he's making the world a safer place with every action he takes! And Norton's Banner is appropriately conflicted between wanting to help at every turn and being afraid of what will happen if he gets too hungry... I mean, angry! (That's an in-joke, for those who've seen the film.)

The real jewels of the film were the many nods made to past and future moments: Lou Ferrigno's cameo, a brief appearance on-screen by the late Bill Bixby, Robert Downey, Jr's continuity-enforcing walk-on as Tony Stark, references to the Super Soldier serum (and its description of being "on ice," which all comic fans know relates to how Captain America transitions from World War II to modern day), as well as setup moments involving "Leonard" (who should eventually become "Doc" Samson) and "Doctor Samuel Sterns" (who begins the transformation into Hulk arch-villain, the Leader). I thought it would've been cool if the "Mr Blue" that Banner text messages with in the film had turned out to be Reed Richards (as happened in the comics), but I guess that would've been asking too much (and potentially crossed studio lines, as I'm not sure who produces the Fantastic Four big screen adventures right now).

It's a fun film, with no shortage of big fight scenes. I'm not sure where they'll go in a sequel, as "the U.S. army versus the Hulk" motif was already beginning to grow old even this time around. But I'm sure they'll think of something.

Rating: *** 1/2

Got Some Time To Kill?

You could do worse than spend it here, watching trailers for upcoming movies!

How can I possibly watch the trailer for the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still and think that it's going to be anything but garbage (compared to the exquisite original)? Well, I guess I can... for now!