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Summer report card - so far

By Eric Robinette | Thursday, July 3, 2008, 08:34 AM

The summer movie season is only about half over, but since we’re headed into the long holiday weekend, I figured it was a good time to provide my quick takes on what’s come out so far. Remember - not all the fireworks are in the sky this weekend.

Grades link to full reviews.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
The follow-up to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe improves on the first installment, with much more lively action scenes, more realistic-looking effects, and a religious allegory that isn’t so baldly obvious. It takes a little too long to get going, but once it takes off, the movie works very well. Ben Barnes impresses as the titular prince, and the sword-fighting mice are charming and funny additions to the gang. At the rate this series is going, the third movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, due in 2010, looks very promising indeed. GRADE: B+

Get Smart
The ’60s TV spy spoof makes for a decently engaging big screen comedy. Its biggest mistake is that it tries too hard to be an action movie, and comedy director Peter Segal is unskilled and clumsy in this genre. Still, it works because of the two leads, Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, who are always eminently watchable. GRADE: B

Hancock
The ads for the film make it look like it’s about a superhero who really doesn’t care to be a hero - and that part of the movie is the part that works best, thanks to some sharp writing and direction. Then, about halfway in, the plot twists and the movie becomes a completely different animal. The two halves don’t mesh very well, but even in the movie’s rough patches, it works because of the very likable cast of Will Smith, Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron. It’s inconsistent, but entertaining. GRADE: B

The Happening
It’s neither an unmitigated disaster, nor a misunderstood gem. Instead, M. Night Shyamalan’s movie is a confused mess. It can’t decide whether it wants to be a Hitchcockian thriller, a goofy B movie or a message picture about being nice to Mother Nature. The director’s visual style is still potent enough to create some suspenseful scenes, but that’s not enough to overcome the jumbled tone. A fascinating misfire, but a misfire all the same. GRADE: C

The Incredible Hulk
More like the “Just Kinda OK Hulk.” Marvel tries to atone for the alleged sins of the 2003 Hulk movie by making a new one that’s more of an action flick. The problem is, in making the new movie more muscular, they’ve also made it dumber than Ang Lee’s version. The action scenes are decent, and Edward Norton is good as Bruce Banner, but Liv Tyler is badly miscast as the love interest, and the villain is bland. There may be visual fireworks, but there’s almost nothing to care about. GRADE: C+

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Hancock: A heroic mess

By Eric Robinette | Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 08:00 AM

At one point in Hancock, the title character talks about how he was going to see the movie Frankenstein at about the same time he discovered his superpowers.

That reference may be more fitting than the filmmakers intended. Hancock is a Frankenstein monster of a movie. Parts of it are wild and fun; other parts are lumbering and ungainly. The uneven second half has made people unjustly compare the film to gargantuan misfires like Last Action Hero and Wild Wild West. Unlike those movies, however, Hancock works, partly because it’s such a strange animal.

The movie starts out as you might expect from the ads: Hancock (Will Smith) is a superhero who isn’t much of a hero. Sure, he usually stops the bad guys and saves the day, but he makes a heck of a mess doing it. When he stops a vehicle full of armed men, he does so by digging his feet into the highway and ripping the road apart.

Even worse than his destructiveness is Hancock’s attitude. He doesn’t give a rip what people think of him or his “heroics.” When he saves a motorist from getting hit by a train, he tells the other drivers, “Ok, you people who were blocking the intersection? Y’all are idiots.”

Enter public relations man Ray Embrey (Jason Batman), who’s fascinated by Hancock and wants to redeem him. His solution: have Hancock turn himself in to prison, allow the crime rate to skyrocket and let Hancock do his stuff when he’s needed most. Most of this material is very funny and clever.

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Today’s DVDs: Drillbit Taylor, Vantage Point

By Eric Robinette | Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 08:53 AM

Today’s DVDs bring us two flawed but decent spring entertainments.

Drillbit Taylor: Widely regarded as the clunker in the Judd Apatow factory, the movie does take too long to get going, because at firt it doesn’t realize the kids who need protection from a bully are the real stars, not the less funny adults. When the kids move front and center and start cracking the jokes, the movie works, if only just so. Full review: GRADE: B-

Vantage Point: This gimmicky thriller that covers an assassination plot from several points of view gets a touch too frenetic, and the more frenetic it gets, the more ridiculous it gets. Even so, there’s enough energy in the movie to make it a solid programmer that doesn’t aim too high, but still scores. Strong editing from Stuart Baird (the first two Lethal Weapon movies; Casino Royale) helps a lot. GRADE: B

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What movies made you ecstatic with praise?

By Eric Robinette | Monday, June 30, 2008, 12:34 PM

True to my word in my review Friday, I saw WALL-E a second and a third time. And I just might go a fourth time this week.

Yes, I think it’s THAT great. Each viewing only reminds me of that. You know you love a movie when even three-star reviews irritate you.

So with that in mind, I ask you: What movies have made you just absolutely flip, praising it to the skies at every turn? What movies have made you repeatedly say to people, “You’ve GOT to see this one!”

Let me know. It can be a movie you’ve seen in a theater or at home. And while you’re at it, tell me what you thought of WALL-E. I particularly liked this comment.

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WALL-E: One of Pixar’s very best

By Eric Robinette | Thursday, June 26, 2008, 12:00 PM

How much did I love WALL-E? Let me list the ways.

• I didn’t want it to end. Immediately after the credits rolled and the Pixar logo’s light clicked off, I wanted to run up to the projectionist and ask him to show the movie again.

• Failing that, I immediately made plans to see the movie for at least a second time this weekend. Maybe even a third.

• I called three friends to rave about the film only minutes after seeing it.

• I also looked into buying the soundtrack with Thomas Newman’s absolutely gorgeous score.

• Watching WALL-E, I forgot I was in a movie theater.

So why is the movie this wonderful? Aside from the visual splendor and the storytelling savvy I’ve come to expect from Pixar, it’s like no other animated movie I’ve ever seen. WALL-E has about 10 minutes of human dialogue, if that, so the movie relies almost completely on images to tell its story. The effect is spellbinding.

WALL-E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth class, and he has lots of work to do. He lives on Earth, hundreds of years from now. Humans have abandoned the planet, leaving trash everywhere. We see that there had been a whole fleet of WALL-Es, but only one remains.

As dutiful as he is, WALL-E is not merely a machine. He’s a curious little romantic. He constantly plays with objects he finds in the wreckage, throwing away a diamond ring but keeping the box. His favorite pastime is watching a VHS tape of Hello, Dolly!, his only indicator of what people were like. WALL-E can’t speak English, but his forlorn eyes make it obvious he longs for company besides a cockroach.

Company arrives in the form of EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a sleek little robot with a gleaming white surface and lights that blink from within. (She’s clearly a nod to Apple products.) While she rockets around looking for signs of organic life, the smitten WALL-E follows her everywhere, to her initial annoyance and eventual amusement. But when he finds what she is looking for, things don’t turn out at all as WALL-E expects.

The last act of the picture, which takes place mostly on the spaceship where humans have been living, is brasher in tone, but necessarily so. A few people have accused this part of WALL-E of being preachy, never mind that there’s not much dialogue. The movie obviously has a “green” message on its mind, but it’s delivered in such a creative, lighthearted way that it only adds to the movie’s immense appeal.

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What’s opening Friday, June 27?

By Eric Robinette | Thursday, June 26, 2008, 08:04 AM

If WALL-E were the only film to open this weekend, that should more than suffice for most people. However, there are actually some other interesting attractions this weekend.

Wanted: This Angelina Jolie action flick has attracted surprisingly strong reviews. I just might check it out this weekend, after seeing WALL-E for the second or third time.

At the arthouses

The Neon in Dayton opens the well-reviewed Priceless, with Audrey Tautou of Amelie fame. Little Art opens Then She Found Me, directed by Helen Hunt.

The Ultra Cool Films series at Victoria Theatre begins its great lineup this weekend with The King and I, one of the better Rodgers and Hammerstein film adaptations, thanks in no small part to the performances by Deborah Kerr and Oscar winner Yul Brynner.

My WALL-E review posts at noon. Prepare yourselves for a gusher.

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Can ‘The Dark Knight’ come out NOW, please?

By Eric Robinette | Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 12:14 PM

Now that I’ve seen WALL-E, a new film has to take its place as the movie I’m most looking forward to seeing this year.

That would be The Dark Knight.

I was already primed to see the movie, but this interview director Christopher Nolan gave to Wired magazine made me feel like a starving animal.

The interview emphasizes how Nolan eschews digital effects for practical ones, and how he shot parts of it with IMAX cameras. Most feature that play on IMAX screens are digital blow-ups of a 35-millimeter negative, but since Nolan used actual IMAX cameras, those scenes will have extra kick.

Key quotes:

“Anything you notice as technology reminds you that you’re in a movie theater,” Nolan explains. “Even if you’re trying to portray something fantastical and otherworldly, it’s always about trying to achieve invisible manipulation.” Especially, he adds, with Batman, “the most real of all the superheroes, who has no superpowers.”

“So we got an Imax shot of Christian Bale as Batman standing on top of the Sears Tower,” (cinematographer Wally) Pfister says. “Here we are with our principal actor standing on the edge of one of the tallest buildings in the world. I think a lot of people will assume that’s CGI.”

“I don’t know what this thing is, exactly,” [Nolan] says, “but I know it’s what I wanted.” He pauses. “Be careful what you wish for!”

OK, Chris, but I’m still wishing for July 18 to get here really fast.

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