Wrath of the Titans

The 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans was one of the most lame, clichéd, boring blockbusters of the past few years. It consisted of hard-to-follow action scenes, glued together by contrived exposition scenes and a plot that I want to nominate for most predictable of all time.

Wrath of the Titans is the fresh-out-of-the-oven sequel, and I can't believe they managed to outdo the original in badness.

Sam Worthington returns as Perseus, the demigod son of Zeus (Liam Neeson). In the end of the last movie, Zeus resurrected Perseus' love interest Io (despite Hades being the lord of the dead) so the two can live happily and mortally for all their years. In the beginning of the sequel, Io has died again, and left Perseus with a twelve(ish)-year-old son. Now that the gods are losing their power, the walls of Tartarus are... actually, none of this matters. They go and fight a bunch of monsters, as well as Ares and Hades, to save Zeus from being used as a catalyst to resurrect Kronos (SUPER BIG LAVA MAN). There's your plot.

None of the characters are consistent between movies. Zeus has suddenly turned into Jesus Christ, apparently so overwhelmed by his character development in the first movie that now he's become a xerox of the human-loving Zeus in Immortals. Also, his war with Hades at the end of Clash is handwaved away, so that Hades' "betrayal" at the beginning of Wrath can be made shocking. Perseus apparently got over his hatred of the gods so well that now he thinks he's "not worthy" because he's not a full god. Andromeda, damsel in distress of the first film, is now the Queen of Greece (what?) instead of being the Princess of Argos.

The movie isn't even consistent with itself. It's established early on that the Gods are becoming mortal because humanity doesn't pray to them anymore, but later on a big plot point is made about how the soldiers Perseus is saddled with have a reflex-like habit of praying to Ares, and if they do he'll know where they are. And here's another: At the end, the Redshirt army stays back to "hold the line" while Perseus finds the means to kill Kronos. ...except that they're not really defending anything. They're just camped out in a valley. What are they trying to keep Kronos' army from reaching, the stone wall behind themselves?

I mean, I can see why they just gave up: The first film had a terrible plot, and other than "Zeus vs. Hades", it didn't have much material to work on in a sequel. But at least it tried. I can't believe I'm giving Clash of the Titans this admission: it tried.

But okay, a worthless story can be forgiven for other strengths. Wrath's trailers showed some cool stuff with the Titans coming and killing people and stuff. Well, I guess they would be cool if the action scenes didn't suffer from some of the worst Too-Rapid-Editing-Syndrome I've ever seen, as well as really bad scripting. Perseus kills like three monsters by choking them. Come on, the least this movie can do is have some imaginative kills. And by "imaginative", I do not mean "Perseus suplexes Ares".

Oh yeah. Perseus suplexes Ares. There's professional wrestling in this movie about Greek Mythology.

There are only two good things about this film. Bill Nighy gets a fifteen-minute role as Hephasteus, whom he plays as "Davy Jones with an even thicker Scottish accent trying to act like Jack Sparrow". That's some of the funniest shit I've seen in a while. Also, Sam Worthington no longer has a buzzcut.

Don't see this film. It's shit. If you decide to ignore my warnings, then at least don't see it in 3D. The 3D is pointless and doesn't add anything to the movie. You'll just be wasting even more of your money.

John Carter (of Mars)

Neither of the Martian moons are that big.

I recently saw The Artist. However, I didn't end up writing a review, because really, what can I say about a movie that already won Best Picture and thus became the official target for all "OVERRATED OSCARBAIT" accusations in the world? In the same way, reviewing John Carter is kind of hard now that it's turned out to be the biggest box office bomb in the history of cinema. Disney is losing 200 000 000$ on this film. Now that's a statistic, which is hard to wrap your head around, so let's put it in perspective: Chronicle and The Artist (films far superior to John Carter) both cost fifteen million to make. In 1994, True Lies was the most expensive film ever made. It cost somewhere between 100 million and 120 million. With just the money Disney lost on John Carter, you could make True lies, Chronicle, The Artist and still have tens of millions to spend.

And this movie isn't even doing badly, per se. It has made plenty of money (most of it in the "foreign" market). It's just that when your movie costs a quarter billion to make, it has to be miraculously good or it bombs. Simple math.

But yeah, aside from preferring Chronicle and The Artist over it, what did I think of John Carter? Now that's another tough nut to crack. My brother pointed out that while I said it was "pretty okay" when I came from the cinema, I've been talking about it very excitedly since. The thing is, the movie isn't really good, so much as it's interesting. It's based on a series of books by the author of Tarzan, which premiered a hundred years ago. The books influenced the sci-fi and fantasy genres so much it's not even funny. Everything from Superman to Super Mario Bros lives in this franchise's shadow.

So when you're adapting something so archetypical to a movie in present day, you've got two choices. Either leave the plot as it was, and thus suffer accusations of unoriginality and clichédness, or change it around to make it more fresh, and thus suffer the wrath of purists. I don't have any answer to this dilemma, and I'm not sure if the choices to pick Answer #1 worked for Carter or not. Make no mistake: this plot is very predictable and bland, but what did you except from something a hundred years old? I went in to see interesting visual designs and cool action scenes, and I kind of got what I went in for. It's hard to be disappointed by the film that lost 200 million to its makers.

Oh, I assume you want to know what it's about, then? Well, I can't blame you. It's not like I knew the books that well until a month ago, and the marketing for this film has been atrocious. John Carter is a former cavalryman of the Confederate army of the United States. He tries to find gold in Arizona, but instead finds a strange bald man who tries to kill him. During a brawl between the two, John gets zapped to Mars. There, he gets tangled in a crazy-ass civil war where shadowy figures are manipulating one side. Also, since Mars has lower gravity than Earth, John can jump super-high and is super-strong. So he saves a princess and becomes a hero and settles down on a world that feels more like home than Earth does.

Now whether you can handle the clichéd plot like I can, that's up to you. But what I can criticise in a less subjective light is the script. The comedy is really bad (in fact, the more light-hearted beginning set on Earth is so out of tone that thinking back on it after the movie has ended feels like you're remembering a different film altogether). The romance comes off as annoying. I also think that the altered framing device they use, instead of the book's "he died and then he woke back on Earth" thing, is a really bad move. The last ten minutes of the movie are really bad and rushed.

The action works well most of the time. It succumbs to Too-Rapid-Editing-Syndrome (TRES) at times, but I have to say that the scene where John is jumping from airship to airship during a mid-air skirmish is damn impressive. Other than that, it's the basic good action-adventure thing you'd expect from a Disney blockbuster. The effects are really good, and all the Martian species look damn impressive, but there isn't really any jaw-dropping scene you'd expect from a quarter-billion film. As for the 3D... I actually forgot this film was in 3D until just now. It added jack shit to the movie, but at least it didn't harm it because most of it takes place in bright environments.

Yeah, overall John Carter is a pretty average film. I liked the mythology and the design of everything, and I didn't really get bored at any point. I'm not sure whether I can actually recommend it to anyone. As I said, it's more interesting than it is good. Take it for what it's worth.

Chronicle

The film isn't nearly this gray.

Chronicle is another attempt to "grittify" the superhero genre. No costumes, no epic secret origins, no secret identities. It's even shot in a "found footage" style (y'know, like Cloverfield, except from the POVs of several different cameras instead of just one) to tap into the spirit of the modern time. I don't think it's really revolutionary or anything, but I did like it.

The film's about three high schoolers (Andrew, Matt and Steve) who get telekinetic superpowers from exposure to a mysterious crystal in an underground cave. Andrew is the quiet, friendless geek who has a really hard life at home and has coincidentally decided to start filming everything with a camcorder. Steve is the party animal whom everyone in the school likes, and who tends to act impulsively when he gets excited. Matt is... uh, Andrew's cousin. Who likes philosophy, I guess.

The teens start to explore different uses for their powers. Much of the middle of the movie is like a youtube video of a bunch of idiots doing really reckless stuff, but only with superpowers instead of booze. However, things heat up and the guys' new-found friendship breaks apart in a conflict where each combatant has the power to rip through buildings with just a thought.

The characters and plot are an interesting thing to me: I tend to be really averse to stories (both real and fictional) where a bunch of idiots mess something up and act like jackasses while filming everything. However, Chronicle makes it work... most of the time. Even though the "training phase" takes place over several weeks of in-universe time, the three protagonists don't really seem to put "not being discovered" very high on their list of priorities. A lot of the time, their antics are actually kind of amusing, but every now and then there's a scene that makes me groan.

The performances are okay, but nothing spectacular, and the overall story is pretty well done, except for a weird character arc thing. I felt like the "training phase" in the movie stopped all character development on its tracks for about half an hour, and when the third act nears, Andrew and Matt suddenly get traits that were never there before. The film suddenly feels it needs to have a hero and a villain, and the characterisation shift just feels forced. Also, Andrew gets a scene with his mother where she gives him his big motto (which is used a grand total of twice in the film), but the dialogue makes no sense. Why is she saying "You are stronger than this"? Stronger than what?

The "found footage"-style is done well, in my opinion. I felt a little dizzy early in the movie (though that may have been hunger), but once the heroes start levitating the camera steadily around themselves, it gets less disorienting. The final fight scene uses a lot of different cameras, including security footage and news footage, for different angles. It doesn't feel gimmicky, and the characters rarely talk to the camera.

Overall, I think it's a damn fine film. It has great effects, nice comedy and a somewhat thought-provoking story. It's worth seeing, unless you get motion sickness really easily or can't stand high school drama.



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There's something I want to talk about in this movie, but which requires me to spoil the film. I'm putting it here, after the review proper. SPOILERS ARE BELOW THIS PARAGRAPH.

The movie ends up making Andrew the bad guy. He loses his shit, accidentally kills Steve and goes on a rampage so Matt has to stop him. As I mentioned above, the writers added random evilness to Andrew in the late second act, which come out of nowhere. Conversely, Matt's random love interest feels really intrusive and plays almost no role in the film other than underlining this guy is good for the audience.

Personally, I really identified with Andrew for most of the film. Almost to a worrying extent. When he starts going nuts, I was totally with him. He tears three teeth off the mouth of one of his bullies. I don't know what it speaks about me, but I can totally get behind that, though I'd think it would be wrong if the story had Andrew use non-fantastic means to achieve this feat. If he kicked the shit out of his bully, I couldn't root for him. When he uses telekinetic powers, I cheer.

Andrew's father is one of the worst monsters I've seen in a film. Period. One of my main issues with Chronicle is that the character survives. He deserved to die a thousand times over, and Hell would have been too good for him. In the end, they do a scene where it looks like the father is about to get sympathetic, which made me groan, but to my relief he actually gets even worse. If they'd tried to do a "he's not so bad" turn for him, I'd have been seriously pissed off.

The writers probably weren't intending anything by making the awkward nerd turn into a psychopath, but some of the parts of the story are a bit unfortunate. Andrew's bullies are all jock idiots, but later he gives into peer pressure and tries to conform. He fails, and that's when his big turn to evil happens. I think the movie tries to put the good old "peer pressure makes you evil" thing, but it ends up feeling more like "he's so bad at this that he can't even be the cool guy everyone likes! Obviously there's something wrong with him."

I dunno. I like a movie that makes me think. Hope this rant makes any sense.

The Grey

The premise for The Grey is very simple, and kind of familiar. That is to say, the same movie basically already exists in the form of 1997's The Edge. Only, in that case it's Anthony Hopkins instead of Liam Neeson, a bear instead of a pack of wolves, and if I recall correctly, that movie was way less good.

Liam Neeson plays a hunter who works for an oil refinery to keep the wildlife at bay in Alaska (apparently they can't afford fences). He is depressed and finds no purpose in his life, only to have things shaken up when his plane crashes into the snowy wilderness. He has to rally the survivors and try to make it back to civilisation. Unnaturally persistent wolves hunt for them, picking the group apart one by one.

Right, so it's a survival drama movie. What's it got going for itself? Well, I'm a fan of Neeson, though that's mostly because he looks uncannily like my dad. He's a good actor, though, and I can't recall a movie where he'd been bad per se. The other actors are also good, and the side characters are written well enough that they don't come off as stereotypes who are only there to be killed. The wolves are really well executed, and come off as really menacing, their presence hanging over the film throughout.

Now here's something the marketing really lied about: There's way less action in the film than the trailers would let you believe. It's a more about suspense and the characters. I prefer it this way, but I can see if some people are put off by the difference. The ending may also disappoint some people, but I liked it.

Now here's something I rarely comment on or notice in a film: The Grey has excellent sound effects and sound editing. When the plane crashes, the film does its best to deafen half the audience, and it really feels like a huge hunk of metal is ripping apart. Every impact in the film is accompanied with a violent sound that makes the viewer feel the blow. The howling of the wolves is damn scary. I actually think that watching this outside the cinema will be way less impressive due to the lowered sound fidelity.

The directing and editing are top-notch: in the beginning, the main character's depression is portrayed more through camera angles and muted sounds than Neeson's melodramatic monologue. Throughout the journey, the cameraman and composer are playing with the viewer's expectations to make it as hard to tell as possible when a wolf is going to show up.

I really liked it. Aside from some pacing issues, faulty marketing and an over-reliance on Liam Neeson, it's an A-grade drama/suspense/action flick. And though this is really ridiculous, I have to add in the fact that Ridley Scott is the producer and they had someone wear a Weyland-Yutani baseball cap. I'm way too easily amused.

This Means War

The film is as dull as this poster.

This movie suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.

I don't usually put things that bluntly. I mean, I gave Transformers 3 and freaking Immortals a fair treatment, but this film was just so bad. I went in knowing it would suck ("you gotta see one shitty movie a year to appreciate the good ones" was my mantra that day), only to be thoroughly surprised by the depths of suckitude contained within.

This Means War is a romantic comedy/action film about two CIA agents who are grounded after they fail a mission. To pass off the time, they decide to get back into dating, and accidentally both hit it off with the same girl. They decide to let her choose which one to keep, but slowly start to utilise their CIA equipment and resources to spy on her and sabotage each others' dates.

It's basically "True Lies meets There's Something About Mary". Except without the fantastic action of the former and the genuine amusement of the latter.

The three lead characters are played by Chris Pine (as the slick, super-arrogant ladies man), Tom Hardy (as the safer divorcee) and Reese Witherspoon (as a love interest whose only real personality is her wacky job and even wackier best friend). All of them at least try, but none are given good enough material to make their characters likeable. The guys come off as creepy and obsessed, and never get punished for probably wasting millions of dollars on their childish antics, and the girl only exists to present new challenges for them to overcome.

The script is annoying and really bad. There are "running gags" which only happen twice in the whole movie, and thus make no freaking sense and are not funny. The different "romantic" scenarios are badly planned and make little to no sense. The subplot with a vengeful gangster trying to get revenge of the CIA agents is so thin it might as well not exist. What's more, the film is really badly paced, with an over-reliance on montages to pad itself out.

The action is badly shot, and it's hard to tell what's happening a lot of the time. None of the chase scenes or shootouts are memorable at all. The few jokes that could have been good are all shown in the trailer. The cinematography is bad. The music is forgettable, other than the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" when the guys are ruining each others' dates (GET IT?). The resolution at the end is so predictable and unimaginative, it's bad even by romantic comedy standards. It's just an all-around bad movie...

And I had a blast watching it. Me and my friends were laughing so hard at how bad this was, and at how most of the audience seemed to eat it up (or maybe they were being as ironic as we were). We had a great time in the cinema, that day, but the movie is still shit, plain and simple.

Carnage

This poster sums up the movie perfectly.

Two eleven-year-olds have a fight. Zachary hits Ethan in the face with a stick, causing him to lose two teeth. The parents of the kids meet up to have a civil discussion about the matter, and talk about what needs to be done over espresso and cake.

Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster), Ethan's mother, is an artistic soul who believes in humanitarianism and strives to help the peoples of Africa by writing a book about their suffering. Her husband Michael (John C. Reilly) is a rough and honest man's man who sells kitchen and toilet apparel for a living. Nancy Cowan (Kate Winslet), Zachary's mother, is a sophisticated, calm woman who wants to get this all over with, while her spouse Alan (Christoph Waltz) is a lawyer who can't go ten minutes without answering a phone call about "the most important case in his life", and who believes his son is a lunatic who'll never learn to not hit people.

As the four characters talk, their civility starts to erode, their conflicts start to heat up, and eventually they get drunk off some scotch and have violent arguments about increasingly irrelevant topics.

It's readily apparent that Roman Polanski's Carnage is based on a stage play: for 95% of the movie, there are only four characters and only one locale. It happens in real time: it's a 75-minute film about a 75-minute argument between four people. Due to the minimalistic approach, the quality of the movie depends solely on two things: the writing and the acting. And those two things are great. I love how flawed these characters are. They're all scumbags in their own way, and all their character flaws get critiqued and examined by the others. The various shouting matches between them see all kinds of alliances: at several times, the spouses are arguing amongst themselves and the other couple splits up on their view of the matter.

The actors all do a great job. Christoph Waltz manages to be so very, very arrogant and annoying. Almost every time he opens his mouth, you can't help but laugh and shake your head at his delivery. Jodie Foster has one of the best on-screen nervous breakdowns I've seen in a film, Kate Winslet does a fantastic job at portraying a character who becomes a completely different person when drunk, and John C. Reilly sells his role so well, I'm having a hard time believing he acted at all.

There isn't much else to say. The editing and shooting are both done in a minimalistic style, where you don't notice them. It fits the style of the movie. The only real criticism I have is that it ends too suddenly. It was just the right length, but I wish there had been more denouement for the characters.

I definitely recommend this film, if you're the sort that likes talky, character-focused movies. Movie year 2012 started out strong for me, with a film I first heard of two days before I saw it.

2011 as a movie year

'twas all right.

I can't help but be underwhelmed by a year that didn't supply anything to my list of favourite films of all time. 2009 gave me The Princess and the Frog and 2010 introduced me to Scott Pilgrim. This year didn't really have a definite stand-out best film for my tastes.

As far as drama goes, Drive and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were the best that I saw, representing the opposite virtues of minimalism and... blockbuster-ism.

In action, Tintin was the best. Captain America gets a honourable mention for managing to do well worldwide, while apparently North America couldn't care less for Tintin.

Even my more optimistic movienut friend was willing to admit that this was a poor year for comedy. Paul was the best that comes to mind, and though it's a pretty good film, the general level of humour was low. Midnight in Paris gets the honourable mention for Adrien Brody as Salvador Dalí, the best one-scene performance of the year by far.

Immortals was the shittiest film I saw. Transformers 3 was really bad too, but somehow I can't really get emotional about a Transformers movie being bad anymore at this point.

I don't really care that much for Oscars, myself, so no comments about my guesses or bets regarding the nominations and victories there.

Well, that's it for 2011. Let's see what 2012 has in store! Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit and Prometheus seem to hold a lot of promise.

PS. 13 Assassins was left unmentioned in this post because it saw its original Japanese release in 2010. If it was a 2011 movie, it'd be the best one.