Going further back into the 2000's decade, I'm encountering many more of those films (good and bad) that I encountered as a child (Prince Caspian, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Nim's Island, City of Ember), so writing this has been a huge nostalgia trip. Some of these films are tolerable, some of these films are barely tolerable, and some are intolerable. But despite some of the forgotten blockbusters present, there are also some films here that are still brought up in daily conversation today, such as Australia, Burn After Reading, Iron Man and Quantum of Solace. Either way, maybe you'll find one of your favorites here, or maybe just a guilty pleasure. Maybe we both like the same movie. Maybe we both dislike it. Maybe we disagree. Let me know in the comments section, and pleasant reading!
Australia
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Brandon Walters
Release Date: November 26, 2008
Running Time: 165 minutes
Rating: 4/5
I can't really say that I like any particular Baz Luhrmann film more than any other- they're all kind of OK, from my perspective, each possessing some good points and some flaws. Looking back, Australia seems to have the least amount of things wrong with it, and yet it's nowhere near as fun as some of his other films. It's not as fine-tuned as Moulin Rouge! and it almost seems boring by comparison, considering how much Luhrmann has toned down his Luhrmann-ness in this piece. Even the story itself kind of flounders. And yet something about this film works- maybe it's the epic scale of the production, but to one degree or another, this is a highly entertaining film in its own right. Australia is a romantic epic about a cattle drive from the Faraway Downs ranch in the outback all the way to Darwin up on the northern coast. The highlights of the film are the beautiful images of the outback, the climactic scene of stampeding cattle, and the devastating bombing of Darwin. Luhrmann's use of CGI is obvious, but his use of it is so shameless that it becomes charming. And as always, there's a certain kind of stilted camp in the dialogue: the characters never really flow through the story, half the time, they seem human and genuine, the other half, they're merely puppets for their character tropes. Yet the experience isn't any less entertaining as a result of this: we're still filled with wonder from the sights of deserts painted red by the sunset and impossibly high cliff faces. Australia is far from a bad movie- a flawed movie, yes, but it retains a special kind of magic and stands out as the perhaps most accessible film from the repertoire of one of Hollywood's greatest technical wizards.
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt
Release Date: September 12, 2008
Running Time: 95 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
While Burn After Reading is certainly an entertaining film and by no means a bad one, it's still a mediocre effort compared to the stellar track record of the Coen Brothers. Burn After Reading might best be described as an anti-spy-film: that is, nobody knows what they're doing and none of it matters in the grand scheme of things. To be more specific, the story begins when two gym employees, Chad and Linda, stumble across a disc containing classified CIA information. They believe it to be highly important when it is, in fact, worthless. The situation is set up for hilarity, but as always, the Coens manage to leave their idiosyncratic fingerprint in more subtle ways. There are moments in scenes in Burn After Reading that are undeniably hilarious, certainly. Brad Pitt steals the show in his first perfromance (and to my knowledge, his only performance) in an outright comedy, as he attempts to blackmail the ex-CIA official over the phone. And once again the comedic best is brought out from a paranoid George Clooney and an appearance-obsessed Frances McDormand, who seeks to use the blackmail money to pay for plastic surgery. Here, the Coens have assembled a brilliant ensemble cast, but for a film that's really about... nothing. Burn After Reading openly acknowledges that it's a film about nothing; and perhaps that's why it's received the criticism that it has. This could set the story free, but instead, it often hampers our ability to care for the characters, and the dark turns the story takes leave us feeling cold and detached- good comedies have done this before, but somehow when the credits roll, when I should have been laughing, I was instead sitting with a blank look on my face. It's not that the story was particularly confusing. A better word to describe it would be bewildering. Burn After Reading is, at the very least, interesting. It's strange without being surreal, full of awkward pacing and scenes with little apparent purpose- and yet unlike The Big Lebowski, it fails to be colorful or lively enough to really stick in our memory. You're likely to find some enjoyment in it, but don't expect to find an unsung masterpiece.
Director: Steve McQueen
Starring: Michael Fassbinder
Release Date: October 31, 2008
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
I watched Steve McQueen's Hunger on an absolutely awful video player which cropped out the edges and corners of the screen, and yet for the most part, I could still figure out what was going on, even though I could often not see eyes or facial expressions for most of the film. Even if this were not the case, I'm still fairly sure that this is a film that aims to hide things from us, outside of the frame. It requires you to interpret silence, and brings you to an uncomfortable level of intimacy with prison inmates who smear the walls with fecal matter. This is visual storytelling- a document of humans tested to their absolute limits, by way of the IRA hunger strikes led by Bobby Sands in response to the revocation of his and his fellow prisoners' political status. The audience watches in awe and terror as Sands shrivels down to a mere living skeleton, so frail that the weight of a blanket over his body would be too much for his lungs to support. The highlight of this film, for many, is the fifteen minute conversation in the middle of the movie, where Sands speaks with a priest about the morality of the hunger strike. The camera never moves during this entire conversation, and yet the dialogue contains so much mobility- Steve McQueen uses the slow pacing to lend his film an immersive quality, so that the dialogue itself is all that we need to be involved. Hunger is an art house film and a historical drama, but it's hardly appealing on any other level, if it can be considered appealing on any level, because it makes such a point of being remarkably unpleasant. It is pensive, but dull- jolting, but dismal. And it makes no claim to be anything else- and as a result, I would have a hard time recommending it to anyone. The one thing that I did like about it was how quickly it seemed to go by. It's interesting how McQueen can make the 96-minute Hunger almost seem like a 15-minute short film. The problem with that is that films like this would often be better if they really were short films.
Director: Andrew Adamson
Starring: Ben Barnes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley
Release Date: May 16, 2008
Running Time: 150 mintues
Rating: 3.5/5
While some were undoubtedly disappointed with Prince Caspian, I know many more who truly enjoyed it- and as far as sequels go, it's one of the more competent. Prince Caspian, in a way, somehow left us feeling more optimistic about the Narnia movies to come than even the first movie did. For one thing, Prince Caspian really knows how to adapt a novel properly: not only does it focus on the more dramatic and exciting elements of the story and trim out unnecessary details, but it also understands the true theme at the heart of the book and places that within the core of the film, hence succeeding where Voyage of the Dawn Treader failed. In the series' first installment, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the world is brimming with magic, wonder, and a clear sense of good and evil. At the end of the adventure, after the credits, Lucy can be seen trying to re-enter the wardrobe, only to learn that Narnia won't take them back until they are needed. I argue that the inverse is also true: the children are summoned back when they need Narnia, because for Lewis and his didactic style of storytelling, if kids are going to have a magical adventure, they'd better learn something while having it, or there's no point. What's interesting about Prince Caspian is that the moral is less clear than the first- the reason for this being is that the children are growing up and getting ready to enter a less morally clear world than the world of their childhood. Within Prince Caspian, the problems are more political, the threats more adult, and the tone darker. Faced with an army of discontented rebels and an oppressive government that outnumbers them, the four Pevensie children are confronted with a new type of warfare that requires them to make more difficult decisions. Here, we're treated to the same kind of stunning imagery that the first film excelled so well at creating, with all new sights, sounds, and characters- such as the Dryads and Naiads, a talking mouse named Reepicheep, and a stunning battle climax good enough to openly challenge that of the first film. Despite all the creativity of Prince Caspian, its themes to lend it to a more subdued and less dramatic approach, thus causing it to be considerably less impressive. It will still satisfy Narnia fans, but if it does hold up, it's largely because of its connections to the franchise: on its own merit, it's fairly predictable.
Director: Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass
Starring: Ross Partridge, Elise Muller, Greta Gerwig, Steve Zissis
Release Date: June 13, 2008
Running Time: 84 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Baghead exemplifies the peak of an obscure trend within an obscure trend: that is, mumblegore- the horror subgenre of the mumblecore style of cinema, which is itself just a 21st-century awkward pastiche of the cinema verite of the likes of Godard and Truffaut. But don't expect anything close to that level of filmmaking. There is a level of suspense in Baghead, as a group of friends spends the weekend together in a cabin only to find themselves terrorized by the "baghead" killer of the screenplay they're writing, unsure whether it's some bad joke or if the killer is for real. Classified as an indie horror comedy, Baghead is a far cry from being either a horror or a comedy. If there is any true humor, it lies in the extent to which the film mocks its own low-budget indie status with the characters' humble ambitions to score big at pretentious indie film festivals. It plays out more like a horrid painful drama. There is wonderful "fly on the wall" realism, almost as if there is no camera there. This is surprising because of how much the camera is constantly moving- it's all done on lo-fi handheld. The only problem is that the people that the fly on the wall is watching are all assholes. Everyone is drunk or stoned half the time, and they're all so cruel to each other that any attempt at smuggling an emotional response from the audience would seem forced, though the film's complete lack of emotion is unsettling just as it is. It's scarcely five minutes before we realize how utterly bored with these characters we are. Baghead isn't a failure. The Duplass brothers, who directed the film, certainly knew what they were doing, much unlike the characters of the film themselves. And yet while the film stays true to form, it fails to be anything more than a forgettable indie curiosity.
Director: Eric Brevig
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem
Release Date: July 11, 2008
Running Time: 93 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
There's no real fine line between bad CGI and good CGI, and thus we have this flood of family sci-fi and fantasy films that seem to exist in this twilight zone of special-effects mediocrity. A good spiritual predecessor for this film might be the 1962 Disney romp In Search of the Castaways, which defies all laws of nature and physics and yet still has enough of the illusion of cinema to produce a certain charm. Here, we have scientists eating popsicles made out of frozen primordial goop they've collected, we have people falling thousands of feet and landing in water without dying, we have a train of mine-carts fly off their rails and make a perfect landing onto a different set of rails, we have people floating on magnetic rocks and running from dinosaurs. And it's beautiful. It's beautiful that in this age of nitpicking films for their scientific accuracy, that a film like this can be so shameless in its desire to simply entertain- and even if, in the end, it winds up being nothing more than a "guilty pleasure" of my childhood. A "guilty pleasure" indeed, considering how the imagination of this film far exceeds its capabilities, as we fumble over bland action-movie dialogue delivered to us Brendan Fraser's ungainly acting, and a long string of CGI monsters thrown into the movie just to make use of the film's special 3D release in theaters. Even the story eventually loses track of itself- no sooner do they arrive in their land of wonders when they realize that they need to escape. Still, anything's better than the dull and sluggish pacing of Verne's original novel. Journey to the Center of the Earth is not a great movie- in fact, it's quite easy to forget. But I bet that those who are reminded of it will more often remember it fondly than not.
Director: Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
Starring: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman
Release Date: May 9, 2008
Running Time: 135 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Despite being maligned as a disaster at the time of its release, Speed Racer has surprisingly garnered something of a cult following in more recent years, largely on account of its beautiful visual design and its fast-paced direction. More surprising still, I happen to be among those who see it as a more criminally underrated film- sure, it's not a particularly good film, but its flashy style and acid-trip aesthetic are no reason to hate it, and it satisfies in far more ways than one would expect it to. In short: Speed Racer is not a catastrophe. Yes, it's dazzling, filled with speeding camera shots, dizzying CGI, a constant rainbow of brilliant flashing colors- it really does feel like tripping out in an old-fashioned gaming arcade. This has been a reason for many to love the film and a reason for many more to hate it, so to examine the film's objective value, we must look at its other less noticeable aspects: for example, its shockingly well-constructed fight scenes. The Wachowskis, who directed films such as The Matrix and Cloud Atlas, may be celebrated and defamed alike for their intensive style, but one thing is for certain: they're experienced when it comes to action. And here, the action functions for perfect and entertaining storytelling. It's hard to craft a fight scene in a way that is neither boring nor disorienting- and this is exactly what they do, and not only in an interesting way, but in a very funny way as well. A film about racing could all too easily fall into the trap of being tedious, but this is never tedious for a moment: instead, it takes full advantage of all the possibilities that a dangerous race-track could contain, delivering us something that may very well be straight out of a child's limitless imagination. Sure, the humor may be more juvenile, but the traditional "Speed Racer" cartoons always had a certain amount of campy childishness about them. The fight was always between the small-time family operations and the corrupt business organizations- which brings us to a true deciding factor: the film's degree of faithfulness to its source material. It may be cluttered and showy, but Speed Racer understands what the original "Speed Racer" was all about, translating the characters perfectly, with a memorable performance from John Goodman as the irritable but affectionate "Pops", and I'd be lying if I said that Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci weren't a delight as well. It's not smart or heartwarming like a Pixar film- it's more about the pure and simple fun of a good exciting film. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a kid who wouldn't describe Speed Racer as "fun".
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Cate Blanchett, Shia LeBeouf, John Hurt
Release Date: May 22, 2008
Running Time: 119 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Somehow, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull doesn't strike me as being as bad as people say it is. Granted, it has its flaws- surviving a nuclear explosion by hiding in a refrigerator is beyond ridiculous- but most of the things about it that people criticize were all present in the old movies. And by this I mean goofy villains, bizarre supernatural elements, and physically impossible stunts. Aliens, giant ants, a crazy mumbling John Hurt, quicksand, and maniacal KGB agents don't seem that out of place in the Indiana Jones universe. And yet while many of these things aren't blatantly wrong or disrespectful to the canon, much of the film comes off as well-meaning but obnoxious. Here, I'm thinking specifically about Cate Blanchett's atrocious (and inconsistent) impression of a Russian spy- please, no one make her do an accent again. There's a lot at the end of the movie that doesn't seem to make sense- how on earth did the skull get detached from the alien's head to begin with? Why is the temple as booby-trapped as it is? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Little leaps and bounds in logic, such as these, can be found throughout the entire movie. And yet there are a lot of good things about the film as well: it's a standard adventure story with some pretty good action sequences. Shia LeBoeuf certainly doesn't disappoint in his role, and the romance with Marion Ravenwood from the first film is resumed, fulfilling the wishes of hundreds of fans. Even the story of a lost civilization housing an ancient secret of extraterrestrial intelligence seems pretty immersive for a while. But it it's too much, too quickly. It's like the people who made it underestimated the strength of the fanbase and thought they could get away with trying half as hard as they should have. But even if this film is half as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark is, that's still pretty decent.
Director: Jon Favreau
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow
Release Date: May 2, 2008
Running Time: 126 minutes
Rating: 3/5
I'm sad to confess that Iron Man is probably my least favorite of Marvel's superhero films... somehow, despite its technical sheen and its ambition to create a more modern, realistic superhero, it just seems just as cliche as any old Marvel film. Its ambitions to attach the weapons crisis to modern Middle East wars and bring Tony Stark, a very "modern guy" into the center to show the evolution of the superhero movie- this isn't new- Nolan had done the very same thing with the first Batman film, and now all that was happening was Marvel following in its footsteps. Sure, Iron Man is clever, and Robert Downey Jr. and Gwenyth Paltrow play the lead roles excellently as the promiscuous billionaire and his genius girlfriend. Sure, we see the story of a selfish rich guy becoming an empathetic hero, but the image of invulnerability that's associated with the character practically stifles the possibility for Stark to truly be a dynamic character. And while the first act may work as a good origin story, I find it impossible to ignore how boring the rest of the film is. A film can fail and falter in many elements, but when the problem is the story, you'd better believe that's a pretty big problem. The plot with the Ten Rings and the corporate conspiracy feels so unsatisfactory as a villain subplot, and as it eventually moves to center stage it's difficult to not see how underwhelming it all is. In short, Iron Man may be entertaining as a story of a guy with no powers who eventually develops powers, then encounters a problem which he rises to take down- but we've seen it before. Out of all the formulaic superhero films, this one strikes me as being the most formulaic- and even if it did impress upon its original release, it hardly holds a candle to all of the good superhero films that have been produced since then.
Director: Marc Forster
Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Gemma Arterton
Release Date: October 31, 2008
Running Time: 106 minutes
Rating: 3/5
I've encountered movies that have almost put me to sleep, and I have encountered films that have literally put me to sleep. But not until Quantum of Solace did I guess that one of these films would be an action film. Scarcely has there ever been a more amazing film with a more disappointing follow up than in this case. Casino Royale stunned us, bringing forward a gritty, new James Bond. Quantum of Solace, on the other hand, gives us all of the action and none of the inner psychology that made Casino Royale good. It is a soulless, thoughtless spy film. Consider the opening sequence: we have two cars locked in a deadly car chase, going around treacherously winding corners near the edges of cliffs, shooting at each other the whole time. The camera movement is so fast and shaky in this scene that you can never tell who's in which car or which car is doing the firing, or which car is getting shot at. This goes on for several minutes- eventually, once you realize that everything is moving so obnoxiously fast that you can't tell what's going on, you stop caring about what's going on. This might as well sum up the entire movie: we have bad guys all connected in this international spy ring, and so many names are dropped, and they're dropped so quickly, and everything is kept at such a bureaucratic level that even when a heartbreaking backstory is introduced for the Bond girl in this film, it's still difficult to care about anything. When Bond is called out of service for acting irresponsibly, you almost want him to head back to base and terminate the mission just to end the misery. If this film has anything going for it, it would be in the solid three-act structure that it maintains diligently (though this sadly increases the bore factor) and the performances of Bond and the villain, played magnificently by a sympathetic Mathieu Amalric. And I do have to praise the characterization of the female lead as being someone whose relation to Bond doesn't define her as a character: she has her own agenda, and to my memory their relationship stays largely Platonic- which, frankly, surprised me. What differentiates this from Daniel Craig's other Bond films are the textures: Quantum of Solace is dominated by hot environments, dry deserts, and the blinding sun- but aside from that, it's pretty bland and sour-tasting. The only thing I could not predict in this film was how predictable it turned out to be.
Director: Gil Kenan
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Murray, Martin Landau
Release Date: October 10, 2008
Running Time: 90 minutes
Rating: 3/5
A film about lost treasure, City of Ember is something of a lost treasure itself. It's a hidden gem of juvenile fiction sci-fi adapted from the preteen-targeted novel of the same name. But if I say it is a hidden gem, I don't mean that it's a ruby or a sapphire- it's really more of a quartz crystal. It's a film that's so interesting and fun to submerge yourself in, but once you do get submerged in it, you start realizing some things that don't add up. You stand back and take a look at it and you notice how gawky it all is... in the end, it's not as accomplished as Journey to the Center of the Earth or Speed Racer, but it has more heart than either of the two- and sadly, less brains. This is the perfect formula for charming mediocrity: it is not a failure, but it is by no means a success. Bill Murray is the deceptive and selfish mayor, Saoirse Ronan is the curious young girl (accompanied by her token boyfriend): what's not to like? To rephrase that: we have an entire race of people living far beneath the earth's surface in a subterranean city with a limited amount of energy. The people are terrorized by "blackouts" sudden shortages of electricity that threaten to keep them in the dark forever. There's such an "old things" aesthetic about it- this may have been the film that awakened me to the wonders of steampunk, who knows? But anyway the story begins when Saoirse Ronan's characters stumbles upon an old hidden box with instructions for how to escape the city. Why doesn't everybody know about the inevitable evacuation? If this is something that will endanger everyone's lives, why is it such a secret? We don't know. Why are rats and the cockroaches giant all of the sudden? How does that work out? City of Ember's fatal flaw is its whimsy, and watching it as a kid, even I can't forget how utterly frustrated I was with all of the things that it didn't explain, not to mention its somewhat, well, underwhelming ending. But even if it doesn't really make sense and it comes out as a confusing mess, it's still a beautiful mess with a very strong, upright, and imaginative spirit and I still hope to watch it again someday.
Dishonorable Mentions
Director: Mark Palansky
Starring: Christina Ricci, James McAvoy, Catherine O'Hara
Release Date: February 29, 2008
Running Time: 104 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
One of the few good things that I can say about Penelope is that it had a premise that was interesting enough to get me to watch it in the first place: a girl falls victim to a family curse that gives her a nose that resembles a pig's snout. The curse can only be removed when the girl can get "one of her own"- a.k.a. a high-class rich person- to truly love her... the cause of the curse was some form of class prejudice. And so, naturally, class prejudice actually operates as one of the major themes in the film- more so than you would think. Penelope appears to be about "loving yourself for who you are" and everything, and it is that, to some extent- but it's really more about laughing at how jerkish and shallow rich people are. And you'd be surprised at how much of that there is. Not that rich people shouldn't be made fun of: I'm just saying you can't use the same joke over and over again, the joke here being "rich people are dumb and awful" and expect it to work. But personally, my primary problem with the movie is that Christina Ricci is freaking adorable even with a cursed nose... like, she doesn't look the slightest bid bad or weird with it... and then she just walks into a room where there's a rich guy and suddenly he tries to run out the window because she apparently "looks like a monster". This is the definition of contrived: when a film forces you to accept things that happen within the world of the film while you can very easily dispute that those things would happen. But surprisingly, there's an interesting twist halfway through the film where Penelope reveals herself to the public and becomes a beloved cultural icon... so finally the characters of film are beginning to agree with the audience (that Penelope doesn't look all that bad) but even still it just turns the film into one big joke against rich people. The entire story is haunted by the obnoxious narration that tries so hard to be clever, a pervading presence of the self-righteous British left-wing that shows up in so many fairy tale fantasy films I see coming out of that country. All in all, it just comes down to a case of show, don't tell. Penelope tells too much and shows us too little. It comes so close to succeeding but it ultimately leaves us with a false projection of whimsy when what lies before us is in reality a film devoid of humor, story, or entertainment value.
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Starring: Kirsten Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Release Date: November 21, 2008
Running Time: 126 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
Like the fourth Indiana Jones installment and Speed Racer, Twilight is one of those films that surprised me by not being nearly as bad as people said it was. But unlike the other two, I can say with great assurance that it's definitely a bad movie. People have decried Twilight as being pretty much "the worst thing ever", and will often talk about bad things that are better than this movie almost as if this is the most insulting thing ever and it must become the butt of every joke. However, despite its obvious problems, it actually comes remarkably close to being just okay. Maybe its hated status provoked me to have some sympathy for it, but I don't even believe that it's the worst film of the year. I mean, on a purely technical level, it's actually pretty impressive- the film maintains so well the dull, cloudy, teen girl fantasy aesthetic. But starting here, I believe we have our first clues as to why it's so hated, and I think a large part of that has to do with its audience. Most people agree that preteen girls are obnoxious (personally, I would say all preteens are obnoxious) and so anything that tries to cater to preteen girls will just be obnoxious by default. And yet... I have to give it to Twilight for catering to that audience so well. Its main character is such a blank-slate stand-in for the lovesick reader that Bella manages to simultaneously satisfy girls' desires to fit in and their desires to be unique. Bella is "unique" because she "stands out" to her vampire lover Edward and is the "awkward new kid" at her school and is originally socially isolated. She's "deep" and "indie", as identified by her habits of dancing to Debussy with Edward and the revoltingly stereotypical indie soundtrack. And yet she still manages to "fit in" with her own "circle of friends" and "be cool". This is what gets criticized so much as well- how bland the characters are. I mean, there are some interesting characters... that Indian guy, for example... or Carlyle, I mean what the heck is up with that guy, he sounds like he must really have a cool backstory, am I right? But while I can acknowledge that the main characters are pretty lifeless, no pun intended, I think people can get carried away by bashing the actors for not being talented. I actually think that Kirsten Stewart and Robert Pattinson have each displayed talent in other areas and as The Great Gatsby teaches us, we can't really blame good actors for poorly written characters and bad direction. Still, I feel like I've only covered the tip of the iceberg of everything sketchy about this movie's plot. There's so much that doesn't make sense... I mean, the sparkling thing, for one... but also, why does Edward still have to go to high school if he's, like, 108 years old? And how is that not creepy, for him to have a relationship with Bella? Bella isn't a particularly "goth" character and yet she's okay with hanging around a guy that might kill her (and who watches her while she sleeps while openly admitting how much he desires to drink her blood). I could really open the door and let loose a lot of Jungian psychology as to why girls find that romantic, but I think I'll save that for a later day. In the end, I think Twilight actually winds up being one of those films that's so bad it's actually good... there's so much that's wrong with it that it's almost fun to watch because between the awkward clumsy dialogue and the endless stream of non-sequiturs, you really can't help but laugh at it. Besides, where else do you get to see vampires play baseball?
Director: Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin
Starring: Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler
Release Date: April 4, 2008
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rating: 2/5
Nim's Island is one of those films that truly revolts me. What about it revolts me, you ask? Pretty much everything. It's a sunny adventure without any real adventure, serves really just to fulfill little girls' fantasies of living alone on an island and catapult lizards on everyone they don't like. And for adults, it's just an opportunity to bask in the insufferable cuteness of Abigail Breslin. Ah, perfect. It fails in so many places that it's hard to decide which fault to describe first. The story, perhaps? There's a hidden private island occupied solely by a biologist and his little daughter Nim. The biologist disappears at exactly the moment where he's needed most, and suddenly the girl must fend for herself against a passenger ship full of filthy fat tourists and their filthy fat pollution. Aw man, isn't modern society awful? If only we could have our own beautiful private islands so we could live in harmony with nature like you, Nim. Seeing no other hope, Nim emails her favorite author to come to the island to help her. Seeking adventure, the author decides to venture out and save her. Nim remains nothing but the perfect girl this entire time- a ball of sunshine, smiles, and resourcefulness. And of course cuteness. At her worst, she's maybe slightly careless and disobedient. If Nim is the embodiment of what every girl watching this wants to be, then her dad is the embodiment of what every girl watching this wants her dad to be: the strong but soft-spoken explorer kind of guy. He shares nearly all of his interests with her (make that "interest": his love for nature), and save for some token conflict, he's basically your nice all-loving, quiet rugged adventurer dad. Wonderful. And then of course you have the author who comes in to be a surrogate mother for Nim, the neurotic woman who's afraid of everything and can't bear to leave her own home without hand sanitizer. Yeah, I'm not even going to go there. Nim's Island fails at its story, its characters, and most of all, its sense of humor (comic relief animal sidekicks? you betcha!)- but what I found to be the worst thing about it was its buildup in the first act. Nim's Island sets itself up to be so much, opening with a kind of fairy-tale puppet show detailing the disappearance of Nim's mom while out at sea, etc. And so I expected it to have almost fairy-tale ish fantasy qualities: and while it certainly hints at this and comes pretty close, there's so much payoff that doesn't happen. The defeat of the passenger ship is underwhelming, there are so many loopholes and ignored logical flaws- and there was so much buildup towards the return of Nim's mom that didn't happen. Ultimately, it comes off as obnoxious, environmentally preachy, and naively sunny to the point of being sickening. So stay away from this island, if you will heed my warning, or dare face a barrage of coconuts and CGI lizards.
Director: Peter Segal
Starring: Steve Carrell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin
Release Date: June 20, 2008
Running Time: 110 minutes
Rating: 2/5
Get Smart is the 2008 remake of the popular 1960's TV show of the same name- a TV show that I personally happen to love immensely. There's a special place in my childhood memories where Don Adams could be found talking sheepishly on his shoe-phone, where the chief would roll his eyes at some deadly mistake the agency had made, where a super-villain would unveil some bizarre invention. This special place in my mind is now soaked with the urine of corporate executives, all thanks to this movie. Get Smart adds insult to injury, showing that it is quite familiar with the old show, via some clever homages with Patrick Warburton making a cameo as Hymie the robot, or with Bill Murray as Agent 13, hiding in a tree-trunk. Why couldn't we see more of that, movie? Why do you have to show us Dwayne Johnson and Russians and terrorists when you could be showing us more of this good stuff you have here? Here, every quote from the original show is a blow to the head because it reminds me of everything that his movie left behind, everything this movie could have been. And this has nothing to do with quoting things line-for-line or trying to duplicate the look of the original show- it has, on the other hand, everything to do with capturing the spirit of the original work, and I believe this is true for all adaptations. Here, the spirit of tongue-in-cheek campiness is replaced by Get Smart's self-imposed need to be a legitimate action-spy movie. Part of what was good about the original show was the goofiness of it, of the gadgets, of the fakeness of the sets. Here, everything is intended to be "real" more or less, and this is what kills it. It's unbelievably unfunny, presenting me with a line of real humor maybe once every fifteen or twenty minutes. The rest of it is corrupted with flatulence jokes, weight jokes, and sexist jokes. And the story itself? Yeah, it's pretty much every spy cliche wrapped up together in a tight little ball. If you feel optimistic going into Get Smart, then you have underestimated the element of disappointment.
-Julian Rhodes
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