Movie Reviews

Action fans should be sated by the sheer brutality, and less-visceral seeking filmgoers should find a lot to enjoy with the film’s emotional heart, but Li has a long way to go before he can be judged by his American output.  Overall, Unleashed should provide action fans with some solid, if fleeting, summer enjoyment.

Unleashed
2 & 1/2 Stars

Jet Li, unlike Jackie Chan, hasn’t had a solid American release since his journey to our silver screen, and frankly he’s due.  While he doesn’t possess the charisma or easy charm of some of his Asian ambassador co-horts, Jet Li’s sheer physical prowess and humble attitude should translate easily with American audiences.  Sadly, Unleashed doesn’t exactly live up to the potential he’s shown.  Fortunately, it’s a sight better than previous efforts, if only due to the attention and care brought to the film by writer/producer Luc Besson, and co-stars Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins. 

Jet Li says “Arf”

The premise of Unleashed is unique enough to set it apart from the rest of the ‘unwilling hero’ genre that chokes the action film market.  Li stars as Danny, a vicious and unstoppable killer whose been trained to be little more than an attack dog by his low-level mob owner/uncle Bob Hoskins.  Until he’s let loose on whatever target Hoskins has picked, Danny is a meek man-child who doesn’t understand the world around him, but instinctively longs for a better life than the one he’s living.  After an accident, Danny finds his way to Morgan Freeman’s Sam, a blind piano tuner who lives with his teenage daughter Victoria (Kerry Condon).  Sam & Victoria tend to Danny’s wounds both physical and psychological, and try to get him accustomed to the world at large, but Danny’s old life comes back to haunt him as Bob Hoskins relentlessly tries to get back his most prized possession. 

In all actuality, were you to replace Li with Van Damme, Speakman, Seagal, or any other martial arts star, this film’s plot could be easily switched with any number of late 80’s / early 90’s fight flicks.  Tortured hero finds peace only to be dragged back into a life they’ve desperately tried to escape?  That’s about as original as a sunrise, but what sets Unleashed apart is the care paid to Danny’s rehabilitation, and the respectability lent the film by Freeman.  (As an aside, what is it with African-American Oscar winners going for an easy action flick as soon as the Oscar is in their hand?  Halle Berry did it with Die Another Day, Jamie Foxx is starring in a Top Gun-meets-War Games action flick (Stealth) this summer, and Lou Gossett, Jr. went from Officer & A Gentleman to Jaws 3-D.)  Freeman’s performance lends the 2nd Act of Unleashed more respectability than it probably deserves, but for an action film this piece manages to carve out an emotional core that is sorely lack from similar efforts, which makes the 3rd Acts descent into type all the more disappointing.  But until that point, the interaction between Danny and his newfound family is both endearing and uncommon, if a little creepy.  Victoria’s less than platonic interest in Danny is a bit baffling, and none too uncomfortable upon reflection.

The action sequences are among the best Jet Li has been able to produce with an American studio, which might be due to the involvement of Yuen Woo-Ping, the famed fight choreographer.  Director Louis Leterrier finds a perfect balance of brutality and grace in Li’s physical performance, and let’s the camera pull back enough to enjoy the sheer visceral impact of every kick, punch, head-butt, and body slam.  To be sure there’s no shortage of jump cuts and quick edits, but more than not the camera lingers on every hit, which drives home just how impressive Jet Li remains, even at the age of 43.  Similarly, the camera work on Unleashed is above the norm, with Luc Besson’s influence seeping through in every frame with subdued color work and striking camera movement.  Had a little bit more care been shown in how the last act played out, Unleashed might have been able to really distinguish itself from the current slate of punch-out films, but as it is Li will have to settle for better than average.

Action fans should be sated by the sheer brutality, and less-visceral seeking filmgoers should find a lot to enjoy with the film’s emotional heart, but Li has a long way to go before he can be judged by his American output.  Overall, Unleashed should provide action fans with some solid, if fleeting, summer enjoyment.

With today’s geo-political climate, releasing a big budget epic about the Crusades seems like a most misguided endeavor, regardless of the intentions. No amount of revisionist moralizing can lessen the damage wrought by the Crusades, and an accurate portrayal would surely alienate a good chunk of the movie going audience, but never let it be said that Hollywood has ever backed down in the face of accuracy.

Overall Kingdom of Heaven suffers from some of the same problems that the recent Troy and Alexander carried. Namely, it’s a whole lot of spectacle wrapped around a bare-bones plot and rice-paper thin characters. Fans of large scale epics will surely find something to enjoy here, but don’t expect the film’s impact to last much longer than the drive home.

Kingdom of Heaven
3 Stars

With today’s geo-political climate, releasing a big budget epic about the Crusades seems like a most misguided endeavor, regardless of the intentions. No amount of revisionist moralizing can lessen the damage wrought by the Crusades, and an accurate portrayal would surely alienate a good chunk of the movie going audience, but never let it be said that Hollywood has ever backed down in the face of accuracy.

Orlando gets his sword on…again

Ridley Scott seems to exist in a ethereal world of gorgeous scenery and visuals, but he seems to have lost touch with the more cohesive elements of storytelling. With Kingdom of Heaven, Scott trades the togas for chain mail, but otherwise misses the same marks as Gladiator. This time around the brutish stoicism of Russell Crowe has been replaced by the fragile reserve of Orlando Bloom, but otherwise Kingdom of Heaven is yet another variation on the story of a damaged man who finds a purpose greater than himself in the battle for an empire.

Bloom plays Ibelin, a widowed blacksmith who leaves France for the Holy Lands at the request of his father (Liam Neeson), a baron who holds both land and the respect of the king of Jerusalem. Ibelin agrees to take his father’s title and responsibilities in order to find forgiveness for himself and his departed wife, but is soon caught between the political maneuverings of the war mongering Guy de Lusignan (Martin Csokas) and peacekeeper Tiberias (Jeremy Irons), as well as the romantic intentions of Guy’s wife Sibylla (Eva Green), who is the sister of King Baldwin (Edward Norton), the ruler of Jerusalem and architect of it’s uneasy peace. Soon enough the machinations of Guy and his knight Reynald (Brendan Gleeson playing the exact same role he did in Troy), spark a war between the Christians and the Muslims leaving Iblein to defend the city of Jerusalem from the Muslim Army.

Like most of Ridley Scott’s films, Kingdom of Heaven is an action packed epic that tells the tale of one man’s search for redemption. In this case, however, Scott lays too much plot on the shoulders of Bloom’s Ibelin; so much that one could surmise that Kingdom of Heaven was an almost Christ-like allegory at its core. An unlearned laborer rises up to defeat an army all for the sake of peace? Subtlety is not one of Scott’s most recognized traits. Indeed, once the spectacle of the action and set design is over, it’s nearly impossible to look back on Ibelin without asking “Where did he learn all this stuff about fighting and strategy? And how does a man who can kill a priest in cold blood come to preach about peace and understanding?”

The logic holes of Kingdom of Heaven are both massive and frequent which, depending on your ability to forgive or forget, will either make or break your viewing experience. I’m not capable of setting aside things like the complete absence of Jews in Jerusalem, or some of the ridiculous choices the characters make, but I will admit that the film is simply gorgeous to look at, and its action sequences are effective and powerful, even with Scott’s trademark jump cuts and staccato editing. Sadly, The Two Towers and Return of the King may have unfairly set the bar for large scale battle scenes, but Kingdom of Heaven does a great job putting you in the middle of every swing, shot, and loosed arrow.

Bloom is well on his way to typecast-dom, but for all intents and purposes, he handles himself well. His looks give him a slight disadvantage, as ‘tough’ is not an adjective that springs to mind, but he has the damaged hero look down pat. Jeremy Irons and Liam Neeson both deliver their trademark solid performances, and both actors disappear from the screen far too soon. As stated before Brendan Gleeson is in comfortable territory as the immoral crusader, but it’s a rut he doesn’t deserve to be in. David Thewlis and Martin Csokas both do fine work with what little their given to do, but Edward Norton delivers one of the best performances as the leper king Baldwin. Completely unrecognizable in both features and voice, his portrayal lends Kingdom of Heaven perhaps a little more weight than it deserves. As Bloom’s love interest, Eva Green is for the most part simply there to drive the plot along, as her character’s motivations and actions are only partially explained and her revelation is given little to no weight whatsoever. It’s strange that Ridley Scott, a man who’s no stranger to strong female roles, has seemingly marginalized the feminine aspects of his films in the last few years, but he seems to go in cycles.

Overall Kingdom of Heaven suffers from some of the same problems that the recent Troy and Alexander carried. Namely, it’s a whole lot of spectacle wrapped around a bare-bones plot and rice-paper thin characters. Fans of large scale epics will surely find something to enjoy here, but don’t expect the film’s impact to last much longer than the drive home.

All in all, House of Wax is a better class of stupid-but-fun horror romps. Characters are dispatched in inventive (and cringe-inducing) ways, and director Jaume Serra doesn’t pretend to be making a landmark suspense film. Rather than bombard you with crappy music that telegraphs every scare, the film uses its score with no small degree of style by randomly giving you silence and music, so that you don’t know what’s going to happen. It worked well enough to make me jump more than once, and that’s no mean feat.

So if you’re feeling the need to see photogenic B-listers taken out in a horrific manner and then dipped in wax, this is the movie for you. House of Wax doesn’t come close to approaching the weirdo-creep factor of the Vincent Price original, but it’s a welcome return to the glorious days of bloody mayhem and forgettable horror.

House of Wax
2 & 1/2 Stars

If there’s one thing Hollywood has done right in the last couple of years it would be knowing that if Paris Hilton is in a movie, she’d better die in a horrible, brutal manner. Thankfully, House of Wax has seen fit to continue this trend.

Artist Rendering of Paris Hilton’s Soul

A remake in only the loosest sense, House of Wax is yet another Dark Castle update of an old horror classic. This time around the unlucky victims are a group of college kids on their way to the Big Game, but soon find themselves stranded in the boonies. Faster than you can say “Crystal Lake”, bad things start happening as the WB All Stars find themselves being stalked by two crazy brothers with some odd ideas on what constitutes a memento.

Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray lead the pack of soon-to-be-forgotten faces this time around, with Jared Padalcki, Jon Abrahams, Robert Ri’chard, and Paris Hilton filling out the ranks. Rather than delve into the details of a horror film plot, we’ll just stick with how things work out.

You’ve got to turn off the dumb meters for any horror film, and this one is no exception. What does set this slasher flick apart from the pack is its early 80’s feel, both in its gorey deaths, and the hallmarks of its characters’ behavior. If you can’t guess who’s going to live or die within the first 15 minutes of this movie, you have no right to call yourself a horror fan. Just like in the halcyon days of 80’s horror, sex means death, characters are too stupid to realize that open doors are pathways to unimaginable horror, and hiding from the baddie never, never works.

All in all, House of Wax is a better class of stupid-but-fun horror romps. Characters are dispatched in inventive (and cringe-inducing) ways, and director Jaume Serra doesn’t pretend to be making a landmark suspense film. Rather than bombard you with crappy music that telegraphs every scare, the film uses its score with no small degree of style by randomly giving you silence and music, so that you don’t know what’s going to happen. It worked well enough to make me jump more than once, and that’s no mean feat.

Sure the plot makes about as much sense as a hobo’s dream diary, but that’s not what you’re there to see. I know what I was there to see, and that was the death of Paris Hilton. Thankfully the film makers seemed to understand that might be a common goal, so they set about doing so in a very satisfying manner. If the crowd doesn’t cheer when she’s finally dispatched, I’d be very afraid of your fellow moviegoers.

My one real nitpick with the film is the casting of teen heartthrob Chad Michael Murray as a rough and tumble thug. I mean c’mon. With his high dollar gym abs and wispy facial hair, Murray looks about as tough as the Snuggles Bear. Seriously. Betty White could take his ass down, but hey: looking for realistic casting in a horror film is like wishing for a pony that flies to the moon.

While we’re talking about the cast, let me take the moment to assure each and every one of you that any fears/hopes you may harbor as to Paris Hilton’s acting ability can surely be put to rest. The titular House of Wax displays more charisma and charm than the giggling socialite, and the only laughs her character generates are the ones that are firmly at the expense of Hilton and her internet sexcapedes.

So if you’re feeling the need to see photogenic B-listers taken out in a horrific manner and then dipped in wax, this is the movie for you. House of Wax doesn’t come close to approaching the weirdo-creep factor of the Vincent Price original, but it’s a welcome return to the glorious days of bloody mayhem and forgettable horror.

To say that the twists and turns of Mindhunter’s plot are contrived would be akin to describing a river of lava as mildly tepid, and the film’s ending isn’t so much a twist as it is a final twist of the cinematic shiv Harlin has assaulted your brain with.  Even a sub-par mystery can be redeemed by a good premise and inventive staging, but Mindhunters carries all the mystique and suspense of a circled Where’s Waldo? Comic.  The experience of watching this movie could be no more horrendous had the zombie corpse of Ed Wood risen from the grave to deliver a series of groin kicks directly to your soul.

Mindhunters
Negative Stars

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that a film reviewer’s job is primarily to serve as a cinematic meat shield, taking an endless barrage of Hollywood bullets to protect you, the discerning moviegoer from the theatrical equivalent of a drive by shooting. Needless to say, no amount of Kevlar could protect me from the soul-crushing assault of Renny Harlin’s Mindhunters.

Hate life? This one’s for you!

Posing as the nth variation of locked-room mystery classic 10 Little Indians, Mindhunters attempts to make its mark on the serial killer genre by having the characters/victims be forensic pathologists, those specialized investigators who deal with predicting the behavior of killers. While this might have made for an interesting pitch, the combined cast and crew have delivered yet another unmemorable crime thriller that wouldn’t look out of place in the Clearance DVD bin. If the FBI’s investigators mental prowess were on par with the characters in this clumsy thriller, America would soon be over-run by an army of mass murderers and Rube Goldberg-obsessed maniacs. 

Christian Slater and Val Kilmer ‘headline’ a cast so diverse that it might have been conceived by some C-List Benetton Ad generator as a group of wannabe FBI investigators who must pass a final test of their deductive skills by solving a staged serial killing on a training island. As inevitable as the sun rising in the East, the young Turks of Forensic Science soon find themselves up against a real serial killer, who is systematically thinning their ranks like a needlessly complex Darwin through a series of elaborate timed traps and misdirection. Suspicion and tensions run high, as these supposed bright stars of police work pull their guns more than a heroin-crazed Travis Bickle, on both empty hallways and each other. 

Who among the cookie-cutter stereotypes will live or die, and who is the killer? Who cares? As any movie-goer can tell you, modern thrillers aren’t about logic and suspense, Hollywood having lazily deciding that imaginative death scenes, vomit inducing editing, and crushing rock fuelled montages must surely be decent substitutes for the genre’s basis in airtight logic and intellectual derring-do. 

Slater and Kilmer wisely make early exits from the film, leaving the remaining cast to flounder about among the bloody wreckage of a mystery, of which they do an universally awful job. When LL Cool J is the most convincing member of an elite task force of criminal investigators, one is forced to realize that the remaining film may well be some form of cruel experiment on gullibility and pain tolerance. 

Director Renny Harlin’s handling of this film feels like he’s trying to punish those critics who have lambasted his long career of delivering overblown crap to American cinemas. The editing is haphazard as scenes jump around with no sense of location or reason, and the cinematography relies on film-school level flash and bang, with all the flair of a drunken wedding videographer with delusions of grandeur. In one prolonged sequence, you’ll find yourself wondering if perhaps Mindhunters was meant to be shown in 3-D, only the theater forgot to hand out those nifty glasses. Locked room mysteries rely on a claustrophobic knowledge of the surroundings, yet other than a couple of Michael Bay like helicopter shots, we’re never given any sense of scope or locality, and what could have made for an interesting variation on the hunters being hunted is hopelessly forgotten in lieu of cheap shocks and logic-shattering revelations. 

To say that the twists and turns of Mindhunter’s plot are contrived would be akin to describing a river of lava as mildly tepid, and the film’s ending isn’t so much a twist as it is a final twist of the cinematic shiv Harlin has assaulted your brain with. Even a sub-par mystery can be redeemed by a good premise and inventive staging, but Mindhunters carries all the mystique and suspense of a circled Where’s Waldo? Comic. The experience of watching this movie could be no more horrendous had the zombie corpse of Ed Wood risen from the grave to deliver a series of groin kicks directly to your soul.

Bring a date.

The truth be told, I had a great time watching this film against all expectations. Enough so that it made me wonder how many great performances we’ve missed from Jane Fonda due to her 15 year acting hiatus. If Monster-In-Law is any indication, she’s got more than a handful left in her and I for one hope she’s given the chance to prove it.

Monster-In-Law
3 Stars

Let’s be honest here: Putting Jennifer Lopez’s name on a poster is almost a sure-fire way to kill my interest. I haven’t enjoyed a single thing she’s done since Out of Sight, and I can assure you that my love of that film has nothing to do with J-Lo. That being said, I was fairly uneasy about seeing Monster-In-Law, the new comedy starring the aforementioned Lopez. Obviously I survived the viewing, but how much damage was done?

In Theaters May 13th

Monster-In-Law must have been a perfect pitch to studio execs, coming as it did on the heels of Meet the Fockers (one of the highest grossing comedies of all time). “Hey, what about a ‘Meet The Parents’, but just for the ladies!” Great heaping bags of cash were soon doled out, I can assure you. The paper-thin premise is that Jennifer Lopez plays a struggling fashion designer (subtle plug or casting serendipity, you decide!) who gets by with a series of temp jobs. She soon meets the man of her dreams (Michael Vartan), but her life of bliss is soon interrupted upon meeting her man’s mom Viola (Jane Fonda), a former TV journalist who’s recovering from a recent nervous breakdown. Sparks fly and tensions flare, and before you know it it’s an all out war of attrition between the two possessive ladies.

Going off of the premise and the trailers I expected the very worst, but I failed to take into account one thing: Jane Fonda. It’s been 15 years since Fonda has appeared on screen (her last film was the 1990 DeNiro sap-fest Stanley & Iris), and a good 25 years since she’s done an all-out comedy (Nine To Five), but seeing her on the screen in Monster-In-Law, you’d swear she hasn’t missed a day since. Quite frankly, she is perfect as the domineering power-mom out to drive her soon-to-be-daughter in law out of her mind, and out of her son’s life. One moment she’s cool sophistication and the next she’s a barely contained train-wreck of neurosis, but every second she’s on-screen is just great. Fonda’s sass-filled exchanges with Wanda Sykes (playing the sassy assistant of course) deliver most of the solid laughs, and indeed lift the movie up from the pitfalls of it’s premise.

Not to say that Jennifer Lopez disappears in this film, as she does manage to stand her ground (if not actually hold her own) against Fonda, but her giggling free-spirit character is a mite hard to swallow from such a notorious glamour queen as herself. Lopez gets into the rhythm of the film as her character escalates her personal war, and outside of the obligatory sap (and slap) fest of the finale, I actually warmed up to her performance.

A stellar supporting cast is mostly wasted as Will Arnett (from Arrested Development) and Adam Scott deliver some great lines, but make infrequent and all too brief appearances in the film. Though in the end, Monster-In-Law is firmly about two divas going head to head, and there’s no room for the rest of the world. Outside of Michael Vartan, who is given absolutely nothing to do here but look dreamy and desirable, it’s a top-notch casting job, with the right amount of choice lines given to the auxiliary characters.

It’s not as if I can weigh Monster-In-Law to some high standard of film-making, but I will say that I was impressed with the lack of scatological or low-brow jokes that seem so ubiquitous in modern comedies. There’s no need to go for the gross-out when you’ve got a leading lady like Jane Fonda, and the humor is fitting for an actress of her caliber. To be sure, the courtship of Lopez and Vartan’s characters might require some viewers to reach for their insulin, but the sap factor is quickly demolished as Lopez and Fonda continually escalate the hostility and passive-aggressive battles to a level just shy of The War of the Roses mean-spirited bleakness. This is a battle that could only have sprung from the mind of two vengeful women, as each calculated maneuver so perfectly chips away at each other’s confidence while steeling their respective reserves.

The truth be told, I had a great time watching this film against all expectations. Enough so that it made me wonder how many great performances we’ve missed from Jane Fonda due to her 15 year acting hiatus. If Monster-In-Law is any indication, she’s got more than a handful left in her and I for one hope she’s given the chance to prove it