Bridge on the River Kwai Review

It had been a while since I had seen this and when I saw that Galaxy was showing it for $5, I thought I should give it another go.  But I forgot a couple of things.  First, I had forgotten that it is basically two movies.  The first half is Alec Guinness being a belligerent and stubborn officer and actually putting his men at risk.  If I had been in the military I would actually have resented him for refusing to do manual labour beside his men.  But that's just me.

Second, once he wins that battle (and you know he will so that's not a spoiler - also, the movie is 55 years old so I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out), the real plot begins.  Guinness and his men take pride in building a bridge and William Holden is on a mission to return to the camp he was a prisoner in to blow it up.

This is a different kind of war movie.  In fact, it isn't even really a war movie as much as it is a movie that is set with war as a background.  There is not a lot of action and it's more of a morality play.  They cover a lot of questions about doing what's right in the face of adversity and what happens when you lose sight of what is right in favour of your own selfish ambitions.  In that regard, it is a very good film.  Guinness plays his role very well as does Sessue Hayakawa as Colonel Saito.  You can really see his descent into becoming a broken shell of a man even as his task is getting done.  It's a quite well done juxtaposition.  Given the era that it was made in, the technical aspects are decent.  Through the whole 2.5+ hours, you do get a sense of realism that is often lost on the older movies.  The only real beef I have is that a lot of the scenes go on too long like the walking through the jungle, setting the charges, etc.  The pace slows right down and I tended to lose focus.  But that's how things were done in Hollywood back then.  Other than that, it's an excellent film.

If you want a war movie, watch something else.  But if you want a more human experience with some excellent acting (especially for the era), see it.

Harry Brown Review

Basically, it's a vigilante "the world's going to hell in a handbasket" movie.  Michael Caine plays a former marine who served in Northern Ireland.  His wife and child are gone and his only friend is killed by the youths that are terrorizing "the Estate" (which I can only assume represents the slums of every urban area using a pathetically ironic name).  I saw it on Netflix and figured, "hey.  It's got Michael Caine kicking ass.  This might be good."  I was wrong.  The potential is there but it never lives up to it.

The pace is very, very slow.  It takes a long time for the story to get moving and, by the time it does, you realize that they aren't really telling much of a story at all.  Characters that should have been more major to the plot are shoved to the background and I cannot really figure out why.  The investigating detectives start out like they are going to be integral to the story but are then shoved aside in favour of some weird, over the top underworld gun purchase scene that goes on for way too long.  As the movie builds, it comes to this convoluted climax that, while they try to make it tense, it just makes no sense.  Then, the detectives come back and they go into this betrayal angle that is just done far, far too late.

Visually, it isn't too bad.  You get the real feel of the English underworld.  The acting, while nothing special, is ok.  And it is much darker and grittier than I was expecting.  While I thought it may turn into one of those gritty movies that you come away with that "wow" feeling like a Fight Club, I came away feeling like they did a little too much and some of it was just for the sake of making it controversial.

Don't see it.  There's way better movies in the genre.

Convoy Review

I think there's about 7 people who read this web log.  So, Beth, Tammy, Lori, Karl, Darren, Jason and guy in Ukraine, this one's for you.  My apologies if you read this semi-regularly and I forgot you.  Thanks for reading.

What do you say about a movie that was based on a novelty country song in the 70s?  Compound that with the fact that the DVD copyrights were purchased by a company called "Cheesy Flicks" and you know you are in for a "winner."  You know it's going to be a very poorly made movie and you'd be right.  There is really nothing about this movie that is good.  Except for maybe the fact that it actually stays quite true to the song.  But that isn't enough to make it good.

You do have to realize that this movie is never meant to be anything more than a 70s road movie.  But even for that, it doesn't have the production quality to make it worth watching.  The writing, directing, lighting, etc etc etc is all pretty rough and put together very halfheartedly.  The acting, on the other hand isn't terrible.  It does have a good cast with Kris Kristofferson, Ernest Borgnine and Bert Young (it was interesting that, being released a year after Rocky, Young was driving for a company called Paulie's).  While none of them give the performance of their lives, they are watchable.  (I like Kristofferson.  Karl and I figure that Chuck Norris asked Kristofferson for permission before growing his beard.  Kristofferson is to Norris as VHS is to Betamax.  Superior in almost every way but the latter gets more attention and success. - But I digress.)

Finally, the story itself.  Sam Peckinpah never really decides what he wants to do with it.  It starts out like a fun little highway romp.  It even has what Karl and I termed a "dust opera" with semis driving on dirt roads accompanied by a classical music version of Convoy.  But then, after the midway point, it becomes quite dark and tries too late to be a serious movie.

Don't see it.  But you probably already figured that out when I said it was based on a 70s country song.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Review

I'm not a huge David Fincher fan even though I think Fight Club was a groundbreaking film did enjoy the Social Network to some extent.  But I do have to admit that, after seeing Dragon Tattoo, Fincher does a great job of making a certain type of film.  I've read all of the books and seen the first two Swedish made movies.  So this is the third time I've experienced the story of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomqvist.  The fact that I was entertained throughout and it didn't feel like it was 2.5 hours long is a testament to how well made this movie is.  Through superior set design, costumes, music (thanks to Trent Reznor) and lighting, Fincher creates a world where you really feel the dark theme of the story.  And this one is very dark.  But, while Fincher maintains the dark nature of the story, he also throws in just enough comic relief (like the Nine Inch Nails T-Shirt in a movie where Reznor does the score) to let the tension in the audience out.

But I think what makes this film even better is the terrific casting.  I'm a huge Daniel Craig fan and I originally thought he wouldn't be able to play Blomqvist well.  After all, Blomqvist from the books is a very flawed and imperfect character (as is everyone in these stories) and Craig seemed a bit too much of a hero to pull it off.  But they made it work.  Whether or not it is his acting or the costumes and makeup, I don't know.  But it worked.  He played the morally ambiguous yet likeable journalist quite well.  As for the rest of the cast, there is not one that is out of place.  All of them are almost exactly what you would picture while reading the books (even if Christopher Plummer had a bit of a "Timothy Dalton in Hot Fuzz" air about him - but I think that was just the moustache).  The one that really sticks out from the rest though is Yorick van Wageningen ar Bjurman.  That is exactly how I pictured Bjurman when reading the books and his detached depravity was played brilliantly.

So, from a pure cinematic standpoint, this is a very, very good film.  There are a few things that bugged me a bit and I will now address those.  First, while I appreciate how closely they stayed to the book, sometimes staying that close to a novel that is that long is a mistake.  I don't want to spoil it for those who aren't familiar with the story but, in the book as in the movie, the aftermath from the climax of the thriller story is too long.  The fallout from the Wennerstrom affair goes on too long.  It works better in the book because that type of thing can be done in literature.  However, Fincher does such a good job of building the viewer's adrenaline and attention into the climax that, keeping all of that content afterwards is too much of a letdown and actually becomes boring for the viewer.  When reading a book, the attention stays.  When watching a film, you cannot recapture the tense atmosphere for as long after the climax and it should have been wrapped up.

Second, as a business professional, I can appreciate the practice of product placement in a film to not only raise capital but to provide a medium for the advertiser.  As a film aficionado, I will tolerate it as long as it is done judiciously and subtly and the product placement fits the context of the scene/story.  There are two blatant product placements in this film.  One bugged me.  The other did not.  I was not upset about the Apple product placement here (as I was in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) because I think they used Macs in the book and it is obvious that they really wanted to stay true to the book.  And that's exactly why the McDonald's placement of Happy Meals irritates me.  The book made a point of saying Lisbeth would buy frozen pizzas.  Trying to stay so true to the film and then switch that to Happy Meals is a sellout of the film's integrity in my mind.  There is also no real need to go into the detail of what she eats in a film and it should have just been scrapped altogether.

Third, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to when English or Swedish would be used when there was text on the screen.  Between that and the complete disregard for accents when it is set in Sweden with Swedish characters and it just had an air of inconsistency in that aspect.  But, the positive there is that you can let the actors be good actors without rolling your eyes when one cannot pull off a Swedish accent.  So the third problem is really a wash.

Ultimately, those three problems are minor.  They are far outweighed by the fact that this is a very well done retelling of a very gripping and raw story.  See it.  It is definitely worth the time.

The Adventures of Tintin Review

When I heard this was going to be a motion captured film rather than a live action one, I thought, "oh, great.  They're going to ruin perhaps the best memory of my childhood by making it look like Beowulf."  I'm so glad that motion capture technology has come a long way since 2007.  And we're even more fortunate that, for Tintin, they got the extra clout of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson behind it.  Because when you add those together, you get a film that they took time and spent some money on making it look real.  Don't get me wrong.  There's still some times when motion capture looks like Shrek riding a horse.  But there are times in Tintin where I actually forgot I was watching animation.  it is that detailed.  Some of the action sequences in this film would have actually suffered in a live action environment.  With live action, there's a lot of green screening and adding art in behind the real thing.  So, you often get a picture that looks really out of place.  By making the whole thing a very detailed animation with human movements, the entire set could be set up and done in a way that looks very seamless.  You also get to have Nick Frost and Simon Pegg play twin detectives without having to resort to bad makeup jobs.  And any time you get to have them on the screen together, you get comedy gold.

As far as the story goes, the main shell is there from the book.  They tell the story of The Secret of the Unicorn while adding some Crab With the Golden Claws to allow for the introduction of Captain Haddock.  But the writing team takes it to a new level with added comedy and dialogue and some much more intense action scenes.  My gut reaction to this is to be disappointed because they aren't staying true to a book; especially one that I loved in my childhood (and still love today).  After all, a comic book is basically a story board for a movie.  But, when you think about it, as long as the basics are there like the adventure story, the characters and some of the outlandish outbursts from Haddock, why not let them play around with the action and make it more intense.  It works.  The chase scene through the streets with the falcon had me riveted.

From an acting standpoint, it's hard to tell if it was good or not.  The motion capture cannot get every detail of an actor's gait and movements.  But from a dialogue delivery standpoint, it is very strong.  Not once did anything come off as cheesy.  Some of that may have to do with the context of an adapted comic book but I know I have a lot of eye rolling moments in most of the Marvel and DC movies out there.  The fact that Tintin didn't have that is a testament to very good writing and superb performances from Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis and Daniel Craig.  I really want to give a lot of praise to Pegg and Frost because I think they are the best comedy duo since Wayne and Shuster.  But they really weren't on screen enough to make or break the film.  I will say, however, that their time on screen did make me laugh out loud every time.

Definitely see it.  If you have the option for no 3D, take that. I didn't think the 3D added anything of real value.  But it is definitely a movie you should see.  Even if you weren't a Tintin fan, it is an entertaining adventure story.

My childhood memories of Tintin are safe.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Review

I feel dirty.  Somehow, I got suckered into paying $9 to let Apple advertise to me for two and a quarter hours.  Being a Mission Impossible movie, it is supposed to be unrealistic.  But having international super spies use Apple equipment is just taking the realm of fantasy too far.  Apple doesn't let you modify anything!  And as good as the app store is, I'm pretty sure there isn't an app for having your phone self destruct in five seconds.  It would just seem counter productive to download it.  Although, most Apple fans see it as a privilege to keep feeding money into the cult so ... you never know.  Now, on to the movie.

This is another one where I have mixed feelings.  On the one side, it is a very good action movie.  The effects are top notch, the pace is good and the sets are fantastic.  Exotic cars, exotic locations, cool gadgets and a leading lady that, although she resembles Dwayne Johnson in drag, is still quite attractive.  It's got a very strong cast in Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner.  All three of those guys are very good actors. Crazy as he may be, you have to admit, Cruise can act.  And Renner has been strong ever since the Hurt Locker.  The irony of using Pegg though is that you take a guy who is at his best in comic relief when doing action and thrust him into a role that requires him to tone that down.  Unfortunately, they did not tone that down.  In fact, they let everyone else feed off of it.  This movie gets derailed somewhat by way too much comic relief.  Sometimes that is good in an action film (eg. The Last Boy Scout).  But the Mission Impossible movies are supposed to be more like James Bond and, every time you turn around, someone's making a wisecrack in Ghost Protocol.  It just doesn't fit.

And, speaking of James Bond, I felt the story, while OK and liveable, it was a bit too 1995 for my taste.  While conventional ICBM nuclear war is still a threat, it no longer provides the tense theme for an action movie that it did when the Soviet Union first fell and we all wondered what would happen to all of those arms.  So it was kind of dated.  Add to that the "of all the gin joints" William Brandt backstory, and the movie does get dragged down a little too much.  There was a lot of potential given the time between this one and the third one.  And frankly, the acting and writing are better in Ghost Protocol given the general story that it had to work with. But it lacked the pure evil and motivation for the heroes that Philip Seymour-Hoffman brought to MI:III.  I know that it is tough to re-capture lightning in a bottle but I think they could have tried harder.

If I rated movies rather than giving my recommendation, the few problems I mentioned would probably warrant a B- rating.  That's still a pass so it does get a See it recommendation.  But I think you'll have to be more of an action movie fan to really enjoy it.  It's a good action movie but not a great movie overall. Still worth a watch though.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Review

Coming into this one I had heard a lot about how it was confusing and hard to follow.  Maybe I braced myself a little too much for that because I really didn't get that at all.  Going in, the viewer has to know that it's going to be a mystery and that there's going to be things that get explained along the way and you'll have to wait until the end for everything to be revealed.  That's what a good mystery is.  From all of the things I had heard, I was expecting absurd twists that didn't make any sense.  But that really didn't happen.  Granted, there may have been an action sequence here and there that seemed a bit out of place but nothing ever derailed the plot into anything incomprehensible and eye-roll inducing.  In fact, I thought they did a pretty good job of taking a plot that had a lot of potential to be confusing and making it quite easy to follow through some well placed and written expository scenes.

However, speaking of the writing, I did find it a bit distracting that a lot of the dialogue seemed to swing towards an over the top attempt at wit rather than story progression.  While they were able to use the dialogue to progress the story, the ratio was a bit too far the other way.  Being a sequel, they are going to try to take everything that made the first movie great and try to make it better.  In that, I think they tried too hard.  Not only was the dialogue too far towards wit and one liners, the use of slow motion in action scenes was over used as well.  It makes sense when Holmes is mapping out a fight in his head to use the slow-fast-slow etc. method because it shows that it is in his mind and let's the viewer see how his thought process works.  But to use it in a regular "real time" action sequence is just distracting and reeks of "look at how good my cinematography and special effects are" by the film maker.  While it is kind of cool to see the detail in the explosions and destruction, it takes too much away from the film to be effective enough.

Don't get me wrong though.  Other than those two problems, this is still a very enjoyable and fast paced movie.  The dynamic between Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law is still very strong.  Jared Harris is also excellent as the villain, Moriarty.  The rest of the acting is decent but average.  Not great but not anything to make it a bad movie.  But considering that it's all about Downey Jr and Law, that doesn't matter.  From a directing standpoint, I was impressed.  My judgement may be skewed because I'm a Guy Ritchie fan.  But he once again uses smart lighting and colour to create a melancholic world that is just on the edge of fantasy and reality.

See it.  It is one of the stronger sequels in recent memory.  But do pay attention.  If you let your mind wander, you may get lost quickly.  I had the benefit of being warned and I think maybe that is why I could follow it.  Because I forced myself to stay focused.