I like watching movies, and I like reading the reviews of people who watch movies. Sometimes, when I like a reviewer well enough, his or her opinion can spell the difference between watching or not watching a movie I'm not sure I want to see.
Now, as much as I like some film reviewers, there are others whose work I simply cannot stand to read, particularly those who hate some movies so much they feel the need to insult the people who enjoy them. As strong as my opinions can be about some movies, I recognize that at the end of the day, they are still opinions and would never try to pass them off as fact, nor would I try to take cheap shots at someone who disagreed with my opinion, but there are movie reviewers who do just that; proclaiming that people who do not agree with their (usually negative) assessment of a film are idiots.
I actually see their logic; after all, people wouldn't make films I hate like Epic Movie or Meet the Spartans if no one paid to see them, so it would make sense for me to blame the people responsible for Jason Friedberg and Aaron and Aaron Seltzer's continued employment in Hollywood by calling them out in my reviews, but truth be told it still seems to be in bad taste to me. I know better than to think I'll be changing the minds of the fans of movies I don't like by insulting them for their choice in films, so I won't bother; my only concern is giving my own opinion, which I try to form strictly upon watching the full film and without prejudgments.
Thanks to the internet the negativity is reinforced when angry fans of a given movie, who take the insults to the audience personally, start slinging venom right back at the reviewers, some of whom engage them and some of whom don't, thus giving rise to even more enmity and ill feelings in a world that already has way too much of them.
I felt pretty annoyed when some self-important fanboy took a couple of swipes at me some years back for my review of Speed Racer, a movie most of the world hated but which I still gave a chance, only to be disappointed by what I felt were oddly-staged racing sequences. I deleted his comment but the irritation lingered for quite a while, not because someone had disagreed with me, which I could certainly have lived with, but because he had the temerity to make it personal. Of course, it would have been much worse had I proclaimed "the people who like this movie are idiots" the way that troll had insinuated that I and most audiences and reviewers were idiots because we didn't agree with him.
In short, film reviewers who insult audiences are a disgrace to their profession because they aren't contributing anything to a meaningful discussion on film; they're simply trolling, baiting people to get upset with them. If their goal is to get people to stop patronizing the films they don't like then they know nothing about human nature; as a rule people don't really enjoy being told what to do, especially not by some self-important, elitist pricks.
People will like the movies they will like, and the phrase "agreeing to disagree" should be something to bear in mind, especially for people who are paid to give their opinion on a film and not its audience. Anything else is simply unprofessional.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Pixar's Rare Lemon: Cars 2
In 2006, critics jumped up and down on Pixar Studios, who up until then had been producing films that none but the most curmudgeonly critics could possibly dislike, for finally coming up with a film that fell well below their established standard of quality, Cars. The single biggest criticism leveled against Cars was how derivative the storyline was, something unthinkable for a company like Pixar which was quite renowned by then for its strikingly original storytelling. References, and unfavorable comparisons to Michael Caton-Jones' 1991 film Doc Hollywood starring Michael J. Fox, were frequent.
Pretty much the same can be said for its sequel, Cars 2 which, even though it bears only a passing resemblance to the 1997 film The Man Who Knew Too Little starring Bill Murray, leans on so many narrative cliches, from the "whodunit" that isn't really a "whodunit" at all, to the Bond-esque turns, to the heavy-handed "be yourself" preaching that it takes the narrative larceny of the first movie to another level altogether.
The sequel, which brings us back to Pixar's world of anthropomorphic automobiles, begins with confrontation on an oil rig between British spy car Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and a bunch of what appear to be lemons like Pacers and Gremlins other clunkers led by a bespectacled German scientist (Thomas Krestchmann, playing a car wearing a monocle and a comb-over if one can believe that). McMissile escapes, having taken pictures of a device that could be used for highly nefarious ends.
Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) the hero of the first movie, arrives home to Radiator Springs after having won his fourth Piston Cup and spends quality time with his buddy Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) and tries to spend some quality time with his girlfriend Sally (Bonnie Hunt) when Mater, who poses as a waiter at the restaurant where McQueen and Sally are having their date, ends up getting into a televised debate over the phone with Italian Formula race car Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro) as to who the best racer in the world is. This little verbal tussle ends with McQueen agreeing to enter the first ever World Grand Prix, sponsored by Miles Axlerod (Eddie Izzard) inventor of Allinol, a revolutionary alternative fuel which will be used to power all of the contestants in the series, which will be staged in three different countries around the world and participated in by the best racers from around the world, including Bernoulli and racing heroes such as Jeff Gorvette (Jeff Gordon) and Lewis Hamilton (played by himself).
McQueen brings Mater with him, but Mater, quintessential hayseed that he is, manages to make a complete fool of himself in the company of the race cars from all over the world, and by extension of McQueen too. When McQueen loses one of the races due to a miscommunication with Mater, however, he loses his temper with him as well, causing Mater to slink off dejectedly.
What none of the racers know is that the the shadowy figures from whom McMissile narrowly escaped at the beginning of the movie have nasty plans for all the participants which McMissile and his assistant, Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer), must stop. First, however, they must rendezvous with an American spy (Bruce Campbell, in a regrettably brief appearance) who has taken photographs essential to their identifying the mastermind of the sinister plot. The agent is caught, however, and in a moment of desperation he plants his information on Mater's underchassis while the both of them are in the men's room (or the boy car's room, whichever is more appropriate). McMissile and Shiftwell, who've never met their contact, rely on their tracking instrument and believe it's Mater, who finds himself, for reasons he doesn't understand, a target for the people out to ruin the race. The sabotage has already begun, with the lemons pointing what looks to be an ordinary television camera at the racecars and causing their engines, specifically the Allinol coursing through them, to explode. The plot is to turn off the public from using alternative fuels. McMissile and Shiftwell then get Mater out of harm's way and between the three of them they try to figure out how to get to the bottom of the sabotage. Time is of the essence too, as McQueen, who declares that he will continue to use Allinol, is targeted for destruction at the last race in London.
Now, this being a Disney movie, at no point did I ever believe Lightning McQueen was in danger, and at no point did I doubt who the mysterious head bad guy of the story was. As far as the latter was concerned, I had no choice as the story presented no alternative suspects. So in terms of thrills and mysteries the movie was a complete zero for me. Moreover, the "spy" angle, while enjoyable for as long as Michael Caine was onscreen, was played with next to none of the panache with which, over half a decade ago, Brad Bird directed The Incredibles, which I maintain is infinitely more deserving of a sequel than the first Cars film was.
I get that from a narrative perspective it wasn't possible to do Cars all over again. How many times could Lightning McQueen learn the value of humility, selflessness and small-town values, after all? Unlike the many existential crises that beset the characters of the Toy Story films, which really provide a fascinating look into the human psyche when one thinks about it, there wasn't anything new left about McQueen to tell. One would think that Pixar, seeing the narrative dead-end, would have then focused their efforts on something fresh, like their upcoming Brave feature which was teased just before the movie. Instead, they mined old material for spy and mystery movie cliches in the apparent hope of replicating the eight billion dollar payday they scored with the merchandise from the first Cars movie. So what's the big message here? Apparently that boorish Mater shouldn't bother to be culturally sensitive and that people should adapt to him and not the other way around. Quite a nice message to send to kids in an era where Americans have, up until recently, been viewed by the rest of the world as oblivious to anything and everything that goes on outside of their borders. This is the kind of drivel I might expect from Dreamworks or any of Pixar's less pedigreed rivals in the animation industry, but not from them.
The film certainly has its moments; its beautifully realized cityscapes provided a radical but welcome departure from the Route-66-inspired vistas of the first film, with races that take place in Tokyo, London and a fictional city in Italy, Porto Corsa, which has more in common with the legendary Monaco Grand Prix circuit than with any actual, real-life Italian grand prix circuit. These were truly a feast for the eyes, and I'm glad I didn't catch the film in 3-D, which is notorious for darkening the appearance of the picture; I'm glad I didn't miss out on any of that fantastic detailing.
Also, Finn McMissile, while an obvious James Bond takeoff, was one of the few highlights of the film. Caine has done spy-inspired work before in the Austin Powers movies, but at least here there was less buffoonery to speak of, and in any case Caine really makes the character fun to watch. Talking about the spy-movie texture of the film, though, I was annoyed by how many cars met their "manufacturer" in this film in order to preserve the faint "Bond" vibe. The film was quite violent considering how benign the previous film was, NASCAR-style car pileups and all. In that, this movie was a much clumsier take on the action-thriller than The Incredibles and to be honest, it did not, at least in my book, make a very compelling argument for its own existence when the end of The Incredibles very deliberately set the characters up for further adventures.
Probably the best part of this movie was the Toy Story short that came before it, which was pretty funny, but seeing how the featured characters were Barbie and Ken, who are made by Mattel, who made the Cars diecast toys that earned eight billion dollars, I'm pretty sure the people laughing hardest are Mattel...all the way to the bank.
Cars 2 is a film I'm sure kids will enjoy, but to the adults who have grown used to Pixar's uniquely textured and nuanced storytelling, all I can say is, brace yourselves.
Rating: 2/5
Pretty much the same can be said for its sequel, Cars 2 which, even though it bears only a passing resemblance to the 1997 film The Man Who Knew Too Little starring Bill Murray, leans on so many narrative cliches, from the "whodunit" that isn't really a "whodunit" at all, to the Bond-esque turns, to the heavy-handed "be yourself" preaching that it takes the narrative larceny of the first movie to another level altogether.
The sequel, which brings us back to Pixar's world of anthropomorphic automobiles, begins with confrontation on an oil rig between British spy car Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and a bunch of what appear to be lemons like Pacers and Gremlins other clunkers led by a bespectacled German scientist (Thomas Krestchmann, playing a car wearing a monocle and a comb-over if one can believe that). McMissile escapes, having taken pictures of a device that could be used for highly nefarious ends.
Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) the hero of the first movie, arrives home to Radiator Springs after having won his fourth Piston Cup and spends quality time with his buddy Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) and tries to spend some quality time with his girlfriend Sally (Bonnie Hunt) when Mater, who poses as a waiter at the restaurant where McQueen and Sally are having their date, ends up getting into a televised debate over the phone with Italian Formula race car Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro) as to who the best racer in the world is. This little verbal tussle ends with McQueen agreeing to enter the first ever World Grand Prix, sponsored by Miles Axlerod (Eddie Izzard) inventor of Allinol, a revolutionary alternative fuel which will be used to power all of the contestants in the series, which will be staged in three different countries around the world and participated in by the best racers from around the world, including Bernoulli and racing heroes such as Jeff Gorvette (Jeff Gordon) and Lewis Hamilton (played by himself).
McQueen brings Mater with him, but Mater, quintessential hayseed that he is, manages to make a complete fool of himself in the company of the race cars from all over the world, and by extension of McQueen too. When McQueen loses one of the races due to a miscommunication with Mater, however, he loses his temper with him as well, causing Mater to slink off dejectedly.
What none of the racers know is that the the shadowy figures from whom McMissile narrowly escaped at the beginning of the movie have nasty plans for all the participants which McMissile and his assistant, Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer), must stop. First, however, they must rendezvous with an American spy (Bruce Campbell, in a regrettably brief appearance) who has taken photographs essential to their identifying the mastermind of the sinister plot. The agent is caught, however, and in a moment of desperation he plants his information on Mater's underchassis while the both of them are in the men's room (or the boy car's room, whichever is more appropriate). McMissile and Shiftwell, who've never met their contact, rely on their tracking instrument and believe it's Mater, who finds himself, for reasons he doesn't understand, a target for the people out to ruin the race. The sabotage has already begun, with the lemons pointing what looks to be an ordinary television camera at the racecars and causing their engines, specifically the Allinol coursing through them, to explode. The plot is to turn off the public from using alternative fuels. McMissile and Shiftwell then get Mater out of harm's way and between the three of them they try to figure out how to get to the bottom of the sabotage. Time is of the essence too, as McQueen, who declares that he will continue to use Allinol, is targeted for destruction at the last race in London.
Now, this being a Disney movie, at no point did I ever believe Lightning McQueen was in danger, and at no point did I doubt who the mysterious head bad guy of the story was. As far as the latter was concerned, I had no choice as the story presented no alternative suspects. So in terms of thrills and mysteries the movie was a complete zero for me. Moreover, the "spy" angle, while enjoyable for as long as Michael Caine was onscreen, was played with next to none of the panache with which, over half a decade ago, Brad Bird directed The Incredibles, which I maintain is infinitely more deserving of a sequel than the first Cars film was.
I get that from a narrative perspective it wasn't possible to do Cars all over again. How many times could Lightning McQueen learn the value of humility, selflessness and small-town values, after all? Unlike the many existential crises that beset the characters of the Toy Story films, which really provide a fascinating look into the human psyche when one thinks about it, there wasn't anything new left about McQueen to tell. One would think that Pixar, seeing the narrative dead-end, would have then focused their efforts on something fresh, like their upcoming Brave feature which was teased just before the movie. Instead, they mined old material for spy and mystery movie cliches in the apparent hope of replicating the eight billion dollar payday they scored with the merchandise from the first Cars movie. So what's the big message here? Apparently that boorish Mater shouldn't bother to be culturally sensitive and that people should adapt to him and not the other way around. Quite a nice message to send to kids in an era where Americans have, up until recently, been viewed by the rest of the world as oblivious to anything and everything that goes on outside of their borders. This is the kind of drivel I might expect from Dreamworks or any of Pixar's less pedigreed rivals in the animation industry, but not from them.
The film certainly has its moments; its beautifully realized cityscapes provided a radical but welcome departure from the Route-66-inspired vistas of the first film, with races that take place in Tokyo, London and a fictional city in Italy, Porto Corsa, which has more in common with the legendary Monaco Grand Prix circuit than with any actual, real-life Italian grand prix circuit. These were truly a feast for the eyes, and I'm glad I didn't catch the film in 3-D, which is notorious for darkening the appearance of the picture; I'm glad I didn't miss out on any of that fantastic detailing.
Also, Finn McMissile, while an obvious James Bond takeoff, was one of the few highlights of the film. Caine has done spy-inspired work before in the Austin Powers movies, but at least here there was less buffoonery to speak of, and in any case Caine really makes the character fun to watch. Talking about the spy-movie texture of the film, though, I was annoyed by how many cars met their "manufacturer" in this film in order to preserve the faint "Bond" vibe. The film was quite violent considering how benign the previous film was, NASCAR-style car pileups and all. In that, this movie was a much clumsier take on the action-thriller than The Incredibles and to be honest, it did not, at least in my book, make a very compelling argument for its own existence when the end of The Incredibles very deliberately set the characters up for further adventures.
Probably the best part of this movie was the Toy Story short that came before it, which was pretty funny, but seeing how the featured characters were Barbie and Ken, who are made by Mattel, who made the Cars diecast toys that earned eight billion dollars, I'm pretty sure the people laughing hardest are Mattel...all the way to the bank.
Cars 2 is a film I'm sure kids will enjoy, but to the adults who have grown used to Pixar's uniquely textured and nuanced storytelling, all I can say is, brace yourselves.
Rating: 2/5
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Thank You American Audiences
I griped more than once on one of my blogs about how during my lifetime in general and in the last decade in particular Hollywood has, in addition to its reliance upon franchises their multitudes of installments, consistently plundered the past for its films, with remakes being so commonplace that there are more than one of them on a regular basis invading cineplexes every year.
It had gotten to the point that last weekend, two remakes of hit movies in the 1980s, Conan the Barbarian and Fright Night, actually went head-to-head. The same thing happened last year when a remake of 1984's The Karate Kid, went up againt The A-Team, a film adaptation of a popular 1980s TV series. Even though one of them won and one of them lost, the really annoying part was that yet again, Hollywood execs could crow about the power of the remake (which was especially infuriating in the case of The Karate Kid considering it had absolutely nothing to do with Karate except an almost completely non-sequitur reference). I actually liked The Karate Kid remake, but was genuinely annoyed by the producers' determination to ride on the goodwill of the original series to the extent that they weren't even willing to change to title to reflect the actual martial art practiced. With the movie having done well at the international box-office, they can now claim they were right.
Fortunately for those of us with remake fatigue, both Conan and Fright Night lost last weekend to a new movie based on a very recent book, The Help, which happened to be on its second weekend in theaters. Best of all, both of those remakes were in the format du jour, 3-D.
This makes me happy, if for no other reason than that now studio execs cannot smugly proclaim that making a hit is as easy as ripping off a movie that's a couple of decades old, or as easy as converting film into some murky, almost unwatchable state just so one can charge extra bucks.
Movies, as a non-essential good, are arguably expensive, relative to other, more important consumer goods, almost anywhere in the world, so when we shell out our money for anywhere between 100 to 120 minutes of entertainment we definitely deserve our money's worth. Who better to slam this message home to the suits in Hollywood than the people living in their own back yard? I'm pretty sure they pay more to see movies than we do over here.
So again, thank you, American audiences, for telling Hollywood that as far as remakes goes, enough is enough. Sure, they'll probably hit us with more remakes and reboots and sequels to remakes and reboots, but if nothing else, at least we won't be seeing Conan the Barbarian 2 or Fright Night 2, in 3-D or otherwise, any time soon.
It had gotten to the point that last weekend, two remakes of hit movies in the 1980s, Conan the Barbarian and Fright Night, actually went head-to-head. The same thing happened last year when a remake of 1984's The Karate Kid, went up againt The A-Team, a film adaptation of a popular 1980s TV series. Even though one of them won and one of them lost, the really annoying part was that yet again, Hollywood execs could crow about the power of the remake (which was especially infuriating in the case of The Karate Kid considering it had absolutely nothing to do with Karate except an almost completely non-sequitur reference). I actually liked The Karate Kid remake, but was genuinely annoyed by the producers' determination to ride on the goodwill of the original series to the extent that they weren't even willing to change to title to reflect the actual martial art practiced. With the movie having done well at the international box-office, they can now claim they were right.
Fortunately for those of us with remake fatigue, both Conan and Fright Night lost last weekend to a new movie based on a very recent book, The Help, which happened to be on its second weekend in theaters. Best of all, both of those remakes were in the format du jour, 3-D.
This makes me happy, if for no other reason than that now studio execs cannot smugly proclaim that making a hit is as easy as ripping off a movie that's a couple of decades old, or as easy as converting film into some murky, almost unwatchable state just so one can charge extra bucks.
Movies, as a non-essential good, are arguably expensive, relative to other, more important consumer goods, almost anywhere in the world, so when we shell out our money for anywhere between 100 to 120 minutes of entertainment we definitely deserve our money's worth. Who better to slam this message home to the suits in Hollywood than the people living in their own back yard? I'm pretty sure they pay more to see movies than we do over here.
So again, thank you, American audiences, for telling Hollywood that as far as remakes goes, enough is enough. Sure, they'll probably hit us with more remakes and reboots and sequels to remakes and reboots, but if nothing else, at least we won't be seeing Conan the Barbarian 2 or Fright Night 2, in 3-D or otherwise, any time soon.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
No Love for Art House Lovers
There was once a time, not too long ago, I think that people interested in movies that were slightly off the beaten path could go to a few movie houses in town and watch them. That was what movie theaters like Shangri-La and some of the Ayala Cinemas used to be known for: showing off art house movies. Nowadays, they seem to be exclusive to Ayala Cinemas, if at all.
This is a disappointing development as I am really quite keen on seeing Woody Allen's new film Midnight in Paris, which doesn't seem to have a chance in hell at mainstream distribution here in the Philippines. Our local distributors of foreign films seem far more preoccupied with the more commercially viable product, an impulse which, while understandable, is highly unfortunate.
In an entertainment climate where everything is an adaptation of something or other or a reboot/remake/sequel of such adaptations, original movies should be appreciated for the rare jewels that they are, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Sure, film distributors need to make money, but it would be nice if they could even make a token effort to ensure that for every ten popcorn movies they sell here we could at least get one art film. This is not to say that popcorn films aren't good in their own way, but to my mind movies are like food for our souls; too much commercially popular fare is just as bad for our souls as too many hamburgers, fries and pizzas are for our bodies. Sure, there is the occasional movie where art and commerce meet and make wonderful music together, as is the case with many Pixar movies, but there's really something wonderfully intimate about quiet little movies like Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine that no commercial juggernaut can ever really capture.
To the foreign distributors of local films, please consider this: the local film industry, such as it is, for all of its creative and commercial woes, still tries to keep the fire of independent film burning, even though the product is wildly uneven in quality. There are people who value small, independent films here, whether it's to make them or to simply view them. We know that downloading your independent art house movies or buying them on bootleg DVD is bad, and we're willing to pay to see them in movie theaters. Please oblige us by putting them there.
This is a disappointing development as I am really quite keen on seeing Woody Allen's new film Midnight in Paris, which doesn't seem to have a chance in hell at mainstream distribution here in the Philippines. Our local distributors of foreign films seem far more preoccupied with the more commercially viable product, an impulse which, while understandable, is highly unfortunate.
In an entertainment climate where everything is an adaptation of something or other or a reboot/remake/sequel of such adaptations, original movies should be appreciated for the rare jewels that they are, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Sure, film distributors need to make money, but it would be nice if they could even make a token effort to ensure that for every ten popcorn movies they sell here we could at least get one art film. This is not to say that popcorn films aren't good in their own way, but to my mind movies are like food for our souls; too much commercially popular fare is just as bad for our souls as too many hamburgers, fries and pizzas are for our bodies. Sure, there is the occasional movie where art and commerce meet and make wonderful music together, as is the case with many Pixar movies, but there's really something wonderfully intimate about quiet little movies like Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine that no commercial juggernaut can ever really capture.
To the foreign distributors of local films, please consider this: the local film industry, such as it is, for all of its creative and commercial woes, still tries to keep the fire of independent film burning, even though the product is wildly uneven in quality. There are people who value small, independent films here, whether it's to make them or to simply view them. We know that downloading your independent art house movies or buying them on bootleg DVD is bad, and we're willing to pay to see them in movie theaters. Please oblige us by putting them there.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Surprisingly Sophisticated Simians: A Review of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes
My exposure to the Planet of the Apes mythos is limited to a scene at the end of Mel Brooks' 1987 sci-fi sendup Spaceballs, and the much reviled 2001 remake by Tim Burton starring Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth and Helena Bonham-Carter. Suffice to say, then, that I wasn't particularly enthusiastic for the reboot when the ads for it first started playing a few months ago.
My wife was the one who first piqued my curiosity by showing me an interview that James Franco did for the movie, in which he predicted, with tongue probably half-in-cheek, that critics would hate it. My wife, half in jest, said we should watch the movie to support Franco.
With all due respect to the other cast members who appeared in the Spider-Man film series, Franco does seem like the most versatile in terms of acting chops, and daring in terms of role choices, having played the gay lover of Sean Penn's character in Milk and a rock climber who has to cut off his own arm in 127 Hours, the latter of which nabbed him an Oscar nomination. Sure, people talk about how he dropped the ball with a pretty bad job at hosting this year's Oscars, but I think it'll take more than a hosting gig gone bad to keep a good actor down.
And a good actor Franco definitely is. In this film he plays a scientist named Will Rodman, who works for a major pharmaceutical company and whose main preoccupation is coming up with a cure for Alzheimer's disease, with which his father Charles (John Lithgow, in a wonderfully moving performance) is currently afflicted. His company experiments on chimpanzees with great success, but a terrible incident with one chimp has the boss of the company (David Oyewolo) deciding to put all of them down. As it turns out, however, the real reason the ape went amok was that she believed her baby, which no one knew about, was in danger, and because one of the other scientists is too squeamish to put the baby chimp down, Will, who is similarly reluctant, ends up taking him home.
Suddenly, Will finds himself growing attached to the baby chimp, whom he names Caesar, and ends up raising him to adulthood. The chimp likewise bonds with Charles, and in the course of the development of this relationship Will is astonished by how intelligent Caesar actually is, having apparently inherited the intelligence that his mother obtained from the Alzheimer's treatments. Breaching protocol and ethics, and desperate to see Charles well again, Will begins using the drug on him. When Caesar gets into an accident, Will takes him to a vet, the lovely Caroline (Frieda Pinto), who eventually becomes Will's girlfriend, and between his recovering father, his genius of a chimp, whom Will regularly takes to a Redwood forest preserve to climb the trees and have fun, life couldn't be better for Will.
Things, however, take a turn for the worse when when Charles relapses, apparently due to his body's ability to resist the treatment. A misunderstanding involving Charles and the Rodmans' neighbor make Caesar believe that Charles is threatened, and he assaults the hapless neighbor, getting taken away to what appears to be some kind of ape shelter for his mischief, where the caretaker Dodge (Tom Felton) is as cruel to him as Will was kind. Unfortunately for Dodge, however, Caesar is getting smarter by the day, and doesn't intend to stay cooped up forever, and he figures he'll have a better chance busting loose with the help of the other apes.
I wasn't particularly keen on watching a movie that I thought would be about apes taking over the world, whether or not it was because of humanity's foolishness and hubris, but I'd like to reassure anyone similarly leery of this film that, whatever the title and trailers of this film may suggest, it's not like that at all. Sure, there is a bit of the "ape uprising" that the trailers suggested, but at its heart this story is about a rather moving family relationship, made particularly impressive by the fact that one of the family members is basically a digital effect (even though the actors got to work opposite motion-capture veteran Andy Serkis rather than a tennis ball or some other marker).
No new ground is broken here, not even in terms of visual effects (although they are quite wondrous to behold), but the execution of the effects is easily the best I've seen all year, even when stacked up against such tentpole films as the Harry Potter conclusion and Thor. The CGI used to bring the film's apes to life is simply the refinement of techniques that have been around for over a decade now courtesy of WETA Digital, but director Rupert Wyatt uses the technology to incredible effect. The apes are central to the story, but at no point to they overwhelm it; their seamless integration into the narrative is less a function of proper lighting and animation and more one of some pretty steady direction and performances by the actors who both play the apes and those who play against the apes. Andy Serkis, of course, is the star of the show even the audience never sees his actual face.
This is no slight to Franco, however. It is thanks to his wonderfully grounded performance that all the science is properly contextualized. Franco is key to this film, just as Serkis and WETA are, because it is Will Rodman's discussion of the medication that places the story firmly in a reality the viewer can embrace for a couple of hours. I have know idea how believable the science in this film was, and for all I know it was a complete load of malarkey, but Franco sold me on the idea completely. More than that, though, it's his genuinely moving relationship with his father and Caesar that really serves as the beating heart of this film. Caesar is only able to reach his potential because of how Will nurtures him over the years, and it is not something the hyper-intelligent ape forgets.
I've always liked John Lithgow as an actor, but there's something about the gentleness and vulnerability with which he portrays Charles Rodman that really made me look at Alzheimer's in a totally new way and made me fully understand on an emotional level why Will would want to cure him, even though on an intellectual level it's already an easy enough concept to understand. Like Franco, Lithgow helps bring Caesar to life with his performance.
The actors are ably backed up by some of the best (if not necessarily the most novel, or even the most ostentatious) visual effects of the year, some striking cinematography by Andrew Lesnie (who, like Serkis and WETA, is a Lord of the Rings veteran) and a nice, sweeping musical score by Patrick Doyle (who also helped Thor along nicely with some pretty hummable cues as well).
What really strikes me about this film is that at no point does it strive to be "epic;" there are no money shots, and almost no Zack-Snyder-slo-mos, and no overbearing music cues. The filmmakers one and all simply focus on telling a good, compelling story, if not necessarily an original one, and, to my mind, succeed immensely. There are a number of hints at a sequel, of course (considering that this is, after all, the revival of a franchise) with the only truly gratuitous one being the appearance of an ape whose sole apparent purpose is to look evil and foreboding, and who will probably be set up as a major villain in future films. That notwithstanding, the film stands quite well on its own, and its easy to forgive the filmmakers their aspirations towards a sequel after such a satisfying film.
This movie, especially when juxtaposed against Tim Burton's 2001 disaster (which, as I understand it, was a highly unpleasant experience for Burton himself), is a classic example of how a truly good film is all in the execution.
5/5
My wife was the one who first piqued my curiosity by showing me an interview that James Franco did for the movie, in which he predicted, with tongue probably half-in-cheek, that critics would hate it. My wife, half in jest, said we should watch the movie to support Franco.
With all due respect to the other cast members who appeared in the Spider-Man film series, Franco does seem like the most versatile in terms of acting chops, and daring in terms of role choices, having played the gay lover of Sean Penn's character in Milk and a rock climber who has to cut off his own arm in 127 Hours, the latter of which nabbed him an Oscar nomination. Sure, people talk about how he dropped the ball with a pretty bad job at hosting this year's Oscars, but I think it'll take more than a hosting gig gone bad to keep a good actor down.
And a good actor Franco definitely is. In this film he plays a scientist named Will Rodman, who works for a major pharmaceutical company and whose main preoccupation is coming up with a cure for Alzheimer's disease, with which his father Charles (John Lithgow, in a wonderfully moving performance) is currently afflicted. His company experiments on chimpanzees with great success, but a terrible incident with one chimp has the boss of the company (David Oyewolo) deciding to put all of them down. As it turns out, however, the real reason the ape went amok was that she believed her baby, which no one knew about, was in danger, and because one of the other scientists is too squeamish to put the baby chimp down, Will, who is similarly reluctant, ends up taking him home.
Suddenly, Will finds himself growing attached to the baby chimp, whom he names Caesar, and ends up raising him to adulthood. The chimp likewise bonds with Charles, and in the course of the development of this relationship Will is astonished by how intelligent Caesar actually is, having apparently inherited the intelligence that his mother obtained from the Alzheimer's treatments. Breaching protocol and ethics, and desperate to see Charles well again, Will begins using the drug on him. When Caesar gets into an accident, Will takes him to a vet, the lovely Caroline (Frieda Pinto), who eventually becomes Will's girlfriend, and between his recovering father, his genius of a chimp, whom Will regularly takes to a Redwood forest preserve to climb the trees and have fun, life couldn't be better for Will.
Things, however, take a turn for the worse when when Charles relapses, apparently due to his body's ability to resist the treatment. A misunderstanding involving Charles and the Rodmans' neighbor make Caesar believe that Charles is threatened, and he assaults the hapless neighbor, getting taken away to what appears to be some kind of ape shelter for his mischief, where the caretaker Dodge (Tom Felton) is as cruel to him as Will was kind. Unfortunately for Dodge, however, Caesar is getting smarter by the day, and doesn't intend to stay cooped up forever, and he figures he'll have a better chance busting loose with the help of the other apes.
I wasn't particularly keen on watching a movie that I thought would be about apes taking over the world, whether or not it was because of humanity's foolishness and hubris, but I'd like to reassure anyone similarly leery of this film that, whatever the title and trailers of this film may suggest, it's not like that at all. Sure, there is a bit of the "ape uprising" that the trailers suggested, but at its heart this story is about a rather moving family relationship, made particularly impressive by the fact that one of the family members is basically a digital effect (even though the actors got to work opposite motion-capture veteran Andy Serkis rather than a tennis ball or some other marker).
No new ground is broken here, not even in terms of visual effects (although they are quite wondrous to behold), but the execution of the effects is easily the best I've seen all year, even when stacked up against such tentpole films as the Harry Potter conclusion and Thor. The CGI used to bring the film's apes to life is simply the refinement of techniques that have been around for over a decade now courtesy of WETA Digital, but director Rupert Wyatt uses the technology to incredible effect. The apes are central to the story, but at no point to they overwhelm it; their seamless integration into the narrative is less a function of proper lighting and animation and more one of some pretty steady direction and performances by the actors who both play the apes and those who play against the apes. Andy Serkis, of course, is the star of the show even the audience never sees his actual face.
This is no slight to Franco, however. It is thanks to his wonderfully grounded performance that all the science is properly contextualized. Franco is key to this film, just as Serkis and WETA are, because it is Will Rodman's discussion of the medication that places the story firmly in a reality the viewer can embrace for a couple of hours. I have know idea how believable the science in this film was, and for all I know it was a complete load of malarkey, but Franco sold me on the idea completely. More than that, though, it's his genuinely moving relationship with his father and Caesar that really serves as the beating heart of this film. Caesar is only able to reach his potential because of how Will nurtures him over the years, and it is not something the hyper-intelligent ape forgets.
I've always liked John Lithgow as an actor, but there's something about the gentleness and vulnerability with which he portrays Charles Rodman that really made me look at Alzheimer's in a totally new way and made me fully understand on an emotional level why Will would want to cure him, even though on an intellectual level it's already an easy enough concept to understand. Like Franco, Lithgow helps bring Caesar to life with his performance.
The actors are ably backed up by some of the best (if not necessarily the most novel, or even the most ostentatious) visual effects of the year, some striking cinematography by Andrew Lesnie (who, like Serkis and WETA, is a Lord of the Rings veteran) and a nice, sweeping musical score by Patrick Doyle (who also helped Thor along nicely with some pretty hummable cues as well).
What really strikes me about this film is that at no point does it strive to be "epic;" there are no money shots, and almost no Zack-Snyder-slo-mos, and no overbearing music cues. The filmmakers one and all simply focus on telling a good, compelling story, if not necessarily an original one, and, to my mind, succeed immensely. There are a number of hints at a sequel, of course (considering that this is, after all, the revival of a franchise) with the only truly gratuitous one being the appearance of an ape whose sole apparent purpose is to look evil and foreboding, and who will probably be set up as a major villain in future films. That notwithstanding, the film stands quite well on its own, and its easy to forgive the filmmakers their aspirations towards a sequel after such a satisfying film.
This movie, especially when juxtaposed against Tim Burton's 2001 disaster (which, as I understand it, was a highly unpleasant experience for Burton himself), is a classic example of how a truly good film is all in the execution.
5/5
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