When I was a student, one of things we loved to raise hell about was what we perceived to be censorship in the movies we watched. Hollywood movies, we had noticed, came our screens noticeably shorn of footage, particularly that which involved nudity or sexual intercourse. It was explained to us that the local classification board was not actually directly responsible for the cuts; they simply told the local distributor what they found objectionable and the distributor was the one that did the chopping. However one sliced it the end result was the same: movies that had been butchered in the name of commerce.
As the years went on, though, we noticed that classification boards became less and less eager to stamp movies with the dreaded "X" rating and more content to just classify movies, even those with supposedly taboo content, accordingly. Movies with graphic content made it into theaters untouched, especially after influential filmmaker Steven Spielberg put his foot down over an attempt by the local distributor of his holocaust masterpiece Schindler's List to chop out footage, in particular a sex scene in order to avoid an "X" rating.
If there's any point to this rambling on about censors and sex scenes, it's that the screening in Manila of Martin Scorsese's latest film, The Wolf of Wall Street shows just how far removed we are from the days of prudish classification boards threatening to ban films from theaters until every last nipple, strand of pubic hair and "pumping scene" was excised from them. NOTHING, as I understand it, was removed from this film; it was simply stamped with an "R" rated and sent straight to theaters.
The film, which chronicles the rise and fall of stock broker, entrepreneur and charlatan Jordan Befort (Leonardio di Caprio in what is likely to be one of his most well-remembered performances), is chock-full of scenes of excess as Belfort and his associates, chief of whom is Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) indulge in just about every conceivable vice known to western society.
Belfort arrives in New York in the late 1980s with his young wife (Cristin Miloti), eager to start his job as broker. He receives a bit of an eye-opening lecture from veteran stockbroker Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey in a brilliant walk-on) who tells him that to survive on Wall Street Belfort will need lots of cocaine and lots of sex. Then, the infamous Black Monday happens, wiping out the firm he works for and Belfort is left without a job. After hitting rock bottom, he gets a job in a Long Island firm selling penny stocks, and after enchanting his fellow brokers with his ability to sell thousands of dollars of stock in basically worthless companies, he hits on the scheme that will make him and his cohorts rich beyond their wildest dreams: the pump and dump scheme. What follows is nearly two and a half hours swindling, debauchery, federal investigations, more swindling, and more debauchery. Lives and marriages are ruined, copious drugs are consumed, and as stated, people get laid.
This film has been alternately criticized by many writers as glamorizing or glorifying Belfort's excess and vilifying investment bankers in general. While I don't quite agree with either school of thought, my sentiments lie more closely with the first camp in that the depiction was perhaps more positive than negative. My best evidence would have to be a line from Terence Winter's script itself: "There is no such thing as bad publicity."
In short, even though the film, which is unabashedly over-the-top, makes Belfort look like a wholly unscrupulous, lying, cheating, stealing, dwarf-tossing, wife-beating, drug-addled bastard, the ultimate takeaway here for a lot of audience members may well be that he got to live the high life with money he swindled from other people and managed to do less than two years of prison time. It may not be a glamorization, but it still feels like a stretch to call it a condemnation.
The actual Belfort, on whose memoir the film is based, appears at the very end of the movie and has, after the release of this film, even gone around telling his story to whoever will listen...not exactly a sign of comeuppance for a person who reportedly screwed over a lot of people. Between that, the unbridled bacchanalia, and the complete absence of even a glimpse of the lives Belfort's schemes (and later, his snitching) supposedly ruined, well, the film feels a lot less like an indictment of Belfort than it purports to be and more of a lurid, voyeuristic peek into the kind of life he led.
In this respect, Scorsese really outdoes himself. It really does feel like one is peeking through a knothole in a fence at someone's backyard orgy. To be fair to Scorsese, the film doesn't really titillate, as most of the nudity and sex takes place between rather quick cuts and without anything to establish the "mood" like music or lighting. The orgies, of which there are many, are basically entanglements of flesh, with flabby brokers getting as much exposure as the nubile women humping them. About the only thing we're spared is the sight of male genitalia, with apologies to anyone hoping to catch a glimpse of di Caprio's junk. Not that di Caprio, who reportedly did not use a body double, is shy; one of the scenes involves a dominatrix pulling a lighted candle out of his anus and dropping hot wax all over his back.
Such is di Caprio's utter dedication to this role and this film, that even when it started to drag, he kept me glued to the screen. He's been criticized for being insensitive to Belfort's victims, but it's very hard to fault what he has turned in here. I've seen him in a number of movies, and I have to say that this is quite unlike anything I have ever seen him do. For one thing, this is the first time I've seen him lend his body to what feels distinctly like slapstick, as exemplified by a sequence in which Belfort pumps himself full of Quaaludes (a phased-out sleeping pill that delivers a distinct high) which he thinks are duds but which, it turns out, have a delayed effect that turns his mind and body into jello, with interesting consequences for, of all things, his Lamborghini. The "high" sequence in 2012's 21 Jump Street has absolutely nothing on this sequence, which also happens to feature Jonah Hill getting completely messed-up as well.
Hill, by the way, is similarly delightful to watch; I won't debate the merits of his numerous award nominations, but I had a lot of fun seeing him as the incestuous, possibly closeted, definitely depraved Donnie Azoff. The rest of the cast, like Margot Robbie as Belfort's second wife, Kyle Chandler as the FBI agent investigating Belfort, Jean Dujardin as the Swiss banker who helps Belfort hide his millions, and Jon Bernthal as Belfort's drug-pushing childhood buddy-turned smuggler, the aforementioned Miloti and several other actors all do their share of helping lift the film, but it's ultimately di Caprio's and Hill's show here.
Still, the movie does drag--it's an least half an hour too long--and at several points it definitely sags under its own weight. There's only so much Scorsese, di Caprio and the utterly committed cast and crew can do to carry what is essentially one man's bloated self-aggrandizement, but they really gave it their all, and that's certainly worth something.
The good news for us in the Philippines is this: if a movie like this can make it into mainstream theaters without cuts, I'm fairly convinced ANY movie short of an actual porn film can.
3.5/5
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Thursday, January 9, 2014
A Beautiful Train Wreck: A Review of 47 Ronin (Major Spoilers)
Lovers of Japanese culture are most likely familiar with the tale of the 47 Ronin, a group of samurai whose master was betrayed and killed by a fellow lord and who took revenge on their master's betrayer, after which they committed ritual suicide (I did say spoiler in the title). The term "ronin" translates as masterless samurai, which is what these men became when their master was forced to kill himself. While based on true events, it is a distinctly Japanese story in terms of the values it promotes; in particular the notion of redeeming one's honor by killing oneself is not exactly a widely-accepted one outside of Japan, especially not in countries practicing Abrahamic religions.
One wonders therefore, how it came to pass that Universal Pictures handed $175 million to first-time feature film director Carl Rinsch in order to come up with a movie about a story that is most likely to appeal almost exclusively to Japanese people, or people familiar with and/or fond of their culture.
To sell the movie, compromises were made. The dialogue was purely in English, with not a single Japanese word that wasn't a proper noun or the words "samurai," "ronin," "seppuku" or "bushido" ever being uttered by any of the cast, which consisted almost entirely of Japanese actors. Hollywood star Keanu Reeves was basically shoehorned into the story as Kai, a half-British, half-Japanese orphan crammed into the script, along with some magical mumbo-jumbo written in order to justify the extensive (and admittedly impressive) use of computer-generated imagery and to give the film's marketing crew the opportunity to liken their product to the Lord of the Rings movies.
Unfortunately the film still turned out to be a disaster of epic proportions, both creatively and commercially. At last count, the film has earned less than $90 million against its gargantuan production budget, which doesn't even include marketing costs (though in truth it felt like Universal didn't really go all out on that).
The first ten minutes or so of the film are devoted to introducing Reeves' Kai and the romance he develops with Mika (Ko Shibasaki), the daughter of Asano, the noble who adopted him (Min Tanaka). Thereafter, the betrayal and revenge plot begins in earnest. Asano is tricked by rival noble Kira (Tadanobu Asano) into attacking him with the help of the conjuring of a witch (Rinko Kikuchi), who made Asano see things that weren't really there. Asano is disgraced by the attack and must therefore take his own life through seppuku, as decreed by the shogun himself (Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa), who, upon this gruesome act, declares all of Asano's samurai to be ronin and forbids them from taking vengeance upon Kira, whom he also instantly betrothes to Mika. Kira exiles the samurai and Kai (who is not one of them). It is at this point that the dubious distinction of being the film's lead character shifts from Kai to the fallen noble's right hand, Oishi (played by Hiroyuki Sanada, Japanese superstar and veteran of several Hollywood productions), as he plans his revenge upon Kira. He recruits Kai, whose earlier report that a witch was among them he had ignored, and together they recruit the ronin for a bloody quest that can only end in death.
The film is not a complete loss; the sets and costumes are a visual feast, the Hungarian countryside which doubles for 18th century Japan is gorgeous, and the CGI absolutely looks like the kind one would find in a movie with a budget flirting with $200 million. Unfortunately, none of these can save the film from its excruciatingly awkward script and its one-dimensional characters. There was one aspect of the script that I partly appreciated: Oishi explains near the end that the ronin have to kill themselves even if they succeed in their gruesome venture in order for the cycle of violence to end with them. I credit the screenwriter with trying to explain something as difficult to fathom as seppuku to uninitiated gaijin like myself, but even I know there's more to the whole process than that, and that it's largely a cultural thing which I certainly would not learn to appreciate just by watching a throwaway two-hour movie.
Also, I really have to credit the filmmakers with casting Japanese actors in ALL the Japanese roles. There is nary a Korean, Chinese or Taiwanese actor to be seen anywhere, and I couldn't help but think that the only reason Reeves (along with his goofy love story) was even in the movie was so that the suits at the studio would sign off on the budget. This is not to say the film would have been that much better without Reeves, though; it's still a grand old mess.
A fascinating thing, this film. It really is a creative train wreck, but one that comes in stunningly beautiful packaging. I had no plans of seeing it, but part of me is glad that I did.
Bottom line: Anyone who wants to see Keanu Reeves in a good martial arts movie should probably just pop The Matrix into their DVD player, while anyone who wants to see a good movie with the word Ronin in the title is better off renting the 1998 John Frankenheimer spy movie (which, to go off-tangent, made cars by Audi look cool way before Iron Man ever did). Anyone wanting to see better movie about Japanese culture, meanwhile, is better off renting anything by Akira Kurosawa or even Hayao Miyazaki.
2/5
One wonders therefore, how it came to pass that Universal Pictures handed $175 million to first-time feature film director Carl Rinsch in order to come up with a movie about a story that is most likely to appeal almost exclusively to Japanese people, or people familiar with and/or fond of their culture.
To sell the movie, compromises were made. The dialogue was purely in English, with not a single Japanese word that wasn't a proper noun or the words "samurai," "ronin," "seppuku" or "bushido" ever being uttered by any of the cast, which consisted almost entirely of Japanese actors. Hollywood star Keanu Reeves was basically shoehorned into the story as Kai, a half-British, half-Japanese orphan crammed into the script, along with some magical mumbo-jumbo written in order to justify the extensive (and admittedly impressive) use of computer-generated imagery and to give the film's marketing crew the opportunity to liken their product to the Lord of the Rings movies.
Unfortunately the film still turned out to be a disaster of epic proportions, both creatively and commercially. At last count, the film has earned less than $90 million against its gargantuan production budget, which doesn't even include marketing costs (though in truth it felt like Universal didn't really go all out on that).
The first ten minutes or so of the film are devoted to introducing Reeves' Kai and the romance he develops with Mika (Ko Shibasaki), the daughter of Asano, the noble who adopted him (Min Tanaka). Thereafter, the betrayal and revenge plot begins in earnest. Asano is tricked by rival noble Kira (Tadanobu Asano) into attacking him with the help of the conjuring of a witch (Rinko Kikuchi), who made Asano see things that weren't really there. Asano is disgraced by the attack and must therefore take his own life through seppuku, as decreed by the shogun himself (Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa), who, upon this gruesome act, declares all of Asano's samurai to be ronin and forbids them from taking vengeance upon Kira, whom he also instantly betrothes to Mika. Kira exiles the samurai and Kai (who is not one of them). It is at this point that the dubious distinction of being the film's lead character shifts from Kai to the fallen noble's right hand, Oishi (played by Hiroyuki Sanada, Japanese superstar and veteran of several Hollywood productions), as he plans his revenge upon Kira. He recruits Kai, whose earlier report that a witch was among them he had ignored, and together they recruit the ronin for a bloody quest that can only end in death.
The film is not a complete loss; the sets and costumes are a visual feast, the Hungarian countryside which doubles for 18th century Japan is gorgeous, and the CGI absolutely looks like the kind one would find in a movie with a budget flirting with $200 million. Unfortunately, none of these can save the film from its excruciatingly awkward script and its one-dimensional characters. There was one aspect of the script that I partly appreciated: Oishi explains near the end that the ronin have to kill themselves even if they succeed in their gruesome venture in order for the cycle of violence to end with them. I credit the screenwriter with trying to explain something as difficult to fathom as seppuku to uninitiated gaijin like myself, but even I know there's more to the whole process than that, and that it's largely a cultural thing which I certainly would not learn to appreciate just by watching a throwaway two-hour movie.
Also, I really have to credit the filmmakers with casting Japanese actors in ALL the Japanese roles. There is nary a Korean, Chinese or Taiwanese actor to be seen anywhere, and I couldn't help but think that the only reason Reeves (along with his goofy love story) was even in the movie was so that the suits at the studio would sign off on the budget. This is not to say the film would have been that much better without Reeves, though; it's still a grand old mess.
A fascinating thing, this film. It really is a creative train wreck, but one that comes in stunningly beautiful packaging. I had no plans of seeing it, but part of me is glad that I did.
Bottom line: Anyone who wants to see Keanu Reeves in a good martial arts movie should probably just pop The Matrix into their DVD player, while anyone who wants to see a good movie with the word Ronin in the title is better off renting the 1998 John Frankenheimer spy movie (which, to go off-tangent, made cars by Audi look cool way before Iron Man ever did). Anyone wanting to see better movie about Japanese culture, meanwhile, is better off renting anything by Akira Kurosawa or even Hayao Miyazaki.
2/5
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Former Bloodsucking Buddies...Soon to Be Racetrack Rivals?
A few years ago I posted an entry about how excited I was at the news that Michael Mann was adapting Go Like Hell, a non-fiction book by A.J. Baime chronicling the story of how the Ford Motor Company conquered the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race back in the 1960s at the expense of its fiercest rival at the time, Ferrari. At the time, no names were attached save for that of Mann, but as a fan of both motorsports and movies I was extremely excited.
Mann has since moved on from that project, but interest in it remains. Hollywood megastar and former part-time race car driver Tom Cruise has set his sights on it, and he's brought his own director with him, namely Joseph Kosinski of Tron: Legacy fame. Cruise is currently attached to play legendary race car driver and car tuner Carroll Shelby. Eyebrows were raised in the film and motorsport fan community when word leaked that another Hollywood heavyweight, Brad Pitt (whose most recent film World War Z showed he still has some box-office clout) had been approached for a yet-undisclosed role. This would mark their first film together since Neil Jordan's 1994 hit Interview with a Vampire, and has come a surprise to some, especially considering Pitt's rather public comments, not only on how difficult Cruise was to work with on the set of Vampire, but his subsequent and more recent description of Cruise as "Dr. Strange." Still, stranger things have happened, people can forgive and forget and the lure of blockbuster dollars can work wonders, I suppose.
The film, assuming it gets made, will arguably put these two actors' drawing power to the test. Sure, Cruise had a big hit a couple of years back with the latest Mission: Impossible sequel and Pitt only just had the aforementioned WWZ , but movies about non-NASCAR car racing have always been a difficult sell. Just ask the producers of Ron Howard's Rush, which has only earned $90 million from all around the world despite glowing reviews, a starring role for Thor star Chris Hemsworth, and the fact that Formula 1 is supposedly the most-watched sporting event on the planet. Nothing much was expected of the film in the U.S., but the global receipts were truly disappointing, even if the film managed to make back its relatively small budget.
The good news for Go Like Hell (or whatever the adaptation is eventually called), at least as far as its box-office prospects in the U.S. are concerned, is that the true story of Ford's Le Mans glory is concerned, there is a conspicuously American element to it, unlike Rush, which, with its English and Austrian protagonists, was Euro-centric. After all, Ford is America's first automaker and Henry Ford II was basically the prime-mover behind the successful Le Mans campaign, even though he had collaborators from "across the pond" and other parts of the world. Also, the late Carroll Shelby, who helped design and build the legendary, world-beating Ford GT40, is an American icon, and a film featuring him as a central character will almost certainly get substantial red-state bucks come opening day. The premiere will probably be full of Shelby Mustangs of varying eras. Of course, this could be a two-edged sword, depending on how many people are open to Cruise as Shelby.
While I would have preferred a less "Hollywood" version of such an important moment in motorsport, I am still eagerly anticipating this film, assuming it gets made. Cruise and Pitt, beneath the sheen of all that celebrity, are accomplished and committed filmmakers in their own right, and are both risk-takers. My respect for Cruise recently went up several notches when he donned a fat suit to play a movie producer in Tropic Thunder, but even before then he was no stranger to unglamorous roles like that of paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July. For his part, apart from high-profile roles in a number of well-received movies like Se7en and Fight Club, Pitt has served as a producer for a seminal films like The Departed and, more recently, 12 Years a Slave. The fact that Cruise happens to be an honest-to-goodness gearhead augurs well for the film's authenticity, at least in terms of its feel if not the actual narrative; although it's a given that dramatic license will be taken with the story, someone enamored with racing is more likely than not to go the extra mile (pun intended) to really put audiences in that era.
Still, it's an uphill climb, even for the likes of Cruise and Pitt, but I, for one, hope they're up to it, because there are simply too few really good movies about motorsport.
Mann has since moved on from that project, but interest in it remains. Hollywood megastar and former part-time race car driver Tom Cruise has set his sights on it, and he's brought his own director with him, namely Joseph Kosinski of Tron: Legacy fame. Cruise is currently attached to play legendary race car driver and car tuner Carroll Shelby. Eyebrows were raised in the film and motorsport fan community when word leaked that another Hollywood heavyweight, Brad Pitt (whose most recent film World War Z showed he still has some box-office clout) had been approached for a yet-undisclosed role. This would mark their first film together since Neil Jordan's 1994 hit Interview with a Vampire, and has come a surprise to some, especially considering Pitt's rather public comments, not only on how difficult Cruise was to work with on the set of Vampire, but his subsequent and more recent description of Cruise as "Dr. Strange." Still, stranger things have happened, people can forgive and forget and the lure of blockbuster dollars can work wonders, I suppose.
The film, assuming it gets made, will arguably put these two actors' drawing power to the test. Sure, Cruise had a big hit a couple of years back with the latest Mission: Impossible sequel and Pitt only just had the aforementioned WWZ , but movies about non-NASCAR car racing have always been a difficult sell. Just ask the producers of Ron Howard's Rush, which has only earned $90 million from all around the world despite glowing reviews, a starring role for Thor star Chris Hemsworth, and the fact that Formula 1 is supposedly the most-watched sporting event on the planet. Nothing much was expected of the film in the U.S., but the global receipts were truly disappointing, even if the film managed to make back its relatively small budget.
The good news for Go Like Hell (or whatever the adaptation is eventually called), at least as far as its box-office prospects in the U.S. are concerned, is that the true story of Ford's Le Mans glory is concerned, there is a conspicuously American element to it, unlike Rush, which, with its English and Austrian protagonists, was Euro-centric. After all, Ford is America's first automaker and Henry Ford II was basically the prime-mover behind the successful Le Mans campaign, even though he had collaborators from "across the pond" and other parts of the world. Also, the late Carroll Shelby, who helped design and build the legendary, world-beating Ford GT40, is an American icon, and a film featuring him as a central character will almost certainly get substantial red-state bucks come opening day. The premiere will probably be full of Shelby Mustangs of varying eras. Of course, this could be a two-edged sword, depending on how many people are open to Cruise as Shelby.
While I would have preferred a less "Hollywood" version of such an important moment in motorsport, I am still eagerly anticipating this film, assuming it gets made. Cruise and Pitt, beneath the sheen of all that celebrity, are accomplished and committed filmmakers in their own right, and are both risk-takers. My respect for Cruise recently went up several notches when he donned a fat suit to play a movie producer in Tropic Thunder, but even before then he was no stranger to unglamorous roles like that of paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July. For his part, apart from high-profile roles in a number of well-received movies like Se7en and Fight Club, Pitt has served as a producer for a seminal films like The Departed and, more recently, 12 Years a Slave. The fact that Cruise happens to be an honest-to-goodness gearhead augurs well for the film's authenticity, at least in terms of its feel if not the actual narrative; although it's a given that dramatic license will be taken with the story, someone enamored with racing is more likely than not to go the extra mile (pun intended) to really put audiences in that era.
Still, it's an uphill climb, even for the likes of Cruise and Pitt, but I, for one, hope they're up to it, because there are simply too few really good movies about motorsport.
Monday, January 6, 2014
In Case You Missed It: Serenity
Writer-director Joss Whedon may have become a household name after helming 2012's megahit The Avengers, but he was already something of a god among fanboys well before that. What may surprise people is that, at the time The Avengers came out, it was actually only the second feature-length film Whedon had directed (he has subsequently directed an adaptation of Shakespeare's play, Much Ado About Nothing), the first being a little-seen science fiction confection titled Serenity, based on Whedon's short-lived television series Firefly.
The film takes place far into the future, when much of humanity has left the overpopulated Earth and taken up residence on other worlds, and after an interplanetary civil war was waged between an alliance of those new worlds and the worlds of people who did not want to belong to the alliance. Captain Malcom Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) fought in the civil war, on the losing side, and now quietly plies his trade as an interplanetary bank robber, traveling across worlds in his ship, the titular, "Firefly-class" starship Serenity which was named for the Battle of Serenity, in which Mal took part during the civil war. Accompanying Reynolds are his loyal crew, Wash (Alan Tudyk), Zoe (Gina Torres), Jayne (Adam Baldwin), and Kaylee ( Jewel Staite) as well as their "paying passengers," the Tam siblings Simon (Sean Maher) and River (Summer Glau) who are on the run from the Alliance. It is the prodigious and deadly River, in particular, in whom the Alliance is particularly interested because she one's one of its darkest secrets. Such in fact, is the extent of their interest in bringing her in that they dispatch a nameless, amoral and ultimately lethal Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to do the job. After initially deciding that keeping the Tams aboard his ship is more trouble than it's worth, after a violent incident in a bar Reynolds realizes that it's the right thing to do, even if it means bringing the wrath of the Alliance down on him and his crew.
The film, while hardly groundbreaking, is an interesting mix of genres, like the TV show that preceded it: it's basically a "space western." What makes it an utter treat to watch, though, are Whedon's quirky characters, the somewhat interesting future he's created in which people converse in English but swear in Mandarin, and finally the rather unique English his characters speak, which is a mix between the slang employed in cowboy movies, the dialogue in the original True Grit novel (which was reportedly faithfully quoted in the 2010 Coen brothers' film), and sci-fi tech-laden dialogue, with Whedon's own flourishes no doubt thrown in for good measure. As a frustrated fiction writer myself who constantly grapples with giving his characters unique but believable voices, I really appreciated the effort Whedon put into creating so much nuance in his characters' version of English; it shows remarkable attention to detail. Fans of The Avengers will also recognize the humor with which Whedon laces his script here.
I also enjoyed, for the most part, the performances Whedon extracted from his actors, especially Fillion as Reynolds and Ejiofor as the Operative. A full eight years ago, Whedon showed us fanboys what awards-giving bodies are only starting to discover: that Chiwetel Ejiofor is certifiably awesome. Re-watching this film made me yearn all the more to see him cast as Marvel mainstay the Black Panther. Homeland's Morena Baccarin makes a welcome appearance as the sultry courtesan Inara, and the four actors playing Reynolds' crew did a pretty job convincing me that these people had lived and worked together on the Serenity for an appreciable length of time.
The film was not without its flaws, probably the most conspicuous of which is accessibility. Whedon tries his darnedest to remedy this with a big chunk of exposition right at the beginning of the film and some back-story peppered throughout its two-hour running time, but to my mind he nonetheless failed to effectively convey to audiences unfamiliar with Firefly the motivations driving the central characters. It is certainly spelled out in the dialogue why some people chose to resist unification with the alliance ("we meddle"), but for much of the film there's actually little that demonstrates just how oppressive the Alliance's good intentions can be. There is actually a crucial plot development that emphatically makes Whedon's point, but notably, most of the characters are completely unaware of this plot twist until two-thirds into the film, which inevitably prompted me to ask: so why was there a Unification War in the first place? I felt that a better knowledge of what happened in the television show would have made the history of that world, and the attitudes it shaped, a bit clearer. From that, as well as the interplay of Reynolds with his various crew members, I gathered that only a follower of Firefly could really understand the ins and outs of this universe.
Another weakness of the film is Summer Glau, whose waif-fu (a phrase I would have loved to have coined) is very entertaining to watch but whose attempt at dramatic acting...well, isn't. Funny thing is, when I caught this movie on TV many years ago, I found myself riveted by River Tam's ass-kicking scenes, but apparently completely glossed over Glau's limp acting, only to remember it when I finally got this movie on DVD (for PhP100.00). It's appropriate that she went on to play a robot in the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles because looking oddly detached and dishing out onscreen beat-downs are the two things Glau does really well.
Flaws notwithstanding, one can still see in the script and action sequences the sensibility that Whedon brought to his vision for Marvel's Avengers. Moreover, considering that Whedon had only the fraction of his Avengers budget to work with here, the images that appear onscreen, particularly of Serenity itself, are particularly impressive. Whedon may have only had bargain-basement computer-generated imagery at his disposal, but I would argue that he certainly made the most out of it. It may feel odd that this was the only feature film on Joss Whedon's resume when Marvel hired him to direct their most ambitious property ever, but watching this movie again, the decision actually made sense.
3.5/5
The film takes place far into the future, when much of humanity has left the overpopulated Earth and taken up residence on other worlds, and after an interplanetary civil war was waged between an alliance of those new worlds and the worlds of people who did not want to belong to the alliance. Captain Malcom Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) fought in the civil war, on the losing side, and now quietly plies his trade as an interplanetary bank robber, traveling across worlds in his ship, the titular, "Firefly-class" starship Serenity which was named for the Battle of Serenity, in which Mal took part during the civil war. Accompanying Reynolds are his loyal crew, Wash (Alan Tudyk), Zoe (Gina Torres), Jayne (Adam Baldwin), and Kaylee ( Jewel Staite) as well as their "paying passengers," the Tam siblings Simon (Sean Maher) and River (Summer Glau) who are on the run from the Alliance. It is the prodigious and deadly River, in particular, in whom the Alliance is particularly interested because she one's one of its darkest secrets. Such in fact, is the extent of their interest in bringing her in that they dispatch a nameless, amoral and ultimately lethal Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to do the job. After initially deciding that keeping the Tams aboard his ship is more trouble than it's worth, after a violent incident in a bar Reynolds realizes that it's the right thing to do, even if it means bringing the wrath of the Alliance down on him and his crew.
The film, while hardly groundbreaking, is an interesting mix of genres, like the TV show that preceded it: it's basically a "space western." What makes it an utter treat to watch, though, are Whedon's quirky characters, the somewhat interesting future he's created in which people converse in English but swear in Mandarin, and finally the rather unique English his characters speak, which is a mix between the slang employed in cowboy movies, the dialogue in the original True Grit novel (which was reportedly faithfully quoted in the 2010 Coen brothers' film), and sci-fi tech-laden dialogue, with Whedon's own flourishes no doubt thrown in for good measure. As a frustrated fiction writer myself who constantly grapples with giving his characters unique but believable voices, I really appreciated the effort Whedon put into creating so much nuance in his characters' version of English; it shows remarkable attention to detail. Fans of The Avengers will also recognize the humor with which Whedon laces his script here.
I also enjoyed, for the most part, the performances Whedon extracted from his actors, especially Fillion as Reynolds and Ejiofor as the Operative. A full eight years ago, Whedon showed us fanboys what awards-giving bodies are only starting to discover: that Chiwetel Ejiofor is certifiably awesome. Re-watching this film made me yearn all the more to see him cast as Marvel mainstay the Black Panther. Homeland's Morena Baccarin makes a welcome appearance as the sultry courtesan Inara, and the four actors playing Reynolds' crew did a pretty job convincing me that these people had lived and worked together on the Serenity for an appreciable length of time.
The film was not without its flaws, probably the most conspicuous of which is accessibility. Whedon tries his darnedest to remedy this with a big chunk of exposition right at the beginning of the film and some back-story peppered throughout its two-hour running time, but to my mind he nonetheless failed to effectively convey to audiences unfamiliar with Firefly the motivations driving the central characters. It is certainly spelled out in the dialogue why some people chose to resist unification with the alliance ("we meddle"), but for much of the film there's actually little that demonstrates just how oppressive the Alliance's good intentions can be. There is actually a crucial plot development that emphatically makes Whedon's point, but notably, most of the characters are completely unaware of this plot twist until two-thirds into the film, which inevitably prompted me to ask: so why was there a Unification War in the first place? I felt that a better knowledge of what happened in the television show would have made the history of that world, and the attitudes it shaped, a bit clearer. From that, as well as the interplay of Reynolds with his various crew members, I gathered that only a follower of Firefly could really understand the ins and outs of this universe.
Another weakness of the film is Summer Glau, whose waif-fu (a phrase I would have loved to have coined) is very entertaining to watch but whose attempt at dramatic acting...well, isn't. Funny thing is, when I caught this movie on TV many years ago, I found myself riveted by River Tam's ass-kicking scenes, but apparently completely glossed over Glau's limp acting, only to remember it when I finally got this movie on DVD (for PhP100.00). It's appropriate that she went on to play a robot in the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles because looking oddly detached and dishing out onscreen beat-downs are the two things Glau does really well.
Flaws notwithstanding, one can still see in the script and action sequences the sensibility that Whedon brought to his vision for Marvel's Avengers. Moreover, considering that Whedon had only the fraction of his Avengers budget to work with here, the images that appear onscreen, particularly of Serenity itself, are particularly impressive. Whedon may have only had bargain-basement computer-generated imagery at his disposal, but I would argue that he certainly made the most out of it. It may feel odd that this was the only feature film on Joss Whedon's resume when Marvel hired him to direct their most ambitious property ever, but watching this movie again, the decision actually made sense.
3.5/5
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Marvel Movie Overload?
A few posts ago I wrote about how Disney, Marvel Entertainment's corporate parent, was taking the backseat in producing Marvel movies in 2014 and leaving the spotlight to the two remaining studios that still own the rights to making movies, namely Sony/Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox, which will be releasing The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past, respectively. In a way, that's still true as Marvel is vacating their prime summer real-estate, namely the very first weekend of May, which they have occupied without interruption since 2010 and giving the spot to Sony for the release of TASM 2, but whatever they're giving up in terms of timing, they're certainly making up for in quantity of releases.
All told, this year there will be five movies based on Marvel Comic book characters which is the most that have ever been released in a single year: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Big Hero 6. Of those five, three will be sequels, and of those three, two will be sequels to franchises over ten years old. Trailers for three of them have already come out, and the marketing push in general has been pretty strong. The Captain America movie, on top of teaser trailers, has also started a multimedia push as covers for upcoming issues renowned British movie magazine Empire will sport characters from the movie in full costume. Spider-Man made an appearance at the New Year countdown a few days ago, on top of all the other marketing gimmicks Sony has been pushing on the internet, including a full trailer. It's not unreasonable to expect similar promotional stunts for the other movies.
The inevitable question for me is: are we finally starting to get too much Marvel? As a Marvel geek I'm still game, especially since the trailers that have come out so far look great, but for non-comic book fans, five comic book movies in one year seems like a heck of a lot. How many Marvel movies can the average moviegoer take in one year? Last year was a banner year for Marvel-based movies, with Iron Man 3 grossing $1.2 billion, Thor: The Dark World grossing over $600 million and The Wolverine grossing over $400 million at the global box office, dispelling notions of comic-book movie fatigue, but this year there will be five of them, and 2014 could easily end up like 2011, when not a single comic-book based movie managed to crack the half billion mark at the global box office. Of course, that's not likely to happen to the Spidey or X sequels, but the potential casualties here could be the two new properties, Guardians of the Galaxy and Big Hero 6, which will come out after the three sequels have given audiences their fill of A-list Marvel heroes. GOTG and BH6, in contrast to the other three movies, apart from being non-sequels, are based on considerably less popular Marvel Comics and still bear the burden of "proving themselves" to audiences.
Personally, the movie I most want to see of the five (and I want to see them all) is Big Hero 6, so the thought that, being the last of the five movies to come out, it could end up on the short end of the box-office stick saddens me a little bit. It excites me because it's the one thing that's never been done before. GOTG could be accused of being "Star Trek/Star Wars lite" but the anime-inspired BH6, which will be the first Marvel animated feature film, has the potential to be so much more than that. As a fan of Pixar's The Incredibles, I have, since Disney purchased Marvel in 2010, been anxious to see Disney's resources and talent to animate a Marvel property (and the Phineas and Ferb episode doesn't count), and while I would have preferred to see a more familiar property, like Doctor Strange or Runaways, adapted, this will do just fine for a start. The film isn't being produced by Disney's Pixar unit, but after the remarkable quality of last year's Wreck-It-Ralph I know Disney can do action comedy every bit as well as they can do musical princess-themed movies.
However mainstream audiences respond to these films, one things for sure; this year Marvel movie geeks will DEFINITELY get their Marvel fix several times over!
All told, this year there will be five movies based on Marvel Comic book characters which is the most that have ever been released in a single year: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Big Hero 6. Of those five, three will be sequels, and of those three, two will be sequels to franchises over ten years old. Trailers for three of them have already come out, and the marketing push in general has been pretty strong. The Captain America movie, on top of teaser trailers, has also started a multimedia push as covers for upcoming issues renowned British movie magazine Empire will sport characters from the movie in full costume. Spider-Man made an appearance at the New Year countdown a few days ago, on top of all the other marketing gimmicks Sony has been pushing on the internet, including a full trailer. It's not unreasonable to expect similar promotional stunts for the other movies.
The inevitable question for me is: are we finally starting to get too much Marvel? As a Marvel geek I'm still game, especially since the trailers that have come out so far look great, but for non-comic book fans, five comic book movies in one year seems like a heck of a lot. How many Marvel movies can the average moviegoer take in one year? Last year was a banner year for Marvel-based movies, with Iron Man 3 grossing $1.2 billion, Thor: The Dark World grossing over $600 million and The Wolverine grossing over $400 million at the global box office, dispelling notions of comic-book movie fatigue, but this year there will be five of them, and 2014 could easily end up like 2011, when not a single comic-book based movie managed to crack the half billion mark at the global box office. Of course, that's not likely to happen to the Spidey or X sequels, but the potential casualties here could be the two new properties, Guardians of the Galaxy and Big Hero 6, which will come out after the three sequels have given audiences their fill of A-list Marvel heroes. GOTG and BH6, in contrast to the other three movies, apart from being non-sequels, are based on considerably less popular Marvel Comics and still bear the burden of "proving themselves" to audiences.
Personally, the movie I most want to see of the five (and I want to see them all) is Big Hero 6, so the thought that, being the last of the five movies to come out, it could end up on the short end of the box-office stick saddens me a little bit. It excites me because it's the one thing that's never been done before. GOTG could be accused of being "Star Trek/Star Wars lite" but the anime-inspired BH6, which will be the first Marvel animated feature film, has the potential to be so much more than that. As a fan of Pixar's The Incredibles, I have, since Disney purchased Marvel in 2010, been anxious to see Disney's resources and talent to animate a Marvel property (and the Phineas and Ferb episode doesn't count), and while I would have preferred to see a more familiar property, like Doctor Strange or Runaways, adapted, this will do just fine for a start. The film isn't being produced by Disney's Pixar unit, but after the remarkable quality of last year's Wreck-It-Ralph I know Disney can do action comedy every bit as well as they can do musical princess-themed movies.
However mainstream audiences respond to these films, one things for sure; this year Marvel movie geeks will DEFINITELY get their Marvel fix several times over!
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