Directed by Keishi Otomo
Based on the manga by Nobuhiro Watsuki
I have never been more than a casual fan of the anime called Samurai X which is properly titled Rurouni Kenshin in its native Japan, and is based on a popular manga. I have, however seen enough episodes, including a feature length special that came out on Home Box Office many years ago, to appreciate the story of an ex-assassin with unparalleled swordsmanship skill wandering around 19th century Japan seeking to redeem himself from a life of bloodshed. I missed the first live-action adaptation of this series, which came out two years ago and I was sorry I did, which was why I was only to happy to join the long queue to watch the first of two sequels: Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno.
While Kenshin Himura (Takeru Satoh) is living peacefully after the events of the last film, trouble is brewing in Kyoto as a warlord named Makoto Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara) surfaces. Like Himura, Shishio was one of the imperial government's top assassins, whom they attempted to liquidate after winning the Bakumatsu war. He proves to be a royal headache for the government, and when several of their officers fail to take him down, the government turns to Kenshin for help.
This movie, quite honestly, is quite unlike anything I have ever seen before. I have seen comic book adaptations by the boatload, including those told using an Asian sensibility, specifically Bong-Joon Ho's Snowpiercer, and I have enjoyed a great many of them, but I have also noted that with few exceptions, none of them really focused that much on the importance of really gripping fight scenes. A few months ago I was celebrating Captain America: The Winter Soldier for having the best choreographed fight scenes in any comic book-based movie I had ever seen, not quite realizing at the time that just what I was missing.
Basically, the fight scenes in Rurouni Kenshin are a wondrous marriage of everything that's been learned from swordplay and martial arts movies over the last century. There's a mix of the balletic grace of the Hong Kong action film and the Chinese wuxia epic as well as the bone-crunching, rough and tumble feel of films like The Raid. Of course, all of this is still tempered with a comic book sensibility that, from time to time, reminds the audience that this is all fantasy, but that does not detract in any way from the utterly engaging action sequences.
The story isn't really that much to write home about, truth be told. The movie still carries the animated series' somewhat heavy handed, purportedly pacifist message, but is still about a guy who beats up people with the flat part of his sword (though he does a magnificent job of it). I don't speak Japanese, so I can't really say how well people acted, but to my mind the performances were convincing enough, even if the guy who played Sanosuke, one of the more prominent supporting characters in the anime, kind of portrayed him as a buffoon. Apart from him, though, the actors, in so far as recreating the cartoon characters from whom their roles were derived, turned in performances that were pretty much spot on, and that was a treat to watch. Still, I get the sense that someone unfamiliar with this world and the characters that move in it would have a hard time understanding why an ex-samurai with flaming red hair would be walking around Meiji-era Japan, or why he would fight people like a blond goon with hair that's four inches high. In short, this film isn't exactly for anime novices, which could be a little jarring to the casual viewer.
To me, though, it was still a lot of fun, and I am definitely looking forward to the sequel, which will be coming out in a little over a month.
7.5/10
Saturday, August 23, 2014
How Robin Williams Died Long Before He Killed Himself
When I found out that actor and comedian Robin Williams took his own life earlier this week I was in no position to post on this blog; I was out of town and hard at work. Even as I write this post, however I find myself grappling with what I want to say.
Two years ago I wrote a blog post lamenting the fact that Robin Williams career appeared to have been in the toilet well before he took his life two weeks ago. Basically, I was already mourning the fact that the guy's career was, for all intents and purposes, dead. I mean, this man was an Academy Award winner and starred in several movies that grossed well over $100 million at the American box office, back when those numbers actually meant something, and his most high profile role post-2000 was a bit part in a Ben Stiller movie? Ben Stiller would be lucky to even be a fraction of the comedian that Williams was in his heyday, especially considering he could never really expand his roles beyond that of the insecure short guy, though I suppose I should be glad that he at least threw Robin that bone. It was wrong to me on so many levels that audiences could basically turn their back on someone who had brought so much joy to so many people.
For me, the saddest thing is that the role which, it seems now, most closely approximated the loneliness Robin Williams felt inside, that of Sy Parrish, the shy, secretly obsessive photobooth attendant in One Hour Photo, was largely ignored by audiences, even though it was arguably one of his very best. People just didn't want to see a creepy Robin Williams, even if it's a story he clearly really wanted to tell. After that, it was as if they didn't want to see him at all.
The thing that pained me about seeing Robin Williams' career just peter off was the thought that there wasn't any sex scandal or any single movie that really "did him in" (the disastrous 2009 film Old Dogs notwithstanding). It wasn't even that he stopped getting work; iMDB lists him as having projects all the way through the end of 2014. The problem was just that people really didn't pay him that much attention anymore, whether it was the studios giving out roles or the audiences watching them. The guy made studio execs rich and made audiences laugh for years, and in the end they rewarded him with cold indifference while Adam Sandler's negative-I.Q., man-child movies made big money year after year. Let's see Adam Sandler pull off roles like the ones that Williams did in Awakenings, Dead Poets Society, or Good Will Hunting. Oh wait, that's right, he can't.
I won't launch into a treatise on depression, a topic I am not at all qualified to discuss, or list my "top ten Robin Williams performances" or anything like that.
If people had continued to watch Robin Williams' movies, would it have stopped him from killing himself? Probably not, but he would have arguably have had less to be depressed about near the end. Maybe he was just sad he couldn't make people laugh anymore, at least not with any new material.
I just wish, to be honest, that the Hollywood moneymaking machine hadn't killed Williams' career long before he killed himself, whether or not that was the actual cause of his depression.
I guess the closest thing that can approximate a "moral of the story" is that if audiences cherish their favorite actors, they should keep watching their movies in theaters rather than patronizing garbage like Adam Sandler's movies, or something like that.
Oh well, I did say I was struggling with what I wanted to say...
Two years ago I wrote a blog post lamenting the fact that Robin Williams career appeared to have been in the toilet well before he took his life two weeks ago. Basically, I was already mourning the fact that the guy's career was, for all intents and purposes, dead. I mean, this man was an Academy Award winner and starred in several movies that grossed well over $100 million at the American box office, back when those numbers actually meant something, and his most high profile role post-2000 was a bit part in a Ben Stiller movie? Ben Stiller would be lucky to even be a fraction of the comedian that Williams was in his heyday, especially considering he could never really expand his roles beyond that of the insecure short guy, though I suppose I should be glad that he at least threw Robin that bone. It was wrong to me on so many levels that audiences could basically turn their back on someone who had brought so much joy to so many people.
For me, the saddest thing is that the role which, it seems now, most closely approximated the loneliness Robin Williams felt inside, that of Sy Parrish, the shy, secretly obsessive photobooth attendant in One Hour Photo, was largely ignored by audiences, even though it was arguably one of his very best. People just didn't want to see a creepy Robin Williams, even if it's a story he clearly really wanted to tell. After that, it was as if they didn't want to see him at all.
The thing that pained me about seeing Robin Williams' career just peter off was the thought that there wasn't any sex scandal or any single movie that really "did him in" (the disastrous 2009 film Old Dogs notwithstanding). It wasn't even that he stopped getting work; iMDB lists him as having projects all the way through the end of 2014. The problem was just that people really didn't pay him that much attention anymore, whether it was the studios giving out roles or the audiences watching them. The guy made studio execs rich and made audiences laugh for years, and in the end they rewarded him with cold indifference while Adam Sandler's negative-I.Q., man-child movies made big money year after year. Let's see Adam Sandler pull off roles like the ones that Williams did in Awakenings, Dead Poets Society, or Good Will Hunting. Oh wait, that's right, he can't.
I won't launch into a treatise on depression, a topic I am not at all qualified to discuss, or list my "top ten Robin Williams performances" or anything like that.
If people had continued to watch Robin Williams' movies, would it have stopped him from killing himself? Probably not, but he would have arguably have had less to be depressed about near the end. Maybe he was just sad he couldn't make people laugh anymore, at least not with any new material.
I just wish, to be honest, that the Hollywood moneymaking machine hadn't killed Williams' career long before he killed himself, whether or not that was the actual cause of his depression.
I guess the closest thing that can approximate a "moral of the story" is that if audiences cherish their favorite actors, they should keep watching their movies in theaters rather than patronizing garbage like Adam Sandler's movies, or something like that.
Oh well, I did say I was struggling with what I wanted to say...
Monday, August 4, 2014
Space Opera, Marvel Style: A Review of Guardians of the Galaxy
directed by James Gunn
written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman
I'll be honest; I thought that Guardians of the Galaxy would mark the end of Marvel Studios' winning streak at the box-office that began with 2008's Iron Man and which has continued unabated ever since. Sure, some of their movies have been more successful than others, but they had never failed to land a movie at #1 on opening weekend. Given that GOTG was based on a relatively obscure and recent comic book property and therefore didn't enjoy the goodwill that enabled characters like Spider-man and Captain America to connect with audiences, and given that the first few images released by Marvel over a year ago didn't suggest much more than a generic sci-fi adventure in world that has already had fifty years of Star Trek, Star Wars and legions of other science fiction copycats, it was easy to dismiss the film.
While I suppose it was no real surprise that Marvel proved me wrong, considering that they seem to have gotten the art of successfully launching franchises down to a science, what really surprised me was just how much I enjoyed this movie. The trailer had impressed me, but nothing I had seen really prepared me for the enjoyment that the movie eventually delivered.
The story begins on earth, in 1988, where young Peter Quill (Wyatt Oleff) watches his mother succumb to cancer just after she tells him she loves him and gives him a farewell present. Distraught, he runs out of the hospital and into an empty field, only to be zapped up into a mysterious spaceship. Twenty-six years later, the adult Quill (Chris Pratt), who now calls himself "Star-Lord" travels across space stealing and fencing artifacts and dancing to 70s and 80s tunes while doing it. His latest heist, of a mysterious orb, sees him cross paths with the heavily armed Korath (Djimon Hounsou), a minion of the Kree warrior Ronan (Lee Pace), who plans to use the orb to destroy planet of Xandar. Ronan dispatches one of his top assassins, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to retrieve the orb from Quill, while Yondu (Michael Rooker), leader of the Ravagers, or the bounty hunters who kidnapped Quill in the first place, is mad as hell at him for breaking their agreement and getting the orb on his own, and in short order puts out a hefty bounty on his head, which in turn brings him within the crosshairs of bounty hunters Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper) a talking cyber-raccoon, and Groot (Vin Diesel), a walking, talking tree that only says "I am Groot." Things get crazy when Gamora, Rocket and Groot converge on Quill, in a confrontation that manages to land all of them, including the orb in Quill's possession, in prison. While there, they agree that they need each other to break out and to cash in on the score that the orb promises to deliver. To break out, they recruit a tattooed, overly literal homicidal maniac named Drax (Dave Bautista) who has it in for Ronan for killing his family. Soon, they come to realize that there is a lot more to the orb than a payday, and the fate of the galaxy itself may be at stake.
This is, to my mind at least, the best action-comedy I've seen since 1998's The Mask of Zorro, and the best sci-fi action comedy I've seen since...well...forever.
The single best part of this movie is how it feels like Marvel's first "clean slate" since the very first Iron Man. It is possible to walk into this movie without having seen anything that Marvel has produced before it and still enjoy it thoroughly. Yes, there are Easter Eggs, and references to other Marvel properties, but none of them requires any knowledge of previous Marvel films to understand what's going on. If anything, they're a little shout-out to the inevitable throngs of Marvel nerds in the audience, who will be rewarded for their loyalty even as the average viewer soaks in the fun while missing all of the winks and nods.
Besides, it's easy for the Marvel references to get lost in the shuffle of the numerous sci-fi references with which director Gunn peppers this film.
To my mind this film is, at the same time, a love letter to the science fiction films of the 1980s and a breath of fresh air much needed by a genre whose standard bearers are either riddled with cliche (e.g. Avatar), or are the merest shadows of the what their forbears were (Star Trek: Into Darkness, and every one of the Star Wars prequels), with a lot of them putting premium in flashy, slick visual effects, often at the expense of good old-fashioned storytelling. The movie is just so much giddy fun, and it isn't afraid to poke fun at sci-fi story tropes over and over again. Pratt is clearly having a blast as Quill/Star-lord, and his energy and comic timing are infectious. In the hands of a less capable actor, Peter Quill could just as easily have been Han Solo lite, but Pratt's talent elevates Quill past that, at least when it really matters. Sci-fi veteran Saldana, who now has three major sci-fi franchises in her resume, truly kicks ass as Gamora, and to audiences rolling their eyes at the thought that she's only there for the leading man to land in the sack, I'm happy to say there's no lip-locking here and that the only action Gamora gets is the girl-on-girl kind, when she goes toe-to-toe with her equally badass sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) a cybernetic psychopath also working for Ronan, one whom we may well see in future GOTG installments. Dave Bautista, as a man incapable of grasping linguistic nuance, is an unexpected treat, though considering he's already practically a stand-up comedian by virtue of his lengthy tenure as a professional wrestler I suppose there should have been some indication of what he could bring to the role besides his rather imposing physicality.
Of course, much of the talking will be done about the computer-generated characters voiced by A-list movie stars Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, namely, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, respectively. The good news is that neither of them is slumming it for a paycheck; Cooper packs his diminutive onscreen avatar with just as much character and spunk as he has any of his live action portrayals, and Rocket, as strange as this may sound, actually gets some of the more poignant moments in the film. As for Diesel, the towering walking tree that is Groot actually provides him to exact sweet revenge on his critics who have accused him of wooden acting. With a three-word vocabulary, Diesel manages to imbue the character with so much nuance that he actually manages to outshine a lot of the live-action performances in the film.
Acting veterans like Glenn Close and John C. Reilly got some fairly meaty but small roles as Nova Prime and Nova Corpsman Dey, though I sense that some of their scenes may have ended up on the cutting room floor. Given that Xandar, the planet they're from, figures prominently in the cosmic Marvel universe I hope to see them again in future installments.
Getting notably short shrift, however, are Pace's Ronan and Gillan's Nebula, who get the chance to look badass and to hurt people in the film but precious little else. It's not quite as bad as the utterly bland Malekith from last year's Thor: The Dark World, but there's still quite a bit of wasted potential here. Nebula, in particular, could be a potentially iconic villain in the vein of Loki, and I honestly hope to see more of her in the future. Thanos, the big league Marvel bad guy of whom fans got a peek during the post-credits scene of The Avengers, makes an appearance here, voiced by Josh Brolin , but he's little more than a tease of things to come. So maybe the movie falls a little short in the bad guy department, but for some reason it doesn't feel like that big a loss. It is, first and foremost, about the journey of the Guardians, and it is a doozy.
There are other details I absolutely dug as well, like the meticulously realized galaxy the titular Guardians (who got their name in a moment of sneering contempt) bounced around in, which included a planet that was actually once the head of a giant celestial being. Sure the physics of it probably don't make any sense, but the thought of beings so big that their heads can be miniature planets recalls the sense of wonder that Jack Kirby evoked with his wonderfully weird art back in the 1960s. And yes, fans of the cosmic Marvel Universe can rejoice at the thought that one of Kirby's iconic Celestials does make an appearance on the screen. The visual effects put to work here are incredibly imaginative.
On the other hand, however, I was disappointed by the lack of variety of alien species walking around. Apart from Rocket and Groot, the rest of the alien population seemed limited to humans and people whose skin were pastel colors, like Gamora's green, Ronan's and Nebula's blue, and the pink that a lot of the minor characters sported. I guess that was where Marvel's budget constraints kicked in, but for my part, I would have wanted to see the kind of unhinged weirdness that Guillermo del Toro poured into films like Pan's Labyrinth or Hellboy: the Golden Army. We're talking about a whole other galaxy, after all, surely there's more to people looking different than just skin color? Maybe Gunn will let his hair down in the inevitable sequel and give us some real visual craziness.
Missteps aside, however, I am a big fan of what Gunn has done here. Guardians of the Galaxy may have a lot of Marvel's virtually patented blend of action and humor, but it is a significant departure from the superhero film that has become their wheelhouse. Marvel have allowed Gunn to present to the audience an honest-to-goodness space opera, and by golly, has he delivered. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the rather cheeky cameo from a somewhat infamous Marvel character right at the end of the credits is as much a salute to this film's real creative influence as it is some good-natured ribbing.
I'm looking forward to blasting off with this film's inevitable sequel in two or three years!
9/10
written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman
I'll be honest; I thought that Guardians of the Galaxy would mark the end of Marvel Studios' winning streak at the box-office that began with 2008's Iron Man and which has continued unabated ever since. Sure, some of their movies have been more successful than others, but they had never failed to land a movie at #1 on opening weekend. Given that GOTG was based on a relatively obscure and recent comic book property and therefore didn't enjoy the goodwill that enabled characters like Spider-man and Captain America to connect with audiences, and given that the first few images released by Marvel over a year ago didn't suggest much more than a generic sci-fi adventure in world that has already had fifty years of Star Trek, Star Wars and legions of other science fiction copycats, it was easy to dismiss the film.
While I suppose it was no real surprise that Marvel proved me wrong, considering that they seem to have gotten the art of successfully launching franchises down to a science, what really surprised me was just how much I enjoyed this movie. The trailer had impressed me, but nothing I had seen really prepared me for the enjoyment that the movie eventually delivered.
The story begins on earth, in 1988, where young Peter Quill (Wyatt Oleff) watches his mother succumb to cancer just after she tells him she loves him and gives him a farewell present. Distraught, he runs out of the hospital and into an empty field, only to be zapped up into a mysterious spaceship. Twenty-six years later, the adult Quill (Chris Pratt), who now calls himself "Star-Lord" travels across space stealing and fencing artifacts and dancing to 70s and 80s tunes while doing it. His latest heist, of a mysterious orb, sees him cross paths with the heavily armed Korath (Djimon Hounsou), a minion of the Kree warrior Ronan (Lee Pace), who plans to use the orb to destroy planet of Xandar. Ronan dispatches one of his top assassins, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to retrieve the orb from Quill, while Yondu (Michael Rooker), leader of the Ravagers, or the bounty hunters who kidnapped Quill in the first place, is mad as hell at him for breaking their agreement and getting the orb on his own, and in short order puts out a hefty bounty on his head, which in turn brings him within the crosshairs of bounty hunters Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper) a talking cyber-raccoon, and Groot (Vin Diesel), a walking, talking tree that only says "I am Groot." Things get crazy when Gamora, Rocket and Groot converge on Quill, in a confrontation that manages to land all of them, including the orb in Quill's possession, in prison. While there, they agree that they need each other to break out and to cash in on the score that the orb promises to deliver. To break out, they recruit a tattooed, overly literal homicidal maniac named Drax (Dave Bautista) who has it in for Ronan for killing his family. Soon, they come to realize that there is a lot more to the orb than a payday, and the fate of the galaxy itself may be at stake.
This is, to my mind at least, the best action-comedy I've seen since 1998's The Mask of Zorro, and the best sci-fi action comedy I've seen since...well...forever.
The single best part of this movie is how it feels like Marvel's first "clean slate" since the very first Iron Man. It is possible to walk into this movie without having seen anything that Marvel has produced before it and still enjoy it thoroughly. Yes, there are Easter Eggs, and references to other Marvel properties, but none of them requires any knowledge of previous Marvel films to understand what's going on. If anything, they're a little shout-out to the inevitable throngs of Marvel nerds in the audience, who will be rewarded for their loyalty even as the average viewer soaks in the fun while missing all of the winks and nods.
Besides, it's easy for the Marvel references to get lost in the shuffle of the numerous sci-fi references with which director Gunn peppers this film.
To my mind this film is, at the same time, a love letter to the science fiction films of the 1980s and a breath of fresh air much needed by a genre whose standard bearers are either riddled with cliche (e.g. Avatar), or are the merest shadows of the what their forbears were (Star Trek: Into Darkness, and every one of the Star Wars prequels), with a lot of them putting premium in flashy, slick visual effects, often at the expense of good old-fashioned storytelling. The movie is just so much giddy fun, and it isn't afraid to poke fun at sci-fi story tropes over and over again. Pratt is clearly having a blast as Quill/Star-lord, and his energy and comic timing are infectious. In the hands of a less capable actor, Peter Quill could just as easily have been Han Solo lite, but Pratt's talent elevates Quill past that, at least when it really matters. Sci-fi veteran Saldana, who now has three major sci-fi franchises in her resume, truly kicks ass as Gamora, and to audiences rolling their eyes at the thought that she's only there for the leading man to land in the sack, I'm happy to say there's no lip-locking here and that the only action Gamora gets is the girl-on-girl kind, when she goes toe-to-toe with her equally badass sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) a cybernetic psychopath also working for Ronan, one whom we may well see in future GOTG installments. Dave Bautista, as a man incapable of grasping linguistic nuance, is an unexpected treat, though considering he's already practically a stand-up comedian by virtue of his lengthy tenure as a professional wrestler I suppose there should have been some indication of what he could bring to the role besides his rather imposing physicality.
Of course, much of the talking will be done about the computer-generated characters voiced by A-list movie stars Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, namely, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, respectively. The good news is that neither of them is slumming it for a paycheck; Cooper packs his diminutive onscreen avatar with just as much character and spunk as he has any of his live action portrayals, and Rocket, as strange as this may sound, actually gets some of the more poignant moments in the film. As for Diesel, the towering walking tree that is Groot actually provides him to exact sweet revenge on his critics who have accused him of wooden acting. With a three-word vocabulary, Diesel manages to imbue the character with so much nuance that he actually manages to outshine a lot of the live-action performances in the film.
Acting veterans like Glenn Close and John C. Reilly got some fairly meaty but small roles as Nova Prime and Nova Corpsman Dey, though I sense that some of their scenes may have ended up on the cutting room floor. Given that Xandar, the planet they're from, figures prominently in the cosmic Marvel universe I hope to see them again in future installments.
Getting notably short shrift, however, are Pace's Ronan and Gillan's Nebula, who get the chance to look badass and to hurt people in the film but precious little else. It's not quite as bad as the utterly bland Malekith from last year's Thor: The Dark World, but there's still quite a bit of wasted potential here. Nebula, in particular, could be a potentially iconic villain in the vein of Loki, and I honestly hope to see more of her in the future. Thanos, the big league Marvel bad guy of whom fans got a peek during the post-credits scene of The Avengers, makes an appearance here, voiced by Josh Brolin , but he's little more than a tease of things to come. So maybe the movie falls a little short in the bad guy department, but for some reason it doesn't feel like that big a loss. It is, first and foremost, about the journey of the Guardians, and it is a doozy.
There are other details I absolutely dug as well, like the meticulously realized galaxy the titular Guardians (who got their name in a moment of sneering contempt) bounced around in, which included a planet that was actually once the head of a giant celestial being. Sure the physics of it probably don't make any sense, but the thought of beings so big that their heads can be miniature planets recalls the sense of wonder that Jack Kirby evoked with his wonderfully weird art back in the 1960s. And yes, fans of the cosmic Marvel Universe can rejoice at the thought that one of Kirby's iconic Celestials does make an appearance on the screen. The visual effects put to work here are incredibly imaginative.
On the other hand, however, I was disappointed by the lack of variety of alien species walking around. Apart from Rocket and Groot, the rest of the alien population seemed limited to humans and people whose skin were pastel colors, like Gamora's green, Ronan's and Nebula's blue, and the pink that a lot of the minor characters sported. I guess that was where Marvel's budget constraints kicked in, but for my part, I would have wanted to see the kind of unhinged weirdness that Guillermo del Toro poured into films like Pan's Labyrinth or Hellboy: the Golden Army. We're talking about a whole other galaxy, after all, surely there's more to people looking different than just skin color? Maybe Gunn will let his hair down in the inevitable sequel and give us some real visual craziness.
Missteps aside, however, I am a big fan of what Gunn has done here. Guardians of the Galaxy may have a lot of Marvel's virtually patented blend of action and humor, but it is a significant departure from the superhero film that has become their wheelhouse. Marvel have allowed Gunn to present to the audience an honest-to-goodness space opera, and by golly, has he delivered. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the rather cheeky cameo from a somewhat infamous Marvel character right at the end of the credits is as much a salute to this film's real creative influence as it is some good-natured ribbing.
I'm looking forward to blasting off with this film's inevitable sequel in two or three years!
9/10
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