There's a fairly old joke for situations in which a motion picture is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture while the director of said motion picture is not nominated for the Best Director award: "(insert title of film)" is apparently a film that directed itself. I don't know how old the joke is, but the first person I ever heard crack it was longtime Oscar host Billy Crystal way back in 1990.
It's a joke that still holds true today, with the Academy Award nominations for Best Director for films released in 2012 conspicuous for the absence of several high-profile names. Kathryn Bigelow, Oscar winner for 2009's The Hurt Locker and the first woman ever to win an Academy Award for Best Director, was shut out of the derby despite the fact that her highly-controversial film on the killing of Osama Bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty, received a nod for Best Picture among others, as was Tom Hooper, who won the 2010 prize for The King's Speech, despite the fact that his adaptation of the musical phenomenon Les Miserables became the first musical since Dreamgirls to receive a nomination for Best Picture.
The exclusion that has arguably generated the most violent reaction, however, is that of Ben Affleck, who directed the spy-thriller Argo, a film which, prior to Affleck's exclusion from the Best Director category, was widely viewed as a strong contender for the top award. Affleck, like Bigelow and Hooper, has an Oscar under his belt, albeit one he won over fifteen years ago for co-writing Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon.
There is an inevitability to the exclusion of directors from the Best Director category considering that the field of nominees for Best Picture has expanded from five to ten while the number of slots available for Best Director nominees has stayed pegged at five. Affleck and company should take some consolation from knowing that, at least, they weren't overlooked in favor of someone who did not direct any of the nominees for Best Picture.
Still, this should be cold comfort to a guy who has pulled off one of the most remarkable career reinventions in recent years, and who deserves due recognition for what I and many others feel is a truly extraordinary film. Unlike Bigelow and Hooper, Affleck doesn't have a little golden man for Best Director sitting at home. The Golden Globe he just won may not quite cut it.
To my mind the main reason Ben Affleck's work on Argo deserves an Oscar (and not even just an Oscar nod) was the difficulty of the subject matter. Recent and even not-so-recent history shows that movies set in, or which touch upon events in the Middle East tend to be a really hard sell. Affleck's buddy Damon, who happens to be an extremely bankable movie star on a good day, learned this the hard way when he teamed with Bourne series director Paul Greengrass for the critically-reviled and commercially-ignored film The Green Zone, which was basically a heavy-handed critique of the Bush administration's incursion into Iraq in 2003. Damon's flop was the latest of a long line of films talking about war or political turbulence in the Middle East, including films including Ridley Scott's Body of Lies and Peter Berg's The Kingdom, Sam Mendez's Jarhead, among many others. Even Bigelow's Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker grossed chump change during its entire theatrical run. Not only that, but tensions between the United States and the Middle East, and in particular in Iran, remain high today. This makes the success of Argo, both with audiences and critics, a particularly outstanding achievement, and the fact that Affleck, the principal architect of this success, succeeded where many others before him had failed, easily merits a Best Director nod all by itself.
Affleck's exemplary treatment of the subject matter, I think, was really what made the difference between the film flopping like so many before it and becoming a breakout hit. The film was, as hard as this may be to believe, apolitical in a way, because it was not about the righteousness of either side of the political tension, but quite simply the peril faced by the men and women from the U.S. Embassy who hid in the Canadian Ambassador's house and by the man who took it on himself to bring them home. There was a touch of heavy-handedness in the way Affleck portrayed a couple of pivotal Iranian characters, but overall he made a film that transcended all politics, a film about unbelievable courage and heroism, pure and simple. The members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences clearly recognized the virtues of this film, so why not attribute them to the guy who directed it? This particular mystery is really one for the books.
We mere mortals will probably never know why Ben Affleck was screwed out of an Oscar for Best Director for his work on Argo by the members of the AMPAS, but those of us who admire his work as a director can take considerable solace from knowing that this guy appears to have plenty left in the tank, and that as far as Ben's Oscar prospects are concerned, tomorrow is another day.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Oscars 2013: Flipping the Bird at Fanboys? Part II
The ultimate effect of the shooting on public reception to The Dark Knight Rises will never be known, but even after the movie opened to less enthusiasm than The Avengers or even its predecessor, and even after people expressed the view that it was simply not as good a movie as The Dark Knight had been, there was still much love for Nolan's Batman swansong.
Earlier this week, the AMPAS finally released the complete list of nominees, and while it was not particularly surprising that neither The Dark Knight Rises nor The Avengers, featured in either of the major categories, what came to this particular fan as a genuine shock was that between these two intelligent, very well-made comic-book based movies produced by filmmakers with considerable pedigree and, between them, several Oscar wins or nominations, they could only muster one nomination: a single nod for the visual effects of The Avengers. The Dark Knight Rises was ignored completely.
Perhaps it would help to explain the reason behind my surprise. Since Richard Donner's Superman picked up three Oscar nominations and an award for its visual effects in 1978, movies based on comic books could almost always be counted on to garner some kind of recognition, if only for their technical achievements. Tim Burton's 1989 take on Batman took home an Oscar for Anton Furst's art direction. Two out of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy of films picked up a total of five nominations in visual effects and sound categories, with Spider-Man 2 winning the award for visual effects. The first Iron Man film picked up three Oscar nominations, albeit all in technical categories.
Christopher Nolan's Batman films, at least as far as awards and awards nominations are concerned, are pretty much in a class of their own. The first film in his trilogy, Batman Begins, scored a nomination for Best Cinematography, a relatively prestigious category, and The Dark Knight, even though it was snubbed for the major awards, snagged a whopping eight, nominations, eventually taking home two, one of which was for the late Heath Ledger's almost universally-acclaimed take on longtime Bat-villain the Joker.
That the last film in Nolan's Bat trilogy garnered zero nominations as opposed to the last film's eight, as well as the eight picked up by Nolan's last work, Inception, cannot possibly be an indictment of the film's overall craftsmanship, the standard of which Nolan quite arguably maintained, at least on many if not most levels. Heck, Richard Corliss, a highly respected film critic for TIME magazine, has put it on the magazine's yearly top ten list.
The same, to my mind, can be said of the lack of any other Oscar nominations for The Avengers apart from its visual effects, considering that the film, at least as a technical achievement, quite easily towers over the first Iron Man. I cannot even help but
It is my opinion that the shocking dearth of nominations for comic-book related films, even in the technical categories, is, more than anything else, a categorical statement of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that whatever anyone else may believe, they do not give a rat's ass what internet fanboys around the world think, a statement that they were willing to make even if it meant overlooking the hard work of dozens of highly deserving craftsmen and women. To put it another way, I think Oscar voters did this to spite fanboys. Sure, I could quite easily be wrong, but I dare the AMPAS as a body to openly disclose how they arrived at their decision making. They never will, for the same reason they'll never explain any of several dozen messed up choices for Best Picture or various other categories over 85 years.
This is what makes me angry enough to write such a long-winded post; assuming my theory is correct, it is thanks to the antics and ultimate self-importance of obnoxious fanboys so obsessed with a film they had not even seen yet that they were willing to post death threats to critics voicing their opinions, that the most prestigious awards-giving body for motion pictures in the entire world has decided to snub not just one but two highly successful comic book-based movies.
In the great scheme of things, the Oscars don't really matter. Some people in the film industry have won Oscars and yet gone on to see their careers crumble, and some people have gone their whole lives without winning Oscars and yet have had the respect of both audiences and their peers until their death. Not only that, but time and again the Oscars have been accused of being a corrupt political exercise, accusations which may not be entirely untrue. So really, if The Avengers only got one Oscar nod or The Dark Knight Rises got none it really is not any indication of either film's quality or lack of it.
The thing of it is...there are fans like me who don't threaten film critics or shout like maniacs on the internet, who would very much like to see the films we love rewarded with recognition, even if it is just in the technical categories. It would make us happy to see the people who worked hard to entertain us acknowledged and honored by their peers in the industry. This snub is genuinely frustrating to people like me.
Not only that, but in choosing their candidates for this year's Oscars, the members of the AMPAS did not completely shun popular movies; the billion-dollar James Bond mega-blockbuster, Skyfall, has scooped up five nominations including nods for Cinematography and Best Original Song. And there's still the lone Avengers nomination. Oscar doesn't hate popcorn movies by any stretch of the imagination, but in view of this monumental snub I'm starting to think he hates fanboys.
So, really, to the troglodytes who got rottentomatoes.com shut down and who may have given a lot of people the impression that devotees of comic-book based films are basically the scum of the earth, thanks a lot. It is quite possible that you have taken the gains made by the likes of Christopher Nolan, Jon Favreau and Joss Whedon, who have taken great pains to move comic book movies away from the camp with which they are too often associated and towards the respectability they deserve, and flushed them down the toilet. Looks like it's back to square one.
Earlier this week, the AMPAS finally released the complete list of nominees, and while it was not particularly surprising that neither The Dark Knight Rises nor The Avengers, featured in either of the major categories, what came to this particular fan as a genuine shock was that between these two intelligent, very well-made comic-book based movies produced by filmmakers with considerable pedigree and, between them, several Oscar wins or nominations, they could only muster one nomination: a single nod for the visual effects of The Avengers. The Dark Knight Rises was ignored completely.
Perhaps it would help to explain the reason behind my surprise. Since Richard Donner's Superman picked up three Oscar nominations and an award for its visual effects in 1978, movies based on comic books could almost always be counted on to garner some kind of recognition, if only for their technical achievements. Tim Burton's 1989 take on Batman took home an Oscar for Anton Furst's art direction. Two out of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy of films picked up a total of five nominations in visual effects and sound categories, with Spider-Man 2 winning the award for visual effects. The first Iron Man film picked up three Oscar nominations, albeit all in technical categories.
Christopher Nolan's Batman films, at least as far as awards and awards nominations are concerned, are pretty much in a class of their own. The first film in his trilogy, Batman Begins, scored a nomination for Best Cinematography, a relatively prestigious category, and The Dark Knight, even though it was snubbed for the major awards, snagged a whopping eight, nominations, eventually taking home two, one of which was for the late Heath Ledger's almost universally-acclaimed take on longtime Bat-villain the Joker.
That the last film in Nolan's Bat trilogy garnered zero nominations as opposed to the last film's eight, as well as the eight picked up by Nolan's last work, Inception, cannot possibly be an indictment of the film's overall craftsmanship, the standard of which Nolan quite arguably maintained, at least on many if not most levels. Heck, Richard Corliss, a highly respected film critic for TIME magazine, has put it on the magazine's yearly top ten list.
The same, to my mind, can be said of the lack of any other Oscar nominations for The Avengers apart from its visual effects, considering that the film, at least as a technical achievement, quite easily towers over the first Iron Man. I cannot even help but
It is my opinion that the shocking dearth of nominations for comic-book related films, even in the technical categories, is, more than anything else, a categorical statement of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that whatever anyone else may believe, they do not give a rat's ass what internet fanboys around the world think, a statement that they were willing to make even if it meant overlooking the hard work of dozens of highly deserving craftsmen and women. To put it another way, I think Oscar voters did this to spite fanboys. Sure, I could quite easily be wrong, but I dare the AMPAS as a body to openly disclose how they arrived at their decision making. They never will, for the same reason they'll never explain any of several dozen messed up choices for Best Picture or various other categories over 85 years.
This is what makes me angry enough to write such a long-winded post; assuming my theory is correct, it is thanks to the antics and ultimate self-importance of obnoxious fanboys so obsessed with a film they had not even seen yet that they were willing to post death threats to critics voicing their opinions, that the most prestigious awards-giving body for motion pictures in the entire world has decided to snub not just one but two highly successful comic book-based movies.
In the great scheme of things, the Oscars don't really matter. Some people in the film industry have won Oscars and yet gone on to see their careers crumble, and some people have gone their whole lives without winning Oscars and yet have had the respect of both audiences and their peers until their death. Not only that, but time and again the Oscars have been accused of being a corrupt political exercise, accusations which may not be entirely untrue. So really, if The Avengers only got one Oscar nod or The Dark Knight Rises got none it really is not any indication of either film's quality or lack of it.
The thing of it is...there are fans like me who don't threaten film critics or shout like maniacs on the internet, who would very much like to see the films we love rewarded with recognition, even if it is just in the technical categories. It would make us happy to see the people who worked hard to entertain us acknowledged and honored by their peers in the industry. This snub is genuinely frustrating to people like me.
Not only that, but in choosing their candidates for this year's Oscars, the members of the AMPAS did not completely shun popular movies; the billion-dollar James Bond mega-blockbuster, Skyfall, has scooped up five nominations including nods for Cinematography and Best Original Song. And there's still the lone Avengers nomination. Oscar doesn't hate popcorn movies by any stretch of the imagination, but in view of this monumental snub I'm starting to think he hates fanboys.
So, really, to the troglodytes who got rottentomatoes.com shut down and who may have given a lot of people the impression that devotees of comic-book based films are basically the scum of the earth, thanks a lot. It is quite possible that you have taken the gains made by the likes of Christopher Nolan, Jon Favreau and Joss Whedon, who have taken great pains to move comic book movies away from the camp with which they are too often associated and towards the respectability they deserve, and flushed them down the toilet. Looks like it's back to square one.
Oscars 2013: Flipping the Bird at Fanboys? Part I
In 2009, when the Academy Award nominations for films released in 2008 were announced, several netizens raised a hue and a cry over the exclusion of one film in particular from the Best Picture and Best Director category: Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, the second of his Batman trilogy of films. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year and was a critical favorite, and it was therefore argued by many that the reason for its exclusion was a deep-seated bias against films based on comic books.
It would appear that the Dark Knight backlash did not go unnoticed, as the next year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reinstated a practice that it had not used for decades; it expanded the field of Best Picture nominees to from five (5) to ten (10) nominees. As a result, the year after that, 2010, featured several commercial hits like Avatar, The Blind Side and District 9 vying for the top honor along with the usual "arthouse" fare. In 2011 the Academy nominated the work of the man whose omission from the 2009 awards was what caused so much uproar in the first place; Christopher Nolan's acclaimed science-fiction film Inception featured prominently that year with eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture, though Nolan was once again snubbed in the Best Director category.
Last year, the Academy showed that although the field for Best Picture had expanded, the awards were not about fulfilling populist expectations, as none of the nominees from that year's field of nine could really be described as a blockbuster hit. In fact, of all nine films, only one, had even grossed over $100 million in North America, usually viewed as the minimum benchmark for whether a film is a commercial success or not.
This year, 2013 could have been a benchmark year for films based on comic books in terms of recognition. In May of 2012, Marvel's The Avengers not only shattered box-office records but impressed critics the world over.
And then, the Dark Knight/Nolan fanboys struck.
While The Avengers knocked down record after record and was celebrated as a global phenomenon (with an eventual $1.5 billion gross), Dark Knight/Nolan fanboys infested movie and pop-culture related websites like aintitcool.com and comingsoon.net as well as Facebook pages of sites like boxofficemojo.com shouting at the top of their proverbial lungs that none of these records would matter once The Dark Knight Rises came out in July because it would destroy them all. It was annoying, but to anyone who had sat through their first wave of obnoxiousness in 2008, it was entirely expected.
When The Dark Knight Rises started screening for critics around the world, reviews started trickling in, many of which were posted on the online review aggregator rottentomatoes.com, and were quite overwhelmingly positive. However, they were not unanimously so.
And this was when the fanboys went from annoying to absolutely ridiculous.
When two reviewers whose names I forget dared to post negative reviews of The Dark Knights Rises, each of their reviews on RT was inundated with hundreds of hate messages, almost entirely from fans who, unlike the reviewers, had not actually seen the film, most of which were infantile, and more than a few of which were apparently rather alarming. These comments included death threats and more than a few obscenities which were apparently so menacing that the site administrators saw fit to disable the commenting section for several days. The unpleasant incident was reported by several online media outlets.
Then, of course, the Aurora, Colorado shooting happened during a regular screening of The Dark Knight Rises, and the empty threats of fans hiding behind their keyboards became trivial in comparison to this very real act of senseless violence.
...to be continued...
It would appear that the Dark Knight backlash did not go unnoticed, as the next year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reinstated a practice that it had not used for decades; it expanded the field of Best Picture nominees to from five (5) to ten (10) nominees. As a result, the year after that, 2010, featured several commercial hits like Avatar, The Blind Side and District 9 vying for the top honor along with the usual "arthouse" fare. In 2011 the Academy nominated the work of the man whose omission from the 2009 awards was what caused so much uproar in the first place; Christopher Nolan's acclaimed science-fiction film Inception featured prominently that year with eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture, though Nolan was once again snubbed in the Best Director category.
Last year, the Academy showed that although the field for Best Picture had expanded, the awards were not about fulfilling populist expectations, as none of the nominees from that year's field of nine could really be described as a blockbuster hit. In fact, of all nine films, only one, had even grossed over $100 million in North America, usually viewed as the minimum benchmark for whether a film is a commercial success or not.
This year, 2013 could have been a benchmark year for films based on comic books in terms of recognition. In May of 2012, Marvel's The Avengers not only shattered box-office records but impressed critics the world over.
And then, the Dark Knight/Nolan fanboys struck.
While The Avengers knocked down record after record and was celebrated as a global phenomenon (with an eventual $1.5 billion gross), Dark Knight/Nolan fanboys infested movie and pop-culture related websites like aintitcool.com and comingsoon.net as well as Facebook pages of sites like boxofficemojo.com shouting at the top of their proverbial lungs that none of these records would matter once The Dark Knight Rises came out in July because it would destroy them all. It was annoying, but to anyone who had sat through their first wave of obnoxiousness in 2008, it was entirely expected.
When The Dark Knight Rises started screening for critics around the world, reviews started trickling in, many of which were posted on the online review aggregator rottentomatoes.com, and were quite overwhelmingly positive. However, they were not unanimously so.
And this was when the fanboys went from annoying to absolutely ridiculous.
When two reviewers whose names I forget dared to post negative reviews of The Dark Knights Rises, each of their reviews on RT was inundated with hundreds of hate messages, almost entirely from fans who, unlike the reviewers, had not actually seen the film, most of which were infantile, and more than a few of which were apparently rather alarming. These comments included death threats and more than a few obscenities which were apparently so menacing that the site administrators saw fit to disable the commenting section for several days. The unpleasant incident was reported by several online media outlets.
Then, of course, the Aurora, Colorado shooting happened during a regular screening of The Dark Knight Rises, and the empty threats of fans hiding behind their keyboards became trivial in comparison to this very real act of senseless violence.
...to be continued...
Monday, January 14, 2013
Shipwrecked in a Dream: A Review of the Life of Pi
As far as I know, filmmaker Ang Lee has never made the same type of movie twice. This is, according to an interview he gave a few years back, by design. Looking at his resume, I can totally believe this assertion; his body of work includes an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel (Sense and Sensibility, 1995), a Chinese martial arts epic (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000), a superhero movie (Hulk, 2003), a love story between gay cowboys (Brokeback Mountain, 2005), an erotic thriller set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai (Lust, Caution, 2007) among others.
The Life of Pi goes a long way towards reinforcing Lee's reputation for keeping his resume varied, and towards enhancing his reputation as a master filmmaker capable of just about anything on which he sets his artistic sights. Based on the novel by Yann Martel, the film is about a young Indian boy, Piscine Molitor Patel, nicknamed "Pi" and how he survives a shipwreck that kills his entire family.
The story begins with a Canadian writer (Rafe Spall) interviewing the adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) about his life experiences, having been introduced to Pi by the latter's uncle. Pi then recounts his story, from the origin of his given name and nickname, to the time he decided to practice three religions, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, all at the same time in a quest to be closer to God, to the time he found himself lost at sea.
His family, based in Pondicherry, India, owns a zoo, but as time goes by his father opts to sell the zoo to Canadian buyers and to relocate his wife and two sons, of whom Pi is the younger, to Winnipeg. During the lengthy boat ride from India to Canada, however, the family is waylaid by a storm that ends up sinking the entire ship. Pi and a handful of animals from the zoo survive on the ship's lifeboat, including an adult Bengal tiger named, oddly enough, Richard Parker. The story that follows is a truly strange one, interspersing Pi's actual experiences and visions or hallucinations so often that at times it becomes difficult to tell the difference between what happened to him and what he only thinks happened to him, though one thing is clear; he feels that these experiences have defined his relationship with God.
In this day and age in which "religion" is treated like a four-letter word it was actually refreshing to see a film that managed to talk about religion openly, and yet which managed at the same time to avoid being preachy or overbearing, as many "faith-based" films can often be. Perhaps one reason all mention of religion is so easy to swallow is the positively buoyant quality of Lee's work here; he deftly mixes topnotch acting, cinematography, music, and wonderfully whimsical digital effects to tell his tale, and if time and budget allow me I dearly hope to watch this in 3-D, the way I think it was meant to be seen.
This film has often been compared to Robert Zemeckis' 2000 film Cast Away, in which Tom Hanks played a Fed Ex employee stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere with only a volleyball for company, and to be fair the comparison is, to an extent, valid, given that both films are largely about the power of the human spirit, but Lee's story is not merely one of survival against the odds, but of finding the divine in unimaginably hostile conditions. After all, Tom Hanks' character did not have to live at sea with a Bengal tiger constantly trying to eat him.
In this respect, furthermore, newcomer Suraj Sharma does an outstanding job as the 16-year-old Pi Patel (with Khan playing his adult version and other actors portraying the character as young children). This is an actor whose very first feature film called upon him to spend most of the film in a water tank acting opposite nothing, or at the very best, markers where the eventual digital creatures would appear, and yet he is utterly convincing. He took me on Pi's journey of loss and pain, anxiety and survival, and eventual epiphany and redemption. It's an exhilarating trip, one enhanced by some topnotch visual effects through which Lee is able to depict the encounters with the various zoo animals, especially the fierce Richard Parker, a whale and various other species of sea life, and even Pi's trippy hallucinations.
All things considered, apart from Sharma (and to a lesser extent Khan, whose narrator is actually a bit of a narrative cop-out for reasons I will explain later) the only other real star of this movie is the tiger Richard Parker, who is portrayed in the film through a combination of computer-generated imagery, animatronics and use of a live animal. Rhythm and Hues, the visual effects studio that won an Academy Award for the talking animals in 1995's Babe: The Gallant Pig, and that won over the hearts of C.S. Lewis devotees with their spectacular rendition of Aslan the Lion in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, are responsible for the digital version of Richard Parker, and I dare say this is some of their finest work.
I think it is to the ultimate credit of Lee and his visual effects crew that in probably all but the most extreme scenes it is next to impossible to tell which particular device is being used to portray the tiger at any given time; I tend to think most viewers, like myself, would assume the tiger was only CGI when he was too close to Sharma to be anything else without putting the actor in the peril of his life, or when he was called on to do stunts which may be deemed cruelty to animals. At any rate, Richard Parker is a special effect for which recognition is definitely in order, and as big a fan as I may be of Marvel's The Avengers, the sole Academy Award nomination of which is for Best Visual Effects, I seriously hope that that The Life of Pi takes home that particular prize.
For all its virtues, though, I confess that I was not all that fond of the "narrator" device, especially when I found out that this was not part of the book but introduced solely for the film. It robs the audience of some suspense by disclosing, right out of the gate, that whatever happens to Pi, he will survive his ordeal, apart from the fact that it's a rather overused technique which was prominently employed in films like Titanic and Saving Private Ryan.
Still, I suppose the filmmakers, who plunked down $120 million on what had to have been a somewhat risky venture considering the subject matter and the complete absence of any bankable movie star, had to hedge their bets one way or another.
All things considered, though, this is a minor quibble as the film was just one of the most wondrous viewing experiences I have had watching a film released in 2012, and whatever accolades and awards this movie receives, I am firmly convinced that it will thoroughly deserve them.
5/5
The Life of Pi goes a long way towards reinforcing Lee's reputation for keeping his resume varied, and towards enhancing his reputation as a master filmmaker capable of just about anything on which he sets his artistic sights. Based on the novel by Yann Martel, the film is about a young Indian boy, Piscine Molitor Patel, nicknamed "Pi" and how he survives a shipwreck that kills his entire family.
The story begins with a Canadian writer (Rafe Spall) interviewing the adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) about his life experiences, having been introduced to Pi by the latter's uncle. Pi then recounts his story, from the origin of his given name and nickname, to the time he decided to practice three religions, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, all at the same time in a quest to be closer to God, to the time he found himself lost at sea.
His family, based in Pondicherry, India, owns a zoo, but as time goes by his father opts to sell the zoo to Canadian buyers and to relocate his wife and two sons, of whom Pi is the younger, to Winnipeg. During the lengthy boat ride from India to Canada, however, the family is waylaid by a storm that ends up sinking the entire ship. Pi and a handful of animals from the zoo survive on the ship's lifeboat, including an adult Bengal tiger named, oddly enough, Richard Parker. The story that follows is a truly strange one, interspersing Pi's actual experiences and visions or hallucinations so often that at times it becomes difficult to tell the difference between what happened to him and what he only thinks happened to him, though one thing is clear; he feels that these experiences have defined his relationship with God.
In this day and age in which "religion" is treated like a four-letter word it was actually refreshing to see a film that managed to talk about religion openly, and yet which managed at the same time to avoid being preachy or overbearing, as many "faith-based" films can often be. Perhaps one reason all mention of religion is so easy to swallow is the positively buoyant quality of Lee's work here; he deftly mixes topnotch acting, cinematography, music, and wonderfully whimsical digital effects to tell his tale, and if time and budget allow me I dearly hope to watch this in 3-D, the way I think it was meant to be seen.
This film has often been compared to Robert Zemeckis' 2000 film Cast Away, in which Tom Hanks played a Fed Ex employee stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere with only a volleyball for company, and to be fair the comparison is, to an extent, valid, given that both films are largely about the power of the human spirit, but Lee's story is not merely one of survival against the odds, but of finding the divine in unimaginably hostile conditions. After all, Tom Hanks' character did not have to live at sea with a Bengal tiger constantly trying to eat him.
In this respect, furthermore, newcomer Suraj Sharma does an outstanding job as the 16-year-old Pi Patel (with Khan playing his adult version and other actors portraying the character as young children). This is an actor whose very first feature film called upon him to spend most of the film in a water tank acting opposite nothing, or at the very best, markers where the eventual digital creatures would appear, and yet he is utterly convincing. He took me on Pi's journey of loss and pain, anxiety and survival, and eventual epiphany and redemption. It's an exhilarating trip, one enhanced by some topnotch visual effects through which Lee is able to depict the encounters with the various zoo animals, especially the fierce Richard Parker, a whale and various other species of sea life, and even Pi's trippy hallucinations.
All things considered, apart from Sharma (and to a lesser extent Khan, whose narrator is actually a bit of a narrative cop-out for reasons I will explain later) the only other real star of this movie is the tiger Richard Parker, who is portrayed in the film through a combination of computer-generated imagery, animatronics and use of a live animal. Rhythm and Hues, the visual effects studio that won an Academy Award for the talking animals in 1995's Babe: The Gallant Pig, and that won over the hearts of C.S. Lewis devotees with their spectacular rendition of Aslan the Lion in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, are responsible for the digital version of Richard Parker, and I dare say this is some of their finest work.
I think it is to the ultimate credit of Lee and his visual effects crew that in probably all but the most extreme scenes it is next to impossible to tell which particular device is being used to portray the tiger at any given time; I tend to think most viewers, like myself, would assume the tiger was only CGI when he was too close to Sharma to be anything else without putting the actor in the peril of his life, or when he was called on to do stunts which may be deemed cruelty to animals. At any rate, Richard Parker is a special effect for which recognition is definitely in order, and as big a fan as I may be of Marvel's The Avengers, the sole Academy Award nomination of which is for Best Visual Effects, I seriously hope that that The Life of Pi takes home that particular prize.
For all its virtues, though, I confess that I was not all that fond of the "narrator" device, especially when I found out that this was not part of the book but introduced solely for the film. It robs the audience of some suspense by disclosing, right out of the gate, that whatever happens to Pi, he will survive his ordeal, apart from the fact that it's a rather overused technique which was prominently employed in films like Titanic and Saving Private Ryan.
Still, I suppose the filmmakers, who plunked down $120 million on what had to have been a somewhat risky venture considering the subject matter and the complete absence of any bankable movie star, had to hedge their bets one way or another.
All things considered, though, this is a minor quibble as the film was just one of the most wondrous viewing experiences I have had watching a film released in 2012, and whatever accolades and awards this movie receives, I am firmly convinced that it will thoroughly deserve them.
5/5
Monday, November 26, 2012
In Case You Missed It: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
This is the first of my reviews of recent movies I've caught on DVD.
I was actually willing to wait for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on cable TV, but my wife actually bought the DVD, apparently mistaking it for Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln. Truth be told; I'm glad I saw this movie in all of its uncut, "R" rated glory, as it is a lot of fun.
ALVH is the story of the 16th president of the United States of America, and the only one to see it through a bloody civil war, but with a twist: since his youth he has hunted vampires, mainly using an ax.
The story begins in Lincoln's boyhood, in which he sees his mother attacked by a brutal plantation owner Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), which shortly thereafter results in her death. By the time he has grown into a young man (Benjamin Walker, who plays Lincoln throughout the rest of the film), he has sworn vengeance against Barton. His attempt on his life, however, fails for the simple reason that Barts is a vampire and not the easiest creature to kill. In fact, he almost kills Lincoln, who is saved by a mystery man named Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper), who offers to mentor Lincoln in the art of vampire hunting, providing that he sets aside his personal quest for vengeance until Sturges says otherwise. Vampires, it seems, are everywhere, and in the course of his clandestine war on vampires, Lincoln learns that they pose a bigger threat to his country than he could ever have imagined.
I haven't had the pleasure of reading Seth Grahame-Smith's well-loved faux biography of Abraham Lincoln, but I definitely enjoyed this adaptation, and perhaps the fact that Grahame Smith helped adapt his own book for the screen helped preserve some of that fascinating revisionist sensibility for the screen. Of course, the plot (which was apparently tailor-fit for the film) is fairly easy to pick apart, but really, if the idea was simply to bring something new and quirky to the screen, I feel director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted), producer Tim Burton, and all their collaborators have succeeded.
In any event, whether Grahame-Smith adapted himself well or not, Bekmambetov definitely brought his bag of tricks to this film, with his highly stylized take on vampires, who in the 3-D presentation of this film no doubt jumped right out at viewers. The Russian director's signature is all over the highly kinetic, rather well-choreographed action sequences, though one could argue there's a dab of Zack Synder in there as well. One thing that elevates this film over anything Bekmambetov has done before is the distinct atmosphere of the film, with light touches of sepia in the lighting and a warmth that evokes something very old yet well-preserved. I suspect he was able to achieve this effect with the help of veteran cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. Composer Henry Jackman also contributes to the "olde America" atmosphere with music which, while not particularly distinct, is easy on the ears just the same.
Of course, this truly outlandish concept would not really take off without a truly solid leading actor, and this film has it in relative newcomer Benjamin Walker. Walker comes across as a young Liam Neeson (and in fact played a younger version of Neeson's character in the 2004 film Kinsey) and given that, for the longest time, Neeson was an odds on favorite for the role of Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln, the casting is quite propitious. He really throws himself into this role.
It's a pity this movie was not better received; its ending precludes the possibility of a sequel and it really feels like a rather uniquely entertaining piece of standalone pop-culture.
3.5/5
I was actually willing to wait for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on cable TV, but my wife actually bought the DVD, apparently mistaking it for Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln. Truth be told; I'm glad I saw this movie in all of its uncut, "R" rated glory, as it is a lot of fun.
ALVH is the story of the 16th president of the United States of America, and the only one to see it through a bloody civil war, but with a twist: since his youth he has hunted vampires, mainly using an ax.
The story begins in Lincoln's boyhood, in which he sees his mother attacked by a brutal plantation owner Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), which shortly thereafter results in her death. By the time he has grown into a young man (Benjamin Walker, who plays Lincoln throughout the rest of the film), he has sworn vengeance against Barton. His attempt on his life, however, fails for the simple reason that Barts is a vampire and not the easiest creature to kill. In fact, he almost kills Lincoln, who is saved by a mystery man named Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper), who offers to mentor Lincoln in the art of vampire hunting, providing that he sets aside his personal quest for vengeance until Sturges says otherwise. Vampires, it seems, are everywhere, and in the course of his clandestine war on vampires, Lincoln learns that they pose a bigger threat to his country than he could ever have imagined.
I haven't had the pleasure of reading Seth Grahame-Smith's well-loved faux biography of Abraham Lincoln, but I definitely enjoyed this adaptation, and perhaps the fact that Grahame Smith helped adapt his own book for the screen helped preserve some of that fascinating revisionist sensibility for the screen. Of course, the plot (which was apparently tailor-fit for the film) is fairly easy to pick apart, but really, if the idea was simply to bring something new and quirky to the screen, I feel director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted), producer Tim Burton, and all their collaborators have succeeded.
In any event, whether Grahame-Smith adapted himself well or not, Bekmambetov definitely brought his bag of tricks to this film, with his highly stylized take on vampires, who in the 3-D presentation of this film no doubt jumped right out at viewers. The Russian director's signature is all over the highly kinetic, rather well-choreographed action sequences, though one could argue there's a dab of Zack Synder in there as well. One thing that elevates this film over anything Bekmambetov has done before is the distinct atmosphere of the film, with light touches of sepia in the lighting and a warmth that evokes something very old yet well-preserved. I suspect he was able to achieve this effect with the help of veteran cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. Composer Henry Jackman also contributes to the "olde America" atmosphere with music which, while not particularly distinct, is easy on the ears just the same.
Of course, this truly outlandish concept would not really take off without a truly solid leading actor, and this film has it in relative newcomer Benjamin Walker. Walker comes across as a young Liam Neeson (and in fact played a younger version of Neeson's character in the 2004 film Kinsey) and given that, for the longest time, Neeson was an odds on favorite for the role of Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln, the casting is quite propitious. He really throws himself into this role.
It's a pity this movie was not better received; its ending precludes the possibility of a sequel and it really feels like a rather uniquely entertaining piece of standalone pop-culture.
3.5/5
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Wreck-It Ralph
"Development hell" is Hollywood shorthand for a movie that, for various reasons, takes a long time to get made. It can be a bit of a misnomer, given that at times, the extended gestation period can actually benefit the movie's quality exponentially, whether it's because the filmmaking technology catches up to the writers' lofty visions, or whether it's because the general audience's sensibility has aligned itself with what the filmmakers put on the screen.
In the case of the recent animated film Wreck-It Ralph, which has apparently been in one form of development or another at Walt Disney studios since the 1980s, "development hell" has been anything but a four-letter word, considering that the film has opened to glowing reviews and box-office success.
WIR is the story of a video game villain, the title character, Ralph (John C. Reilly) who, after 30 years of being the bad guy is basically suffering an existential crisis. He inhabits a world where video games are basically interconnected worlds, and the characters, when they're not busy during the day living out the games, interact just like regular folk. Ralph even attends a support group for video game villains. Because of his status as a villain, Ralph is treated as something of an outsider in the game he inhabits, "Fix-It-Felix Jr.," while the game's hero, Felix (Jack McBrayer) is regularly feted by the rest of the game inhabitants. Longing to improve his lot in life, Ralph leaves his game and enters another, "Hero's Duty" looking to gain a medal (the prize of that game) and therefore acceptance. Things, however, do not turn out as Ralph plans, and through a series of events beyond his control he ends up in yet another game, the go-kart racing adventure Sugar Rush, where he meets Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) a young racer who, like Ralph, is a bit of an outsider in her game and who seeks to change her fate as well. Not only that, but events have been set in motion that threaten not only the Sugar Rush game, but every single game in the arcade. With the help of Vanellope, Felix and the tough-as-nails protagonist from "Hero's Duty," Sargeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch) Ralph will soon learn what it really means to be a hero.
Cartoon characters with existential crises have been done many times before (the Toy Story films, Ratatouille) as have films centered around the bad guys (Despicable Me, Megamind), but setting the story in a world of video games was a clever twist that opened up a lot of very interesting visual opportunities, which Disney exploited quite cleverly. First, there was the contrast between the old games and the new, and I chuckled at the 80s and 90s references to actual video games, as well as the fact that the "old" game characters were depicted with cruder graphics and animation than their much newer counterparts. Had this film been made when it was first conceived, the 1980s, apart from missing out on such cutting-edge animation technology, it would not have been able to cash in on the sense of nostalgia that pervades the film.
Second, and more significantly, the rendering of the video game landscapes, particularly in the case of "Hero's Duty" and "Sugar Rush" was nothing less than absolutely breathtaking. The "Hero's Duty" scenes are relatively, regrettably brief, but they hint at what a full-length movie based on gritty space combat games like "Starcraft" or "HALO" might look like. The "Sugar Rush" scenes, in contrast, take up a healthy chunk of the movie's running time, but are no less meticulously rendered. The highlights of these magnificent, candy-coated set pieces are, quite easily, the racing scenes, which to my mind are the race scenes that the makers of box-office bomb Speed Racer wish they could have put on the screen. Again, had this movie come out at around the time of the first Tron movie, the only movie of that era to feature video game characters as protagonists, it would most likely have suffered a similar fate at the box-office.
No matter how handsome the presentation, though, this film would not get very far without some good old-fashioned heart, and I'm happy to say that Wreck-It Ralph has plenty of that, along with a thoroughly likeable and even relatable protagonist in the eternally frustrated Ralph, who isn't unlike Tom Hanks' Woody from Toy Story or Craig T. Nelson's Bob Parr in The Incredibles in terms of some very human frailty.
It's not an absolutely perfect film; I wasn't too impressed with the fact that a lot of the banter between Vanellope and Ralph consisted of toilet gags done over and over, and there were some gaps in logic that felt a little jarring at some points. Such, I think, is the nature of creating a world that has its own set of rules, as was the case in the Toy Story films; too often the writers run afoul of their world's internal logic. Why, for example, don't Ralph and Felix have the same jerky movement as the rest of the characters in their game? Still, it's nothing as egregious as Buzz Lightyear believing himself to be alive and yet freezing whenever a human being shows up in the first Toy Story movie. This movie is a magnificent experience, and considering the eye-popping colors on display I'm glad I skipped the 3-D presentation; whatever the extra-dimension had to offer, it would not have been worth losing a bit of those wonderful colors!
Disney Animation has pulled off a bit of an anomaly this year; they've crafted a movie that has garnered better reviews than the product of their esteemed colleagues at Pixar!
4.5/5
In the case of the recent animated film Wreck-It Ralph, which has apparently been in one form of development or another at Walt Disney studios since the 1980s, "development hell" has been anything but a four-letter word, considering that the film has opened to glowing reviews and box-office success.
WIR is the story of a video game villain, the title character, Ralph (John C. Reilly) who, after 30 years of being the bad guy is basically suffering an existential crisis. He inhabits a world where video games are basically interconnected worlds, and the characters, when they're not busy during the day living out the games, interact just like regular folk. Ralph even attends a support group for video game villains. Because of his status as a villain, Ralph is treated as something of an outsider in the game he inhabits, "Fix-It-Felix Jr.," while the game's hero, Felix (Jack McBrayer) is regularly feted by the rest of the game inhabitants. Longing to improve his lot in life, Ralph leaves his game and enters another, "Hero's Duty" looking to gain a medal (the prize of that game) and therefore acceptance. Things, however, do not turn out as Ralph plans, and through a series of events beyond his control he ends up in yet another game, the go-kart racing adventure Sugar Rush, where he meets Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) a young racer who, like Ralph, is a bit of an outsider in her game and who seeks to change her fate as well. Not only that, but events have been set in motion that threaten not only the Sugar Rush game, but every single game in the arcade. With the help of Vanellope, Felix and the tough-as-nails protagonist from "Hero's Duty," Sargeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch) Ralph will soon learn what it really means to be a hero.
Cartoon characters with existential crises have been done many times before (the Toy Story films, Ratatouille) as have films centered around the bad guys (Despicable Me, Megamind), but setting the story in a world of video games was a clever twist that opened up a lot of very interesting visual opportunities, which Disney exploited quite cleverly. First, there was the contrast between the old games and the new, and I chuckled at the 80s and 90s references to actual video games, as well as the fact that the "old" game characters were depicted with cruder graphics and animation than their much newer counterparts. Had this film been made when it was first conceived, the 1980s, apart from missing out on such cutting-edge animation technology, it would not have been able to cash in on the sense of nostalgia that pervades the film.
Second, and more significantly, the rendering of the video game landscapes, particularly in the case of "Hero's Duty" and "Sugar Rush" was nothing less than absolutely breathtaking. The "Hero's Duty" scenes are relatively, regrettably brief, but they hint at what a full-length movie based on gritty space combat games like "Starcraft" or "HALO" might look like. The "Sugar Rush" scenes, in contrast, take up a healthy chunk of the movie's running time, but are no less meticulously rendered. The highlights of these magnificent, candy-coated set pieces are, quite easily, the racing scenes, which to my mind are the race scenes that the makers of box-office bomb Speed Racer wish they could have put on the screen. Again, had this movie come out at around the time of the first Tron movie, the only movie of that era to feature video game characters as protagonists, it would most likely have suffered a similar fate at the box-office.
No matter how handsome the presentation, though, this film would not get very far without some good old-fashioned heart, and I'm happy to say that Wreck-It Ralph has plenty of that, along with a thoroughly likeable and even relatable protagonist in the eternally frustrated Ralph, who isn't unlike Tom Hanks' Woody from Toy Story or Craig T. Nelson's Bob Parr in The Incredibles in terms of some very human frailty.
It's not an absolutely perfect film; I wasn't too impressed with the fact that a lot of the banter between Vanellope and Ralph consisted of toilet gags done over and over, and there were some gaps in logic that felt a little jarring at some points. Such, I think, is the nature of creating a world that has its own set of rules, as was the case in the Toy Story films; too often the writers run afoul of their world's internal logic. Why, for example, don't Ralph and Felix have the same jerky movement as the rest of the characters in their game? Still, it's nothing as egregious as Buzz Lightyear believing himself to be alive and yet freezing whenever a human being shows up in the first Toy Story movie. This movie is a magnificent experience, and considering the eye-popping colors on display I'm glad I skipped the 3-D presentation; whatever the extra-dimension had to offer, it would not have been worth losing a bit of those wonderful colors!
Disney Animation has pulled off a bit of an anomaly this year; they've crafted a movie that has garnered better reviews than the product of their esteemed colleagues at Pixar!
4.5/5
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
50 Years of Being Shaken, Not Stirred: A Review of Skyfall
In a world where film franchises generally rule the box-office roost, the James Bond franchise, which spans 23 films and 50 years, remains truly extraordinary. That it has managed to maintain its relevance despite radical changes in both technology and the global socio-political landscape, both of which were an integral aspect of the storytelling when the series was launched in 1962 with Dr. No, attests to the dogged efforts of second-generation Bond producer Barbara Broccoli to keep things fresh and to enlist the best talent available for the movies. To be sure, there have been a few creative blips in the franchise's half-century of existence, but with the latest installment, Skyfall reaping both critical accolades and box-office gold, Bond is arguably bigger and better than ever.
Skyfall begins, as all Bond films do, with an action-packed prologue, this one set in Istanbul. Bond (Daniel Craig) and fellow MI6 agent Eve (Naomie Harris) are out to recover a stolen list of undercover agents from Patrice, a very slippery freelance operative (Ola Rapace). The retrieval operation fails and as a result of a very marginal call by MI6 boss M (Judi Dench) to have Eve take a shot at the mercenary despite the fact that he and Bond are fighting tooth and nail atop a train, Bond ends up falling from the train and into a river, and thereafter presumed dead.
Months later, a mysterious attack is launched on MI6 headquarters which leaves eight agents dead, and M, who appears to be the target of the unknown enemy's ire, is then dragged over hot coals by the British government. A civilian official, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) is brought on board to basically help ease M into retirement and to help the government determine if, perhaps, the time has come to close down MI6 altogether.
Bond, very much alive, learns of the attack on MI6 and returns "from the grave" to active duty. A bit of shrapnel from a wound he got from Patrice, which turns out to be rather unique hardware, enables him to follow the mercenary to his latest job in Shanghai, but even after fighting him he is unable to learn for whom the mercenary stole the list of agents.
When three NATO agents are killed because their names as undercover agents were posted on the internet, it becomes clear that time is running out for Bond, M, and perhaps the entire British intelligence operation in general.
Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, The Road to Perdition) shows a keen eye for wall-to-wall action, in addition to the cerebral drama on which he has built his career. His dramatic skill serves him in good stead here as well as he explores Bond's origins in a way no other filmmaker has done before and manages to come up with a story that is genuinely, tragically moving, even without going overboard on sentimentality. Craig basically inhabits Bond and Mendes brings out the very best from him. I've taken issues with Craig's performance as recently as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but ever since he assumed the mantle of Bond in 2006's Casino Royale, he has never been less than riveting in this role, and this, to my mind, is his best outing to date.
For me, though, the star of the show was Dame Judi Dench as M, who is central to the plot of the movie. There has been much talk about how Javier Bardem's cybersavvy antagonist Silva is one of the most uniquely compelling Bond villains of all time, and to be fair, his insane, effeminate and ultimately brutal antagonist is really something to behold in the time he's on the screen, but Dench owns the show as she portrays M under fire, fighting not only for her own life but the continued existence of the agency she leads. It's been over seven films and 17 years since Dench first took on the role, and she was the only actor from the franchise who took part in its reboot in 2006, and she's really stamped her authority on the character and has made hers a tough act to follow.
Mendes has crafted not only one of the best Bond films I've ever seen, but easily one of the most compelling action films of the year. His collaborators bring their very best to the feature as well, from cinematographer Roger Deakins' moody lighting to composer Thomas Newman's surprisingly vibrant score, including a few very cool riffs on Monty Norman's iconic James Bond theme.
While I can't claim to have seen all of the Bond films dating back to Sean Connery's movies, I can certainly recommend Skyfall as a thoroughly engaging action film, Bond or otherwise.
5/5
Skyfall begins, as all Bond films do, with an action-packed prologue, this one set in Istanbul. Bond (Daniel Craig) and fellow MI6 agent Eve (Naomie Harris) are out to recover a stolen list of undercover agents from Patrice, a very slippery freelance operative (Ola Rapace). The retrieval operation fails and as a result of a very marginal call by MI6 boss M (Judi Dench) to have Eve take a shot at the mercenary despite the fact that he and Bond are fighting tooth and nail atop a train, Bond ends up falling from the train and into a river, and thereafter presumed dead.
Months later, a mysterious attack is launched on MI6 headquarters which leaves eight agents dead, and M, who appears to be the target of the unknown enemy's ire, is then dragged over hot coals by the British government. A civilian official, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) is brought on board to basically help ease M into retirement and to help the government determine if, perhaps, the time has come to close down MI6 altogether.
Bond, very much alive, learns of the attack on MI6 and returns "from the grave" to active duty. A bit of shrapnel from a wound he got from Patrice, which turns out to be rather unique hardware, enables him to follow the mercenary to his latest job in Shanghai, but even after fighting him he is unable to learn for whom the mercenary stole the list of agents.
When three NATO agents are killed because their names as undercover agents were posted on the internet, it becomes clear that time is running out for Bond, M, and perhaps the entire British intelligence operation in general.
Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, The Road to Perdition) shows a keen eye for wall-to-wall action, in addition to the cerebral drama on which he has built his career. His dramatic skill serves him in good stead here as well as he explores Bond's origins in a way no other filmmaker has done before and manages to come up with a story that is genuinely, tragically moving, even without going overboard on sentimentality. Craig basically inhabits Bond and Mendes brings out the very best from him. I've taken issues with Craig's performance as recently as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but ever since he assumed the mantle of Bond in 2006's Casino Royale, he has never been less than riveting in this role, and this, to my mind, is his best outing to date.
For me, though, the star of the show was Dame Judi Dench as M, who is central to the plot of the movie. There has been much talk about how Javier Bardem's cybersavvy antagonist Silva is one of the most uniquely compelling Bond villains of all time, and to be fair, his insane, effeminate and ultimately brutal antagonist is really something to behold in the time he's on the screen, but Dench owns the show as she portrays M under fire, fighting not only for her own life but the continued existence of the agency she leads. It's been over seven films and 17 years since Dench first took on the role, and she was the only actor from the franchise who took part in its reboot in 2006, and she's really stamped her authority on the character and has made hers a tough act to follow.
Mendes has crafted not only one of the best Bond films I've ever seen, but easily one of the most compelling action films of the year. His collaborators bring their very best to the feature as well, from cinematographer Roger Deakins' moody lighting to composer Thomas Newman's surprisingly vibrant score, including a few very cool riffs on Monty Norman's iconic James Bond theme.
While I can't claim to have seen all of the Bond films dating back to Sean Connery's movies, I can certainly recommend Skyfall as a thoroughly engaging action film, Bond or otherwise.
5/5
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