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
Monday, November 26, 2012
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
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
A Spy-Thriller Masterpiece: A Review of Argo
In 1979, hundreds of student activists stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran, Iran, due to outrage over the fact that the United States was coddling their deposed, murderous dictator. They took hostage the embassy's staff, save for a handful of staff who managed, in the chaos, to sneak out the back door and take refuge at the Canadian Ambassador's house. Director Ben Affleck's Argo is the dramatization of the remarkable true story behind the effort to rescue these individuals from what was, at the time, the most hostile territory on earth, for American citizens.
Having found out about the six escapees from the embassy, the U.S. government works overtime trying to figure out how to get them out of Iran, with their schemes ranging from having the six pose as teachers to the harebrained idea of having them ride bicycles out of the country. When the government brings aboard Tony Mendez (Affleck, in a wonderfully understated performance) an exfiltration expert from the Central Intelligence Agency, on board, he is initially as stumped as everyone else in the room, but when a phone conversation with his ten-year-old son later that night prompts Mendez to switch onto a science fiction movie Mendez seizes upon a scheme which, as the cliche goes, is so crazy it might actually work: Mendez would go to Iran and have the six Americans pose as a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a science fiction film in the vein of Star Wars in Iran.
The ruse requires that an actual production be staged, and for this purpose Mendez recruits Oscar-winning makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) who has used his skill with prosthetics many times in the past to help Mendez in his operations, who in turn recruits over-the-hill Hollywood producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), and together, the three of them acquire a forgotten script titled "Argo" and then create a great deal of hype for a production that doesn't actually exist. Mendez's scheme, described as "the best bad idea" among all of the stinkers concocted by the government to rescue the embassy staffers, gets the green light from the C.I.A. and he travels to Iran with six fake passports in the hope of making it work. In the meantime, the revolutionary government is closing in on the six escapees, with sweatshop kids piecing together shredded documents, determining the identities of who actually worked in the embassy.
Mendez meets up with the six refugees at the Canadian ambassador's house, and apart from the chaos just outside the walls of the house he must also grapple with their collective fear at what could happen to them if the escape plan goes south. The clock is ticking.
Atmosphere and period authenticity are everything in this handsomely-crafted thriller, and Affleck and crew crank both of them up to 11 as early as the opening billboard, which features the Warner Brothers logo used in the 1970s as opposed to the current one. It's not the first time such a technique has been used in a period film but it is extremely effective here, especially when followed with a judiciously-edited and narrated sequence of historical events that led to that fateful day in 1979 and an extremely grainy texture that strongly contrasts with the slick digital imagery of most contemporary films.
I purposely avoided reading any historical accounts on what has been dubbed as "the Canadian Caper" before watching the movie because, quite simply, I didn't want to know if all the embassy workers made it out all right, and to my mind it was a good call as it allowed me to live very much in the moment that Affleck, his cast and crew captured. What followed was some genuine, nail-biting tension.
For all of his skill in weaving dramatic tension, though, Affleck's real narrative coup in this film, was juxtaposing the tension in Iran with the glitz of tinseltown; as reel and real Hollywood veterans, Goodman and Arkin clearly enjoy sniping at the hypocrisy of the entertainment world and its hype machine, and they are an absolute delight to watch, particularly Arkin as his Lester Siegel outfoxes a representative of the Writers' Guild of America trying to hustle him for a better offer for the previously ignored "Argo" script. Siegel also has the distinction of coining what is likely to be the film's most quoted phrase: "Argo f**k yourself." The surprisingly rich streak of humor that permeates the film sets this film apart from standard, dead-serious spy fare.
Much as I'd love to hail this film as perfect, though, there are a couple of somewhat "Hollywood" touches (ironically enough) throughout and towards the climax of the movie which felt a little bit jarring. The climactic parts I will not discuss so as not to spoil anything, but throughout the film I couldn't help but notice the shifty-eyed Iranian sitting behind desks skimming through reassembled photographs of the embassy staff, and I was particularly struck by the wild-eyed revolutionary army soldier constantly yelling at the characters during a pivotal scene. These weren't exactly mustache-twirling villains but something about their depiction kind of yelled Hollywood cliche, in contrast to the portrayal of the militants at other points in the film which did a far better job of conveying the Iranian's palpable and arguably justifiable rage against the U.S. In a movie which, for the most part, quite effectively captured the real-life plight of a handful of scared Americans, these caricatures, who feature prominently throughout the film, seemed a tad out of place and do not do its overall credibility too many favors.
All told, though, I think Affleck and crew can definitely hold their heads up high, having woven an utterly compelling if sometimes flawed storytelling tapestry. This is flaws notwithstanding, easily one of the best spy-thrillers I've seen in a while.
4.5/5
Having found out about the six escapees from the embassy, the U.S. government works overtime trying to figure out how to get them out of Iran, with their schemes ranging from having the six pose as teachers to the harebrained idea of having them ride bicycles out of the country. When the government brings aboard Tony Mendez (Affleck, in a wonderfully understated performance) an exfiltration expert from the Central Intelligence Agency, on board, he is initially as stumped as everyone else in the room, but when a phone conversation with his ten-year-old son later that night prompts Mendez to switch onto a science fiction movie Mendez seizes upon a scheme which, as the cliche goes, is so crazy it might actually work: Mendez would go to Iran and have the six Americans pose as a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a science fiction film in the vein of Star Wars in Iran.
The ruse requires that an actual production be staged, and for this purpose Mendez recruits Oscar-winning makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) who has used his skill with prosthetics many times in the past to help Mendez in his operations, who in turn recruits over-the-hill Hollywood producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), and together, the three of them acquire a forgotten script titled "Argo" and then create a great deal of hype for a production that doesn't actually exist. Mendez's scheme, described as "the best bad idea" among all of the stinkers concocted by the government to rescue the embassy staffers, gets the green light from the C.I.A. and he travels to Iran with six fake passports in the hope of making it work. In the meantime, the revolutionary government is closing in on the six escapees, with sweatshop kids piecing together shredded documents, determining the identities of who actually worked in the embassy.
Mendez meets up with the six refugees at the Canadian ambassador's house, and apart from the chaos just outside the walls of the house he must also grapple with their collective fear at what could happen to them if the escape plan goes south. The clock is ticking.
Atmosphere and period authenticity are everything in this handsomely-crafted thriller, and Affleck and crew crank both of them up to 11 as early as the opening billboard, which features the Warner Brothers logo used in the 1970s as opposed to the current one. It's not the first time such a technique has been used in a period film but it is extremely effective here, especially when followed with a judiciously-edited and narrated sequence of historical events that led to that fateful day in 1979 and an extremely grainy texture that strongly contrasts with the slick digital imagery of most contemporary films.
I purposely avoided reading any historical accounts on what has been dubbed as "the Canadian Caper" before watching the movie because, quite simply, I didn't want to know if all the embassy workers made it out all right, and to my mind it was a good call as it allowed me to live very much in the moment that Affleck, his cast and crew captured. What followed was some genuine, nail-biting tension.
For all of his skill in weaving dramatic tension, though, Affleck's real narrative coup in this film, was juxtaposing the tension in Iran with the glitz of tinseltown; as reel and real Hollywood veterans, Goodman and Arkin clearly enjoy sniping at the hypocrisy of the entertainment world and its hype machine, and they are an absolute delight to watch, particularly Arkin as his Lester Siegel outfoxes a representative of the Writers' Guild of America trying to hustle him for a better offer for the previously ignored "Argo" script. Siegel also has the distinction of coining what is likely to be the film's most quoted phrase: "Argo f**k yourself." The surprisingly rich streak of humor that permeates the film sets this film apart from standard, dead-serious spy fare.
Much as I'd love to hail this film as perfect, though, there are a couple of somewhat "Hollywood" touches (ironically enough) throughout and towards the climax of the movie which felt a little bit jarring. The climactic parts I will not discuss so as not to spoil anything, but throughout the film I couldn't help but notice the shifty-eyed Iranian sitting behind desks skimming through reassembled photographs of the embassy staff, and I was particularly struck by the wild-eyed revolutionary army soldier constantly yelling at the characters during a pivotal scene. These weren't exactly mustache-twirling villains but something about their depiction kind of yelled Hollywood cliche, in contrast to the portrayal of the militants at other points in the film which did a far better job of conveying the Iranian's palpable and arguably justifiable rage against the U.S. In a movie which, for the most part, quite effectively captured the real-life plight of a handful of scared Americans, these caricatures, who feature prominently throughout the film, seemed a tad out of place and do not do its overall credibility too many favors.
All told, though, I think Affleck and crew can definitely hold their heads up high, having woven an utterly compelling if sometimes flawed storytelling tapestry. This is flaws notwithstanding, easily one of the best spy-thrillers I've seen in a while.
4.5/5
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Not so Taken: A Review of Taken 2
In 2009, the film Taken proved to be a surprise hit at the box-office, drawing in audiences with its simple premise of a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Bryan Mills, played by Liam Neeson, ripping up Paris in search of his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), who has been kidnapped by a human trafficking ring run by a bunch of Albanians.
Using Hollywood logic, therefore, this was a film that was ripe for a sequel, no matter how thin the plot of the first film was.
The sequel, simply titled Taken 2, picks up where its predecessor left off. At the very beginning of the film, Murad Krasniqi (Rade Serbedzija) the father of the deceased head of the trafficking operation, vows at the very graves of his son and his dead cohorts to exact revenge on Mills and his loved ones.
Mills invites his daughter Kim and his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) to spend some time with him in Istanbul, where he has a brief job providing security for a Sheik, after he learns that Lenore's somewhat rocky marriage to her new husband has taken a turn for the worse, with him having cancelled a planned trip to China.
The Albanians track the Mills family down to Instanbul while they are on their holiday, and pretty much all hell breaks loose as they seek to exact their revenge.
The first film was a reasonably entertaining experience, but not something I thought would support a sequel. Truth be told the only reason I caught the second was that I'm a sucker for films with exotic locations, and in that aspect this film does not disappoint with its sweeping, panoramic shots of what is arguably one of Eastern Europe's most famous cities. Particularly striking for me were the shots of the world-renowned Hagia Sophia.
In almost every other respect, however, the film, for me, was utterly forgettable. The action choreography, from the fist fights to rooftop chases to car chases, all felt like poor copies of action sequences in other, far superior films. I did enjoy the bits of the film showing Mills' craftiness, letting audiences know he's got as much brains as he does brawn. These are the scenes in which he basically talks Kim through the process of locating him and Lenore, though the fact that this involves throwing live grenades around a populated city just so Mills can hear the explosions is more than a little off-putting. Apart from that, there really wasn't anything about this film that made it look like anything other than the cash grab that it is. As an action film, this has been done, and done much, much better.
Some people have talked about how the first film established Neeson as a "thinking man's action hero." Well, all I see in this film is a poor man's Jason Bourne, and that's even AFTER the Bourne franchise itself has been somewhat impoverished by a lackluster spinoff.
1.5/5
Using Hollywood logic, therefore, this was a film that was ripe for a sequel, no matter how thin the plot of the first film was.
The sequel, simply titled Taken 2, picks up where its predecessor left off. At the very beginning of the film, Murad Krasniqi (Rade Serbedzija) the father of the deceased head of the trafficking operation, vows at the very graves of his son and his dead cohorts to exact revenge on Mills and his loved ones.
Mills invites his daughter Kim and his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) to spend some time with him in Istanbul, where he has a brief job providing security for a Sheik, after he learns that Lenore's somewhat rocky marriage to her new husband has taken a turn for the worse, with him having cancelled a planned trip to China.
The Albanians track the Mills family down to Instanbul while they are on their holiday, and pretty much all hell breaks loose as they seek to exact their revenge.
The first film was a reasonably entertaining experience, but not something I thought would support a sequel. Truth be told the only reason I caught the second was that I'm a sucker for films with exotic locations, and in that aspect this film does not disappoint with its sweeping, panoramic shots of what is arguably one of Eastern Europe's most famous cities. Particularly striking for me were the shots of the world-renowned Hagia Sophia.
In almost every other respect, however, the film, for me, was utterly forgettable. The action choreography, from the fist fights to rooftop chases to car chases, all felt like poor copies of action sequences in other, far superior films. I did enjoy the bits of the film showing Mills' craftiness, letting audiences know he's got as much brains as he does brawn. These are the scenes in which he basically talks Kim through the process of locating him and Lenore, though the fact that this involves throwing live grenades around a populated city just so Mills can hear the explosions is more than a little off-putting. Apart from that, there really wasn't anything about this film that made it look like anything other than the cash grab that it is. As an action film, this has been done, and done much, much better.
Some people have talked about how the first film established Neeson as a "thinking man's action hero." Well, all I see in this film is a poor man's Jason Bourne, and that's even AFTER the Bourne franchise itself has been somewhat impoverished by a lackluster spinoff.
1.5/5
Hotel Transylvania
The idea of monsters being more afraid of people than people are of monsters has already been done in Pixar's 2001 Monsters, Inc., but Sony Pictures Animation revisits the concept with Hotel Transylvania, and the results, while a little mixed, are still reasonably pleasant. This is the studio's first fully-animated film since 2009's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and like that film, it is a pretty rich visual experience.
The titular hotel was created by Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) as a refuge for himself and his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) as well as all other monsters, from the evils of humankind. Dracula is protective of Mavis because her mother, his wife, died when an angry mob of humans torched his castle when she was still a baby. Things go well, with the hotel regularly being visited by guests like Frankenstein (Kevin James), Wayne the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi), their spouses (Fran Drescher and Molly Shannon, respectively), the Mummy (CeeLo Green), and the Invisible Man (David Spade) among many others. Staffed by zombies, witches, and haunted suits of armor, it's a veritable monster paradise. For years, therefore, Dracula is able to keep his friends, and his daughter, close, and therefore shielded from the outside world.
Things go awry for Dracula, however, when Mavis, around the time of her 118th birthday (which makes her a teenager in vampire years) expresses her desire to see the world. Dracula has anticipated this period in her life and has prepared for it; he has an elaborate ruse set up designed to scare Mavis out of her desire to see the outside world. His ruse, involving zombies dressing up as humans and erecting a fake village, works in scaring Mavis back home, but as an unintended consequence, a most unwanted visitor follows the unwitting zombies, several of whom have caught fire, back to the hotel: a human named Jonathan (Andy Samberg).
Dracula, the first to discover Jonathan, is quick to conceal him by disguising him. He is unable to get him out of the hotel for one reason or another, but his real problem begins when Mavis meets the human and is almost instantly attracted to him.
This movie, saddled with narrative cliches and crude humor, is certainly not among the finest animated films I've ever seen, but it had enough going for it, like the interesting visual touch of Genndy Tartakovsky (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory) and some pretty funny visual jokes and one-liners, to keep me and my kids entertained for an hour and a half.
The crew's wonderfully stylized ode to Hollywood's classic monsters is certainly worth looking at, and to their credit Sandler and his "bros," James, Buscemi and Spade, are pretty good at transposing their live-action chemistry to their animated film. It's almost a shame they couldn't find a role for Sandler mainstay Rob Schneider.
The Sandler humor, however, is all too evident in some scenes, and often feels out of place in what is basically a family movie. Not only that, but the movie ends as most of Sandler's live-action films do, with realizations about growing up and an overly maudlin resolution.
The difference between a movie like this and a masterpiece like, say, Finding Nemo is all too evident when Dracula gives a long, schmaltzy speech at the end of the movie about children growing up and his having to accept that, which contrasts quite sharply with with minimalist, but infinitely more effective bit of dialogue from Ellen deGeneres' Dory: "You can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him."
Not only that, but there's a pretty fair-sized hole in the film's internal logic, but one which I suspect won't matter much to younger viewers. In any case, I won't spoil it here.
Still, the film definitely has a wonderful sense of whimsy and some truly laugh-out-loud moments, such as the "human attack" on Mavis at the beginning of the film. It's a rather flawed film, but an enjoyable one nonetheless, though I can say that there is nothing about this film that I feel is compelling enough to merit the 3-D premiums, so my advice to the parents taking their kids to see this is to skip the 3-D format altogether.
3/5
The titular hotel was created by Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) as a refuge for himself and his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) as well as all other monsters, from the evils of humankind. Dracula is protective of Mavis because her mother, his wife, died when an angry mob of humans torched his castle when she was still a baby. Things go well, with the hotel regularly being visited by guests like Frankenstein (Kevin James), Wayne the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi), their spouses (Fran Drescher and Molly Shannon, respectively), the Mummy (CeeLo Green), and the Invisible Man (David Spade) among many others. Staffed by zombies, witches, and haunted suits of armor, it's a veritable monster paradise. For years, therefore, Dracula is able to keep his friends, and his daughter, close, and therefore shielded from the outside world.
Things go awry for Dracula, however, when Mavis, around the time of her 118th birthday (which makes her a teenager in vampire years) expresses her desire to see the world. Dracula has anticipated this period in her life and has prepared for it; he has an elaborate ruse set up designed to scare Mavis out of her desire to see the outside world. His ruse, involving zombies dressing up as humans and erecting a fake village, works in scaring Mavis back home, but as an unintended consequence, a most unwanted visitor follows the unwitting zombies, several of whom have caught fire, back to the hotel: a human named Jonathan (Andy Samberg).
Dracula, the first to discover Jonathan, is quick to conceal him by disguising him. He is unable to get him out of the hotel for one reason or another, but his real problem begins when Mavis meets the human and is almost instantly attracted to him.
This movie, saddled with narrative cliches and crude humor, is certainly not among the finest animated films I've ever seen, but it had enough going for it, like the interesting visual touch of Genndy Tartakovsky (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory) and some pretty funny visual jokes and one-liners, to keep me and my kids entertained for an hour and a half.
The crew's wonderfully stylized ode to Hollywood's classic monsters is certainly worth looking at, and to their credit Sandler and his "bros," James, Buscemi and Spade, are pretty good at transposing their live-action chemistry to their animated film. It's almost a shame they couldn't find a role for Sandler mainstay Rob Schneider.
The Sandler humor, however, is all too evident in some scenes, and often feels out of place in what is basically a family movie. Not only that, but the movie ends as most of Sandler's live-action films do, with realizations about growing up and an overly maudlin resolution.
The difference between a movie like this and a masterpiece like, say, Finding Nemo is all too evident when Dracula gives a long, schmaltzy speech at the end of the movie about children growing up and his having to accept that, which contrasts quite sharply with with minimalist, but infinitely more effective bit of dialogue from Ellen deGeneres' Dory: "You can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him."
Not only that, but there's a pretty fair-sized hole in the film's internal logic, but one which I suspect won't matter much to younger viewers. In any case, I won't spoil it here.
Still, the film definitely has a wonderful sense of whimsy and some truly laugh-out-loud moments, such as the "human attack" on Mavis at the beginning of the film. It's a rather flawed film, but an enjoyable one nonetheless, though I can say that there is nothing about this film that I feel is compelling enough to merit the 3-D premiums, so my advice to the parents taking their kids to see this is to skip the 3-D format altogether.
3/5
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
200 Floors of Hardcore Brutality: A Review of Dredd
Growing up during the Cold War, I became a fan of many of the post-apocalyptic pop culture works it spawned, like the Mad Max and Terminator films. I often imagined myself moving down to a bomb shelter and living under the Earth for years after a nuclear holocaust (which, now that I think about it, would actually compel me to live underground for the remainder of my natural life).
The new film Dredd, which apart from the British comic book series it adapted bears no relation whatsoever to the 1995 fiasco Judge Dredd starring Sylvester Stallone as the title character, hearkened back to those years and was actually a pretty fun experience for me.
This new film, in which New Zealand-born actor Karl Urban (The Lord of the Rings films, Star Trek) dons the helmet and padded uniform of the British pop-culture icon, is set in a dystopian, but not entirely implausible future in which most of humanity lives in Mega Cities littered with high-rise slums and steeped in crime and chaos. In the midst of this chaos the Justice Department is the only source of order, and its agents, known as judges, serve as policemen, juries, judges and executioners all rolled into one. This is not a society that puts much stock in due process of law, in short.
In one such city, Mega City One, of particular concern is the spread of a new narcotic known as Slo-Mo, which causes the user's perception of reality to slow down to 1% of its normal speed. When the drug lord responsible for the manufacture and sale of this drug, former prostitute Madeline Madrigal (Lena Headey), or Ma-Ma for short, orders the brutal execution of three double-crossing pushers,Judge Dredd, the most feared of all judges, is called onto the scene, and he brings with him a judge-in-training, Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby). Anderson has only just failed her exams but the Justice Department is keen on giving her a second chance because of her psychic abilities, and Dredd is given the task of evaluating her. While they're in the area, Dredd and Anderson make a drug bust, with Anderson's abilities detecting the killer Kay (Wood Harris) among the perps. Rather than execute him on the spot, though, Dredd decides to take Kay, who happens to be one of Ma-Ma's top lieutenants, back to the department for questioning.
Because she has eyes and ears almost everywhere in the towering tenement, Ma-Ma, whose entire operation could be compromised if Kay talks, has the entire building shut down by sealing it with blast doors and gives the occupants of the entire building the order to kill the two judges. What ensues is about an hour of unbridled mayhem and gore as Dredd and Anderson fight for their very lives.
Presumably due to the terrible impression left by Stallone's 1995 flop, this movie has failed to light up the box-office in every market it's been released with the exception of Dredd's birthplace, the United Kingdom, and to me that's a shame because as action films go, this one was surprisingly intelligent. Director Pete Travis (Vantage Point), in my opinion, has plenty to be proud of, whatever the final receipts of this film may be.
It does call for a bit of viewer discretion because of the somewhat extreme nature of the violence depicted. The three murder victims in the beginning, for example, are skinned before they are flung to their deaths from near the top of the 200-storey building to the concrete below, and much of the violence is so brutal it's been quite noticeably cut by the distributor, acting presumably at the behest of the local review board. The violence isn't only visually extreme but thematically so as well; to show her resolve to kill the judges, Ma-Ma unleashes two miniguns on an entire row of apartments, showing no hesitation to blow away the innocent residents living there. It has to be said, though, that the violence feels oddly fitting in a story where the world has descended so far into madness that such lofty concepts as presumption of innocence and trial by jury are mere relics consigned to history.
It's in these themes that the film fascinated me most; the satirical, often humorous notion of a world where cops and judges were rolled into one, a world not actually very far removed from our own in terms of rampant criminality, was interesting to see onscreen, especially considering my experience as a lawyer with how slowly the wheels of justice often grind. Of course, none of the excesses of the Cursed Earth (which is how the world is referred to) would be permissible in any truly civilized society, but to those of us who have grown cynical watching powerful people exploit the intricacies of the justice system, watching this drastically simplified version of justice is intriguing in the most escapist sense. I laughed out loud when, before Dredd executed a rather heinous perpetrator after reading aloud the "charges," the perp blew smoke in his face, to which Dredd responded "defense noted." It's little gems like this that make screenwriter Alex Garland's script engaging enough to elevate this beyond standard shoot-'em-up fare.
Of course, Garland's script and Pete Travis' direction would have been for naught if they did not have a solid performance from their lead actor, and Urban, who, notably, never removes his helmet, delivers on this front. He channels Clint Eastwood and sounds a lot more intimidating than Christian Bale did as Batman. It's a pretty difficult performance considering something like sixty percent of his face is obscured, and while I don't see Urban hoisting up any Oscars or Golden Globes because of it, he certainly deserves the accolades reviewers have heaped on him for what he's managed to do. Olivia Thirlby, looking a little less jail-baity here than she did in her breakout movie Juno, brings some much needed humanity to the proceedings and shows pretty clearly that it's not easy to have absolute power over who lives and who dies.
On an artistic level the film's grungy, unrelentingly dark look is a perfect fit for the story, and nods to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire) and production designer Mark Digby and his crew are definitely in order. Seeing the characters standing in the Peach Trees slum one really feels as if one is among the dregs of humanity.
It must be said, however, that by and large the filmmakers waste the 3-D format in which they reportedly shot the film. Apart from the visualization of the effects of "Slo-Mo" and a couple of scenes involving bullets, broken glass and drops of blood flying around, there is very little benefit offered by the format. The fact that there were plenty of shots of the dizzying heights of the Peach Trees tenement only highlights this shortcoming; there was plenty of opportunity for vertigo-inducing shots involving the building's atrium that could have played with depth perception, but they were quite simply never used. Even the post-production-converted Avengers, which featured an elevator descending, bothered to showcase a depth illusion. One consolation I took was that, at least, there was no unusual darkening of the image due to the 3-D. That much, at least, they got right.
There was also a story gaffe which I feel was never adequately explained; because he is engaged in a firefight with dozens of armed men Dredd finds himself running low on ammunition. The simple question that then arises is: why on earth doesn't Dredd pick up the guns of any of the dozens of men he wipes out in the course of the movie? Anderson picks up and uses a thug's gun late in the movie and this decision doesn't seem to have any ill effect on her. The notion that Dredd would only fight with his standard-issue firearm seems a little silly when weighed against a basic need to survive a highly dangerous situation.
Flaws notwithstanding, this was actually a rather solid movie, though not one I'd recommend spending a premium on for a 3-D screening. I had not actually intended to watch it in any format, but I had time to kill, and the 3-D presentation was the only one available where I was. Good thing, then, that 3-D screenings are a lot cheaper in SM Davao than they are in SM Manila (P250 as opposed to about P300). For anyone with a little time on their hands and a stomach for extreme violence, this is actually worth a look.
4/5
The new film Dredd, which apart from the British comic book series it adapted bears no relation whatsoever to the 1995 fiasco Judge Dredd starring Sylvester Stallone as the title character, hearkened back to those years and was actually a pretty fun experience for me.
This new film, in which New Zealand-born actor Karl Urban (The Lord of the Rings films, Star Trek) dons the helmet and padded uniform of the British pop-culture icon, is set in a dystopian, but not entirely implausible future in which most of humanity lives in Mega Cities littered with high-rise slums and steeped in crime and chaos. In the midst of this chaos the Justice Department is the only source of order, and its agents, known as judges, serve as policemen, juries, judges and executioners all rolled into one. This is not a society that puts much stock in due process of law, in short.
In one such city, Mega City One, of particular concern is the spread of a new narcotic known as Slo-Mo, which causes the user's perception of reality to slow down to 1% of its normal speed. When the drug lord responsible for the manufacture and sale of this drug, former prostitute Madeline Madrigal (Lena Headey), or Ma-Ma for short, orders the brutal execution of three double-crossing pushers,Judge Dredd, the most feared of all judges, is called onto the scene, and he brings with him a judge-in-training, Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby). Anderson has only just failed her exams but the Justice Department is keen on giving her a second chance because of her psychic abilities, and Dredd is given the task of evaluating her. While they're in the area, Dredd and Anderson make a drug bust, with Anderson's abilities detecting the killer Kay (Wood Harris) among the perps. Rather than execute him on the spot, though, Dredd decides to take Kay, who happens to be one of Ma-Ma's top lieutenants, back to the department for questioning.
Because she has eyes and ears almost everywhere in the towering tenement, Ma-Ma, whose entire operation could be compromised if Kay talks, has the entire building shut down by sealing it with blast doors and gives the occupants of the entire building the order to kill the two judges. What ensues is about an hour of unbridled mayhem and gore as Dredd and Anderson fight for their very lives.
Presumably due to the terrible impression left by Stallone's 1995 flop, this movie has failed to light up the box-office in every market it's been released with the exception of Dredd's birthplace, the United Kingdom, and to me that's a shame because as action films go, this one was surprisingly intelligent. Director Pete Travis (Vantage Point), in my opinion, has plenty to be proud of, whatever the final receipts of this film may be.
It does call for a bit of viewer discretion because of the somewhat extreme nature of the violence depicted. The three murder victims in the beginning, for example, are skinned before they are flung to their deaths from near the top of the 200-storey building to the concrete below, and much of the violence is so brutal it's been quite noticeably cut by the distributor, acting presumably at the behest of the local review board. The violence isn't only visually extreme but thematically so as well; to show her resolve to kill the judges, Ma-Ma unleashes two miniguns on an entire row of apartments, showing no hesitation to blow away the innocent residents living there. It has to be said, though, that the violence feels oddly fitting in a story where the world has descended so far into madness that such lofty concepts as presumption of innocence and trial by jury are mere relics consigned to history.
It's in these themes that the film fascinated me most; the satirical, often humorous notion of a world where cops and judges were rolled into one, a world not actually very far removed from our own in terms of rampant criminality, was interesting to see onscreen, especially considering my experience as a lawyer with how slowly the wheels of justice often grind. Of course, none of the excesses of the Cursed Earth (which is how the world is referred to) would be permissible in any truly civilized society, but to those of us who have grown cynical watching powerful people exploit the intricacies of the justice system, watching this drastically simplified version of justice is intriguing in the most escapist sense. I laughed out loud when, before Dredd executed a rather heinous perpetrator after reading aloud the "charges," the perp blew smoke in his face, to which Dredd responded "defense noted." It's little gems like this that make screenwriter Alex Garland's script engaging enough to elevate this beyond standard shoot-'em-up fare.
Of course, Garland's script and Pete Travis' direction would have been for naught if they did not have a solid performance from their lead actor, and Urban, who, notably, never removes his helmet, delivers on this front. He channels Clint Eastwood and sounds a lot more intimidating than Christian Bale did as Batman. It's a pretty difficult performance considering something like sixty percent of his face is obscured, and while I don't see Urban hoisting up any Oscars or Golden Globes because of it, he certainly deserves the accolades reviewers have heaped on him for what he's managed to do. Olivia Thirlby, looking a little less jail-baity here than she did in her breakout movie Juno, brings some much needed humanity to the proceedings and shows pretty clearly that it's not easy to have absolute power over who lives and who dies.
On an artistic level the film's grungy, unrelentingly dark look is a perfect fit for the story, and nods to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire) and production designer Mark Digby and his crew are definitely in order. Seeing the characters standing in the Peach Trees slum one really feels as if one is among the dregs of humanity.
It must be said, however, that by and large the filmmakers waste the 3-D format in which they reportedly shot the film. Apart from the visualization of the effects of "Slo-Mo" and a couple of scenes involving bullets, broken glass and drops of blood flying around, there is very little benefit offered by the format. The fact that there were plenty of shots of the dizzying heights of the Peach Trees tenement only highlights this shortcoming; there was plenty of opportunity for vertigo-inducing shots involving the building's atrium that could have played with depth perception, but they were quite simply never used. Even the post-production-converted Avengers, which featured an elevator descending, bothered to showcase a depth illusion. One consolation I took was that, at least, there was no unusual darkening of the image due to the 3-D. That much, at least, they got right.
There was also a story gaffe which I feel was never adequately explained; because he is engaged in a firefight with dozens of armed men Dredd finds himself running low on ammunition. The simple question that then arises is: why on earth doesn't Dredd pick up the guns of any of the dozens of men he wipes out in the course of the movie? Anderson picks up and uses a thug's gun late in the movie and this decision doesn't seem to have any ill effect on her. The notion that Dredd would only fight with his standard-issue firearm seems a little silly when weighed against a basic need to survive a highly dangerous situation.
Flaws notwithstanding, this was actually a rather solid movie, though not one I'd recommend spending a premium on for a 3-D screening. I had not actually intended to watch it in any format, but I had time to kill, and the 3-D presentation was the only one available where I was. Good thing, then, that 3-D screenings are a lot cheaper in SM Davao than they are in SM Manila (P250 as opposed to about P300). For anyone with a little time on their hands and a stomach for extreme violence, this is actually worth a look.
4/5
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