The Pixar is strong in this one

Wreck-It Ralph
My rating:




As I have previously mentioned, it is not the best of times to be a Pixar fan. A couple of disappointing releases have slightly tarnished its record of knockout successes - slightly, because a disappointing Pixar film is still a pretty good animated family film by all but its own standards. Wreck-It Ralph is not a Pixar release, but it cannot avoid the comparison; it's still a Disney film, and has John Lasseter as an executive producer. More obviously, its premise of videogame characters with inner lives and personalities of their own not only recalls the Toy Story series, but also A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo and Cars - in Pixar's penchant for creating anthropomorphosized, richly-detailed worlds that also provide opportunities for lots and lots of in-jokes. And its 87% score on RottenTomatoes has already trumped Pixar's last two (Brave scored 79%, Cars 2 38%), raising the possibility that perhaps the parent company is beating them at the game they used to rule.

Perhaps. But only because of what they learned from them.

Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) is the villain of the Fix-It Felix, Jr. video game at Litwak's Arcade, and he is not very popular. While Felix (Jack McBrayer) is nightly celebrated by the inhabitants of their gameworld, Ralph doesn't even get invited to their game's 30th anniversary party. Wanting to be a hero for a change, Ralph sneaks into Hero's Duty, a 1st-person-shooter game - in which Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch) is the main character - in order to win a hero's medal. He ends up in Sugar Rush, a kart-racing game, and meets Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), a character with a sad story of her own: she's a "glitch", equally shunned by everyone in her candyland gameworld, and forbidden to participate in the races by King Candy (Alan Tudyk). Ralph and Vanellope partner up to get her in a race and win him his medal, and a friendship grows between the two. But if Ralph isn't in his game, Mr. Litwak will junk their console - and as Felix teams up with Calhoun to find him, they learn that a Cy-Bug monster from Hero's Duty has infected Sugar Rush, thus threatening to destroy two video game worlds.

The trailer prominently features a scene at Bad-Anon, a support group for video game villains, presided by one of the Pac-Man ghosts (Clyde, if you must know) and in which Zangief from Street Fighter, Bowser from Super Mario Bros and Doctor Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog all make prominent cameos.  It's a hilarious scene, and it encapsulates much of Wreck-It Ralph's appeal: appearances by fan-favourite videogame characters, clever in-jokes, and a commitment to fleshing out the inner worlds of videogames right down to the characters. This is one movie you'll want on Bluray DVD so you can pause and admire all the visual detail - from the tiny cameos by more videogame characters (Chun-Li makes at least two appearances if I recall correctly) to the fact that Game Central Station, the terminal in between game machines, is literally a giant multi-plug socket on the inside.

Which is, of course, exactly what you expect of a Disney animated film, even a non-Pixar one. What matters more is a strong emotional throughline that makes us care about the characters, especially our titular hero. And it's there; on one level, we feel for Ralph when he's unappreciated and ostracised from his own gameworld - but on a deeper level, it's about his need to define himself beyond his assigned label as videogame bad guy. Which is echoed by Vanellope, a malfunctioning character in her game who just wants to participate like the rest of her peers. They go from annoying each other - well, more like Vanellope annoying Ralph - to a deep and heartwarming friendship based on their common desires and helping each other realise them.

It's just... we've seen this kind of thing before. Not just the funny anthropomorphosized world, but also the unlikely-friendship storyline. Two wildly differing characters will meet, bicker, then grow in affection towards each other, only to have a heartbreaking fall out, before reconciling in time for a triumphant climax. It's in the majority of Pixar films, as well as most animated films from other studios as well - in fact, come to think of it, it's the classic romantic comedy formula that goes way back beyond Pixar. Which gives Wreck-It Ralph a been-there-done-that feel that's just a little disappointing. It feels like Walt Disney Animation Studios - through director Rich Moore, and writers Phil Johnston, Jennifer Lee and John Reardon - is trying too hard to make a Pixar-ish film and deliberately aping their formula.

Which isn't to say their formula doesn't still work. The fall out is still effectively sad, as is the triumphant and uplifting climax. The jokes are funny, the action scenes are exciting, and the voice acting is terrific. (I did not recognise Alan Tudyk there.) But I wish the film had spent more time exploring other video games instead of staying in Sugar Rush for most of its second half; the videogame in-jokes are replaced by candy and confectionery in-jokes, most of which I didn't get. And having Felix and Calhoun fall for each other is a subplot that I didn't enjoy; Felix is uninteresting and poorly-defined for all the screentime he gets, and a character like Calhoun is an ill fit as a romantic interest. Lastly, there just isn't much depth here, nothing more emotionally resonant beyond its be-yourself/be-whatever-you-want-to-be message - which is yet another thing that's been done over and over again in animated films.

Am I expecting too much of this movie? Perhaps I am. Thing is, Pixar is (usually) better than this. They don't always recycle the formula, as with The Incredibles and Wall-E. Even when they followed it, they're daring enough to explore new narrative and thematic territory, as with Up and Toy Story 2 and 3. They've raised the bar high enough that a film like this - even as well-crafted and heartfelt as it is - just clears it instead of soaring above it. To be honest, I might even prefer something as ambitiously flawed as Brave than something content to merely be the Pixar film Pixar never made. Guess I'm a Pixar fanboy through and through; I'm still waiting for their next to knock all our socks off.

NEXT REVIEW: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Expectations: tempered

Even wallflowers can bloom

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
My rating:




So I think I really have become spoiled by the Digital 2D format. Almost every major Hollywood film (and a few Hong Kong and even local ones) are released in this format, and I pretty much exclusively watch Hollywood movies in Digital 2D now. Costs me an extra RM2-3 per ticket, but I reckon it's worth it. Unfortunately, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is not screened here in this format, and I wonder if the fact that it's also being released under the GSC International Screens label has something to do with it. I mention this because the quality of the prints GSC is screening isn't very good at all. There are scratches, as well as infrequent jump cuts that I'm assuming are caused by a not-very-good projectionist switching from one reel to the next on the projector. Which would bring back nostalgic memories of watching movies in good ol' analog, were I the slightest bit nostalgic about crappy obsolete technology.

All that being said, you should still absolutely watch it. In cinemas even. Because it's good.

Charlie (Logan Lerman) is facing the normal everyday indignities of a teenage boy starting high school: nervousness, awkwardness, social introversion, and lack of any friends. Only his English teacher Mr. Anderson (Paul Rudd) shows him kindness; and though his family - his mom and dad (Kate Walsh and Dylan McDermott) and older sister Candace (Nina Dobrev) - are warm and loving enough, they can't understand what he's going through. But when he meets seniors Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller), he finally finds a place to belong amongst their quirky, insular clique. Patrick is gay and in a secret relationship with closeted football player Brad (Johnny Simmons); Charlie gets a girlfriend in emo goth girl Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman), although it is the luminous Sam whom he is head over heels in love with. But through the entire school year, Charlie hides deep-seated emotional problems - possibly related to his beloved Aunt Helen (Melanie Lynskey) - that threaten to resurface and wreck his life once again.

This film is an adaptation of Stephen Chbosky's 1999 novel of the same name, a bestseller among young teens at that time. And yes, Chbosky also wrote and directed the film; he is an accomplished writer and producer, having co-created the TV series Jericho. I can see why the novel was popular. It's about a lonely and awkward social outcast teenager who falls in amongst a group of equally socially outcast teens, gains self-esteem through their acceptance of who he is, and even finds love. Which can be a far too precious and Mary Sue-ish kind of story, appealing to the most self-absorbed instincts among teenagers (and the teenager in all of us). But this one is good. And what makes it good is a great deal of humour, sensitivity and warmth in the story and characters, as well as a willingness to delve into some pretty dark territory.

But our protagonist is surrounded by good people. He loves all his family members and they him; his teacher encourages his interest in writing by lending him books; and Sam and Patrick extend him their kindness and friendship the minute they learn of his past trauma - that his best friend in junior high committed suicide. Much of the first half is taken up by Charlie becoming part of their circle, experiencing their eclectic tastes in music, their participation in live performances of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and their casual drug use. But as nice as they are to him, they still have their own troubles to deal with, particularly Patrick and Sam - the latter whom is dating a college student, thus thwarting his romantic interest in her. In fact, it's Charlie who ends up doing something stupid and cruel when Mary Elizabeth somehow becomes his girlfriend.   

Because Charlie isn't just a normal awkward teenager - and what drives the story, for the most part, is the question of exactly what ails him. Aside from his friend committing suicide, he also lost his Aunt Helen to a car crash when he was little - but none of these seem to explain his stint in a psychiatric hospital before he started high school, or the "episodes" that Charlie tantalizingly mentions, in the letters he writes to an imaginary friend that serves as the film's ongoing narrative voiceover. It isn't till near the end, when he suffers a final emotional breakdown, that the truth is revealed, in a terrifically gripping scene. The film almost has the structure of a mystery in that sense, with the suspenseful buildup and cathartic revelation of that genre. 

As Emma Watson's first film that isn't part of the Harry Potter series, she acquits herself well. Her role isn't much of a challenge; she just needs to be luminously beautiful, which, well, she is. I'm a lot more impressed with Logan Lerman, whom I thought was terrible in two movies, but who was really good here. Where he was wooden and uncharismatic in popcorn fare, here he successfully plays a confused young man who simply doesn't know how to convey emotion; we're rooting for Charlie all the way, and we dearly want him to snap out of his depression and get the girl. And Ezra Miller is a lot of fun, a comic relief character whose flamboyant personality masks a deeper pain.

It's not a perfect film, to be honest. It occasionally lapses into cliché (do high school seniors really perform random acts of bullying on freshmen for no reason whatsoever?) and contrivances (when your friends have ostracised you after you did something awful, it's pretty convenient to suddenly have the opportunity to come heroically charging to their rescue). But neither of these things define it; what does is the sincerity and sensitivity it employs in telling a very familiar coming-of-age story. For some young viewers in those terribly confusing teenage years, this film may very well be a life-changer. As I bet the novel already was a generation ago.

NEXT REVIEW: Life of Pi
Expectations: well, it looks really pretty 

Let James Bond fall where he may

Skyfall
My rating:




You know what I was planning to do? Do a Retro Review series on the entire James Bond 007 series to date. That would be 23 movies in total (and yes, I'd include the "unofficial" Never Say Never Again), an arduous task even before my current reduced reviewing schedule. (Let us not speak of my lengthy hiatus, shall we?) My initial plan was to write them and time the last one to just before the release of Skyfall, in conjunction with Bond's 50th anniversary - which, well, too late for that now - but I may still do it. Because I'm a Bond fan, man; I have 'em all on DVD, I've seen 'em all, and man, there ain't much to compare to the joy of seeing how the world's longest-running film franchise has evolved over half a century. But first, Skyfall - the latest instalment in the world's longest-running film franchise, much delayed after its parent studio MGM ran into financial troubles. And hailed by early reviews as the best one yet.

Well, no, it isn't. But I can see why they're calling it that. And it is very good - perhaps even very very good.

James Bond (Daniel Craig), aided by fellow MI6 agent Eve (Naomie Harris), is in pursuit of a terrorist (Ola Rapace) who has stolen a list of names of undercover NATO agents around the world - and fails. Wounded and left for dead, he returns to active duty to help his superior M (Dame Judi Dench) fight the shadowy figure who has declared war on MI6 - although M has troubles of her own, pressured to resign by government official Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) due to her current failures. With a little help from the new Q (Ben Whishaw), Bond gets on the case and meets the seductive Sévérine (Bérénice Lim Marlohe), mistress of the very man he's seeking - Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), whose vendetta against MI6 is intensely personal, and whose machinations are skillful, intricate, and nigh unbeatable.

The thing about being the world's longest-running film franchise is that it has evolved in many, many ways over its run - ways that may be surprising to someone who hasn't seen them all. There are Bond films in which Bond does not use any gadgets; there are films in which Bond sleeps with only one woman throughout the film; there are films in which Bond does not drive an expensive sports car with tricked-out weaponry. But the greatest variation has been in tone. Some Bond films are largely serious spy thrillers, even though most are the over-the-top, wildly fantastical action movies with larger-than-life villains plotting world-conquering schemes that the franchise is known for. The biggest tonal shift has been in 2006's Casino Royale, which rebooted the series with a new actor in Daniel Craig, an origin story, and an emphasis on gritty reality as well as a much more human and fallible James Bond. Skyfall, however, is a conscious effort to bring back the classic elements of Bond - as well as pulling back slightly from the grittiness and seriousness.

It still walks a fine line between the two tonalities though. The plot is by no means fluff; Bond engages in meaningless sex and self-loathing alcoholism during his time presumed dead, which we certainly didn't see in You Only Live Twice when the Sean Connery Bond similarly faked his death. And the physical toll his wounds take on him suggest that he's gotten too old, and that the entire era of the two-fisted Double-0 agent has been eclipsed by the new age of cyber-security and techno-terrorism. (Seems a little early to get into that though; this is only Craig's third outing as Bond.) But the storyline's real meat deals with M and what she did to earn the enmity of the villain Silva. It elevates M to a full-fledged supporting character for the first time, and gives us an uncharacteristically small-scale climax at a remote Scottish manor in which Bond's goal is merely to protect her, rather than an explosive action scene at the villain's headquarters of world domination. Nor does this subplot overshadow our hero; M's history with Silva raises questions regarding Bond's own contentious relationship with his superior - and the Scottish manor illuminates a part of Bond we've never seen before in 50 years of films.

But then there are those returning classic elements. Some are given a welcome new spin; the new, younger and nerdier Q is terrific, who gets to be Bond's partner in scenes beyond just the requisite gadget-supplying one, and that also showcase Ben Whishaw's enjoyable chemistry with Craig. However, there's a scene involving komodo dragons - yes, komodo dragons - that feels more suited to a Roger Moore-era film than part of the current gritty reinvented Bond. (In fact, it's a deliberate reference to a bit in Live and Let Die.) And then there's the return of the Aston Martin DB5. Which I initially thought was a callback to the DB5 that Bond won in a poker game in Casino Royale - only, it isn't that DB5. It's Goldfinger's DB5, with the ejector seat and hidden machine guns. I may be alone amongst long-time Bond fans in being less than thrilled by its appearance, because where the hell did that thing come from? It plays merry havoc with the notion that the series from Casino Royale onwards is a brand new, internally consistent continuity. Is this the same DB5 that was used against Auric Goldfinger in 1964? Was that the same James Bond as this one??

(Yes yes, I know there's a fan theory that states "James Bond" is a codename given to several other MI6 agents over the decades. I'll have no truck with that theory. I can't imagine any of the other James Bonds have names other than James Bloody Bond. But one thing I did like about Skyfall is how it both nods to and disproves it. Good.)

Sam Mendes - he of arthouse fare such as American Beauty and Revolutionary Road - seemed an odd choice to direct a Bond movie at first, but he does a fantastic job here. Aided by cinematographer Roger Deakins, this may be the most gorgeously-filmed Bond film ever; a fight scene in a Shanghai high-rise tower shot entirely in silhouette, and the climactic sequence set on a Scottish moor at night lit only by a burning building, are two of the most drop-dead beautiful scenes in a film full of them. Mendes himself succeeds at putting a personal stamp on this franchise entry, with deliberately slow and methodical shots and editing - all the better to show off Deakins' cinematography, probably. Mendes has also acknowledged the influence of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy on this film, and it's noticeable - most evidently in one mid-point plot twist, a villain who's simultaneously eccentric, terrifying and mesmerising, and who's always two steps ahead of the good guys. If you're a Nolan hater, you might find this annoying. I'm not and I don't.

If it weren't for the komodo dragon scene and the DB5 - and really, I'd've been fine with a DB5 that didn't sport the ejector seat and machine guns - Skyfall would be a 4-½-starrer. See, I'm a little concerned. I like Classic Bond, and I even like Cheesy, Campy, Fantastical Bond when it's done right. (The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the best, and certainly Moore's best.) But I really, really like Gritty Reinvented Bond. If there's one thing I learned from having watched all 24 Bond movies, it's that the cheesy, silly, gratuitously male-fantasy-pandering elements are never far behind the wings. I thought they'd put that all behind with Casino Royale. I thought Gritty Reinvented Bond is here to stay. But now it looks like they're back to Classic Bond, which takes it a step closer to Cheesy Bond. Can you imagine Craig in something as over-the-top goofy as Die Another Day? It'd be an embarrassment on the level of, well, Die Another Day. As I said, Skyfall is very good, perhaps very very good; I'm just worried what it heralds for where James Bond 007 will go next. But, if the overwhelming acclaim for this instalment is any indication, I may be the only one. After all, I'm the one who liked Quantum of Solace and don't understand why no one else did.

NEXT REVIEW: Istanbul Aku Datang
Expectations: oh, Bernard Chauly ye? Okay jugak

Hurry hurry biker come to me

Premium Rush
My rating:




This movie owes a lot to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and I mean a lot. It was filmed two years ago and had its release delayed (due to a copyright infringement lawsuit), and may not have even gotten into theatres if its lead actor hadn't broken out in Inception and The Dark Knight Rises since then. Gordon-Levitt is also responsible for this review you're reading right now, because he's the only reason I decided to watch this. I no longer review a new release every week, and this movie looked insignificant enough that I could skip it. Although I might've made an exception for David Koepp, who's on writing and directing duty. As one of Hollywood's highest-paid screenwriters, anything Koepp does in which he actually gets to hold the reins should be interesting; case in point, 1999's Stir of Echoes, a pretty good supernatural thriller unfairly overshadowed by The Sixth Sense.

Turns out this is much more a David Koepp movie - and possibly a Michael Shannon one - than a Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie.

Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is New York City's best bike messenger, and probably also its most reckless - which puts a strain on his relationship with fellow messenger Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) and gives an opening to his romantic rival Manny (Wolé Parks). One day, his dispatcher Raj (Aasif Mandvi) assigns him to a package from Vanessa's roommate Nima (Jamie Chung) - but then he is accosted by police detective Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon) who tries to take it from him. The package is actually a ticket worth a great deal of money, that Nima intends to use to bring her son to the States from China, but Monday needs it to pay off his gambling debts. So begins a massive chase across the city between Monday and Wilee that will also involve Vanessa, Manny, one hapless bicycle cop (Christopher Place), and the entire NYC bike courier industry.

TMBF is not the kind of movie buff that follows actors. What I look for in a film is story more than anything else, and that's why screenwriters and directors come first in my list of People Whose Films I Choose to Look Out For (Or Alternatively, to Avoid). So when I say that the fact that Gordon-Levitt is in this movie is the only reason I decided to watch it, it isn't because I love watching him so much that I gotta catch everything he's in - although of course, his performances are always good if not great. It's because in the past few years, he's shown that rare ability to pick projects that always turn out to be good films; yes, even G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. And it's rare because it's pretty damn hard to tell how good a movie will turn out when all you have is a screenplay and a director giving you the spiel about how good it'll turn out.

But if that director is David Koepp, then you're at least guaranteed that the screenplay will be a solid piece of genre writing. His filmography as writer includes some very big blockbusters, none of which are truly representative of his writing; the bigger the movie, the bigger the names attached to it (i.e. director and star), the more the script will be altered and revised - with or without the writer's involvement. So I tend to look out for movies by writers-turned-directors, because they will invariably be as gleeful as a kid in a candy store to finally have full creative control. (Well, sort of, there's still the studio to please, but if it's willing to greenlight a project directed by a screenwriter, then it's most likely willing to be hands-off on a movie that they also don't expect to be a big hit anyway.) And Koepp's glee is pretty darn evident in Premium Rush.

Okay, okay, let's get to the movie finally. It's an action thriller that's a lot more light-hearted and fun than most movies that fall under that genre. AV Club's Scott Tobias describes it as a live-action cartoon in which our hero Wilee is more the Roadrunner, and everyone who tries to apprehend or catch up to him, the coyote. This is not at all an inaccurate depiction of the movie, in fact it's probably the best frame of reference to have while watching it. Koepp is having a grand old time with twists, turns, reversals, all the tricks of the thriller trade to keep you on the edge of your seat. He even toys with chronology, with a non-linear timeline that starts somewhere around 5.30pm (and the ticket needs to reach its destination by 7pm) but has a tendency to rewind to earlier in the day and fill in a little backstory - e.g. exactly what kind of trouble Monday got himself into to need so much money so desperately.

And there are also bits where Wilee makes split-second decisions on which way to weave around traffic, and we see the disastrous outcomes of the wrong decisions; go left and he crashes into a baby carriage, go right and a guy gets run over by a truck with a hilarious Wilhelm scream. The movie's playful tone is also accentuated by a gloriously over-the-top performance by Michael Shannon, playing a villain who has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and knows it damn well. Shannon actually outshines Gordon-Levitt here, whose role doesn't challenge him beyond providing a solidly charismatic and likeable hero for the audience to root for. Unfortunately, the cast has a weak link in Jamie Chung, who can only frown prettily for almost the entire movie. And in the Chinatown scenes when the dialogue switches to Mandarin, her lack of proficiency in the language is apparent.

But as good as it is, it appears to be a confirmed box-office flop. Sigh... I guess "biker action thriller" doesn't pull in the crowds, even with Gordon-Levitt's name attached. However, I think it's destined to be one of those films that only finds an audience on DVD and screenings on HBO, prompting people to ask "why have I never heard of this movie?" and "why did nobody watch it when it was released in theatres?" I haven't even mentioned the chase scenes, of which there are plenty and are plenty exciting - or the minor antagonist in the nameless bike cop who also tries to apprehend Wilee and fails as spectacularly as Monday. Seriously, this movie is just a heap o' fun. Watch it if you can - when it shows up on HBO.

NEXT REVIEW: 29 Februari
Expectations: hmm, premis yang menarik

Bourne to be classics

The first three Bourne films is one of my favourite film series, but I've never actually seen all three back-to-back - in fact, I may have not even rewatched any of them from start to finish. Mostly I just watch clips of its action sequences; each one has at least one signature hand-to-hand fight scene and one car chase scene. And most of them are terrific action sequences, among the best of the entire action film genre - which is why, as an action film aficionado, I like this series so much. But partly also why I like it is that it is, in my book, one of the most consistently good movie series ever. Unlike most trilogies, there's not a single disappointing entry, and certainly not any one that feels like a major letdown from its predecessors. Which is a pretty rare accomplishment - but since Hollywood just can't leave well enough alone, there's now a fourth instalment to potentially spoil that record. So before we review that, let's take a look back at what was previously known as the Bourne Trilogy (and will probably still be known as the Bourne Trilogy with Matt Damon In It.)


The Bourne Identity (2002)
My rating:




Perhaps the most notable thing about the first of the series is that it turned out as good as it is. It underwent a troubled production, with reshoots and script rewrites that took it over budget and delayed its initial release. This is undoubtedly why director Doug Liman was removed from (or quit) the series - which, given his replacement in Paul Greengrass, was likely for the better. Still, Liman helmed the film that started it all, and his vision of a smart, realistic spy action film survives despite the studio interference. In 2002, the Pierce Brosnan era of James Bond films was winding down with Die Another Day, one of the cheesiest and most over-the-top in the long-running series - and that same year, the Vin Diesel-starring xXx tried to be the "extreme attitude" version of Bond. Compared to those two, The Bourne Identity felt like a breath of fresh air.

In particular, the fight scene between Bourne and Castel, the first of the CIA assassins sent to kill our amnesiac hero. It's short and brutal and I unreservedly love it; it's perhaps the first time I've ever seen a fight between two combatants who are trained not to fight, but to kill. A great many action movies made in the succeeding years owe a debt to this one scene. Aside from it, there's a fun little car chase (that would be eclipsed by Greengrass' work in the sequels) and a tense cat-and-mouse hunt through a rural countryside (with Clive Owen!). Still, nothing beats that early fight scene; certainly nothing in the climax, which feels curiously anti-climactic, perhaps a casualty of the bickering between Liman and Universal Pictures. It also doesn't feel as consistent tonally as the later Greengrass-helmed entries; at times, there are glimpses of a light-heartedness that seems incongruous with its two sequels.

But that may be due to the romance between Jason Bourne and Marie Kreutz, played by Franka Potente. It's the only film in the series in which Bourne isn't alone and hunted for the majority of the running time, and thus it's the only one in which he gets to make an emotional connection with another person. Their romance works, largely due to both actors; Potente is appealing, and Damon ever only allows a hint of a genuine smile when he's talking to her. But what Damon's performance is most notable for is turning him into a terrifically effective action hero. Back then, no one thought he had that in him at all - and while he proved up to the physical requirements by doing most of his own stunts, his tightly-controlled acting also helped create an indelible character in the tormented, deceptively deadly Bourne. As a thinking person's action movie, it succeeds handily, and did it it many ways that we had never seen before.


The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
My rating




A new director, a new visual and narrative style, and a bona fide classic film franchise is Bourne (hee). The Bourne Identity was a respectable success, if a little more critically than financially, but The Bourne Supremacy ramps up all its predecessor's strengths and improves on the flaws. The signature hand-to-hand fight scene is every bit as brutal and bloody. The car chase features a lot more vehicular carnage and makes the one from the first film look lame (which it isn't; it's just that this one is so much more thrilling). Where the pace of the previous one felt conventional, with expositionary and character-building scenes interspersed between action setpieces, this one is gripping and propulsive from start to finish. If there's one weakness, it's that the plot is almost too hard to follow. There's no easy audience surrogate character like Marie; Bourne is practically as much an enigma as anyone else, in a story full of practiced deception and hidden agendas.

Of course, Greengrass' direction doesn't make it any easier either. But I'll defend his much-maligned shaky-cam style anytime; there is a right way and a wrong way to do it, and Greengrass knows how to do it right. His most well-known previous credit, the faux-documentary Bloody Sunday, made him an unusual choice for a big-budget Hollywood actioner, but it proved to be an inspired one. Unlike the imitators, his style of filming action scenes isn't haphazard and mindlessly chaotic; he chooses his shots, angles and cuts very, very deliberately. He plays scrupulously fair in showing you exactly what you need to figure out what's going on, and you can figure it out if you're attentive enough. And you can then immerse yourself in the immensely thrilling sense of immediacy and urgency that it creates, and that just so happens to be terrifically well-suited to a spy action thriller.

But what makes this film perhaps the best in the series - and yes, I do think it's the best in the series - is the emotional journey that Bourne undertakes. Credit for this goes to screenwriter Tony Gilroy, who took the previous entry's happy ending and completely shits over it - but in so, gives Jason Bourne a motive that we've never seen in an action hero before. People still make the mistake that the movie is all about his revenge; it's not, not at all. It's about his need to know the truth of who he was and what he did, and why the girl he loved had to pay the price for his sins. It isn't till almost the very end that this is revealed, but upon subsequent viewings, it's there in Damon's remarkably subtle performance. Bourne is never truly angry or vicious throughout - just frustrated by his memory loss and haunted by his guilt. And it culminates in a quietly poignant scene that's the last thing you'd expect in a spy action thriller. For doing what it does tremendously well, and daring to be even more... yes, I think this is the one that'll stand out as the best in the franchise.


The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
My rating:




I remember being pretty pumped for this movie, to the point where I forked out good dough for Gold Class seats. It was worth it. The early scene set at London's Waterloo Station is a bravura sequence of crackerjack tension, in which Bourne tries to herd a hapless journalist out of a gauntlet of CIA assassins, demonstrating our hero's quick thinking and street smarts in addition to his already-known badassery. This third entry greatly extends the role of Nicky Parsons, a character who had been on the fringes of the previous two; Julia Stiles is an always welcome presence and makes a good match with Damon. (Although it's never very clear why she would help Bourne - seems like Stockholm Syndrome more than anything else.) Once again we get one terrific fight scene and one terrific car chase scene; the latter especially is the most bone-jarring (and expensive) one yet. And as a conclusion to the trilogy, it does a nice job of calling back to scenes from the previous films, and even reinterprets the final scene from The Bourne Supremacy in a clever way.

So why the lower rating? Because what's lost is the emotional depth of its immediate predecessor. This time, Bourne is on a quest to discover the truth of his past as a man-made killing machine, which is a little less compelling than a man driven to atone for his past sins out of mourning for his lost love. There are small references to the grief he still feels for Marie, but they don't stand out amidst the railroad plot. Which is what this movie is almost entirely - a bullet train of an action-thriller that dashes breathlessly from one plot point to another. The Bourne Supremacy was that too, until the scene with Neski's daughter changed everything. This one doesn't. What it has is when Bourne returns to the research centre where Operation Treadstone began, where he first started becoming what he is now - and frankly, it feels a bit of a letdown. It feels like the whole movie should've been leading up to something more revelatory, more surprising.

It feels much more like a Greengrass film, less of a Gilroy one. Gilroy's emphasis on Bourne's emotional journey is replaced by Greengrass' political leanings, seen in how he villainises the CIA as running a black ops unit that seems to spend as much time killing civilians who threaten to expose them as they do stopping actual terrorist threats. (Gilroy's screenplay draft was reportedly completely unused, and Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi were doing emergency rewrites in the midst of shooting.) And it's also telling that of all the heartless CIA suits in the series, the only two with a conscience are women. Still, the white-knuckle tension and intelligent, realistic take on modern spy action are present and accounted for, making this a worthy entry and conclusion to the series. There's sure as hell no drop in quality in the action scenes, which, let's face it, is what we come to these movies for.

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I mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating and elaborating on: the Bourne series is notable as much for how influential it is as how good it is. The fight scenes in particular; if The Bourne Identity's fight was fresh and unique at the time, since then there've been an embarrassment of riches in terms of quick, brutal and realistic (well, more realistic) fight scenes. But often, that's the only thing the other movies managed to imitate successfully. The unrelenting pace, the grittily real tone, the scrupulous respect for the audience's intelligence - these more intangible things are still unparalleled. So yeah, as this post title indicates, the Bourne Trilogy (with Matt Damon In It) are bona fide modern film classics in my book. They sit at the pinnacles of their genre. Anyone who doesn't like 'em, you can pretty much write them off as someone who just doesn't get action movies. (Yes, such people exist.)

A hero rises, and a story ends

The Dark Knight Rises
My rating:




I'm sure my readers are quite tired of hearing excuses for my tardiness by now. I had watched The Dark Knight Rises on Saturday the 21st (of July), just two days before it officially opened in cinemas, hoping I'd get my review up early for once. After that viewing, I decided I needed to see it again; I found the picture at GSC 1Utama to be somewhat distractingly dim, and thought it the fault of a run-down projector. It was over a week before I got the chance to watch it again, this time at GSC Tropicana Mall, and it was the same. Seems it's due to the overly-bright Malay subtitles on the Digital 2D print that washes out the rest of the picture. Feh and fiddlesticks, but I couldn't watch the new Batman movie on anything other than Digital 2D. I think I may have become spoiled by the extra crispness and sharpness of the format now; I shudder to think what a normal analog-projected movie would look like to me now.

Oh, and the movie? The movie... is not as good as its 5-star immediate predecessor. But it is still very good.

Eight years after the death of Harvey Dent, crime in Gotham City has almost been eradicated. But the Batman has not been seen since, and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a virtual shut-in. A burglary on Wayne Manor by a professional thief named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) gets Bruce intrigued enough to start investigating, causing concern for Alfred (Michael Caine) who fears his latent death wish may lead him to suit up as Batman again. But Bruce may not have a choice. A shadowy figure known as Bane (Tom Hardy) is gathering an army of fanatics in the sewers of Gotham, and Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) barely survives an encounter with them. A young police officer named John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) - who has already sussed out Bruce's secret alter ego on his own - seeks his help. Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) tries his best to hold the family fortune together in the wake of a disastrous clean energy reactor that Bruce invested billions into - a passion project of board member Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) who is trying to get close to Bruce. And all the while, Bane's apocalyptic plans for Gotham City continue unabated - and the aged and weakened Batman may not be his match.

There are two main things I want to say in this review. The first goes something like this: The Dark Knight Rises is not as good as The Dark Knight. It is noticeably flawed in more ways, and the flaws more noticeable, than that film, which is itself not entirely flawless. But that does not make it a bad film. What with the online chatter consisting of comments like "It really annoyed me when etc. etc.", "I couldn't believe Nolan decided to etc. etc.", or "That mind-bogglingly stupid part where etc. etc. etc.", you'd think this movie is a total bust. And if you honestly disliked it, I can't really argue. But there's so much Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer did right that the detractors are completely overlooking in their fervour to nitpick the little things they did wrong. This is not Prometheus in which the plot holes are reflective of lazy filmmaking that undermines the entire film. This is a highly ambitious endeavour (in many ways, more so than even Prometheus), and its flaws are those of overreaching its grasp rather than ineptness.

It is not as unrelentingly gripping as The Dark Knight; there are distinct dips and troughs in its pacing, and it feels slow at times. It is not as tightly-written; it attempts to juggle too many characters and subplots and does not do justice to all of them, e.g. the part Blake plays in the climax. As good as Anne Hathaway is as Catwoman - and she is good enough to put paid to her many detractors, even before the movie came out - the character is also largely peripheral. Certain parts strain disbelief, e.g. the infamously hellish prison in an unnamed country that operates under no apparent governing authority, and does not seem all that unpleasant to boot. In fact, I felt that that entire prison sequence is the weakest part of the film, and not just because the resolution of it is even more disbelief-straining. It's largely because, in telling a story of how Batman suffers a terrible defeat and then painfully recovers from it (adapted from the Knightfall comicbook storyline), the plot tries to accomplish too much within a traditional three-act screenplay structure that isn't quite suited to that kind of story.

But once again, that's just how daring and ambitious this film is. And more often than not, it succeeds at what it dares for. Where The Dark Knight evoked the post-911 fear of terrorism, The Dark Knight Rises uncannily mirrors the class resentments and wealth inequalities that gave rise to the Occupy movement. (Uncanny, because the Nolans and Goyer had been writing their story since before the movement even began.) And yet, the uprising of the common people against the wealthy and powerful is led by the villains, their revolutionary rhetoric clearly stated as Bane's ruse to destroy the very Gothamites he pretends to lead. Once again, Nolan straddles that fine line of appropriating social and political issues without taking sides, creating a story that is thrillingly relevant. But it's by no means short of traditional thrills either. The two Batman/Bane face-offs, Tom Hardy's fearsome performance, the all-action finale, the new Bat flying vehicle, getting to see more of the Batpod's oh so cool double-axis wheels... there's plenty here that's just straight up comicbook superhero action, and it's terrifically well done.

A lot of people also dislike the film for being not entirely faithful with the comicbook Batman. Which brings me to the second point I want to make: no, it isn't entirely faithful. Anyone familiar with the character will likely find something slightly bothersome about his portrayal here (for me, it's the fact that Batman has been retired all this while, which means his career lasted all of two years). But Nolan isn't out to slavishly adapt the comicbooks. He's as good as reinventing the character wholesale, in the same way as DC might reboot Batman and retell his origin in a limited series. That hadn't really become clear till this third instalment of his trilogy - in which Bruce Wayne's story ends, definitively. Comicbook superheroes can never end. Certainly not one as timelessly popular - and timelessly profit-making - as Batman. There will always be another issue next month, even if it's a new storyline and new direction with a new writer-artist team. But what Nolan has done here is bring a final, unequivocal conclusion to the story he started in Batman Begins. The Bruce Wayne in the comics may go on forever. This one, in these movies, won't.

And why can't he? Why, in fact, can't Nolan reinvent and reinterpret Batman the way he sees fit? Dozens of comic creators, from Frank Miller with Batman: Year One to Geoff Johns and Gary Frank with the recent Batman: Earth One, have put their own spin on the origins of the character; why can't Nolan? So Batman never teams up with Robin. So Bruce Wayne was Batman for only two years before an eight-year hiatus that ends with one last adventure. So there's no Dick Grayson or Jason Todd or Tim Drake. (Or Riddler, or Penguin.) I've decried Hollywood's lack of faith in the comic properties they try to adapt before, but who could possibly accuse these three films of not respecting Batman? I think what Nolan has accomplished here - created a mature, intelligent, tremendously well-realized cinematic portrayal of Batman that's as good as the absolute best comic stories - qualifies him to take the liberties he took.

And it behooves us to give him his dues for it. Yes, it's not as good as The Dark Knight, and by a fair margin. But it is a fine film on its own, and even better as a conclusion to what will now be known as Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. The execs at Warner Brothers have a truly unenviable task ahead in deciding where to take the franchise next, but the trilogy ends in as wonderfully open-ended a manner as anyone could expect. A Batman fan could walk out of the cinema dreaming of how to continue this story, in this Gotham City and with these surviving characters who are bound to have adventures yet ahead of them. (And I can still dream of my casting of Natalie Portman as Harley Quinn.) Which is what the finest stories always do: leave us wanting more, and stimulate our imagination to satisfy that desire - awakening in us the delicious possibilities of story. The Dark Knight Trilogy has ended, we shall never see its like again, and the future is uncertain for Batman and any other DC superhero movie. But for now, I'll be content to simply appreciate what Nolan has left us - the highs, the lows, and the dreams.

NEXT REVIEW: Total Recall (2012)
Expectations: the trailers looked good, but the reviews...

The Spider-Man that was

Yeah, let's do this! It's been ages since I last posted a Retro Review, even though I enjoy doing them. And a retrospective look at the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy is in order, since a reboot of the entire franchise has just come our way. The initial news of which was greeted with, in our uniquely Malaysian vernacular, "aiyoo, whaffor?" Indeed, it seems like a very short five years between Spider-Man 3 and this new The Amazing Spider-Man; it took seven years after the much-(and justly-)maligned Batman & Robin before the much better-received (and just plain better) Batman Begins came out. Thing is, despite the fan backlash towards the last installment, no one really thought the Spider-Man series went off the rails the way the Batman franchise did under Joel Schumacher. All its elements - from director to every cast member - seemed solid enough to deliver a much better Spider-Man 4, which was what we were all hoping for. Yet here we are, with a total reboot and a completely new creative vision, with all the uncertainty that brings. So before we check out what Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone hath wrought, let's see what baggage they have to contend with.


Spider-Man (2002)
My rating:




This is the only one I watched in cinemas, and I wasn't that hot about it at the time. I went with a friend who's a Spider-Man fanboy and he was pretty ecstatic about it (then again, he doesn't have the greatest taste in movies - sorry Ray), but I just thought it was alright. My opinion hasn't changed much watching it 10 years later. In fact, the opening scenes seemed terribly contrived in making Peter Parker the world's most put-upon high school student, beleaguered by everything from evil jock bullies to a school bus driver who drives past him for no good reason. But thing is, Raimi is going for a deliberate tonality here: a broad, purposefully corny approach that faithfully adapts the original Silver Age Spider-Man comics of the early 1960s, in all their wide-eyed earnestness and trademark Stan Lee bombast. It takes a bit of getting used to, which I eventually did - but those early high school scenes are still annoyingly on-the-nose.

It got better after Peter gets bitten by that famous radioactive genetically-engineered spider, and starts being a superhero movie. Watching him explore his newfound powers is fun, as are his initial exploits at superheroing; the circa 2002 CGI effects look a little cartoony when it comes to animating human figures, but there's a palpable sense of joy in the web-slinging and crime-busting. In between, there's the death of Uncle Ben, the tragic event that defines Peter's destiny - which didn't really affect me much. Much more effective are the Daily Bugle scenes with a pitch-perfect J. Jonah Jameson in J.K. Simmons, perhaps the entire series' greatest asset. Raimi's cornball tone works better at broad comedy than broad drama, and that includes the somewhat soppy romance between Peter and Mary Jane Watson. The romance factor is a big part of the film (as well as the other two), with MJ portrayed as the one great love of Peter's life. Yeah, and she goes through no less than three guys in one movie.

Kirsten Dunst gets flack for being the weakest member of the recurring cast; although she's not great, the fault lies more in how the character was written - needy, shallow, and ever the shrieking damsel in distress. Tobey Maguire fares better, and he earned quite a bit of acclaim for his performance - although I found him a little inconsistent. He, along with James Franco as Harry Osborn, seem like they don't quite get Raimi's precise tone, though both would improve in the next two movies. But the one actor who got it off the bat is Willem Dafoe, as a sneering, cackling, deliciously scenery-chewing Norman Osborne/Green Goblin. Now that's how you do a broad comicbook movie villain; I enjoyed him more than any other member of the cast (aside from Simmons). And I enjoyed this movie just fine, up to and including the fun superpowered action/fight scenes. But ten years ago, it didn't make me keen to watch its inevitable sequels - and which I didn't, not in cinemas. I only like it just a little bit more now.


Spider-Man 2 (2004)
My rating:




Widely regarded as the best of the trilogy, as agreed upon by fans, RottenTomatoes (93% approval, although the first film also garnered a respectable 89%) and even Roger Ebert (who gave it a perfect 4 stars over the first one's 2-½). I agree it's an improvement over its predecessor, but in subtle ways. The cornball dialogue remains, as does the cartoonishly heightened world it's set in; we have here a genius scientist working on a fantastic, world-changing piece of technology, and oh by the way, he also has this other fantastic, world-changing piece of technology lying around that he just uses to work on the first fantastic, world-changing piece of technology. The scene in which both are introduced would induce eye-rolls in most discerning viewers, if it weren't for the fact that what preceded it carefully laid the foundation for suspending your disbelief for it. Raimi is asking - nicely - that you just go with it, and most people did.

Because there are plenty of rewards in store once you do. The action scenes for one, including one of the best superpowered fight scenes ever filmed in live-action. Dr. Octopus is a marvellous work of character design and special effects, and never once do his mechanical arms not look real. And Alfred Molina's performance doesn't imitate Dafoe's, but matches him in essaying another pitch-perfect comicbook villain - one that engenders real sympathy and pathos. But it is in its portrayal of Peter Parker that this movie succeeds best as the definitive cinematic Spider-Man, capturing his angst, his dire financial straits, and his difficulties in balancing an ordinary life with his superheroing exploits. Spider-Man has always been hailed as the first costumed superhero to deal with ordinary true-to-life concerns in addition to fighting supervillains, and Spider-Man 2 captures it superbly.

Of course, the corniness and on-the-noseness is still there, as seen in a scene where Peter debates his life choices with a fantasy figure of Uncle Ben in what looks like a vision of heaven - and it isn't even a dream sequence. But the tone succeeds at endearing us to our hero rather than making us roll our eyes. Somewhat less successful is MJ who ends up the damsel in distress for Spidey to rescue again. Still, even when she spends the entire movie pining after Peter whilst engaged to another man, she comes off better than in the last one. (Can't blame a girl for moving on after the guy she gave her heart to turned her down.) The grand romance between Peter and MJ is another thing this sequel does well, and ends the film on an anticipatory note of big changes in both their lives. And yes, since this is the one that left me wanting more of Spidey, I'd definitely agree to putting it among the best superhero movies of all time.


Spider-Man 3 (2007)
My rating:




And this is the one that spoiled it all. Although, as you can probably tell from my rating, I don't think it's the trainwreck that everyone says it is - but before we get to the good parts, the bad parts are pretty bad. It starts off with Peter being popular and well-liked, in a relationship with MJ, and on top of the world for once - a nice development from the status quo of the first two movies. But this quickly turns into both of them becoming remarkably unlikable. Even before Peter starts strutting down the street like an idiot, he's already insensitive and inconsiderate of his girlfriend - who doesn't earn our sympathies either, being all whiny and petulant. (And who then sucks face with her ex. Seriously, can this woman ever stay faithful?) And here's the thing: this is all Raimi. It's all in the same vein with his broad, cornball tone. He can blame the studio for forcing Venom into the movie, but emo hair Peter, jazz-dancing Peter, and a Peter who flaunts a new girl in front of his recently-broken-up girlfriend - all the most hated parts of Spider-Man 3 - are definitely Raimi's ideas.

Of course, the inclusion of Venom is another huge problem - namely, there's too much going on. Bad enough that Flint Marko a.k.a. Sandman turns out to be Uncle Ben's real killer - an unwise retread of Peter's origin story, methinks - there's also the alien symbiote that at first infects our hero, then finds a more welcoming host in Peter's photographer rival, Eddie Brock, Jr. And while Raimi and his writers valiantly attempt to tie it all together, both Marko/Sandman and Brock/Venom are reduced to sadly underdeveloped characters and poorly-resolved subplots. (Despite Thomas Haden Church's and Topher Grace's performances; the series has never lacked for great casting.) The seams are stretched to breaking point when Brock just happens to be where Peter is while the latter is getting rid of his black costume, thus allowing it to jump from hero to villain; you know the plot is in trouble when it has to resort to such a wild coincidence. And that's not even mentioning the movie's third villain: Harry Osborne, Peter's best friend-turned New Goblin.

Which is actually one of the things it does well, largely because it's the third act of a storyline that had been building since the first movie. Their teamup in the climactic battle is fun, and the well-choreographed action scenes benefit from the series' biggest budget to date. (Unfortunately, MJ gets kidnapped by the villain yet again; seriously, can you guys ever find something else for her to do?) Which ends the movie on a not-entirely-unsatisfying note - hence 3 stars - but it's a movie that gets worse the more you think about it. The damage it does to the character of one of comics' most beloved superheroes is galling, as is the waste of one of his most popular villains from the '90s. Which Raimi, being a fan of the Silver Age Spider-Man, has no love for, and it shows; even Venom's design is a simple recolouring of Spidey's usual digs, and doesn't even look like the strikingly matte black costume from the comics. No, I didn't hate it, but I can understand all too well why the fans did.

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Despite fan disapproval, Spider-Man 3 is actually the most financially successful of the trilogy and Sony/Columbia's highest-grossing film to date. Which clearly indicates that the split between the studio and Raimi had to have been acrimonious; why would they fire him after he delivered such a huge hit? But fire him they did, and with him went Maguire and Dunst and therefore the entire franchise - or at least, this iteration of it. How successful Webb's reboot remains to be seen (and by the time you read this, I will already have seen it and be writing my review), but having seen the entire Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, it's definitely a shame that he wasn't allowed to keep helming the series. No matter how bad the last one was, I don't think any Spider-fan was angry enough to not give him another chance, or who wasn't eager to see his Spider-Man 4. But that's one for the Movies That Could've Been Awesome (But Never Got Made) list now.