TMBF and the Fantasy Film Franchise He Just Caught Up With

I have only ever watched the first two Harry Potter films in cinemas. Didn't much like either of them - the second had almost exactly the same faults as the first, which led me to decide that if they're all gonna be like this, I can give the rest of them a miss. (Haven't read any of the books either.) Since then, I've read reviews of the later ones saying the series has been getting better and better... which made me feel kinda left out. So before I watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I caught up with all the previous films, including a rewatch of the first two. What have I been missing out on?


Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
My rating:




(Yes, it's Philosopher's Stone. "Sorcerer's" Stone is an Americanized dumbing-down. Stupid Yanks.)

Well, it's better than I remembered, but still not very good. Its main problem is a rambling and episodic plot that keeps going into weird digressions, and not all of these disparate elements come together in the climax. You never really feel like you're following a proper narrative - it's just one scene after another in the life of an 11-year-old boy who's suddenly thrust into a literally magical world. This and the next film have often been criticized for following the books too slavishly, and I suspect this may be the reason for the disjointed plot.

A couple of other things bugged me. Quidditch is a nonsensical game - it has rules, it has a scoring system, it has players with distinct roles, but all of this means nothing as long as one player manages to do one thing that'll win the game instantly. The ending is a blatant deus ex machina. There's a decided Mary Sue-ishness to Harry - he gets admired and cheered for and patted on the back one too many times. And there's an annoyingly cheesy kiddishness to the entire proceedings, especially in its "wacky hijinks" scenes, for which we can only blame director Chris Columbus.

The good parts? Hogwarts is an utterly cool place, with lots of charming and funny little touches; it's the kind of place where anyone - child or adult - would love to live in. The actors all do fine work, even the young ones - Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson's performances are a little raw, but you never stop liking or rooting for them. These are enough for me to grant this movie a half-star, and hint at a potential for greatness that the franchise had yet to realize.


Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
My rating:




More of the same, unfortunately. The plot still meanders all over the place, and there isn't just one but a heap of deus ex machinas. A number of times, Harry and his friends are conveniently aided or saved by something magical that seems to exist for the sole purpose of aiding or saving Harry and his friends at a convenient time. Also, the movie constantly treats magic as something strange and wondrous, in a world where it should be commonplace and taken for granted. You could almost excuse it for the fact that we're seeing it through Harry's eyes, to whom it is strange and wondrous; still, this is not the way to paint a fully-realized magical world.

Like the first film, Chamber of Secrets opens with Harry staying with the Dursleys, and they are as cartoonishly hateful as before. Yes, we're meant to detest them, but I don't think we're meant to feel that every scene with them is a chore to watch. (And if they hate Harry so much, why do they want to keep him from going away to Hogwarts?) Also, this is where we are introduced to Dobby the house-elf, who is a blatant and transparent attempt at creating a cute animated sidekick character for the kids. I found him annoying. He first appears in the early scene with the Dursleys, so that's quite a few early strikes against this movie already. And lastly, I could do with a lot less of Ron's cowardly whining.

But it does have some saving graces. Dobby sucks, but two other new characters are lots of fun to watch - Moaning Myrtle is a hoot, and Lucius Malfoy is over-the-top evil done right. There's a mystery at the heart of the plot, and its resolution is quite clever, involving a character other than Harry who went through an adventure almost as interesting as the one we saw. Still, this is the movie in which I gave up on Harry Potter. The climactic action scene is lame and unconvincing, and it ends on a note of syrupy sentimentality. Again, this is Chris Columbus' doing; the man does not have a good track record as a director. He'll be known primarily for these two films, which will go down as the weakest of the Harry Potter movies.


Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
My rating:




The third entry in the series brings about a change of director - Alfonso Cuaron takes over, and once we get the requisite wacky-hijinks-with-the-Dursleys scene out of the way the improvement is instantly obvious. The magical world is treated much more realistically now that Cuaron has done away with all the cloying ooh-how-wonderful-magic-is scenes that Chris Columbus gave us. Also, it's a darker and more mature Harry Potter adventure this time around - the Dementors are seriously scary, and Harry himself has to face some dark and traumatic secrets involving the death of his parents.

Unfortunately, I still can't quite get behind this movie. The storyline hasn't improved as well as the direction - one minute it's just another day at Hogwarts, then suddenly events pile up one after another, and the ending arrives in a dizzying rush. After three movies, I've noticed that every one is structured like a mystery; hints and setups are subtly laid throughout the film that are all explained and paid off at the climax. However, in this one the climax where all the secrets are revealed comes a good long while before the ending; what follows is a sequence where our heroes retrace their steps back in time that's frankly kinda dull, the plot's narrative power having been spent. And why in the world does Hermione have a freaking time machine just for her to get to classes on time?

There's a few welcome developments in the series. Fred and George Weasley are turning out to be loads of fun, and I've not yet mentioned Draco Malfoy; Tom Felton has been consistently good at playing deliciously evil. David Thewlis is a reassuring presence as Professor Remus Lupin, the only Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to actually teach something useful for once, but Gary Oldman's Sirius Black doesn't get enough screentime to make as strong an impression despite his significance to the story. Make no mistake, although I'm giving Prisoner of Azkaban the same rating I gave the first two, it's definitely a better movie. But despite Cuaron's best efforts, this just isn't quite the movie that sells me on the franchise.

Update: Rating revised to reflect my new five-star rating scale.


Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
My rating:




Oh yes. The first solidly good entry in the series, and it's largely due to a consistent thread that runs through the plot, gives it focus, and creates anticipation and suspense. No opening scene with the Dursleys this time (which earns it instant points already), but after the initial proceedings we are introduced to the Triwizard Tournament. Each of its three stages is alternately thrilling, suspenseful and scary, and in between there is time for the pace to slow down and supply us with some exposition and character development. It's a great structure for the plot. Even the lengthy diversion the story takes after the first stage isn't unwelcome - because now we get to see our young protagonists become teenagers.

Yes, it's practically a teen movie at times. There's a ball, there's dating, there are awkward crushes, there are hints of romance - it's somewhat cliched, but it's fun to watch mainly because we've been following these characters since they were 11 years old. Harry's and Ron's friendship grows more... well, not mature exactly, but where once they were childhood friends they've now become believable teenage boys. Michael Gambon, who took over from the late Richard Harris in the previous movie, plays a more dynamic and energetic Professor Dumbledore here. The new additions to the cast are also uniformly good - Brendan Gleeson lives up to his nickname as the new DADA teacher Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, Miranda Richardson hams it up as Rita Skeeter, and Robert Pattinson's Cedric Diggory is instantly likeable, which helps make the ending so effective.

And what an ending. Horror, tragedy, and real poignancy, not to mention payoffs to plot elements that have been laid since the first film. Radcliffe faces his greatest acting challenge yet here, and he acquits himself well, but it's director Mike Newell who deserves the lion's share of the credit. (One peeve though. I really wish they'd just had one line of dialogue to explain what a Priori Incantatem is. Without it, the climax is almost as big a deus ex machina as the first film's.) The ending also marks a turning point in the series; it's no longer just a school story about a boy learning magic, but about an all-out war between good and evil - and here is where it is declared. It's also the first Harry Potter adventure I enjoyed unreservedly, and I couldn't wait to watch the next one.


Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
My rating:




The winning streak continues. Even without a strong narrative thread like the Triwizard Tournament, this movie manages to condense the book into a focused and consistently entertaining story. Building on the momentous events of the last film, there's a growing sense of menace and despair in the magical world that the walls of Hogwarts cannot keep out. I've heard that the book is considered the weakest in the series, mainly due to Harry's constant angst and emo-ing. There's a bit of it here (and it's believable, given that the whole world is conspiring against him), but screenwriter Michael Goldenberg - taking over momentarily from Steve Kloves - must have cut out a lot of it, because Harry gets over his self-pity right quick.

One of the joys of this series is watching how the young characters grow and develop. Ron and Hermione seem far more comfortable with each other this time around, where once they used to bicker and snipe at each other like... well, like children. It doesn't take a reader of the books to see where their relationship is going, but it's a nice progression. The eternally put-upon Neville Longbottom gets a level up here, even getting in a good comeback against the murderer of his parents. Fred and George Weasley are still way cool, Evanna Lynch is an adorably kooky Luna Lovegood, Helena Bonham Carter's Bellatrix Lestrange is gleefully deranged... and then there's Dolores Umbridge. This movie wouldn't be half as good were it not for Imelda Staunton. She makes Umbridge a character you absolutely despise.

We were introduced to magical duelling in Chamber of Secrets, and here we finally see a full-on magical battle. And it is awesome. Whether it's the Order vs. Death Eaters team deathmatch, or Sirius and Harry fighting side by side, or Voldemort's battle royale with Dumbledore, the climax is rousing, thrilling and hugely entertaining. Unfortunately, the (yet another) tragedy that befalls Harry here is undercut by the fact that a certain pivotal character never got enough screen time. For the first time, I'm getting the feeling that a lot of story was left out in the process of adapting the book. But none of it detracted from the solid entertainment this movie gave me. Harry's angst, his frustration at being hampered by paranoia and small-mindedness, the students' rebellion against Umbridge's tyranny, their confrontation against real danger and evil - it all worked.

-----

So what have I been missing? A lot, apparently. The series really has been steadily improving, and even if it never gets any better than the last two I'll still be eagerly awaiting the next instalment. Official word is that the final chapter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be split into two movies, to be released in 2010 and 2011 - which only makes me despair for how much longer I'll have to wait before I get to the end of this fantasy saga. Oh yes, I fully intend to read the novels, as thick as they are, and soak in all the details that the movies left out. But first, I'll finish all the movies. After all, it's via the movies that I was first introduced to Harry Potter's world. And the movies have gotten good. Bring on the Half-Blood Prince!

Depp vs. Bale - sparks but no heat

Public Enemies
My rating:




I get the feeling that most Malaysians are more familiar with the 5-star scale of movie ratings, whereas I consciously chose the 4-star scale. I explained how I rate movies here, and I still think it has the best and clearest distinctions between every possible rating. If it's good enough for Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli, it's good enough for me.

Then along comes a movie that makes me think even a half-star isn't precise enough.

It is 1933, and the Golden Age of Crime in America. Chief amongst the infamous criminals of the time is career bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), who wins the adulation of the public for his cockiness, his ability to outwit the police, and his sense of gentlemanly honour. He falls in love with coat-check girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) and promises her the world - but his era is coming to an end. Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) of the Bureau of Investigation, precursor to the FBI, is hot on his tail, and Purvis has both modern investigative techniques and dogged determination on his side.

Let me get the plaudits out of the way first. The acting is, as expected, superb. Depp has no problem getting us to root for Dillinger, and the plot certainly helps him along; he gets most of the best lines, and a lot of the film's humour comes from his sheer ballsiness and ingenuity. Cotillard has an Oscar to her name, and the role of badass lawman Purvis is a walk in the park for Bale. Supporting turns from Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover and Stephen Lang as a federal agent under Purvis are all equally good. And Michael Mann's direction is assured and reliable, and there's never a scene that doesn't work.

But here's the rub - it's a very cold movie. We never really get a handle on these characters' emotional dimensions. Dillinger is cocky and wily, not much given to planning ahead, and loves Billie; that's about all we ever know of him. He falls for her literally at first sight, and she loves him in return for his charisma and his devotion to her and little else. Purvis has practically no personality; there are hints that he is disturbed by his colleagues' heavy-handed tactics, but it never amounts to anything. If he were a real person, he'd be the guy at the office whom you work with, but never get to know outside of work. Dillinger and Billie are just as two-dimensional - well-acted, but little more than characters going through the motions of the story.

And it's hardly a fresh or new story. Criminal falls for ordinary girl, but their love is destined to end tragically due to his lawless lifestyle; Mann himself has walked down this well-trodden road before in his 1995 film Heat. As well-made as it is, it still goes through the expected beats - she fears for his life and their future together, her fears are realized as he watches his friends get killed, she is used by the police to get to him, he feels guilty for getting her involved, she defies the cops out of devotion to him, so on and so forth. Even if you aren't familiar with the life and death of the real John Dillinger, there's never any surprises in this movie - although Mann tries valiantly to create suspense, with some success.

And nowhere does he try harder than at the ending, but it's still a pretty lame ending. It may be true to real life, but it still ends the movie on a decidedly dull note. It's not that I was expecting a big action-packed blazing-guns finale - the screenplay isn't 100% historically accurate, but it can't take that much artistic license. It's that lack of emotional engagement again that made it a lackluster ending.

So after much thought, I've decided to award this film 2-and-a-half stars. It's really closer to 2-and-three-quarters stars, for the acting and the execution. And I really ought to give a mention to the action scenes; they're well-choreographed and exciting, and the barks and roars of the guns are hugely thrilling. But in the end, it's a film that never loses your attention, but never really engages your heart. And a film that pits Johnny Depp against Christian Bale directed by Michael Mann really should have been better than that.

Update: Rating revised to reflect my new five-star rating scale.

NEXT REVIEW: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Anticipation level: woohoo!

Wasn't the Ice Age AFTER the dinosaurs?

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
My rating:




I used to work in a building in which the lifts had video monitors that played movies, for the entertainment of the lift passengers. Unfortunately, they would only ever play two movies - and not even the entire movie, but only two clips of each. One of them was the first film in the Ice Age series. Now, perhaps it was because I had to watch the same two clips over and over again every damn day, but I thought it sucked - crappy animation, lame direction, and unfunny jokes. Never watched the second movie, and was not looking forward to this one.

Well, either it was because I was forced to watch the first one over and over again, or the series has greatly improved.

Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano) is expecting a baby with his mate Ellie (Queen Latifah), which arouses mothering instincts in Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo). Sid finds three eggs which hatch into baby T-Rexes, and when the mother comes to claim them and kidnaps Sid, his "herd" - Manny, Ellie, Diego the sabretooth tiger (Denis Leary), and opossums Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck) must rescue him. Their adventures take them to a lost valley of dinosaurs, and there they meet the slightly deranged weasel Buckminster (Simon Pegg). Meanwhile, Scrat the squirrel's eternal - and eternally unsuccessful - pursuit of his acorn is complicated by an alluring female member of his species... named Scratte.

Okay, the "dawn" part of the title is really dumb, considering dinosaurs are already supposed to be extinct in the movie. And the jokes are still kinda lame, but they're a little funnier than the two clips I was forced to watch every day. The visual pratfalls work better than the dialogue-based humour (although I did LOL at Manny's description of the kind of mate Sid should look for); kids will find them hilarious, and adults in touch with their inner kid will at least crack a smile.

But it's biggest improvement is in the action scenes, of which there are quite a few. For the most part they are serviceable but unexceptional, until the climactic one. It's pretty darn spectacular, and it allows the characters to perform a few good feats of awesomeness. The animation quality is greatly improved as well, and there's a great deal more colour and imagination to the visual design.

What doesn't work, though, are its attempts at creating emotional subtexts. There's a thing about Diego feeling dissatisfied with the domestic life, which for some reason offends Manny. Later, Diego is tempted to take up Buckminster's hermetic but exciting life in the valley. Sid bonds with the three baby T-Rexes, which of course means a tearful goodbye toward the end. None of these work nearly as well as they should, and serve only to bore kids and adults alike. Diego especially seems superfluous for most of the running time; as a sabretooth tiger, he seems like he ought to be the badass of the team, a role which is usurped here by Buckminster. The weasel gets almost all of the cool scenes - and steals a few of the others as well.

Weaving in and out of the main narrative are the exploits of Scrat and Scratte. I dunno; I didn't really find them funny. There's a lot of slapstick, mostly at Scrat's expense, and while they weren't really boring, they never really made me laugh either. And I got the impression that even the kids in the cinema with me didn't laugh as hard at their later scenes as they did in the beginning. It would've been nice if the luckless squirrel had gotten some actual character development, instead of being used solely to entertain the kids.

The king of animated family films is still Pixar; they're the ones who never fail to make movies that aren't only funny, but poignant and meaningful as well. (And I'm really annoyed that it's taking 3 months for Up to be released in Malaysia.) This movie is no substitute - the Ice Age series barely deserves to ride Pixar's coattails. But superficial entertainment is still entertainment. If you're not limiting yourself to just one CG-animated movie this year, this would be a worthwhile watch. Still, wait for Up.

NEXT REVIEW: Public Enemies
Anticipation level: looking forward to it

TMBF lives!

Apologies for the lack of updates. There's just nothing worth watching in cinemas lately.

...okay, not quite true. There's Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Bleh. Watched the first Ice Age, thought it was lame-o. Really couldn't be arsed to catch this one, 3D or no 3D. There's also Public Enemies, which from most reviews seems to be another State of Play - good but unexceptional.

I nearly gave in and watched Jangan Pandang Belakang Congkak. I really do feel obliged to write good critical reviews of local films, simply because nobody else does them. Then I remembered it's supposed to be a spoof of at least a half-dozen other local horror movies, none of which I've watched. And so I plead lack of necessary context to fairly evaluate the movie.

One upcoming release that I'm quite eagerly awaiting is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Expect a retro review entry on the previous five Harry Potter movies; after having watched them all, I've become quite the Potter fan.

Oh, and yes, I've signed up with Nuffnang and put ads in my blog. Movie tickets cost money, folks, and I ain't made of it. Please click on some ads while you're here, and toss a little spare change into my tip jar. Remember, TMBF writes for you.

NEXT REVIEW: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Anticipation level: siiiiiggghhh

Exactly as much as meets the eye - no more, no less

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
My rating:




I was not a fan of the first Transformers movie. What I remember most about it is an incredibly moronic plot hole during the climax that I can't believe no-one - not Michael Bay, not Orci or Kurtzman, not any of the hundreds of film crew, not any of the millions of people who watched it - spotted. I've also been getting seriously annoyed by the drooling fanboys, who've taken to flaming anyone who speaks a harsh word about it on forums. (And I'm actually in the perfect age group for it - I played the toys and watched the cartoon as a kid.) All these plus my latent cinephile snobbery equal a serious lack of enthusiasm as I sat in the cinema, waiting for the movie to start, surrounded by excited chattering.

Well, colour me surprised. I kinda enjoyed it - certainly better than I did the first.

Two years after the events of the first Transformers film, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is leaving for college and the promise of a normal life, while Optimus Prime and his Autobots have been helping the elite U.S. Army NEST team to hunt down remaining Decepticons. A shard of the AllSpark that Sam finds in his old jacket downloads strange symbols into his mind, and soon the Decepticons are hunting him down for the secret hidden within the symbols. They revive Megatron from his watery prison, but the Decepticon leader is merely a servant to the Fallen - an ancient and extremely powerful Transformer with a plan to destroy the Earth.

Why did I enjoy this film? Three reasons, all of which are things I finally "get" about the franchise. Number one, the character of Sam Witwicky. He's the world's biggest dweeb who somehow scored himself the world's hottest girlfriend. This is by no means deep (or even actual) characterization, but I at least understood who he's supposed to be. This even explains every scene with his parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White), particularly his cartoonishly over-protective mother - with a mom like that, of course he turns out to be a dweeb. LaBeouf knowingly plays him this way, and it's fun to watch.

Number two, the humour. Yes, it's broad and juvenile and slapsticky, but that's just the world that these people live in. Momma Witwicky gets high on pot and embarrasses her son, Sam's college roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) is a snivelling coward, ex-Agent Simmons (John Turturro) is a strutting buffoon, there are two "comic relief" Autobot Twins who bicker a lot and speak in African-American-Stereotypese, and at one point a robot humps Megan Fox's leg. No, it's not always funny, but it all belongs in this cartoonish world - fitting, since it's a movie based on a cartoon. Accept that, and you'll laugh at a few bits, and the bits that don't make you laugh will at least not annoy you.

Number three, the robots. Another thing that bothered me in the first film was how little personality they were given. Now I finally understand - they are not characters. They're MacGuffins. Yes, even Optimus Prime, who gets the most screen time at the expense of every other Autobot. He - it - is ultimately just a Receptacle B for someone to plug Plot Device A into so that the bad guys can be defeated. And Bumblebee, the second most prominent robot, is there primarily to drive the characters around. Megatron slapping Starscream around may echo the '80s cartoon, but it's neither amusing nor consequential - and he shares villain duties with this Fallen dude, which means both have their roles diminished. Every other robot is basically a background special effect. Even the way their faces are designed bear this out - none of them are capable of displaying any emotion.

More proof of the above? At least three robots, whom we've gotten to know during the movie, disappear ignominously. It's literally now-you-see-them, now-you-don't. And maybe you'll wonder what happened to them, and maybe you'll just forget they existed. If the movie doesn't care about them, why should you?

This movie is 2-1/2 hours long, and it is long. Michael Bay may think himself an action virtuoso, but the more films he makes, the less he knows about pacing. I honestly started to get bored around the halfway mark - the whole bit about Jetfire is blatant padding, and the climactic action scene in Egypt just goes on and on. There's some stabs at character development for Sam and Mikaela, some guff about her getting him to say "I love you", and it is laughably bad. The thing about Sam telling his dad to "let me go" is even more inept. This stuff almost made me knock a half-star off my rating. Sigh... Bay is not an unskilled director; he has a signature style, and he obviously puts a lot of effort into every scene and setpiece - even every shot. But he really needs to leave the script alone.

Oh, and a note on Megan Fox: I'm as red-blooded as the next male, but she honestly doesn't do much for me. Her hotness is too artificial, like a walking brunette Barbie doll complete with bee-stung lips perpetually coated in garish lip-gloss. Neither can she act very well, although in her defence, her character has virtually nothing to do anyway.

But yes, I enjoyed it. There are no moronic plot holes (well, none that pissed me off this time), and since we are not expected to feel anything for these giant robots, there are no embarrassingly "emotional" scenes like Bumblebee getting captured in the first movie. So I have to say I enjoyed it despite itself; I only liked it because, by pure chance, it's not as dumb as the first.

NEXT REVIEW: gee, I dunno. Nothing looks good... but I'll think of something. Watch this space.

An achingly lovely film

Departures
My rating:




I have been to only two funerals in my life: the first that of a school friend who was killed in a road accident, the second my grandmother's. Both times, I wasn't sure what to feel - I recall vague emotions of regret that I never spent more time with them, but they were just, well, vague. I was all of 17 during the first, and well into my adulthood during the second; but I'm not sure if I'll ever really know how to respond to the death of a loved one. I doubt it'll ever be as cathartic for me as you see in movies, or this one in particular.

It's a rare film that gets me introspective like this. And this is certainly a rare film.

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a concert cellist who's out of a job when his orchestra folds. He persuades his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) to follow him back to his hometown and the house his late mother left him, which holds uncomfortable memories of the father who left him when he was a child. Seeking work, he answers a classified ad put up by what he thinks is a travel agency, run by a Mr. Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and his secretary Yuriko (Kimiko Yo). It turns out Sasaki is looking for an assistant in the trade of "encoffinment", the practice of cleaning, dressing and applying makeup to the departed at funerals. Although Daigo balks at first, he soon finds fulfillment in the job - but must face the prejudices of others, including his wife, at his "unclean" line of work.

From the very first scene in which Daigo performs his duties in front of the family of the departed, you'll know you're in good hands with this film. The encoffining process is a careful, respectful, almost ceremonial, and utterly lovely ritual. I can confidently say it's something you've never seen before in a film, and coming as it does in the very beginning of the movie, it effortlessly draws you into its story and its world. Later we see how this process affects those still living, even when it's done wrong. The first time we see a grieving husband weep over the body of his wife, meticulously restored to the beauty she possessed when she was alive, I am not ashamed to say I was brought to tears, and I'm sure most of the audience I saw it with was too.

Yes, it's an unashamed tear-jerker, and it's so honest and true that you should not be ashamed at all if it makes you shed tears. Yet there are also generous doses of humour, primarily from its early scenes of Daigo's initial squeamishness at handling dead bodies. There are no gross-out shots of corpses, but Motoki's performance is enough to make us both squirm and laugh. In fact, his very first job is to be the model for a corpse upon which Sasaki demonstrates his trade for a DVD. This is practically sitcom-level humour, but you forgive it because it's all executed in such a real and humanistic manner.

In fact, it succeeds at making you forgive quite a bit. As fascinating as the encoffining process is, we are shown just a tad too many scenes of it. The plot unfolds in an entirely predictable manner, and the conflicts are arguably resolved way too easily. And on just one or two occasions, it falls into self-conscious profundity. Yet none of this detracts from the sincerity of the film. When the climax comes along, in which Daigo finally comes to terms with the father who abandoned him... yes, it's predictable, but it still works at wrenching the necessary emotions from you. It's earned them.

Motoki's performance is, as mentioned, terrific. He starts off as almost buffoonish in his sad-sackness, but he never allows us to laugh at him instead of with him; we see how his heart breaks when his wife leaves him, and ours break right along with his. Hirosue too is a joy to watch; she may be playing an archetypical perky and borderline-infantile Japanese wife, but she imbues real strength and character into her role, all the while being cute as a button. Yamazaki puts a delightful spin on his Yoda-like role, and Yo shines in her few scenes as the secretary with a secret shame.

I don't believe I've mentioned anything about music in any of my reviews, but here I believe it deserves a mention. There is a solo cello piece that Daigo plays at one point in the movie, and the theme reoccurs often throughout. It's as lovely as anything else in the film, and if you're the type to tear up at music, that scene is as likely to make you cry as any other. The music is by Joe Hisaishi, which, if you've watched any of Hayao Miyazaki's movies, should constitute another strong recommendation for this film.

Only towards the end of the film are we given to understand exactly what the encoffining process means: it is a final act of love, performed for one whom we will always regret not doing more for when they were alive. Now I know why my vague emotions of regret were so vague. I can't engage the services of Sasaki and Daigo, but the next time a loved one leaves me, I hope I'll think of something I can do in its stead.

NEXT REVIEW: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Anticipation level: bleh. That's right, I said bleh

A bloody mess of a movie

Blood: The Last Vampire
My rating:




I didn't watch the anime film that Blood: The Last Vampire is based on, but I have to wonder if the title makes any more sense there than it does here. There is no vampire named Blood, nor is there one who is the last of anything. Unless there's something the movie forgot to tell us, which, incidentally, it's very good at.

Also, I refuse to call Jeon Ji-hyun "Gianna". It's a stupid name.

Saya (Jeon Ji-hyun) is a 400-year-old half-breed vampire employed by the mysterious Council to kill demons and vampires wherever they may lurk. Her latest assignment is to go undercover as a high school student at an American air force base in Tokyo, where minions of the vampire queen Onigen (Koyuki) are massing. There she befriends Alice (Allison Miller), the rebellious daughter of the base's general, and remembers her childhood tutelage under her father's retainer Kato (Yasuaki Kurata). And soon, she begins to arouse the interest of Onigen herself.

Wow, that synopsis really makes the film sound better than it is. It fails in many of its most crucial aspects - the action scenes are edited to incoherency, the CGI effects are laughable, and the plot is annoyingly obtuse. Here's an example of how shoddy the storytelling is: in one of the numerous flashbacks to Saya's youth, we see her romance with a childhood friend... and then later we're told she murdered him in vampiric bloodlust. But we never see this murder. We don't even see the body. And we're expected to empathize with her conflict between her human and vampiric sides? Aiyoo, movie, what lar??

I don't know who Chris Nahon is, but if this is any indication he's a pretty crap director. He has no sense of how to frame an action scene, so that many times we can barely make out what's going on. Not that there's ever much going on; there's hardly any effort put into the fight choreography. Saya slashes her way through hundreds of vampires with her samurai sword, and it's all just kinda boring. Cory Yuen is a respected martial arts choreographer from the golden age of Hong Kong films, but here he really isn't trying at all. The final fight scene is especially unsatisfying.

Jeon is... well, she's not too bad actually. She's hampered by having to deliver English dialogue which she's clearly not comfortable with, but at least her diction isn't as bad as Koyuki's. (Why couldn't they have spoken in Japanese during those scenes?) She's an experienced Korean drama actress, and she handles her dramatic scenes competently - but as a sword-wielding badass? Well, if she trained for her action scenes, it sure doesn't show. Allison Miller's acting doesn't impress, but it's not so much her performance as the fact that her character is basically useless. Koyuki does her best to play chillingly evil, but she looks about as scary as a schoolteacher. I haven't even mentioned the two faux-CIA agents who work for Saya's employers (Liam Cunningham and J.J. Field) - they could've been edited out of the movie and no one would've noticed.

I think what really sinks this movie is the fact that they failed to recognize the inherent cheesiness of the premise. A Japanese schoolgirl killing vampires with a samurai sword? That sounds like fun! Instead they tried to go all serious and gloomy and emo, and had neither the skill nor the budget to pull off their vision. Nobody who looks at this movie will expect anything more than a few good thrills, but it doesn't even deliver those. It is very much a B-grade film in all aspects.

NEXT REVIEW: Departures
Anticipation level: it'll be good to see Japanese actors speaking Japanese for a change