Lameness happens

Love Happens
My rating:




A film critic's lot is a lonely one. I've got my own schedule of films to watch and review, and I can't always find a friend to accompany me. (And in the case of local films, it's nigh impossible.) But it certainly is more enjoyable than watching movies alone, and more so if said company is a film buff like myself, of course; all the better for talking about the movie afterwards. The friend I watched this with, however, is not - other than a couple of other films I recommended to her, we talked about entirely non-film-related things during our post-movie dinner.

Which was fine by me. At least it took my mind off the lousy movie.

Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart) is a self-help guru specialising in dealing with the loss of loved ones. His agent Lane (Dan Fogler) books him a seminar in Seattle, to which he agrees only reluctantly; this is the city in which his wife died three years ago. As he attempts to help Walter (John Carroll Lynch), a grieving father attending his seminar, he meets Eloise (Jennifer Aniston) and begins a tentative romance. But the real reason he avoids Seattle is because he himself has not gotten over his wife's death - as his former father-in-law (Martin Sheen) reminds him.

I don't read self-improvement books. I've been an avowed scoffer of the whole self-help genre ever since someone bought me a copy of Spencer Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese?, a 90-page book that was about 88 pages of padding, years ago. I find most motivational stuff cheap and facile, and can't help but suspect their gurus of being money-grubbing hucksters. So no, I'm not exactly primed to like a movie in which the protagonist is a self-help author with his own catchphrase and hand gesture, conducting a seminar in which he's treated like a rock star. Although the fact that his thing is helping people who've lost spouses, lovers, children and other loved ones earns it some poignancy points.

Still, my overall impression of this film is that it's lazy. Its plot is chock-full of cliches, but it doesn't even push its cliches far enough. Lane is your typical comic-relief sidekick - shorter, fatter, less handsome than the male lead but wisecracks more - yet his wisecracks aren't really that funny. And Eloise is your typical quirky Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but again, she's not quirky enough. She's just kind of this florist who knows a thing or two about flowers, and takes Burke out on one cool date... and that's about it. And she has this habit of scrawling bombastic words on the walls behind hotel paintings, which is obviously meant to be sooo quirky, but the film never bothers to explain what that's all about. It's as if director Brandon Camp and his co-screenwriter Mike Thompson were aware of the cliches, but think that merely dipping their toes in them is equivalent to avoiding them.

And the way the film portrays Burke's motivational methods is equally lame. Seriously, a walk over hot coals? That's the brilliant fear-conquering exercise that's gonna earn you a national TV/DVD deal? The subplot about Walter, one of Burke's seminar attendees, is at first effective - mainly because he's the one calling bullshit on Burke's pop psychology platitudes - but then it culminates in a scene that inexorably draws palm to face. Home Depot isn't a known brand here, but in the U.S. it's synonymous with DIY home improvement. They must've paid some big bucks for their product placement in this movie, as the catalyst for a grieving father's cathartic healing no less. Aiyoo, Messrs. Camp and Thompson, what laa??

If there's a saving grace in this film, it's Aaron Eckhart. He's been on the verge of leading-man stardom for years, and though this film isn't going to get him there, it certainly proves he deserves it. His performance never strikes a wrong note, and gives it far more class than the movie deserves. Likewise John Carroll Lynch's; he's one of those "that guy!" actors who's never famous, but does solid work in small roles. As for Jennifer Aniston - aiyoo, she sucks. Her performance here is all annoyingly knowing glances and tight-lipped grins; she generates zero chemistry with Eckhart, and comes across as more of a concerned aunt than a romantic interest. I used to be a fan of Friends, and I too thought that Rachel was the most desirable amongst them. What happened??

Don't go in expecting a rom-com; you will note that I left the "Comedy" label off this post, because it's more of a sedate drama with occasional laughs than an out-and-out comedy. But "sedate" would be too generous a description - it's just lame. Not funny enough, not romantic enough, not clever, not insightful, and utterly hackneyed and predictable. Pop quiz: Burke helps people heal from the loss of their loved ones, but hasn't gotten over his own wife's death. So guess what's gonna happen on the final day of his seminar, as he stands on stage before all his adoring fans, and agent, and corporate sponsors, and former father-in-law? Bonus points if you can link to the trope page from TVTropes. (Hint: it rhymes with "blow crap".)

NEXT REVIEW: My Spy
Expectations: go easy on me Afdlin

The lady ain't a tramp - she's just a shitty actress

Jalang
My rating:




I heard this story from a friend once (and it's completely apocryphal and probably untrue, but I like telling it anyway): A local ad agency was trying to market a cologne targeted at rural Malay men. They conducted a focus group and showed them a foreign TV commercial - hunky hero guy puts on cologne, goes to work, walks into an elevator full of women, and when the elevator doors open again, his clothes are disheveled and there's lipstick all over him and the women all look coyly innocent. Typically cheesy cologne ad, but the focus group's response? They didn't get it. They don't know how he got that way. They don't understand what happened in the elevator; because a sexually aggressive female is a completely alien concept in Malay culture. They can't even imagine a woman like that.

So here's a Malay film that attempts to portray a woman like that. And it is as fail as you'd expect.

Maria (Yasmin Khanif) has no qualms about using her sex appeal to get ahead; she sleeps with her boss Tan Sri Jamaudi (Ridzuan Hashim), her co-worker Zul (Roslan Saleh), her client Dato' Nahu (Kuswadinata) and countless other men, but remains friends with Ben (Hairie Othman) who's in love with her. When Ikram (Helmi Husaini), an old boyfriend, returns to rekindle their romance, she seems to have found love and happiness - but it isn't long before he finds out about her lifestyle. Meanwhile, Tan Sri Jamaudi's wife (Maria Farida) has hired private investigator Ali Topan (Yang Kassim) to spy on Maria - and he begins to show signs of a dangerous obsession with her.

I normally only talk about the acting towards the end of my reviews, but I gotta mention it upfront here - Yasmin Khanif is awful. Her performance here is the single worst I have seen all year. Her idea of being sexy is to pout and leer and writhe like a drag queen in a burlesque show. She delivers every single line of dialogue in the same childish, nasal whine. When she tries to act serious, to call her wooden would be a compliment. If she were wooden it would be an improvement. I was fully expecting this movie to be sexist and misogynist, but honestly, I hated her myself. She single-handedly made this movie as shitty as it is.

But it's not like this movie isn't sexist and misogynist. It starts with, of all things, a text crawl - one which moved so fast that I could barely read it, but I caught references to the Roman Empire and other ancient civilisations, a Quranic verse, and it ends with JALANG!!! (Red font and exclamation marks reproduced as per.) Here's why I decry the shameful lack of online info on local films; I dearly want to reproduce the text here, because words (and my poor memory) cannot describe the amount of premium-grade WTFery it produces. So, a somewhat less than auspicious start to the film, then.

The plot is a no-surprises-here melodrama about a "fallen woman" who seeks redemption that can only come in the form of a man to "purify" her. (Maybe he can do something about her acting.) Thing is, it's not enough that she's a promiscuous opportunist sleeping her way to the top - she literally comes on to anything with a penis. There's one bit where Dato' Nahu persuades her to "entertain" four strange men, with the implication that they want to gangbang her. Oooh-kay. So as expected, Ikram goes apeshit when he finds out what a slut she is - in a hilarious scene where he is confronted with (another) four "uncle-uncle" who've all done the nasty with her, two of whom are even Chinese and Indian. Yay 1Malaysia!

There are two weird subplots that go nowhere. Maria has a college-age sister Mira (Amy Lateef) who's a druggie, leading to a cameo by Faizal Hussein playing the dealer and a (lame-ass) fight scene between him and Ben. The drugs are only ever referred to as "barang", so for all I know Mira could be buying black-market soya sauce. And after a tearful apology, Mira is never seen again - which is unfortunate, because Amy Lateef is very cute and much nicer to look at than Yasmin. (Also acts better, but then again, so does soya sauce.) Then there's Zul, whom Maria rejects after falling for Ikram, so out of spite he plots with Tan Sri Jamaudi's wife to expose Maria's affair with Tan Sri. And then he and the Puan Sri have sex - for no goddamn reason other than their mutual eeeevilness must've been such a turnon. And then they both disappear from the movie.

Something I've noticed in some Malay TV soaps I happened to catch, and it's here as well; most Malay scriptwriters must have never worked in an actual office before in their lives. Maria is an "international consultant", and it's never explained whaddahell that means. The characters throw around words like "proposal" and "projek" and "laporan" and strut around like they're high-flying business types, but it's all just tunjuk glamer. We never find out exactly what line of work Maria is in; the scriptwriters don't seem to have a clue, and director Nazir Jamaluddin doesn't seem to care. The film is set and filmed in Langkawi, so maybe they were too busy enjoying their free holiday.

Yasmin may be the worst actor in this, but regrettably she's not the only bad one. Yang Kassim is utterly ridiculous as the emotionally disturbed Ali Topan; he's clearly an adherent of the hold-head-in-hands-and-look-constipated school of acting. Maria Farida vamps it up shamelessly, and would've likely been just as annoying as Yasmin if she had as much screen time. Roslan Saleh is rather effective as the pathetically sleazy Zul - if the point of his performance was to make you want to punch him, it succeeds. Helmi Husaini isn't convincing for a second as Maria's knight in shining armour. And Hairie Othman does his best as Ben the "spare tyre", but his performance is often directionless.

But you know what? I liked Ben. Dude may be a chump for being the only man on the island she hasn't screwed, but unlike Ikram, he genuinely loves her and accepts her for who she is, even though he knows all about her affairs. I wasn't expecting there to be an actual decent person in this movie, and it almost made me reconsider condemning it as misogynist trash. But nope. Y'see, Maria ends up getting brutally assaulted and raped by Ali Topan - I wouldn't have mentioned this for fear of spoilers, if this scene wasn't already in the trailer - and he gets away scot-free. Because according to this film - a product of Malay culture - there's no greater crime than being a sexually aggressive female.

NEXT REVIEW: Love Happens
Expectations: not very high

A fairy tale for the cool kids

Coraline
My rating:




I was first introduced to Neil Gaiman through his comicbook epic The Sandman. I loved it, but I haven't been a very faithful fan; I've not read most of his later novels. Which includes Coraline, so this review isn't going to talk much about how well the film adapts the novel. (It'd be a much better review if it did, yes, I know, I am teh fail.) To be honest, my biggest impression of this film is that most kids would probably find it boring - unlike, say, something like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

How very uncool of me. I am teh epic fail.

Eleven-year-old Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) has just moved with her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) into an apartment in an old converted mansion. Feeling neglected by her busy parents, she befriends her neighbours: Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.), a boy her age; retired actresses Miss Spink (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Forcible (Dawn French); Russian circus acrobat Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane); and a mysterious cat (Keith David). One day, she finds a tiny door through which she crawls through, and finds an alternate world populated by doppelgangers of her family and neighbours - only with buttons in place of their eyes. They tempt her with love, attention, and the wonder and magic of their world - but Coraline soon learns that their ruler, the monstrous Other Mother, isn't as benevolent and loving as she seems.

Okay, I did like this movie, just not by much. Writer and director Henry Selick employs the same stop-motion animation and visual style as he did in The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. I can appreciate the uniqueness of the look and the breadth and depth of imagination on display - but I gotta say, it's not my aesthetic cup of tea. Coraline is the most visually attractive of the characters - and the range of emotion she displays is pretty amazing, considering it was all done in what amounts to a more sophisticated version of claymation - but the others are kinda ugly. It works better in the second half, when things are supposed to get scary and horrifying and nightmarish.

Scary and horrifying and nightmarish in a kids' movie? Ee-yup. Now, I don't think all children's entertainment should be sanitised - I think horror as a genre of fiction is relevant to a child's exposure to the world, especially in a story like this where the child heroine defeats the horrors. (Of course she does, that wasn't a spoiler laa.) I'm just not sure Selick's aesthetic and storytelling sensibilities can compete with modern animated films. Something like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - which, yes, I liked better than this one - provides so much more entertainment value, packing more jokes and gags into one minute than Coraline does in five. During the first half, when the Other Mother tempts Coraline with three wonders - a magical garden, the Other Bobinsky's circus, and the Other Spink and Forcible's theatre show - I actually found them kinda dull.

Or maybe it's just me. Hey, by all means, show me a kid who loved this movie. I'd love to think that today's children aren't so ADD that they can't appreciate a slower-paced film, one that isn't so desperate to entertain. And the story is certainly a great one. It's at heart a dark fairy tale, one that reminds me of Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece Spirited Away. What I love about fairy tales on film is that it allows for fantastic and wildly imaginative worlds, yet they always teach a very simple lesson - the heroine wins the day by being brave, smart, and kind-hearted. Coraline starts out as a somewhat bratty and nasty kid, but when the people close to her are in danger, she rises to the occasion. When the wonders of the Other Mother's world are exposed for the horrors that they are, and a little girl must brave them to rescue those trapped inside, that's when the movie started to get good.

Dakota Fanning has no problem giving voice to the strong-willed Coraline; she's the finest young actress of her generation, and casting her in the role is a real coup. Teri Hatcher has fun playing both Coraline's real mother and the hideous Other Mother; the former is easy, but the latter has her cackling and screaming like a true fantasy monster. Keith David is an unconventional choice for the cat that becomes Coraline's ally (and yes, he's a cat that talks, at least in the alternate world), but it works. Then there's Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, veteran British comediennes, and their performances should really have been funnier. But this is Henry Selick, not DreamWorks Animation.

I would love to lambast whoever was responsible for not letting this movie onto Malaysian screens - I suspect it's the Censorship Board, and God knows what bug got up their ass this time - but I don't think it would have made much money anyway. The average Malaysian kid and the average Malaysian parent aren't sophisticated enough to appreciate a film like this - and the fact that I can see their point of view probably means I'm guilty of the same. But I did like this movie. I was never engrossed or enthralled, but I was engaged, by the adventures of a girl who learns to be brave, smart and kind. That's not just a good movie - that's the perfect lesson to teach a child.

Werewolves cool, vampires cool(er... than before), heroine still dumb

The Twilight Saga: New Moon
My rating:




A few weeks back, as I was queuing for movie tickets on a typically crowded weekend, I spotted this guy. Looked about 18, very handsome fella, obviously half-Caucasian, totally male model material - only he was very blatantly aping the Robert-Pattinson-as-Edward-Cullen look. He had the exact same hair, the exact same pasty white complexion, and I don't know what he did to his lips to give them that exact same pink hue. Seriously, WTF? Good God, the sheer desperadoness of making yourself look like an idealized romantic figure from a franchise targeted at naive teenage girls!

Oh, who am I trying to kid. Dude probably scores loads of chicks.

Bella's (Kristen Stewart) and Edward's (Robert Pattinson) idyllic relationship is threatened when an incident forces the entire Cullen vampire clan to leave town - and Edward to leave Bella. Devastated, Bella turns to her friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) for comfort, but he has a secret of his own - he is a werewolf, part of a pack that hunts vampires and is protecting her from Victoria (Rachelle LeFevre), the evil vampiress who is out for revenge against her. But despite their growing mutual feelings, Bella still sees visions of Edward in moments of danger, which drives her to suicidal, self-destructive behaviour. And soon, this leads her, Edward and Alice (Ashley Greene), her closest friend among Edward's family, to a confrontation with the Volturi, the ruling clan of the vampire world.

So I wanted to watch this surrounded by its fanbase, to observe their reactions to it. Instead of my friendly neighbourhood TGV Kepong, I went sliiiightly out of my way to Cineleisure Damansara, where there was a bigger crowd. (Not as big as I thought though; tickets weren't hard to get, and 2012 is still packing 'em in.) So I wasn't as annoyed as I would've been by the teenyboppers giggling and chatting all around me, not even by the idiot who kept shining a laser pointer at every scene with a buff shirtless male bod. I just shrugged and thought, I'm in their world. And what did I observe? That every time there was a buff shirtless male bod, there was much squee-ing. So, eye candy for girls then.

(And while I'm at it, let me just get this out of the way: dear Cineleisure Damansara, it's nice that you have a "please do not leave your belongings behind as you exit the cinema" message, but you should not flash it on screen before the end credits even begin. It was just a huge WTF moment for everyone. Also, please do not open the exit doors before the movie ends. The light from the corridor outside is very distracting. kthxbai)

I really hope eye candy is all they're getting out of it though - certainly not that Bella is a suitable role model, or that the romance depicted here is ideal or even appropriate. Our so-called heroine is even more stupid and useless than before; just breaking up with her vampire boyfriend seems to cause her actual physical pain, not to mention night terrors and complete abandonment of her friends at school. Her visions of Edward are never explained - is she in actual telepathic contact with him, or is she just delusional? - and they're a pretty lousy excuse for putting herself in danger, forgetting that she has a father who worries about her. Seriously, she is so thoughtless and self-centered, you just want to smack her like the six-year-old she behaves like, rather than the eighteen-year-old that she is.

Even when her relationship with Jacob deepens, she still can't shake her addiction - and that's really what it is - to the memory of her ex. Not that our werewolf boy doesn't have his own problems; he pulls the same dick move as Edward did, wooing her then dumping her with the excuse that it's for her own protection. (At least he has the excuse that he only just found out that he's a werewolf.) But overall, he has a much, much healthier relationship with her than she did with Mr. Sparklypants - at least he comforts her, eases her pain, and actually makes her happy. And just when it seems both her and Jacob have come to terms with his werewolf nature, off she goes for another Edward fix, making another big strong man rescue her yet again.

Edward himself is off-screen for almost the entire middle hour, which is a relief, because his "romantic" dialogue with Bella is ear-splittingly bad. And once again, their love for each other is made of fail. He's a moron. He knows Victoria is out there, seeking revenge for the death of her mate James in the last movie, yet he leaves her for her protection. And of course Victoria shows up to threaten Bella, leaving the werewolves to fight her off. The climax involves him attempting suicide by provoking the Volturi into sentencing him to death - and he does this by exposing his vampire nature to the world, thus threatening to expose all vampires. It's one thing for a teenage girl to behave like a self-absorbed child, it's another for a 109-year-old to do the same.

So why can't I hate this movie? Seriously, I can't. As much as I want to give these characters two tight slaps each, I still found myself reasonably engaged. Probably because director Chris Weitz is much more adept at a SFX-heavy action scene than Catherine Hardwicke was. There's a werewolf-on-werewolf fight scene and a vampire-on-vampire fight scene, and although the CGI for both is a little rough, they're both reasonably cool. The appearance of the Volturi provide all the vampiric menace and horror that was lacking in the previous installment, and this plus the werewolves gives the sense that the Twilight world is opening up and getting broader. And let's face it, there's an irrevocable coolness to werewolves and vampires that no Mormon author's female submission fantasies can deflate.

Stewart once again does her best with a shitty character - I really wonder if there's anything she could've done to make Bella more likable. Likewise Pattinson, who has stated in interviews that he knows exactly how much of a loser Edward is (and how bad the books are). Lautner does fine, but all the Twi-hards want from him is his rock-hard abs, and he provides plenty of that. Ashley Greene has a more prominent role here; she's cute, but she's far too good at playing perky teenager to also be a believable hundred-year-old vampire. Michael Sheen is deliciously evil as Aro, head of the Volturi. (Oh, and Dakota Fanning plays one of them too, but she's kinda wasted.)

So if the Twilight franchise is all about giving teenage girls shirtless hunks to ogle, that's fine. Boys get Megan Fox in Transformers 2, girls get Lautner and Pattinson - all's fair. But when they start looking to date guys who treat them like Edward treats Bella, that's when I start to fear for the future of humanity. Now, I can be Mr. Objective Film Critic, I'll judge this film on its merits as a film and not as an object lesson on gender roles - so for that, it gets two-and-a-half stars. But that guy I saw, the Edward-wannabe? Seriously, dude - his looks better be the only thing you're aping.

NEXT REVIEW: Jalang
Expectations: I expect a mature, intelligent and even-handed examination of sexual politics and mores. Not.

Ninja'ed by popular culture

Ninja Assassin
My rating:




"If I’m a Ninja Assassin, I’d wonder why I’m so redundant – like 'army soldier', or 'kitchen chef', or 'stupid idiot.'" That's the penetratingly witty comment what failed to win me the free invite to this movie's premiere screening. (I'd've done better if I wasn't limited to 15 words, dammit.) I guess the fine folks at Nuffnang just didn't realize how cheesy the title is. Seriously, Ninja Assassin? That right there needs to be a deliberately self-referential parody of B-grade chop-socky ninja movies - a film that's meant to be cheesy. Certainly not a film that takes itself 100% seriously.

Aiyoo, Wachowski Bros., what laa??

Raizo (Rain) was once the finest assassin of the Ozunu clan; trained from childhood by his master (Sho Kosugi) in the deadly arts of the ninja. When Europol researcher Mika Coretti's (Naomie Harris) investigations draw closer to the secret organization of hired killers, she becomes a target herself - but Raizo is out to protect her, not kill her. Despite the protestations of her superior Ryan Maslow (Ben Miles), she goes on the run with him, aiding him in his quest to destroy the Ozunu - and learning why he turned against everything he's been taught.

Dear filmmakers of Ninja Assassin, which includes director James McTeigue, producers Larry and Andy Wachowski, and screenwriters Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski: ninjas are post-modern. The trope has so pervaded our pop-cultural consciousness that it simply cannot be played straight anymore. Even the word itself has become a slang term with at least a dozen different tongue-in-cheek definitions. You cannot make a ninja movie - much less one titled Ninja Assassin - that's as dreary and self-important as this one. It's not like it has to be a goofy parody; it just needs to be aware.

It also needs to not be so lame. Raizo's ninja training is painful and sadistic and child-abuse-tastic blah blah, and his master's instruction has him delivering one villain cliche line after another. Oh, but there's a cute ninja chick who gets him all hot and bothered, and maybe thinking that there might be more to life than this cold-blooded killer thing. He'll slice and dice a hundred faceless bad guys, but ask him to murder a weepy little girl and he's all "oh noes". The Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu is in full effect here - a single ninja is a deadly killing machine, but the more there are the more ineffectual they are; the hero will just slaughter them en masse. And they're like, super-secret, but they'll run right into busy traffic in full ninja gear just to chase down one guy.

Yes, it's all very very stupid, made even more so by how cool it thinks it is. It even depicts ninja super-speed in exactly the same laughable way Twilight does - which isn't even forgivable in a vampires-as-excuse-for-teen-romance flick, much less an actual ninja movie. Shurikens are cool, but not when they're CGIed with cartoony speed lines. And then there are the fight scenes, which, frankly, are the only reason why anyone would watch this. I wish I could say they were its saving grace, but spastic editing spoils any decent martial arts choreography; worst of all is the aforementioned fight in busy traffic, in which the cameraman appears to be shaking the camera for no goddamn reason. The only thing notable about the fights is how bloody they are - gallons of karo syrup are splattered everywhere. It's quite effectively nauseating.

Oh, there might be one other reason why someone would watch this - "Nama saya" Rain himself. Sorry to all fans of the Korean heartthrob, but he sucks. He's physically impressive in his action scenes, and he clearly trained really hard for them - but any time he's not grimacing and yelling his way through a fight scene, his expression perfectly mimics a blank wall. His less-than-perfect English doesn't help either, nor does Sho Kosugi's. Naomie Harris and Ben Miles do the best they can in thankless roles, made even more thankless by the terrible dialogue.

I was shocked to see J. Michael Straczynski's name on this - I loved Babylon 5. (This might have something to do with how bad the script is.) This is a film that really has no idea how to depict ninjas in a way that's still cool and relevant; it may have been cool and relevant, say, twenty years ago, before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Naruto and Beverly Hills Ninja. And I'll confess, I almost gave it two-and-a-half stars, because I'm a sucker for martial arts fight scenes. But aside from the blood-spattering, they're not even very good fight scenes. This film belongs right alongside stuff like this, and every other B-grade ninjasploitation flick ever made. Which means that, tragically, the definitive ninja movie has yet to be made.

NEXT REVIEW: The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Expectations: well, the first one wasn't... um, horrible?

Bah 3-D performance capture, hurrah Dickens

A Christmas Carol
My rating:




Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a true classic of English literature - as well as one of the most overdone. I remember a time when every TV show - especially sitcoms - would have a "Christmas Carol" episode in which someone (usually the nastiest member of the cast) plays the Scrooge role and learns a trite and hackneyed lesson in being nice to others. (A lesson which is often forgotten by the next episode). So when I heard that yet another movie version of the story is coming - one that's directed by Robert Zemeckis no less - my first reaction was, again? Hasn't this tired old horse been beaten to death already?

Why, no. No it hasn't.

For the ignorant amongst you who've never heard of Dickens' story, it's about the bitter and miserly Ebeneezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey), who is so mean that he scorns his nephew Fred's (Colin Firth) invitation to Christmas dinner, and only begrudgingly gives his employee Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman) the day off. On the night of Christmas Eve, he receives four ghostly visitors. The first is his former business partner Jacob Marley (Gary Oldman); the next are the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come (Jim Carrey). By showing him the past, present and future, they will teach him a lesson in kindness and charity and the Christmas spirit - but it will be a harsh lesson indeed.

Robert Zemeckis is probably one of the best living film directors today - or at least, he used to be. He deserves a lifetime pass for directing Back to the Future, a bona fide modern classic, and entries like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Forrest Gump look pretty damn good on his resume too. But he hasn't made an actual live-action film since Cast Away in 2000; since then, he's been all the way into 3D-animated performance capture films like The Polar Express, Beowulf, and now A Christmas Carol. I gotta ask, why?

I don't like the technique. I haven't liked it since Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within from 2001. I have no idea why people are still making animated films that try to look realistic. It never works. Final Fantasy's characters failed to capture the subtleties and nuances of actual flesh-and-blood actors, and ended up looking like a B-grade sci-fi actioner with really wooden acting. Zemeckis tried to solve this problem by applying motion capture onto actors' faces, and it still doesn't work - even when he had Ray Winstone, Angelina Jolie, and Anthony Freaking Hopkins in Beowulf. There's always that intangible realness that simply gets lost in the translation.

And you know what else I noticed in A Christmas Carol? It takes a lot of effort and attention to detail - not to mention computer processing power - to make its characters look real, or real enough. Scrooge and Bob Cratchit look pretty good; but all too often, I was distracted by one or more minor background characters that just looks downright cacat. Major uncanny valley territory! Every time it happened, it just pulled me out of the story and kept reminding me that all this would work so much better if that had been the real Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman playing the roles. And it isn't just the way they look, it's also the way they move. There's a dance sequence in which the dancers bounced up and down like - well, like cartoons. Which is why an honest-to-goodness 3D-animated cartoon like Pixar's films work, whereas something like this - that tries to look real, but gets all the tiny little details wrong - doesn't.

Okay, that's my rant. It's just me, and Mr. Zemeckis would obviously disagree. Now I did say that Dickens' classic novella has been done to death, and it has - but only because it's suffered adaptation decay. I didn't know Scrooge had a fiancee (Robin Wright Penn), for one; I found the scene where she leaves him the most emotionally affecting in the whole movie. And the use of (what I assume to be, since it sure sounds like it) Dickens' original dialogue makes it perhaps one of the more faithful adaptations in recent years. That dude could write, and the voice actors deliver his lines perfectly.

And it's certainly a visually stunning and thrilling adaptation; there's more than one scene where the various Ghosts take Scrooge on soaring flights across the skies of 19th century London, and it's pretty cool. Zemeckis is still a great director, and if nothing else, the animation medium gives him the license to compose spectacular shots and scenes that would be impossible to capture in live-action. (Which is probably why he loves it.) Unfortunately, there's also a long chase scene with the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come and a Scrooge that inexplicably shrinks to insect-size, and it's just pure padding - I was just waiting for it to end and get back to the story.

But it's still a fun movie, and it reminds us how great the original story was. Its message of compassion, charity and human warmth is still relevant in this day and age; few people are as overtly misanthropic as Scrooge, but there are still those who think money and wealth are the only true measure of success in life. This is a movie for them, and even though it's not as good as it should have been, it still has a lesson to teach them. Oh, and do stay for "God Bless Us Everyone", an original Christmas carol written by Alan Silvestri and performed by Andrea Bocelli, that plays over the end credits. It's really quite lovely.

NEXT REVIEW: Ninja Assassin
Expectations: doesn't sound good from what I've heard

(Supposed) Vampire (supposedly) loves teen (supposed) heroine

Twilight (2008)
My rating:




Yes, this is the first one, from last year. Why am I reviewing it? Because I'll be reviewing its sequel The Twilight Saga: New Moon, opening this week, and seeing as it's a saga and all, I figured I'd do it justice and start from the beginning. I gotta say, I'm already quite biased against this entire series. I've read so much feminist commentary about it, how it teaches teenage girls all the wrong lessons about love and relationships, how the heroine is such a godawful Mary Sue, how it perverts the vampire mythos, and how Stephenie Meyer is a really really bad writer. So I was fully expecting to scoff all the way through this movie.

I'm so proud of my ability to be objective. Hey, it's a gift.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) has just moved to the small town of Forks, Washington with her divorced father Charlie (Billy Burke), the local chief of police. She is fascinated by Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who saves her life twice yet acts aloof with her - and when she learns that he is a 108-year-old vampire, her fascination turns into passionate love. Edward falls in love with her too, and the rest of the Cullen vampire family welcome her with open arms - but not all vampires are "vegetarian", who abstain from killing humans, like they are. Another pack of vampires are on the hunt in Forks, leaving a string of grisly murders in their wake.

Okay, it's not as bad as I thought (hoped?). But it is still quite bad. Take the vampires - or rather, vampires in name only. They happily walk around in daylight; in fact, they chose to live in Forks for the constantly cloudly, gloomy weather, because when direct sunlight hits them, they, um, sparkle. This is one of the most reviled aspects of the Twilight world, and it really is ridiculous. It looks ridiculous too, and it isn't helped by Edward growling "This is the skin of a killer!" as he sparkles. And the tinkly bells sound effect that accompanies it really doesn't help. Really, its entire depiction of vampires is full of fail. The motion-blur vampire super-speed effect is laughable, and the vampire makeup doesn't look so much like an undead immortal creature as it does like bedak sejuk. And just when I thought we'd finally get to see some vampire fangs... it very conspicuously shows that these vampires have no fangs. Aiyoo, movie and Ms. Meyer, what laa??

And then there's the Edward-Bella relationship. I can almost buy Bella as an impulsive teenager who falls for the totally dreamy guy, but I don't know what's going on with Edward. He really does seem like he's just emotionally jerking Bella around, telling her "I can't be with you" and then chatting her up anyway. He's as awkward and hesitant with her as a teenage boy, which means he's not in the least bit believable as a hundred-year-old vampire - which brings us to the creepy pedophiliac subtext of a really old guy hitting on a teenage girl. Other than some magical explanation of how her blood smells intoxicatingly sweet to him and that she's the one mind he can't read (oh, did I mention? He reads minds), there's little reason for him to fall for her. And the thing about him sneaking into her room to watch her sleep - and her thinking that's sooo sweeeeet - is really really facepalm.

Is Bella a Mary Sue? Somewhat, yes. For no reason other than that she's new in town, everyone fawns over her - all the boys crush on her, and all the girls want to be her BFF. Now, if we were to accept that we're seeing all this through her eyes, her classmates' incessant attention may just be a metaphor for how awkward and gawky she feels in a new school. (At least there aren't any stereotypical bitchy Libbys.) But really, having two boys ask her to the prom, only to settle for other girls - who are happy to accept her leftovers - is really a bit much. And more than a bit much is how she in turn is pretty damn unfriendly to them - to everyone other than Edward, in fact. There's one scene in which she behaves like the worst kind of bratty kid to her own father, who just stands by ineffectually. Yes, I know, there's an explanation for it, but it doesn't really make much sense.

It was a weird experience watching this - there's a decent teen-fantasy-romance in here, if Edward weren't so skeevy, if the vampires weren't so lame, and if Bella weren't such a useless heroine. (Really, she doesn't do a single thing worthwhile or admirable. All she does is let Edward save her.) Things start picking up in the second half, when evil vampires show up and start being all evil - I enjoyed this bit, more than it probably deserved. Not that the vamp-on-vamp fight was particularly cool, or that there weren't any more WTF-worthy moments; just that I was glad for some actual narrative momentum after all the sappy love scenes.

And they're an odd kind of sappy love scene, to be honest. Edward and Bella never smile. They never once seem to actually be happy together. It's just a lot of smoldering looks and chaste making out. (And yes, I know that the whole series is a metaphor for teen chastity.) I don't know if it's director Catherine Hardwicke or the actors. I liked Pattinson in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, although I haven't seen Stewart before in anything, but really, the chemistry between these two is as wet as the weather in Forks. The ripe dialogue they're forced to spout doesn't help either. Billy Burke is a totally cool dad, which makes you even more annoyed at how Bella treats him. I suppose here's where I should mention Taylor Lautner, who plays Jacob Black - yes, he'll be more prominent in the sequel, but here he's just another boy making googly eyes at Bella.

The really weird thing is that I actually wanted to like this. My own imagination kept wanting to fill in the gaps in the plot and characterization. I suppose Ms. Meyer deserves credit for tapping the vein of vampire mythology (because vampire mythology is cool) and successfully transplanting it to the teen romance milieu (because really, both genres go together pretty well). And from all I've heard, it's a far better movie than it is a book. I wanted to hate it, but I ended up wanting to like it - and in fact, I'm even looking forward to New Moon now, just a bit. That's actually quite impressive... even if I didn't really like it.