Vampires Suck (2010)
I anticipate and dread the arrival of each new spoof from the wretched comedy team of writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. The pair are responsible for some of the worst movies of the modern era, blindly groping for some sort of fleeting pop-culture relevance. I vehemently oppose their idea of what constitutes comedy and I resent that these two nitwits get to keep making their reprehensibly awful spoof movies at the pace of one a year. They may have taken 2009 off but they released two regrettable spoof movies in 2008 (Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie), and those two films tied for the honor of my Worst Film of that year. Think of all the exciting, groundbreaking, eclectic, and challenging independent movies that could be bankrolled with the budget of one of these self-indulgent, disposable, juvenile, pop-culture-saturated comedies. Each new Friedberg/Seltzer movie is like a slap in the face and a reminder that the lowest common denominator rules along with the almighty dollar. So I have an open slot at number one on my annual Worst Movies list for whatever Friedberg/Seltzer slap together. I anticipated that their spoof of the popular Twilight series would be more of the same. Vampires Sucks is another ghastly, failed attempt at parody that goes off the rails early and often, but it’s not as egregious as past Friedberg/Seltzer comedy abortions. It’s not even the worst movie of 2010 I’ve seen this year, which is a complete shock. After careful deliberation, that ignoble honor remains with The Bounty Hunter. I never thought a movie could out-suck a Friedberg/Seltzer suckfest.
The plot pretty much follows the first two Twilight films closely. Becca Crane (Becca Proske) is the new girl in Sporks, Washington (laughing yet?). She’s living back with her father (Diedrich Bader) and looking for a way to fit in. Then along comes Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter) and the two can’t resist each other. He’s a vampire, she’s a moody teen girl, blah blah blah. There’s also Jacob White (Chris Riggi) who turns into a little toy dog instead of a werewolf. He also chases after cats. How can you resist?
There are less throwaway pop-culture references that have a predetermined expiration date soon approaching. Sure, there’s still references to pop-culture figures without any meaning of setup, context, or satire, like half-hearted momentary glances to the Jersey Shore goons, Gossip Girl, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and an inexplicable reference to Alice in Wonderland. The heroine is seen getting shot by a stray bullet and falling down the rabbit hole. What makes that funny? Is it funny because we recognize the identity of who was shot? Would it therefore not be funny if it was an unknown victim? Wouldn’t it be more amusing if the figure who got clipped was someone who people secretly, or openly, wished would get injured? Does anyone hold such animosity against Alice? But this example also showcases the comedy construction issues that plague Friedberg/Seltzer movies. I just don’t know if these guys understand the fundamentals (fall down = funny) but they haven’t advanced beyond the infantile stage. Take for instance a scene where Edward promises Becca that he won’t ever let anything hurt her. Obviously we know what will happen next and sure enough the roof caves in on her while Edward stands and grimaces. The joke sort of works (I’m feeling charitable) as long as the onslaught of bricks keeps falling on the off camera Becca. But when Friedberg and Seltzer cut to a shot of legs kicking underneath an increasing pile of bricks and hold onto the shot for ten seconds, it kills the gag. Editing choices change the violence from cartoonish to uncomfortable, and realistic violence is rarely funny.
Friedberg and Seltzer litter their script with wandering setups in desperate search for punch lines. Take the line: “We’re just like any normal family, except we never go to sleep and drink blood.” The line is begging for a “like” reference to make a further connection. As is, it’s a setup disguised as a weak punch line, and they’re everywhere in Vampires Sucks. I kept waiting for punch lines that never came. The best example is Bella and her friend leaving a theater that is playing the final Twilight film, Breaking Dawn (unclear which half). They stroll along the theater loudly complaining about the absurd ending and then the Twilight fans waiting outside are upset that the ending has been spoiled for them. This joke stands in direct conflict with the Twilight subculture it intends to satirize. Twilight fans are obsessed about their brand and alliances (Team Edward vs. Team Jacob). And these people would not wait a nano-second to be surprised by plot. They voraciously consume all things Twilight and know every detail. The idea that obsessive Twilight fans would willingly abstain from knowing the ending of the book series is preposterous. This joke does not work at the construction level.
Perhaps the reason why Vampires Sucks feels less scattershot and cannibalistic of pop-culture is because the film spends less time lampooning Twilight and more time replicating them. Many scenes play out in the same fashion as Twilight and New Moon, so you’re left scratching your head and waiting for when something deemed a “joke” in other contexts, though they don’t have the same feel here. What happens is that you end up with a Twilight movie that just ends scenes with people getting subjected to slapstick violence. A rule you can set your watch to: in a Friedberg/Seltzer movie, if a character throws something off screen, it will hit another character in the head or, if recipient of broadside is male, the junk.
Since the Twilight series is so overwrought with teenager hormones and old-fashioned yearning, it practically begs to be mocked. Because it’s so ripe a subject for ridicule every now and then Friedberg and Seltzer stumble upon a mildly effective shot at the goofy, gooey nature of the vampire series. It’s all criticisms that have been well established, including the pre-teen wish-fulfillment angle I’ve touched upon in all three of my personal Twilight reviews. One of the three and a half laughs I gave this movie was a faux alt-rock song by Magicwandos called “Panties” with lyrics like, “I feel so lonely/ Nobody gets me/ I feel so unhappy/ Why can’t I find a cool, alternative boyfriend?” and the chorus, “We can watch Degrassi/ Shop at Hot Topic/ Sexting dirty pics of me in my panties.” It’s pretty one-the-nose and not very nuanced but it got me to laugh, plus it’s a laugh I can credit to the band Magicwandos and not Friedberg and Seltzer. After five movies, Friedberg and Seltzer have made me laugh a total estimate of 8 times. At a combined 410 minutes, that’s .87 laughs per hour.
The lead actress is far, far too good for this movie. Proske delivers a spot-on impersonation of Kristen Stewart’s acting mannerisms, from playing with her hair, to lip biting, to the blink-heavy shifty eyes and mumbled monotone. Proske isn’t given much assistance from Friedberg and Seltzer but she still provides one reason to watch the screen for those painful 80 minutes. It’s too bad she isn’t given anything funny to do or say. It’s a waste of a perfectly good Kristen Stewart impersonation. You may also recognize Ken Jeong (The Hangover) and Dave Foley (Kids in the Hall) and openly wonder why good comedic actors would be duped into a Friedberg/Seltzer production. The answer can only be that of gambling debts. I’m shocked that Carmen Electra is nowhere to be seen, thus breaking her streak of appearances in 4 Friedberg/Seltzer movies.
In the realm of crappy cinema, Vampires Sucks definitely lives up to its lofty title. Yet it’s not the outright creative abomination and entertainment vacuum that was Epic Movie (worst films of 2007), Meet the Spartans, and Disaster Movie. Does that qualify the film as good? Not even close. Relying less on Friedberg and Seltzer’s M.O. of disposable pop-culture references posing as “jokes,” Vampires Sucks manages to suck less by the sheer genius act of laziness. The film doesn’t attempt as many jokes therefore offering fewer opportunities for jokes to die horrible, excruciating deaths. The ratio of comedic failure is still the same depressing level of ineptitude, but less jokes equates to less mind-numbing torture disguised as comedy. It also makes the movie more pointless and an even bigger waste of time than previous Friedberg/Seltzer efforts. It’s the kind of accident that doesn’t even allow for rubbernecking.
I’m finding it hard to as incensed as other Friedberg/Seltzer movies have made me. These guys bring out something virulent from me. Maybe it’s my love of movies and comedy and my distaste for hacks being rewarded for repeated hackwork. Maybe I’m trying to take a final stand against the cultural shift that confuses situation-free pop-culture references as jokes. Whatever the case, the guys are at the top of my cinematic shit list. So you can trust me when I say that Vampires Sucks is easily terrible, poorly conceived, poorly filmed, and with limited aims that it still misses by a mile, but it’s not the abysmal, faith-destroying experiences that the last three Friedberg/Seltzer offerings were. It is simply just bad. Really, really bad. And yet with Friedberg and Seltzer, that is an improvement. It’s all about perspective, people.
Nate’s Grade: D
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Get Low (2010)
This slice-of-life Depression era tale examines a hermit named Felix (Robert Duvall) coming to terms with his life. He’s the scary old man that everyone has a story about, and now he’s come to town to make his funeral arrangements with a sleazy funeral director (Bill Murray). Except Felix wants to have his funeral while he’s alive, invite everybody in town, and have them share their collected stories, and he?s got his own story to share that’s been haunting him for decades. This is a very slow burn of a drama, to a fault. It works itself into a corner, and when Felix reveals his haunting secret you sort of shrug and think, “Is that all?” The pacing is languid; the movie feels lived-in and authentic down to its terse sense of humor and local color. You can feel the fingerprints of the Coen brothers on the film even though they had no involvement. This is a mildly touching, occasionally inert drama that benefits tremendously from the talents of Duvall and Murray, both relishing their folksy characters. This is a movie where the actors have time and space to dig in and explore their characters. Duvall and company keeps the movie from drifting off into melodrama. Get Low follows a cue from its lead actor. It’s understated, low key, and will likely go unappreciated because of its emphasis on subtlety, sometimes too much subtlety.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
What happens when the millennial generation gets its own (attempted) seminal movie? It stays home and plays video games, letting the film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, languish at the box-office. I guess that’s what happens when you finance a movie whose target demographic will just as readily download the movie for free off the Internet.
Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 22-year-old Toronto slacker. He?s the bass player for the band Sex Bob-Omb, along with lead singer Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) and acerbic drummer Kim (Alison Pill), a former ex-girlfriend of Scott’s from high school. The band’s biggest fan is 17-year-old Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), who also happens to be Scott?s new girlfriend. The world of Scott Pilgrim is abuzz with this scandal, especially Scott’s gay roommate Wallace (Kieran Culkin) and Scott?s younger sister (Anna Kendrick). Scott insists it’s all on the level and he has no ulterior motives for dating a high schooler. Then he sees the mysterious and alluring Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who?s new to the area and American. Scott rabidly pursues her in what could best be described as stalking, eventually getting her to agree to date him. Trouble is, he hasn’t broken up with Knives just yet before starting this new venture. Scott is then confronted at the Battle of the Bands concert by a man who comes bursting out from the ceiling. He is the first of Ramona’s seven evil exes and Scott must defeat them all in order to earn the right to the violet-haired beauty. “Everybody has baggage,” Ramona says. “Yeah, but my baggage doesn’t try and kill me,” Scott wearily replies.
Visually, this movie showcases director Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) using every crayon in the Crayola box. This is a visually resplendent film where every scene seems crammed with details to delight the eyes and light up the senses. It’s a rush to watch the kaleidoscope of colors and motions. The Scott Pilgrim universe clearly differs from our own. This is a realm that borrows heavily from old school video games, where people burst into coins when vanquished, where life-decisions are met with “leveling up,” where people have onscreen pee bars that will deplete after a trip to a urinal. Sound effects will routinely be verbalized on screen, everything from a “RIIIIIIIIIIING” of a telephone to the “Ding Dong” of a door. It’s amusing, though also easily overused. Jobs and stuff like that are for the real world, hence too square to be depicted. It’s this entire idiosyncratic comic book world treated like everyday reality.
The enormous display of style is impossible to ignore. Scott Pilgrim is a slick, flashy piece of entertainment that is riddled with nostalgic references for a select crowd. I appreciated how a nice walk was accompanied by the theme song from The Legend of Zelda, or that sound effects and onscreen graphics echoed the fights from Street Fighter II (don’t ask me which of the 800 versions). Scott Pilgrim is an excellent pop pastiche of a specific culture, namely a slacker, hipster, amiable, comics and gamer group. I myself was an avid Nintendo gamer back in my day, but I admit to waning interest when the games got too complicated and grisly (“Back in my day we had two buttons to push, one to jump and the other to shoot, and that’s how we liked it!”). The movie is an explosion of color, light, and (lo-fi garage rock) sound, which also might sound like the description of a seizure or a stroke to some. Like those ailments, Scott Pilgrim will be seen by some as an infliction. It’s hyperactivity and eagerness to please via nostalgic reference points will be what drives people to this film and what drives them away in equal measure.
The Scott Pilgrim graphic novels total six volumes and approximately 1200 pages, which means it?s not the easiest fit for a two-hour window. It also hurts that the Pilgrim books have a wide supporting cast of characters to tussle with, plus there?s the whole seven deadly exes thing which means the movie has to provide about a solid 20 minutes of set-up before finding enough time for seven antagonists (or boss battles, following gamer parlance) and a reasonable amount of resolution. Add on top of this the fact that Wright keeps the movie moving at an outrageous, ADD-addled pace, like the plot conveyor belt lever got broken and the scenes speed one after another. Everything about this movie feels fast and over caffeinated. The editing in particular has characters holding conversations where every line is in a new location, implying an added sense of movement. So you shouldn’t be too surprised when the Scott Pilgrim film feels like a whole lot of a little; it’s moving at the speed of light to entertain.
Because of the plot mechanics and oversized cast of characters, Pilgrim can give off the impression of shallowness. It seems like all style and little substance and that’s because the movie attempts to cram an entire series of stories, back-stories, and conflict into two hours. The film version only has enough time to attempt to give Scott and Ramona characterization, though both come across as weak-willed, tentative, and less than charismatic, wondering if either party is worth the trouble. The movie tries to paint over these differences through distraction and force of will. The large cast of supporting players all elbows each other just to be mouthpieces for one-liners. Knives actually comes across as the most complete character, consumed by her infatuation, heartbreak, and then quest for misguided vengeance. She’s somewhat dismissed and yet she is the most developed person on screen thanks to Wong’s endearing and relatable performance. The entire experience of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World can be somewhat fatiguing when there’s little evidence presented for emotional investment. The books supplied the reasons for caring besides the whole underdog angle.
The movie aims to be a battle over love, but it’s not entirely convincing. Scott appreciates Knives because she’s simple, a relationship he doesn’t have to invest much within, something casual and enjoyable while it lasts or until it becomes too taxing. Then he goes ga-ga for Ramona and stalks her, wearing down her defenses. He’s purely smitten with her and willing to do whatever it takes to earn her affections, though he can?t explain why he feels this way. Here’s a note to screenwriters: when characters are asked why they love somebody, do not have them say, “I don’t know.” But for Ramona, Scott is her Knives. He’s something easy that won?t break her heart, an escape from the jerks she’s been dating before. He?s low maintenance. He’s something to pass the time. There’s an interesting dynamic here, made even more complicated by the fact that Scott’s time with Knives blended with his time with Ramona. There was not a clear end point. The movie takes a literal approach to the idea of love being a destructive force of nature. Scott is punished throughout because of his infatuation with Ramona, but he persists despite the bruises. And he doesn’t even really know much about her. There’s an interesting statement somewhere there about the punishment we endure, sometimes foolishly, over the affections of people we may love, or convince ourselves of, but not even like.
It may sound peculiar but I’m paying Michael Cera a compliment by saying his performance in Scott Pilgrim is the least Michael Cera the actor has ever been on screen. Gone is his gawky, awkward, ironic shtick that has fast become the Cera persona in films like Superbad and Year One. Scott is unjustifiably confident in his life’s pursuits, and Cera gets to act cocky and quippy, even if it?s done with a wink. He?s an unlikely kung-fu star but then again he?s also an unlikely leading man. Winstead (Live Free or Die Hard) is cute but plays her part a bit too toned down, like Ramona’s still searching for the right medication combination. Culkin and Pill are both scene-stealers of the first order, doing so with unabashed and flippant sarcasm. Every scene is made better by their presence. Among the evil exes, Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) has plenty of fun as a dim-witted super-powered Vegan bassist (“Vegans are just better than other people”), and Jason Schwartzman epitomizes hipster snark with such relish. The film is exceedingly well cast from top to bottom.
I’ve read some reviews positing that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is an elaborate fantasy taking place in the mind of its titular hero, that he blends his knowledge of comics and video games to help make sense of the troubled waters of relationships and lingering hurt from the demise of love. I think that’s a nice explanation but perhaps trying too hard to frame this film as some form of psychoanalytical commentary on modern youth’s interpersonal relationships and the value of love. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is really just a spastic, hip, clever wank that, as presented, gives little room or emotional investment. It?s a blurry, messy, prankish good time at the cinema that doesn’t translate into much more than the equivalent of sensory button mashing (video game reference). It’s fun while it lasts but it doesn’t have much beyond those astounding visuals to make it feel lasting, and I say this as a genuine fan of the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley. Alas, heavier discussions about the thorny, maddening issues of love are better left to more dramatic, and romantic, movies like Brokeback Mountain, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and even WALL-E. This movie is more preoccupied with spinning as fast as it can and then vomiting.
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Expendables (2010)
Casting can make or break a movie, and occasionally the cast is the only advertised reason why the public should give a damn about a movie. Ocean’s Eleven wasn’t sold on its craft plot or cool director, it was the George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts movie. Sylvester Stallone is an actor who?s had some lengthy dry spells but he redeemed his legacy a bit with the modestly affecting Rocky Balboa and his ultra-violent modern Rambo. Now he has set his sights on co-writing and directing The Expendables, a film that gathers as many action movie stars together as possible and dares you not to buy a ticket. There?s Stallone, Jason Statham (Transporter), Jet Li (Unleashed), Dolph Lundgren (Masters of the Universe), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), Terry Crews (Gamer), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), along with wrestler Steve Austin, mixed martial arts champ Randy Couture, and direct-to-video kickboxing ace Gary Daniels. It?s a smorgasbord of testosterone, a group of guys whose median age qualifies them for an AARP membership. The selling point of The Expendables is the cast and the cast alone. The story about some military general (Dexter”s David Zayas) is completely incidental. These men are here to inflict punishment.
The Expendables is ridiculous with a capital R. Whether it’s punching guys in the face while they’re on fire, breaking necks through kickboxing, or, my favorite, hurling an ammunition shell like a shot-put and shooting it in the air, The Expendables exists in that 1980s world of brute and mostly brainless action. It’s a throwback to those halcyon days for the majority of the cast members, back when men were men, women were damsels or temptresses, and action heroes didn’t have to have more than one dimension, and usually that dimension was muscle. The Expendables is enjoyable but much of that enjoyment is because it’s simply enjoyably bad. I have to assume that Stallone had his tongue firmly in cheek when he was designing and executing this film. How else to explain the bizarre moments of action overkill described above, the premise of saving a single girl from a small Latin American military, the fact that the sleazy CIA villain takes off with the damsel, for no personal gain whatsoever, and even gets to deliver the all-important, “You and I are alike” speech villains are always fond of giving.
I was laughing throughout the movie from its excesses and logistical and narrative shortcomings. This is the kind of movie where characters make veiled comments about a family but then we never see the family. This is the kind of movie where the good guys have perfect aim and it never matters how many bad guys there are because they never know how to wield a firearm. This is the kind of movie where Statham’s ex-girlfriend (Charisma Carpenter) gets beat up by her new dude, so Statham goes to confront the guy at a basketball court with all his friends. But the weird part is that the guy’s posse of friends shows no regret that their dude struck a woman. They all rally behind the domestic abuser, and Statham promptly hands them their asses. Just look at the character names: Ying Yang, Lee Christmas, Gunner Jensen, Tool, Barney Ross, James Munroe (no relation to the fifth president), Toll Road, Hale Caesar. Those aren’t cagey nick-names, those are the characters honest-to-God real names. You can?t help watching The Expendables without the impression that the whole movie is one big joke. However, I cannot rationalize that Stallone spent time and money to make a satire of the burly action genre.
Throughout The Expendables you quickly realize why these guys are men of action and not men of debate. Their speaking voices are terrible. Some are marble-mouthed mumblers, like Stallone and Rourke. Some are just hard to understand, like Lundgren. Some have pretty bad English, like Li. Some are weirdly whisper-quiet in their intensity, like Statham. And others are just plainly bad actors, like Austin and Couture. The characters they?re given to play are pretty thin, defined by a quirk or two but not much else. Statham’s character is away from his girl too often, that’s why she becomes an ex. The film is basically a contest of machismo. Everyone tries to out-do the competition in glaring and teeth grinding. Also, given the title, (semi-spoiler) is it a little much to think that Stallone’s entire wrecking crew can escape death, even the guy that gets shot inches above his heart? These are men you want to see doing things, preferably painful plural things, and speaking at a minimum. Only Crews seems capable of doing both acting and action. Too bad he gets short supply when it comes to screen time.
And that’s certainly another problem when the selling point of the movie is an all-star collection of action movie badasses — screen time. Everybody has to be juggled around and fight for screen time. As you’d assume, Stallone and Statham rise into the upper character branch while everybody else must be content for a series of moments and one-liners. Part of the fun of seeing this group of actors together is seeing this group of actors together, which is in relatively short supply save for an all-out assault climax. There’s a scene with some great cameos, ruined through TV advertising, where Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger appear on screen and playfully jab at one another. For some, it will be a movie moment decades in the making. My response: “Oh my God! The founders of Planet Hollywood are finally together again (minus Demi Moore).”
On the subject of action, the film presents plenty of bloody, macho men-on-a-mission mayhem, but Stallone edits the sequences too quickly. It becomes a rush of images that the brain barely has time to process before moving on to another location and fight. There are a handful of gory money shots to the R-rated spectacle, but I just wish I was able to understand what was happening. I know Stallone was not trying to emulate the hyper-kinetic verite editing style of the Bourne movies, which have influenced much of action cinema for the last five years. Perhaps given the realities of shooting fight sequences around aging superstars, Stallone was forced to rely on quick edits to mask the illusion that these geriatric men are still capable of intense beat downs. The editing is occasionally disorienting but even worse it?s distracting. It’s harder to enjoy the action. Nor are the action sequences really well thought-out or specific to their location. It’s mostly the guys with guns chase other guys with guns variety. There are some impressive knife fights and brawls, but the concluding 30-minutes consists mostly of action chaos. Men with guns run, get shot, people hurl grenades (why does a martial arts guru like Li forced to use guns most of the time?), explosions occur, rather, rinse, repeat. From a fighting standpoint, there are six good guys and three bad guys, though t?s hard to take Roberts seriously. That’s not a good ratio for battles. There needs to be more colorful henchmen.
My friend Eric Muller and I came to an intriguing ending that would have made The Expendables legendary. After the film’s mission is complete, the gang collects back at Rourke’s tattoo parlor/clubhouse. Instead of palling around and talking shop, the gang all of a sudden starts having a giant orgy, and then Stallone looks directly into the camera and says, “It was always leading up to this. You just never wanted to admit it, audience!” The movie is awash in testosterone and nostalgia, naturally gathering an older male audience. Would it not be hilarious to instantaneously make all those men uncomfortable? They love their masculine superheroes when it comes to death but love is too out of bounds. It would be the greatest piece of performance art ever and certainly gives people something to think about (now that you mention it, those character names sound like porn names anyway).
The Expendables is pretty clear in its intentions. It wants to be a gritty, bloody, hard-edged action movie throwback to the 1980s when the world was simpler and all you needed was one man with a gun running through the jungle to solve political disputes. The film’s entire selling point is its cast of action stalwarts from past and present, though many are beefcake past their prime (Statham is only 37, though). The movie works as a casting gimmick but it doesn’t work as a movie. I’d be lying if I said The Expendables wasn’t entertaining and with its moments of silly, mindless fun, but clearly this could have been a much sharper action movie. At times it feels like a winking satire of the genre that helped make these men stars, but perhaps that’s just me projecting onto the film. Perhaps I’m trying to make it more self-aware to excuse its various shortcomings. This is a fairly mediocre action product despite the all-star reunion. Given the film’s relatively warm reception by its core audience, I await future installments of the Equally Expendables to feature Kurt Russell, Wesley Snipes, Rutger Hauer, Patrick Swayze (composed of archival footage), Steven Seagal, Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, and, naturally, the biggest badass of them all Chuck Norris. As long as Norris roundhouse kicks a live ammunition shell, consider my ticket bought and my sense of dignity put on review.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Killers (2010)
Where to begin with this? It’s an action romantic comedy that can?t commit to either genre. First off, this witless rip-off of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (or Knight & Day) can?t even get on track thanks to zero chemistry between Katherine Heigl and a routinely shirt-free Ashton Kutcher. They don’t gel at all. Just because two actors can make goofy faces doesn’t mean they’ll light up the screen as a couple. Their energies do not click. Heigl emits some magic combination of elements that makes her an unusually likeable and compelling actress on screen; note, I never said good, but she’s an ace with the rom-com material. When will she start choosing better material, and movies where she gets to assert herself instead of being a ditz and the butt of jokes? The plot is absurd and the film’s tone doesn’t know how to settle down. One second it’s a jaunty, irreverent action jag, and then the next it’s trying to be some winsome romance about two people who may have rushed into marriage. Oh, and they happen to be living in a neighborhood crammed with sleeper agents all trying to kill Ashton. When you hear the reveal for why this is happening, it will seriously make you rethink the notion of “tough love.” It makes little sense in any realm of thought. The action lacks flair and sizzle, let alone minute tension, and the comedy is just as joyless. Heigl slides right into screwball mode and the film confuses an ongoing argument as characterization. The duo act so cavalier conveniently forgetting that people from all walks of life are trying to kill them at every turn, for the lamest of reasons. Why hire sleeper agents to lie and wait if you want to kill a guy? Is that really the most cost efficient policy? They don’t even get a single decent joke out of this premise. The only thing this movie kills effectively is time.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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The Other Guys (2010)
Surprisingly consistent in its belly laughs, The Other Guys proves that Will Ferrell is at his best when he re-teams with his greatest collaborator, co-writer and director Adam McKay (Anchorman, Step Brothers). The duo takes on the cop genre with a loving parody that manages to send up the genre while celebrating its excesses. Ferrell and his partner (Mark Wahlberg) stumble onto a mostly convoluted financial scam with banks, traders, and the police. The movie takes scene after scene and gives it a little twist for the self-aware characters to comment, usually to great comedic effect. There were some stretches that I was near tears from laughing so hard (the tuna vs. lion argument is an instant classic). I expected to be amused by the movie since nobody does silly smarter than Ferrell with McKay, but I was not prepared for how much I genuinely liked this movie. From scene to scene, I found something different to laugh at. There’s an undercurrent of rage from McKay concerning the economic stickup Wall Street got away with in 2008. The end credits are an animated statistics presentation on how large Wall Street firms screwed over the American public and are still profiting off of pubic misery. It’s a bit odd tonally to cover at the end of the film, like McKay wanted his legions of fans to get some morsel of education by the end of a film with goofy action and juvenile sex gags. The joke is on us all.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Date Night (2010)
Here is a classic example of two game comedians elevating substandard material. The contrived premise revolves around an ordinary if somewhat bored married couple (Steve Carell, Tina Fey) being chased all over New York City in an extreme case of mistaken identity. Carell and Fey have a terrific comedic dynamic and watching them play and riff is when the movie feels sharp and alive. Sadly, this is another action comedy that thinks people will lap up action that’s slightly skewed. Note to filmmakers: most action sequences are not inherently funny without effort made via context and surprise (see: Cop Out, Bounty Hunter, Killers, or better yet, don’t). The more bad action comedies I see from 2010, the better The Other Guys keeps looking to me in the rear view mirror of memory. When Carell and Fey switch into action mode is when the comedy takes a back seat to lame mayhem. When the movie manages to squeeze in small moments where the actors have space to breathe and the banter is amusing. At best, Date Night is an amusing excursion when it lets the adults get to behave. When they have to go bug-eyed and yell at all the noise, then the movie just becomes exasperating. Good enough for a rainy day, with some lowered expectations, but this movie wouldn’t be nearly worth watching without the resolute comedic efforts of the two leads.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Eat Pray Love (2010)
Eat Pray Love is based on the best-selling memoir about Elizabeth Gilbert (Julia Roberts), a woman in her 40s trying to recover from personal setbacks. She’s divorcing her husband and she’s generally unfulfilled with her life. It seems to be missing meaning. Her solution is to set off on a journey to Italy, India, and Bali in order to rediscover who she is and what is missing in her privileged life.
Granted I am not in the target demo for this movie’s audience, but I found the main character to be rather hard to relate with. The film opens with her deciding to end her marriage to Billy Crudup (Watchmen). So far I’m okay. The dissolution of a marriage, especially when you’re older, is a prime starting point to reevaluate your life now that you’re on your own and, frankly, terrified by that prospect. But then the movie presents Gilbert as a rather self-involved and almost callous individual. Her husband is devastated, but she’s only tear-eyed one night as she prays to God why she’s in her marriage. The movie throws out some half-hearted excuse, saying her husband is wishy-washy about his career, but it’s a smokescreen. Why even leave this stuff in there if we’re just going to dislike Gilbert? That’s like including an opening scene in Schindler’s List where Schindler beats a child. A hyperbolic example, yes, but proof that it’s a terrible idea to have an early scene harm audience sympathy.
And so Gilbert goes about on her globetrotting voyage of self-discovery, chiefly to fulfill her health, spirit, and heart. Except the movie seems to get worse with every stop on the map. The overly long beginning in New York shows that our flighty main character shacks up with a hunky theater actor (James Franco), and then agonizes over how unhappy she is with this new guy. She needs to learn to love herself before anybody else, she says. In Italy, she finds freedom in losing herself to food. She feasts on fine Italian cuisine and doesn’t obsess over her weight gain. In fact, she and a buddy treat shopping for larger sized jeans as a joyous celebration. I’m pleased that people can become more comfortable with their bodies. This Italy section focuses on food and fellowship, and Gilbert learns the language, enjoys the company of a group of locals, and cooks a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for her new friends. This is easily the most likeable Gilbert will be in the film.
First off, a film about a character finding personal discovery and self-awareness is going to be hard to pull off. Internal journeys of self-actualization and enlightenment don’t necessarily scream great movies, a medium of images and movement. For this to work you need a good story and a character worth rooting for, somebody who the audience can empathize with and cheer on the arduous path to personal grace. Elizabeth Gilbert is not that character. The other two segments in India and Bali are a true test of patience. Watching Roberts sway around, chant to herself, and look forlorn waiting for enlightenment to come is not the best use of 40 minutes. Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) gives the film’s best performance in the most tedious segment, which kind of reignites the “tree falling in a forest” scenario. When Indians have spiritual crises do they travel to New York? The end feels even more leisurely paced and I found myself nodding off here and there. The movie was failing to keep my attention short of some lovely scenery.
Director Ryan Murphy, co-creator of TV’s Glee, knows that his audience wants beautiful countryside, beautiful food, beautiful men, and Julia Roberts smiling. To that end, Eat Pray Love is a success. Murphy seems to enjoy filming the food sequences the most. The food is portrayed like a glamour reel. It’s easy to feel the rumbles of hunger while watching this movie. Pizza from Naples looks divine. But Murphy also serves as co-writer, along with Jennifer Salt, so he should have known better about the plot deficiencies that keep the audience at a distance from embracing Gilbert. The actors all seem to be having a good time, and why wouldn’t they? Visiting exotic places and stuffing their faces with local delicacies? It feels like I’m watching someone else’s boring vacation videos that go on for 135 laborious minutes.
Eat Pray Love seems to be missing something, namely the soul of its journey. By design, so much of this existential crisis is internal, which is where the book can fill in all the clarifying and illuminating details to make this feel like a full story. As a movie, it just doesn’t work on screen no matter how powerful Roberts smiles. The main character is hard to relate to. How many people can solve a midlife breakdown by flying across the world for over a year? How did Gilbert afford this? I’ll tell you how. Gilbert pitched the idea to a publisher and then used the advance to pay for her yearlong trek of dining and self-discovery. It makes me doubt how genuine this whole journey really was, considering she sold the ending before she ever reached her catharsis. Maybe the title should have been Eat Pray Cash Check.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Clash of the Titans (2010)
Rather unremarkable and rather dingy, a big-budget remake of Clash of the Titans removes all the fun from the campy 1981 original. Stop-motion is replaced with the sheen of super CGI, but the whole souped-up production feels hollow and overly serious for a movie involving fantastical creatures and Liam Neeson as Zeus. The original film was by no means a classic but it had an enjoyable retro spirit thanks to effects by Ray Harryhausen. The gods are trivialized and hardly in the movie, which is a shame. Danny Huston, as Poseidon, gets one single line in the film. Worse, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is given the motivation of revenge, instead of love, seeking to stand up to the gods who have left man to stew in despair. He blames the treacherous Hades (Ralph Fiennes) for the death of his father. And so the epic adventure is for vengeance, which gives everything a somewhat nasty pall. Who wants to watch a story about Greek mythology where the main character wants to rid the world of the gods? Why would Zeus go along with this? For a fairly straight forward plot, the movie frantically rushes from scene to scene. The action sequences are a particular letdown for director Louis Leterrier (Transporter). The CGI effects, mostly efficient, are like quick blurs and whooshes. You can?t tell what’s happening or you just don’t care. The movie has no character development and I’m not even certain I liked Perseus. Worthington?s scowling and howling is starting to get old after three high-profile action roles in an 18-month window. Would you believe that there isn’t even a titan to be clashed?
Nate’s Grade: C
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Salt (2010)
Congrats to the Columbia marketing team for what is by far the most imaginative advertising campaign ever. Weeks before Salt was going to open nationwide, the most bizarre story broke this summer. A dozen American citizens were revealed to be deep cover Russian agents. Apparently, their purpose, as given in the mid-to-late 1980s, was to infiltrate American society and get cozy with policy makers (and yet not one became a lobbyist). Instead they mostly raised families and lived in the suburbs of New Jersey. It’s unclear exactly what they accomplished. This hearkens back to a simpler age where we had clearly identifiable “enemies” that existed as nation states. Things are just too complicated in the post-9/11 age of the War on Terrorism. The dozen Russian spies were deported to Russian in an exchange for three American spies. I feel somewhat sad for these dozen Russian spies, especially Anna Chapman, the red-haired femme fatale that became the face of the scandal. These people grew up in the United States and for many that’s all that they know, and now they have to live in picturesque Russia. I wonder how long before they themselves defect back to the States.
Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is a CIA agent who?s just about to go home after a long night of CIA stuff. An old Russian agent has defected, and Salt is the best interrogator they have to separate the real from the nutso. As she?s about to leave, the Russian talks about a plot to assassinate the Russian president, and the killer will be a Russian spy posing as an American, Evelyn Salt. Her superior (Liev Schreiber) wants to clear things up with nervous government officials, but Salt bails. She’s concerned that her German national husband (August Diehl from Inglorious Basterds) has been abducted. She races to find her husband, outrun U.S. agencies on her trail, and maybe assassinate the Russian president as foretold.
Believability is a fluid reality. When it comes to action thrillers, if they’re hitting the right numbers hen you give them a bit of a pass. What might normally kill a mortal can merely incur a flesh wound. Salt is packed with thriller absurdities, especially toward the end, but I posit that this movie is no less believable than most of what we see in the Bourne trilogy. The trick with Salt is that the pacing doesn’t ever let up; as soon as she?s slotted as a potential Ruskie spy, she goes on the run and the movie doesn’t slow down. It hops from action sequence to chase sequence to real-life Frogger sequence on a busy highway, all the while Evelyn performs miraculous feats of derring-do, impervious to normal rigors that would severely injure the rest of humanity. But you see, she’s a trained spy, and therefore can handle it all with aplomb. She can create her own missile thanks to an office desk and a fire extinguisher and some ordinary household chemicals (don’t try this at home, kids). In the opening seconds of the movie, Evelyn is being harshly tortured and interrogated in a North Korean prison (in her bra and panties for extra exploitation value). If she can survive that, surely this Superwoman Spy could survive escaping a batch of really lousy guards and National Security agents who seem bewildered by such art of deception like the masterful Putting on a Hat, or the more dangerous Dying One’s Hair a Darker Color (that can stain, you know).
Let?s briefly talk about the entire premise of Salt. Before this summer, naturally, this Cold War holdover plot device would seem ludicrous. Such deep cover Manchurian Candidate-like operations that take decades upon decades of time seem like a crapshoot. As proven by this summer’s most bizarre story, people who go deep under cover for extended periods of time are rarely able to snake their way into the corridors of power. It’s not like these people are planted to marry ambassadors or up-and-coming politicians. It’s essentially like a horse race, except you have to bet on which pony 25 years down the line will be the winner or spawn the winner. The odds of success seem remote at best and a waste of resources. This Cold War program also stipulates that these sleeper agents would still hold allegiance to Mother Russia nearly 20 years after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. It’s this same mistaken idea of delayed national allegiance that surfaces when Chinese politicians try and justify how they will solve the guy/girl population disparity in their country. The Chinese politicians feel that the men of their country will come to America and find all those Chinese orphans that were adopted by American parents. Somehow these former Chinese orphans who have grown up in a different culture, in a different family, and with different gender rights and freedoms, will suddenly say, “Of course I will go back to the country that gave me up as valueless!” It’s this same basis at work for the Russian sleeper agent plan. But yet these super sleeper agents have miraculously found their ways in high positions of power. Maybe that’s the secret to educational reform. Students are more likely to be self-starters when they’re determined to bring down the infrastructure of another country.
What saves Salt is that the action sequences are good. Director Phillip Noyce has extensive experience in Hollywood and working with large stars. Noyce directed the stellar Jack Ryan thrillers Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger; he even has experience with Jolie, having helmed 1999?s boring Bone Collector. Noyce has a great presence of mind and knows how to fill the frame up to please the senses. He knows how to compose a nice action sequence and, here?s the shocker given modern action cinema, allows the audience to fully understand what is going on. The chases have genuine excitement and the escapes come across as organic instead of contrived, which is something of a compliment for a spy film. Evelyn Salt hopping from car to car across a highway is cut together into one smooth sequence to rattle the nerves. There are some spectacular car crash images in the film, particularly when Salt escapes from police custody by driving off an overpass. Noyce finds a way to make the screen both frenetic and oddly pretty, without being self-conscious about its popcorn purposes.
Jolie has proven herself to be more than capable when it comes to handling action. She doesn’t look as spookily thin as she did in 2008’s Wanted, which is good when you want to believe that she can be a world-class brawler. She’s tough as nails and plenty easy on the eyes. The role doesn’t require much of Jolie’s exceptional sex appeal. In fact, she’s rather maternal and her driving motivation is to rescue her husband. There are all sorts of needless flashbacks to her wedding day, little snippets to remind you that she loves her husband, in case you forgot. Jolie’s character is a bit of an enigma by design. Obviously given the star power and the fact that it?s a summer movie, you expect Jolie and her character to be in the right by the time the end credits roll. And yet the movie and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (Thomas Crown Affair, Equilibrium) spends about half of its running time letting you fully believe that Evelyn is a turncoat (though if she was originally Russian, would she be a turncoat?). The most interesting aspect for me regarding Salt’s character was when we flashed back to the 11-year-old version (Cassidy Hinkle) of her after a car accident. Her head is bandaged, and because the girl is the younger version of Jolie, her lips look like those wax novelty lips to match Jolie’s signature pillowy pout.
Salt is a rather nuts-and-bolts thriller that balances absurdities with efficient action. With pacing so swift, you don?t have time to start nit-picking the small things, and the big things you just swallow as part of the overall package. Salt needs you to be caught up in the moment, in the chase, and not second-guessing all the plot fallacies. The film pretty much follows Jolie’s lead and is straight-faced nerve. It provides the thrills you’d want in a summer popcorn blockbuster without getting too serious. As a spy thriller it goes down like a shamelessly entertaining beach read. After all, what are the odds that your friends and neighbors of twenty years could actually be decades-in-the-making Russian sleeper agents? Well, do they look like Anna Chapman?
Nate’s Grade: B
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