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Scary Movie 4 (2006)
David Zucker was apart of the team that gave the world Airplane!, The Kentucky Fried Movie, Top Secret, the Naked Gun flicks, Ruthless People, and even Ghost. When the Wayans brothers left the Scary Movie franchise for greener pastures (greener meaning richer), it was Zucker and his stable of writers that came in and gave Scary Movie 3 a fresh kick. Now less than three years later we have Scary Movie 4 poking at the same material, and once again this franchise is starting to feel like a bore.
Cindy Campbell (Anna Farris) is in the home health care business looking after a supposedly haunted house. Inside the house resides those pale, wide-eyed, meowing ghosts from The Grudge. Next door resides Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), a crappy father watching after his two crappy kids for the weekend. Things get a tad hectic when giant Tr-ipod robots rise from the ground and start zapping everyone. A war of some worlds looks to be in progress. Cindy and Tom go their separate ways, each trying to stay alive and return to each other. Cindy meets her old pal Brenda (Regina Hall) and they journey into the heart of a secluded village, one surrounded by monsters. Somehow they’ll find a way to stop the aliens from destroying the planet. Meanwhile, President Harris (Leslie Nielson), briefed that the country is under attack, is very interested to know what happens to a duck in a children’s story. The only thing missing is a Passion of the Christ parody (talk about a horror movie).
This is a franchise of diminished returns. Zucker and company feel like they’re badly grasping for something. Scary Movie 4 relies far too heavily on juvenile scatological behavior (a urine sponge bath is simply gross, not a gross-out) and very repetitious slapstick. Your level of enjoyment with Scary Movie 4 will rest solely on the question of how many times you can laugh at someone getting hit in the junk. Zucker’s gone practically overboard on the physical comedy, making this the filmic equivalent of “Football in the Groin.” The sad thing about this franchise is how safe it all feels now. It seems to have its demo sights set squarely on teen males, less discerning folk who will pee their pants with groin kick #86 and roll in the aisles uncontrollably with groin kick #113. I’m no prude when it comes to slapstick mind you; a well-timed kick to the groin can be downright Shakespearean, but when an entire film is stuffed with people knocking the stuffing out of themselves, then the joke loses its original flavor. No one wants to keep chewing on something once its flavor has long vanished.
I seriously think there should be a one-term limit when it comes to the comedy teams working with the Scary Movie films. Scary Movie 2 felt like a bad Xerox copy of Scary Movie, heavily smudged and lacking definition. Seriously, how many times can you go back to the giant semen geyser well? So too does Scary Movie 4, Zucker’s second in the series, resonate with the same hackneyed feeling. Zucker’s first movie dialed down the raunch and upped the PG-13 slapstick, and now his second film feels like a less executed duplicate. In Scary Movie 3, the joke was that the creepy psychic kid could never foresee his own clobbering. Therefore, there was an extra comedic layer to watching a kid accurately predict when a woman would start her period but not when a car back into him. In Scary Movie 4, it’s simply been reduced to watched a kid get beaten a lot. Jokes rarely connect when you rob them of context or set-up or just repeat them ad nasuem. Scary Movie 4 feels a bit overly content just to be a copy of a copy. That’s simply depressing.
Even the jokes feel out of touch, smacking of a minimal effort. The Scary Movie franchise was never a place for biting satire, but everything seems so curiously outdated. Viagra jokes in 2006? I guess so. When the film does reference modern items (Myspace, Yahoo maps, Michael Jackson) it still feels awkward. The Brokeback Mountain parody, while shocking in how comparatively restrained it is, comes across dead in the water because our market is over-saturated with gay cowboy jokes. It’s like in 1999 when even your invalid grandmother was doing a Blair Witch Project parody (turns out the witch was just the nurse trying to get her to take her pills). I do realize that the plot parodies are mostly a jumble, bits blended together to house the film’s rapid-fire gags. The Million Dollar Baby parody is probably the best sequence in the film and even that spoofs a cultural event 10 years old. If Scary Movie 4 is targeting teens, to the detriment of the film’s funny, then why even bother referencing pop-culture outside their cognizance? I wonder if the inevitable Scary Movie 5 will have a pointed satire on the Iran-Contra scandal.
Zucker just feels too pleased with himself. His movie parodies are spot-on when it comes to technical execution, replicating even the camera angles from his source material. It’s a pity he has little to add with his tweaking. Any form of comedy gets old with repetition but slapstick especially. I would think a man like Zucker would know this.
Farris is the best thing that Scary Movie could have ever hoped for. She’s one of the most gifted comedic actresses working today. She’s at home whether it’s the physical, whether it’s delivering a silly line with pitch-perfect dumb blonde finesse, or whether it’s just making exaggerated facial contortions. There’s a music montage of Farris making funny faces that works so well because of how much Farris throws herself entirely into the joke. Too bad the movie lets her down.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Final Destination 3 (2006)
Isn’t the title Final Destination 3 itself problematic? How could it be final if it’s the third? It reminds me of 1998’s terrible I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, which wasn’t even correct with the film’s time setting (it must be stated that a 2006 sequel, and I’m not kidding, will be called I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer). Perhaps the best title comes from the worst movie of all time, Manos: The Hands of Fate, notoriously lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000. “Manos” is actually Spanish for “hands,” so the title is Hands: The Hands of Fate. Titles are fun. Oh yes. Final Destination 3, on the other hand, isn’t really fun.
A senior class is partying and enjoying the thrill rides of an amusement park. There’s an especially menacing looking roller coaster begging to be ridden by teenagers. There’s even a giant devil in front of the ride’s entrance. The ride fills up with your general high school characters (popular snots, Goth kids, cocky jocks, etc.) and then the safety bars become loose, flinging riders this way and that to splatter against broken rails and track. It’s all so horrifying … but it’s just a vision of Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). She goes into hysterics and gets off the coaster before it ships out. Other students follow her, including Kevin (Ryan Merriman), the boyfriend of Wendy’s best friend. Sure enough, the coaster crashes, those on it die, and death has been averted. For now. Just like previous installments, death seeks out the souls that escaped its cold clutches. Now death is taking out the survivors in the order they would have died and Wendy and Kevin must try and figure out a plan before it gets to them.
Let’s not mince words, the true star of the Final Destination franchise is death itself. The appeal rests entirely on the fiendish, outlandishly complicated deaths and the misdirection over what will prove deadly. The audience is holding their breath for the next spectacular death. There’s a certain fatalism linked to this, knowing that the entertainment value is witnessing teens eventually get sliced and diced. But the franchise’s appeal also seems to be its downfall. The Final Destination films are stuck trying to out top themselves, and each film opens with a big centerpiece of disaster that inevitably serves as the film’s best moment. The rest of the movies never seem to match the opening melee, and it’s generally not a good idea for a movie to peek in the first reel.
Admirably, Final Destination 3 doesn’t even waste time with having its batch of characters theorize how to outfox the specter of death. We just watch, one after the other, the bloody, clever deaths like an assembly line of carnage. Final Destination 3 knows what its audience wants. Curiously, there’s no parental or police presence at all, even after the mounting coincidental deaths. Seriously, everywhere that Wendy and Kevin go, death is right beside them. Probably the funniest tidbit in Final Destination 3 is that shortly after another failed attempt to warn a doomed teen, Wendy and Kevin are in different, non-bloody clothes as they walk back to their car. They actually brought a change of clothes just in case. That’s hilarious. Little else seems amusing (the 9/11 reference is overwhelmingly tacky).
I once thought that the Final Destination concept could live forever in the annuls of horror, but the seams are definitely starting to show with this franchise. In 2000 it was fresh and unpredictable, and now it just seems exhausted and old hat. I thought the third film regaining the original writers and director would infuse Final Destination 3 with a bit more imagination. I was wrong. Glen Morgan and James Wong seem to go overboard to sate their blood-hungry audience, creating the most gruesome, torturous deaths yet. Seeing people eviscerated is one thing, but tantalizingly lingering on the sight of a busty teen being cooked alive, her skin boiling and exploding from the heat, is too much. It’s like this time death is really pissed, saying, “I gotta go through all this again!” The movie feels too mean-spirited, too vengeful, and a shade too cynical. I think the concept feels spent and even Morgan and Wong realize this, which is why they ratchet up the gore because the suspense is gone. The “gotcha” ending was pitch-perfect in the first Final Destination, but now it’s just another expectation feebly met.
Of course, all the characters (with the possible exception of Kevin) are nitwits, horn dogs, jerks, and just plain unlikable, which make rooting for their demise easier. There’s no subtlety here either. The two shallow, popular girls are incredibly shallow and ridiculously stupid. The idiot pervert has a one-track mind that never takes a break. They’re all stock, they’re all one-note, and there’s even a moment where the token black character says, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” No wonder death is the star. At least in the previous Final Destination flicks you felt like the kids deserved a fighting chance.
There is one neat addition to the formula. On the night of the accident, Wendy took several pictures and each photograph predicts that person’s demise. This allows the audience to try to decode the clues they’re given and correctly guess the next horrific death. It’s the most fun aspect of the franchise.
Final Destination 3 knows exactly what its audience wants, which is more of the same preposterously complicated deaths. The concept once felt fresh but now it seems worn out. I doubt new blood could revive this franchise because audience expectation has become too demanding. We already know the rules and know the characters can’t really escape death, so the only lasting suspense is what will kill them, and even that is fleeting. The return of creators Glen Morgan and James Wong still can’t infuse the right touches of imagination. It’s more grisly teenage carnage, nothing more, nothing less, nothing special anymore. Fans of the previous Final Destination flicks will likely find some entertainment, but the movie feels creatively spent. It’s probably time for this sadistic peep show to bow out before things get even uglier.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005)
Sandra Bullock is the nation’s most famous tomboy. She began in action flicks but soon settled under the familiar road traveled by so many winsome, likeable young actresses: romantic comedies. She even turned down the role in Million Dollar Baby that Hilary Swank would later ride to Oscar gold. Bullock has now publicly stated that she wants to step away from romantic comedies and challenge herself as an actress. She of course must have felt this way before agreeing to Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous.
Just weeks after foiling a beauty pageant tragedy, Gracie Hart (Bullock) is returning back to the FBI undercover field. Her newfound celebrity makes her stick out in a crowd of autograph-seekers. She cannot work undercover anymore so the FBI, in a stroke of public relations, wants Gracie to be the new face of the bureau. She gets a makeover (again) and a hot-tempered bodyguard (Regina King) to shadow her on talk show circuits, book signings, and other public appearances. Just when things are looking rosy, the reigning Miss United States, Cheryl, and the pageant host (William Shatner, gleefully hammy) are kidnapped. The kidnappers want millions or else they?ll kill them both. Gracie regroups from her makeover madness and jumps on the case to save her friend.
Bullock is a very likeable actress but seems prone to more pratfalls than Buster Keaton combined with two of the Three Stooges. The physical comedy comes off being tired this go-round. Watching Bullock be clumsy can be funny, but the comedy of Miss Congeniality 2 is too forced to crack a smile. The friction between Gracie and her bodyguard is one conversation away from evaporating. The girls have to pose as Vegas entertainers to get backstage, when they just could have used their “oh I don’t know?” FBI status. When Gracie goes undercover Bullock becomes unhinged and flounders around in rubbery ethnic stereotypes. Miss Congeniality 2 isn’t funny because the film doesn’t know what to do.
The finer moments of Miss Congeniality involved the dry wit of Michael Caine, and he is sorely missed in this sequel. The strangely necessary role of gay makeover artist is passed to Deidrech Bader (The Drew Carey Show). He amps up the sass but can’t really replace Caine. King is a greatly underrated actress (Jerry Maguire should have made her a star), but she suffers from the constraints of a rough-around-the-edges loner character. She mainly scowls and grumbles.
What made Miss Congeniality appealing was the fish-out-of-water conceit of an ugly ducking in a world of swans. Even though I didn’t like the film, it could at least muster up broad humor from its comic premise. Miss Congeniality 2 is a lot like Austin Powers 2, in that the sequel puts the fish back into the water. As a result the film loses whatever comic firepower it might have had. Miss Congeniality 2 attempts to be a female-buddy-cop caper, but the butting heads rarely produce any comedy. This film didn’t make me laugh until after 20 minutes in, and the ratio of screen time to laughs didn’t improve much afterwards (and that includes jokes about bad breath and tampons!).
Miss Congeniality 2 has some of the dumbest police work ever. Characters go to extreme lengths for basic information, make wild assessments on little to go with, and key clues are tripped over with the subtlety of a jackhammer. The idiotic police work syncs up with the preposterous nature of the crooks? scheme. They are ex-employees of the Treasure Island casino, so to take revenge they?re going to trap their prey inside the pirate ship display, which is set to sink as part of the attraction’s script. Yes, death by casino attraction.
There are also some wildly brainless moments. Gracie is about to flee the sinking pirate ship, when her elaborate showgirl costume gets trapped under a heavy canon. Now, with time and air running out, any normal person would quickly strip out of the costume and swim away. Instead, Gracie tugs at her costume trying to yank it out, and she does this until she nearly drowns. I don’t care who you are, if you’re about to drown then modesty isn’t going to get in the way. Better to be alive and naked than dead and soggy. For that matter, when Gracie discovers that the pirate ship has her friends she runs to get inside. Wouldn’t it be infinitely easier to find someone at the casino that could stop the animatronic attraction? I’m sure something that organized doesn’t just run without safety controls.
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous is clumsy and riddled with contrivances and inanities. The jokes are forced and dead on arrival, and Bullock falls into what she does best, which is falling down. There is no reason for this film to exist other than that the original made money. Die-hard fans of Miss Congeniality may be the only ones to get some enjoyment out of this tepid sequel. Even casual fans of Bullock’s romantic comedies will likely be disappointed. You know you’re watching a tired comedy when they make Dolly Parton boob jokes in the year 2005. Miss Congeniality 2 is a film that doesn’t make the cut.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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The Ring Two (2005)
I loved The Ring. Loved it. So I had some trepidation when I found out they were making a sequel. Surely it wouldn’t have the punch of the first film. To see Ring Two I went to a theater frequented by somewhat affluent teenagers and pre-teens. Big. Mistake. People were chattering away the entire time, laughing stupidly, and shouting ridiculously lame jokes: (on seeing a damp bed: “Oops, somebody wet the bed”). There were two managers that had to patrol the theater to keep order. Worst of all was a team of easily riled prepubescent girls that sat behind me, shrieking like banshees even during movie trailers. The same thing happened to me when I went to see The Village at the same theater. I must attract the most annoying people in the crowd. The sound quality in my theater was also very poor. Now, I can’t help but think that this was some divine act to warn me how bad Ring Two was going to be.
Rachel (Naomi Watts) has taken her son Aidan (the creepy David Dorfman) to a new town to start a new life. It’s been years since the incident with the videotape, and Rachel feels guilt about her role in spreading the killer tape. She’s got a new job at a small town newspaper but yet she can’t escape her past. A teen has been found with a contorted face, soggy floor, and a certain videotape. Rachel finds the tape and burns it. Samara, the evil young girl who started the evil tape, is none too pleased. Seems the evil tyke wants to be a real girl with a real mommy, and is slowly taking over Aidan. His temperature is dropping, he’s not sleeping, and bad things are happening. Rachel confronts more of Samara’s history to learn what it takes to stop her and get her son back.
Everything that worked in the first film feels forced and meaningless when rehashed in Ring Two. In the previous film, there was context for the image of a tree on fire and Rachel yanking a fly right out of a TV screen. In Ring Two, these plot points are now reduced to being contrived signs of doom. There’s a scene where we’re supposed to be scared because a single fly comes out of a faucet. Huh? The fly and the tree made sense in The Ring, but in the sequel they are stripped of their context and seem alien. And dumb. After everything fit so tightly together in The Ring, it’s disappointing that little makes sense in the sequel.
Watts is such an enormously appealing actress that even in dreck like this she can come off as luminescent. With the two Ring films and Peter Jackson’s upcoming King Kong, Watts could establish herself as the scream queen of her generation. She’s a gifted actress and melts into whatever role she plays.
Ring Two‘s director, Hideo Nakata, knows a thing or two about the territory. He did direct the original Japanese Ringu films, which the American remakes are based upon. Nakata generates a fun sense of anticipatory dread. He also lucks into the occasional eye-opener like a bathtub whose water flows up and fills the ceiling. Nakata has a confidant touch but I miss the sheen of Gore Verbinsky’s direction.
What’s sorely missing is a killer premise like in The Ring. The premise was razor sharp, presenting a videotape as a virus and human nature’s willingness to taste forbidden fruit as the vehicle for its spreading. There was a sense of urgency because of the looming seven-day death deadline. In Ring Two there is no sense of urgency at all. In fact, the film takes an overly leisurely pace. It’s quite awfully boring. Samara wants a mommy and can?t really be stopped until a late revelation. This leads to a lot of impotent pacing and waiting. Except for a snappy opening, Ring Two completely ditches the videotape virus storyline that made its predecessor so compelling. As a result, it also ditches suspense and most of its intelligence.
The Ring had a strong central mystery and a sense of urgency, which both blended to create tightly wound tension. Ring Two sputters around and relies on gimmicky jump scares as its main source of spooks. We see a character look into a mirror, look away, and then look back and something else is right there! Does this really work for anyone still? I just assume when a character ducks out of the way of a mirror that something’s coming. It’s these kinds of creaky, transparent tricks that Ring Two goes back to over and over to goose an audience. Because the story isn’t engaging the filmmakers have to resort to gimmicks. Since we’ve seen the results of Samara’s murders (the grotesque facial distortion) is it even scary to see it again when we know exactly what we’re about to see? The essence of horror is the unexpected. Finding the expected is about as scary as looking at leftovers in the fridge.
There’s a great moment early in Ring Two. Rachel and Aidan are driving through a forest and are followed and then attacked by a horde of deer. It’s the lone sequence in this sequel that feels different and exciting. It’s somewhat crazy, somewhat marvelous, and very weird. Too bad Ring Two relapses from there on into a turgid horror flick.
The Ring was a smart, tense, expertly crafted film that rose beyond genre conventions. Ring Two is nothing but genre conventions and repeatedly goes back to the well to drub up scares that aren’t there anymore (unless you’re the prepubescent girls that sat behind me). Watts is still in fine form and there are some visually striking moments. However, Ring Two is bereft of excitement and scares and has become just another tired, languished sequel. When I walk out of a horror moving saying, “I guess the best thing about that film was either Sissy Spaceck’s crazy cameo or deer,” then you are in a world of bad. Ring Two is meek, dumb, and boring. Let this one go straight to video.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Elektra (2005)
January is typically a cinematic wasteland. It’s the place where films go to die. So imagine my surprise when I heard that Elektra, a comic book movie built around a nimble sai-spinning assassin, was going to be released in January 2005. I remember at one time there were plans for a summer release, which means Elektra had fallen from the very top to the very bottom of expectation. After viewing Elektra for myself I can perfectly understand why anyone would want to dump this clunker.
Elektra (Jennifer Garner) is a feared assassin-for-hire (she even has an agent for her hits). She’s been brought back to life by a powerful sensei, but has ignored a possible higher calling to make her money killing folks. Apparently she is the mythical warrior that will keep the balance between good and evil, or something or other. Her next hit ends up being a nice guy (Goran Visnjic) and his teenage daughter. Elektra doesn’t have the heart to kill them, so she joins them and all three run away from the really bad guys, an ancient group known as The Hand.
Elektra doesn’t really bare comparison to other comic book films because Elektra feels more like a video game. In true video game fashion, I’ll numerically list the likenesses:
1) There is no such thing as characterization, just definition by super power. One assassin is super strong, another can suck the life out of creatures, and a third has the amazing ability to have his tattoos come to poorly rendered life (lucky this guy doesn’t have butterflies and fairies). With a powerful lack of imagination, these assassins are called Stone, Pestilence, and Tattoo (not the Russian girls who make out with each other. That’s Tatu.).
2) The only sense of a story is pitting Elektra against one bad guy after another. There aren’t character arcs and subplots so much as there are end stage boss battles. It gets really repetitious.
3) The film seems like it’s bending over backwards to get character special moves into the story. With 1995’s Mortal Kombat, the writers, and I use that term in the loosest possible sense, had to work a story that included popular video game moves. Working so hard to include something so trivial and arbitrary really ties the storyteller’s hands. Elektra feels like the film would rather try and include some character’s special move rather than formulate a cogent storyline.
4) Once our assassins are vanquished they burst into clouds of yellow dust. I am not kidding. When they die they explode into clouds of mustard-hued gas. Just like in a video game, once you kill the bad guy they disappear with no necessary cleanup. It’s really thoughtful of them.
5) A second player can jump in at any time! In Elektra, different characters magically appear whenever it’s convenient and I?m not even talking about the super assassins.
6) Just like in a video game, you get an extra life! I don?t know why the producers of Elektra didn’t just make a prequel. With a sequel they have to work around their heroine’s untimely death in 2003’s Daredevil, and so we are introduced to the idea that a warrior of great mind can bring people back from the dead. So if Elektra dies (again) she can just be brought back to life. This whole idea practically eliminates any sense of danger and consequence.
So little of Elektra makes any kind of sense. Characters make rash choices and surprise appearances. The villains are a bland, cliched crop from some back order of ancient kung-fu brotherhoods. The plot is mysteriously oblique and has the frustrating habit of using cheats to get around logical roadblocks. About halfway through Elektra I gave up shrugging my shoulders and rolling my eyes. There is no definition on character limits, so anything can happen, and when it does it’s usually very stupid.
Even worse is how dreadfully dull Elektra can be. The last two acts are compromised of nothing but a long, boring chase scene. The action sequences are brief and unoriginal, which include the thousandth inclusion of a hedge maze. There’s one moment where Elektra is battling in a room that has sheets flying all around for no good reason. It’s visually reminiscent of a Where’s Waldo? page. Take that for what you will.
The film is brisk, clocking in at just 90 minutes, but you don’t care about the characters because 20 minutes is spent establishing them, and the remaining 70 is spent watching them run.
The only redeeming quality of Elektra is its star. Garner is suited for the running, jumping movies, but she also has great acting chops behind her square jaw and impeccable physique. She casually generates intensity but also has a light, humorous touch. It doesn’t hurt that she looks fabulous in a red bustier. Her character is given OCD but then this plot is dropped entirely. Without the appeal of Garner, Elektra would simply be Catwoman.
Elektra is a flat comic adaptation that plays more like a video game, and just like in real life, watching a video game is no fun at all. Things happen, characters appear, people explode into clouds of yellow dust, and it’s all a bunch of uninteresting, half-baked nonsense. Elektra is frustrating, labored, ridiculous, and empty of thought and enjoyment. Why should I pay to watch Garner kick ass when I can watch Alias on TV and see Garner kick ass for free? And the plots of Alias are brazenly complex, fun, and high-spirited. I care about the people and events on Alias. With Elektra, the only thing I cared about was when the film was going to be over.
Nate’s Grade: D
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Ocean’s 12 (2004)
In 2001, Steven Soderbergh’s remake of Ocean’s Eleven was a giant surprise. It was a blast of fun with an impressive collection of Hollywood royalty. It had clever dialogue, fun characters, and a gala of amusing plot twists. It was one of the breeziest, most entertaining movies in years. Now, come late 2004, Ocean’s Twelve is released with the entire cast returning, including the lovely Catherine Zeta-Jones in tow. Expectations are high for another glitzy romp, but what you’re left with in Ocean’s Twelve is all glitz and no romp.
It’s been three years after the gang robbed ruthless casino owner Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) of 160 million dollars. Benedict tracks down each member of Ocean’s Eleven and gives them the same ultimatum: either pay back what they stole, with interest, in two weeks or they’ll be killed. Danny Ocean (George Clooney) leaves his attempts at normal home life with Tess (Julia Roberts) and reassembles the team, many of whom have burned through their shares of the millions. Danny and his right-hand man Rusty (Brad Pitt) figure they’re too hot stateside so they’ll need to travel overseas if they’re to steal their fortunes. Linus (Matt Damon) also wants to have a greater role in the heist this time around.
In Europe, Ocean is challenged by a French playboy (Vincent Cassel) who moonlights as the notorious thief, the Night Fox. The challenge is to see who can steal a priceless Faberge egg, and if bested the Night Fox promises to pay all of Ocean’s debts to Benedict. Hot on the heels of both thieves is Isabel (Zeta-Jones), an expert police officer that also happens to be the former girlfriend to Rusty.
Ocean’s Twelve does not work as a heist picture. For starters, the audience has no idea what’s going on for most of it. A general heist movie bylaw is to explain what the heist will entail, and then we watch the team hit it step by step. Forget that. In Ocean’s Twelve we’re never told how they are going to do their heist, and as they commence with their plan it’s not surprising to an audience, only confusing. I had to wait until the very end for some character to go into a monologue to explain how they accomplished their heist, and let me say, it was not worth two hours of waiting and scratching my head. The result seems to push away an audience instead of involving them in the fun of the scheme.
The story doesn’t utilize the talents of the assembled members. There’s a reason you hire a demolitions expert or a pick pocket, and that’s to let them work their skill. Well in Ocean’s Twelve we get none of that. Most of the cast’s skills are not ever put to use, which further gunks up a heist movie. The movie really errs by putting many of its eleven on ice for long stretches of the film. Around the second act almost everyone gets arrested. Pity poor Bernie Mac, who is in jail for near the whole movie. It seems that Soderbergh doesn’t know what to do with all his characters, and the new additions, so he stashes them away for long stages of time hoping an audience won’t notice.
Soderbergh is in danger of becoming a parody of himself. His usual narrative flourishes are present, including jumps in time and perspective; however, they don’t add up to much except unnecessary showmanship. The nonlinear leaps and shell game of information do not add to the film. Soderbergh keeps his audience in the dark for too long and then cheats us with the ending. Ocean’s Twelve is a good looking film (the vistas look beautiful), but it’s a good looking movie with nowhere to go. What’s even more frustrating is the ending to Ocean’s Twelve. You see, in the end we find out that the last hour plus of the movie was unnecessary. Yes, the movie actually makes a reveal that nullifies over half of the film. It’s cheap and unappreciated. Ocean’s Twelve, there’s a difference between tricking an audience and conning them. Maybe some day you’ll realize this.
The new storylines never really develop. Zeta-Jones doesn’t add much besides another authority figure to chase after Ocean and the boys. Her subplot involving finding her master thief father is abrupt and easy. The best new addition to Ocean’s Twelve was the prospect of a rival, but again nothing really happens with our French thief. He’s more of a catalyst for the plot than anything else, and it’s a shame, because he could have opened the door for a great film pitting two competitive teams of thieves against each other.
Ocean’s Twelve is too satisfied with itself to be that entertaining. It’s now actually reminiscent of the 1960 original film (my grandmother swears it’s wonderful, take that for what you will), starring the Rat Pack. Plot and logic are secondary to a bunch of cool characters having fun. I really enjoyed Ocean’s Eleven (the 2001 film, not my grandmother’s preferred version), but this new sequel lacks any charm and verve. I can’t even say there were many good scenes, just some good ideas that they didn’t fully actualize, like stowing Yen in baggage and then losing their luggage (nothing comes of this). There’s a fun scene involving Topher Grace spoofing his own micro-celebrity, but beyond that many of the scenes and ideas don’t seem developed. The best moment of Ocean’s Twelve, for me, was when I saw Eddie Izzard, the funniest man on the face of the Earth and then some, chat with Hollywood’s A-list on screen. God bless you Eddie Izzard.
Ocean’s Twelve wilts in comparison to its witty, effervescent predecessor. Ocean’s Eleven was fun and hip but didn’t need to coast on star appeal. It had a believable heist, engaging personalities, and it was fun because we knew what was going on and it mattered! I’m sure the cast of Ocean’s Twelve had a blast making the movie together, and their friendly camaraderie shows, but when I left the theater I felt like I had been stuck with the bill for someone else?s good time.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)
You don’t see too many sequels to romantic comedies, and that?s practically by design. Most romantic comedies consist of keeping the leads apart as long as possible, and then in that final climactic moment they connect, embrace, kiss, usually while a camera pans around them and some up-tempo Top 40 songs swells on the soundtrack. Then we end, our story finished. You see, romantic comedies are essentially modern fairy tales, and they end on the “happily ever after” moment, the most joyous moment. We don?t think about what their lives could be afterwards. I doubt few in the audience are biting their nails to know who does the dishes or if their sex life diminishes.
So for all of these stated reasons, sequels to romantic comedies are rare, unless, of course, they’re based on a book series that’s a cash cow of chick lit. Thus, America, we are given Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the sequel to the smash 2001 film Bridget Jones’s Diary.
The movie takes place four weeks after Bridget (Renee Zellweger) and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) cuddling in the falling snow. Their relationship is all lovey-dovey, until Bridget starts reconsidering if she made the right choice of men. Her former boss, Daniel (Hugh Grant) has gone on to fame as a travel correspondent for TV news. He’s a bad boy, for sure, but sparks flew with him. Bridget also suspects Mark of cheating on her with a leggy colleague (whose final plot revelation is quite dumb). Bridget tries her best to fit in with Mark’s upper crust society, but is starting to feel unaccepted. Then she becomes a partner to Daniel on his travel reports, and the two visit exotic locales and sparks begin once more.
Edge of Reason feels like a poor slapdash grab at money. The film lifts entire scenes from the first Bridget Jones movie and tries reworking them for similar effect. Watching Firth and Grant sissy fight each other is amusing … the first time I saw it in 2001. For the most part, it seems like the filmmakers behind Edge of Reason were straining to come up with things after that “happily ever after” moment. What other reason can there be for some of the disastrous plot turns in Edge of Reason? The revolving door of writers (including author Helen Fielding herself) manufacture petty and foolish nitpicks for Bridget that she treats as life or death. It’s hard to feel concern for her. When you strand your main character -in a romantic comedy, no less- in a Thailand prison because she was caught smuggling drugs -in a romantic comedy, remember- then you have some giant plot issues.
The wit and biting commentary from Bridget seem to be stripped away. She only makes two journal entries, which open and close the film, and they were responsible for some of the greatest comedy bits in the original movie. She no longer comes across as a snappy, ordinary girl with a big heart and some big neuroses (did I mention the Thailand prison?). The Bridget of Edge of Reason seems a bit obnoxious at times. The comedy of Edge of Reason doesn’t generally rise above slapstick. Watch Bridget parachute into a dung field (Ha!), watch Bridget ski backwards down a slalom (Hilarious!), watch Bridget get stoned from magic mushrooms (You’re killing me!), and don?t forget to watch her fall down, like, a lot (R.I.P. Nate; cause of death: laughing too hard). The makers of Edge of Reason are just trying too damn hard.
It’s a wonder that Edge of Reason does work at times, and that reason is because of the acting of our romantic trio. Zellweger is still incredibly charming despite some of the things she’s forced to do. She’s never looked better than when she has her Bridget Jones physique; she’s practically glowing. Grant is at his best when he’s a cad, and once again he gets the best lines, especially when he’s undressing Bridget during a work trip. The movie comes alive when he and Zellweger start their flirtatious battle. Firth adds shades of humanity and adoration to his fuddy-duddy role. He’s got a great everyman appeal even when he’s being a twit.
Edge of Reason also seems to flog whatever it feels is funny. If Bridget saying something inappropriate in front of a group of dignitaries and ambassadors is funny, then expect it to happen again five or six times. And it does, sadly. Edge of Reason is almost a wall-to-wall torture chamber of public embarrassment for Bridget, and if the filmmakers thought that would endear her to audiences they were wrong. We were endeared already by her wit and charm, but I guess the people behind Edge of Reason thought we didn’t want more of that. I miss you old Bridget Jones, wherever you are.
The first Bridget Jones movie was directed by Sharon Maguire, a personal friend of Fielding. Maguire was close enough to know how to adapt the story and retain the elements that made Bridget Jones entertaining. Edge of Reason‘s director Beeban Kidron seems to be assembling a Bridget Jones movie for a focus group. We lose the personality of Bridget and get an accident-prone buffoon. All that’s missing are the banana peels.
Everything about Edge of Reason screams laziness. A great example of this is the film’s choice for music. The songs are so obvious, from “All By Myself” to “I’m Not in Love” to songs that simply have “love” in their title, like “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” to Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love.” Chances are, if your band ever released a song with “love” in the title, the music director of Edge of Reason considered using it.
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason will likely entertain its core audience (there were very few men unaccompanied by women in my theater). The cast makes this stilted sequel worth watching. If you really liked Bridget Jones’s Diary, you’ll probably be intermittently amused with Edge of Reason, because it’s the same meal, only reheated with a bit of a chill. Let this be an example of why Hollywood doesn’t make sequels to romantic comedies. We’re happy enough with “happily ever after.”
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Before Sunset (2004)
Richard Linklater knows a thing or two about the poetry of language. Few can write conversations better than him, and with Before Sunset, the sequel to 1995’s Before Sunrise, we witness an entire film built around one couple’s conversation. Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke return as older, wiser versions of their Sunrise characters. They stroll around the avenues of Paris chatting away so casually, so beautifully that it’s like birds chirping. Linklater and his actors have forged a romance through a romance of language, and an audience can’t help but be smitten. Before Sunset will not be for everyone because it is as advertised: 80 minutes of people talking uninterrupted (it put a friend of mine to sleep when we watched it), but for those people that enjoy sumptuous conversation, Before Sunset will cast a spell on you.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
The first two film adaptations were huge hits, but were derided by some as being too loyal to the books that it stifled the creativity. Now, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is out and its the first film to deviate from the books. How will Potter nation take the news?
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is entering his third year at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is also getting older, getting angrier, and learning more and more about his parents. Hes on alert that the murderer, Sirius Black (played the fabulous Gary Oldman), has escaped from Azkaban prison and is out to get Harry. Black had a hand in the deaths of Harrys parents, and now it seems hes looking to finish what he started as a follower of Lord Voldemort. Harry relies on his friends, Ron (Rupert Grint), Hermione (Emma Watson), and a kindly new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher named Lupin (David Thewlis) to conquer his fears, his burgeoning hormones, and to face Black when the time comes.
The best decision the Harry Potter producers made for this chapter of the series was in getting a new director. Alfonso Cuaron finally infuses the Potter series with a sense of visual life. Instead of Chris Columbus’ stubborn admiration of his fake opulent world, Cuaron keeps things fluid with a constantly roving camera and long takes. For the first time in the series, you can argue that this Harry Potter film looks and feels like its own actual movie. Gone is Columbus annoying penchant for displaying everything in close-ups. The film also benefits from some new realistic exteriors and dressed-down attire, ditching the school uniforms. Theres also a new cinematographer, so instead of Columbus dull amber glow, the series takes a gratifying turn toward the menacing, with an emphasis on dreary blacks and silvers.
The best improvement of all, however, was in getting away from the apparent slavish loyalty to the books. The third book is the longest of the three but the third film is the shortest; 15 minutes shorter than Sorcerer’s Stone, and 25 minutes shorter than Chamber of Secrets. Thank God. At the rate they were going I thought the next book, Goblet of Fire (700-some pages), was going to be like 9 hours.
So, under Cuaron’s guidance, Prisoner of Azkaban eschews the unnecessary plot elements and details fans will grumble over but moviegoers couldnt care less over (Quidditch?). Cuaron’s film may be heavy with exposition, but it never talks down to its audience. The result is a movie trying to be a movie and not trying to cram in as many details of the world as possible so fans wont have their feathers ruffled.
The young actors of Hogwarts have definitely been struck by puberty, and it has done their acting a world of good. Radcliffe will never be an exceptional actor but here he presents new and interesting dimensions to Harry demonstrating his arrogance and tempestuous anger. Tom Felton, who plays the snarky blonde-haired Draco Malfoy, appears to be maturing into a ganglier Macaulay Culkin. The one actor that truly seems to have a bright future, though, is Emma Watson. You cannot help but love her whenever she’s on screen and she seems to be developing into a fine actress.
The most notable addition to the adult staff in the film is Michael Gambon, replacing the late Richard Harris as Hogwarts headmaster, Dumbledore. Gambon turns the character from a kind-hearted grandfather type to more of an aging hippie but it works. Emma Thomson also appears as some sort of psychic professor, teaching students to read tea leaves; however, her entire role seems superfluous unless it impacts future installments (I have not read a single book). Once again, Alan Rickman rules all and needs to get more time in these movies. I don’t know how, but it needs to happen. Thewlis is the most welcomed addition in his pivotal role as Professor Lupin and delivers some of the more dramatic scenes of the film with radiance and ease. He creates a lovely father-son relationship with Harry that supplies Azkaban with a nice sense of compassion. Oldman is similarly great but unfortunately he shows up so late into the film that he seems terribly underused. There is a scene late into the film, where Thewlis, Oldman, Rickman, and the great character actor Timothy Spall share a scene. I never thought it would be a children’s fantasy series that would finally unite all these talented British stage actors but I’m thankful for it nonetheless.
Prisoner of Azkaban is the darkest tale yet, and Harry Potter works best when things get scary. The nightmarish element design creates a wonderful sense of dread, and Cuaron deftly handles his young characters dealing with rage and death and, scariest of all, budding hormones. Theres even a sly nod to Cuaron’s steamy coming-of-age film, Y Tu Mama Tambien (it involves a three-way hug between our trio of kids).
he effects of the film are beautiful and greatly add to the entertainment value of the film. The Dementors, cloaked flying guards of Azkaban prison, are terrifying to look at, and their leitmotif of chilling the air when they are near makes for some great visuals and ominous moments. I got actual goosebumps the first time they arrived on-screen, and then when I saw this film a second time, fully knowing the story, my skin still crawled when they arrived. Perhaps the greatest addition to Harry Potter‘s special effects bestiary is the Hippogriff, which resembles a combination between an eagle and a horse. It is a gorgeous creation and worlds better looking than the three-headed dog from the original film. It also provides one of the more breath-taking moments of the film, when Harry goes soaring across a lake on the back of the Hippogriff.
Having said all this, yes Prisoner of Azkaban is the most exciting and visually alluring film of the series, also its darkest, but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed with the central storyline. Most people will love it, especially fans of the books, but after walking out of the theater I could not help but wonder if the film had a climax at all? It really kind of didn’t. There was no sense of real story momentum and the middle had some definite moments of drag. The last act of Prisoner of Azkaban is exactly like Back to the Future Part 2: time-travel, correcting the future, not running into your past selves. This is not a good comparison. So while the characters are getting more interesting as they get older, this plot doesn’t really hold up very well. It almost feels like a preface of whatever events will come in the fourth film.
Prisoner of Azkaban is an interesting watch. I am told it deviates the most from the book and it manages to generate a considerably darker and scarier atmosphere than its predecessors. For my money, any changes are good, as films are about ADAPTATION and not copying, so dispensing with subplots and details is A-Ok with me. But how will the die-hards react? Im sure youll hear plenty of grumbling all over, but Cuaron has injected needed life into this series and presented an idea of what it can grow to be. So, while I think Prisoner of Azkaban has a superior visual sense, pacing, and adaptation; I also feel the story may be the weakest we have been told. I can only imagine what the outcry will be among the fan base when Goblet of Fire is released November 2005 as one film.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Spider-Man 2 (2004)
No other movie had higher expectations than Spider-Man 2 and no other movie met and trounced those expectations than director Sam Raimi’s high-flying webslinging sequel. Spider-Man 2 was that rare sequel that excelled in near every way. The action sequences were lively and highly exciting, but what made Spider-Man 2 so thrilling was its success in building strong emotional characters. After all, how many superhero films are written by the writer of Ordinary People? (One wonders what he would have done with Catwoman) Alfred Molina, as Doc Ock, made for a great formidable foe and brought surprising humanity to the dastardly part. Spider-Man 2 was a momentous crowd-pleaser that also dazzled the hardest critics. It reaffirmed exactly what a summer popcorn film can make us feel.
Nate’s Grade: A
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