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300 (2007)
The story of the 300 is the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C, 150 years before Alexander the Great. Xerxes (Rodrigo Santiago) has deemed himself a “God king” and his Persian army has been conquering Asian nations and acquiring the most massive military force of its time. He sets his sights on conquering Greece, and to do so must go through the narrow passage of Thermopylae.
King Leonidis (Gerard Butler) assembles 300 of his finest Spartan warriors to thwart the Persian invasion. The Spartans were the super soldiers of their time, a society that valued brute strength and the honor of combat. Children born with imperfections were cast onto the rocks to perish; the society couldn’t afford a weak link in its protection. One day a Persian emissary rides into Sparta carrying the skulls of other kings and princes and a message from Xerxes: submit or you’re next. Well, after the emissary insults Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), he refutes the message and kicks the emissary down a giant black pit in the middle of town (is this where they dump their garbage?). Thus, as they say, it is on. The Greek city-states have no sense of nationalism, so Leonidis commands little support to thwart the advancing Persian hordes. The Spartans have discipline and superior equipment, and because of these advantages they are able to hold back overwhelming numbers from the Persian army.
Back at the home front, Queen Gorgo is wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to state her case to the Spartan assembly. She needs to shore support for more troops to help her husband. Theron (Dominic West) is a member of the priesthood that looks to sexually charged Oracles for guidance. However, he’s willing to drop his pacifist stance if the queen drops her robe and grins and bares it.
Xerxes is not a happy “God king.” He tries appealing to Leonidis, insisting that if he will simply bow down and relent than he will be spared. “Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory,” he threatens. Leonidas replies, “And I would die for any of mine.” The two men (well one man and one God king) go back to their corners ready for another round of this epic slugfest.
The action sequences are intense and director Zack Snyder (2004’s Dawn of the Dead) heightens their realities with surreal touches. He fondly gives life to the bloodshed and exaggerated combat popularized from Frank Miller?s graphic novel. The Sin City author has created another testosterone-soaked hyper-real adventure. The movie doesn’t even flirt with the notion of rigid historical accuracy (I doubt the Spartans fought rhinos, giant mutants, and were done in by a disgruntled hunchback); the film uses Miller’s artwork as a jumping point, which means that the Spartans fight in leather codpieces and red capes and that combat is more one-on-one even after we learn about the important of the phalanx. But quibbling over inaccuracies is a waste of time, because 300 is a pumped-up, super cool action movie that plays out in a vivid dreamscape. The movie was filmed with extensive green screen, much like Sin City was, and it feels like a direct transition of Miller’s pulpy comic book. Even the farewell sex between the King and Queen is stylized and seems to be snippets or panels from a comic book.
Let’s all be honest, there’s something undeniably homoerotic about 300. The movie worships the male form, with rippling abs and bulging biceps lovingly showcased in glowing, sweaty, fawning detail. The movie also focuses on manly men primarily spearing one another with phallic weaponry while the spurting blood dances across the camera in balletic CGI spasms. There?s a definite gay appeal to this film, not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, 300 also manages to curiously be homophobic at the same time (I swear this came to me independently, Phil). Xerxes is designed very as being very fey even at a massive height of eight feet. He lays his hands against Leonidis’ shoulders and asks for him to submit, and you can’t help but wonder what the teen boys in the audience are thinking. Xerxes also has a party tent filled with whores, the disfigured, transvestites, and the overall effeminate opposite of all those Greek macho muscle men the film postures as elite specimens.
The acting is set to one tempo and that’s a mesmerizing use of yell-speak; it’s part guttural and part long-standing bellow that makes any piece of dialogue sound macho. King Leonidis growls, “SPAAAAAAAARTANS! TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELLLLLLLL!” After two hours of this primal style of speech, it becomes somewhat infectious and you want to try it in everyday situations in your life. Next time you’re out with friends at a fine dining establishment, I suggest asking for the salt thusly: “DINING PAAAARTNAAAAAH, COULD. YOOOOOOOOOU. PAAAAAAAAASS. THE SAAAAAAAAAAAALT?!” You’ll be guaranteed to get a reaction. It strains my throat even writing about the 300 yell-speak.
300 is a rousing movie going experience that plays out in a beautiful, pristine dreamscape that closely resembles our planet. The action is highly stylized and frenetic. It’s just that when the film stops to take a breath you start to look elsewhere, and when you do you realize there isn’t much below the blood-caked eye candy shell. 300 is grand spectacle that elicits thrills and chills, but the movie fails to touch on emotions beyond loyalty and courage. Both are essential for a soldier, and one as dedicated as a Spartan warrior, but the lack of substance keeps 300 from being anything other than a visually arresting, if ultimately disposable, two hours at the movies. There’s nothing wrong with a movie whose sole purpose is to quicken the pulse for a short supply of time, and 300 succeeds smashingly with this singular ambition. It is an ass-kicking history lesson that makes me wish I could learn more about Persian executioners with blades for hands at my local library.
Every culture has their own account of a last stand, a small group that heroically held off seemingly superior forces (remember the Alamo?). Snyder and Miller present an entertaining hack-and-slash primer through history that’s rarely dull and often enchanting to the senses. Deep down, there may not be much more to 300 than a lot of pretty pictures and a bunch of chiseled hunks, but that?s enough for most carnage fans with a free afternoon.
Nate?s Grade: B
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The Prestige (2006)
Christopher Nolan can do no wrong in my book. The director of Memento, Insomnia, and Batman Begins has bewitched me with his clever non-linear storylines and artistic vision. The Prestige is 2006’s second period set magician movie, and in my opinion it’s the better of the two. Nolan’s film lacks the magic of The Illusionist, instead focusing more on the bitter realities of obsession, self-destruction, and the lengths that men will travel for vengeance. The script centers on a pair of dueling magicians (Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman) that are each trying to discover the other’s trick and top them. The storyline is as twisty as a pretzel and told in Nolan’s familiar non-linear fashion, building to a very dark reveal. Whereas The Illusionist sweeps viewers up with the wonder of magic, The Prestige is all about how tricks are orchestrated both on and offstage. The results are a tad cold; you don’t really feel for either magician. The movie is itself a trick but one grandly told with excellent slight of hand. The final act takes a step outside of the film’s tone but it works for me, and it’s been weeks since I last saw the haunting final images and I still cannot get them out of my mind. The Prestige is another notch on my Nolan love meter.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
America loves its pirates, plain and simple. We as a nation are infatuated with the characters and the high-seas adventure of 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. We?re starving for more, and when the first in a two-part sequel was released it only became one of the biggest movies of all time. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest has shattered box-office records, rolling up $100 million in two days and a record $135 million weekend gross, easily surpassing former champ Spider-Man‘s supposedly invincible $118 weekend tally. America loves its pirates more than Spiderman, Star Wars, and who knows, maybe even Jesus. After all, Dead Man’s Chest did just kick out The Passion of the Christ from the top ten all-time grossers. Mel Gibson sure has a lot of grief at this moment.
Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is a wanted man on the high seas. The East India Company, whose emissary now controls the Caribbean town of Port Royal, is after Jack and his special compass. But Captain Jack has bigger fish to fry. Davey Jones (Bill Nighy), ruler of the seas, wants what was promised to him: Jack’s soul. Jack made a bargain with the sea creature and now his time is running out. He must assemble a crew and track down the whereabouts of a buried chest. Inside this chest is the still-beating heart of Davey Jones, and he who controls the heart controls Jones, and thus the seas. That is why the East India Company is so interested in Jack. They’ve made an arrangement with groomis interuptis Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), who had his wedding hijacked and his bride (Keira Knightley) locked away. If he can retrieve Jack’s compass, then he and Elizabeth will be pardoned for aiding and abetting a known pirate. Will and Elizabeth each set off to find Jack Sparrow and to gain their freedom.
The filmmakers have taken notes in the school of sequels from The Empire Strikes Back. Like the second Star Wars chapter, we’re left with the heroes separated and licking their wounds, evil appears to have the upper hand, and the lives of some beloved characters are left in doubt. Just as long as there’s no Ewoks, Disney has guaranteed my place in line on opening day 2007 for Pirates 3.
It?s hard to fully judge this Pirates sequel because it’s part one of a two-part story. I’m holding out my final say, especially if this movie just turns out to be an expensive 150-minute teaser trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I can?t fully judge many story and character arcs because we don?t know where movie #3 will carry them. Maybe it’ll end up being like the middling Matrix sequels, where subplots and characters were dropped as if the Wachowski brothers had screenwriting butterfingers (it’s a film critic’s unwritten duty to deride the Matrix sequels at any chance). At least this movie ends with a jolt that I did not see coming.
Most surprisingly, Dead Man’s Chest suffers little from the creative deadlock of sequels. Dead Man’s Chest is more a sci-fi monster fantasy than a swashbuckler. The supernatural edge has swallowed the series whole. Take for example Jack’s broken compass. What once was an oddity befitting its owner is now seen as another element of magic. Some of the interest seems lost if things are simply explained away as being magical. The story, unlike the Matrix sequels (See: above), expands and enriches its universe. Some leftovers from the first film made me cringe. I thought we were headed for a bad track, where the movie uses the audience’s memory as a cheap storytelling device. Familiar characters might pop up every which way, smiling, and saying, “Hey ho, remember me?” Miraculously, the leftovers are integrated so well with the new tale that they really do matter and don’t come across as cheap shortcuts. Norrington (Jack Davenport) and the two comic relief cursed pirates are all smartly woven back into the troupe, and each impacts the story in a non-obtrusive manner. Even the undead monkey is used well.
I made it a point to keep my expectations in check for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. It would be naive to think that you could catch lightning in a bottle again. Yes, now with audience expectation we lose the originality and unpredictability that made the first Pirates adventure so joyously delicious. And yet I found myself getting riled up just the same and being whisked away by spirited entertainment. My expectations may have been tempered for Dead Man’s Chest but I still greatly enjoyed the ride. It seems that my opinion sharply differs from my overly negative critical colleagues; my own sister said Pirates 2 was one of the worst movies she’s ever seen. That seems a bit rash. She hasn’t even seen any Uwe Boll movies.
There are moments that seem to stretch the credibility of the story. It’s been said before that it’s not the impossible that bugs you but the improbable, and this holds true for Dead Man’s Chest. I’m able to believe Davey Jones and his creepy crawly crew, but I’m not able to believe that Elizabeth Swan could single-handedly best them all at once in sword fighting. The movie becomes dangerously close to eye-rolls in parts, but generally steers clear of moments that rip you out of the story. Of course a Pirates film would be nothing without Johnny Depp. He’s the main reason the first film was so memorably embraceable and entertaining. It?s not every day someone gets nominated for a Best Actor Oscar playing an addled, swishy comic pirate. He’s truly the star and has been one of our finest actors long before he had any box-office clout. He’s created a character so beloved that he’s crossed over into the cultural lexicon. How many Jack Sparrow outfits do you see come Halloween? I had a friend directing a high school performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and every young actor wanted to audition as Captain Jack interpreting Shakespeare. Come to think of it, Jack Sparrow would certainly liven up some of the bard’s dusty works.
Depp is still hilarious and likeable even when he’s being a scoundrel. We simply love this character; I love this character. The unpredictable nature of Jack feels squeezed dry by the demands for familiarity with sequels, but Depp finds new ways to enthrall in Dead Man’s Chest. Some people are going to be uncomfortable with Jack being more dastardly, willing to trade others’ lives to save his own hide. I think desperation is an interesting place to put this character. Besides he has his big hero moments as well.
New dimensions are added to the other characters. Knightley gets to be shrewd and try her hand at pragmatic treachery. It eats her up inside at the end and Knightley, a nice comedic actress, allows us to see the rough seas of guilt within her. Bloom will always be Bloom, meaning he’ll be handsome, British, and seemingly too little for grownup movie stuff. Will is given a whole new set of daddy issues when he actually gets to spend time with dear departed dad (Stellan Skarsgard). Best of the rest (“the rest” being everyone other than Depp) is an unrecognizable Nighy, who saunters his deck with the fiery air of a preacher. Nighy manages to make Davey Jones even more interesting. Naomie Harris (28 Days Later) makes her presence felt as a witchy woman responsible for Jack’s compass.
The action sequences are gigantic and well constructed. They expand with organic complications and a lively, graceful sense of humor. An already fun sword fight atop a watermill wheel gets even more pleasing when the giant wheel breaks free and the fight continues. Three characters climb inside and out, all vying for a key that keeps changing hands thanks to gravity. A human-sized fruit-kabob tied to Jack has a wonderful payoff for something that seemed completely random. The special effects are gorgeous. You can practically taste the slime and sea salt from the creatures. Davey Jones is a fantastic design and I’m dying to know how they did his tentacle beard. Whether it be motion capture, CGI, or puppetry (was someone billed in the credits for “operating” Bill Nighy? Does that sound like a fluffer?), it’s all dazzling to behold. The Kraken is ferocious and so well designed that it’s destined to give an entire nation?s children nightmares for weeks. Coupled with the equally super expensive Superman Returns, it seems that nowadays if you want special effects that will retain their wow-factor, it helps to have a $200 million dollar budget. Director Gore Verbinsky has a terrific eye for shot compositions; I am convinced that if you give this man good material then he will give you popcorn gold. If you give him bad material, well, then you get shiny but pointless stuff like The Weather Man.
I know this movie, at its center, is empty. It’s grand throwaway entertainment, a true popcorn romp, but yes, when you get down to it the film has little to it. It’s an explosion for the eyes and has some great characters and action choreography, but Dead Man’s Chest is nothing more than very pricey, very tasty cotton candy.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest feels less like a rehash and more like the start of an exciting new voyage. It’s darker, bigger in scale, scarier, louder, brasher, but still barrels of fun. Time will tell whether the back-to-back sequels will support enough intrigue to cover two very long, very expensive action movies. But Dead Man’s Chest has the key Pirates ingredients returning: clever screenwriting duo Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, and, naturally, the irreplaceable Johnny Depp. An early eye gouging might set the icky tone, but this is one sequel that compares favorably to its source. We’re left in a very Empire Strikes Back position, but not after running out of breath keeping up with the many treasures of Dead Man’s Chest. Nothing will recapture the magic of the 2003 original but this is one summer sequel that delivers without letdown. Then again, after Pirates 3, it could all be for naught. See you in 2007!
Nate?s Grade: B+*
*Final grade pending the outcome of Pirates of the Caribbean 3.
UPDATE: Having just seen the third film, I’m somewhat conflicted. Many items from Dead Man’s Chest have little payoff in the third film, At World’s End. So while I wouldn’t grade Dead Man’s Chest any higher after seeing where it concludes, I still find it to be too fun to rate any lower. Its final grade stands.
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Lady in the Water (2006)
Writer/director/twist-abuser M. Night Shyamalan must have been smarting from the cool reception to his last high-concept thriller, 2004’s The Village. Shyamalan has built a reputation for smart, eerie, complex movies, as well as forced twists and endings that leave the films in shambles. He went back to basics. Lady in Water started as an ongoing story he told his kids at bedtime. His kids participated in the creation of the story. If we didn’t learn from last year’s The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl, movies where children helped shape the story should be left as bedtime stories. Lady in Water is further proof of this.
Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) is the fix-it man at an apartment complex. Someone’s been swimming in the pool late at night and clogging up the filter. The unexpected culprit is Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), a waif of a girl. She says she is a “narf,” a sea nymph who’s crossed from her world, the Blue World, to ours. Her purpose is to plant the seed of change by finding a special individual. When her mission is complete a giant eagle will carry her back to her world. Cleveland accepts being her guardian and protector and assists her on her quest. He mingles with the apartment complex’s eclectic residents, trying to figure out who fits what role to help Story. There is one hairy problem. A scrunt, a wolf-like beast with twigs and long grass for fur, is after Story. An evil monkey creature is overseeing the whole weird affair.
Early on, Lady in Water was advertised as “a bedtime story by M. Night Shyamalan,” and just like your typical bedtime story, the thing feels entirely made up on the spot. The story sounds like a little kid making up a book report: “There’s this grass wolf, see, and it’s after this sea lady, and there’s these evil monkeys that oversee everything, and an eagle carries her away when she’s done, but she’s like the unknown Queen of the sea ladies, and she has helpers but can’t say who they are, and they all have special abilities, except some of them can only do stuff, and no one can see her leave.” What? Was Dio an unaccredited co-writer for this? Lady in Water feels like Shyamalan is haphazardly throwing spontaneous obstacles and rules into his story, hoping something sticks when it just muddies up the story.
Naturally, there are many unanswered questions brought about by the supernatural subject matter. Why is it an eagle that plucks Story away to safety when she?s fulfilled her mission? Wasn’t part of the schism between man and the Blue World because man moved to land? Wouldn’t something aquatic make more sense to rescue her? What about the entirely unnecessary evil monkey judge? Why is it even there? Why does it just sit there idly if the scrunt breaks the rules (and if the scrunt is a rule-breaker then why not just bust inside Cleveland’s home and eat the chick)? For that matter, if the monkey judge is so evil then why does it even respect the rules? Why don?t the evil monkey judges side with the already evil scrunts? Why do the scrunts hate the narfs so? Who established these systems of rules for narf contact and scrunt hunting? Do the monkey judges allow the narfs to get killed as long as it’s during the right time? Is it like a boxing match (“Touch gloves, to your corners, and no biting after the bell”)? And of course everyone believes this tripe. Shyamalan could fall back on the excuse that his tale is a bedtime story and not meant for extensive examination. Sure, not everything needs to be explained but that doesn’t mean Shyamalan can get away with being lazy.
There’s no finesse in the writing. Shyamalan seems to have taken his frustration with the dwindling critical reception of his works hard. The movie critic character, Mr. Farber (a droll Bob Balaban) is one of two items, either the embodiment of his ire, a figure out of touch with human emotion and the public’s trust, or Shyamalan making a preemptive strike. The critic complains there are no more original stories left in Hollywood; well, Mr. Smarty Pants, what do you think of a tale of narfs and scrunts? The problem is that the film critic is not unlikable, just cynical, and despite how dismissive Shyamalan may wish to be, the critic’s complaints and observations about the film industry are solid. In Lady in Water, characters do speak their feelings so casually. People explain back-stories and motivations like it was written on foreheads. The critic character is so inconsequential as well, so the notion that Shyamalan spends so much energy on him makes it feel like a score being settled.
What’s more irritating is how self-involved the movie comes across. The whole purpose of Story’s venture to our world is to inspire a gifted writer, a writer whose work will be seen as unchecked genius that will cause great change throughout the world. Nations will renounce war, men and women will greet each other as brother and sister, and the world will be a profoundly better place to live, all thanks to one artistic genius that changed the world. And who plays this artistic genius lying in wait? M. Night Shyamalan. In conjunction with the critic character, perhaps Shyamalan is proclaiming that his movies will stand the test of time, despite what those fuddy-duddies at their typewriters say. Lady in Water is either an intense example of artistic insecurity or an unflappable, monstrous ego.
Shyamalan is too gifted a filmmaker to make outright bad movies. However, he is prone to making very misguided choices. The addition of the monkey judge just mucks things up and more unanswerable questions. Are the monkeys like the regional overseer? Is there a tri-state office run by a giraffe with twigs on its head? Shyamalan’s plot is too formless and relies on some garish ethnic stereotypes, like the nattering Jewess and the screechy, rail-thin Korean teen. His sense of direction takes a back seat to his writing. Many moments are filmed out of focus, or the camera bounces around trying to capture whoever’s talking, always seemingly just out of reach. His visual aesthetic feels noticeably simpler. There’s a certain unapologetic yearning in Lady in Water to be a Steven Spielberg film, from the John Williams-like score, to the assembly of characters wanting to believe again, to the heaping helping of schmaltz. Lady in Water is proficiently crafted (special thanks to cinematographer Christopher Doyle) but the movie is an unmistakable artistic misfire.
Giamatti is a dependable sad sack, and he deploys an array of stutters and tics to convey how damaged Cleveland Heep is. He’s good but then he always is, no matter how stupendously awful his material may be (he did survive Big Momma’s House). Howard is one of the more beguiling and intriguing young actors in the movies right now. She bewitched me in The Village, but in Lady in Water she befuddled me. It’s hard acting as a made-up creature. Howard relies on lots of vacant, supposedly, ethereal staring. She comes across as less supernatural and more like a club kid on ecstasy.
Lady in Water is not an unmitigated disaster but it’s definitely not good by any stretch of the imagination. M. Night Shyamalan seems to fray with every new movie, and Lady in Water is by far the man’s most ridiculous and self-involved flick. He’s too great of a talent to write off, even during his misfires, but we can’t be expected to iron out his narrative kinks every time. Shyamalan’s films generally center on broken people looking for their place in the universe and finding a grander plan for their pain. Hopefully, after the birth pain of Lady in Water, Shyamalan can find his place in the artistic landscape and spare us more half-baked bedtime stories.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Stay (2005)
This is a movie that piles on the mystery and clues but once the finish does arrive I was left saying, “That’s all there is?” There’s so little to this film that, in retrospect, it’s simply blowing off the dust on An Occurrence at Owl Creek (I may have said too much). The trickery Stay throws at you is slightly intriguing but mostly confounding and, once the reveal tidies everything up, wholly unsatisfying. Part of the problem is that I didn’t care about any of the characters, so I didn’t really care about their plight. Yes I get it that there is a reason for how shallow they are, but the only thing Stay had to keep me going was my waning interest in what the hell is going on with everything. I’m not the biggest fan of Marc Forster (Finding Neverland) as a director, and he serves Stay to good and harmful effect. Forster gooses the film with all sorts of visual trickery like jump cuts, using twins and triplets as extras in backgrounds, repeating scenes, playing around with blocking, and lots and lots of spiral staircases (hello, Vertigo). And you do realize that most of these disorienting stylistic decisions have a seemingly coherent reason in retrospect, but it also effectively pushes the audience away from the story, aided by the fact that no one can get into the characters. The entire affair seems pointless and empty but it is pretty to look at. I’m sure I’d garner more from a second look, but I really just don’t want to see Stay again.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Silent Hill (2006)
Video games will never be translated into a good movie. There, I said it. I caught some grief before by this opinion. Think about it. Unlike say comic books, video games are dependent on user interactivity, on game involvement, and not necessarily story or character. A video game requires an audience to be interactive, whereas movies require an audience to be passive, letting a story envelope around them and take them some place. Video games just aren’t structured in a way that lends itself to storytelling. Just look at some recent results: House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Doom, Bloodrayne, Double Dragon (remember that movie?), Mortal Kombat 1 & 2, Street Fighter, etc. Granted three of those are Uwe Boll films, but what does it say when the best video game adaptation yet was Super Mario Brothers?
Now comes Silent Hill based on the very popular horror video game series. The screenplay is written by Roger Avary, who used to be Quentin Tarantino’s writing partner and wrote and directed one of my all-time guilty pleasures 2002’s Rules of Attraction. I guess I foolishly expected more, but with Silent Hill what I got was further fuel to my theory that no video game will make a good movie.
Rose (Radha Mitchell) and her husband Christopher (Sean Bean) are very troubled about their adopted girl, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland). She has the habit of sleepwalking and uttering “Silent Hill” repeatedly. So what’s a 21st century mother to do? Look up Silent Hill online, put her tyke in the car, and drive to the ghost town herself, much to the dismay of her husband left behind. It seems that Silent Hill was a town in West Virginia that had a horrible coal mining accident in the early 70s, killing many and condemning the town. We’re told the fires are still burning underground to this day. Along the way, a roadside motorcycle cop (Laurie Holden) gets suspicious of Rose and chases her. They crash their vehicles along the road and wake up to falling ash. Rose’s daughter is missing and she looks inside the nearby Silent Hill, a presumably deserted town. Then there are routine air sirens warning of an approaching darkness. The world changes form and nasty creatures come to life, like disjointed bodies, charcoal-skinned children, and malevolent evil spirits. It’s about here where I’d just say, “Oh well. I can adopt again.”
The movie is paced and structured like a video game, which means it’s just as tedious to sit through. The first two acts of Silent Hill center on Rose going from Point A to Point B, finding clue that leads her to a new point, and repeating this tiresome exercise. There?s a scene where there’s a giant hole in the floor and Rose has to navigate across scattered beams to get to the other side. It’s portrayed exactly like a video game level, as are most of her encounters. Worst of all, the movie follows a code of logic that dares to only exist in video games. Why does Rose instinctively know she needs to reach inside the mouth of a corpse to find a sign? How does she know a hidden room lay behind a portrait? Why does Rose know that light attracts the “Thriller” dance team/nurses with potato sacks on their heads? How come the evil presence that basically created this limbo world of the undead cannot penetrate a church? The plot is mostly incoherent and intentionally surreal, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that the story is just plain awful.
Silent Hill completely collapses once the third act begins. It was plodding up until that point, but now the film becomes downright ridiculous and painful. We’re amongst a crazy group of fundamentalist witch burners that, for whatever reason, dress in hazmat suits to venture outside their grounds. It’s at this point that the surreal nature stops and we find the answer to our questions: another vengeful spirit from beyond the grave. Ho hum. The protracted climax goes overboard and practically rapes the stellar ending of Carrie. Also, Silent Hill expects its Big Reveal to be shocking or surprising, but it cannot be anything except redundant because the film spelled it out an hour ago.
The dialogue is howl-inducing. There’s a moment that Rose says, “Don’t worry honey, everything’s going to be okay. You’re going to be alright.” And this immediately precedes the little girl watching the religious cult burn someone’s face off. There’s another moment, more than an hour in, where Rose says, “Something bad happened here.” You think? All of the dialogue can be fitted into two categories: either expository or instructional. It’s like to be true to a video game they also decided to lift the terrible dialogue as well. The plot meanders for the longest time, allowing Rose to visit place to place, and then Avary decides to bludgeon his audience with a 5-minute chunk of exposition meant to clarify everything up to that point.
The acting is pretty bad. Mitchell gives a valiant effort and has a nice scream, but she can’t escape the dead weight of the dialogue and total lack of characterization. Bean is entirely wasted and his “American” accent seems to waver quite a bit for such short screen time. Holden is more a fetish figure fantasy than a character, evidenced by her tight leather pants being the first thing we ever see of her. Still, it’s somewhat interesting seeing the romantic lead from 2001’s The Majestic kickin’ some unholy ass. It’s hard to say if any actors of any caliber could have redeemed the film, but this collection of thespians doesn’t even try to put a polish on the dialogue. You can tell because the howler lines are still howlers.
Lest I forget, this thing is OVER two hours long. There’s no reason Silent Hill should even be teetering over 100 minutes, especially for a film as sparsely plotted as this one, that is, before Avary’s exposition head rush. I don’t know why the filmmakers included the pointless subplot involving Christopher on the search for his wife. The subplot adds no deeper insight, affords no opportunity to help shape the plot, and only serves to whisk the audience out of the moment and remind them how pointless Silent Hill is quickly becoming. And is it ever pointless.
Director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) has a great taste for visuals, Silent Hill‘s only positive marks. Some of the images in this movie are truly horrifying and have, reluctantly, stuck in my head days afterwards. The Pyramid Head man, with a 20-foot sword, makes little sense but is a jarring and memorable image. When those loud sirens sound there is a slight amount of dread, but really it’s more of a morbid curiosity at what kind of hellish transportation will happen next. The excellent production design and cinematography also contribute to the film’s eerie, striking, sometimes suffocating atmosphere. But, alas, an interesting visual palate cannot save a slow, dimwitted, inane movie. Otherwise What Dreams May Come may have worked. But it didn’t.
Silent Hill is pointless, plodding, incoherent, far too long and far too boring. The bad dialogue, acting, and plot don’t seem to help matters either. Gans creates a moody atmosphere with some powerfully nightmarish imagery, but that’s the only thing Silent Hill has going for it. Whether it be a man with a Pyramid for his head ripping the flesh off someone like a coat or a little demonic girl dancing in a literal blood shower, Silent Hill has its small potent visual moments. However, these small moments of visual potency cannot make up for the giant black hole of suck. This movie is simply dreadful and designed too faithfully as a video game adaptation, which means the same gaps in logic and pacing are present. I certainly expected better from Avary. I told my friend Dan that I was embarrassed we’d forever know we saw Silent Hill on its opening night, so much so that I bought him food after the show to make up for dragging him along. This is the first movie I’ve ever attended where I heard booing afterwards from my audience. I would have joined them but I was too busy getting out of the theater as soon as the end credits rolled.
Nate’s Grade: D
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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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The Skeleton Key (2005)
The marketing said it was horror (voodoo, creepy kids), but it’s less a horror movie and more a Twilight Zone tale. It has its share of jump scares and tries to draw out an atmosphere of dread. You see a lot of how doors work from inside locks. The Skeleton Key tries to be overly clever despite its plot holes, but at least the film runs its course. It wasn’t trying to throw out a contrived ending. Kate Hudson needs better roles than these do-nothing parts; she’s far too cute to languish. And how many times did she inspect late-night noises in her underwear? The most entertaining aspect of The Skeleton Key may be gazing at a pre-Katrina New Orleans.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Director Terry Gilliam is one of the true artists working today in movies. His manic, off kilter, visually grand imagination has crafted wonderfully vivid fantasias, but it also has given Gilliam a reputation for being the captain of a sinking ship. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is regarded as one of Hollywood’s bigger failures, unfairly I might add. A fascinating 2003 documentary called Lost in La Mancha detailed the bizarre circumstances and implosions that forced Gilliam to shut down production of his pride and joy, a film about Don Quixote. We’re talking things as out of control and unlucky as acts of God conspiring to doom this project. But then, Gilliam has always been fighting someone or something his whole film career. The studio refused Gilliam’s cut of Brazil so he sneaked out a print, showed it to the Los Angeles film community, and they dubbed it the best film of that year. Gilliam is a man governed by his idiosyncrasies. He’s blessed with a unique voice but cursed with the prospects of not having anywhere to say something (would he not make simply the most divine Harry Potter film yet?). And so Gilliam strikes his hands at something a bit more commercially minded with the action/comic fable, The Brothers Grimm.
Will (Matt Damon) and Jakob (Heath Ledger) Grimm are nineteenth century ghostbusters, so to speak. They travel from town to town ridding the villagers of evil spirits, witches, and all sorts of demonic creatures. Trouble is it’s all a lie. The Grimm brothers and their pals set up the spooks and rob the town blind. Will enjoys the fame, and especially the women, but Jakob feels apprehensive. It?s the Napoleonic wars, and the French have occupied the Germanic lands. A snooty general (Jonathan Pryce) plans to behead the two Grimm brothers unless they solve a strange case in a rural town. A slapsticky, torture-loving commander (Peter Storemare) is sent to watch over the “Grimmies.” At the village, Will and Jakob discover the town has had 10 of its daughters kidnapped with little explanation. With the help of a free-spirited woman (Lena Headey), the brothers encounter giant wolves, moving trees, lickable frogs, and the giant tower of the Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci). The Queen was given eternal life but not eternal youth. In order to gain eternal youth, the Queen needs to take the lives of 12 hearty girls, and only the bumbling Grimm brothers stand in her way.
The acting is an example of the film’s messy feel. Ledger talks with marbles in his mouth. He’s putting more detail into the character than it deserves. Damon seems like he’s sleepwalking through the film, and his accent fluctuates wildly. He’s sort of a grinning straight man to Ledger’s tic-heavy daydream believer. Belluci is a ravishing beauty and proof positive for Hollywood that women over 40 don’t need to be put out to pasture. Too bad all she’s expected to do is look pretty and seductive in The Brothers Grimm. Pryce plays his role like a cartoon caricature. Stormare has already given one crazy performance this year (Constantine), and his frenzied, nearly indecipherable performance seems to be the closest to Gilliam’s whacked-out wavelength. Stormare is entertaining in every scene he’s in but can be found guilty of chewing scenery like it was a delicious candy house.
The Brothers Grimm is a gorgeous looking film. The sets are massive and greatly detailed. The location shoots in Prague seem like the perfect environment for Gilliam’s beyond-this-world landscapes. Gilliam experiments with advanced computer graphics for the first time and adds his oddball touches. A child has her eyes taken by a glob of mud, and then the mud reshapes itself into a lumbering gingerbread man. A horse spits out a spiderweb and ensnares a child. And it looks really freaking creepy. The Mirror Queen’s defeat is another standout effect as she breaks apart like shattered glass. The look of The Brothers Grimm is outstanding, but it’s what takes place inside those pretty pictures that dooms the film to mediocrity.
The Brothers Grimm is an unfocused mess. It has disjointed subplots and several story elements that just don’t fit. The wacky French occupation feels like a leftover from a different movie. It just doesn’t work and grinds the movie to a screeching halt with every resurfacing. The Brothers Grimm will routinely work its way into a narrative corner and then use a “magic” cheat to escape (magic axe, magic mirror, magic kiss). Gilliam has always been a master maestro of chaos and visual oddities, but this time he’s tackled a film with a very weak script by Ehren Kruger (Ring Two). Kruger doesn’t bother laying the groundwork of his magical world or establish the rules. Therefore anything can happen and rarely feels satisfying. The characters are one-note, each given a single character trait to play with (skeptic, believer, idiot, etc.). The pacing is pretty sluggish. The first act takes an eternity to set up the film’s characters, plot, and yet it still feels sloppy. The twists and turns are easily telegraphed and unexpectedly boring. The plot is frustrating, shortsighted in scope, and far too conventional for Gilliam’s tastes. When The Brothers Grimm reaches its happy ending you’ll swear you can hear Gilliam gagging somewhere.
Gilliam adds a worthy macabre tone to the film. There will be touches that you know are pure Gilliam, like a woman skinning a rabbit as she talks, or a cat flying into the blades or a torture device. In fact, The Brothers Grimm has a lot of humor involving the comic demise of animals. This isn’t exactly a film appropriate for young children despite the appeal of a fairy tale background. The film wants to tweak fairy tale legends like the two Shreks, but Gilliam wants to make them disturbing nightmares, not something of irreverence. This puts the film’s tone at odds. One minute you’ll have a scene that?s morbid, darkly funny, and unconventional, and then the next minute you’ll have a scene that’s cliché, dull, and whimsically misplaced.
The Brothers Grimm feels like a Terry Gilliam film under glass. The script is weak and plodding, the characters barely leave a dent, and the tone is uneven. The plot is pulled in too many directions and lacks momentum. There are a handful of fun comic diversions but the movie feels like a loose collection of disjointed story elements. There are flashes of grim humor and visual elegance but more often than not the film is just stupendously boring. The Brothers Grimm feels the same way the Coen brothers’ Intolerable Cruelty felt: a unique vision compromised and downsized by studio conformity. You can see the indie spirit but the heart just isn’t beating. The Brothers Grimm is mediocre at best. How very grim indeed.
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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