Movies about real life issues can be very tricky to do right. Usually audiences don't go to the movies to be reminded of how much the world sucks. We already know that. We go to the movies to escape and be entertained for a few hours so we can get away from the horrors of the real world. However, because of the power of stories and the influential magic that movies have, film is often the best way, and sometimes the only way, to inform people of specific issues hurting our world. So the best way to address real world problems in movies is to present it in a way that is still entertaining and rewarding. One example of this phenomena is Sylvester Stallone's movie "Rambo", (the fourth movie from 2008). Sly made that movie for the purpose of raising attention to the conflict in Burma. He used his prestige and Rambo fame to make a movie that was still entertaining in its own way while informing the audience of a real horror that isn't really talked about anywhere else. Furthermore, the best message from a film is the one that speaks for itself and comes out of the story naturally rather than anything that can be preached.
The reason I bring this up is because this wonderful movie, "Wind River", is a mystery thriller that also deals with and also raises awareness of the horrible plight upon Native Americans. This can be a a very difficult tight rope to cross, mainly because the relationship between Cinema and Native Americans been...uncomfortable to put it mildly. The sad fact is that a lot of the horrors that Native Americans face every day are willingly ignored by the press and constantly overlooked by the authorities. Therefore, at least in my opinion, filmmakers should take it upon themselves to use their talent and craft to tell these untold stories and, in doing so, raise awareness and encourage action. With that, I am happy to report that "Wind River" does exactly that. It is a film that delivers an entertaining story and a much needed slap in the face.
The story takes place in and around the Wind River Indian Reservation located in Wyoming. Our hero is a predator hunter & game tracker named Cory, (played by Jeremy Renner), who discovers the body of a young Indian girl, who happened to be the daughter of his best friend. After calling the FBI, they send in one young agent named Jane, (played by Elizabeth Olsen), who is not only severely underprepared, but is also way out of her depth. Despite the odds, and being a fish out of water, Jane takes it upon herself to solve the mystery. Cory agrees to help her, mostly because of his familiarity with the land and life in it, but also because he had lost his own daughter under equally mysterious circumstances, and wants a shot at closure for both himself and his friend.
Cory is married to an Indian woman, so his character is directly connected to the Indians struggles in the film. Which I suspect serves and a writer proxy. This film was written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, who previously wrote the academy award nominated films "Sicario" and "Hell or High Water". Both are films that share a similar desire to entertain and inform about harsh realities, and both deliver everything with ease. This man is proving himself to be truly talented storyteller as well as a clever commentator. He is literally the main reason I was even interested in "Wind River" and I am glad to say that my fan loyalty has paid off.
The film as a whole is very solid with great performance by the whole cast, including Graham Greene as the Reservation Police Chief, beautiful yet eerie imagery, and a musical score that is both graceful and haunting. There is one piece of music in particular that incorporates chilling vocals that almost play in sync with the wind. It creates an effect that is both intreating and terrifying at the same time. Almost like the wind is the cry of ghosts past.
Everyones acting, especially the two leads, is strong and shows great range. There is a great deal of emotional energy throughout the film and the whole cast delivers it in spades. Elizabeth Olson in particular gets the opportunity to showcase her surprisingly commanding presence on screen. Not at all surprising since this is the same young woman who held the entire "Silent House" remake on her shoulders with conviction. For those of you who don't know that was a horror film shot in one long take and the camera almost never left her sight. She WAS that film.
Now, the obvious complaint that a lot of people will have about this film, understandably so, will be that it is yet another film about Native American struggles written and directed by a white man, starring predominately white people, and has the possibility of paining the Native American characters in a negative light as Hollywood has done...pretty much since the dawn of Cinema. However, I am happy to report that, while it is true that this film was written and directed by a white man, said white man is not a STUIPD white man. Taylor Sheridan has written all of the Native American characters with the humanity they deserve, any Native American character that could be seen as bad are just those who have turned to drugs to escape their plight the Reservation, (an unfortunate and common thing for the young to do in dire circumstances such as this), and no white character ever WHITE-SPLAINS anything to any other character.
Taylor Sheridan has spoken out about the horrible and ignored situation fallen upon Native Americans. Furthermore, he is speaking from experience. He grew up in and around people who live in Reservations not unlike Wind River and has first hand experience to their suffering. He has taken it upon himself as a sympathetic artist to raise more awareness to their situation and demand that justice be served.
"Wind River" is a film that raises awareness to a very tough situation in our own country and does so in a way that is not preachy and still entertaining in its own way. Furthermore, without spoiling anything, the film has an ending that is not necessarily happy, but I will say that it is satisfyingly cathartic. Also, I must warn my wonderful readers of the potential triggers the film has, as it does feature a scene of sexual assault and violence towards women.
Highly recommended. Please go see this film IMMEDIATELY.
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you all for reading.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Thursday, August 24, 2017
The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature - A kick in the nuts is better than this
To me, one of the most offensive excuses anyone can utter when discussing a bad films severe lack of quality is the ever so popular phrase "it's just a KIDS movie!". As if to imply that movies intended for kids don't require any actual effort put into the writing, animation, characters, or even sympathetic characters because, after all, one of the many delusions that Hollywood is under, is that kids are STUPID. Therefore, they think that they don't need to put any effort into films intended for kids because they only exist to help parents shut the kids up for an hour and a half. Not only is this offensive to me as a person, as a proud uncle, and as a film enthusiast, but I also find it to be down right immoral. Making a film aimed at kids does not give you an excuse to be lazy and apathetic. It should be a proclamation that you are willing to take on a great challenge and do your best. Saying this movie doesn't even try is putting it mildly. This movie goes out of its way to do everything wrong with no consideration for anyone in its audience. Especially the kids.
As you no doubt have guessed based upon the films title, this is a sequel to another animated atrocity, "The Nut Job", from 2014. The story follows a group of park critters led by a purple squirrel named Surly, (played by Will Arnett), who is exiled from his group of park critters for being lazy and not contributing to food gathering, preferring to find an angle, an easy way to keep food coming with little to no effort. Soon afterwards he cooks up a plan to raid and take over an old nut shop which has a lifetime supply of nuts in its basement, which just so happens to be the front for a gang of bank robbers. It was an ill received film with poor animation, lousy writing, and a protagonist who is a complete jackass. Seriously, he always thinks he's smarter than everyone else, he's a constant jerk to the one lady squirrel named Andie, (played by Katherine Heigl), who eventually and unjustifiably becomes his love interest, and none of the characters have any personality outside of silly and stereotypical New Yorker. Not to mention it was loaded with every single aspect of modern animated kids film formula which consists of CG animation, bright colors, an overabundance of referrencial humor, toilet jokes, and top it all off with a pace that moves at a million miles per hour because kids apparently can't hold their attention for longer than a minute.
You would think after such a massive flop like this that you wouldn't hear anything more from this franchise that could, right? Well, apparently the first film made enough money to not only warrant a sequel, but also this is getting its own TV series and a third movie in 2018. Me thinks the producers are sitting on a few assets that they should really put to greater use.
The sequel takes place immediately after the first film where the critters have successfully taken over the nut shop and are now living in luxury with plenty of food to spare. Until one day somebody forgot to turn off the boiler and accidentally blows up the whole shop along with all the nuts. Fortunately, (or unfortunately rather), none of the critters were inside. This causes everyone to return to the park and continue their old fashioned ways of scavenging for food. Except the obviously evil mayor of the city wants to turn the park into an amusement park for profits. So he sends in his team of bulldozers and animal hunters to tear down the park and build up his own personal carnival, thus causing the critters to unite and fight back.
This movie suffers from all the aforementioned problems as the first movie, so in the interest of not repeating myself, allow me to elaborate on the one problem I personally had with this movie. The protagonist, and by extension, the characters, are horrible, Starting with the protagonist, as I've already mentioned, he's a complete jackass. He only looks out for himself, he repays any act of kindness and encouragement with mean rebuttals and apathy, he sucks as a leader and doesn't care...wait...he's basically Donald Trump, isn't he?...Yup, he's just Trump. Therefore, he is arguably one of the most unlikable characters I have ever seen. Nothing about him is interesting or sympathetic, he doesn't learn anything through the course of the film, and, worst of all, the makers of this film don't seem to realize that. Even after this guy has spent ten minutes being the self absorbed jackass that he is, the film still wants us to feel for his plight and root for him when the "good guys" take action against the humans. This might have worked if the protagonist had any redeeming qualities about him but he really, really, REALLY doesn't. He's just a selfish jerk from beginning to end who only looks like a hero because the movie is trying too hard to make us care. Guess what movie, it didn't work.
The rest of the characters don't favor very well either. I only saw this movie a few hours ago as of writing this and I could not tell you anything about the other characters. The most I can remember is that one of them was a hedgehog, another was a pug...and that's it. I could not tell you what there personalities were, what their purpose in the story was, or even what any of their names were. That is how incredibly forgettable these characters were. They're not even characters, they're just walking avatars of various fast paced cartoon drawings that are supposed to make the five year olds in the audience laugh. They're the equivalent of jiggling keys in front of your little niece.
The only "character" who really stood out at all was this one mouse character Mr. Feng, (played by Jackie Chan), a kung fu master with an army of mice who eventually help in the retaking of the park. Jackie Chan is literally the only note worthy thing about this movie. He has always had a good natural charisma just because of how genuinely bad ass he is. He does prove himself to be capable to delivering good comedy provided he has good material. In this movie, even though the material he's being asked to deliver is horrible, his conviction and desire to do it right still shines through. Yet, even so, he is still not enough for me to even consider recommending this filthy trash heap.
If you have kids or are a fan of animated films in general, please do yourself a favor and stay far away from this film. It's not as bad as "Norm of the North", but it's really up there. It's not funny, it's not clever, it's not entertaining, and it is really not worth anyones time.
For the Jackie Chan fans out there, like myself, just wait for his next movie, "The Foreigner", to come out next month. That looks AWESOME!!!
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you for reading.
As you no doubt have guessed based upon the films title, this is a sequel to another animated atrocity, "The Nut Job", from 2014. The story follows a group of park critters led by a purple squirrel named Surly, (played by Will Arnett), who is exiled from his group of park critters for being lazy and not contributing to food gathering, preferring to find an angle, an easy way to keep food coming with little to no effort. Soon afterwards he cooks up a plan to raid and take over an old nut shop which has a lifetime supply of nuts in its basement, which just so happens to be the front for a gang of bank robbers. It was an ill received film with poor animation, lousy writing, and a protagonist who is a complete jackass. Seriously, he always thinks he's smarter than everyone else, he's a constant jerk to the one lady squirrel named Andie, (played by Katherine Heigl), who eventually and unjustifiably becomes his love interest, and none of the characters have any personality outside of silly and stereotypical New Yorker. Not to mention it was loaded with every single aspect of modern animated kids film formula which consists of CG animation, bright colors, an overabundance of referrencial humor, toilet jokes, and top it all off with a pace that moves at a million miles per hour because kids apparently can't hold their attention for longer than a minute.
You would think after such a massive flop like this that you wouldn't hear anything more from this franchise that could, right? Well, apparently the first film made enough money to not only warrant a sequel, but also this is getting its own TV series and a third movie in 2018. Me thinks the producers are sitting on a few assets that they should really put to greater use.
The sequel takes place immediately after the first film where the critters have successfully taken over the nut shop and are now living in luxury with plenty of food to spare. Until one day somebody forgot to turn off the boiler and accidentally blows up the whole shop along with all the nuts. Fortunately, (or unfortunately rather), none of the critters were inside. This causes everyone to return to the park and continue their old fashioned ways of scavenging for food. Except the obviously evil mayor of the city wants to turn the park into an amusement park for profits. So he sends in his team of bulldozers and animal hunters to tear down the park and build up his own personal carnival, thus causing the critters to unite and fight back.
This movie suffers from all the aforementioned problems as the first movie, so in the interest of not repeating myself, allow me to elaborate on the one problem I personally had with this movie. The protagonist, and by extension, the characters, are horrible, Starting with the protagonist, as I've already mentioned, he's a complete jackass. He only looks out for himself, he repays any act of kindness and encouragement with mean rebuttals and apathy, he sucks as a leader and doesn't care...wait...he's basically Donald Trump, isn't he?...Yup, he's just Trump. Therefore, he is arguably one of the most unlikable characters I have ever seen. Nothing about him is interesting or sympathetic, he doesn't learn anything through the course of the film, and, worst of all, the makers of this film don't seem to realize that. Even after this guy has spent ten minutes being the self absorbed jackass that he is, the film still wants us to feel for his plight and root for him when the "good guys" take action against the humans. This might have worked if the protagonist had any redeeming qualities about him but he really, really, REALLY doesn't. He's just a selfish jerk from beginning to end who only looks like a hero because the movie is trying too hard to make us care. Guess what movie, it didn't work.
The rest of the characters don't favor very well either. I only saw this movie a few hours ago as of writing this and I could not tell you anything about the other characters. The most I can remember is that one of them was a hedgehog, another was a pug...and that's it. I could not tell you what there personalities were, what their purpose in the story was, or even what any of their names were. That is how incredibly forgettable these characters were. They're not even characters, they're just walking avatars of various fast paced cartoon drawings that are supposed to make the five year olds in the audience laugh. They're the equivalent of jiggling keys in front of your little niece.
The only "character" who really stood out at all was this one mouse character Mr. Feng, (played by Jackie Chan), a kung fu master with an army of mice who eventually help in the retaking of the park. Jackie Chan is literally the only note worthy thing about this movie. He has always had a good natural charisma just because of how genuinely bad ass he is. He does prove himself to be capable to delivering good comedy provided he has good material. In this movie, even though the material he's being asked to deliver is horrible, his conviction and desire to do it right still shines through. Yet, even so, he is still not enough for me to even consider recommending this filthy trash heap.
If you have kids or are a fan of animated films in general, please do yourself a favor and stay far away from this film. It's not as bad as "Norm of the North", but it's really up there. It's not funny, it's not clever, it's not entertaining, and it is really not worth anyones time.
For the Jackie Chan fans out there, like myself, just wait for his next movie, "The Foreigner", to come out next month. That looks AWESOME!!!
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you for reading.
Monday, August 21, 2017
Why the upcoming "Justice League" movie should politely leave the party early.
I know that it's been a while since I wrote something on this blog. Mostly because I've been pretty occupied with things that have kept me away from the movie theaters. Don't worry, the next post on this blog will be an actual movie review, I promise. With a little luck, the next movie I review, which is something I really want to see, will be "Wind River". So please be on the look out for that.
Until then, I really want to talk about something that has been on my mind for a while now. I'm not planning on reviewing the "Justice League" movie before it comes out, that would be just stupid and unprofessional. Instead, this is going to be a kind of speculation experiment. Where I express my feelings about the movie as I see it now and what I suspect might happen based upon the events surrounding the movies production as well as the people involved in its creation. I really hope that my suspicions will be wrong and that the movie actually turns out to be good, but please forgive me if I'm not as usually optimistic about this one as I otherwise would be.
For those of you who have not been following the recent live action DC movies, the short version is that they have not been very good, and that's putting it mildly. So far, with the exception of "Wonder Woman", they have not been made with the best of intentions, none off them have anything remotely relatable to human beings, and, worst of all, they all share an overly dark tone for no justifiable reason, other than they were trying too hard to stand out against MARVEL. Now, in that sense of trying to do something different from MARVEL, that is admirable and understandable. I just think that DC took it way too far. Case in point: In "Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice", which by the way is the absolute WORST movie of 2016, there is a dream sequence which literally serves no real purpose other than to have an excuse for dark and ugly depictions of Batman and Superman as opposing military powers, and to have an excuse to see Superman brutaly murder people on screen. This is followed by yet another dream sequence which only serves the purpose of setting up events for the next movie. Neither of these dream sequences do anything to advance the story, develop the characters, or give the audience a reason to care. Something that director Zach Snyder has proven himself to be unable to deliver.
This leads me to one of the main problems with the DC movies, Zach Snyder. Before I go into greater detail about my feelings about Mr. Snyder as a director, I would like to make it very clear that I do not hate him, nor do I mean him any offense to his character. I want to make this clear because I do not want to give the impression that I am belittling Mr. Snyder as a person, especially considering the horrible tragedy that has fallen upon him and his family. All I will say to Mr. Snyder is that I still wish him well, I hope that he and his family are coping as well as they can, and that my thoughts are with them all. From here on, all I have to say about Mr. Snyder is in regards to his ability as a filmmaker and nothing more.
Okay, now that we've cleared that up, lets talk about the stylistic approach of Zach Snyder.
To put it bluntly, it's not very good. Snyder has a very bad habit of emphasizing and prioritizing style and strong visuals over story and character. While Snyder is excellent at creating visually intreaging images and has a very distinct style that has, in its own way, revolutionized the action movie landscape as we know it today, he is not a very good storyteller. Even in his best film, his adaptation of "Watchmen", it's clear that Snyder didn't know how to handle the characters on his own. The only reason the characters in that film were even remotely interesting, is because they were made interesting in the book, and Zach Snyder did everything in his power to translate the book to screen, making very few changes and compromising pretty much nothing. Which, coincidentally, is the philosophy of the films protagonist, Rorschach.
When Zach Snyder tried to make something of his own, his grossly inadequate "Sucker Punch", that was intended to have a strong commentary on an aspect of the human condition, namely the mistreatment of women, it fell completely flat on its face. As a visual spectacle of many different kinds of genres and styles as only seen before in comics and Anime, it was a fantastic marvel to behold. However, as a commentary about the struggles of women, the horrors of mens abuse of power and the notion of sexualization as power, (which is a whole other subject that will likely be discussed at another time), it fails entirely. Without spoiling anything or going into too much detail for those who have not yet seen it for themselves, though I don't really recommend it, the films message really boils down to "all women are helpless victims and all men are evil pigs". Which is what a lot of people THINK that feminism is and that is simply NOT TRUE.
Zach Snyder seems to be under the impression that having strong style and cool visuals all the time will compensate for the lack of a compelling story and interesting characters. This is, quite simply, not true. As demonstrated in other high octane blockbusters such as "Baby Driver" and "Mad Max: Fury Road", (which by the way is a much better representation of feminism), all of the visual spectacles you can create don't mean anything if the story, and especially the characters, are not compelling, sympathetic and interesting. The best blockbuster films are the ones that use special effects and high octane action scenes in service to the story and the characters growth. Incidentally, George Miller, the director and co-writer of "Mad Max: Fury Road" had an original plan for a Justice League film that never fell through. I would not object if Warner Brothers gave that plan another look.
'Wink-Wink'.
Another thing worth mentioning as to why Zach Snyder was not a good choice for this franchise, one that I almost overlooked, is that he is not even a fan of these characters. Hell, Zach Snyder doesn't even like superheroes in general. You see, Snyder is a fan of the works of Ayn Rand, whom you may remember as the author of "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged". Rand was, among other things, an objectivist. A political philosophy that believes that altruism is a weak ideology, and that those who embody said ideology are not only doomed to fail, but are also incapable of achieving anything. Zach Snyder does not BELIEVE in superhero's. He doesn't even seem to like them. This is greatly evidenced in his treatment of them in his films. Specifically in "Batman V. Superman" wherein Superman is depicted as a depressed masonic figure who can't get over the fact that people don't appreciate him, which is completely unlike his actual character, and Batman is depicted as a mindless, cruel and violent thug who thinks that murder is the solution to all of Earth's problems, which is even MORE unlike the actual character. If the director himself doesn't believe in what superheroes are all about, then how can you expect said director to deliver a compelling superhero movie?
Now, all of this comes back to "Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice", which is, as I've already mentioned, the worst film of 2016. There are many reasons for this and I have discussed a few of them in my previous video "Five reasons Batman V. Superman is a Bad Film", but the biggest reason I want to bring up here is reason number 4, playing catch up with Marvel. As I mentioned in the aforementioned video, Warner Brothers and DC Comics have been trying to catch up with MARVEL'S success. As such, "Batman V. Superman" shoved a truck load of things that are intended to be touched upon and developed further in the upcoming "Justice League" film and potentially even later down the line. This is an unwise move for many reasons but the most important reason, at least in my opinion, is that this new movie is going to have at least three brand new characters that we have never met before. As such, the film is going to spend a lot of time trying to get us invested in them despite us having just met them. Also, as I have already mentioned earlier, we are very likely not going to get any development at all because the film will be more concerned with how cool the shot said character is in will look or just how desaturated the color can be before it's actually black & white.
You see, the reason the MARVEL movies have been so successful is because they spend each and every movie progressing an interesting story, and developing a group if equally interesting and three dimensional characters. The Thor movies and "Avengers: Age of Ultron" are among the few exceptions. Hopefully "Thor: Ragnarok" will be better, but I digress. Anyway, the very first Avengers was successful, not because it had great action and lots of special effects, but because it was built up to with years of individual movies building up each of the main members of the team and culminating into a team of multi-background people with similar ideologies and one unifying motive. To do better. This created what is, as far as I am concerned, the greatest movie event...EVER!!! The very moment that Hulk punched out that giant monster and The Avengers had finally united and proclaimed to the forces of evil, "we're here and we're gonna F*%# you up", was the single greatest and most joyful moment I have ever shared with an audience in a movie theater. As the entire audience stood up and cheered the arrival of a super team that had come together to save the day and give us all hope for the future in every conceivable way.
Now, in comparison, what will "Justice League" likely deliver upon its release? Well, the only movies that have come before it have been one less than stellar Superman movie, a three and a half hour monstrosity featuring two people who looked like Batman and Superman, (I say looked like because neither of them were anything like the Batman and Superman that we would otherwise recognize), A failed attempt at a darker, mean spirited and brutal remake of "The Avengers" with "Suicide Squad", (which, as of this writing, I have not seen yet but really have no desire to see and have been told enough about the film to know that it's really not worth my time), and one really, really, REALLY great "Wonder Woman" movie. The upcoming Justice League is going to have three more characters, (Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash), who have not yet had their own movies and we will, supposedly, spend some time getting to know. Except I highly doubt it. This sounds like an experiment that is just doomed to fail.
Now, I've been going on about all the stuff that has been building up to "Justice League", but I haven't really touched upon the films actual production just yet. Aside from the expected problem of it being under Zach Snyder's misguided direction, the film's production has hit enough brick walls that it really shouldn't even bother trying to grace the silver screen. At least not in my opinion.
Now, we all knew that the film was very likely going to be bad simply by the virtue of it being under Zach Snyder's direction. However, that was not the only warning sign. The first sign of trouble was when Warner Brothers announced that they would be inserting more humor into the film. Specifically 30% more jokes, or something to that extent. This was a big warning sign because it meant that the only reason Warner Brothers thought "Batman V. Superman" was a failure was because, unlike the MARVEL movies, it didn't have any levity. So, not only did they announce that they would insert more humor into the "Justice League" movie, they went out of their way to reshoot scenes of "Suicide Squat" just a few months before its release so they could try and inject more humor into that movie as well.
This was a clear sign that Warner Brothers was trying too hard to fix the problem they had just created. It also showed that Warner Brothers, like most of the other major movie studios, had learned the WRONG LESSON. More jokes is not going to magically make your bad movie any better. If anything, it's going to make your bad movie worse. Because there is nothing more boring to sit through than a comedy that isn't funny or a serious drama that doesn't have any moments of good levity to relieve the heavy weight of the drama.
Then, not too long before the films completion, Zach Snyder suffered the aforementioned tragedy, which caused him to step down from his role as director. Prompting Warner Brothers to seek out a replacement in an effort to at least have the film completed. In their search, they eventually hired Joss Whedon, the director of "The Avengers", to complete the film. He then went to work writing new scenes for the film and, to my knowledge, began changing some of the creative decisions made during Zach Snyder's run.
This is yet another warning sign that the film is not likely going to be any good. Not to say anything against Joss Whedon's ability as a storyteller, in fact he is usually pretty good. However, because of his drastically different style of storytelling, (see "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Firefly" for an example), the film is likely going to have several moments in it that will make it painfully obvious that it is not one vision. Much like the criticisms that were put upon Steven Spielberg's "A.I.", (a film originally envisioned by Stanley Kubrick), it's easy to suspect that the "Justice League" film is going to be tonally schizophrenic. There will be moments that will make absolutely no sense, shifts of tone out of the blue and character moments that might seem funny at first but will likely turn out to be just badly improvised banter.
The next and latest warning sign was in regards to Cyborg himself. Apparently, someone involved in the creative process of the film, I can't say who, decided that his tone was "too dark". So they are going back to the drawing board yet again to try and liven it up some more. There really isn't much I can say about this other than it's kind of uncertain just how they plan to accomplish that.
With all of this in mind, I can't help but feel that the "Justice League" movie has too much going against it. It was mostly handled by a misguided director, then was picked up by another director on the opposite side of the spectrum, was put on hold by it's own studio to inject more humor, and now can't even decide how it wants to handle one of the new characters its planning to introduce. This feels so much like an obvious disaster waiting to happen that, in my honest opinion, Warner Brothers should simply not go through with it. They should simply pick this film up, put it on the shelf with the toys they haven't played with since they were little, and move on to something different and possibly better.
Now, I know that's not likely going to happen. Warner Brothers put an awful lot of money into this film, unwisely I might add, and they obviously have to at least try and make some of that money back. So, naturally, the only way they can accomplish this is to stay the course and release the film on their intended date.
Please understand, I do not mean to give the impression that I am a MARVEL fan boy and that I hate DC. I don't. I like DC. I like Superman and Batman and especially Wonder Woman. Which, by the way, is the best movie that DC has actually produced. I'm just getting really tired of the guys at Warner Brothers constantly making the wrong decisions with these characters. As much as I love and adore the original Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, I have longed for a new Superman movie that is just as good, if not even better. I have still yet to see said movie on the horizon. "Superman Returns" was close but not quite there.
Maybe this will all turn out to be wrong and the "Justice League" movie will actually turn out to be good and, believe you and me, I honestly hope that turns out to be the case. I just can't help but feel that, based upon everything I talked about, that it's just not going to happen. So, when this movie comes out this November, I will be walking into that theater with absolutely zero expectations. We'll see if it manages to raise the bar.
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets thins wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you all for reading.
Until then, I really want to talk about something that has been on my mind for a while now. I'm not planning on reviewing the "Justice League" movie before it comes out, that would be just stupid and unprofessional. Instead, this is going to be a kind of speculation experiment. Where I express my feelings about the movie as I see it now and what I suspect might happen based upon the events surrounding the movies production as well as the people involved in its creation. I really hope that my suspicions will be wrong and that the movie actually turns out to be good, but please forgive me if I'm not as usually optimistic about this one as I otherwise would be.
For those of you who have not been following the recent live action DC movies, the short version is that they have not been very good, and that's putting it mildly. So far, with the exception of "Wonder Woman", they have not been made with the best of intentions, none off them have anything remotely relatable to human beings, and, worst of all, they all share an overly dark tone for no justifiable reason, other than they were trying too hard to stand out against MARVEL. Now, in that sense of trying to do something different from MARVEL, that is admirable and understandable. I just think that DC took it way too far. Case in point: In "Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice", which by the way is the absolute WORST movie of 2016, there is a dream sequence which literally serves no real purpose other than to have an excuse for dark and ugly depictions of Batman and Superman as opposing military powers, and to have an excuse to see Superman brutaly murder people on screen. This is followed by yet another dream sequence which only serves the purpose of setting up events for the next movie. Neither of these dream sequences do anything to advance the story, develop the characters, or give the audience a reason to care. Something that director Zach Snyder has proven himself to be unable to deliver.
This leads me to one of the main problems with the DC movies, Zach Snyder. Before I go into greater detail about my feelings about Mr. Snyder as a director, I would like to make it very clear that I do not hate him, nor do I mean him any offense to his character. I want to make this clear because I do not want to give the impression that I am belittling Mr. Snyder as a person, especially considering the horrible tragedy that has fallen upon him and his family. All I will say to Mr. Snyder is that I still wish him well, I hope that he and his family are coping as well as they can, and that my thoughts are with them all. From here on, all I have to say about Mr. Snyder is in regards to his ability as a filmmaker and nothing more.
Okay, now that we've cleared that up, lets talk about the stylistic approach of Zach Snyder.
To put it bluntly, it's not very good. Snyder has a very bad habit of emphasizing and prioritizing style and strong visuals over story and character. While Snyder is excellent at creating visually intreaging images and has a very distinct style that has, in its own way, revolutionized the action movie landscape as we know it today, he is not a very good storyteller. Even in his best film, his adaptation of "Watchmen", it's clear that Snyder didn't know how to handle the characters on his own. The only reason the characters in that film were even remotely interesting, is because they were made interesting in the book, and Zach Snyder did everything in his power to translate the book to screen, making very few changes and compromising pretty much nothing. Which, coincidentally, is the philosophy of the films protagonist, Rorschach.
When Zach Snyder tried to make something of his own, his grossly inadequate "Sucker Punch", that was intended to have a strong commentary on an aspect of the human condition, namely the mistreatment of women, it fell completely flat on its face. As a visual spectacle of many different kinds of genres and styles as only seen before in comics and Anime, it was a fantastic marvel to behold. However, as a commentary about the struggles of women, the horrors of mens abuse of power and the notion of sexualization as power, (which is a whole other subject that will likely be discussed at another time), it fails entirely. Without spoiling anything or going into too much detail for those who have not yet seen it for themselves, though I don't really recommend it, the films message really boils down to "all women are helpless victims and all men are evil pigs". Which is what a lot of people THINK that feminism is and that is simply NOT TRUE.
Zach Snyder seems to be under the impression that having strong style and cool visuals all the time will compensate for the lack of a compelling story and interesting characters. This is, quite simply, not true. As demonstrated in other high octane blockbusters such as "Baby Driver" and "Mad Max: Fury Road", (which by the way is a much better representation of feminism), all of the visual spectacles you can create don't mean anything if the story, and especially the characters, are not compelling, sympathetic and interesting. The best blockbuster films are the ones that use special effects and high octane action scenes in service to the story and the characters growth. Incidentally, George Miller, the director and co-writer of "Mad Max: Fury Road" had an original plan for a Justice League film that never fell through. I would not object if Warner Brothers gave that plan another look.
'Wink-Wink'.
Another thing worth mentioning as to why Zach Snyder was not a good choice for this franchise, one that I almost overlooked, is that he is not even a fan of these characters. Hell, Zach Snyder doesn't even like superheroes in general. You see, Snyder is a fan of the works of Ayn Rand, whom you may remember as the author of "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged". Rand was, among other things, an objectivist. A political philosophy that believes that altruism is a weak ideology, and that those who embody said ideology are not only doomed to fail, but are also incapable of achieving anything. Zach Snyder does not BELIEVE in superhero's. He doesn't even seem to like them. This is greatly evidenced in his treatment of them in his films. Specifically in "Batman V. Superman" wherein Superman is depicted as a depressed masonic figure who can't get over the fact that people don't appreciate him, which is completely unlike his actual character, and Batman is depicted as a mindless, cruel and violent thug who thinks that murder is the solution to all of Earth's problems, which is even MORE unlike the actual character. If the director himself doesn't believe in what superheroes are all about, then how can you expect said director to deliver a compelling superhero movie?
Now, all of this comes back to "Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice", which is, as I've already mentioned, the worst film of 2016. There are many reasons for this and I have discussed a few of them in my previous video "Five reasons Batman V. Superman is a Bad Film", but the biggest reason I want to bring up here is reason number 4, playing catch up with Marvel. As I mentioned in the aforementioned video, Warner Brothers and DC Comics have been trying to catch up with MARVEL'S success. As such, "Batman V. Superman" shoved a truck load of things that are intended to be touched upon and developed further in the upcoming "Justice League" film and potentially even later down the line. This is an unwise move for many reasons but the most important reason, at least in my opinion, is that this new movie is going to have at least three brand new characters that we have never met before. As such, the film is going to spend a lot of time trying to get us invested in them despite us having just met them. Also, as I have already mentioned earlier, we are very likely not going to get any development at all because the film will be more concerned with how cool the shot said character is in will look or just how desaturated the color can be before it's actually black & white.
You see, the reason the MARVEL movies have been so successful is because they spend each and every movie progressing an interesting story, and developing a group if equally interesting and three dimensional characters. The Thor movies and "Avengers: Age of Ultron" are among the few exceptions. Hopefully "Thor: Ragnarok" will be better, but I digress. Anyway, the very first Avengers was successful, not because it had great action and lots of special effects, but because it was built up to with years of individual movies building up each of the main members of the team and culminating into a team of multi-background people with similar ideologies and one unifying motive. To do better. This created what is, as far as I am concerned, the greatest movie event...EVER!!! The very moment that Hulk punched out that giant monster and The Avengers had finally united and proclaimed to the forces of evil, "we're here and we're gonna F*%# you up", was the single greatest and most joyful moment I have ever shared with an audience in a movie theater. As the entire audience stood up and cheered the arrival of a super team that had come together to save the day and give us all hope for the future in every conceivable way.
Now, in comparison, what will "Justice League" likely deliver upon its release? Well, the only movies that have come before it have been one less than stellar Superman movie, a three and a half hour monstrosity featuring two people who looked like Batman and Superman, (I say looked like because neither of them were anything like the Batman and Superman that we would otherwise recognize), A failed attempt at a darker, mean spirited and brutal remake of "The Avengers" with "Suicide Squad", (which, as of this writing, I have not seen yet but really have no desire to see and have been told enough about the film to know that it's really not worth my time), and one really, really, REALLY great "Wonder Woman" movie. The upcoming Justice League is going to have three more characters, (Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash), who have not yet had their own movies and we will, supposedly, spend some time getting to know. Except I highly doubt it. This sounds like an experiment that is just doomed to fail.
Now, I've been going on about all the stuff that has been building up to "Justice League", but I haven't really touched upon the films actual production just yet. Aside from the expected problem of it being under Zach Snyder's misguided direction, the film's production has hit enough brick walls that it really shouldn't even bother trying to grace the silver screen. At least not in my opinion.
Now, we all knew that the film was very likely going to be bad simply by the virtue of it being under Zach Snyder's direction. However, that was not the only warning sign. The first sign of trouble was when Warner Brothers announced that they would be inserting more humor into the film. Specifically 30% more jokes, or something to that extent. This was a big warning sign because it meant that the only reason Warner Brothers thought "Batman V. Superman" was a failure was because, unlike the MARVEL movies, it didn't have any levity. So, not only did they announce that they would insert more humor into the "Justice League" movie, they went out of their way to reshoot scenes of "Suicide Squat" just a few months before its release so they could try and inject more humor into that movie as well.
This was a clear sign that Warner Brothers was trying too hard to fix the problem they had just created. It also showed that Warner Brothers, like most of the other major movie studios, had learned the WRONG LESSON. More jokes is not going to magically make your bad movie any better. If anything, it's going to make your bad movie worse. Because there is nothing more boring to sit through than a comedy that isn't funny or a serious drama that doesn't have any moments of good levity to relieve the heavy weight of the drama.
Then, not too long before the films completion, Zach Snyder suffered the aforementioned tragedy, which caused him to step down from his role as director. Prompting Warner Brothers to seek out a replacement in an effort to at least have the film completed. In their search, they eventually hired Joss Whedon, the director of "The Avengers", to complete the film. He then went to work writing new scenes for the film and, to my knowledge, began changing some of the creative decisions made during Zach Snyder's run.
This is yet another warning sign that the film is not likely going to be any good. Not to say anything against Joss Whedon's ability as a storyteller, in fact he is usually pretty good. However, because of his drastically different style of storytelling, (see "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Firefly" for an example), the film is likely going to have several moments in it that will make it painfully obvious that it is not one vision. Much like the criticisms that were put upon Steven Spielberg's "A.I.", (a film originally envisioned by Stanley Kubrick), it's easy to suspect that the "Justice League" film is going to be tonally schizophrenic. There will be moments that will make absolutely no sense, shifts of tone out of the blue and character moments that might seem funny at first but will likely turn out to be just badly improvised banter.
The next and latest warning sign was in regards to Cyborg himself. Apparently, someone involved in the creative process of the film, I can't say who, decided that his tone was "too dark". So they are going back to the drawing board yet again to try and liven it up some more. There really isn't much I can say about this other than it's kind of uncertain just how they plan to accomplish that.
With all of this in mind, I can't help but feel that the "Justice League" movie has too much going against it. It was mostly handled by a misguided director, then was picked up by another director on the opposite side of the spectrum, was put on hold by it's own studio to inject more humor, and now can't even decide how it wants to handle one of the new characters its planning to introduce. This feels so much like an obvious disaster waiting to happen that, in my honest opinion, Warner Brothers should simply not go through with it. They should simply pick this film up, put it on the shelf with the toys they haven't played with since they were little, and move on to something different and possibly better.
Now, I know that's not likely going to happen. Warner Brothers put an awful lot of money into this film, unwisely I might add, and they obviously have to at least try and make some of that money back. So, naturally, the only way they can accomplish this is to stay the course and release the film on their intended date.
Please understand, I do not mean to give the impression that I am a MARVEL fan boy and that I hate DC. I don't. I like DC. I like Superman and Batman and especially Wonder Woman. Which, by the way, is the best movie that DC has actually produced. I'm just getting really tired of the guys at Warner Brothers constantly making the wrong decisions with these characters. As much as I love and adore the original Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, I have longed for a new Superman movie that is just as good, if not even better. I have still yet to see said movie on the horizon. "Superman Returns" was close but not quite there.
Maybe this will all turn out to be wrong and the "Justice League" movie will actually turn out to be good and, believe you and me, I honestly hope that turns out to be the case. I just can't help but feel that, based upon everything I talked about, that it's just not going to happen. So, when this movie comes out this November, I will be walking into that theater with absolutely zero expectations. We'll see if it manages to raise the bar.
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets thins wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you all for reading.
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
The Dark Tower - 90 minutes of NOTHING
The works of Stephen King have had a very strange and often hilarious relationship with the silver screen. Everything from "Kujo" to "The Tommyknockers" have been met with a less than warm reception mostly due to their silly execution and bad acting. Part of this, at least in my opinion, is King's fault. By King's own admission, and I quote, "A lot of what I write is $#!@". His works have mostly been disturbing and often silly horror stories most of which have reoccurring elements. A character who's an alcoholic, a child with psychic powers, a disappointing resolution, and, most importantly, the story usually takes place in Maine. Not to mention, a lot of things in his books are things that literally sound good on paper but don't really work well on the screen. Case in point, in the book "The Shinning", one of the recurring scary things was hedge animals that would come to life and attack people. While in the film adaptation, (the one by Stanley Kubrick and not the made-for-TV mini series) they're nowhere to be found. Why? Because hedge animals are simply not scary. This is just one of many things found in King's works that might scare a reader but not a movie goer.
However, not all of Stephen King's works are bad and not all adaptations have been silly. Stephen King is a talented writer when he wants to be, and some of his good works have been put to screen. His most successful silver screen ventures have mostly been the ones directed by Frank Darabont, specifically his adaptations of "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile". Both of which are beautiful films and are true showcases of Stephen King's real writing talent. The best Stephen King stories, at least the ones put to film, are not the ones about the big scary monster, but rather the ones about people and the human spirit. Even the fantastic Netflix series "Stranger Things", which is not based upon anything Stephen King has written but obviously takes a lot of influence from his works, understands that what makes these stories good are the people and their contribution to the human condition.
The Dark Tower series, which I have not read, is arguably a series that is a bit of a step outside of King's usual storytelling. From what I understand, The Dark Tower series is a collection of eight books that take place in an alternate universe. It is one full of rich mythology and epic storytelling the likes of which would likely require its own HBO or Netflix series, or so I'm told. The gist of it is that there is a tower that protects all of the different worlds from evil, and, should the tower fall, darkness and fire will reign over all worlds. Said tower is protected by warriors known as gunslingers. Who are basically bad-ass cowboys with super special gun powers. This series has been adapted into a graphic novel titled "The Gunslinger Born", which I currently have a copy of resting on my night stand. After only a few pages, I am hooked.
Now, with all that in mind, how does this film adaptation stand? Well, as I have likely made clear, I cannot attest to the films accuracy to the books. I can really only judge it as a film. As such, this film is, quite literally, empty. It has the skeleton of a very interesting idea and the semblance of something epic and worth putting to the big screen...but it ultimately falls short. The other reviews you probably have read in which they call this film a ninety minute trailer are correct.
I was honestly disappointed in this film. Despite not having read any of the books, I was fascinated by the universe and stories from it. A lot of my friends who were reading the books at the time were telling me how amazing they were. How they were really good stories with rich & deep characters and mythology. How they were also really fun allegories for things in modern day, like the forgotten mythology of the cowboys, and the importance of child like perception. All of which sounds like awesome stuff that I was really looking forward to seeing in this film. Sadly, none of that was really present. I mean, it was kind of "there", but it didn't really have a presence.
The number of problems with this film are too many to count. So allow me to go over the main issues I personally had with it.
First, the characters. I get the impression that all of the characters are deep, rich and complex. I feel like they all have a lot to show and a lot to say. Yet, the film never gives any of them the chance to do so. There's a young boy, played by Tom Taylor, who has psychic powers and is powerful enough to destroy the dark tower, but we never learn anything about how he got these abilities or why. All we ever learn about him is that he's sad because his father died in a fire and...that's about it. Then there's the villain, the man in black, played by Matthew McConaughey, who really is a very cool villain and plays the part well, but we never really learn anything about him outside of the fact that he's evil. We never learn why he's evil, why he wants to destroy the dark tower, or even the nature of his relationship with the films hero. Speak of the Devil, there's arguably the most important character, The Gunslinger, played by Idris Elba, who, despite not being given much to work with, plays the role as well as he can. He has arguably the best moments in the film, wherein he shows off his gun fighting skills by reloading his Colt 45 by hand in less than two seconds, aims with precision constantly and does all kinds of fantastic reloading moves by catching preloaded cartridges in mid air with his gun and firing. Yet, none of that is as cool as it really deserves to be because there is nothing to this character in this movie, outside of being upset that the villain killed his father and that he's immune to the villains magic. Oh, yeah, almost forgot, the villain is a sorcerer who can catch bullets in mid air and has the power to simply tell people what to do such as stop breathing. He's basically Killgrave from "Jessica Jones". Only not as interesting.
Second, the script. This film, from what I understand, is an amalgamation of three of the books in the dark tower series. Specifically the ones that take place towards the end of the main story. As such, the film feels less like a story and more like a visual cliff notes. Nothing about the world is given any time to develop. There's one point in the film where the kid goes to a house and finds a portal to the other world only to be confronted by some kind of magical creature that he's able to destroy simply by yelling at it. This is never explained or utilized again. Furthermore, this is only one of the many things that just sort of happen in the film with no explanation or reoccurrence. The justification being, according to the films director, Nikolaj Arcel, that this film was to be a big introduction to things that would occur in later films. Which, anyone worth their salt will tell you, is NEVER a good idea. If you're only able to make one film at the moment, and can't guarantee that you will get to make more in the future, don't brush things off with the excuse of "We'll touch base on that in the next film". Concern yourself with what you are able to do here and now, not later down the line.
Finally, the runtime. This story appears to have so much mythology and character development that it seems it would benefit most from a full two hour running time. Maybe if the characters and the story were made interesting enough, a full two and a half hours. After all, if what we're presented with is interesting and compelling enough, we will gladly give it all the time it deserves. Sadly, that's not the case here. The director of this film insisted on keeping the film at a tight ninety minutes. His reasons were to ensure that the film didn't overwhelm the audience with it's mythology. Combine that with the fact that he tried to present everything in a way that would introduce the world to a new audience as well as try to accommodate fans of the books, and it just creates an unfocused mess. Everything moves too fast to be appreciated, none of the jokes are given time to land, character development is virtually nonexistent, and there are not enough action scenes to justify the lack of texture. And even when the action scenes do come around, they are just boring due to the lack of a reason to care.
Now, on the positive side, the production design is cool, the special effects are admirable, the acting on everyones part is good, the cinematography is pretty, and Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey are clearly having fun with there respected roles. Plus there is some good chemistry between Tom Taylor and Idris Elba. They are clearly working well together. Which is more than I can say for anyone else on the creative team.
Sadly that is not enough for me to recommend this film. It has so little meat on its bones that, despite the effects and action being pretty cool, it's just not interesting because we're never given a reason to care. That is, outside of the usual "save the world" shlep. Which, as I have said before, is NOT ENOUGH for an audience to invest in a story. If you want us to care about the world, then give us characters from said world we can invest and sympathize with. Give us characters we want to see survive the ordeal. Make us root for people to save the day. Because if we don't have that, none of the pretty visuals are going to mean anything. Take a note from "Mad Max: Fury Road" and do more than just be cool. Give us the REASON fore being cool.
In other words, just read the books, or, in my case, pick up the graphic novel adaptation. I'm only a few pages into it and it's already better than the movie.
Here's hoping the upcoming remake of "IT" turns out better.
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you all for reading.
However, not all of Stephen King's works are bad and not all adaptations have been silly. Stephen King is a talented writer when he wants to be, and some of his good works have been put to screen. His most successful silver screen ventures have mostly been the ones directed by Frank Darabont, specifically his adaptations of "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile". Both of which are beautiful films and are true showcases of Stephen King's real writing talent. The best Stephen King stories, at least the ones put to film, are not the ones about the big scary monster, but rather the ones about people and the human spirit. Even the fantastic Netflix series "Stranger Things", which is not based upon anything Stephen King has written but obviously takes a lot of influence from his works, understands that what makes these stories good are the people and their contribution to the human condition.
The Dark Tower series, which I have not read, is arguably a series that is a bit of a step outside of King's usual storytelling. From what I understand, The Dark Tower series is a collection of eight books that take place in an alternate universe. It is one full of rich mythology and epic storytelling the likes of which would likely require its own HBO or Netflix series, or so I'm told. The gist of it is that there is a tower that protects all of the different worlds from evil, and, should the tower fall, darkness and fire will reign over all worlds. Said tower is protected by warriors known as gunslingers. Who are basically bad-ass cowboys with super special gun powers. This series has been adapted into a graphic novel titled "The Gunslinger Born", which I currently have a copy of resting on my night stand. After only a few pages, I am hooked.
Now, with all that in mind, how does this film adaptation stand? Well, as I have likely made clear, I cannot attest to the films accuracy to the books. I can really only judge it as a film. As such, this film is, quite literally, empty. It has the skeleton of a very interesting idea and the semblance of something epic and worth putting to the big screen...but it ultimately falls short. The other reviews you probably have read in which they call this film a ninety minute trailer are correct.
I was honestly disappointed in this film. Despite not having read any of the books, I was fascinated by the universe and stories from it. A lot of my friends who were reading the books at the time were telling me how amazing they were. How they were really good stories with rich & deep characters and mythology. How they were also really fun allegories for things in modern day, like the forgotten mythology of the cowboys, and the importance of child like perception. All of which sounds like awesome stuff that I was really looking forward to seeing in this film. Sadly, none of that was really present. I mean, it was kind of "there", but it didn't really have a presence.
The number of problems with this film are too many to count. So allow me to go over the main issues I personally had with it.
First, the characters. I get the impression that all of the characters are deep, rich and complex. I feel like they all have a lot to show and a lot to say. Yet, the film never gives any of them the chance to do so. There's a young boy, played by Tom Taylor, who has psychic powers and is powerful enough to destroy the dark tower, but we never learn anything about how he got these abilities or why. All we ever learn about him is that he's sad because his father died in a fire and...that's about it. Then there's the villain, the man in black, played by Matthew McConaughey, who really is a very cool villain and plays the part well, but we never really learn anything about him outside of the fact that he's evil. We never learn why he's evil, why he wants to destroy the dark tower, or even the nature of his relationship with the films hero. Speak of the Devil, there's arguably the most important character, The Gunslinger, played by Idris Elba, who, despite not being given much to work with, plays the role as well as he can. He has arguably the best moments in the film, wherein he shows off his gun fighting skills by reloading his Colt 45 by hand in less than two seconds, aims with precision constantly and does all kinds of fantastic reloading moves by catching preloaded cartridges in mid air with his gun and firing. Yet, none of that is as cool as it really deserves to be because there is nothing to this character in this movie, outside of being upset that the villain killed his father and that he's immune to the villains magic. Oh, yeah, almost forgot, the villain is a sorcerer who can catch bullets in mid air and has the power to simply tell people what to do such as stop breathing. He's basically Killgrave from "Jessica Jones". Only not as interesting.
Second, the script. This film, from what I understand, is an amalgamation of three of the books in the dark tower series. Specifically the ones that take place towards the end of the main story. As such, the film feels less like a story and more like a visual cliff notes. Nothing about the world is given any time to develop. There's one point in the film where the kid goes to a house and finds a portal to the other world only to be confronted by some kind of magical creature that he's able to destroy simply by yelling at it. This is never explained or utilized again. Furthermore, this is only one of the many things that just sort of happen in the film with no explanation or reoccurrence. The justification being, according to the films director, Nikolaj Arcel, that this film was to be a big introduction to things that would occur in later films. Which, anyone worth their salt will tell you, is NEVER a good idea. If you're only able to make one film at the moment, and can't guarantee that you will get to make more in the future, don't brush things off with the excuse of "We'll touch base on that in the next film". Concern yourself with what you are able to do here and now, not later down the line.
Finally, the runtime. This story appears to have so much mythology and character development that it seems it would benefit most from a full two hour running time. Maybe if the characters and the story were made interesting enough, a full two and a half hours. After all, if what we're presented with is interesting and compelling enough, we will gladly give it all the time it deserves. Sadly, that's not the case here. The director of this film insisted on keeping the film at a tight ninety minutes. His reasons were to ensure that the film didn't overwhelm the audience with it's mythology. Combine that with the fact that he tried to present everything in a way that would introduce the world to a new audience as well as try to accommodate fans of the books, and it just creates an unfocused mess. Everything moves too fast to be appreciated, none of the jokes are given time to land, character development is virtually nonexistent, and there are not enough action scenes to justify the lack of texture. And even when the action scenes do come around, they are just boring due to the lack of a reason to care.
Now, on the positive side, the production design is cool, the special effects are admirable, the acting on everyones part is good, the cinematography is pretty, and Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey are clearly having fun with there respected roles. Plus there is some good chemistry between Tom Taylor and Idris Elba. They are clearly working well together. Which is more than I can say for anyone else on the creative team.
Sadly that is not enough for me to recommend this film. It has so little meat on its bones that, despite the effects and action being pretty cool, it's just not interesting because we're never given a reason to care. That is, outside of the usual "save the world" shlep. Which, as I have said before, is NOT ENOUGH for an audience to invest in a story. If you want us to care about the world, then give us characters from said world we can invest and sympathize with. Give us characters we want to see survive the ordeal. Make us root for people to save the day. Because if we don't have that, none of the pretty visuals are going to mean anything. Take a note from "Mad Max: Fury Road" and do more than just be cool. Give us the REASON fore being cool.
In other words, just read the books, or, in my case, pick up the graphic novel adaptation. I'm only a few pages into it and it's already better than the movie.
Here's hoping the upcoming remake of "IT" turns out better.
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you all for reading.
Dunkirk - The thunder & terror of war on film
Christopher Nolan is arguably one of the most fascinating directors of recent history. An old fashioned die hard film enthusiast with a passion for practical and in-camera effects, along with a strong narrative emphasis on emotion vs duty, wherein stoic professionalism is the highest virtue ever and those who embody that are brought down by emotional response, he is the kind of director who really works well with specific material. Case in point, his greatest film "Inception", a story about dreams and the subconscious mind, not only serves as a wonderful show case for practical and in-camera effects, but also perfectly embodies Nolan's personal philosophy. Thus the film is not only perfectly entertaining but is also not afraid to be smart. By contrast, his film "Interstellar", a story about intergalactic travel and the notion of love being the most quantifiable force in the Universe, was way out of his comfort zone. Add on the fact that Nolan went so out of his way to avoid using digital effects that none of the planets visited in the film looked remotely interesting. Anyone who has seen "Interstellar" can immediately tell that it was originally and obviously meant for Steven Spielberg.
Now, this is not to say that Nolan is a one note director. It's just to say that his general style is really best served in specific kinds of stories that can range from any number of genres. Fortunately, his new film "Dunkirk" is right up there in his wheel house.
For those of you who may not be familiar with this specific part of history, "Dunkirk" is the story of a battle and evacuation that occurred during World War II. Allied forces consisting of British and French soldiers retreated to the shores of Dunkirk, a coast in northern France, to await rescue. The soldiers found themselves stranded on the Beach, As there were simply not enough ships to carry away the troops nor enough smaller boats to get close to the shore. Combine that with enemy soldiers closing in on the allies and enemy fighter planes bombing the shore as well as the rescue boats and it's no wonder why what happens next is considered one of the greatest events in World War II history. Because of the lack of available military boats, British civilians were called into action and asked to sail to Dunkirk in order to rescue the soldiers. This event rescued over 300,000 allied soldiers.
Nolan's take on the events is not only done with taste but also has some of his well crafted signatures on it. Another part of Nolan's signature style is his sense of time. Nolan likes to tell events in a story out of order, as best showcased in his first big film "Memento". Although, in that films case, it made sense. Seeing as how that was the story of a man with short term memory problems, the jumbled and reversed sequence of events better served that films story. In the case of "Dunkirk", it also works in the films favor. The film doesn't really have a real protagonist as it has at least three "main" characters who are centered around the three different locations of the film. The first main character named Tommy, played by Fionn Whitehead, is a British soldier stranded on the beach who does everything he can to survive. The second main character named Mr. Dawson, played by Mark Rylance, is a former soldier on his way to Dunkirk on his private boat with his two sons. Along the way he picks up a lone survivor from a shipwreck known only as the Shivering Soldier, played by Cillian Murphy, who is suffering from shell shock and refuses to go back to Dunkirk. The third and final main character is a British fighter pilot named Farrier, played by Tom Hardy, (who is still difficult to understand), who flies over the Ocean trying to take down the enemy planes.
These three characters are the center pieces of the main event. Each area of the story takes place over a different amount of time, The events on land take place over the course of one week, the events on the Ocean take place over the course of one day, and the events in the air take place over the course of one hour. All three fit together and can be easy to miss if you're not paying attention. The film establishes this difference in time at the very beginning and does a pretty good job at keeping the events in order. It feels distorted just enough so that it becomes a challenge to keep track of things but not enough that it ever becomes incoherent. I suspect the intention was to show case the distortion of time that the soldiers likely felt as they all waited out the bombs and shootings as they tried to survive.
Speaking of distortion, this films MVP (Most Valuable Player) is, without question, the music. Composed by Hans Zimmer, the music is not only haunting and beautiful, but it also never lets up. It uses a series of orchestral and electronic sounds to create a constant state of tension. Throughout the entire runtime I felt the music as it hit every key scene and every quiet moment with a sense of urgency. This is something that most other filmmakers try to create using cheap tricks such as loud noises, shaky cam and rapid fire editing. None of which are present in this film.
Speaking of the camera, it is worth noting that I saw this film in IMAX, and I am totally confident in saying that this film is best seen in the format. Nolan loves, I repeat, LOVES, shooting his films in IMAX. The large format along side the more intense sound quality enhances the experience of this film dramatically. Unlike 3D or D-Box, IMAX is not a gimmick. It is a beautiful alternative format that creates very crisp and epic visuals. Something that this film defiantly needed. The format is not perfect. Because of the larger frame of film, it is really obvious when shots are out of focus. Fortunately, the team operating the cameras on this film were top of the line.
Even so, amongst all of these technological achievements, what I think truly sets this film apart, is the fact that it managed to convey the tension and hell of war without getting gory. Now, that is not to say that war films shouldn't be graphic, as I am of the firm opinion that war should never be watered down when it is put to film. Case in point, "Hacksaw Ridge" was the best war movie of last year. However, "Dunkirk" still manages to showcase the damage of war onto people without indulging in the graphic effects of it. People do die in this film and some people are physically, emotionally and psychologically scared. No one walks away from this event clean. It is the most tasteful war film I can remember seeing in recent years.
If this is playing near you, especially in IMAX, please go see it. It is a masterpiece in every way and deserves to be seen on the big screen. Just be sure to prepare yourself for the tension and maybe do something relaxing for a bit afterwards. You will need it.
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you for reading.
Now, this is not to say that Nolan is a one note director. It's just to say that his general style is really best served in specific kinds of stories that can range from any number of genres. Fortunately, his new film "Dunkirk" is right up there in his wheel house.
For those of you who may not be familiar with this specific part of history, "Dunkirk" is the story of a battle and evacuation that occurred during World War II. Allied forces consisting of British and French soldiers retreated to the shores of Dunkirk, a coast in northern France, to await rescue. The soldiers found themselves stranded on the Beach, As there were simply not enough ships to carry away the troops nor enough smaller boats to get close to the shore. Combine that with enemy soldiers closing in on the allies and enemy fighter planes bombing the shore as well as the rescue boats and it's no wonder why what happens next is considered one of the greatest events in World War II history. Because of the lack of available military boats, British civilians were called into action and asked to sail to Dunkirk in order to rescue the soldiers. This event rescued over 300,000 allied soldiers.
Nolan's take on the events is not only done with taste but also has some of his well crafted signatures on it. Another part of Nolan's signature style is his sense of time. Nolan likes to tell events in a story out of order, as best showcased in his first big film "Memento". Although, in that films case, it made sense. Seeing as how that was the story of a man with short term memory problems, the jumbled and reversed sequence of events better served that films story. In the case of "Dunkirk", it also works in the films favor. The film doesn't really have a real protagonist as it has at least three "main" characters who are centered around the three different locations of the film. The first main character named Tommy, played by Fionn Whitehead, is a British soldier stranded on the beach who does everything he can to survive. The second main character named Mr. Dawson, played by Mark Rylance, is a former soldier on his way to Dunkirk on his private boat with his two sons. Along the way he picks up a lone survivor from a shipwreck known only as the Shivering Soldier, played by Cillian Murphy, who is suffering from shell shock and refuses to go back to Dunkirk. The third and final main character is a British fighter pilot named Farrier, played by Tom Hardy, (who is still difficult to understand), who flies over the Ocean trying to take down the enemy planes.
These three characters are the center pieces of the main event. Each area of the story takes place over a different amount of time, The events on land take place over the course of one week, the events on the Ocean take place over the course of one day, and the events in the air take place over the course of one hour. All three fit together and can be easy to miss if you're not paying attention. The film establishes this difference in time at the very beginning and does a pretty good job at keeping the events in order. It feels distorted just enough so that it becomes a challenge to keep track of things but not enough that it ever becomes incoherent. I suspect the intention was to show case the distortion of time that the soldiers likely felt as they all waited out the bombs and shootings as they tried to survive.
Speaking of distortion, this films MVP (Most Valuable Player) is, without question, the music. Composed by Hans Zimmer, the music is not only haunting and beautiful, but it also never lets up. It uses a series of orchestral and electronic sounds to create a constant state of tension. Throughout the entire runtime I felt the music as it hit every key scene and every quiet moment with a sense of urgency. This is something that most other filmmakers try to create using cheap tricks such as loud noises, shaky cam and rapid fire editing. None of which are present in this film.
Speaking of the camera, it is worth noting that I saw this film in IMAX, and I am totally confident in saying that this film is best seen in the format. Nolan loves, I repeat, LOVES, shooting his films in IMAX. The large format along side the more intense sound quality enhances the experience of this film dramatically. Unlike 3D or D-Box, IMAX is not a gimmick. It is a beautiful alternative format that creates very crisp and epic visuals. Something that this film defiantly needed. The format is not perfect. Because of the larger frame of film, it is really obvious when shots are out of focus. Fortunately, the team operating the cameras on this film were top of the line.
Even so, amongst all of these technological achievements, what I think truly sets this film apart, is the fact that it managed to convey the tension and hell of war without getting gory. Now, that is not to say that war films shouldn't be graphic, as I am of the firm opinion that war should never be watered down when it is put to film. Case in point, "Hacksaw Ridge" was the best war movie of last year. However, "Dunkirk" still manages to showcase the damage of war onto people without indulging in the graphic effects of it. People do die in this film and some people are physically, emotionally and psychologically scared. No one walks away from this event clean. It is the most tasteful war film I can remember seeing in recent years.
If this is playing near you, especially in IMAX, please go see it. It is a masterpiece in every way and deserves to be seen on the big screen. Just be sure to prepare yourself for the tension and maybe do something relaxing for a bit afterwards. You will need it.
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you for reading.
Friday, August 4, 2017
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets - Epically pretty but equally messy.
This movie, based upon a series of French comic books titled "Valerian and Laureline" written by Pierre Christin and illustrated by Jean-Claude Mezieres, comes to us curtesy of writer/director Luc Besson, the guy who made "The Fifth Element". Much like the aforementioned film this new one is also a veritable treasure chest of science fiction. It's got tons of unique aliens, awesome technology and fantastical worlds that could only be realized with modern technology. The designs and concepts that are on display in this film all give an aura of passion and love for the craft of strange and new worlds and ideas. It is the perfect kind of material that only someone like Besson could deliver to the big screen. I just really wish that he did so with a more critical eye of his script and his casting.
Starting with the script. Not having read any of the aforementioned comic books I cannot attest to this films accuracy to the source material. Nor should I, as I am a firm believer that a film must be judged on its own merits alone and not the merits of its faithfulness to source material or lack there of. Anyway, this script tells the story of two main characters. Valerian (played by Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (played by Cara Delevingne), who are both soldiers of the human military that protects a massive space station known as Alpha. A planet sized space station comprised of millions of people and thousands of different species and races. All of whom have gathered together at this station to share their collected knowledge and resources. While returning home from a mission their commander is abducted and taken into the Red Zone, a sectioned off area of the station due to a supposed radiation leak. Our two heroes must find and rescue the commander all while trying to solve the mystery of an unknown alien species that, not only may be connected to the commanders capture, but may also be the answer to an even greater threat.
The story is great. It has a good commentary on the human condition as all good science fiction usually does, and takes place in a world filled to the brim with fantastic elements the likes of which haven't been brought to the big screen in a long time. Sadly, that is also part of the films problem. It has so much stuff to show us, so many places to go to, and so much stuff to establish that at least two thirds of the dialogue spoken by our main characters, as well as some of the supporting cast, is just exposition. At one point it even uses the much hated "as you know" phrase. Which, anyone who knows anything about scriptwriting will tell you, is a lazy and nonsensical method of exposition. If the characters already know what you're talking about, why are you giving them this information again?
This overly crowded script also affects some of the supporting cast, most of which are very interesting characters who not only deserve more time in the spotlight, but also could very easily have their own spin-off story. One character in particular named Bubble (played by Rihanna) is a supporting character who only has at most 15 minutes of screen time, and even then, not until the tail end of the second act. Bubble is a Jellyfish kind of alien that can change her shape and voice much like Mystique from "The X-Men". Only difference is that her character is a young aspiring performer/actress, who has been forced into working as an exotic dancer, utilizing her morphing ability to become any and all kind of fetishes for customers. As such she has a major identity crisis where she, in her own words, "finds it hard to live a life with an identity that is not her own." I'm pretty sure I'm paraphrasing there.
My point is that this character has a lot of texture that could have been more or at least better explored in this film. She could have even been introduced earlier in the film and had a more satisfying character arc. Instead she becomes one of many ideas that have a lot of potential but are not given enough time to develop and build interest with. I admit that maybe part my feelings about this character stem from appreciating that she was played by someone who was really putting in the effort to play the character as opposed to our two leads. Which brings me to the next main problem with the film.
The two leading actors, Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne are HORRIBLE actors. Neither of these two can carry a scene, portray an emotion other than stoic, deliver a line of dialogue with conviction or even smile. Also, when they do smile, it's never genuine. It feels so forced and uncomfortable like they're a pair of robots TRYING to mimic human speech and behavior. Combine that with the fact that they clearly don't have any chemistry at all on screen and it becomes really had to get invested in these characters. I know that this film is more about the fantastic visuals and the massive world it's creating, both of which are very well done and wonderful to see and worth exploring, but just not with these two lead characters if they're being played by such empty vessels.
Cara Delevingne especially is just an absolute bore to watch. She's asked to carry a big chunk of the films emotional weight with her character and she just can't do it at all. I hate to call it out like this because I really don't want to come off as a sexist bully but there's simply no denying that this young lady simply can't act. She looks gorgeous and I'm sure that she is a fantastic professional when it comes to modeling (which is her real profession) but that doesn't make her capable of playing a character, let alone provide any emotional weight to the story.
Oh, and the biggest problem with these two actors...THEY'RE TOO YOUNG!!! Based purely on their dialogue and how it's established that these two characters have known each other and have been working together for as long as they claim, given how both of these actors are clearly in their mid 20s or very early 30s it becomes very hard to believe anything about their history. Unless they started working together in the military when they were in elementary school. These characters really called for a pair of more seasoned actors. Like, this movie might have made more sense if they had cast Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams. Both of whom look more these parts and, as demonstrated in "Arrival", are capable of portraying chemistry on screen. Plus, Amy Adams is fantastic at carrying emotional weight to a story.
However, despite my personal issues with this film, it is still a fantastic experience that I would recommend seeing in theaters. I have it on reasonably good authority that this film, flaws and all, will likely dictate the kind of movies we can expect from Hollywood for the next ten years. If this movie does not do well enough at the box office, we may never see more original and unusual concepts like this ever again. Instead we will likely be barraged with sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, re-imagenings and superhero movies. And as much as I enjoy superhero movies, I really don't want them to become the absolute dominate blockbuster for the next ten years.
Therefore, I would still encourage you to see this movie if only for the wonderful experience it provides. It must be seen in theaters to be believed. Just try to pretend the two leads are played by better actors. It'll help.
Ladies and Genelman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong and when they get things right. Thank you for reading.
Starting with the script. Not having read any of the aforementioned comic books I cannot attest to this films accuracy to the source material. Nor should I, as I am a firm believer that a film must be judged on its own merits alone and not the merits of its faithfulness to source material or lack there of. Anyway, this script tells the story of two main characters. Valerian (played by Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (played by Cara Delevingne), who are both soldiers of the human military that protects a massive space station known as Alpha. A planet sized space station comprised of millions of people and thousands of different species and races. All of whom have gathered together at this station to share their collected knowledge and resources. While returning home from a mission their commander is abducted and taken into the Red Zone, a sectioned off area of the station due to a supposed radiation leak. Our two heroes must find and rescue the commander all while trying to solve the mystery of an unknown alien species that, not only may be connected to the commanders capture, but may also be the answer to an even greater threat.
The story is great. It has a good commentary on the human condition as all good science fiction usually does, and takes place in a world filled to the brim with fantastic elements the likes of which haven't been brought to the big screen in a long time. Sadly, that is also part of the films problem. It has so much stuff to show us, so many places to go to, and so much stuff to establish that at least two thirds of the dialogue spoken by our main characters, as well as some of the supporting cast, is just exposition. At one point it even uses the much hated "as you know" phrase. Which, anyone who knows anything about scriptwriting will tell you, is a lazy and nonsensical method of exposition. If the characters already know what you're talking about, why are you giving them this information again?
This overly crowded script also affects some of the supporting cast, most of which are very interesting characters who not only deserve more time in the spotlight, but also could very easily have their own spin-off story. One character in particular named Bubble (played by Rihanna) is a supporting character who only has at most 15 minutes of screen time, and even then, not until the tail end of the second act. Bubble is a Jellyfish kind of alien that can change her shape and voice much like Mystique from "The X-Men". Only difference is that her character is a young aspiring performer/actress, who has been forced into working as an exotic dancer, utilizing her morphing ability to become any and all kind of fetishes for customers. As such she has a major identity crisis where she, in her own words, "finds it hard to live a life with an identity that is not her own." I'm pretty sure I'm paraphrasing there.
My point is that this character has a lot of texture that could have been more or at least better explored in this film. She could have even been introduced earlier in the film and had a more satisfying character arc. Instead she becomes one of many ideas that have a lot of potential but are not given enough time to develop and build interest with. I admit that maybe part my feelings about this character stem from appreciating that she was played by someone who was really putting in the effort to play the character as opposed to our two leads. Which brings me to the next main problem with the film.
The two leading actors, Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne are HORRIBLE actors. Neither of these two can carry a scene, portray an emotion other than stoic, deliver a line of dialogue with conviction or even smile. Also, when they do smile, it's never genuine. It feels so forced and uncomfortable like they're a pair of robots TRYING to mimic human speech and behavior. Combine that with the fact that they clearly don't have any chemistry at all on screen and it becomes really had to get invested in these characters. I know that this film is more about the fantastic visuals and the massive world it's creating, both of which are very well done and wonderful to see and worth exploring, but just not with these two lead characters if they're being played by such empty vessels.
Cara Delevingne especially is just an absolute bore to watch. She's asked to carry a big chunk of the films emotional weight with her character and she just can't do it at all. I hate to call it out like this because I really don't want to come off as a sexist bully but there's simply no denying that this young lady simply can't act. She looks gorgeous and I'm sure that she is a fantastic professional when it comes to modeling (which is her real profession) but that doesn't make her capable of playing a character, let alone provide any emotional weight to the story.
Oh, and the biggest problem with these two actors...THEY'RE TOO YOUNG!!! Based purely on their dialogue and how it's established that these two characters have known each other and have been working together for as long as they claim, given how both of these actors are clearly in their mid 20s or very early 30s it becomes very hard to believe anything about their history. Unless they started working together in the military when they were in elementary school. These characters really called for a pair of more seasoned actors. Like, this movie might have made more sense if they had cast Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams. Both of whom look more these parts and, as demonstrated in "Arrival", are capable of portraying chemistry on screen. Plus, Amy Adams is fantastic at carrying emotional weight to a story.
However, despite my personal issues with this film, it is still a fantastic experience that I would recommend seeing in theaters. I have it on reasonably good authority that this film, flaws and all, will likely dictate the kind of movies we can expect from Hollywood for the next ten years. If this movie does not do well enough at the box office, we may never see more original and unusual concepts like this ever again. Instead we will likely be barraged with sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, re-imagenings and superhero movies. And as much as I enjoy superhero movies, I really don't want them to become the absolute dominate blockbuster for the next ten years.
Therefore, I would still encourage you to see this movie if only for the wonderful experience it provides. It must be seen in theaters to be believed. Just try to pretend the two leads are played by better actors. It'll help.
Ladies and Genelman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong and when they get things right. Thank you for reading.
Atomic Blonde - Great action make up for convolution
Charlize Theron is a Hollywood treasure. Genuinely talented as an actress, glamorous both on screen and off, intelligent and committed to her craft. She is so good at what she does that, even when she's in a bad movie, she can make said bad movie tolerable. Case in point: "Snow White & The Huntsman". Although, her best performance by far has to be in "Mad Max: Fury Road". As she not only successfully carried the whole movie but she did so almost entirely with her commanding presence. You can tell what her character was feeling and thinking just by looking at her expressions. The mark of a true talent if ever I've seen one. So, you'll understand me when I say that her performance in "Atomic Blonde" is almost the ONLY thing in that movie that was worth my time and was worth remembering. Because, had it not been for Charlize Theron, this movie would have been a bigger disappointment than it already is.
"Atomic Blonde" is a film based upon the British graphic novel "The Coldest City" written by Anthony Johnston and illustrated by Sam Hart. Taking place during the tail end of the Cold War just days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the story tells of a top notch S.A.S agent named Lorraine Broughton (played by Charlize Theron), who is sent to Berlin to track down and recover a Mcguffin known as The List. A microfilm containing the identities of undercover agents all over the world. While on assignment Lorraine meets up with her contact named David Percival (played by James McAvoy) who helps her navigate Berlin's underground network of criminals and other spies. Along the way she forms a relationship with a young and up-in-coming agent named Delphine (played by Sophia Boutella) all the while engaging in some of the best choreographed and staged fight scenes put to film.
It is worth noting that Charlize Theron put in so much effort and commitment to the action and fight scenes that, not only did she punish her own body in months of training and practicing, she even chipped two of her own teeth while shooting a scene. That's commitment.
Now, the thing about this movie that makes it so dissipating to me is that it's yet another case of Hollywood making progress but seemingly trying to deliberately hold said progress back for no reason other than they're afraid of change and want to discourage it from ever happening. In this case, here we have an action oriented espionage thriller lead by a woman, which is more rare than you might think, that is bogged down by a less-than-stellar script and bad creative choices everywhere else. Namely the color palette.
First, the script:
The film chooses to use the overused cliche of having our main character being interrogated about the events that the film is about much like the narrative style utilized in "The Usual Suspects". Except in that movie, both the story being told and the interrogation scenes were well defined and equally invigorating. Whereas with "Atomic Blonde" it's treated with a heavy dose of "I'm cool and totally serious so take me seriously, okay" vibe that just reeks of a lack of confidence and competence. The screenwriters seemed to be under the impression that pretending to look cool is equal to actually being cool. It also doesn't help that the script has mistake being convoluted for complex. The movie constantly goes through twist after twist and loop hole and back stabbing that it becomes more and more difficult to remember who is who, what they're doing and why. Not at all helped by the fact that all the characters, except for Theron obviously, are very difficult to distinguish between. Which leads me to the next main issue with this movie.
Second, the color palette:
The graphic novel this film was based upon is printed in black and white. A common artistic choice for independent comics. Now, when adapting a graphic novel in this style, filmmakers often have to choose between shooting the film in black and white or just shooting in a normal color style. The filmmakers behind "Atomic Blonde" appear to have attempted a middle ground compromise. As such the whole film is filled to the brim with layers upon layers of dull grey tones occasionally spiced up by muted neon color lights. As such it makes the film simply bland thus boring to look it. So much so that I'm pretty sure it made me almost fall asleep once or twice.
The good news however is that all of this is fairly easy to put up with thanks in large part to Theron's top notch performance and her stunning action fight scenes. All of which are exhilarating and brutal. This film was directed by David Leitch. A stunt coordinator who previously co-directed "John Wick". If you have not seen that movie, please do so. It's really good. As such the action scenes are staged and shot with precision and the utmost clarity. There is never any of that obnoxious shaky cam or rapid fire editing found is most action movies today. This movie presents its action with the proper execution normally found in old fashioned Kung-Fu movies. They are, without a doubt, the best part of the movie. Especially the final fight scene which takes place all in one long take.
Sadly, despite these parts of the film being some of the best I've seen so far, and being lead by a great leading lady, this movie fails to deliver a compelling narrative. Which is very annoying because there is no reason a movie like this should not have one. A move can be a brutal action fest and still have a compelling story. You just need to take the time and effort to do so.
The only reason I would recommend seeing this movie is for Theron and her commitment to the perfection of her role. Do not see this movie for the story because it will probably bore you. At the very lease, if we give this movie enough of our money, it will convince Hollywood to put more women in lead role in these kind of action movies. Which is something we really, really need more of.
Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong and when they get things right. Thank you for reading.
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Why the change?
I think I owe it to my viewers and myself to offer some explanation as to why I am transitioning the way I am.
First, to all of my subscribers on YouTube, I thank you for your support and your interest in my thoughts and insight. I hope you will all continue to enjoy my content as I use my video platform for, what I believe to be, something more interesting.
I have enjoyed making video reviews of movies. I really tried to do it with main stream movies exclusively. Partially because that made the most sense to me at the time and also because I wanted to try and break into more professional avenues of movie reviewing. However, over time this proved to be more difficult than expected.
As time went by I found it more and more difficult to justify my efforts put into making these video reviews of main stream movies when I was not really reaping any real benefits from it. I am not working for a magazine or another website. I am not recognized by any critics union or the like. I was simply doing it for fun and for love of Cinema. Yet, even so, with the dwindling nature of Hollywood, them repeating the same mistakes and providing less and less quality entertainment, it felt shallow for me to give them so much of my time and energy in video reviews when, in the end, they don't really need it.
Despite that, I still enjoy seeing main stream movies and talking about them. Because even though Hollywood is imploding, they still occasionally put out something really good that deserves to be seen. Because of this, I am not giving up reviewing main stream movies. I simply feel that my thoughts, feelings and insights would be better served in written form. This way I can have a review for a new movie out much earlier than before and have my thought and feelings about them presented in their full and clear intention.
This will allow me to provide my full attention the the highs and lows of any given main stream movie and will allow me the opportunity to be more through in my commentary.
Make no mistake, TheNorm is not going anywhere. As long as there are movies to be seen I will always be there to provide my feelings and thoughts about them. I hope you will all join me on this new avenue and hopefully learn something new along the way.
Ladies and Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong and when they get things right.
Thank you all for reading.
First, to all of my subscribers on YouTube, I thank you for your support and your interest in my thoughts and insight. I hope you will all continue to enjoy my content as I use my video platform for, what I believe to be, something more interesting.
I have enjoyed making video reviews of movies. I really tried to do it with main stream movies exclusively. Partially because that made the most sense to me at the time and also because I wanted to try and break into more professional avenues of movie reviewing. However, over time this proved to be more difficult than expected.
As time went by I found it more and more difficult to justify my efforts put into making these video reviews of main stream movies when I was not really reaping any real benefits from it. I am not working for a magazine or another website. I am not recognized by any critics union or the like. I was simply doing it for fun and for love of Cinema. Yet, even so, with the dwindling nature of Hollywood, them repeating the same mistakes and providing less and less quality entertainment, it felt shallow for me to give them so much of my time and energy in video reviews when, in the end, they don't really need it.
Despite that, I still enjoy seeing main stream movies and talking about them. Because even though Hollywood is imploding, they still occasionally put out something really good that deserves to be seen. Because of this, I am not giving up reviewing main stream movies. I simply feel that my thoughts, feelings and insights would be better served in written form. This way I can have a review for a new movie out much earlier than before and have my thought and feelings about them presented in their full and clear intention.
This will allow me to provide my full attention the the highs and lows of any given main stream movie and will allow me the opportunity to be more through in my commentary.
Make no mistake, TheNorm is not going anywhere. As long as there are movies to be seen I will always be there to provide my feelings and thoughts about them. I hope you will all join me on this new avenue and hopefully learn something new along the way.
Ladies and Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong and when they get things right.
Thank you all for reading.
Welcome to my new platform
Hey everyone,
Well, this is going to be a fun change. In all honestly, I'm done with giving Hollywood movies my time and energy with video movie reviews. I would prefer to spend my video time with smaller independent, obscure and even older movies to talk about. However, even so, I still enjoy talking about main stream movies. Therefore, I think my reviews for these movies would be better served in written form. I hope you enjoy this new venture as much I think I will.
My first main stream movie review on this platform will likely be the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower". I'm pretty excited for this one. Here's hoping it's worth the hype.
Ladies and Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right.
Thank you for reading.
Well, this is going to be a fun change. In all honestly, I'm done with giving Hollywood movies my time and energy with video movie reviews. I would prefer to spend my video time with smaller independent, obscure and even older movies to talk about. However, even so, I still enjoy talking about main stream movies. Therefore, I think my reviews for these movies would be better served in written form. I hope you enjoy this new venture as much I think I will.
My first main stream movie review on this platform will likely be the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower". I'm pretty excited for this one. Here's hoping it's worth the hype.
Ladies and Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right.
Thank you for reading.
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