Super 8 (2011)

I was thinking this morning to write in this entry about the last Harry Potter. But I told myself to wait until the evening to add one more movie on the list of the ones I've seen this week (which I think is a record for this year = I'm finally in vacation .. at least theoretically). The result is that after watching "Super 8" I've changed the topic title as it can be observed, although I can't say that on my scale is much difference between the two, both being around 3.5 out of 5. Anyway, I've chosen "Super 8" because it fits perfectly to the "summer movie" description as I see it = we have a mix of adventure, drama, & love story in a SF (which is actually quite light as effective SF elements = 1979, on Earth, with .. almost entirely .. normal people). So it covers pretty much all the age categories considering the potential public target.

The action is set in a small fictive town from US, where a small group of children tries to shoot a zombie movie for entering a contest. One of the shooting sessions taking place in an abandoned train station is interrupted by a derailed train, fact that actually starts the development of the plot. 1. The train doesn't seem to be a usual train, but one belonging to the US Air Force, 2. The derailing is not accidental but provoked by a biology professor acting as a kamikaze behind a truck's steering wheel and 3. From the train something escapes ... To find out exactly what, and other details, :) go see the movie. The plot is nicely developed, although not very complex. On top of that the script itself has plenty of cliche and also some small gaps in the production. If you've seen the last "Star Trek" by the same J.J.Abrams you can compare the both to get the idea. It is pretty much the same = watchable, not boring, but you shouldn't expect any complexity from the story, which after all is not that original when you look at it in the end, especially if you take each piece individually. The part that adds the watching value is mainly that you don't get the whole story once. It reveals gradually piece by piece and that matters a lot in keeping a sort of illusion that covers the lack of depth.

I'm quite sure that the movie would've been received better if it was in 3D (I'm not a 3D fan by the way ...) especially considering that the cinematography is not very original, and the effects are the ones that steal the show. Anyway, even in 2D these look very good, probably on top being the train accident. Apart from the technical part, the first thing to notice is the children group "carrying" basically the movie from the beginning to the end, and whom I tend to believe that we'll be hearing of again as names in the next generation of actors.

Despite the fact that the story is in the end relatively simple, this impression is covered like I said above throughout the movie by the way it unveils. What should be mentioned are some tendencies/resemblance with other older titles, that might bring some pleasant memories for who has seen them :) . I would mention here "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" by Spielberg (who is actually producing "Super 8"). I don't recall the movie in details, but visually, as setting and I would risk to say also as sound I think it relates to what you can see in "Super 8". Another reference, quite explicit this time ( just watch the credits ... or what's near them :) ) is Romero, about who (coincidence) I was writing in the previous entry about "The Crazies". The reference doesn't stop at the name and at the zombie movie the kids are trying to shoot but it goes in depth a bit further up to the idea of crisis cell managed by the army, and also other stuff, but I'm not sure it's ok to give more details because I'm really getting close to spoiling something :) . So, the conclusion is like I was stating in the beginning, around 3.5 out of 5 .. but since I'm always rounding ;) ...

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Crazies (2010)

I know I'm saying this too often, but this time I really have an acute seizure of the general chronic time crisis, so I don't know how much I'll be on topic in what's next because I don't have many minutes allocated for writing. I've chosen a horror for this week, because (with the exception of the last preview series) it's been a while I think since my last entry on the genre. "The Crazies" is a remake after a movie made by George Romero quite a long time ago. In case the name doesn't sound familiar it's about the creator of the "of the Dead" series, started in the '60s and which got up to 5-6 movies I believe until today. In case "of the Dead" doesn't ring a bell neither, it's about, I don't know if the initiation but practically the series that imposed the "zombie horror" as a genre. The first three movie, if I'm not wrong about the number are significant for this segment, the level being far superior to many other cheaper imitations. The last of the series went a bit too much to the commercial side in my point of view (+ it seems that Romero doesn't have anymore such better script ideas as he had when he was younger).

Well, getting back to "The Crazies", this is not part of the mentioned "of the Dead" series, but it can be include pretty much in the same horror genre. Instead of zombies we have a virus that apparently starts with increasing the irascibility of the carrier, goes on with dementia, and finally death ( definitive = no zombies, by definition :) ). Well, the story starts with the classic out of control military weapon plot resulting in the effects mentioned above taking place in a small town. Of course followed by the same army that tries to quarantine the area (more or less forever) and all the things we've seen quite a lot in other movies. What's catchy (at least for me) in all this stuff is the way the diverse characters and subplots are integrated in a context that has been overused since Romero's first movie (if not before). And of course I won't give any more details about this :) because spoils all the fun.

For me categorizing this type of movie as horror, in the case of the productions that really prove themselves to worth seeing, is purely commercial. For this side you have some amounts of spilled blood that should attract also the population wishing to see red screens, but in the same genre you have also much lighter movies considering this like Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13" ( or "They Live" also by Carpenter, although I don't know how light is that :) ). So, leaving apart the horror as a genre, and thinking on the crisis situation context where you have a hand of protagonists as said also above, you get a catastrophe movie (as in "2012"), or a drama (as in "Hotel Rwanda" - to be excused the comparison, but I really can't think on anything else right now), or both. The script (once again, talking about a movie that it's above a certain level) gets the possibility to exploit a bunch of aspects in the context it's placed, from character conflicts up to psychological analysis masked by the action (to think of the utopia/fantasy of having a mall at your own disposal ... started by "Dawn of the Dead" and used in lots of other places, including the current title). That's the part that really makes a movie of this genre worth seeing. I couldn't say about "The Crazies" that gets to the same level with the most complex titles with respect to this. The action is predominant, but is not cheap, is not exaggerated (considering it's still a horror), it makes the movie watchable, but still letting some space for small reflections :) Slightly subjective ...

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Eagle (2011)

It happened that this week I saw "The Eagle", movie directed by the same guy that did the 2009 version of "State of Play" which I was almost bashing :) last week. I didn't pay much attention to the directing part then because the script was the most catastrophic part of the movie. So I didn't knew who is Kevin Macdonald, and what he had done before. Consequently I couldn't link him with "The Eagle" before I've actually watched the movie. Probably if I would have made the connection between the two before I would have skipped it, especially considering that IMDb ranks it lower than other pretty similar flick - "Centurion" - about which I wrote ( bad stuff :) ) something like a few months ago. Well, fortunately, I didn't "ditched" the movie ... :) which is good, considering that lately I don't have time to see enough stuff getting quite hard to be lucky enough to get over something really deserving a blog entry.

I was telling above something about being quite close to "Centurion". The story there was revolving arounf the IX-th Roman Legion, which went missing in action somewhere around year 100 in Britain, and about whose fate there isn't a very clear theory up until today, the general opinion being that it was massacred by the local tribes. What we were presented with in "Centurion" was exactly this story + the fate of a few Romans who managed to flee from the enemy. All that was wrapped in a hardly believable context, quite chaotic and filled with bloodshed just to move your attention away from the huge script holes. "The Eagle" has its action set some years after "Centurion", and although it doesn't have any direct connection with the other movie, it could be regarded as a sequel. The son of the commander of the IX-th Legion asks to be placed in charge of a fort in Britain, with the personal purpose of regaining the honor lost by his family when his father didn't return from battle and the legion's Roman eagle disappeared along him. I know, the idea/story sounds quite .. cheesy, let's say, and unfortunately it really is in some parts of the movie, especially in the cliche filled final. But, leaving apart the main idea = to get the glory back by finding in the savage enemy territory a big bird on a stick, (I see it exactly like this, no matter how important could be considered as a symbol), the stuff that complements this main action line - from the narrative part - the context, the way the story advances, up to the movie making - directing, cinematography, editing, etc , really worth the time spent watching.

I won't get into more detail with the story than I already did (the trailer will give you a bit more and I think it's enough). The movie is based on a book, and probably that's the reason it's a bit more complex like a simple run session between barbarian hordes as we had in "Centurion". A bit more complex doesn't mean however very complex, and that's exactly why I started today's entry referring to directing. Because that's the part that raises the movie level (quite a lot). It somehow manages to be likable as final result despite all the "crazy quest for glory" that probably impresses up to 12-15 years old but not much more after, despite the lack of any romance subplot, and despite the predictability of the story. I could take them and give a detailed point of view on each about how the directing manages to mask the problem (although some are visible from time to time, and unfortunately quite a lot in the final part, which makes the overall impression to drop a bit), but if I'm starting to explain more I'm afraid I won't finish soon enough and it will be a long & boring entry :) What I would like to say more related to directing is that after I've seen "The Eagle" I also found out that the same Kevin Macdonald also directed "The Last King of Scotland", movie that I can definitely recommend for anybody who didn't see it already, and for who did .. for sure "The Eagle" it's not the same caliber, but you can see some commonalities in the directing.

I'll end with a couple of words about the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). The movie is very nicely shot, you get too see pretty much everything - from action scenes shot in "kinetic camera" decent enough for how much I like the technique :), open scenes, flashbacks, slow motion, etc. What I liked the most was the chromatic which is relatively warm. This is opposite to the one in "Centurion" for instance, which is cold, making that all the excessive violence to be even better perceived there. In "The Eagle" I could actually say that it's a bit too "Disney" :) on that = besides the fact that the harsh scene are quite censored, the color gives an air of calm to top it. Thing that doesn't put you asleep (which, for me at least, happens in other similar cases like "The Last of the Mohicans" ) , and it's because you still have enough action to keep you awake. And also in some scenes "the contrast", figuratively speaking, between the level of suspense/tension and the calm of the color is big enough to give an effect of .. don't know .. something like what you feel when you see in a sunny summer day that dark clouds are gathering and the light starts fading into a yellowish pale that is as much warm as storm predicting :)

Rating: 4 out of 5

State of Play (2003 vs. 2009)

It's probably not a very good idea to compare a TV mini series with a big screen movie, but considering that today I don't have any other better subject, this is exactly what I'm going to do. "State of Play" is a thriller, let's say .. a political one, released by BBC as a pretty successful (at least in UK) mini series in 2003. In 2009 Universal came up with the American version, which again as far as I heard was received quite well by both public and critics. I however, see a big difference between the two, and I'm not referring to the budget ...

I'll start with the part both have in common - the story. The action starts with an apparently accidental death occured in a metro station of a female member in a governmental commission. This is rapidly followed by a killing in which a petty thief is killed on a side street, the only witness being also shot and sent into a coma by the assassin. The flow of events gets back on the first direction where the chief of the mentioned commission gets into tears while announcing the unfortunate event during a public hearing. Fact that immediately suggests to all the present press that something beyond professional boundaries was going on between the political figure and his recently deceased employee. From here, we move in a newspaper headquarters where a group of journalists, led by a friend of the government guy start investigating the issue ... which ends up being more complicated to solve than the Minotaur's Labyrinth. And from here the difference starts ... the labyrinth part is mainly valid for the English version. For the US one, considering the time is also shorter, the action is a bit accelerated = some walls are broken to reach the exit faster. Even the end twis is slightly different handled, but I'll let the movie to say more. I think it's sufficient what I wrote about the story already.

The first version I've seen was the British one. It looked overrated to me = excessively long - 6 one hour episodes, thing that also caused to be a bit predictable in some parts, although I can't say that it got to the point to be boring. After that, I've seen the US version which compressed the action from 6 to 2 hours = exactly what I was mentioning above. However, the big problem is not that it loses complexity (although, to be sincere, this also matters quite a lot). Because I already knew the story I was able to focus on some other aspects. The first is that the script is definitely worst - from cliche lines to adapting the action in a more annoying "politically correct" US targeted style (only one sample for which I don't see any big reason of change, but it did - the bad guys are not anymore coming from the oil business, being from the evil army private contractors side). Another part is the one related to the actors. Leaving out the thing that in the US version some characters are completely cut, despite the apparently first hand cast, the result is definitely below the BBC production. The only role that might compare is the one made by Helen Mirren ( ... & she's british ... ) that gets pretty much on par with the one of Bill Nighy from the original version as the cynical newspaper editor. About the rest, maybe Russell Crowe might seem credible if you wouldn't have seen John Simm (totally unknown to me up to this movie) in the first version (just take as comparison the last part of the movies and it should be enough). Well it is true that the role is "sabotaged" by the script, but still ...

I won't write about technical aspects, because neither one of the movies impresses much (well, maybe a bit the editing, again in the BBC version). I was thinking, in case somebody would be interested in seeing both of them, to recommend doing it in reverse order of how I did it = first the US version so it won't seem that bad and then the BBC one. But, doing so, it will probably bore you due to the length (although you have "new" elements in the longer version the ending is pretty much the same). So, I don't know which order would be better ... The final idea is that if I would have seen only one, I would have probably considered as an medium quality movie (now the difference between them seems to big for me). So, it may be probably recommended to choose only one version ... want something better - UK ; want something faster - US ;)

Rating:
4 out of 5 - BBC, 2003
2 out of 5 - Universal, 2009

Defendor (2009)

I've been terribly busy with other stuff since my last posting up till now, but fortunately I managed to see a couple of movies (actually .. exactly two), and the one about I'm writing probably deserves better than the half of hour I'm able to spend telling about it. "Defendor" is a fake super hero movie belonging to a genre that seems quite successfully in the last two years with three titles. We had also "Kick-Ass" which I've seen and "Super", which I just found out that's on the schedule tonight at one festival from where I'm living, but of course I have other stuff to do and no time for it.

If in the case of "Kick-Ass" we were presented with a pretty solid budget, effects, etc, resulting in a totally demented stuff rated R, with a big R, being probably perfect for the definition of guilty pleasure = you're fully aware at the end that pushed the limits a bit too far but you can't say that it wasn't funny, in case of "Defendor" we have a completely different approach. First of all, it's a drama .. not a comedy .. and this is already a pretty big spoiler, because it starts giving the impression of a comedy but in the end you can definitely say it's a drama. Defendor is a homeless guy without a family, helped by the current employer to live another day, and on top of all has also a little problem concerning his mental abilities that apparently remained at his childhood level. The result = during the night he turns into a "super" hero armed with "gadgets" ranging from little balls of glass to little wasp jars, searching for the evil "Captain Industry". Well, the mental issue doesn't cover exactly all the cause for this, but I won't say more, because there must be something to be left to see after all. The only thing I'll mention on top of what's above is that, incredibly but true, "Defendor" finds his enemy (well .. an enemy) and the way the story unfolds gets really touching, keeping itself simultaneously funny however, until the end.

The lead role is absolutely impeccable played by Woody Harrelson. It's beed a while since I've watched "Rain Man" with Dustin Hoffman but I think I can risk to say that's a comparable level. About the rest, the production is low budget = don't expect something like "Kick-Ass". Anyway .. there is an aspect that I think I'll remember for a while. The movie has one of the best soundtracks I've heard lately. Starting with the original part composed by a guy who's completely unknown to me - John Rowley, up to the songs part that gave me the chance to discover a canadian band - Metric (and to be more exact the song is "Help I'm Alive").

I'll finish this entry with a couple of words about the end of the movie with the risk of increasing the earlier spoiler, but I'm gonna try to keep it a bit cryptic. It's 99.9999999 % certain that the end of the movie will seem obvious and clear to you. 0.0000001 % is a little bee that you have in the last scene, and if you let it fly away with you imagination sufficiently far enough you'll probably reach another conclusion ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5