Alice (2009)

Last year at this time I was writing about "Tin Man", a SyFy mini-series that was quite promising and offered a bit too less, despite a pretty nice story adaptation of the Frank Baum classic. This weekend I had the "inspiration" to choose the next "masterpiece" by the same director, Nick Willing, another rehash for SyFy Channel, of another classic story - "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Caroll. The good part is that this time Alice of Wonderland (Caterina Scorsone) doesn't rely exclusively on the blue eyes for the role, and she actually tries to act, unlike Dorothy of Oz (Zooey Deschanel). Further than this, let's see ...

As in the case of "Tin Man" we practically have a sequel to the story, with a mature main character, who follows pretty much the same steps: she lands in the parallel story universe, finds the destination in a desolate state under a tyrannical leadership, the tyrannical leadership ("The Queen of Hearts" in this case) finds out about the "intruder", all this is followed by the run + the detailed story (something happening while running) + the final in which the throne of the story world is taken by a less evil ruler. I didn't give any spoiler, trust me (= if you were imagining something else you should definitely look for another movie). Leaving the joke apart, the detailed context is actually quite original & sufficiently interesting to deserve the time. We have all the insertions of classic characters adapted to a sort of semi-industrialized Wonderland. Add to this a bit of romance, some soap-opera, and even an attempt of an "epic fight". I won't say anything more clear than this because it is the only part that makes the movie to deserve watching. Overall I would say that the atmosphere has something from Terry Gilliam keeping the proportions (I don't know why it made me think at a mix between "Brazil" and "Brothers Grimm"). Unfortunately, the director here is not Terry Gilliam ...

There are some good scenes, but there are also a lot of examples that besides looking like "very made for TV" are obviously mediocre. You have the impression sometimes that you're watching a sort of low budget indie made by a couple of fresh cinema graduates = no polishing, only one take as good as it gets and that's all. If we consider the effects we have the same issue as in "Tin Man" = they're not looking like 2009, fortunately they're not many either. I don't know, maybe I'm too demanding for a TV production. For sure, if I spend some time looking for some long-length fantasy series I will probably find something to be worse than what we've seen here (for instance I remember "Camelot" right now which was lame as production level). On the other hand I don't have to look too far to find something clearly above this level = also at SyFy we had "The Lost Room" & "5ive Days to Midnight". Even if these didn't seem to be exactly for big screen they were certainly on a different class than what we have here. I still have to give this "Alice" credit though, comparing it with the abomination produced by Tim Burton. What we have here, as it is, is definitely more recommendable to watch compared to the chaotic disaster in that movie.

Finally, as a personal wish I have to say that I yearn for a SciFi miniseries by SyFy (not a fantasy one, since from what I see they can't really handle well the production level on these), but unfortunately it seems that "Alice" was followed by .. "Neverland" directed by the same Nick Willing ... So, maybe when the "the classic stories" will end ...

Rating: 3 out of 5 (mostly for the story, too bad for the final result)

Better than the trailer ( especially since I wasn't very positive :) ):

Safe House (2012)

"Safe House" is a sort of rehashed Bourne. That actually comes as a first recommendation: if you didn't like the last Bourne, probably watching "Safe House" is not the best choice, if you did like it you might give it a try but don't expect anything to top it.

The movie starts well, which attenuates a bit from the stupidity of the "Safe House - No One is Safe" tagline. However, considering you've seen this on the poster, it might be still better not to expect too much. The premise of the story though is rather original. Somewhere in South Africa, in a CIA safe house, we have an inexperienced agent (Ryan Reynolds) as the "host", or better said location administrator. Being bored to death and hoping for a promotion, in the spirit of the saying "be careful what you wish for", the guy gets one day the visit of an operative crew escorting a "guest". Which guest (Denzel Washington) is a former agent, went rogue for the last 10 years, and who apparently surrendered to the U.S. Consulate. I won't spoil all the beginning. To put it shortly, he seems to be followed by a whole bunch of very aggressive people who want something from him. In the end the movie is sort of like a continuous run .. a la Bourne .. but this comparison can stop somewhere at two thirds, if not before ...

The movie maintains a rhythm and an event flow built to be sufficiently "catchy" in the first part, but in the end ... 1. Light spoiler that grows up as you watch the movie: for a rather long period you don't really get to know who is the actual "bad guy", aspect that's supported by the standard technique of "subtle" suggestions .. so "subtle" that becomes clear what "surprise" will you get at the end. 2. The movie has a sort of impulse for cliche, but it manages to keep it contained for a while .. but not until the end, therefore making the final besides extremely predictable also quite boring. 3. The violence seemed to me a bit too exaggerated, although I normally don't have any issue with such things, and it's again especially towards the end of the movie .. to be honest I wonder if the director didn't take a holiday for a while making only sort of 1/2 of its job. To give also some good feedback I have to admit that the actors are up to their name indeed. Another thing to mention are some nice exterior shots giving you the feeling that South Africa is indeed the location where the action takes place. More than this .. it's ok as an average thriller to see before getting to bed when you don't have other better options .. it's a pity considering the beginning which was promising ...

Rating: 3 out of 5

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

This entry should have been dedicated to "Chronicle", another movie chosen on the "under 90 minutes" criteria considering my current time limits. The reason to "pollute" my blog with "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" :) is that I'm not really in the mood to talk about "Chronicle". The reasons are many, starting from the lack of time for a detailed enough entry up to my deranged subconscious which by some weird connections made the story in that movie hard to watch, so what about writing more on it afterwards ? Therefore I'll leave "Chronicle" for another time and I'll turn to probably the weirdest title this year fortunately seen not that long ago, and still fresh in my mind.

Given the combination of terms in the movie subject, I started (like probably many others) with the premise of some stupid action getting into a dumb unwanted comedy at some points and ending up as superficial as "Wanted" .. another production of the same director (Timur Bekmambetov). I suppose that if you don't know anything about the movie, or even better .. if you know only half the title and you enter the cinema having a shock when you find out the other half, you might end up building exactly the impression described above about it. Ironically, I guess the movie is saved exactly by the fact that you cannot take seriously the subject before it starts knowing already the main idea. And the way the story unveils is like slapping you in the first phase exactly for this, in the sense .. ok ... wait a minute ... this doesn't look that dumb as I thought it would be ... More exactly, we have him, Abraham Lincoln, as a child losing his mother after a first encounter with a human blood sucker. The little Abe, not realizing yet who he's up against, builds a vengeance inner desire until he grows older enough to be able to confront the murderer. Surprise though .. the guy doesn't want to die from a normal bullet. Well .. further we have much more of the story to come :) I will only say that as I was suggesting above the movie will most likely seem less dumb than you were expecting, exactly due to the way the action builds in the first part. Actually, in the first half or even a bit more you could replace the name of the main character with any other. The role of "American President" enters the scene quite late and it's introduced completely separated from the story involving the long teeth specimens. Yes, the end mixes them up with the American Civil war and the personal life of the guy on the 5 dollar bill ... but this comes already at a moment in time when you might be able to accept also such nonsense as a story :) exactly due to the way it was built up to that point.

If the movie would have placed the same story in a hypothetical context (e.g.,: John Smith: Vampire Hunter where John Smith = obscure governor, senator, sheriff or I don't know what else), probably it would have greatly reduced the critics targeting the "attack" on the real history :). On the other hand the movie is based on a novel (who's author is also the screenwriter) that probably sold exactly due to the name on the cover :) And which after all (being a novel :p) has a story of more than five lines that mixes enough adventure, action, romance that depending on the mood to give good chances to be entertaining ;)

Rating:
3 out of 5 - totally objective
4 out of 5 - if you feel up to tolerate a "hardcore SF history hacking" without thinking too much about the real version .. + the 3D is nice here ;) even for me

The Mission (1999)

Maybe I should've written the original title: "Cheung Fo" in order not to create any confusion with an older much more known film, but since the interest for HK movies doesn't seem to be that big around me, I've told myself that it would be more "catchy" in English :). Although, I have to admit that in this case I don't have something that I would strongly recommend. Actually, a bit off-topic, it seems that I've reached a phase again where I tend to select what I see based on length criteria (in this particular case is somewhere below 90 minutes), which is probably not very "healthy" for my blog entries. But, let's see what we have here ...

I'll start as usual with the subject. About which I'll be quite blunt in this case: it's lame. So lame, that I won't hesitate spoiling something like 90% of it in the next lines. Extra info: I think it doesn't really matter, since this movie is probably not to be seen for the subject. So .. we have a boss of a Chinese Triad, somewhere in Hong Kong who manages to survive an assassination attempt. Following, he hires a group of five trusted bodyguards, four experienced and one rookie, who manage to protect him in another two similar situations. After which, the head behind the attempts (obviously a member of the same Triad family) is identified, executed and the problem solved .. with something like 15-20 minutes before the movie ending. So, in this interval we have the second problem revealed, totally unrelated with the first part = "the rookie" had an affair with the boss's wife .. and obviously this has to be solved too. Well, I'm not gonna spoil everything, although it's not that hard to predict the "unpredictable" ending. That's all. Now let's see what's worth seeing in this movie ...

The '99 production is directed by Johnnie To. A while ago I was writing about something shot during the same year, more exactly "Running Out of Time" (or "Am Zin"). The interesting part is that the respective title from my lighting quick unreliable research did at the moment seemed to be done on the rush between the scenes for the current discussed movie. I'm not sure it's exactly like this, but in my opinion that movie is far superior to this one here, although it seems rather unpolished in comparison. It is though a totally different style. To be specific, it has a light scent of "melancholic drama" ( I can't come up with another term right now ) which in my opinion is exactly the nice part that gets to your heart in HK action movies (as long as it doesn't become too cheesy). However, Johnnie To, quite appreciated as a director there, is a bit different in this aspect from what I've seen up to the moment ("Election 1 and 2", "Vengeance" with Johnny Halliday + the rest referenced up to here). That's why I've been surprised this Spring by the other title. Anyway, here we get back to his classic style. Which is .. dry & cold (I'm not really in my best day for finding the right terms, and I also don't have time to think too much, but that's pretty much "the feeling"). It's a simplistic subject, with a simplistic dialogue, an extremely dry humor .. to check out the scene with the ball game between the five bodyguards that I've linked below instead of the trailer. The only aspect that seems somehow opposed to that is the score .. and I managed to find also a clip for this, although it's not the best quality. Is a mix of themes, repeating quite often, which seem to be taken from an '80s or early '90s platform game, as Mario or something else. Overall, this approach for the movie, the style combination more exactly if we consider also the cinematography (which I have to admit that's very nice even simple = if you're careful enough you can spot details showing the work put in it), is probably the main argument to watch what we have here. As a final idea I've had the feeling, keeping the proportions, that I see something like a Melville movie ("Le Samourai" with Alain Delon as a classic example) transposed in the Asian version. It's not only my opinion, I've heard this comparison made for To before. Unfortunately, despite the seeming general appreciation, this style which doesn't care to much about the story is not really on my taste.

Rating: 3 out of 5

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

Despite the fact that this was the last week of a sort of "vacation" I didn't get to see more than the "The Bourne Legacy". And since I'm busy packing my luggages, I don't have the time to get into much detail. So, let's get to the point ...

In the sequel to Bourne, which does not have anything to do with the original series of books, we have a sort of "reboot". More exactly we find that the American government has another secret program to train agents (actually .. more programs to have place also for another reboot ..). And like this we start again with Jeremy Renner instead Matt Damon, pissed off badly when the agency leadership decides to shut down the bussiness and "fire" the employees. Without other spoilers, the result is a Bond-Terminator mix :) The last part might sound a bit weird, and when you see the movie also a bit SciFi, but I really think it's the part to appreciate. And this because it makes somehow the movie to be a bit different from the previous ones.

Overall I liked it. I wasn't very sure since Tony Gilroy (the rest of Bourne, "Michael Clayton", "Devil's Advocate" .. but also "State of Play", "Proof of Life") which is also the director here and besides the usual screenwriter job, alternates sometimes from good to bad quite easily (although in my opinion he is currently one of the best thriller screenwriters). With all the similarity with the previous movies (after all it's the same series), the result is a pretty good one in its genre. And I have to admit that I'm also a bit subjective and I prefer the Bourne universe to Bond. We'll see about Skyfall ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5