movie reviews

Movie Review: Noah

April 20, 2015 by David Dubrow 3 Comments

Noah was an entertaining film that had a nodding acquaintance with the source material, some decent performances, and a lack of narrative focus that turned it into a mess. It’s not boring, but it’s not particularly good, either. The more interesting elements were overshadowed by the thematic chaos: Aronofsky wanted to do a Biblical picture, but he wanted to give it a modern sensibility. The result was an attractive, disappointing failure.

Green Day: It’s obvious that Aronofsky’s intent all along was to shoehorn environmentalism into a setting that had no place for it: the antediluvian Earth. The Biblical version of Noah explicitly states that the whole of humanity was bent toward sin: “God saw that the people on earth were very wicked, that all the imaginings of their hearts were always of evil only. (Genesis 6:5)” That won’t do in Hollywood. Making judgments about other people’s behavior or mores is Simply Not Done unless those mores conflict with standard Hollywood groupthink. So Aronofsky had to come up with a real sin: pollution. Strip-mining. Deforestation. That’s what would make God mad enough to drown the world. It’s ludicrous.
He’s a Beauty: Ray Winstone did a great job as Tubal-cain, the main human antagonist. Brutal, thoughtful, manipulative, and entirely useless to the story. There was no reason to have him in the film. He did nothing to advance the plot, change the circumstances, or affect the outcome. He had the best lines, but there wasn’t any need for them or him. The silliest part was him stowing away on the Ark and sitting in the hold, hidden by Noah’s son Ham, for months without anyone knowing. At least we know what happened to the unicorns and gryphons and dinosaurs: Tubal-cain ate ’em on the long voyage.
Somebody’s Watchin’ Me: The Watcher angels were extremely cool, but too reminiscent of stony Ents. According to the Bible, the Watchers were the angels who descended to Earth to sleep with human women. The offspring of these unions were the Nephilim, half-angel, half-human hybrids who were said to be giants: “There were giants on the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men who were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)” Because Aronofsky had to change the reason for God’s anger at humanity from sin to environmental disaster, the Watchers couldn’t be human-like enough to father Nephilim: they had to be monsters. Interestingly, Aronofsky did mine the Book of Enoch for the narrative that the Watchers taught men metalworking and other skills, which added depth.
Noah’s Crazy Train: Aronofsky undercuts his own environmental schtick by having Noah turn into a cross between Paul Ehrlich and Charles Manson in the second half of the film. His extremism, self-loathing and hatred for humanity weren’t hinted at in the early stages to make his later insanity anything but jarring and out of place. It’s unbelievable to me that his family would, over the course of several months, accept his insistence that if Shem’s wife bore a girl, he’d kill the baby right there and then. They should have thrown him overboard as soon as they could, because he was clearly insane.
H.A.M.: While I understand that to build tension in a story that everyone knows the outcome of, you have to create other conflicts, having Ham’s lack of female companionship be such a sticking point seemed clumsy, even absurd. Once again, Aronofsky had to go outside of the source material to create tension, which was unnecessary: there was already some weirdness going on in the Ark. “And they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. (Genesis 19:33)” Why not look at that for conflict? It certainly was…strange. Did they just have cabin fever?
Methusaleh as Gandalf: There are magic rocks in the antediluvian world called Zohar, according to Aronofsky, which produce pyrotechnic effects not unlike the light crystals in Land of the Lost. This was also silly and unnecessary. What made things worse was the presence of Methusaleh, who had undefined sorcerous abilities that made him seem more like Gandalf than a servant of the Creator. He didn’t need to be there, or if he did, he should have had a stronger role. As it was, Anthony Hopkins did the best he could with him, but the character just wasn’t written well.

I entirely understand those who take offense to Aronofsky’s altering of Scripture to advance a secular agenda in this film, but for me, the true offense was that the movie wasn’t that good. It looked good. The people in it acted well. But for the most part, it was a silly, overproduced mess. I’m not sure if it’s worth watching just to see how much Aronofsky hosed the Biblical story of Noah, but if you want a fantasy film about people and water and animals, then it wasn’t half-bad. Three out of five stars.

Movie Review: Truth or Die

March 30, 2015 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

Truth or Die is a movie that is extremely English insofar as the characters all have very stiff upper lips and, like an afternoon tea, there’s nothing in it to particularly discomfit or terrify you.

Which is unfortunate, because it’s supposed to be a horror film.

There are some interesting bits in it, including a fairly horrible death scene, but for the most part it’s pedestrian, boring, and not worth your time. It suffers from the problem plaguing many horror films: bad things happening to unlikable people, so it’s hard to care about any of it.

The Bad Guy: I’m one of those people who almost always roots for the bad guy in movies. Pleasantly, the best thing about Truth or Die was David Oakes’s portrayal of antagonist Justin, a psychopathic military veteran. Creepy, physically strong without being infallible, he managed to bring both menace and a tiny bit of humanity into the role. You want him to see his work done, you want him to win, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen, which was disappointing. Someone like him shouldn’t have been vanquished the way he was, but the movie had to have a happy ending, of sorts. A shame, really.
Whodunit: That was a bit of a surprise, which made it enjoyable. The problem was that the rationale for sending the postcard, while plausible, seemed very last minute. The character gave no indication of feeling that way earlier in the film, which made it too sudden, too sloppy.
Stiff Upper Lips: Paul, Chris, Gemma, and Eleanor were all quite tough. Paul’s gunshot wound didn’t seem to pain him as much as being kneecapped might a normal person, and the defiance all four seemed willing to give to Justin would have been admirable if it wasn’t so unbelievable. None of them panicked. They all found incredible steel inside of them when it was needed. I didn’t buy it.
Femme Fatale: Eleanor proved to be at least as psychotic as Justin and twice as tough, which didn’t make sense outside of a writer or producer’s requirement to have a super-strong female character. Didn’t like her, didn’t find her sexy, didn’t find her interesting, didn’t find her believable.
The End: The rationale behind Felix hanging himself was way too complicated. Did they really need that much backstory, with corporate intrigue, blackmail, gay sex, and a bizarre family code of honor to uphold? Especially when it’s all just spat out at the last five minutes?

Truth or Die gets two stars out of five.

Movie Review: Devil’s Pass

March 2, 2015 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

Devil’s Pass is a movie that fictionalizes the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident, where nine Russian skiers died under mysterious circumstances in the Ural Mountains. The premise is that five college students retrace the skiers’ steps decades later, armed with GPS devices and cameras, to determine exactly what happened in Dyatlov Pass.

In general, the movie was very silly, with a twist ending that was insufficiently teased and an utterly charmless cast that did nothing to elevate a tedious, pedestrian story.

Characters: All of the typical horror tropes were represented: the Good Girl, the Bad Girl, the Geek, the Player, the Hippie. All were adequate. At no point did any of them break character to be anything other than archetypes or get the viewer to care about what happened to them.
Scares: None. It wasn’t even the least bit disturbing. The teleporting zombie creatures were too shaky-cammed to see what they were doing, so it was hard to be afraid of them. The bigfoot footprints in the snow were silly, not frightening. An abortive trip to a mental hospital failed to provide the ominous foreboding that was intended.
Found Footage-Style: I suppose we’ll just have to ride out the found footage-style of horror/sci-fi movies until it’s over and we can return to movie production that doesn’t involve gimmicks to get us to feel as though the action’s really happening. There was no good reason to do this movie in found footage-style, as it added nothing to the immediacy of the story; in fact, it made the film less believable. I couldn’t believe they filmed some of the things they did the way they did, especially during dangerous moments.
The Twist: In an effort to solve the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass incident in the most bizarre way possible, they included a time-traveling wormhole that turns idiots into zombies. Do you really need to know any more?

Across the board, this film is a must-miss. One star out of five.

Movie Review: Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead

February 23, 2015 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

A brief review of Dead Snow is available here.

There were very few surprises in Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead, and that’s one of the film’s greatest strengths. At least as gory as its predecessor and a lot funnier, it’s a sequel that didn’t have to be made, but I’m glad it was. Horror comedy often goes terribly wrong, veering into bland, unfunny spectacle, but it did not happen here. Between a hysterical script and some very inspired physical comedy, it’s a fun movie all on its own.

The Cast: Vegar Hoel returned as Martin, who survived Dead Snow and ended up getting his arch-enemy Herzog’s arm grafted to his stump. The transplanted limb has a life (or unlife) all its own, and creates not only some hysterical moments, but important plot advancement. The film’s writer, Stig Frode Henriksen has a great role as Martin’s reluctant friend/assistant, and Hallvard Holmen was very funny as an entirely incompetent cop.
Zombie Squad: Three members of the Zombie Squad arrive in the nick of time to help Martin deal with Herzog’s new invasion of Norway. The writers handled them deftly, making them funny but not (too) pathetic.
Language: It’s going to mark me as unsophisticated and provincial, but I appreciated that the movie was filmed in English. Reading subtitles tends to take me out of the experience and divides my attention, so that didn’t happen for me here.
Gore: It’s all here. More intestine jokes, more blood, more disgusting scenes across the board. It doesn’t let up. Ever. Some parts, even the funny ones, were a little hard to watch.
The End: There’s a scene at the end that had me saying, “No, stop it, this shouldn’t be happening, just stop, stop, stop.” Few movies can do that to me.

If you like funny, gross-out zombie movies, you’ll love Dead Snow 2. Four out of five stars.

Movie Review: I, Frankenstein

February 18, 2015 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

Simply put, I, Frankenstein is an absolutely terrible movie.

But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see it. If you modify your expectations, knowing at the outset that you’re going to see a terrible movie, you can have fun with it. You just have to stop cringing first. The plot is a confusing, terrible muddle involving Frankenstein’s monster (named Adam), demons from Hell, and gargoyles who exist to protect mankind from the demons (but they’re not angels). Thematically, it’s an appalling mishmash further confused by awful dialogue and a silly backstory. Despite all that, I was entertained. I’d see a sequel if they made one (which they won’t).

Aaron Eckhart: A fine actor, he was completely wasted in this film. We’ll ignore the strange scars his character Adam was forced to bear other than to suggest that Doctor Frankenstein was an unbelievably incompetent stitcher and couldn’t find a single clean face to put on his creation. Eckhart tried, he really did, but he was given such terrible lines that not even he could save them. To his dubious credit, Eckhart never once descended into the smart-alecky humor that made him so watchable in Thank You for Smoking. The film was far too earnest and grim for that.
Everyone Else: Miranda Otto (Eowyn) was the Gargoyle Queen. She was also schizophrenic to the point of making no sense at all. Bill Nighy did his usual sinister upper-class Brit schtick. Yvonne Strahovski added no charm at all to an entirely useless role. The only stand-out was Jai Courtney as Gideon, the mean gargoyle. He did a great job and added actual depth to his role; a Heavenly miracle, of sorts. It helped that he was such a cool character from Spartacus: that just sort of bled over.
The Script: Ignore it. Everything everyone says is extremely silly, but they say it with such gravity. If at any point you think somebody’s going to say something interesting, you’re wrong. Recalibrate your expectations. When it isn’t cliche, it’s stupid. The thing is, they believe it’s meaningful, even if you don’t. So don’t worry about it. This goes double for the plot. It’s hopeless. Imagine if Mary Shelley wrote a sequel to Frankenstein while high on opium. Then someone photocopied a mirror image of it and threw it in a wood chipper with a copy of the Bible. Finally, a chimpanzee scotch-taped the bits together larger than a thumbnail, and that’s your plot.
Fight, Fight, Fight: This is the real reason to see this film. If you liked the fight scenes from Blade, you’ll dig this movie. I practiced serrada escrima several years ago, just enough to get some sinawali patterns and flow drills down, and the Kali-style fighting Adam did in the movie was a real treat to watch. They even did some punyo-work in the fight scenes. You know where the special effects budget went, and they squeezed every nickel out of it to great effect.

It’s terrible. See it anyway.

Movie Review: Snowpiercer

February 9, 2015 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

The premise behind Snowpiercer is absurd: the world has ended in snow and ice, and the only survivors of humanity live aboard a massive train that somehow never stops moving. The poor people, the dregs live at the back of the train, while the beautiful rich people live at the front. It’s ludicrous. It’s obvious social commentary class warfare BS tarted up in global warming-based science fiction silliness.

And yet…

And yet it works. It works incredibly well.

The script rises above the subject matter, making it a smarter story that its underlying assumptions deserve. Hints about terrible past events begin to make sense later on in the film, from strange hand gestures to the disturbing number of amputees among the tail section passengers. The dialogue is tight, funny when it has to be and just philosophical enough to project ideas without bludgeoning the viewer. Familiar tropes are used, but not overused, from the wisecracking sidekick to the sassy black woman to the assassin who just won’t die.

Chris Evans does a good job with what he’s been given. As a bearded, reluctant leader of a violent revolution, he made a far better Curtis than he does Captain America. Tilda Swinton was a scream, and Kang-ho Song as the security expert added depth and humor to a supporting role. The only low spot was Ed Harris, who slept through his performance.

At times, the film made clever use of its absurdity, with a surreal scene in a sushi bar and an even more bizarre scene in a classroom full of young worshipers of Wilford, the inventor/engineer of the train. Just as you’re lulled into accepting the movie’s strangeness, it manages to hit you with something out of left field that keeps you watching.

The visual style is arresting. Fans of Chan-wook Park (The Vengeance Trilogy) and Kim Jee-woon (I Saw the Devil) will really appreciate Joon-ho Bong’s work here. It just grabs you and you can’t help but watch the whole thing.

4 out of 5 stars.