Review: Margin Call

Roadside Attractions

Margin Call is set on Wall Street in the fall of 2008. It revolves around a handful of upper echelon players in a big investment firm - well, they are mostly upper echelon: in a memorable performance, Zachary Quinto plays Peter, a young risk analyst who identifies the beginnings of the coming financial meltdown before any of the more experienced executives have taken notice. He gets a tip from his recently fired boss, Eric (played with calm understatement by Stanley Tucci); Eric slips him a flash drive before he leaves the building for the last time, warning Peter to “Be careful.” 

It’s good advice. Peter passes up a happy hour outing with co-workers and stays late studying the file Eric gave him. Within a few hours he has it figured out: the beginnings of the biggest financial crash since 1930 laid out in colorful graphs and numbers on his computer screen. It’s about 9:00 at night, and from here the clock starts slowly ticking towards financial Armageddon.

The film doesn’t spend much time trying to explain the mechanics of the crash. It only covers a tiny bit of time, less than 24 hours. Peter alerts his boss, and as the news travels up the corporate ladder executives arrive back at the office in the dead of night (all nicely dressed, hadn’t they gone home yet?), trying to grasp what’s happened and waiting to meet with head honcho Jeremy Irons, who lands on the roof in a helicopter around 4:00 AM. And here is the heart of the story, the real question being asked: once all of these high level insiders understand the stakes, how will they respond? With nobility? Crass self interest? Is there a moral debate to be had?

It’s interesting stuff, and it’s handled in a far more intimate and revealing way than in a film like say, Wall Street 2. If you ever wondered what went on in those moneyed ivory towers as the financial system came tumbling down, this is a great film to see. With outstanding performances by Kevin Spacey and Paul Bettany as the two execs on the front lines of dealing with the crisis. Still playing in selected theaters nationwide. B+

Review: Tower Heist

Universal

You would think with all the talent in the cast of this movie, they could have come up with a better story.  Ben Stiller stars as Josh, the manager of an uber-luxe apartment building in Manhattan; the grand and personalized service that he and his staff provide are the reason rich people want to live there.  But a scandal breaks out – turns out the richest of the rich tenants, the guy in the penthouse, is a Bernie Madoff type, swindling folks out of their money with an elaborate Ponzi scheme.   That’s trouble enough for the luxury building, but there’s a bigger problem for Josh: he arranged for the swindler, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) to manage the staff’s pension fund.  Everybody’s lost all their retirement money.

Feeling angry, and pretty guilty, Josh talks some of his colleagues into executing a heist: they’re going to steal the money back.  Word is that Shaw has a stash somewhere; they just have to find it. Being inexperienced criminals, they decide they need help to learn evil ways, so Josh recruits pretty thief Slide (Eddie Murphy), to play bad guy adviser to the team.  Seems Josh and Slide grew up together, and if that seems improbable, wait till you see the rest of this film. 

It’s not all bad.  Eddie Murphy is funny, so is Ben Stiller, although he doesn’t get much to work with here.  The heist team includes veteran actors like Matthew Broderick, a tenant and out of work financial wiz who’s trying desperately to hold onto his fancy digs in the building, and Michael Pena, a former staffer who lost his job.  And Casey Affleck, building concierge and weak willed conspirator who also happens to be Josh’s brother-in-law.  There’s potential here but it doesn’t get a chance to develop, the story isn’t quite clever enough, or over the top enough (even though they work in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade) to make the whole thing really zing.  But, did I mention that Eddie Murphy is funny? Yeah, he doesn’t’ get enough screen time but when he’s there, the movie is fun.  Playing everywhere.  C+  

New Movies opening October 28

Big opening this weekend is Puss n Boots (in 3D!); this movie is actually getting decent reviews, and the 3D effects are said to be excellent. But it looks like a kid film, not much crossover appeal. Also up  is In Time, about a world where no one ages past 25, but you can live longer than that (in your youthful body) as long as you can get your hands on a few extra minutes, or hours, or days; time is traded like currency. Stars Justin Timberlake, which is generally a good thing (remember Social Network?) Amanda Seyfried and Olivia Wilde. Decent reviews, a few very enthusiastic. The other big opener is The Rum Diary, based on a Hunter S. Thompson novel and starring Johnny Depp as a down on his luck freelance journalist who takes an assignment in Puerto Rico and has some strange and amusing adventures. Time Magazine calls it “an agreeable time waster.” Hangers on from last week include the box office bonanza that is Paranormal Activity 3, along with Footloose and The Three Musketeers. I saw The Three Musketeers; I was having a bad day and it was playing at a convenient time. It was diverting.

If you live in a big American city you will likely have the chance to see Martha Marcy May Marlene this weekend. This is a very good but very strange film; some disturbing stuff goes on, so keep that in mind if you decide to see it. Elizabeth Olsen is incredible in the title role. If you are interested in MMMM and you don’t live in a big city hang on: it’s hitting more theaters every weekend, finally going wide on November 11. (Review coming in the next day or so.)

Finally there is a lot of buzz about a little movie called Like Crazy. It’s a love story, or more like a lost love story, about two young people who fall madly in love, but then are separated by distance and bureaucratic red tape. It was a huge hit at Sundance, and has been picking up awards at festivals all over the world. Opening in just four theaters this weekend but coming soon to theaters near you.

Next week: Tower Heist with Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller, and the Harold and Kumar Christmas movie. Well, Halloween will be over by then.

Box Office Wrap Up: October 21

The smash movie of the weekend was Paranormal Activity 3, its $54 million take giving it the interesting title of “biggest fall opening ever.” For perspective, that means it made more money in its opening than films like Jackass 3D, Shark Tale, and The Grudge. The third outing of the low budget franchise is a prequel to the other films in the series, working on the notion that the creepy other worldly ghostly thing that terrorized the young couple in the first movie actually got a foothold when the young woman was just a toddler. Seemed like a good idea, sort Poltergeist-y: little girl picks up communications from the beyond, and her mom is all freaked out about it.

Paranormal Activity 3 locked down about half of the box office generated by the top ten films, but the big fans who turned out for the opening weekend didn’t love it, giving the horror flick a C+ in exit reviews. Meanwhile, the latest screen incarnation of The Three Musketeers barely registered. Continuing movies Real Steel, Footloose, Ides of March, and Dolphin Tale hung on pretty well. Upcoming, we’ve got Jason Timberlake in In Time, a movie where no one ages past 25, and time becomes currency. Olivia Wilde plays Timberlake’s mother. Not sure how that’s going to work.

Looking for a Few Good Films (and Some Oscar Predictions)

I am a big fan of summer blockbusters. I like the comic book heroes and the grand battles between good and evil where good always wins and evil is defeated in a humorously ironic way.

But once Labor Day rolls around, I’m ready for something a little more thought provoking.

Which makes this fall oddly disappointing. It had a promising start, lots of hype about the great films on the horizon, but so far only Moneyball has hit the mark. Like a lot of critics, I was hoping for a little more depth from Drive and more complexity from the Ides of March; both films were well made and entertaining, but neither one could be called a great movie.

So we look forward. This weekend Martha Marcy May Marlene opens, featuring what is promised to be a stunning performance by Olsen twins sibling Elizabeth. Filmmaker Sean Durkin also won the top directing prize at Sundance. Lots of buzz on this one.

After that there is a bit of a wait before the next hyped picture arrives. J Edgar, a biopic about the controversial FBI chief comes out on November 9 in the big markets; Leo DiCaprio takes the title role, and this one has Oscar written all over it. Also in November look for The Descendents: George Clooney stars as an absentee dad who has to step up when his wife has an accident and slips into a coma. From the trailer this looks like a standard family crisis drama but, unlike Ides of March, it persistently shows up in the Best Picture conversation. The Artist opens on Thanksgiving weekend; it’s a black and white not-quite-silent picture about the advent of talking films. Screened at Cannes to wild enthusiasm.

Other possibilities include War Horse, a Spielberg picture that comes out at the very end of the year, barely making the cut off for awards consideration; it’s a World War I (that’s one, not two) movie about a horse and the kid who loves him. Okay, it’s probably more complicated than that, but it hasn’t been screened yet so nobody knows. There is also a film version of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, based on one of the very first novels to set in post 9/11 New York. Also opens late December. The American version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo looks like it’s meant for mass market pop culture consumption, but Academy voters are keeping it in mind because of Director David Fincher's pedigree (he directed Social Network). As the eponymous Girl, Rooney Mara is also expected to snag a best actress nod.

But she’ll be competing with the Grande Dame of Oscar nominees, Meryl Streep, who is expected to blow out the competition with her performance as Maggie Thatcher in Iron Lady. If there’s a lock in this awards season, old Meryl is probably it.

Review: Fifty Fifty

Summit Entertainment

There are critics who love this picture and I can’t imagine why. It’s possible that the lack of impressive films in the fall “noteworthy movie” season has led them to embrace it, even though it is pretty much like any cancer movie you have ever seen. Guy is having a normal day, feels a twinge, finds out he has cancer, family and friends freak, they rally, they are inspired and full of hope because of his brave struggle. Or something like that.

50/50 doesn’t introduce anything new into this conversation. If you have ever dealt with cancer, either as a patient or as a supportive family member or friend, you will not learn anything from this film, or come away with an altered perspective.

Which is not to say it’s a bad picture. As cancer victim Adam, Joseph Gordon-Levitt does credible work even though his part is badly underwritten; he’s so low key we hardly ever get a handle on what he’s like or how all these events are affecting him. There are a lot of moments in the film where the camera focuses on his face while he … thinks, I suppose, or maybe he just feels sleepy. You start to wonder if the filmmakers have run out of things to do.

There are bright moments, mostly when Ann Kendrick is on screen; she plays Katherine, Adam’s therapist, but she’s young, new to the job, interning at the hospital while she works on her PhD. She screws up a lot but she tries hard to find her way, and you see in her expressive, intuitive face how intently she is trying to break through Adam’s stoicism. Kendrick is a remarkable actress, even though her small stature and slightly off kilter face make her a natural for odd ball supporting cast roles, she always carves out something new in her characters. You would never mistake Katherine for Up in the Air’s Natalie. Angelica Huston also has a few, pitch perfect moments in the film; she plays Adam’s overbearing mother but you have nothing but sympathy for her.

The elephant in the movie, of course, is Seth Rogen, playing the stoner buddy he always plays. It’s comforting to watch the friendship between his character and Adam become a source of support for the poor dude, but Rogan doesn’t do anything new or different here, he’s just the stoner buddy. If you enjoy his act, you’ll have a pretty good time watching him. Or you could just rent Pineapple Express. 50/50 is playing around the country, doing decent box office. B-

Review: Ides of March

Columbia Pictures

In The Ides of March George Clooney plays Governor Mike Morris, a left wing politician with the strength of his convictions; he’s running for president using a straight talk campaign that delights his young lieutenant, Stephen (Ryan Gosling). “You drank the Kool-aid!” reporter Ida (Marisa Tomei), tells the young acolyte. “I drank the Kool-aid, and it was delicious,” responds Stephen with a grin. He’s working for Morris because he loves his country and it’s the right thing to do. There’s a real charm to his nearly naïve conviction, but there’s also a sense that it can’t survive the rough and tumble campaign. 


The movie covers the few days prior to the Ohio Democratic primary, a race Morris needs to win to sew up the Democratic nomination. His single opponent is lagging behind but there’s a trump card to play: both candidates are hoping to pick up the endorsement of a powerful Senator (Jeffrey Wright, in a brief but convincing performance) who controls enough delegates to swing the tide. 

Morris’s campaign manager Paul (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is confident he can talk the Senator into joining their camp, but his opposite number Tom (Paul Giamatti, at his creepy best) is equally sure he can get the man’s endorsement. And Tom has another trick up his sleeve – he hopes to steal Stephen, a crack media mind, once he can convince the young idealist that the Morris cause is lost.

It’s a good story, and the back room politics feel authentic; the whole thing gives you the sense of being an insider at a critical moment in a presidential campaign. Even if you’re just a regular citizen voter, you easily see the significance of what is at stake here, and the myriad small decisions and unexpected missteps that can cause one candidate or another to become the leader of the free world. In that sense, it’s a pretty cool roller coaster ride.

But the movie has a purpose, to show up the dark underbelly of even the most idealistic campaign, and it’s here where things get a little rocky. Stephen’s slide from innocence to cynicism comes on a little fast, and seems almost arbitrary, like it doesn’t take much to stop believing. Likewise, when Clooney’s Morris shows his dark side it doesn’t feel quite authentic; it’s like there was a character mix up and Michael Clayton stepped in for a scene, his sudden tough guy act reminded me of that.

But this is the sort of thing that you think of later, when you stop off for a drink and get to talking about the state of our political universe. Ides of March is a good, thought provoking film, with terrific performances, particularly from Gosling and Hoffman, who plays a grizzled but determined old politico with an odd kind of grace. Also features Evan Rachel Wood as a young intern who enjoys the social side of campaigning. Playing everywhere. B

Review: Moneyball

Sony Pictures

Moneyball is a good movie. It’s also a good baseball movie, but it isn’t like most sports flicks where some woebegone team triumphs in the stirring final minutes. Moneyball is about the business of baseball, the backroom stuff that goes into making a professional team.

Brad Pitt plays Billie Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A’s, a small market team with a small market budget. That constraint makes it tough to compete with say, the New York Yankees, so Beane sits down with the team’s owner and insists on more cash to pick up better players. Owner says no, and Beane sets off to make do, but then on an off season scouting trip to Cleveland he meets a young man with a new idea for assessing the worth of a baseball player: using computer analysis to determine a player’s value, focusing in particular on his ability to get on base. Intrigued, Beane hires Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill) and the two of them crunch the numbers to come up with a roster that is affordable and has the potential to make a winning team. (Moneyball is based on true events, but the Peter Brand character is invented; Beane's actual partner in crime during the 2002 season was Paul DePodesta, who declined to have his name and likeness used in the film.)

But once the scrappy new team is recruited, the going is still tough; Beane is surrounded by a staff of old dudes who don’t see any reason to change the way they have been doing business, so they don’t like the roster and they don’t want to work the GM’s plan. The scouts are unhappy, but the coach (played by a portly Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is just plain resistant, so it’s tough for Beane to realize his vision. But this is where the fun starts, because Beane has to maneuver around these naysayers in order to find a way to turn a team of apparent misfits into something worth remembering.

Brad Pitt is terrific; you don’t really forget that he’s Brad Pitt but you believe he’s Billy Beane anyway. His scenes with Jonah Hill have a satisfying odd couple vibe, and Hill is great as the nerdy Ivy grad who loves the game, even if he can’t play it for a living. This is lighthearted entertainment but it’s well done, definitely a fun night out at the movies. Playing everywhere. B

Review: Drive

Simple truth: this movie isn’t for everyone. Drive might sell itself as an action picture, but in reality it’s a dark, intensely dramatic thriller that moves oh so slowly towards its violent, action packed conclusion. It’s not for the faint of heart. I liked it a lot.

Ryan Gosling stars as Driver – his character never reveals his name – who divides his days between stunt driving for the movies and working in an auto repair shop. He’s really good with cars. Nights, he contracts himself out as a getaway driver, giving his criminal clients very specific parameters: If I drive for you…I give you a five-minute window, anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours no matter what. One minute before, one minute after….you’re on your own.

It’s not clear why Driver takes on this shadowy underworld work, when he has two daytime jobs and a very simple lifestyle. But he smolders – Ryan Gosling is good at smoldering – so it seems like there’s darkness to him, something dangerous. Driver isn’t much for sharing – this film is very sparing with dialogue, the screenplay must be unusually short – and even as he gets to know his charming neighbor (Carrie Mulligan, in an excellently nuanced performance) and her appealing son, there really isn’t much talking. They seem to understand each other instinctively, and long silences between them are pretty much the norm. It’s all very old fashioned, deliberately paced, noirish, with Irene and Driver trying to carve out a connection, a little bit of hope in the middle of the darkness.

But it can’t last; Irene’s husband Standard gets sprung from jail early, and he comes home with villains on his trail, demanding he do a job for them. Concerned for Irene, Driver gets involved, offering Standard’s criminal colleagues his usual deal – I give you a five-minute window – but this time things don’t go according to plan.

The last half hour of this film is startlingly violent. My companions were hiding their eyes. But it’s all very well done, and it’s not done for fun; as bad as the mayhem gets, the violence serves the story, not the other way around. And Driver doesn’t seek out trouble, he just tries to protect his loved ones from it.

Also starring Albert Brooks as a quietly terrifying bad guy, and Bryan Cranston as Driver’s unreliable friend and agent. Playing everywhere, had an okay opening weekend. B

Movies Opening September 16: What to See

FilmDistrict

The big movie of the weekend (bigger than that, really, this film has a lot of buzz) is Drive, an action thriller featuring Ryan Gosling as a movie stunt driver who spends his off hours behind the wheel of criminal getaway cars. Carey Mulligan co-stars as a mother with dangerous ties to the underworld. This one gets excellent reviews and the Danish director, Nicolas Refn won the best director award at Cannes; the film was also nominated for the Palme d'Or, the grand prize at Cannes. But, in spite of these lofty credentials Drive is rated R for "brutal bloody violence"; it is not, apparently, for the faint of heart. Equally challenging, in a violent way, is Straw Dogs, a remake of a 1971 Pekinpah film. In this version James Marsden plays a Hollywood screenwriter who moves back to his wife's (Kate Bosworth) home town in the bayou to get her father's house ready for sale. Once there he manages to stir up some of the locals, notably his wife's old boyfriend, played menacingly by Alexander Skarsgard. Rated R for lots of nasty stuff; getting so-so reviews. Finally, for rom-com fans there is I Don't Know How She Does It, starring Sarah Jessica Parker as a high powered executive struggling with the challenges of motherhood. The best reviews of this one say it's like Sex and the City if Carrie had a baby -- but really, there aren't any good reviews of this one. These three (along with a new 3D version of The Lion King) will dominate screens this weekend, but you can still catch Contagion, or a leftover summer blockbuster like Rise of the Planet of the Apes. And if you are just looking for some lighthearted fun, go see Our Idiot Brother. It stars Paul Rudd as a sweet ne'er do well who hits a rough patch and needs to rely on his three sisters to help him through it. Still playing but likely to move out of theaters soon. Next week: Moneyball.

Contagion

Warner Bros.

If Mother Nature was one of those super villains who long to destroy the world, she might unleash a flu bug like the one that terrorizes humanity in Contagion. It’s a bat virus that hops onto a human host with deadly consequences; the hapless first victim has no natural immunity to the disease, but a remarkable ability to pass it on to other humans, who are equally good carriers, and we are off and running with a pandemic as horrifying as the Black Plague. Worse, because in the fourteenth century there were no packed airliners giving the virus efficient, free rides around the world.

The first patient, Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow), is a corporate executive who picks up the bug on a business trip to Hong Kong, and unwittingly spreads it through casinos and restaurants and bars and airports as she travels back home to Minneapolis. There’s a subtle cleverness to the way director Stephen Soderbergh shows how easily transmission is accomplished: we see Beth at an airport bar, waiting for a connecting flight; she fiddles with her glass, her hand toys with some nuts in a little bowl. She chats on a cell phone with a lover she has just left while she hands off her credit card to the bartender, who then taps information onto a grimy touch screen. All these ordinary little events feel ominous, even though Beth shows no sign of illness. Once she gets home, though, her health declines so rapidly that all the doctors treating her are completely baffled, and then more people get sick, and the movie pulls away from that story and takes us to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and the World Health Organization in Switzerland, where we start to follow the progress of the epidemic through the clinical eyes of scientists trying desperately to stop it.

This is a cracking good thriller, but it’s cold hearted; we are engaged by the mystery of the virus but we never care much about the characters who are affected by it. It’s almost like turning on the nightly news. But, it’s a pretty scary news show, watching scientists desperately try to piece together the viral puzzle while the world descends into anarchy around them. And it’s hard not feel a cold sinking feeling when, during a press conference, the best minds of the CDC keep saying, “We don’t know.”

But that’s the point here, this film is intended to scare us, Soderbergh makes sure of it, allowing the camera to linger on every surface a sick person touches, showing unknown hands clearing cans of food off a grocery store shelf, leaving us to wonder when or if it will ever get restocked. He’s attracted a host of fine actors, and they all do good work even though most of them have little screen time and not much character to develop. Matt Damon turns in a heartfelt performance as Beth Emhoff’s husband, trying to understand what has happened to his wife (“I was just talking to her!”) while he desperately fights to protect the rest of his family from the plague that somehow entered his house. Kate Winslet is also very affecting as the CDC doctor/researcher who goes to Minneapolis to assess the scope of the epidemic and attempt to control it. And, in a nod to viral communication, Jude Law plays a blogging conspiracy theorist who gets millions of hits when he announces that there is a simple herbal remedy for the disease. But the star of the show is the virus, that’s what we’re there to watch, and it never loses our attention. Playing everywhere, won the box office during a pretty slow movie going weekend. B

Now in Theaters - August 26, 2011

There are three new movies opening this weekend and none of them is highly recommended by anybody. Our Idiot Brother stars Paul Rudd as a genial ne’er do well who runs into some life challenges and elects to solve them by crashing into the well ordered lives of his three sisters. Big hit at Sundance, getting decent, but not terribly enthusiastic reviews. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a remake of a made for TV movie; it stars Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes as the parents (well, Pearce is the dad, Holmes is dad’s new girlfriend) of a precocious youngster (Bailee Madison) who unleashes goblins, or something, in the old Gothic home they’ve just moved into. Scary stuff – or not: one critic suggested that all you would need to fight off the little creatures is a good stiff broom. What does seem scary is that Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes are in this movie. Weren’t they supposed to be serious actors, once upon a time? Finally we have Columbiana, an action picture where Zoe Saldana sheds her Avatar Blue, picks up a gun and becomes a dangerous assassin. By most accounts this movie will remind you of every other movie where someone learns to kill in order to avenge the tragic, senseless death of a loved one. There are a lot of movies like that. This one isn’t very good.

So what to see? Well, The Help is a popular choice. It’s become a box office juggernaut, beating out other adult oriented films as well as the latest blockbusters. Well worth seeing: entertaining, thought provoking, all of that. If you are in a summer movie mood, Captain America and Rise of the Planet of the Apes are still in theaters, and if scares are your thing, give Fright Night a try.  

Nothing strike your fancy?  Well, just hang on.  Next week a new shark movie is coming out.  And it's in 3D!

Transformers

Paramount Pictures

For the ReelFan, it’s been a long summer without enough movies. Oh, there have been plenty of films in theaters, just too much summer traveling to find time to see them. Recently I was in Chicago and from my hotel window, just past the river and peeking out from behind a skyscraper, I could see a building with the AMC logo on it. I imagined myself creating a credible pretense and strolling over there, then dashing in to catch whatever was playing. I was willing to see anything. I would have gone to Final Destination 5.

Which might have been a better choice than Transformers; I saw the latest installment of the blockbuster fighting robot franchise at a strange little theater in Saratoga Springs, New York. It was part of one of those giant, sprawling retail complexes where you can drive for hours through adjacent parking lots, trying to make sense of conflicting signposts that claim to be leading you to wherever you thought you were going. Which is a little bit like Transformers: the movie is a muddled mess of confusing parts that are vaguely connected, and you keep hoping there will be some sort of cinematic signpost that leads you to a logical conclusion. There aren’t though, any signposts or logic; instead the film has lots of crashing explosions and battles between robots that look so alike you can’t tell which one to root for. Or why they’re fighting, for that matter – I think the future of humanity was on the line. I’m not sure.

Shia LaBeouf was cool, though. Such an everyman, this guy, but he has a little swagger, a way of squaring his shoulders and striding into robot battle that makes you believe he can be a badass. He’s fun to watch, and that worked for me, but I don’t recommend anyone see this movie. No reason to go.  C

Movie review: Thor

Paramount Pictures

You knew summer blockbuster season had arrived when Thor ripped through the May box office and a new superhero franchise was born. Played with charm, humor and bravado by Chris Hemsworth, Thor is a godlike hero based on Norse legends; he comes from Asgard, a mythical dreamy place where his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) runs the show and Thor is the presumed heir apparent. Only, he’s a little excitable, so when Asgard is threatened by an old enemy he decides to go to war himself, instead of waiting for his father to pursue patient efforts at diplomacy. He gathers up his friends and they set off to wage glorious battle, but soon realize they’re badly outnumbered and Odin has to rush to their rescue. This escapade makes the old man pretty mad, so he strips Thor of all his powers and banishes him to earth.

And then he meets Natalie Portman.

C’mon, people, it’s a comic book movie. It only stands to reason that Thor will fall out of the sky and land right in the path of a beautiful, brainy scientist. Jane Foster feels responsible for the fallen hero because he bounced off her car when he plummeted to earth, and then – in one of the film’s funniest scenes – her assistant, Darcy (Kat Dennings) tases him when he starts ranting on about Earth and Asgard. (“What! He was freaking me out!”). And so the adventure begins, with Thor trying to find his way home, and Jane trying to help him while she tries to understand who he is.

There’s a lot of great comic book style action in Thor, especially on Asgard, but the real fun happens when the young superhero attempts to navigate his way around Earth; even without his powers, he is quicker and stronger than the “puny” humans who surround him, and there is a charming buffoon quality to his efforts to understand propriety in this tiny Western town. He also eats a lot. Thor figures he’ll be in good shape if he can just get his mystical hammer back, but Odin has thrown it to Earth protected by a Camelot style curse: only someone worthy will be able to wield it. In other words, Thor has to learn his lesson; which he does, eventually, but not before he tangles with a shadowy government group that has taken an interest in him and his hammer (they can’t wield it, of course, bureaucrats aren’t worthy). He also has to manage a duplicitous younger brother who perceives Thor’s banishment a grand opportunity to pursue his own ambitions. (Tom Hiddleston plays brother Loki with slick creepiness; you recoil from him but you can’t wait for him to come back on screen.)

If you think summer blockbuster movies are a silly waste of time, this one will not change your mind. It doesn’t stretch the boundaries of the genre, it sits squarely within them. But it’s fun, lighthearted, popcorn stuff, and if you’re in the mood for that well, hit the multiplex. It scored big at the box office so it will probably survive the onslaught of the new Pirates movie on Friday. Playing everywhere. B

Movie Review: Water for Elephants

20th Century Fox

Water for Elephants may one day show up in a film class as a lesson in how not to adapt a popular novel for the screen. Sara Gruen’s 2006 book is packed with unique characters and compelling stories of life in a Depression era circus – many of them based on actual accounts – but screenwriter Richard LaGravanese chooses to ignore most of that and focus instead on the love triangle at the center of the story. Then he runs out of things to do. So we see a lot of Robert Pattinson, playing young Jacob, staring into Reese Witherspoon’s eyes – she’s Marlena, the star attraction under the big top; and then we see Marlena staring into her husband August’s eyes (Christopher Walz, reprising his deranged Nazi role). And then we see August staring from a distance at Jacob and Marlena – well, you get the idea.

It’s a shame. Because the time lavished on the pretty faces of the stars would have been better spent developing the supporting characters, who are pivotal to nearly every important moment in the story. And it’s a good story, opening with young Jacob on the verge of getting his veterinary license and feeling the first stirrings of love, and then losing everything in a moment when he learns that his parents are dead and his inheritance is worthless. Despairing, he hops a train out of town and, quite by accident, joins the circus. He gets permanent work as a vet with the show, but soon discovers that owner August is a sadistic man who is cruel to his animals and his human employees, throwing men off the train if it helps lighten his payroll or soothe his easily injured pride. The troupe bonds together to maintain their spirits and protect each other from August’s wrath, and they take Jacob in, first out of sympathy but then out of respect and hope that he can become their de facto defender and leader.

But you won’t see any of this in the film, or any cohesive version of it, anyway. LaGravenese, along with director Francis Lawrence, seem to find the colorful characters and grittiness of circus life and the desperation of Depression times to be merely background noise to the story, instead of the very thing that gives it depth and authenticity. So the film is a bore. Still playing in lots of theaters but it got trampled by Rio and Tyler Perry’s latest picture over the weekend; don’t expect a long run. C

Movie review: Hanna

Focus Features

This movie has a great trailer. I’ve watched it a lot. We see an ethereal blonde haired girl, blue eyes luminous, gutting a newly killed antelope. A voice behind her says “You’re dead! I’ve just killed you.” And the angelic child suddenly becomes a twisting punching shrieking fighting machine.

Cool.

Hanna has a great premise, the notion of a sweet faced youngster trained to be an elite assassin before her sixteenth birthday. She has lived her life in a remote forest in Finland, where her father (a restrained, but warmhearted Eric Bana) has instructed her in martial arts and survival skills. She can fight with a gun or a knife or a good stout stick, but all this training is very directed: once she comes of age, she needs to assassinate Marissa Viegler, an elite American agent who, according to dad, wants Hanna dead. It’s kill or be killed in this adventure, and once Hanna (played with memorable delicacy and believable toughness by Saoirse Ronan) sets events in motion so she can confront her nemesis, it seems we are off on a rollicking roller coaster ride of a movie.

Or not.  When Hanna leaves the forest behind, when she makes her first assault on the evil crew that wants to do her in and then speeds away into the desert, the tension of the story slips. It appears that Marissa Viegler – played by Cate Blanchett with a cold heart and Texas twang – does want Hanna dead, but we don’t know why, and what’s more, we don’t know what’s at stake. Is Hanna at risk of becoming a mercenary soldier for some nefarious international organization? Could her sweet nature be corrupted by their evil demands? Is there an innocent population at risk? International relations on the brink?

Apparently not. Marissa Viegler wants Hanna dead because she does. She hires henchmen to help her, and they kill people because that’s what they do – the film is full of violence that serves no purpose; it doesn’t heighten the risks or propel the plot. A lot of it isn’t even interesting, the bad guys and their methods are oddly trite. And there are peculiar lapses in logic: early on, we see Hanna staring dumbfounded at a television; a few scenes later, she expertly types search terms into Google in an effort to understand her peculiar genetic make up.  Pretty sophisticated stuff for a kid raised by lantern light in a remote forest.

But mostly what goes on here are chase scenes, punctuated by fights, followed by more running away. There is a charming intimacy to the early moments of the film when Hanna and her father prepare for her entry into the world, where they struggle with their upcoming separation with the kind of mixed feeling parents and children have always had, even if the kid isn’t setting off to assassinate someone. (But why Hanna needs to go off on this mission by herself is never explained. Would it have been so bad for dad to have her back?) The most entertaining part of the movie happens when Hanna meets up with an English family on holiday; they have a teenage daughter named Sophie who takes Hanna under her irrepressible wing. Jessica Barden delivers Sophie’s lines with excellent comic timing, the film is almost worth seeing just for her. But the real star of the show is Saoirse Ronan, who makes Hanna so intriguing and sympathetic you leave the theater hoping for a sequel; one with a more interesting plot. Playing everywhere, had a pretty average box office performance on opening weekend so it may not last long. B-

Movie Review: The Source Code

Summit Entertainment

The Source Code is an entertaining little science fiction film that doesn’t always make sense, but then, science fiction films often don’t. It’s fun to watch, anyway. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Colter Stevens, a soldier in Afghanistan who wakes up to find himself on a commuter train traveling into Chicago. He is the only one surprised that he is there: turns out that a government technology experiment has spirited him out of his war injured body and into the body of another man, a high school teacher who regularly rides this train. Colter was sent there to complete a mission, which he has eight minutes to get right, but like Groundhog Day, that eight minutes keeps playing over and over again until he has an opportunity to figure the mystery out.

Pretty cool, right? Actually, it is. The whole notion of being able to re-live a bit of time, even if it’s only eight minutes, and having a chance to do things better on every go-round is intriguing. Unlike the Bill Murray movie though, this story has an extra layer: the eight minutes that Colter is reliving aren’t exactly real; they represent the “halo” of consciousness left behind when people die, the last eight minutes of their earthly lives. In other words, all the folks on the train, including the poor old math teacher whose body Colter inhabits, are dead, victims of a terrorist bomb.

This is where you don’t want to start asking too many questions.

Jake Gyllenhaal does a bang up job as the bewildered but purposeful young soldier. He doesn’t understand how the Source Code works (either did I; they kept telling this geeky dude to “fire up the drivers,” and he would hit a few keys on a laptop and away Colter would go. Seems like a pretty pedestrian way to power someone into a metaphysical realm.) But Colter does understand that he has a mission to do: it’s his job to identify the guy who blew up the train before the villain goes on to ignite a dirty bomb over the city of Chicago. Train explosion is the past, but the destruction of Chicago is the future, and the military puppeteers who are pulling Jake’s strings are trying to save the city.

So Colter works his way through the train, eight minutes at a time, harassing passengers and rifling backpacks, generally acting deranged, much to the amusement and occasional alarm of his seatmate, Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan), a young woman who clearly has a crush on the man Colter is supposed to be. And here’s where things get sticky, because after spending say, 40 minutes with this woman on a kind of repeat shuffle, Colter is smitten and he doesn’t want her to die. Even though she is already dead.

Again, better not to get too inquisitive.

Vera Farmiga is wonderful as the military officer who is responsible for giving Colter his orders. We mostly see her face on a small video screen, but she is calm and persuasive, determined to keep the disoriented soldier on track even as she shows glimpses of sympathy for his perplexing situation. In the end she is as much the hero of this piece as the soldier boy. Source Code is a fun night out, worth seeing on the big screen. It had a decent opening weekend so it is still playing pretty much everywhere. B+

Review: Rango

Paramount Pictures

Rango is a kids movie. I hate to say it; I was hoping for a crossover experience. But while the story makes an effort to appeal to adults, and has some references to classic films – in the case of Chinatown, it’s less a reference than blinking neon sign announcing “Check it out! We’re referencing Chinatown!!” – it mostly relies on Road Runner type humor to get the audience going. That works really well if you’re ten, but it’s less compelling if you no longer spend your Saturday mornings watching cartoons.

Rango, voiced by Johnny Depp, is a pet chameleon who is accidentally thrown out of the family car when the driver swerves to avoid a passing armadillo. He lands in a desolate stretch of desert, and the armadillo, a philosophical fellow, sends him off to a nearby town to find his destiny, and some water. (Yup, water; right away we’re getting that Chinatown feeling.) Along the way he meets up with Beans (Isla Fisher), a tough lizard woman with curls and a long blue prairie dress. Beans is trying to hold on to her Daddy’s ranch but it’s tough since the water supply dried up. She’s appropriately suspicious of Rango (she all but calls him a city slicker) but she gives him a lift into town, where he waltzes into the saloon and cons the locals into believing he’s a tough guy. They send him off to meet the mayor, who appoints him sheriff (not a plum job in this town, most of the sheriffs have short life expectancies) and then things start to get complicated, because the folks want their new sheriff to find out where the water’s gone, and Rango suspects the answer lies with the mayor.

All this leads to predictable silliness, posses and chases with lizard cowboys riding birds in and out of canyons (sometimes it’s as much Raiders of the Lost Ark as Destry Rides Again). But it’s mostly flash and superficial excitement, there are no moments where the story transcends its animated silliness to touch something real, in the way that Up and Toy Story did. Still, if you’re looking for a film to see with a bunch of elementary school kids, this will work. Playing everywhere, won the box office crown on a sluggish movie weekend. C

Review: The Adjustment Bureau

 Universal Pictures

The Adjustment Bureau is a cool sci-fi love story. Matt Damon plays David Norris, an up and coming New York congressman making a big play for the US Senate. Everything is on track until the New York Post publishes some old pictures of him engaging in youthful indiscretion, specifically, pulling his pants down at a party. This is enough to crush his campaign, and on election night, glum and full of self recrimination, he practices his concession speech in a swanky hotel bathroom. Then, a ray of hope: Elise (Emily Blunt) emerges quite unexpectedly from one of the stalls, where she had been hiding from hotel security, caught in the act of crashing a wedding. Carrying a half empty bottle of what is probably very good champagne, the irreverent Elise immediately recognizes David (“Aren’t you that guy who’s running for Senate?”) and proceeds to tease, flirt and cajole him out of his mood and back into fighting form. He is instantly smitten, so is she, but then security shows up and she has to run, the girl of David’s dreams disappearing down a hotel staircase. But, inspired by his brief encounter, David tosses his index cards and gives a stirring speech to his supporters. His political fortunes, though delayed, are back on track. 

But the path of true love, and Matt Damon characters, never runs smooth.  On a sunny New York morning, when David has just set out for work (his between campaigns gig) it appears that two men are tracking him. “He needs to spill coffee on his shirt by 7:05,” Richardson (John Slattery) tells Harry (Anthony Mackie) and Harry wearily agrees but then he dozes off on a park bench, missing the cue. Meanwhile, David hops a bus and miraculously, spots Elise. Sparks fly, and this time he gets her number, but then the day takes an ominous turn. David arrives at work to discover strange doings: his co-workers are frozen in time, and his friend and colleague Charlie is getting zapped by a mysterious light beam; the Adjustment Bureau is busily making changes to the fabric of fate that spilled coffee was supposed to prevent David from seeing. Richardson corrals him and then tells him the truth: his future is not his own to plan. And, incidentally, he’s not supposed to be with Elise.

Since Matt Damon has made a career of playing stubborn rogue tough guys, we all know he’s not going to let Elise slip away just because John Slattery tells him to. And so the adventure takes off, with lots of twists and turns and elaborate foot chases through Manhattan. Along the way we are asked to speculate on what choices we would make if we knew in advance what the outcomes would be: White picket fence in the suburbs? Fame and fortune, but no satisfying personal life?

Based on a Philip K. Dick short story (it's like screenwriter and director George Nolfi read the story and decided to write another chapter of his own)The Adjustment Bureau is a fun film, and a great night out in the midst of late winter movie doldrums. Damon and Blunt have crackling chemistry, Slattery’s usual ironic light touch provides welcome amusement, and Anthony Mackie is terrific as the Adjustment Bureau “caseworker” who isn't certain that the team is making the right decisions.  Playing everywhere. B

New Movies: March 4, 2011

Oscar excitement has left town, and along with it the glut of nominated films that dominate movie theaters this time of year. So welcome to the new arrivals! There are many, if you count obscure foreign and Sundance type films that are only playing in big cities. Not counting those, here’s what we got:


Now Playing in a Theater Near You

RANGO Johnny Depp plays a lizard in this live action animated tale of a pet store chameleon who gets lost in the Wild West. Depp based the character of Rango on Hunter Thompson, which is edgy, to say the least, and may be why so many critics caution that this film is probably not going to appeal to the pre-school set. It’s the first animated film to come out of Industrial Light and Magic, George Lucas’ special effects company, and that makes it worth seeing ; but wait, there’s more: director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) upped the realism by having his cast act out the story as though it were a live action shoot, instead of the usual thing of calling the actors in to record their lines individually. Most of the big name critics are big time fans.

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU Matt Damon and Emily Blunt play star-crossed lovers in a sci-fi world that is determined to control their destinies; in order to be together, they must outmaneuver the mysterious Adjustment Bureau. Terrance Stamp and John Slattery play the mysterious evil puppetmasters. Based on a Philip K. Dick short story and directed by George Nofi (Bourne Ultimatum), The Adjustment Bureau is supposed to be a pretty good thriller and an even better love story. Generally good reviews.

TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT Topher Grace takes another stab at stardom in this story about an aimless college graduate whose life is upended when his high school crush invites him to an “epic” end of summer party. It’s sort of like American graffiti, if John Hughes had directed it in the eighties. Most critics love Topher and don’t love this film.

BEASTLY Aimed at the Twilight set, this modern take on the Beauty and the Beast fable features Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number 4) as the Beast, Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) as Beauty and Mary Kate Olsen as the witch. Cool. It’s all set in New York and has a Gossip Girl kind of vibe. Lukewarm reception by critics, who mostly seem to think it could have been a lot better. Well, we all know the story works.

Hall Pass and Drive Angry are also still around, even though they could barely scrape together an audience last weekend; theater owners seem to think they deserve a second chance. Oscar winner The King's Speech is in wide release and worth checking out if you haven’t seen it yet, and i f you’re in the mood for a fun thriller, Unknown is probably at a multiplex near you.