Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles review

                   Nostalgia is the engine of the post-modern dilemma that enables our inability to create new cultural or artist forms, in favor of remixing or rebooting the old standards with an updated sheen.  Studios green-light movies like the recent “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” reboot because they trust the success of the brand-name, and judging from the 65 million dollar opening and the announcement of a 2016 sequel, it would seem with good reason. Despite the public outcry against an early draft of the script that leaked online a couple years back, with the rumors of an added alien mythology and the confirmation of Megan Fox cast in lead, these kinds of pre-recognized titles make money, usually by collecting from the very same people who furiously blog against them.

                 Having been preached against on every forum and every comment section on the web as the Michael Bay molestation of our childhood to come, and gauging from the outrage against the hyper-detailed, fulgliness of the new character designs that were revealed with the preceding trailers and poster art, you would have thought this movie was destined to be a flop of “Heaven’s Gate” proportions.  But, as it turns out, you would have thought wrong, and, unfortunately, I am not surprised.  Though this most recent Ninja Turtles reboot wasn’t actually directed by the infamously successful Michael Bay—only released through Bay’s remake-centric production company, Platinum Dunes—and directed by Jonathan Liebesman who knows how to suck all on his own, responsible for matinee, empty-calorie buffet slop like “Wrath of the Titans” and “Battle LA,” this is exactly the kind of over-buttered pop-corn rubbish you might imagine it to be. Though the original iterations of the franchise were never Shakespeare, TMNT- 2014 might actually succeed in making the internet’s most angry dissenters wish Bay had been at the helm all along.

                Unchanged from the established origin, four baby turtles are mutated through genetic goo called mutagen and are released into the sewers, where they eventually become super-strong, humanoid ninja teenagers. Under the streets of New York, their master Splinter, a mutant rat, has spent their most recent years training the team to fight against a newly organized ninja terrorist gang known as the Foot Clan. Journalist April O’Neil (Megan Fox) has an inkling of the Turtles vigilantly work and is anxious to advance here career from covering ridiculous human-interest pieces to exposing hard-hitting news about reptilian superheroes.  Somewhere in the mix, an ex-colleague of April’s scientist father named Eric Sacs (William Fichtner) is protecting the Foot’s mysterious leader The Shredder, who has his own plans to repurpose the mutagen that created his foes.

                With the studio’s primary interest in updating the base aesthetics of the Turtle’s Saturday-morning appeal by changing their look, their surroundings, and their outdated surfer colloquialisms, this movie serves us back a repackaged product that breaks upon opening.  It seems what happened is while Liebesman and company got so caught-up in refurbishing all the surfaces, they forgot to put back the nuts and bolts that make the story work, leaving us with nothing to attach ourselves to except for the absurdity of the premise.  Rewrites and bad studio notes are achingly visible as April’s unneeded origin is weaved into the backstory of our heroes and the disparate parts of script are taped together with function-based characters like Fichtner’s billionaire bad-guy and comedically placed characters like April’s camera-man Vernon, awkwardly phoned-in by television’s Will Arnett.

                As was expected, this film is based entirely on set-pieces and action spectacle, and while our minimally-written heroes are flipping and kicking and sliding around in practically every scene they have together, we can only piece together their individual characteristics through snips of barely audible dialogue, buried underneath the overwhelming sound-design. Visually, Liebesman tries to ape Bay’s crooked lens and whip-pan style and even manages to ruin the fluidity of that with his usual epileptic camera-work. Surprisingly, this movie doesn’t even fail in the same screeching, headache-inducing ways found in the worst moments of the Transformer’s movies, and instead settles for pandering fan-fare and bland ineptitude.

Grade: D

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Aug-2014

Guardians of the Galaxy review

                  Marvel studios (ever heard of them?) gambled the entire summer on “Guardians of the Galaxy,” a movie based on one of their C-list comic book titles. Not only is this property obscure by fanboy standards, but the film’s two biggest stars, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, are used only to voice a CGI raccoon and a talking tree, while the physically present lead characters are cast from sit-coms and televised wrestling. But it’s the against-all-odds weirdness of this concoction and the risk the studio was willing take on it that kind of gives the entire movie its anarchistic charge and underdog illusion. I say illusion of course because what the success of Guardians really proves is the apparent indestructibility of Marvel’s box-office brand and the strength of their classic studio approach.

                What writer/director James Gunn understands about this material is that the plot can be as simple and as unambitious as it is here, so long as we are on board with the characters and their journey.  Having come from the world of cult-horror and exploitation cinema, such as “Tromeo and Juliet” and “Slither,” as well as low-budget superhero parodies such as “Super” and “The Specials,” he knows exactly where to pitch the difficult tone of this idiosyncratic genre-meld.  As a fan, Gunn celebrates all of the movie’s disparate components—space-opera, buddy-comedy, superhero blockbuster—and weaves them together seamlessly, keeping everything anchored by his love for the characters and the individual comedic textures brought by the movie’s diverse cast.

                Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill/Starlord, a human abducted from earth at the age of nine and raised in space by a group of criminals. While attempting to steal a magic crystal to sell on the intergalactic black market he inadvertently gets thrown into the middle of a political war between the space military and an evil zealot named Ronan (Lee Pace), working for a purple giant called Thanos. Defiant daughter of Thanos, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a vengeance-seeking warrior named Drax (Dave Batista) and the aforementioned tree Groot (Deisel) and his partner Rocket Raccoon (Cooper) also come along on the adventure to capture the powerful stone, with the hopes to find closure, make some money, and maybe save the galaxy from the god-like tyrant. 

                 Though ripped and 60 pounds lighter, “Parks and Recreation” actor Chris Pratt uses his familiar loveable bone-head shtick and applies it to a type of Han Solo charisma, with very appealing results. Likewise, Batista juxtaposes his stone-faced wrestler physicality with the script’s brilliant dry humor and the kids will no doubt respond to Cooper’s loud-mouth Rocket Raccoon and his amorphous bodyguard Groot who is only able to say the words “I AM GROOT,” while Rocket translates his limited language to the rest of the misfits.  Every actor has a scene or two to steal and the movie breaths enough between the set-pieces to build on their relationships. Unfortunately, Zoe Saldana as the green-painted, super-assassin Gamora doesn’t get  as much of a chance to fool-around as the other boys, and having seen her in space more than we haven’t her inclusion feels considerably less inspired. But by no means does this slow the momentum of this wildly imaginative comedy. 

       The plot of “Guardians of the Galaxy” is elementary, the climax is too big and overly drawn-out for its own good, losing some focus in its overreaching for epic-ness, but the majority of this multi-million dollar oddity is overwhelmingly entertaining; the take away being the ensemble, their interactions and the humor that comes from their uncanny chemistry. Like any competent summer movie, the special effects do their job and most of the action is character-driven, but it’s the movie’s ‘70s soft-rock soundtrack and brightly colored look that perfectly mirrors the enthusiastic energy exhibited by the wickedly talented James Gunn and his weirdo cast.

Grade: B+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Aug-2014

Boyhood review

                 Since emerging from and headlining the indie film explosion of the early ‘90s, Austin Texas director Richard Linklater has never been content to stay in familiar territory, constantly pushing himself into unexplored and challenging storytelling avenues. While contemporaries such as Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith were defining their brand and building a devoted fanbase on genre familiarity, Linklater strove to try new things and ignore all expectations.  Later on when he would occasionally make a mainstream comedy like “School of Rock,” in the context of his wildly diverse career even that felt like formal experiment to make a movie in direct opposition to his interest in narrative stream-of-consciousness, displayed in films such as “Slacker” and “Waking Life.”

                With this in mind, it seems only fitting that Linklater would be using his off-time between the  shoots of his regular film schedules to whittle away at a 12 year passion project, documenting the growth and the age of the same cast around the malleable blueprint of a plot. “Boyhood,” in many ways, is the ultimate thesis of Linklater’s formal interests in storytelling and character examination through means of pure cinema. Of course, all of this would mean a whole lot of nothing if it weren’t also emotionally engaging, brutally honest and surprisingly funny.

                On the surface this film tells the story of Mason (Ellar Coltrane), a Texas-born child named named Mason (Ellar Coltrane) as hewho transitions from childhood to manhood, starting at age six when the production began in 2002 and ending with his move to college in 2014. Certainly, the movie’s center of consciousness is with Mason and he's our emotional conduit through the broader story of his broken family (and to a greater extent, the condition of post-911 Americana). But it is within the journey of his formative years that the lives of his parents also play out in subtle complexity.  After a rocky divorce his mother, played by Patricia Arquette, goes back to college to make a better living for Mason and his older sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), and his father, played by Ethan Hawk, also makes his transition from deadbeat struggling musician to accepting eventual responsibility.  Each story interweaves and informs the other, creating a breathy, yet dense emotional tapestry of modern suburban angst.

                By casting a six year old unknown and hoping that he would appropriately age into the role, Linklater gambled on the entirety of the film’s artistic success on this actor, and luckily for him the experiment pays off without ever feeling like a needless gimmick or publicity stunt.  Earlier on  Coltrane's performace is interior and quietly effecting, oftentimes letting the louder characters in his scenes shape his on screen personality through contrast. As he grows the character slowly exposes a firmer identity and develops from a cypher of our own nostalgia into having his own distinct perspective and intellectual agency. Both Ethan Hawk and Patricia Arquette are better here than they may have ever been before and, impressively, they sustain their performance over the long period, infusing their characters with the natural growth they have accumulated both as actors and as people. Simply put, they ‘act’ real, and the significant trick that the movie plays on the audience is that after a while you stop thinking about production’s logistics.

                Almost a formal cousin to Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” trilogy, this film is interested in the deep exploration of character through dialogue, social milieu, and scenic rhythms in editing that outlines the passage of time.  Because of the purposely fluid nature of the plot—oftentimes avoiding the kinds of traditional conceits and beats of more rigorously written coming of age dramas—“Boyhood” may alienate some audiences hoping for the excitement of rising tensions, the exuberance of an underlined ‘ah-ha’ moment, or the comfort of resolution.  What you get instead is a teenage life lived in all its messy and glorious intricacies.

Grade: A-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Aug-2014

The Purge: Anarchy review

               It’s difficult to enjoy a genre movie about government-sanctioned annual murder sprees when every three weeks or so our news is treated to another mass shooting or a real-life tragedy, but horror films and thrillers have occasionally been able to make poetic sense from of a senseless time.  In this regard, writer/director James DeMonaco’s  “The Purge: Anarchy”  at least tries to contextualize his brand of schlock alongside easy metaphors and well-worn, occupy-era allegory.

                While last summer’s surprise horror-hit “The Purge” only hinted at its dystopian sci-fi conceits, settling closer within the intimate, home-invader sub-genre, this sequel opens up DeMonaco’s futuristic setting. Rather than being locked into one location, we travel through the murderous streets, following a handful of frightened survivors as they look for temporary refuge from the bloody holiday. Pair number one consists of an inner-city mother and teenage daughter (Eva Sanchez and Zoe Soul) whose apartment door is kicked in by their sexually frustrated slumlord. After barely escaping his attack, they run into pair number two, a young disgruntled couple (Zach Gilford and Kiele Sanchez) whose car dies in the wrong side of town just before a city-wide alarm sets off the lawless free-for-all. The only thing keeping these four alive is a stoic police Sergeant (Frank Grillo) who’s on a path of vengeance, as he stalks the roads in his armored car.

                It’s clear that DeMonaco grew up on movies like John Carpenter’s “Escape from New York” and Walter Hill’s “The Warriors” and tries to bring the same sense of unflinching bleakness alongside a broad satire of our current social landscape. But like other throwbacky horror directors such as Eli Roth and Rob Zombie, DeMonaco’s films live and die within the borders of their pastiche. As a fan, he can come up with an exploitation premise that sounds great as a one paragraph synopsis on the back of a DVD. As a director, he seems to struggle when it comes to telling an engaging story with characters you might care about.

                Neither Purge is particular memorable or entertaining, given their anarchic concepts, and unlike the Carpenter film’s they endlessly reference, their dower tone makes it uncomfortable to revel in the mindless popcorn violence. Likewise, the ripped-from-the-headlines soapboxing about class wars and wealth disparity lacks the depth or insight for the film to really work as a think-piece. Instead, we are treated to a competent TV-level cast wandering around an aimless plot as they jump from one scenario to another—some of which are mildly rousing, most of which are poorly staged and severely devoid of the necessary filmic discipline to garner adequate thrills.

                At best, “The Purge:  Anarchy” is a fanboy wish fulfillment that will make you nostalgic for Regan-era paranoia, at worst, it’s a philosophically muddy piece of trash-cinema that juxtaposes awkwardly and flippantly against the kinds of real-world terror and random acts of violence reported nightly on CNN. Perhaps only time and distance can illuminate the appropriate perspective to really understand what these movies are trying to say and what they might be doing effectively. Regardless, in a contextual vacuum, they tease more than they satisfy.

Grade: C-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2014

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes review

                Nobody thought that 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” would actually be pretty darn good. Despite a notable lack of charisma from its human performers and an unrefined tonal execution by director Rupert Wyatt, the movie’s central story about a super-smart chimp named Caesar losing faith in his human masters and rising to become an ape revolutionary, was surprisingly nuanced and engaging in a way that its pulpy source material didn’t initially suggest. Though light on the social satire originally in the forefront of the classic Apes series, ‘Rise’ was a delicate character study that argued for the artistic validity of animated motion capture performances, giving actor Andy Sirkis the opportunity to turn in a mo-cap tour-de-force.

                This summer’s sequel “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”, directed by J.J. Abrams protégé Matt Reeves, chronicles Caesar’s tumultuous reign as the leader of the ape rebellion. After the world’s human population has been devastated by a virus sprung from the same concoction that gave the primates their intelligence, a small group of survivors trek into the woods to activate a local dam, hoping to restore power to their near-vacant city. On the way, the group stumbles upon an ape village, accidentally inciting a diplomatic scuffle when a clumsy human nervously shoots one of their guards. Luckily for them, group leader Malcolm (played by “Zero Dark Thirty” actor Jason Clarke) is able to calm the storm long enough to allow the excavators to enter the ape’s territory while they work on the broken dam.

                Caesar’s lingering hope for human civility allows for him to carry out the hesitant truce, particularly as his ape queen becomes ill after childbirth and Malcolm’s partner Ellie (Kerry Russell) has the medical background to aid in her recovery.  However, Caesar’s war general, a spiteful chimp named Koba, still psychologically and physically scared by human experimentation, reveals less trust in the union and begins to enact a counter agenda of his own.

                Like the previous film, the strength of this feature is in its deep-digging character work.  Though some of the apes are able to string together words to create broken sentences, the majority of their actions and emotions are expressed physically through detailed computer animation. Said animation and other special effects have been significantly improved since the last installment, and the motion capture body-work by Andy Sirkis and other members of the ape-cast are especially fluid and believable.

                The action is ramped for genre-fulfilling summer movie thrills but it is the quiet moments between the storms that keep the audience invested in the plight of both sides of the futuristic cold-war. In our current socio-political climate it’s difficult to not draw parallels to America’s divided views on gun violence, as well as global tensions between hostile nations and their ever- intensifying saber-rattling. Of course the Apes series has always aimed to discuss these sorts of ideas and Reeves’ sensitive direction allows for intellectual discourse, just under the surface of the blockbuster’s bombast.

                While some of the characters are noticeably underwritten—particularly Kerry Russell, Gary Oldman as a trigger-happy Donald Rumsfeld type,  and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jason Clarke’s teenage son—the emotional foundation of this story is solid enough to keep you glued to every interaction on the screen, particularly by the titular simians. Those grievances aside, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is a substantial achievement that raises the bar for genre filmmaking in 2014 by being intimate, epic and distinctly human at the same time.

Grade: A-

  

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2014

Jersey Boys review

                Both as an actor and as a filmmaker, director Clint Eastwood has become synonymous with working class, blue collar American romanticism. His best movies are no-nonsense genre staples that give actors enough room to breathe and explore their characters, in stories that vibrate in the margins between Speilbergian optimism and the darker shades of the types of 70s films in which he once stared.  It’s a tricky balance to strike every time and as he grows older, struggling to differentiate a chair from a responsive human being, he also seems to have a harder time distinguishing the good cinematic ideas from the bad.

                In his most recent offering, “Jersey Boys”, based on a Tony award winning Broadway production, Eastwood curiously tries to ape Scorsese’s greatest hits, as he portrays the popular soda-shop pop-rock band Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons as self-made wise guys, struggling to keep their egos in check long enough to make the money and get the respect they never had growing up on the streets. And in attempting to bridge the tone of a Broadway musical with the grit of something like a “Mean Streets” or “Goodfellas”, the movie never finds a comfortable identity of its own. Instead, the whole thing wobbles around like a confused drunk prostitute, trying on styles she can’t afford in stores she doesn’t belong in.

                With that said, Clint likes his actors and his movies always accommodate their needs and talents, and even here newcomers like John Lloyd Young, as the passive Frankie Valli, fills the role with earnest desire and interior complexity while his character is passed around and forced into crime and/or fame by his frienemy Tommy DeVito, played by “Boardwalk Empire” actor Vincent Piazza. Piazza channels a youthful De Niro as the selfish but charismatic guitar player and lights up every scene he’s in with familiar, yet effortless energy.  Other characters, such as Christopher Walken as the mobster kingpin Gyp DeCarlo and Mike Doyle as the band’s flamboyant producer Bob Crewe, keep things light, even as the messy screenplay attaches more and more narrative weight.

                Unfortunately, performances alone couldn’t save this movie from its inherent problems. The plot skims the specifics of the band’s rock and roll history during the 50s and 60, instead focusing on the “Behind the Music” gossip of interpersonal tensions, affairs and legal scuffles, before eventually downing in 20 unearned minutes of drama between a washed up Vali and his teenage daughter that we never got to know as a character up to that point. Stylistically, Eastwood oscillates between stagey camera set pieces and blocking that resembles edited close ups on the proscenium and distractingly unoriginal tracking shots where the characters break the fourth wall by addressing the camera directly.

                The one thing that could have saved this Broadway adaptation--the music-- is far too understated and sometimes just avoided to make room for the multi-stranded plot and the shifts in character perspective. When we finally do get barely contextualized performances of Four Seasons’ standards such as Sherry and Big Girls Don’t Cry, it only underlines the movie’s missed opportunity. There’s no lack of ambition in “Jersey Boys” but it what it does lack is the discipline and finesse required to keep a biopic of this scope from tripping allover itself.

Grade: C-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2014