REVIEW: One Day

One Day (2011): Dir. Lone Scherfig. Written by David Nicholls, based on his novel. Starring Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess, Ken Stott, Patricia Clarkson and Rafe Spall. Rated PG-13 (Some sexuality and skinny dipping, but nothing too explicit). Running time: 108 minutes.

1 ½ stars (out of four)

One Day, a new Will They/Won’t They/Of Course They Will romance directed by Lone Scherfig and starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, spans twenty years in the lives of its characters. Adapted by David Nicholls from his novel, the film begins on July 15, 1988, the day on which posh Brits Emma (Hathaway) and Dexter (Sturgess) are formally introduced following their college graduation. They nearly go to bed together but decide instead to just be good friends which makes One Day a sort of No Strings Attached or Friends With Benefits for audiences who prefer watching struggling artists to Ashton Kutcher.

The film checks back in with Emma and Dexter once a year on that same day – July 15 – and we follow their up-and-down, back-and-forth friendship that just might be the seed of a beautiful romance if they can ever get over themselves long enough to realize they are in a movie that demands they fall in love.

Emma is a shy, bookish girl who moves to London to become a poet and complains a year later that the city has “swallowed her up” when she is stuck waiting tables at a kitschy Tex-Mex restaurant. She both envies and resents (with equally strong levels of self-pity) the comparative success of her best friend and would-be lover, now a wealthy TV personality for a schlocky late night program. The film never adequately explains how Dexter gets such a cushy job, though he is quite charming in a sleazy way.

Jim Sturgess is just right for this type of character. His dashing looks (not to mention that accent, ladies!) give him a boy-next-door appeal that should be at odds with the character’s Casanova womanizing but somehow balance one another out in Sturgess’s sly smile. Anne Hathaway, a master of the shy, bookish girl (let’s not mention her accent, though!) is perfectly comfortable and oh-so-cute in her exasperated fits and dignified prudishness. The two are ideal romantic foils according to the opposites-always-attract logic of Movie Land.

Unfortunately, the script forces them to deliver a constant flow of exposition necessary to fill in the gaps between each July 15. Scene after scene the two young actors labor to spit out backstory in way that roughly resembles how people talk to one another. Occasionally, we learn that nothing interesting has happened since the previous year. At least once, a major plot point occurs during the in-between and is only casually alluded to despite its seemingly pivotal significance. Having such a crucial event happen off-screen would surely be the film’s biggest dramatic blunder were it not for the final twenty minutes, a contrived and predictable mess of an ending.

The problem is that One Day has nothing interesting to say about life and love; its observations about relationships are hackneyed and obvious. Time goes on, people change, life happens. And the film is just pretentious enough to believe these points can only be made through its tiresome structure. (It’s the same day – but different!) Last year’s Blue Valentine, an exceedingly better “love through the years” film, has similar things to say but understands how the nuances and complexities of human relationships shape our lives. By comparison, the characters in One Day are stiff, lifeless extensions of the plot.

Of course, Blue Valentine’s bitter take on love lost does not suit One Day’s sentimental aims. This is a hack job melodrama that places no trust in its audience to understand where emotional parts are. Strings doused in syrup accompany nearly every scene, overplaying the manufactured mush of the plot when it should be allowing its leads to actually, you know, fall in love.

As the film’s annual progression churns forward, helpful text pops up onscreen to announce what year we’re in, beginning in 1988 and only skipping a handful of years before arriving at July 15, 2011. (You remember, that long ago time of two months ago.) One Day also has an annoyingly persistent habit of depicting the 1990s and early twenty-first century with trite cultural markers. “I’ll never get a mobile phone,” Emma declares halfway through the film. A half dozen years later we see her with one of those hip Macbooks right around the time Dexter starts working for a trendy organic food company.

The worst of this occurs when, late in the film, Dexter reminds Emma that they once had feelings for each other. “That was in the late 80s!” she says to him, as if people actually perceive their lives in such rigid terms.

This moment is indicative of the film’s larger problems. One Day tries to build a tearjerker around its pseudo-wisdom about romance but misses the point of what a good weepie should be. We do not care whether or not Emma and Dexter get together, a death sentence for this type of movie. Instead of a love story we get two people talking at each other, explaining why they are or are not together. How romantic.

- Steve Avigliano, 8/29/11

REVIEW: 30 Minutes or Less

30 Minutes or Less (2011): Dir. Ruben Fleischer. Written by: Michael Diliberti. Story by: Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan. Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson, Michael Peña and Fred Ward. Rated R (Language, violence and nudity). Running time: 83 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

In 30 Minutes or Less, a new comedy from director Ruben Fleischer, two would-be criminals strap a bomb to a stranger’s chest and force him to rob a bank under the threat of detonation, a premise that places the film in the company of a recent wave of action comedies that have been popular in the last few years.

In films such as Pineapple Express and this one (both of which feature actor Danny McBride) the best jokes stem from watching everyday incompetent shmoes realize that life is not like what they have been led to believe from their countless viewings of Lethal Weapon. This is amusing territory to be sure but when 30 Minutes or Less runs out of clever gags, it leans too heavily on its guns and explosives for laughs, a none-too-subtle way to cover for a lack of good material.

The victim of the aforementioned scheme is Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), a pizza delivery boy whose employer cruelly promises customers a free pizza if their order does not arrive in the titular time frame. Nick has a falling out with his childhood friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) over his interest in Chet’s sister Katie (Dilshad Valsaria), a plot device necessary to push the two apart before the forthcoming bomb situation draws them back together.

The architects of the deadly and poorly thought out plan are Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson) who want to off Dwayne’s father (Fred Ward), a ex-Marine hardass with a few million dollars in lottery winnings. Once his old man is out of the way, Dwayne can use his inheritance money to fund his dream business venture: a whorehouse that fronts as a tanning salon. First, however, the pair needs a hundred thousand bucks to hire a hit man (Michael Peña) who comes recommended by a stripper (Bianca Kajlich) Dwayne spills his guts to during a lap dance.

Eisenberg, fresh off his Oscar nod for The Social Network (there is a winking reference to Facebook in this film), reteams with his Zombieland director though he isn’t quite right for the role. There is too much of the nastiness from his take on Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg here and not enough of the neurosis from his Zombieland character. He is angry and spiteful when he should be bumbling and anxious.

The movie also features performances from a few comedic actors who are on the verge of becoming household names. The best of these is Aziz Ansari, a popular stand-up comic and TV actor who is about one good role away from becoming a star. There is something oddly likable about Ansari’s comedic persona; his hyper energy is fueled by the sort of faux-machismo that comes from watching too many action movies and rap videos (fitting that he should recently appear in a rap video). He poses as a tough guy but the act is quickly broken at the slightest sign of danger and he turns out to be as timid as any of us.

McBride and Swardson are more of a mixed bag. Their talents mainly lie in mining the lowest depths of privileged degenerates, which, I suppose, they are very good at though they are not always fun to watch. This is particularly the case when the script calls on them to deliver some pretty offensive one-liners. (The film is not shy about its sexist dismissal of its female characters and features a handful of racist comments directed towards Indians.) Coming from the mouths of such mean, unlikable characters, these lines are ugly rather than funny.

Entirely too much time is spent on this pair, especially in the opening scenes as the film needlessly depicts the two criminals devising their scheme. The movie might have taken a cue from the action movies it constantly references and launched right into the bomb and bank heist plot. Nick and Chet’s amateur robbery is great fun but gets limited to only a few scenes when it should form the basis of all the film’s jokes.

Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland was a surprisingly smart and often very funny movie but here he places too much comedic faith in the wrong places. I appreciate the film’s economic running time but when a movie is this short there should be no wasted time, no extraneous scenes. Instead, 30 Minutes or Less squanders its 83 minutes as though as though unaware its main character could explode at any moment.

- Steve Avigliano, 8/14/11

REVIEW: Cowboys & Aliens

Cowboys & Aliens (2011): Dir. Jon Favreau. Written by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby. Story by: Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, and Steve Oedekerk. Based on the graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens by: Scott Mitchell Rosenberg. Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Clancy Brown, Keith Carradine and Raoul Trujillo. Rated PG-13 (Western & sci-fi action and violence). Running time: 118 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

In Cowboys & Aliens, the latest from director Jon Favreau, the cowboys are dusty and the aliens are slimy. Anyone expecting anything else has walked into the wrong theater. The film delivers everything promised in its title (the ampersand stands in for “rescuing citizens who have been abducted by”) in a genre mash-up that, unless you are familiar with the graphic novel on which it is based, is admittedly original.

The premise is ingeniously simple. Why do movie aliens always attack Earth in the present day? Surely their spaceships and weaponry have been advanced for centuries so why not invade our terrestrial world in say, the late 1800s, before the Second Industrial Revolution begins depleting our celestially sought after natural resources?

This playful anachronism allows for some nice moments. When a metallic wristband suddenly starts beeping on Daniel Craig’s wrist, watch Paul Dano’s baffled reaction to the, um, alien sound.

Unfortunately, the majority of Cowboys & Aliens is not as noteworthy as its perfectly silly title. The film opens on a man with no name (Daniel Craig) waking in the middle of the New Mexican desert. He has a name, presumably, but he has forgotten that piece of information as well as how the aforementioned wristband got clamped onto his arm. He stumbles into a nearby town and meets a host of Western archetypes: the hotheaded son (Paul Dano) of a wealthy cattle driver (Harrison Ford), a sheepish bartender (Sam Rockwell), preacher (Clancy Brown), sheriff (Keith Carradine) and a mysterious beauty (Olivia Wilde).

A few of these people recognize Craig’s rugged face from a wanted poster sketch, which lands him in the town jail though he cannot recall his crime. Soon enough, however, bright lights descend from the night sky offering him a chance at redemption (not to mention an opportunity to use that thing on his wrist). The town gets pretty thoroughly blown up and about half its small population snatched up and whisked away by the spaceships. The next day, the cowboys embark on a mission led by Craig and Ford to save their fellow citizens.

The movie is considerably heavier on cowboys than it is aliens, even finding room for an Apache tribe led by their chief, Black Knife (Raoul Trujillo), to help the cowboys. This might lead some to think of the aliens as an allegorical replacement for Native Americans, making the film a sort of “Cowboys and Indian Symbols,” but that would be pushing a lot of unwanted subtext on the film. Cowboys & Aliens is more straightforward than that and I appreciate that the film is modest enough to not try and be anything more than the title suggests.

On the other hand, it’s a shame that with a premise as clever as this, the movie isn’t a little better. Cowboys & Aliens lacks the wit and humor of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man films, which is odd since the subject matter here might have lent itself to self-aware kidding even more. Harrison Ford, a master at cashing in on a paycheck while having some fun too, does his best to make up for the film’s mostly sober tone. You can just barely catch a little glimmer in his eye that shows he knows when he’s saying a bad line and when he’s saying a good and cheesy one. Playing a rough and gruff curmudgeon, he is responsible for the film’s few laughs.

At about two hours, the movie is too long considering it offers only the bare minimum in the way of plot. There are a number of well put together action scenes and the movie doesn’t really do anything wrong but I kept expecting something more. Some extra twist or turn, perhaps. But nothing like that ever comes and the movie is content to trot along with modest ambitions for the entirety of its running time. There are many worse ways to spend two hours but I don’t expect children to be playing “Cowboys and Aliens” anytime soon.

- Steve Avigliano, 7/12/11

REVIEW: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011): Dir. Rupert Wyatt. Written by: Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. Starring James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton and David Oyelowo. Rated PG-13 (Violent riots carried out by apes). Running time: 105 minutes.

1 ½ stars (out of four)

Many years from now, long after human society has crumbled, when whatever living sentient race is examining the Planet of the Apes films, I hope they do not linger on the six films that followed the 1968 original starring Charlton Heston. And if they do, let them take the four sequels from the early 70s, Tim Burton’s supremely silly remake in 2001 and now Rise of the Planet of the Apes as examples of Hollywood’s relentless desire to repeat any and all past successes if doing so means a chance at more commercial gain.

The original Planet of the Apes is already something of an old relic, a classic that still resonates in spite of the fact that it now feels a little dated. The Twilight Zone-esque story (Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling co-wrote the script) with its now famous twist ending was very much a product of its time and though its allegorical comments on nuclear war and modern society are as true as they have ever been, they do not necessarily translate to contemporary blockbuster success.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an attempt to reboot the franchise from a different narrative starting point. Will Rodman (James Franco) is a scientist at a company called GEN-SYS working on a cutting edge drug that could cure Alzheimer’s. His boss, Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo), is a pharmaceutical mogul excited about the drug’s financial potential but Will’s stakes in the drug are more personal; his father (John Lithgow) suffers from the degenerative disease. Tests in the lab successfully enhance the brainpower of chimps and the drug’s prospects look good until an accident in the lab puts the project on hold.

In the wake of the project’s failure, Will acquires a newborn chimp birthed by one of the test apes. Caesar, as he is symbolically named, has inherited the effects of the drug from his mother and over the next few years Will nurtures the ape’s inborn intelligence, a choice that leads humanity down a dangerous path the scientists from Project Nim only narrowly avoided.

Unlike the 1968 original or the 2001 remake, the human protagonist is not terribly important here. Rise is very much the apes’ story and because of this, the film makes little effort to offer any worthwhile human characters. Franco, who has a smirking charm in other films, gives a bland and sleepy performance. Mostly he exists to restate plot points in case you miss any of those subversive, glaring looks on the expressive faces of the computer-animated apes.

The rest of the film’s Homo sapiens are equally dull. Will’s girlfriend (Freida Pinto) isn’t given a single thing to do, though she is very pretty and occasionally chimes in a cautious word. And much time is wasted on a handful of feeble human antagonists including Tom Felton of Harry Potter fame as an oddly vicious caretaker at a primate facility who bears more than a little resemblance to the actor’s Draco Malfoy role. The venerable Brian Cox also appears as the facility’s owner but he is underused. The real villain is (or rather, should be) Jacobs, the corporate-minded pharmaceutical exec who pushes for hasty and reckless testing of the drug on as many apes as possible.

But Rise of the Planet of the Apes explores the subtleties of scientific ethics with all the grace of one of its 400-pound stars. “I make money and you make history!” Jacobs shouts to Will late in the film, trying to convince him to go through with the risky tests. The film lumbers along with tedious exposition and clunky dialogue for most of its running time until the final stretch when the uprising promised by the title occurs.

The film’s stupidity does provide some giddy entertainment, if perhaps unintentionally. One scene features Caesar engaging an orangutan in a sign language conversation that is – hilariously – subtitled. Once the action gets going, we also learn that the apes have an unusual affinity for leaping through glass, a feat that apparently does them no harm but makes for a dramatic entrance.

One of the film’s biggest flaws is the apes themselves. The CGI (including a motion-capture performance from CGI veteran Andy Serkis as Caesar) is impressive but cannot hide the fact that all the apes are animated creatures. The overuse of CGI takes the life out of the apes despite the filmmakers’ best efforts to do the opposite. I recall the effectiveness of the original’s costumes – silly though they may now seem – or the eerie unreality of Stanley Kubrick’s apes in the “Dawn of Man” sequence from 2001. Heck, even Tim Burton’s version had great costumes. No degree of skillful animation can beat the tactile pleasure of watching an actor in a monkey costume and I mean that with the utmost sincerity.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes wants to revive an outdated franchise but doesn’t have any drive or purpose beyond the commercial obligation to use the rights to the title while the studio still has it. In another ten years we may get another Apes film (be it remake, reboot or regurgitation) and when that happens, will anyone care about this film? Will they even remember it? Or will it be wait to be scrutinized an eon or two from now as a prime example of perfunctory summer entertainment?

- Steve Avigliano, 8/11/11