REVIEW: Les Misérables

Les Misérables (2012): Dir. Tom Hooper. Written by: William Nicholson, Alain Boubil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer. Based on the musical by: Alain Boubil and Claude-Michel Schönberg. Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Samantha Banks, Isabelle Allen, Aaron Tveit and Daniel Huttlestone. Rated PG-13 (Hopes torn apart, dreams turned to shame). Running time: 158 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

For a big-budget, end-of-the-year musical spectacle, director Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables is surprisingly light on spectacle. The film indulges in its share of sweeping cityscape views and crowds of costumed extras but spends far more time on close-ups, especially during its performers’ solos.

It’s a technique used to particularly devastating effect in Anne Hathaway’s show-stopping first act number, “I Dreamed a Dream.” As she laments a dream long gone and faces the cruel reality of her life, tears stream down her face. We can hear the pain in her voice and see it too. It is the sort of jaw-dropping moment that freezes time and is the reason musical fans flock to movies like this one and their stage counterparts. Nothing else in the film matches its emotion.

Ms. Hathaway’s Fantine, a prostitute who sends money regularly to a daughter she never sees named Cosette (the sweet and very talented newcomer Isabelle Allen), is but a minor player in a large cast of miserable men and women in nineteenth century France. There is the story’s hero, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman, commanding the screen as always), a former slave who has spent half his life in bondage as punishment for stealing a loaf of bread. Valjean is given a new lease on life from a gracious and forgiving bishop (Colm Wilkinson) who catches Valjean taking silver from the church in the middle of the night.

Then there is the emotionally tortured Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), a man wed to the law and desperately (even bizarrely) committed to catching Valjean, who has broken his parole, and seeing justice served. Mr. Crowe lends the role a certain sense of dignity and authority but, regrettably, is the weak link vocally in the cast. He doesn’t embarrass himself or anything but the disparity in talent is clear whenever he shares the screen with Broadway darling Hugh Jackman.

The themes in the film’s first half – justice, honor, duty, forgiveness – are well-suited to the grandeur and beauty of the songs, taken from the 1980s musical which was, in turn, based on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo. But rather than painting on an huge canvas, where the pain and heartbreak of these characters might have gotten lost, Tom Hooper focuses closely on his actors.

There is a raw quality to the performances, which were recorded live on set. The actors’ expressions match their intonations, and the songs become intimate in a way they could never be on stage.

Despite his best efforts, however, Mr. Hooper cannot overcome the weaknesses of his source material. In the final act, the film leaps forward in time and is hijacked by a new generation of miserable people. Two young men, Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and Enjolras (Aaron Tveit), lead a revolution to overthrow the government, but Marius becomes distracted by a beautiful girl he sees in the marketplace – Cosette all grown up (a lovely Amanda Seyfried). Marius is so overcome with puppy love that he barely notices the girl next door, Éponine (Samantha Banks), who longs for his love and affection.

But the sting of unrequited love pales in comparison with what Valjean and Fantine had to endure. (OK, so he likes you but he doesn’t like you like you… Try being a slave! Or a prostitute! Kids these days have no perspective…) And speaking of Valjean, where is he in the last act? Why is he sidelined and not a major player in the revolution?

Even when the story falters, however, the movie looks great. Cinematographer Danny Cohen beautifully films production designer Eve Stewart’s sets, and though Tom Hooper resists overplaying the epic qualities of the movie, there is no mistaking the hugeness of the production. This is prime Oscar bait and no expense is spared.

Les Misérables is also bolstered by a strong ensemble cast, including a wonderful Sacha Baron Cohen as a pickpocketing innkeeper and Helena Bonham Carter as his wife and partner in crime. Watch too for that little scene-stealer Daniel Huttlestone as a young boy scampering through the gutters who assists the revolutionaries.

Now is probably a fair time to acknowledge that I’m not big on musicals like this. I’d be surprised if a fan of the stage show was disappointed but then, having never seen the original production myself, I have nothing to compare the film to. And at 158 minutes, boy, is this movie long. I’ll never say I didn’t get enough Les Mis for my money.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/5/13

REVIEW: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012): Dir. Peter Jackson. Written by: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro. Based on The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Starring: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Sylvester McCoy, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood and Andy Serkis. Rated PG-13 (Goblin blood). Running time: 169 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

Director Peter Jackson returns to Middle Earth with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s charming and durable 1937 novel The Hobbit, and a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. Much like the Lord of the Rings movies, An Unexpected Journey is a rousing epic, a stirring human drama and a breathtaking advertisement for New Zealand tourism. Though not quite the sprawling masterpiece each of those earlier films is, this is an entertaining movie that occasionally reaches greatness and comes very close to being satisfying as a standalone film.

This is the first in a trilogy, however, so though our heroes have climbed mountains, crossed valleys, scuttled through untold numbers of underground passageways and fought many foes over the course of more than two-and-a-half hours, they have apparently only just begun.

We have already seen (and, if you are like me, committed to memory) the daring adventure of Frodo Baggins, a lowly hobbit from the small village of Hobbiton, who saved all of Middle Earth from certain doom with a little help from his friends. The Hobbit tells the story of his uncle, Bilbo Baggins, a fellow adventurer who embarked on his own journey some sixty years earlier. In a prologue that runs surprisingly long, we see an aged Bilbo (Ian Holm, reprising his role) sitting down to write his memoirs in his quaint hobbit hole while Frodo (Elijah Wood making a cameo appearance) peeps over his shoulder.

As the old Bilbo narrates, we see his younger self (played to perfection by Martin Freeman) being visited by the wizard Gandalf (a sublime Ian McKellen slipping back into the role) who asks him very kindly if he would like to go on an adventure. Bilbo scoffs at the suggestion. An adventure? He would like no part in that. Few things are more unpredictable and uncomfortable than adventures and he would much prefer to stay home and enjoy his supper.

But Gandalf, of course, has already decided for him. In a delightful sequence – and the highlight of the film – Bilbo is visited by not one, not two or seven, but thirteen dwarves. They raid his pantries, serve themselves a feast and make plans for a great quest. They seek to travel to the Lonely Mountain, once a stronghold of the dwarves, to reclaim their land and their treasure from a terrible dragon named Smaug. Gandalf has informed the dwarves that Bilbo is to be their burglar. Naturally, this upsets Bilbo very much.

Though The Lord of the Rings is rich with stories of revenge and loyalty, vices and virtues, I relate more closely with The Hobbit than with any part of that great saga. I see more than a little of myself in Bilbo Baggins and I sympathize with his reaction to all this excitement. I love an impromptu plan but I need to be coaxed into it. Left to my own devices I would probably stay at home most nights, likely watching The Lord of the Rings or wasting away the hours on something equally unsociable.

So I connect deeply to the story of a fellow homebody who is begrudgingly pushed out the door, gets into all kinds of messes and ultimately winds up having a good time. In Tolkien’s novel, that story is told from point of view of Bilbo, who is alternately awestruck, amused, frightened and exhausted by all this adventuring.

An Unexpected Journey, on the other hand, takes on a broader perspective. Written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh (Mr. Jackson’s wife), Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro, the script finds time to chase tangents and develop backstories that flesh out the expansive world of Middle Earth and its history. We meet Radagast (Sylvester McCoy) an eccentric, animal-loving wizard who discovers something dark brewing in his beloved woods. Whispers spread that a dark sorcerer named the Necromancer is raising the dead.

We also learn about the dark past of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), the dwarf leader of the expedition, who long ago tangled with the Pale Orc in battle and lost many loved ones to that foul creature’s sword. Though believed to be dead, the Pale Orc may in fact still be alive and looking to finish what he started.

There is a lot to absorb in this first movie and most of it is fascinating but the trouble with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is that it gets so caught up in the journey that it often forgets the hobbit. As expected, the action is superbly choreographed and the effects are stunning across the board. But poor Bilbo is sidelined for lengthy passages and the movie suffers as a result. His exclusion from many scenes is also unusual considering Bilbo himself is supposed to be telling this tale. I find it difficult to believe this adventurer would leave himself out of the main action of his own story.

As grand as Peter Jackson’s canvas is, the story needs Bilbo’s humble perspective to anchor it and give the audience someone to identify with. During more than one of the many battle scenes that transpire during the film’s ungainly 169 minutes, I found myself wishing I was cozying up in some corner of my hobbit hole – that is to say, my living room – underneath a warm blanket away from all this tiresome noise and commotion.

But when Bilbo does get screen time, as he does in his encounter with Gollum (Andy Serkis in another stellar motion-capture performance), the movie comes alive. Martin Freeman’s performance is the heart, soul and saving grace of the film. He is a gifted comic actor who wonderfully navigates the many hesitations, prejudices, preoccupations and contradictions of the cautious but brave hobbit. Ian McKellen, who still has the ability to turn a scene with a single look, is also an invaluable presence in the movie.

There are a number of pitch perfect moments when An Unexpected Journey captures the blissful whimsy of Tolkien’s novel. Just as often, however, this lighter side takes a backseat as Peter Jackson flexes his epic filmmaking muscles. By the time the credits rolled, I was plenty ready for a break from Middle Earth. That was more than enough adventure for one evening, thank you very much.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/15/12


On a side note, this movie is being shown in a number of different formats, including 3D and something called HFR (higher frame rate). The movie was filmed at 48 frames per second (twice as fast as the usual 24 fps) and if projected at that speed is supposed look more realistic.

I saw it in regular old 2D and enjoyed it but these websites were very helpful in making that decision. This one rates the 3D version and this one talks about the HFR version.

REVIEW: Killing Them Softly

Killing Them Softly (2012): Written and directed by Andrew Dominik. Based on the novel Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgens. Starring: Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn. Rated R (Killings and robberies, and countless profane discussions about same). Running time: 97 minutes.

1 ½ stars (out of four)

I’m always in the mood to go to a diner and drink a cup of burnt coffee. It never runs me much more than a dollar, the waitress serves it on a saucer and, if you go to my diner, it comes with a small mountain of half-and-half packets served on a saucer of their very own. I can’t explain why but I just enjoy it.

I’m also always down to see a movie about small-time crooks, hit men and seedy jobs carried out for quick cash. These movies can also be about the cops who chase those crooks down and arrest them but they’re usually better if they’re not.

Killing Them Softly is one such movie about crooks. These particular crooks like to talk and they talk so much that there isn’t any room for the cops aside from a siren here and a “Hands behind your back” there. That’s fine by me; I happen to especially enjoy movies where the crooks talk more than they shoot.

Killing Them Softly was written and directed by Andrew Dominik, who also made the methodical and brooding western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. He’s a man who likes his genres and he lavishes this particular genre film with a style that is alternately flashy and gritty.

In one moment he lingers on a shot of Brad Pitt, who plays a calm and collected hit man with slicked back hair and Aviator shades, exhaling a slow gust of cigarette smoke. The next moment, Mr. Dominik gets good and close to a pool of blood spilling out from a newly dead body and onto the blacktop of a parking lot. And at least once he slows down a kill shot so we can appreciate some splattering brain matter for all its disgusting beauty.

The last time I saw a genre movie this in love with itself was Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive. That movie was a little too obsessed with its aesthetic pleasures – the 80’s synths, the sports cars, Ryan Gosling’s jawline – but was gorgeous enough that I didn’t object to the total irrelevance of its plot. Killing Them Softly isn’t nearly pretty enough to pull that trick off.

And Andrew Dominik isn’t nearly the master stylist he thinks he is. Come on, Andrew, you’re going to play “Heroin” while a junkie shoots up heroin? That’s amateur no matter which way you cut it.

Killing Them Softly is an insistently showy movie and its artsy experimentations get distracting. Notice that the film is set in the fall of 2008 amid the financial crisis. Clips of George W. Bush and Barack Obama are shown or heard in the background of practically every other scene, bluntly and needlessly reinforcing the desperate times its characters live in. Listen to the sound design (and believe me, the movie really wants you to listen to its sound design) and notice how laughter in the background of a bar scene is foregrounded at key moments in the dialogue. Well, I assume they were key moments. I kind of stopped paying attention.

The dialogue, by the way, is just as showy, relying too much on repetition and rhythm, and featuring little in the way of verbal ingenuity. It’s okay to let the characters gab on about whatever is on their mind but their conversations should crackle with life. The dialogue here circles around and around with dizzying tediousness.

And if talk is going to be a greater focus than action, the movie has to be willing to punch things up once in a while with a little energy and excitement. Killing Them Softly is only 97 minutes long but drags on at a glacial pace. I now have firsthand proof of Einstein’s theory of relativity.

There are a few spare moments in the film when things click and Mr. Dominik gets it right. Scenes between a pair of amateur criminals, Frankie (a wonderfully twitchy Scoot McNairy) and Russell (an equally fun Ben Mendelsohn, spaced out and looking truly awful as the aforementioned junkie), have a grungy giddiness to them and enliven the otherwise stale proceedings. Ray Liotta and James Gandolfini, meanwhile, are criminally underused and the movie completely wastes an appearance from the great Richard Jenkins, the current sitting King of Character Actors.

Brad Pitt lends the film as much of his charm and magnetism as he can muster but Killing Them Softly isn’t very interested in satisfying its audience with the thrills they expect from a movie like this. It’s too self-absorbed to cede any control to its star, preferring instead suck the wind out of a perfectly good tale of crime gone wrong by acting like an art film that is too good for its own material.

I can appreciate a crummy cup of joe as much as anyone but don’t serve me burnt coffee and call it a cappuccino.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/6/12

REVIEW: Life of Pi

Life of Pi (2012): Dir. Ang Lee. Written by David Magee. Based on the novel by Yann Martel. Starring: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Adil Hussain and Rafe Spall. Rated PG (Animal violence). Running time: 127 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

A lot of people worked very hard on Life of Pi, most of them computer animators, and their impressive level of craftsmanship is on full display in the gorgeous, digital spaces visited in the film. I wish I could say my appreciation of the movie runs deeper than that. Whether because of the film’s infatuation with artificial wonder or some internal limitation within myself, I was always kept at a distance from the story. That’s a shame because the story promises something rather special: belief in God. Unfortunately, there is no money-back guarantee on that promise but I suppose little in the world of faith offers that.

A struggling novelist (Rafe Spall) visits an Indian man named Piscine Patel (Irrfan Khan) in Montreal. He has been told that Piscine has an incredible story, a story that proves God’s existence and may well provide inspiration for the author’s next work. Piscine, a warm and thoughtful man, confirms that this is true and agrees to tell his tale.

He begins by describing his childhood in India where his father (Adil Hussain) owned and ran a zoo. As a boy, Piscine (played by Ayush Tandon in the initial flashbacks and Suraj Sharma as a young adult), or Pi as he nicknames himself after some unfortunate teasing in school, has an unusual relationship with religion. He was raised a Hindu but his father is a man of science who advises his two sons to seek answers to their questions in hard, observable facts. Pi’s mother (Tabu) on the other hand is more open-minded, encouraging Pi to explore his spirituality.

Pi discovers Christianity and is at first perplexed, then fascinated, by the story of Christ. Next he encounters Islam, finding solace in the religion’s prayer rituals. Seeing no reason to choose between the faiths, Pi becomes a follower of all three. Each religion in conjunction with the others, he feels, enriches his relationship with God in a way no single one can.

His faith is tested several years later, when the bulk of the film takes place. The family is selling the zoo and moving to Canada. Setting sail aboard a Japanese cargo ship, they cross the Pacific Ocean with a few dozen exotic animals that will be sold to another zoo upon their arrival in Canada. Roughly halfway through their journey, however, something goes awry and the ship sinks in the midst of a brutal storm. Separated from his family, Pi manages to jump onto a lifeboat where several companions soon join him: an injured zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger named (thanks to a clerical error) Richard Parker.

The days and weeks pass on this apparent ark. Natural selection by way of the tiger’s appetite soon whittles down the boat’s population to two: Pi and Richard Parker.

What follows is as much a survival story as it is a study in animal behavior. Not only must Pi contend with his own hunger and thirst but Richard Parker’s as well. He must train the tiger to see him as its master and not a tasty snack.

Though the majority of the film’s scenes are set on the vast expanse of the Pacific, director Ang Lee breaks up the potential visual monotony with all sorts of vibrant colors and fantastical sights. A reflection on the water’s surface of a golden sunset stretches out to the horizon. Hundreds of luminous fish brighten the dark depths of the ocean at night. And in a dream sequence, the camera plunges into those same black waters and through a series of pseudo-psychedelic images that, in a different context, would make a hell of a screensaver.

But for all its digitized splendor, Life of Pi fails to connect on an emotional level. The visuals only serve to distract from the main action of the plot. What was alive on the page is oddly dull here. This is largely due to the script, a pedestrian adaptation by David Magee, which saps the tension from the story’s midsection and fails to convey the isolation and desperation of a person trapped at sea.

The script also blindly replicates from the book the frame story with the Canadian author. This framing was a sly, self-referential wink in French-Canadian Yann Martel’s novel but feels extraneous and forced here.

And as for affirming the existence of God, Ang Lee’s movie comes up as empty-handed as Mr. Martel’s book. The movie puts some interesting ideas into play – the role religion plays in knowing God, the harsh cruelties of nature – but there is nothing that reaches the story’s unrealistically lofty aims. Life of Pi is beautiful, yes, but far from transcendent. 

- Steve Avigliano, 11/26/12

REVIEW: Lincoln

Lincoln (2012): Dir. Steven Spielberg. Written by: Tony Kushner. Based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson and Lee Pace. Rated PG-13 (Bribery, slander, demagoguery. Politics as usual). Running time: 150 minutes.

4 stars (out of four)

The first great sigh of relief in Lincoln comes early in the film. The former president reclines in an armchair, his feet propped up, while he idly describes a dream to his wife. The sight is likely not the image of the famous leader most have in their minds. I suppose my mental image of Abraham Lincoln, culled from a sketch in some grade school textbook or another, is of him standing behind a podium, gesticulating forcefully as he gives a speech. (Fear not, there is plenty of that in this movie too.) Yet there is a hint of familiarity in seeing Lincoln in this relaxed state, speaking freely. He feels like a real person.

Coming into this movie, you may have your reservations. You may presume it has a certain amount of stuffiness that is reasonable to expect from a historical biography of Abraham Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg (one of the few living directors who may end up getting his own biopic one day). But the air is soon cleared of most of that.

You may be relieved to find that Lincoln is not the story of a heroic figure, a demigod who ended the Civil War, freed the slaves and renewed the American Dream for millions. Lincoln instead tells the story of a man – the most unsavory kind of man too! a politician! – who worked hard to do all of the above long before the gloss of history transformed him into something greater than a man.

Abraham Lincoln, compassionately played here by Daniel Day-Lewis, is a sensitive man. He is intelligent, well read and well spoken. He has a gift for orating and bringing crowds of onlookers cheering to their feet. But his skills as a speaker are not limited to grand arenas where his voice rises in thrilling crescendos. He is just as capable performing for a smaller audience – and seems even to prefer it – quietly sharing amusing anecdotes with his cabinet, with soldiers, with whoever is there to listen.

He is humble but, being a man of great conviction, does not wear the power afforded him by his prestigious position lightly. He sees it as his responsibility and his sworn duty to fight for what he believes no matter how seemingly insurmountable the obstacles are that stand in his way.

And here I go hyperbolizing, no better than my old textbooks. Lincoln, however, offers something more interesting than blind hero worship.

This is a remarkably well-researched film, elegantly adapted by playwright Tony Kushner from the nonfiction book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Mr. Kushner’s script, marked by a persistent love of facts over melodramatic interpretations, will no doubt be adored by history buffs. But the film’s emphasis on the nuanced mechanisms of American politics serves a greater purpose. Lincoln depicts the president as a hard working politician who knew how to use the system to achieve his goals.

It is January 1865 and, two months after his reelection, Lincoln is in a position of considerable political power. The Civil War is winding down and his popularity in the Union ensures public support of just about any legislation he seeks to push through Congress. Against the better judgment of his cabinet, however, Lincoln sees a window of opportunity to fight for something riskier. Now is the time, he believes, to pass a thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, one that will abolish slavery.

The ambitiousness of this amendment is soon apparent when we meet the divided and bitterly partisan House of Representatives. The House chamber roils like the Colosseum as members of the Democratic opposition take to the floor for a series of vitriolic speeches condemning the amendment. Among the most vocal of them is Representative Fernando Wood (a fine Lee Pace), the de facto leader of the Democrats whose entertaining sermons paint Lincoln as a power-hungry tyrant who must be stopped at all costs.

Even Republicans in Lincoln’s own party are wary of fighting for the amendment now, when the end of the Civil War is so near. But if the Lincoln administration waits until after the War, the legality of the president’s Emancipation Proclamation, a temporary measure made possible by Lincoln’s war powers, may be called into question, and the fate of so many freed slaves would be uncertain.

So Lincoln must rely on unanimous support from Republicans in addition to flipping a few crucial votes of Democrats if he hopes pass the amendment. The fervent abolitionist and curmudgeonly old-timer (Tommy Lee Jones, who else?) Representative Thaddeus Stevens proves to be a useful ally. His sometimes crude and insult-laden tirades on the House floor help corral Republicans behind the cause.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) recruits a band of lobbyists (John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson and James Spader) to convert vulnerable Democrats by offering them cushy jobs in exchange for votes. Their attempts to do so, chronicled throughout the film in a series of farcical scenes, expose a much less romantic but no less important side to American politics. A vote procured through bribery is still a vote.

Though the nitty-gritty of the political process takes up the bulk of the film, Lincoln also reveals the president’s human side. Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd (Sally Field), tormented by life in the White House, struggles to support her husband publicly though their marriage is in decline. Lincoln also tries to protect his son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), from the horrors of the War but the boy insists on enlisting, refusing to remain on the sidelines of history.

Captured in the sepia-tinged soft glow of Janusz Kamiński’s photography and accompanied by the strains of a typically powerful John Williams score, Lincoln has the look and feel of a film aiming for a level of prestige worthy of its subject. But the film’s excellence is not superficial. This beautifully crafted movie does not just recount history but pulls an absorbing story out of it and illuminates the past in vibrant, living detail. The final scenes drag on too long and give us more than we need but I'll forgive Mr. Spielberg a few grace notes following such a masterful symphony.

Anchored by a fully realized and wholly compelling performance, Lincoln presents not only a man who led according to the morals and convictions he held so deeply but a man who appreciated the imperfect system that allows an individual to fight for those morals. Watching the relentless feuding and mudslinging of the congressmen in this film, you may dismally conclude that though the contents of the debates have changed between 1865 and today, the tenor of Washington has not. But Lincoln is an ode to that messy and often frustrating democratic process and a tribute to one man who understood better than perhaps anyone how to achieve greatness with it.

- Steven Avigliano, 11/23/12

REVIEW: Skyfall

Skyfall (2012): Dir. Sam Mendes. Written by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan. Based on the character created by Ian Fleming. Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Lim Marlohe, Albert Finney and Ben Whishaw. Rated PG-13 (Guns and girls). Running time: 143 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

James Bond was having a bit of an identity crisis. Where does the suave secret agent fit into the movie landscape of 2012? And do we even need him anymore? If Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible movies have a firm grip on over-the-top, cartoonish action, and the Bourne franchise continues to hold the mantle of gritty realism, what can 007 offer that his American competitors cannot?

2006’s Casino Royale, the first film to feature Daniel Craig in the role, reinvented Bond as a stoic hero. Mr. Craig’s rugged face and understated performance gave the character a noir edge that nicely offset Bond’s more charming side. For my taste, 2008’s Quantum of Solace took the character too far in that direction – too brooding, too moody – and risked encroaching on the well-worn territory of other franchise reboots that adopted a darker tone, namely Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies.

Skyfall, Mr. Craig’s third Bond movie and the twenty-third overall in the series, strives for balance. There are moments of sheer ridiculousness (as when a construction excavator is driven while atop a speeding train), plenty of breakneck chases and a few brutal fistfights. Daniel Craig is as intensely focused as ever but there are hints of a smile hiding behind the rim of his martini glass. And as for my question posed above, Skyfall answers that too.

Elegance is the special ingredient that makes Bond distinct from his peers and keeps the series a worthwhile entertainment. Skyfall is a classy action picture, evenly paced and in no great rush (though at 143 minutes, it is too long). Director Sam Mendes soaks in the film’s international locales and shoots them in rich, frequently gorgeous wide shots. The movie hops from the rainy streets of London to the neon-streaked skyscrapers of Shanghai and ends at a stately abandoned manor in the Scottish countryside.

Mr. Mendes also indulges himself at the right times. The big explosion that punctuates the film’s climax has to be one of the biggest, and certainly one of the most thorough and satisfying, movie explosions in recent years. And in the opening scene he spends what would surely be the whole budget of other movies on a chase that begins on foot, blasts through a Turkish marketplace with cars and motorcycles, and ends on the aforementioned train.

So, yes, this is a good Bond film. I would probably rank Casino Royale a little higher, but I’m hardly a Bond scholar, so take that for what it’s worth. I’ll admit there were a few moments when the movie lost me and I had no clue what was happening or why but I was never bored.

How could I be with Javier Bardem strutting around as Raoul Silva, the blond-haired, flamboyant villain of the film? Mr. Bardem, clearly enjoying himself, delivers his monologues with no shortage of flair. His laugh is a sinister little laugh but he means to do great harm to Bond’s employer, MI6. A disgruntled former agent, Silva has major beef with M (Judi Dench), the agency’s head, and will not be satisfied until she is dead.

Meanwhile, MI6 faces scrutiny from government bureaucrats who question the spy agency’s ability to function effectively after a list of undercover agents is stolen and leaked to the public. Leading the investigation is a government higher-up played with subtle menace by Ralph Fiennes.

It is up to James Bond to protect M and preserve the agency’s future. Naturally, while saving the day, he also finds time to tangle with a lovely named Sévérine (Bérénice Lim Marlohe) as well as fellow field agent Eve (Naomie Harris). The always great Albert Finney makes an appearance late in the film too as a wily, old groundskeeper.

Skyfall is marked by a back-to-basics approach that works well. When a brainy kid shows up as Q (Ben Whishaw), MI6’s technology developer, he gives Bond a sleek and simple gun and nothing else. “Exploding pens and the like,” he says. “We don’t do that anymore.” There are probably a few too many winks and nudges like this in the film, as though the filmmakers were trying to defend the franchise’s relevance with coy in-jokes, but I appreciate the movie’s straightforwardness.

Even the theme song by Adele, the first actually decent Bond theme in years if not decades, has the feel of a series reinvigorated. Skyfall is not another revamp of the franchise but rather an affirmation of its continued quality. There is still a place for Bond at the movies and he didn’t even need to change up his style to prove it.

- Steve Avigliano, 11/12/12

REVIEW: Paranormal Activity 4

Paranormal Activity 4 (2012): Directed by: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. Written by: Zack Estrin and Christopher B. Landon. Starring: Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively, Katie Featherston and Brady Allen. Rated R (I can't imagine why this is R - there is almost no violence shown and not much more than a few bad words). Running time: 88 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

 

Fourth time around, the same old shit. A girl who thinks her home is haunted, a guy who rigs the house with surveillance equipment to catch the action on film, a creepy kid, creaking doors, bumps in the night and poor decisions made to go investigate the noises.

The invisible demon from the first three movies is at it again and he’s up to the usual pranks. He’ll breathe on you, throw you against the ceiling, drag you halfway across the floor. Anything but show his face. That would, of course, cost more money for the filmmakers and the Paranormal Activity movies are a franchise built on budgetary frugality.

The girl is fifteen-year-old Alex (Kathryn Newton). She and her boyfriend Ben (Matt Shively) document their lives all day long on their laptops and smartphones for reasons never explained. Are all teenagers these days this vain? When my friends bust out a camera and start filming me, I tell them to knock it off. The characters in this movie make little to no objection over Alex and Ben’s incessant filming even when the camera gets right up in their face. I realize the found footage shtick is necessary for later when the spooky stuff starts but the gimmick is wearing pretty thin.

A young mother and her son move into Alex's neighborhood and the boy, Robbie (Brady Allen), is real weirdo. Something happens one night and the mother is hospitalized, leaving little Robbie all alone. Alex’s family decides to take him in until his mother is better and, sure enough, creepy things begin to happen while the kid is in their house.

You’ve seen it all before and you’ve seen it better. The scares are the usual cheap tricks – loud noises, objects suddenly moving – and at this point the franchise is well into self-parody territory. There is one bit with a missing knife that makes you think some much-needed blood and gore is going to be introduced into the series, but it's a tease and a letdown. The only good scare comes in the last thirty seconds and the whole ending is really just a rip-off of the final scene from the third film. Still, if you see the movie with a packed house, you’ll probably have a good time.

There are a lot of shots in the film that allow us to take a whole room in while we watch and wait for something to happen. It often feels like a communal version of one of those “Spot the Difference” cartoons from the Sunday paper and spread out on a big screen, it can actually be kind of fun. “Yo, the clock just stopped,” shouts a kid from two rows behind me. He’s right, it did. I wouldn’t have noticed that otherwise.

For what it’s worth, I believed the actors and their dialogue feels like overheard conversation. I especially enjoyed Matt Shively as the boyfriend. His character is a classic horror movie archetype – a well-intentioned doof who believes in the boogeyman but mostly just wants to get laid. When Alex reads online that demons are only interested in virgins, he kindly offers to go upstairs and rectify this problem for her.

That bit about virgins does not jibe at all with what we’ve learned about the demon in past movies but whatever, this is not a series interested in developing its mythology or furthering the plot from film to film. Katie (Katie Featherston), the poor girl who got possessed in the original, shows up for some series continuity but, regrettably, without the generous amounts of cleavage on display in the first two movies.

The Paranormal Activity films would have you believe that they’re all about the same thing, that they’re building toward something, that they’re gradually revealing some secret about the demon and its origins. The real secret of these movies though is that nothing actually happens in them.

- Steve Avigliano, 10/21/12

REVIEW: Argo

Argo (2012): Dir. Ben Affleck. Written by: Chris Terrio. Based on the books The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez and The Great Escape by Joshuah Bearman. Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and John Goodman. Rated R (Violence, language). Running time: 120 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Argo tells an unbelievable story, a prime cut of Hollywood entertainment complete with a daring rescue, down-to-the-wire phone calls and by-the-skin-of-their-teeth chases. That this story is also a true one dampens none of the thrills director Ben Affleck and screenwriter ­­­­­Chris Terrio cull from declassified files of a CIA mission from 1980.

The mission, which occurred during the early months of the Iran hostage crisis that began in 1979 and lasted until 1981, was to save six civilian lives who narrowly escaped the U.S. embassy before it was flooded and overrun by protestors. When it comes to the attention of the CIA that these six men and women have fled to sanctuary in the Canadian ambassador to Iran’s home, the government plots a rescue mission.

Enter CIA officer Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck). He has the look of a guy who has spent countless hours in smoke-filled backrooms of the government agency – both intensely focused and somewhat dazed. He is brought in to advise the CIA on the mission and quickly concludes that none of the proposed plans are even remotely achievable. The only way out of Tehran, he says, is the airport, which means they will need a plausible cover story and fake identities.

Here’s an idea: What if they pretend to be members of a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a science-fiction film to be shot in Iran? It’s a crazy idea but is it just crazy enough to work or simply crazy? The CIA, seeing no better alternative, gives Mendez’s plan the go-ahead.

An operation like this will need lots of help, which is also to say the movie offers a number of opportunities for choice supporting roles. Ben Affleck, making good use of his friendships with fellow actors, has assembled a strong ensemble cast filled with fantastic character actors. John Goodman as the genial John Chambers, an Oscar-winning makeup artist and Mendez’s Hollywood connect, and Alan Arkin as Lester Siegel, a crotchety veteran producer, make a lively pair. They spend most of their screen time together, trading quips and banter, and Mr. Arkin in particular gets most of the film’s funniest lines. An intense Bryan Cranston plays Jack O’Donnell, Mendez’s direct superior, and Mr. Cranston’s commanding presence drives many of the more tense scenes late in the film.

Mr. Affleck gives a strong performance too but more impressive is the sure command he maintains as a director. The film toggles between scenes of the six Americans hiding out, jittering nervously about their fates, and scenes of Mendez preparing for the mission. We get a real sense for the politics at work not only in the CIA but in Hollywood as well. Mendez must contend with the difficulties of planning a dangerous undercover operation in addition to navigating the bureaucracy required in order to get a film – even a fake one – into production.

Argo acknowledges the absurdity of this process while also addressing the grave reality of the larger geopolitical conflicts that defined this period of American history. And it illustrates the strangeness of all this with startling clarity. One superb scene shows Mendez arriving in Tehran, riding through its streets in the back of a taxicab. He glances out the window and sees an Iranian woman eating outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken followed by – no less than a few blocks down – a man hanged for treason from a construction crane.

It is a strange world we live in and Argo streamlines its strangeness and complexity into an engrossing two hours of commercial entertainment.

- Steve Avigliano, 10/18/12

REVIEW: Frankenweenie

Frankenweenie (2012): Dir. Tim Burton. Written by: John August. Featuring the voices of: Charlie Tahan, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara and Martin Landau. Rated PG (Spooky and cuddly in that order). Running time: 87 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

Frankenweenie, a new black-and-white claymation movie from Tim Burton, opens with its young protagonist, a boy named Victor Frankenstein (voiced by Charlie Tahan), screening a homemade movie for his parents. A plastic bat terrorizes a town made of cardboard boxes while horribly outmatched toy army men battle it. Suddenly, the family dog, Sparky, makes a cameo and saves the town, happily chewing up the monster.

There are moments in Frankenweenie that have the endearing feel of a boy playing with his toys, as though Mr. Burton had stumbled across the clay figurines used in the film and started imagining a story with them. (All of the character designs, particularly a morose science teacher with quite the long face and the voice of Martin Landau, are delightful.)

But just as often the film’s low-key vibe feels scattershot. As the movie jumps from one half-formed idea to the next, it feels less like the off-the-cuff imaginings of a child than a lack of inspiration from a director who has a good idea but doesn’t know what to do with it.

After a patient set-up introducing us to Victor and his parents (dryly voiced by Martin Short and Catherine O’Hara), the story begins in earnest when Sparky gets run over by a car. Victor, ever the inventor and amateur scientist, decides to harness the power of lightning to resurrect the poor pooch for a science fair project.

The problem with Frankenweenie is that I’ve already described all the essential plot points. Everything that follows is fluff. There are occasional sprinklings of inspired slapstick but no jolt of energy on the order of that which brings the titular canine back to life. This is not the tragic story of Mary Shelley’s original tale but rather an intermittently playful (if ultimately tepid) tribute to the shadowy gothic imagery of classic horror films and to the campy pleasures of old monster movies.

Frankenweenie is based on an early Tim Burton short and this feature-length version bears the stretch marks of a script padded in order to meet a minimum running time. Screenwriter John August adds a few middling subplots and tangents but all he really does is slow down the fun. The movie comes alive when Sparky slip-slides down a roof in pursuit of a bug-eyed neighborhood cat but is as stiff as a corpse when Victor’s father, in an attempt to bond with his son and add some human interest to the movie, encourages the boy to play sports.

Tim Burton’s movies rarely look bad and Frankenweenie’s crisp animation indulges in long shadows and dark suburban streets lit up by bolts of lightning. But though Tim Burton may be a lively visual artist, his storytelling is far too often as anemic as the pallid faces of his characters. As a result, this monster mash ends up being rather lifeless.

- Steve Avigliano, 10/16/12

REVIEW: Looper

Looper (2012): Written and directed by Rian Johnson. Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels and Paul Dano. Rated R (The future is not a happy place.) Running time: 118 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

The premise of Looper is the kind of big sci-fi concept that’s so good it carries the whole film. The dense, knotty plot will appeal to puzzle-solvers who loved Inception and may well frustrate many others but the movie’s success rests heavily on the degree to which you accept the following:

The year is 2044. Thirty years in the future (that is, in 2074) time travel is possible but has been outlawed. Ingeniously, the mob uses it to carry out hits, sending victims back in time with a bag over their head. They arrive in the past on their knees in a field, a warehouse, or somewhere similarly out of the way, and are killed on the spot by “loopers,” for-hire assassins wielding high-powered shotguns.

Loopers are paid well enough – for reasons never totally clear to me, they are paid in slabs of solid silver – but have pretty bleak contracts with their mob boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels). Termination of a looper’s contract means termination of his life. He receives a handsome payout and enjoys the next thirty years until a bag is thrown over his head and is transported back in time to be killed by his younger self. Most loopers accept this as a grim fact of their trade.

Word through the temporal grapevine, however, is that a new mob kingpin in the future is ending the looper program. He’s closing all the loops, so to speak, sending every looper into the past to their death whether they’ve asked for an end to their contract or not.

Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt underneath some very convincing makeup and prosthetics that provide continuity between the present and future) is a looper. He enjoys the cavalier lifestyle associated with his work; he takes narcotics through eye drops, goes to the club with his best pal (Paul Dano) and has the standard Oedipal relationship with a prostitute (Piper Perabo) that all brooding men in movies have. Imagine his surprise when one day, on the job, his future self appears in the form of Bruce Willis – on his knees to be killed but without a bag to hide his identity – and books it.

What does Present Joe do? If he doesn’t hunt down and kill Future Joe, he’ll have to answer to Abe in the present day. If he can kill Future Joe, he’ll at least be able to enjoy the next few decades, moral and metaphysical trauma notwithstanding.

If all this sounds complicated, you’re right – it is. But Looper has a reassuringly flippant attitude toward its mythology. During one confrontation between the two Joes at a diner, a highlight of the film, the Bruce Willis iteration dismisses a logistical question about the rules of time travel. They could sit there all day drawing charts and diagrams, he says, but he doesn’t care about that. What matters is the here and now, subjective though those concepts may be.

There is more to the film than I’ve mentioned but describing it all would be difficult, not to mention spoil some surprises. For a while the movie seems as though it will play out like a sci-fi variation on The Fugitive, with Present and Future Joe playing hunter and hunted, respectively. But a mid-film development invites meditation on the age-old time travel question: Is it ethical to punish someone for a crime they’ve yet to commit if it means preventing future tragedy? The film’s center of gravity during this latter half shifts from Joe to a remarkably precocious kid (Pierce Gagnon) and his tenacious mother (Emily Blunt).

Personally, I prefer the movie’s setup to its payoff but don’t let that discourage you from seeing it. Writer/director Rian Johnson’s noir-tinged style (carried over partially from his debut, the highly stylized and incredibly fun nostalgia binge Brick) makes Looper addicting entertainment. The script has wit and rhythm; the dialogue during the diner scene crackles like water in a pan of hot oil. Joe has the charismatic appeal of the classic Bogart antiheroes. (In a dry voiceover, he reveals that ten percent of the population in 2044 has a telekinetic mutation. “Assholes levitating quarters in bars to pick up girls,” he explains.)

Looper makes a genuine effort to be Great Science Fiction, which is kind of thrilling to watch even if it falls a bit short. The last act feels less sure of itself than what precedes it (a barrage of bullets fired by Bruce Willis late in the film seems to be from another movie entirely) but a great idea is still a great idea. With any luck, Rian Johnson has a few more in store for us.

- Steve Avigliano, 10/9/12