3 posts tagged “movie review”

Let’s face it: Superhero movies are a dreadfully mixed bag. Most kick all sorts of ass visually, but their plots can vary in quality from superb (Batman Begins, X-Men) to fairly decent (Spider-Man, X-Men 2) to offensively terrible (Fantastic Four, Catwoman). I just took the kids to see Iron Man yesterday – the newest offering from Marvel and Paramount – and as you might expect I have opinions to share.

But first, silly ramblings!

Opening weekend is positively the worst time to see a movie. Every facet of the experience reminds you how contemptible the average Joe really is – from the endless line of people so mottled and moist you wouldn’t touch them with a set of salad tongs to the intermittent, phlegmy rattle of the mouth-breathing TB victim in a nearby seat. The only voluntary events I can think of that are similarly galling are dining out at buffet restaurants and swimming at public water parks.

The line wasn’t that bad, actually, since we showed up a good half-hour before show time, but whatever anguish I avoided by being prompt was duly made up for by my having to surrender the entire contents of my wallet (including my coupon for a free crunchy taco from Taco Bell) and one of my testicles (they let me choose which one; I went with the right).

We didn’t stop by the snack counter because 1) I hate having to visit the restroom halfway through the movie and 2) I really wanted to keep my other nut.

Seating Derangements

There were maybe a dozen or so people in the theater when we sat down and most of them were the odd types who like to sit right smack up against the screen, which is something I have never personally understood; but who am I to judge, especially when it means the best seats in the house – halfway back, dead center – are left available for me and mine?

Now, it's not as if I was expecting to have the whole damn row for just the three of us, this being only the third day of release and all, but I also didn’t think the place would be so crowded as to force me to fight for the armrest. And it really wasn’t that crowded at all; it was just that the pimply guy with the sideways baseball cap and anorexic girlfriend lacked any normal level of social tact and felt it appropriate to drop his bony ass, with a surprising thud, into the seat directly adjacent to mine.

I’d have been alright with the cozy atmosphere Pimples tha Gangsta had just created, except that he smelled like a sweating salami smothered in cigarette butts. What’s more, he had tried to cover over his meaty aroma with a liberal dousing of some musky cologne that I’m guessing was a member of the patchouli family. Had I been blind, I would have figured Death himself had made a quick stop at a delicatessen before coming to the theater to take me to the other side.

I weighed my options: I could let my new movie companion know what I thought of his personal scent by vomiting ramen and iced tea into his lap; I could spend the entire movie covering my nose with one arm and defending my share of the armrest with the other; I could call an usher and ask him to clean up the pile of rancid salami some jerk had left in the seat next to mine; Or I could simply get Zach and Amanda to scooch over a couple seats. Any of the first three options would have been as entertaining as the movie itself, but I decided on the last option because I’m unpredictable like that. Sadly, once we’d scooted over a couple seats, Lanky McLunchmeat and his girl moved over as well. He was able to keep his lap ramen-free, however, by astutely leaving an empty seat between us.

Just before the lights dimmed, a group of Jr. High boys sloughed in and started looking for three seats together in the front section. They were dressed entirely in black, right down to their fingernails, and each had the definitive slab of jet-black hair pasted down over one eye. Bits of metal could be seen glimmering from several points in each of their pale, forlorn faces.

“Look!” said Amanda, “Emos!”

“Wow, how rare to see them in the wild like this,” I replied. Panda burst out laughing. “Shhhh, careful! You’ll spook them!”

The Actual Review

I’m going to go ahead and admit Iron Man has never been one of my favorite superheroes. For me, he’s always had a sort of ho-humness about him. I feel the same way about The Human Torch and Flash. I can’t really quantify it other than to say they just didn’t do enough for my adolescent imagination; didn’t intrigue me the way heroes like Spider-Man and Batman did. Nevertheless, when I heard one of my favorite actors of all time, Robert Downey, Jr., was set to play Tony Stark, I knew I’d be unable to wait for the DVD. Then, when I finally saw a trailer, I actually got excited enough to entertain the idea of seeing the film during opening weekend.

The CGI is, of course, nearly immaculate. The special effects team outdid themselves smoothing the seams between reality and computer-generated imagery. The comic book movements of the characters were, in my view, more realistic than what we’ve seen previously (even if the laws of physics are still more-or-less ignored) and the mechanical functionality of the suit was very believable indeed.

Like any good science fiction story, there are socio-political allegories drawn, but none any more overt than what you’d read in Iron Man comics. The movie has just the right amount of humor delivered at just the right times and, thankfully, neither Stark’s alcoholism nor the romance between Stark and Pepper are played up to any significant degree. It’s mostly just good old punch-em-up, blast-em-down action! I’m trying very hard to avoid giving away any spoilers, so forgive me for the lack of details.

If you dig superhero movies but really felt screwed over by Hulk, I’d encourage you to let that old wound heal and go see Iron Man. It's two full hours of shiny superhero goodness.

Oh, and one last tip: stay in your seat until the lights come back on! You’ll want to know who shows up at Stark’s house after the credits roll.

Woo-hoo! I just saw The Simpsons Movie!

Critics are mixed with the majority leaning towards approval. The biggest gripe I hear about it is: “It’s just a long episode.” This is, of course, like saying a large pepperoni pizza is just a medium with a wider diameter. No shit. It’s the same treasure, just more of it. I don’t get what's so hard for the critics to understand about that. Personally, I had no delusions going in. I knew what to expect, I got what I expected, and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Nevertheless, if you honestly can’t figure out if you want to see The Simpsons Movie or not, then take this very simple quiz:

1. Do you consider yourself a fan of The Simpsons?

2. Is it acceptable to you that the movie is pretty much an 87-minute episode made for the big screen?

3. Do you have at least some semblance of a sense of humor?

4. Because it is rated PG-13, are you expecting to maybe see a few things that would be inappropriate in a television episode?

5. Are you okay with the fact that the major US city (besides Springfield) depicted in the film is my hometown and not yours?*

6. Do you like to sit through the entire movie, including the end credits, just to see if there’s a cool surprise afterward?

7. Can you sit still and shut the hell up for an hour and a half?

If you answered “yes” to...

...six or more of the above questions, then you will enjoy the movie. Go see it.

...four or five, then you could just as easily go into any of the other movies at the Cineplex. Except Bratz! Sweet Jeebus, don’t reward the makers of that cinematic turd!

...three questions, then you might as well wait for the DVD.

...fewer than three of the quiz questions, then I have a distinct feeling you haven’t even read this far so it doesn’t matter anyway.

A few of you in the back are still wondering what I might say was wrong with the movie. What about my viewing of The Simpsons Movie was least enjoyable? Well, the set of movie previews beforehand really sucked this time.**

*Unless, like me, you make your home in Seattle. <nelson_voice>HA-ha!</nelson_voice>
**Except for The Bourne Ultimatum. That trailer rocks.

Well, after multiple seasonal forces (snowstorms and home field football playoffs) conspired to keep me from it for two weeks, I finally made it downtown to see Perfume: The Story of a Murderer yesterday afternoon.

I’ll just quickly remind you that the novel by Patrick Süskind is quite possibly my favorite novel of all time, so I had very mixed feelings walking into the theater. Up until I got there, I was optimistic; based on everything I’d seen from the trailer, to the amazing stills, to the… okay I don’t read reviews, so I had no idea what the “professionals” were saying, but everything I had seen up to that point appeared to be quite encouraging. But as Karin and I walked in and sat down – center, three rows back – I started to feel uneasy. After all, Stanley Kubrick had once said that Süskind’s groundbreaking novel was “unfilmable” and Süskind himself vehemently refused to allow it for decades, turning down great filmmakers like Ridley Scott and Tim Burton. How the hell was this guy Tom Tykwer going to pull off one of the trickiest cinema devices of all time?

In short, he wouldn’t, though he’d come damned close. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Shut Up and Give Us the Review, Mr. Wordy McGarrulous

I need to state right off the bat that Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is an absolutely beautiful film. The cinematography is stunning and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Frank Griebe claim an Oscar for his work in that area. It is also as true to the novel’s plot progression as a film can likely be, though it is by no means perfect. As would be expected, entire sections of the story – the early scene with Father Terrier and the wet nurse, for example – are roundly omitted, but I didn’t get the sense that their omission detracted from the storytelling.

I also need to make it clear that I’m going to be extremely critical because I adore the novel so much. If you’ve never read the book but intend to see the film, my review might help you appreciate it a little more, but at the cost of some pretty big spoilers which those who’ve enjoyed Süskind's novel are already well aware of.

Other than the obvious difficulty inherent in trying to visually recount a story based entirely on the realm of scent, the one area in which the utmost care needs be taken is in convincing the viewer to somehow feel for the diabolical protagonist Grenouille. Süskind accomplished this with careful wording which left it beyond doubt that we were dealing with someone who felt neither love nor hate – an innocent person who knew only a single driving obsession to capture forever the one perfect scent. He skillfully convinces us as readers that poor Grenouille is as slave to his passions as anyone, but unfortunately, having never been loved himself, lacks the basic emotions required to keep him from becoming an accidental monster. Sadly, the film tries to sexualize it – even Antoine Richis’s protestations that the killer’s motives were not based on any sexual desire came off as sexual anyway – and the result is what anyone unfamiliar with the source material will see as nothing more than soft-core porn. What I personally saw was an artful but unfortunate misrepresentation of Grenouille’s purpose for killing.

And so there is really nothing to aid the viewer in seeing Grenouille the way in which I believe Süskind wanted: a hapless victim of a society whose careless treatment of him created its own demon. He is not hideous, as in the book, and lacks the (in my opinion) requisite clubfoot. He doesn’t discover his own lack of a personal scent until his time in the cave, which is, at the very least, a rather problematic alteration to the story. And unless you’re paying very close attention and aren’t distracted by Dustin Hoffman’s wonderful performance, the idea that Grenouille has absolutely no understanding of concepts like metaphors or morals is completely lost.

The ending of the book, when it comes, is fantastically over-the-top, but we as readers buy right into it because of the proficiency with which Süskind has caused us to accept the unparalleled power of scent. The film's ending, while almost exactly like the end of the book, does not carry with it the same instinctive believability. Indeed, it almost seems silly.

As I said, it is a beautiful film. I will definitely be adding the DVD to my library. But I will do so as an entity completely separate of my beloved novel for, in the end, Kubrick may have been right. Tykwer made a skilled and noble effort, though, and I can certainly think of worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. If you loved the novel, go ahead and see the film. If not, it all comes down to how open-minded you are and how much you like to gamble.

Some Extra Thoughts

1. No fewer than four people got up and left during the showing I attended. Two of them within the first five minutes. I’m concerned that the film might just turn people off from reading a truly incredible novel. That would be very sad.

2. Filmmakers need to get over their fear of the phallus. They’re so good at making oblique penile references, so why are they so terrified to show us an actual penis once in a while when the plot demands it? This movie has a several-thousand person orgy scene, for crying out loud, and although we are treated to many muff shots, I didn’t see one single penis. I looked, too. Lotsa very carefully placed thighs and hands and heads. Gah! Prudish and unrealistic.

3. Most of the narration, which was used to pretty good effect, was taken directly from the book’s text. John Hurt does a splendid job of reading. I would like to have seen it used at more regular intervals.

4. This movie was just about two and a half hours long. I am sure that there were some very important pieces of film swept up off the cutting room floor. I anxiously await the DVD which might have a potentially redeeming director’s cut.