Movie Review: Gone
Starring Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Carpenter, Daniel Sunjata, Michael Pare, and Wes Bentley
I picked up this movie based on the stars. I got on Amanda Seyfried’s bandwagon when she was on Big Love and on Jennifer Carpenter’s watching Dexter. I liked Daniel Sunjata’s work in One for the Money. And, I would officially lose street cred as a sci-fi geek if I failed to mention Michael Pare’s work in Starhunter.
Having said that, this is a better told tale than I expected it to be. Seyfried plays a 3rd shift waitress who claims she was kidnapped approximately a year before the story begins. The local cops think she’s crazy because the story had holes in it, and she had a history of involuntary admission to a psyche ward after her parents died years earlier. But, then, her alcoholic sister suddenly disappears. Seyfried goes looking for her sister, waving a gun in various people’s faces, and the cops chase her while she chases her former assailant.
Sound pretty wacky?
Sure.
But, it works.
Seyfried does a wonderful job of walking that fine line between playing a character you don’t want to like and a character you can feel sympathy for. She went through a bit of an awkward period after Big Love, but, if she keeps making movies like this, I think she could have a solid career ahead of her.
Grade: B
Battleship
Starring Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Rihanna, Brooklyn Decker, Tadanobu Asano, Peter MacNicol, and Liam Neeson
I’ve been looking forward to seeing this film since I first saw its trailer. And, overall, I wasn’t disappointed. The plot, in summary, is the Americans send a radio signal to a nearby Goldilocks planet. The aliens on that planet send a visiting party. A screw-up serving as a naval officer pushes the wrong button and throws the aliens on the defensive. Battle ensues. A Japanese national takes command of a U.S. Navy destroyer. The screw-up resurrects the USS Missouri and finally figures out The Art of War. The humans win the day and the screw-up gets the blonde.
Now, for the good news . . . The special effects are awesome. Even my wife liked them. The tip of the hat to veterans was nice, too. If you’re looking for big action/adventure fun, this is the show for you.
Now, for the bad news . . . The first 30 minutes could have easily been cut down to about 10 minutes. I know the filmmakers thought they were establishing characters/plot/theme, but I kept looking at my watch, wondering when the aliens would show up. Also, the acting was on auto-pilot. You could have plugged any number of actors and actresses into those roles and you would have gotten basically the same product. There wasn’t anything about the acting that was unique to the actors cast. And, the characterization also suffered. There was a none-too-subtle attempt on the part of the screenwriters to show the intellectuals and top politicians as weak cowardly buffoons who had to be led around by the worker-bees. If you’re a worker-bee and you need that sort of validation, knock yourself out. But, in reality, the world doesn’t work quite so well without the smart folks at the helm.
So, Battleship is big piece of summer-time bubblegum for the brain. And, if the filmmakers want, they’ll be able to make a sequel. Who could ask for more?
Grade: A-
Beneath the Darkness
Starring Dennis Quaid, Tony Oller, and Aimee Teegarden
Maybe Dennis Quaid is getting hard up for money.
In this movie, Quaid plays a small town mortician who buries alive somebody he doesn’t like. A group of teens decide Quaid is not a local hero and decide to expose him.
The filmmaking is nothing exceptional. I’ve seen cinematography as good as this on Supernatural. The acting is competent; again, there’s nothing here that exceeds what you can see on a weekly TV scary show. There is plenty of throw-away material in the movie and places where it drags. But, at least, it has a direction. Mr. Quaid is bad. Let’s catch him.
As such, this is a piece of mediocre filler material. There’s nothing noticeably bad about the film, yet there is nothing noticeably good about it, either. If you have nothing better to do, this movie is okay to have on in the background while you sort your sock drawer. But, if you find this to be a riveting movie with deep and meaningful themes and messages, you may have problems greater than what we can address in this blog.
Grade: C-
Chronicle
Starring Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, and Michael B. Jordan
Rarely do I want to turn off a movie in the opening moments, but this one sets a new record. By the end of the first scene, I was ready for it to be over.
I had questions about it as I was renting it. According to the artwork on the box, people are floating up in the air, like it was the Rapture. According to the Internet Movie Database, it is supposed to be about three teens that learn they have telekinetic powers. But, the check-out girl said it was shot like a documentary and that it said great things about teen depression.
Uh-oh.
Sure enough, the cinematography felt completely amateurish. I couldn’t decide whether the film’s inspiration came from the Paranormal Activity franchise or The Blair Witch Project. But, either way, the filmmakers (and I use the term loosely) didn’t get the memo that a horror “documentary” is a gimmick that worked the first time, but not the umpteenth time.
Meanwhile, the story is saturated with teen angst and every adolescent cliché imaginable. There are the nerds who discover superhero powers. There are the routine bullies. There are the usual cute cheerleaders. There are the usual useless parents; Mom is bed-ridden and Dad is a physically abusive alcoholic. And, amid all the throw-away dialogue, I just couldn’t find myself caring about any of the characters.
The characters were the worst kind of archetypes; they were boring tedious cartoons, no different than any multitude of teens just like them.
So, call it a mercy-killing. But, about 15 minutes into the movie, we turned it off. I believe, if you waste your money on this woofer, you will do the same.
Grade: F
Red Tails
Starring Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Gerald McRaney, and David Oyelowo
I came to this film with great anticipation and expectations. I had already seen the episode of the Dogfights series that was dedicated to the Tuskegee Airmen, so I knew just enough to be dangerous. And, I was not disappointed.
Granted, George Lucas was not going for a documentary; he was making a movie. So, there was the fiction writer’s best friend at the opening– “based on true events.” That let the filmmakers create sub-plots involving romance, alcoholism, and coming-of-age. Still, there was plenty of historical accuracy to keep military history buffs like me happy. The 332nd did face bigotry and discrimination. They did fly P-51s. They did serve with distinction as bomber escorts and they did successfully go up against Messerschmitt 109s. In prop planes, they did down Hitler’s new-fangled 262 jet fighters. And, they did win a Presidential Unit Citation.
As a piece of moviemaking, it is top drawer. The scriptwriting, the acting, and the special effects are flawless.
My only hope is that a lot of people will see this film. Every semester, I encounter far too many students who have no sense of what their ancestors lived through. They may know the latest song on the radio, but they don’t know their cultural heritage. Films like this can go a long way toward filling in the gaps.
I heartily recommend this film.
Grade: A+
This Means War
Starring Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy
Well, my wife picked this one out and she said, going into it, that it would be silly. And, she wasn’t wrong.
The ego has landed. Reese Witherspoon plays some kind of consumer product tester who decides she needs a man in her life after seeing her former boyfriend happily engaged. So, she razzle-dazzles two guys into chasing her. Both guys happen to be uber-hot and, oh by the way, they also happen to be CIA agents caught up in saving the world. So, in their competition for her, they divert taxpayer-funded resources into tracking her every move, as they try to win her affections. Meanwhile, she decides to sleep with each of them, to have a sexual tiebreaker, giving whole new meaning to “let the best man win.” Then, she gets angry when she learns that they know each other, feeling she’s been played, even though she had been playing them. But, wait. There are still bad guys afoot, so she gets caught up in a high-speed run-and-gun, only to pick the new Captain Kirk in the end. And, the other guy is suddenly OK with it.
Call me a fat old white guy, but that’s a lot of ego for one 36-year-old actress to muster. With supply-and-demand on their side, why would two guys fight over a girl? Why is it okay for Reese’s gal pal to constantly trash-talk her husband? Whatever happened to “stand by your man”? And, why did the losing guy’s ex-wife suddenly decide at the end of the movie to give their marriage another go?
I’ll be the first to admit that guys have their fantasy movies. Jason Statham gets into and out of situations that mere mortals would never survive. But, there’s something disingenuous when women deride guys for watching action/adventure movies and then expect us to reverently watch chick-flicks and take notes for future reference.
Fortunately, my wife is more down to earth than that. We both know malarkey when we see it.
Grade: C
Rampart
Starring Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, and Sigourney Weaver
When I picked up this movie, I was ambivalent. On the box, the cast looked stellar. But, I’ve never liked “renegade cops.” Renegade cops inspire riots and police brutality lawsuits. Renegade cops are what give cops in general a bad name. But, I got on Woody’s bandwagon a long time ago, so I took a chance.
And, I wasn’t disappointed . . .
This is a wonderfully acted film about a truly asinine cop.
In the same sense that it takes a brilliant actor to effectively play a fool on stage, it takes a good progressive like Woody Harrelson to effectively play a right-wing extremist run amok. I doubt if a conservative actor (would that be an oxymoron?) could convincingly portray the depth of anger, misogyny, frustration, racism, arrogance, desperation, brutality, fascism, and egotism that resides in all too many working-class self-righteous semi-literate heavily-armed straight white males who think they are somehow exclusively entitled to all that is good about America.
I can see why the film got two nominations. The set design, the background music, the pacing, and the mood are all exactly what this film calls for. Unless you’re a total moron, you’re not going to like Woody’s character, but you’re going to respect the acting job he and his colleagues did.
And, it will probably confirm your suspicions about too many of those who are officially sworn to protect and serve.
Grade: A
