WALL-E

June 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment

700 years from now, Earth has become a polluted wasteland. Humans have abandoned their homeworld for space, and left one little robot behind to clean everything up. WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) gathers up junk and excretes 2-foot-long compressed cubes, like a mini-car crusher. He then stacks these cubes slowly into skyscrapers. He’s lonely; a cockroach is his only companion. Each night he goes home to his shelter to recharge his batteries, and adds a little more to his collection of human bric-a-brak from items he’s scavenged among the ruins; it’s like a flea market. And he’s fascinated with his videotape of the 1969 musical HELLO, DOLLY! which he watches over and over while he imitates the dances.

Then one day, a spaceship lands and disgorges a new robot, EVE, who seems to be a few centuries more technologically advanced than WALL-E. Out of his league, in other words. But he’s smitten.

This causes him to stow away on her ship when it departs, and eventually he encounters what’s left of the human race in deep space. They’ve been living on a space cruise ship, and pampered by their robotic guardians until they’re overweight couch potatoes.

Pixar/Disney continues to make CGI animated movies far ahead of the competition, because the story is as important as the animation. What’s particularly impressive this time out is that much of the movie is told virtually in pantomime; WALL-E can speak more English than R2D2, but not much. Almost everything is conveyed through body language. That the body is a little robot makes it even more astonishing that what he’s thinking is so clearly conveyed.

And much of the time he’s the only character around, which makes it a bit like Tom Hanks in CASTAWAY, or, more to the point, Will Smith in I AM LEGEND, exploring the ruins of an empty planet.

Also like I AM LEGEND, the movie is perhaps slightly more interesting before he discovers that there are still other people.

The ruined Earth has an amazing tactile gritty feel to it. The space cruise ship is done in a different style; Post-Decadent Jetsons.

A little jarring, among the robots and the couch potato humans (which look like regular Pixar People gone to seed), is actor Fred Willard, shown in ancient video recordings, pretty much as is, seemingly with a minimum of CGI transformation.

Pixar continues to make great films that are almost more for adults than kids (but completely appropriate for kids). This one has a pretty esoteric plotline though. I wonder if the youngest kids parents take to this won’t get a little restless in the theater. Then again, I wondered the same thing about RATATOUILLE, so if your very small kids loved that, they’ll probably love this.

Posted by Mack Guffin | Filed Under 4 Stars, Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin, John Ratzenberger, SciFi, Theatrical 

Wanted

June 26, 2008 | 1 Comment

Sweet nectar of the comic Gods, that is all I can say about this outstanding action movie. Read more

Posted by J.C. Edwards | Filed Under 5 Stars, Angelina Jolie, Comic Book Movie, Common, James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Terrence Stamp, Theatrical 

Mongol

June 20, 2008 | 1 Comment

Genghis Khan movies. John Wayne in THE CONQUEROR, Jack Palance in THE MONGOLS, and Omar Sharif in GENGHIS KHAN. This time around, Russian director Sergei Bodrov had the novel idea to cast an Asian; Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano as Temudjin, the Man Who Would Be Khan.

This was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar last year, from the glorious nation of Kazakhstan.

This is Khan: The Early Years (Late 12th century). Also The Softer Side Of Khan. He finds true love at the age of 9, choosing his bride. Then comes a lot of setbacks when a warlord kills his father. He’d like to kill Temudjin too, but it doesn’t seem sporting to kill a kid, so, like the Dread Pirate Roberts, he keeps in effect telling him he’ll kill him in the morning. It’s part BRAVEHEART, part the beginning of CONAN THE BARBARIAN. The boy and teen Temudjin spends so much time in stocks that I figured they’d chain him to The Wheel Of Pain.

Eventually he grows to his destiny as a leader. He’s fiercely loyal to his friends (as long as they don’t cross him), considerate of his underlings, and turns out to be surprisingly favorable to adoption (at various times his wife has to use her feminine wiles to get him out of scrapes, which sometimes ends up with her pregnant with someone else’s babies).

The windswept steppes of Outer Mongolia (or Kazakhstan) are stark, beautiful, and… well, windswept. Really windswept. You may be reaching for some chapstick after two hours of their windsweptedness.

The first 3/4ths of this is really good. It starts with Temudjin as an adult in a bit of a fix, and then a lot of flashbacks to how he got there. After this is resolved, the movie drags a bit, until the final obligatory Big Battle. The director is planning a trilogy on the life of Genghis Khan, so it must have been difficult to decide where to end this one.

Posted by Mack Guffin | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, Amadu Mamadakov, Drama, Honglei Sun, Khulan Chuluun, Tadanobu Asano, Theatrical 

The Incredible Hulk

June 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment

If you’re an Incredible Hulk fan, and you’re contemplating letting this one pass you by with the fear that this is no better than the last, you should let that go right now… The Incredible Hulk is leaps and bounds better than the Ang Lee nightmare from 5 years ago. Louis Leterrier and Zak Penn create the perfect Hulk experience, for Hulk fans.

If you saw ‘Hulk’ from 2003, you remember that Bruce is on the run and hiding out in South America. Well, that’s exactly where this movie kicks off, but that ’s the only connection to the 2003 debacle. Yes, Bruce is on the run and yes he’s in South America but not as a continuation of the previous story. This movie starts out almost like the TV series; Bruce Banner (Norton) was a scientist working for the government, and an experiment involving Gamma radiation goes horribly wrong, turning him into the monsterous Hulk. Bruce nearly kills his longtime girlfriend Betty Ross (Tyler) and racked with guilt, not to mention the fear that her father would cut him up like a lab rat… he splits and heads off to find a cure to his curse.

So now that you’re all caught up on the basics of who and what the Hulk is, let’s get to the movie itself and how it stacks up to Ang Lee’s vision. To do this taste test we need to analyze the key components and go from there. You have Bruce, Betty, General Ross, adversary and of course the Hulk himself. Let’s see how each stacks up. Eric Bana was pretty good as Bruce Banner, but Edward Norton is a better actor all around so it’s really no surprise who wins that category. Next was the GF, Betty Ross; Jennifer Connolly and Liv Tyler battle that one out but in my never humble opinion, Liv loses hands down, Jennifer Connolly possesses better ‘assets’ and that’s enough for me. In both Hulk movies General Thunderbolt Ross, Betty’s dad is the real villain but when you have 2 outstanding actors as William Hurt and Sam Elliott, who do you choose… Either one, I liked both of them and they both kicked ass. What’s the one thing that has to be solid for a  comic adaptation to work? You guessed it, the Villain. In ‘Hulk’ you had Bruce’s pop as the Absorbing Man played by Nick Nolte; In Incredible Hulk you get Emil Blonsky AKA - The Abomination - played by Tim Roth. Again, I’m a huge fan of both actors but the nod goes to Blonsky. If you’re bored just bare with me, there’s a point… Last, but never least, the Hulk himself. The most important character in the story is not Bruce Banner, it’s the F’N Incredible Hulk and that’s where Ang Lee went wrong and these fellas got it right. Ang Lee wanted us to feel Bruce’s pain and share in his torment… WTF! I want to see HULK SMASH and that’s what I got. Yes, you do see Ed Norton play the wounded hero filled with doubt and self loathing, but that’s ony about half of the movie. The other half is Emil evolving and Bruce learning to control the  power inside, and it makes a hell of a ride.

If you’re a fan of the site you know I’m almost always the one that write’s anything related to comics and this is no excaption, but in the case of Hulk, I’m not a fan and I doubt I’ve read more than 3 or 4 Hulk stories in my life. So I went in with the need to be entertained, and I looked ot the hard core fans in attendance to let me know if the creators nailed it or not. Well, judging by the standing ovation the crowd gave it at the end, I think they knocked it out of the park. BTW… There are some nice guest appearances (of sorts) that let you know the film makers know how to show appreciation to the guys that made the character matter about 3o years ago.

Posted by J.C. Edwards | Filed Under 4 Stars, Action, Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Theatrical, Tim Roth, William Hurt