The Spirit
December 24, 2008 | 2 Comments
The Spirit was Wil Eisner’s superhero comic strip that ran in Sunday newspapers between 1940 and 1952. There have been various reprints and revivals in the decades since.
Now comes a movie that feels a lot more like Frank Miller’s stuff than Wil Eisner’s, because Frank Miller wrote and directed it.
The feel of it is something like The Shadow or any number of other pulp superheroes. It looks a bit like Sin City and 300, using similar cinematic techniques.
The Spirit lives in a future-noir city, where it could be the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, or 1950s, but they’ve got an Internet (somebody mentions going Online) and cell-phones.
He’s a bit of a mystery. His main power seems to be that he’s fairly indestructible.
His nemesis is The Octopus (Samuel Jackson), who’s a Bad Mother. He’s working on an Elixir of External Life (Well, who isn’t) and has a bunch of identical henchmen who embody that trait that The Monarch’s Henchmen on The Venture Bros. exhibit: Just the right mix of expendable and indestructible.
The Spirit meets more femme fatales in five minutes than most superheroes meet in twelve issues, seemingly. They’re drawn to him like moths to a flame, and vice versa. He’s quite the p-hound. They include The Octopus’s right-hand woman Silken Floss (Scarlett Johannson), Eve Mendes as Sand Sarif, Sarah Paulson as Dr. Helen Dolan (the police chief’s daughter and The Spirit’s main girl, but she has to wait in line), Jaime King as Lorelei Rox, Paz Vega as Plaster of Paris, and Meeghan Holaway as Holly the cop.
I’ve never read the comics, but this doesn’t really seem to capture the look of the original comics like, for example, Dick Tracy did.
And it’s surprisingly risque considering the source material. Frank Miller’s doing, no doubt. And I’m surprised this just got a PG-13 rating due to the violence.
I suspect purist fans of the comic will be scandalized.
But this is a good fun comic book romp. It looks rather like the world of Sin City, but less nihilistic.
I’m giving this 4, count ‘em 4, stars, but with a caveat: If Sin City and 300 left you flat, this probably isn’t going to change your mind on this type of comic book movie-making.
Popularity: 63% [?]
The Day the Earth Stood Still
December 15, 2008 | 1 Comment
A remake of the 1951 black-and-white science fiction classic, this film cleverly uses elements of the original and mixes in a smorgasbord from a dozen other alien invasion movies and stories.
An alien spaceship arrives on Earth and lands in Central Park in New York City. Out comes alien Klaatu, who is promptly shot by an overzealous army guy. Meanwhile, his giant robot guardian Gort (or G.O.R.T in this version) is pissed.
Klaatu is rushed to a hospital, and, from an alien cocoon, emerges butterfly Keanu Reeves.
Jennifer Connelly plays a scientist, Jaden Smith (Will Smith’s son) is her stepson who befriends, sort of, Alien Klaatu, Kathy Bates is the Secretary of Defense, Kyle Chandler from the Friday Night Lights TV series plays another government official, and Robert Knepper (Prison Break) is an army colonel who keeps finding that Earth weapons aren’t very effective against Gort. And John Cleese does a small role as The Wise Old Earth Scientist.
The original movie was about nuclear proliferation, this is more environmental. A conglomerate of alien civilizations isn’t happy about the way humans cause other Earth species to go extinct, and they’re prepared for a final solution.
This is about 3/4ths of a good movie; it’s a very atmospheric First Contact story. And as the aliens (or rather Gort) revs up to begin Operation Destroy All Humans, there’s some spectacular special effects. It progresses to a weak ending though.
Keannu is fine as the otherworldy Klaatu. Like the original, there’s a Jesus motif going (he walks on water at one point).
Mysteriously, the famous alien catchphrase from the original movie isn’t used. Or if it was, it was hidden so well I couldn’t spot it. Seems like they could have fit it in somewhere.
I think the makers of the movie felt it’d be too corny to have a 1950s-style dénouement at the end, but as it is, we’re kind of left hanging.
“So, uh, all 6.7 billion of us will eat bean sprouts and live in teepees and stop killing animals then?”
Popularity: 56% [?]
Let the Right One In
December 15, 2008 | 3 Comments
And now the other teenage vampire flick. The better one.
On the heels of Twilight comes the Swedish horror movie, Låt den rätte komma in.
A 12-year-old kid finds himself bullied in school in the midst of snowy, cold winter in Sweden.
He befriends a strange girl in his apartment building, who only comes out at night, doesn’t feel cold, and seems to be very hungry for something.
Sort of My Bodyguard, The Vampire.
The movie is set in the 1980s. I’m not quite sure why; presumably the original novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist that this is based on (he also wrote the screenplay) was also a period piece.
This is an atmospheric, bloody movie that’s actually scary. And, oddly enough, about a heartwarming friendship and love between two kids. One of whom may have been a kid for quite a long time.
As for the title of the movie, well, if you know your vampire lore, you can probably figure out how it applies.
Popularity: 44% [?]
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