Watching Cillian Murphy Gives Us Red Eye

On the other end of the runway comes Wes Craven’s delightful little gem Red Eye, starring Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins) as himself. The trailers are deceptive by showing Murphy as literally having a glowing red eye and by not fully revealing the plot of the movie. Knowing the staple of Wes Craven’s films, the trailers seemed to suggest that Satan himself was on the flight and that you get red eye from looking at him for too long and that Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers) is here to stop it. Fortunately, no.

Rachel McAdams is privy to the security checks at the hotel where she works. Cillian Murphy is the suave and charismatic terrorist liason who woos McAdams, then takes her hostage on the “red eye” flight back to Miami. His demands? Transfer a visiting politician’s room to a vulnerable ocean-view penthouse so that Murphy’s terrorist buddies can nuke him from the bay.

It is standard fare for a thriller and offers nothing new cinematically, nor does it have any twists and turns that we haven’t seen before. But it is an incredibly well made film and epitomizes what we have come to expect out of this type of movie. McAdams is great as the damsel-in-distress who uses her intelligence and instinct to outwit her predator. Murphy shines as the now-typecast creepy GQ guy with sociopathic tendencies.

Red Eye is a fast-paced quickie thriller worthy of a weekend rental.

Grade: B

Therapy with Mr. and Mrs. Pitt

What’s one way to get males to watch a paired Hollywood couple make ends meet in their steamless relationship?

Take Tomb Raider and match her with Achilles, add a smidge of domestic violence, and mix an hour of gratuitous gunplay and you get Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

What you have seen from the trailers is what you can expect. John (Brad Pitt) and Jane (Angelina Jolie) Smith are a suburban couple who feel detached from each other despite the comfortable life that they live, complete with a white picket fence. Of course, the tension (or lack thereof) is probably a result of the duo not knowing that they are, secretly, assassins for independent organizations outside the U.S. government. Once they find out, it becomes a matter of Spy versus Spy and an even bigger matter of miscommunication as they each believe that the other has tried to off them from the first S.N.A.F.U. Much explosions, punches, kicks, and bullets ensue.

Half True Lies and half War of the Roses, Mr. and Mrs. Smith has an intriguing yet cardboard-cutout environment that acts more as a playground of destruction than as a setting for marital counseling. It is a visually vibrant film that is well balanced by its obviously dark humor: the trailers cannot prepare you for thinking, halfway, that perhaps this will end with one of the Smiths dead as the finale of a marriage gone down the toilet. The banter between the couple is very typical of arguing couples and achieves its comedic tone by being juxtaposed by the mayhem around them as they continue to bicker. Predictably, violence gives way to sexual tension that has to find its outlet in our violent lovebirds. But the movie has enough chuckles and action to keep one interested as to how all this plays out.

It isn’t without its moral dilemmas. The film suggests that one reason why couples fail is due to what they don’t say as opposed to what they do. It also makes the dual claim that opposites attract (last half of the film) while the original sham marriage was based on the claim that birds of a feather flock together. The end of the movie seems to have been placed as a matter of convenience and not as a matter of plot: it could have conceivably been placed anywhere within the last 40 minutes of the film. It leaves open the nature of the Smith’s newfound passions and fails to answer whether or not it will last, though this all seems beyond the point.

The point is that marriage counseling has never been more over-the-top and gratuitously violent. This is one therapy session that you may want to check out.

Grade: B

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have signed on to star in a Touchstone movie together. The movie is about a couple of lawyers who took on a cose pro-bono that ended up lasting 15 years. They spent that time getting stays of execution on the death row inmate they were defending. The movie is almost guaranteed to be a flop with Ben Affleck. He never should’ve dated J-Lo

[via Dark Horizons]

Exercising With Emily Rose

Exorcism is one of those delightful dinner-table subjects that the whole family can enjoy. It is also one of the most widely misunderstood and ridiculed subjects in the post-modern world, incompatible with today’s notions of civilized society. Many television specials have covered “live” exorcisms performed by ministers and self-proclaimed healers on supposedly possessed people who, to the intelligent viewer, are simply histrionics, epileptics, or outright crazies. It makes religion, and Christianity in particular, look stupid.

The problem with exorcism is at its core rooted in where to start. Do we look at exorcisms performed by Presbyterians? Methodists? Buddhists? To gauge the validity of exorcism, people tend to be aversed to look at the source: Roman Catholicism, which has been the crowd-pleaser and leader of mainstream concepts of exorcism since 33 A.D. With the Ritual Romanum in hand, the Catholic Church has set the standard on performing exorcisms with meticulous precision. Protestantism has since developed its own fractured forms of diabolical removal but without the flare or authority that the world sees in Rome.

A brief understanding of Catholic exorcism is necessary to appreciate the movie from a more precise perspective: Catholic exorcisms are rarely performed relative to the days of old and are not implemented unless the supposed possessee has passed a review by medical examiners ruling out a conventional, medically sound answer to explain the person’s behavior. This includes strange acquisition of foreign languages, vomiting of alien objects, contortions, and supernatural levitations. That is when the holy water comes out. No exorcism is allowed to be filmed or sensationalized, which is one reason why you never see Catholic exorcisms on Dateline (and one reason why most people think that the Church has something to hide). The Church intriguingly merges theology and science in its combat of demonic forces and provides a very positive opportunity for science to step in.

Which is the prime reason for why The Exorcism of Emily Rose is such a success. Part courtroom drama, part horror movie, part educational, and all suspenseful, The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a carefully filmed movie that takes a provocative and thoughtful look at exorcism while still taking subtle cheap-shots at trying to scare the crap out of you. The story is loosely based on the case of Anneliese Michel, a German girl who did not survive a Catholic exorcism and whose exorcists and parents faced jail time for negligent homicide (prompting the Catholic Church to put even stricter regulations on its physician verification prior to performed exorcisms). The events in the movie take great liberties with the actual tale but that’s not really the point: the point is the present to us, the viewer, a fictionalized exorcism in as “true to life” a view as possible by clever use of flashbacks, replays, and scientific evidence (or counter-evidence).

The movie only slows down, ironically, when it feels the need to provide an even-handed point of view from the “exorcisms are crap!” and “exorcisms are some real sh*t!” crowds. How does it manage? Well, you throw in some shots of Father Tom Wilkinson seeing a shadowy fellow who may be the devil. Then you throw in some shots of the prosecutor being a complete ass. Then let’s have the hot lawyer start sensing something amiss in her apartment at 3:00 a.m. Then let’s show the prosecutor… well, keep being an ass. And so forth and so on.

But this volley of the spirtual versus the religious, faith versus rationality, and where they interact is what makes the movie so enjoyable from both a random viewer and intrigued religious perspective. We are finally shown Linda Blair unmasked and on trial, exposed and vulnerable. And at the same time, we find ourselves prey to the old addage: “if you cannot show them God, show them the Devil.”

Grade: B+

We’re Doomed

Video game movies are predetermined to fail as long as they insist on holding fast onto their video game roots instead of attempting to succeed as independent cinematic works. Looking at the track record, we see that the two best attempts thus far have been Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil, both of which were directed by Paul Anderson. At best, both films were mediocre (as are all of Anderson’s films with the exception of Event Horizon): for every painfully awkward moment of fandom reference (Johnny Cage signing Scorpion an autograph) or fanboy appeasement (Milla Jovovich jump-kicking a dog), you had consistent storytelling or a buttload of genuinely cool effects to dismiss previous infractions.

So how does Doom fair?

Let’s start with the story. Having only played the first Doom and none of its sequels, I can only judge the merit of the plot alone. The movie tediously unfolds the bizarre research that scientists on Mars have been doing. Archaeologists have found skeletal remains on Mars which have an extra chromosome, chromosome 24. They also discover that these inhabitants of Mars also had super-human strength and a rapid healing ability! You can guess what happens next: they start importing convicts and testing them with the extra chromosome. That’s when things start to go wrong and their guinea pigs start mutating into horrific creatures with a fierce appetite for destruction and reproduction. But wait! Apparently, the chromosome’s effects on the body are different depending on the morality of the person infected. As Rosamund Pike’s character points out, 10% of the human genome has yet to be mapped and scientists say that this remaining trek is the “blueprint of soul.” Huh? I thought we mapped the genome in its entirety back in 2003? Anyway, assuming she’s right, the point is that if you’re a bad dude and you get injected with this chromosome or get beast-raped in the neck, you turn into one of the constantly mutating monsters. If you’re a good guy, you turn into a first-person shooter.

Which is the only part of the movie which shines. After an hour and a half of half-decent Aliens-wannabes moving through dark corridors with heavy artillery, we get the only original concept in this film to set it apart from other crappy movies: a first-person perspective. You heard me. The camera goes directly into the head of Karl Urban and for the next 5 minutes goes on a pretty awesome shooting spree, killing at least 7 zombies and one huge monster before leaving this view and ending the movie with an extremely lame WWE deathmatch with The Rock. If they had used the first person p.o.v. during the earlier action scenes of the movie instead of waiting at the end, it would have certainly elevated my opinion of the movie by way of innovation. But no: they save it for the end to show that when you are dying and get injected with Martian juice, you get gifted with first-person skills and can perform backbreakers.

Until Silent Hill comes out in April, Doom remains shelved with Anderson’s films as an almost-successful attempt at making a decent video game adaptation.

Grade: C-

Wedding Doesn’t Crash

Comedies are difficult to review because the standard is extremely simple: is it funny? And if it is funny, how funny? Is it Pauly Shore-funny or Bob Saget-funny? And in trying to review this film, how can I make fun of it if it is funny?

Wedding Crashers is a funny movie. For the prudish ninja, no need to fear: there are a total of perhaps 6 pairs of boobs, but they are all shown in the first 8 minutes of the film. There’s one pair implied later on but not explicitly shown. With these tensions relieved, it is safe to say that Wedding Crashers is not a sex comedy nor does it rely on the wedding theme for the bulk of its humor. It is a comedy that grasps for humor that is tangential to the wedding motif but not necessarily connected to it.

As a matter of fact, the only reason the movie is called Wedding Crashers is because the first 10 minutes of the movie is a montage of wedding crashes that reenforces the sleaziness of the two characters (played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson). This is followed by the wedding of the Secretary of the Treasury’s daughter and the movie follows the events that flow out of the awkward situations encountered from this wedding. The movie is random in its comedic timing and focuses primarily on the very bizarre family of the Secretary. This is all you need to know: the wife is a lusty and bored housewife, the red-headed daughter is a sexual freak, the son is a gay goth painter, and the brunette is the likeable love interest of Owen Wilson. These are the satellites of humor that the movie broadcasts from.

In that light we are given the film’s funniest moments whenever Vince Vaughn is on screen. For once, Wilson plays the straight-man and the majority of his screen-time is spent in the honest pursuit of Rachel McAdams. It all plays out like an Adam Sandler movie (think Happy Gilmore, not 50 First Dates) without Adam Sandler. When the movie is funny, it’s funny: when it’s not, it’s because it’s Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams having a sappy moment.

Wedding Crashers is still a well-rounded comedy that is not as raunchy as most relational comedies nor as absurd as an SNL flick and has classic moments that should pump you up when you talk about them.

Grade: B

That’s right, super hero flying bats can receive Oscars too! The nominations are out and Batman Begins is up for Best Cinematography, the most prestigious category of them all. Well, not really, but it’s still kind of cool. Looking over the Oscar list, this looks to be a very boring year for the awards. While I like most of the movies and actors on the list, none of the movies stand out to a ninja. The only movie that kind of stands out is Walk the Line. That’s only because Johnny Cash tried to dress like a ninja with his little all-black outfit, but he could never pull off the whole thing. A ninja must never show his face. The only “man in black” I know is my teacher, OnePumpedNinja.

Transporter 2: Most Ridiculous Movie Ever

Take it from me: I know all about awesomeness. When I get pumped, unexpected things happen like punching girl scouts and uppercutting some blind guy. Some would say that this is pretty ridiculous, and I would be inclined to agree. That is, until I saw Transporter 2.

Honestly, I don’t know what to think of this movie. Was it written by a 5 year old who forgot to take his Ritalin or a struggling, imaginative 18 year old who forgot to take his Ritalin? There are some incredibly sweet scenes in this movie but they defy the laws of reality with such a straight face that you cannot help but wonder if the makers just wanted to string together a series of impossible (yet sweet) events and sell it as a movie.

Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is the Transporter. He is a bald guy with a funny accent who drives a really nice car to pick stuff up for people for money. His recent assignment, easy enough, is to drive a dumb kid to and from school while the kid’s hot mom hits on Frank whenever she can. 8 minutes into the movie and she’s ready to pork. But Frank is hardcore gentle, so he says “no.” Then it really hits the fan because suddenly the kid is napped and the Transporter gets so pumped that he starts to break the law. Especially Newton’s laws.

There are several instances of this in the movie, too numerous to count. But I’d like to pick my favorite: at one point, some guy puts a mine under Frank’s really nice car and Frank has to find someway to get it off before it detonates. So what does he do? Easy: he sees a construction crane, gets his car to top speed, jumps off a ramp, inverts the car, lets the crane hook pull the mine off, then lands the car with hardly a scratch on the opposite side of the ramp.

Wait, I just thought of one: Frank jumps his car from one building’s roof into another building’s middle floor, narrowly missing some pretty thick concrete pillars. Then this sweet helicopter appears and threatens to blow Frank up. But Frank is like “pssh, yeah right” and pulls out a handgun and blows up the helicopter just by pointing at it. Sorry, that was actually 2 really sweet events and not one.

So if you like 2 hours of that type of nonsense, I would highly suggest renting this film. If you think that what I said is fairly awful, then you’re probably boring.

Grade: C

The Matador is Full of Bull

As I type this, RottenTomatoes.com currently lists The Matador as having a freshness rating of 82%. This means that, of all the syndicated Internet movie reviews of The Matador out there, 82% of the critics found this movie to be above average (even good).

What are these people thinking?

I had no idea what this movie was about prior to today. All I knew was that its trailer was constantly played for weeks during the Colbert Report and that there is scene where a car blows up. But I wish I did know, because it would have saved me $6.00 that could have gone to buying something worthwhile, like Ebola.

James Bond plays Julian, an aging hitman who likes to paint his toenails, drink, smoke, and fornicate. He is sent on a mission to Mexico where he has a fateful encounter with Danny (Greg Kinnear) in a hotel bar, hence the movie’s tagline “a hitman and a salesman walk into a bar…” Not so shabby, huh? I mean, any formula that has two character types (note that I didn’t say “people”) meeting in a bar is, at least, an intriguing potential for a plot. Hey, it works for jokes. Just look at the comedic pairing of a mob boss and a psychologist in Analyze This.

But that’s where the fun ends. Outside of the first ten minutes of spontaneous humor coming from both Bond and Kinnear, the film becomes a tedious, meticulously paced borefest that doesn’t leave you caring one way or the other for either men. So what if Bond is having the assassin’s equivalent of erectile dysfunction? It’s 50 minutes into the movie and we’ve only seen him truly kill one guy. The rest of the time, he just acts weird and sees sharks when he jumps into the hotel pool. “Well,” you might say, “it’s not about the visuals, but about the dialogue and characterization of the two characters.” What characterization? There is no believability in Kinnear befriending a man who just trivialized the death of his son and made a homosexual comment regarding what goes good with a margarita. Nor is there believability in the “good friend” who just happens to accept Julian as he is, refuses to help him kill a man, then helps him kill a man at the end. What gives? The movie does not even succeed in doing what its praisers say it does: using dark humor. Say what? Any humor that the movie achieves is done solely through the awkardness of dialogue and the occasional glimpse at Julian’s neurotic episodes. And unfortunately, these neurotic episodes are actually part of the plot progression: you get those messed up, and your plot goes with it. Take, for example, Julian seeing himself as a little boy every time he’s about to kill a target. Sure, that’s funny. But what about the times when, as Julian is looking through the sights, he zooms in real quick on himself having what appears to be a seizure or nervous breakdown? This isn’t dark humor nor visually appealing. It’s just not funny nor practical. It falls incredibly flat. And it is this flatness that permeates the whole movie. If the director wanted to go for dark humor, he should have taken pointers from Very Bad Things.

The movie gives a lot of effort to its musical direction and visual weight, but those things just can’t save The Matador from the rest of the bull.

Grade: D

Johnny Depp and the Chocolate Factory

Yes, Johnny Depp acts like Michael Jackson.

If that is all you wanted to know, then there you have it.

Despite this strange departure from the classic Gene Wilder portrayal of Willy Wonka, the movie stands as a great source of entertainment on so many levels. I have never seen the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so my view of its latest treatment will be devoid of old school nostalgia. As you may know, the movie’s premise is quite simple: billionaire confectionist Willy Wonka goes into seclusion after he is betrayed by his employees and reemerges some years later with the enticing prospect of allowing 5 lucky people to visit his chocolate factory. 5 golden tickets are stashed away within the wrappings of 5 ordinary Wonka bars and 5 children wind up discovering them. One of these children is poor young Charlie Bucket (played by Freddie Highmore), a little goody-good with just the right optimistic attitude to make it through his fairly impovershed life. And so the movie begins.

The movie delivers what you would expect from an end-of-summer release tooted as a summer movie: the visuals and cinematography are impressive, breathing a Disney-esque sense of wonder into Wonka’s chocolate factory. The music as well is Danny Elfman as his best, harking back to the goofy rhythms of Beetlejuice while setting foot into other genres during the Oompah Loompah scores. Oh, those Oompah Loompahs. If I were to pick one reason to justify the price of admission to see this movie, the Oompah Loompahs are most definitely it. Played individually by Deep Roy (yes, that is his name), the Oompah Loompahs are an ingenius use of digital and camera trickery and act as musical moralists during each of the children’s exit cues. Speaking of children, don’t let the presence of tykes dissuade you from seeing this movie: they’re not the annoying brats that one would expect to see in a movie such as this. The 5 children (with the exception of Charlie) act as dimunitive versions of every jerk, slob, and cynic that you may have known, whether in childhood or in your current state of growth. The casting of the movie is perfect.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a welcome end-of-summer dessert that is pleasantly enjoyable at any time, just like Wonka’s world-famous candy.

Grade: A