Who’s to blame for Hollywood’s lack of originality? Are the suits too eager to greenlight reboots and sequels? Are screenwriters so uninspired they can’t think past remaking their favourite 1980s TV shows? Do actors only consider characters based on video games?
Of course not.
The people responsible for the movie doldrums these days live in your mirrors and selfies. That’s right, if you go to the cinema and didn’t check out Birdman, Whiplash or Obvious Child but did go see Guardians of the Galaxy twenty-five times, you forced Hollywood’s hand, guaranteeing another ten years of the big screen exploits of comic book characters Rocket Racoon and company.
Guardians is a fun movie that people liked and Hollywood is in the business of giving moviegoers what they want, but the fear is that a constant stream of familiar feeling films could create a less discerning audience. If you are fed a steady diet of dog food eventually you’ll get used to the taste.
Birdman is an accessible and entertaining movie but with a total gross less than one weekend’s business for Guardians it’s unlikely to inspire a Birdman 2: No Plucking Way but bigger box office could inspire more adventurous films as an antidote to the slew of movies with numbers in their titles.
Big budget Hollywood doesn’t often take the path less trodden. People went to see Inception but I would argue that the reference point for that movie was the director Christopher Nolan, hot off the Batman streak and not the unique story. Less successful were originals like Edge of Tomorrow, despite the usually winning mix of great reviews and Tom Cruise and Transcendence, the computer hard drive horror that brought Johnny Depp’s box office average way down.
Despite those high profile failures this weekend Warner Brothers has gone off the map to show support for an original story from The Matrix directors, the Wachowskis. Jupiter Ascending is a space opera about genetically engineered warrior Caine (Channing Tatum) who helps human janitor Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) take her place as heir to the galaxy.
Big stars, name directors and a new story should appeal but already the knives are out. “Jupiter Ascending looks like a great movie,” wrote @RickIngraham on twitter, “to never see.”
Jupiter Ascending will rise or fall based on audience interest, but if it tanks it’ll be harder for other unusual stories to get made. There are already at least thirty sequels, reboots and spin-offs scheduled for 2015—everything from Star Wars: The Force Awakens to Paul Blart: Mall Cop II—so unless you want another Daddy Day Care reboot in 2016 get out of your comfort zone and see something new and original today.
What’s a wormhole anyway? According to Wikipedia it’s a “postulated method, within the general theory of relativity, of moving from one point in space to another without crossing the space between.” Huh? Maybe it’s easier to think of them as a cosmic shortcut to the past or future. If Bill and Ted could figure these things out—their first “excellent adventure” saw them sucked into a wormhole to assemble historical figures for a high school project—then so should we.
Christopher Nolan uses these theoretical bridges through time as the bridge through his new space opera “Interstellar.”
In the earthbound portion of the story crop blight has led to a food shortage and a worldwide ecological disaster. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), is a pilot-turned-farmer trying to find a way for his family to survive the impending apocalypse. An answer to his problems arrives in the form of Professor Brand and his daughter Amelia (Michael Caine and Anne Hathaway) who believe a new planet with the possibility of supporting life exists on the other side of a wormhole near the planet Saturn. “We’re not meant to save the world,” Brand says. “We’re meant to leave it.”. Cooper, Amelia and a team of astronauts embark on a year-year quest to find the planet and find humanity’s salvation.
“Interstellar” is twice as long as the similarly themed “Gravity,” but only half as enjoyable. It’s larger in scope—this is Christopher “Billion Dollar Baby” Nolan after all—than the Sandra Bullock movie, and more ambitious too, but it’s a strange mix of sci fi and sentimentality that plays up the idea of the power of love. The only thing missing is a Celine Dion over the final credits.
Nolan reaches for the stars with beautifully composed shots and some mind-bending special effects, but the dime store philosophy of the story never achieves lift off.
McConaughey’s been down this road before in “Contact,” and acquits himself well enough, but the interesting actor who anchored “True Detective” gets lost in space for much of the 169-minute-running time.
On the upside “Interstellar” earns points for not being based on a novel or video game. On the downside, it’s not based on good sci fi either.
What says Christmas more than wearing a mask and grumbling, “I will feed its people hope to poison their souls.”
From Skymall.com comes the Bane Special Edition Mask as seen in “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Here’s the info from the website: Full size display mask replica as featured in Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. Measures 21″ tall. Pedestal display included.
Conventional Hollywood wisdom these days has it that audiences only want to see remakes, retreads and rehashes of old ideas. This summer has seen a seemingly endless parade of movies with the number 2 in the title and films based on 80s TV shows. Some have made money some have not, but every once and a while a movie comes along that proves Hollywood wrong. Last December “Avatar” showed that audiences would flock to a movie that wasn’t based on a videogame, existing novel or television show. It broke every box office record going and yet since then there has been a stream of derivative films clogging up the multiplex. Until now. Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is a startlingly original film.
Set in a world where technology can invade people’s dreams, “Inception” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb, the leader of a corporate espionage team who specialize in stealing valuable secrets from within people’s subconscious for profit. Cobb is an international fugitive tormented by dreams of his late wife (Marion Cotillard) who sees a way out of his personal nightmare if he takes on one last job offered to him by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a powerful businessman who can arrange for Cobb to skip past immigration and get back into the United States. All Cobb has to do is perform an “inception;” plant a thought in the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) CEO of a global corporation. (One writer has called it “the Great Brain Robbery.) Cobb and his team—Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy), Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architect who becomes Cobb’s new dream weaver—set out to implant the idea of dissolving his multibillion-dollar business into Fischer’s dreams.
“Inception” is the most innovative sci fi film to come out of Hollywood since “The Matrix” way back in 1999. It’s a movie that takes ideas very seriously—ideas drive the plot—and, as a result, takes its audience seriously. It never talks down to the crowd and in return demands viewers to pay attention. For those who do there are many rewards, and for those who aren’t willing to get drawn into the surreal story there are still many pleasures. That’s how finely crafted this movie is.
“Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan (who also wrote the script) proves he can blow the doors off with the action—Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s MC Eischeresque gravity defying fight scene is a mind blower—and also handle the cerebral stuff.
He creates and juggles several worlds—dreams within dreams, worlds within worlds—until it becomes difficult to tell what is real and what isn’t. Each of these worlds comes complete with their own rules—five minutes in real life equals one hour in dream time, for instance—and is populated with well rounded, complex characters. The visuals are very cool—check out the streets that defy physics and curl over on top of one another—but amazing effects don’t mean much if the people interacting with them aren’t interesting. Nolan has put a great deal of effort into the look of the movie and its ideas but he never forgets the characters, who are the film’s single biggest asset.
Like the very best sci fi “Inception” is thoughtful, intelligent, audacious and humanistic. It’s also one of the year’s best films of any genre.
Insomnia is director Christopher Nolan’s first film since last year’s Memento, and it is a stunner. In this remake of a Norwegian film made in 1998 by Erik Skjoldbjaerg, Nolan has cast three Oscar winners – Al Pacino and Hillary Swank play police officers chasing down a dangerous psychopath played by Robin Williams. Nolan set the film in Alaska, and makes good use of the location, particularly in the opening credit sequence as the camera follows a two-engine prop plane across the unforgiving jagged ice ridges. A foot chase on moving logs provides excitement, but the best thrills here are psychological. This is a film for adults. Insomnia is a serious thriller that relies not only on action, but on issues of guilt and morality to propel the story. Al Pacino hands in his best performance in years, although his accent seems to change from one scene to another. Robin Williams impresses, playing the homicidal Walter Finch with a chilling intensity that should forever put an end to the Mrs. Doubtfire typecasting pit he fell into in the 90s. Swank as the smart small-town cop delivers a multi-layered performance that is completely believable.
Director Christopher Nolan is obsessed with obsession. His last three films, Memento, Insomnia and Batman Begins, all have, at their core, single-minded men who are driven beyond the boundaries of reason. Memento’s Leonard will not let complete short term memory loss prevent him from finding his wife’s killer. The cop in Insomnia is so preoccupied by guilt and the search for a serial killer he cannot sleep and Batman Begin’s title character, well, let’s just say he has some issues. His latest picture, The Prestige, turns up the heat, focusing on two Victorian age magicians hell bent on destroying one another professionally and personally.
At the beginning of the film a good-natured rivalry turns deadly for budding magicians Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) when Borden causes an onstage accident that causes the death of Angier’s wife. A cat and mouse game persists over the years, culminating when Borden creates the ultimate illusion, The Transported Man, a spectacular stage illusion where a man seems to disappear and instantaneously reappear on the other side of the stage. Angier will stop at nothing to discover the secret of The Transported Man. Borden knows this and uses his adversary’s obsession to draw him deeper into a web of deceit and trickery.
The real magic here is the way in which Nolan tells the story. He has designed the movie’s plot pattern as kind of a Mobius Strip, which constantly turns in on itself, keeping the viewer from knowing what is coming next. He plays with the time line, employing flashbacks (and even a flashback within a flashback) slowly pulling all the discombobulated elements of the story together. Nolan’s strange twisting of time can be confusing, but stick with it. In the end all the pieces fit together. Like the old trick where a conjurer sawed a woman in half, the effect on the viewer is weird and wonderful. You can’t believe your eyes, but in the end, when the lady (or the story) is put together again, something that seemed impossible somehow appears to make sense.
The movie is anchored by the performances of its leads. The two actors play polar opposites—Borden is rough around the edges, Angier suave and upper-class; Borden is a self-taught magician, Angier studied the masters of the craft—and, as such, each brings a different slant to their obsession. Borden is streetwise, while Angier is more sophisticated. Christian Bale, working with Nolan for a second time following his turn as the Caped Crusader in Batman Begins, brings an edgy brooding to Borden, handing in what may be the best performance of his career so far. As the suave Angier, Hugh Jackman finally delivers on the promise he has shown in other films. He’s a good actor, but performances in movies like Van Helsing and Kate & Leopold haven’t shown the strength on display here.
The supporting cast is eclectic and interesting. Michael Caine (also making a return appearance from Nolan’s batman movie) hands in one of his self-assured mentor performances. He plays Borden’s magic guru with the degree of charm and professionalism we have come to expect from him. No surprises there. More interesting is David Bowie as America’s greatest electrical engineer Nikolai Tesla. Bowie transforms the engineer into a regal, but mysterious presence.
The Prestige has much in common with the magicians who inspired it. Victorian conjurers used misdirection and spectacle to wow audiences. In 2006, with The Prestige, Christopher Nolan is doing the same thing.
It is ironic that Mitt Romney’s former company Bain shares a pronunciation but not a spelling with the villain in “The Dark Knight Rises.” I say ironic because in the film it is Batman and not the burly bad guy who takes on the Occupy movement.
Eight movie years have passed since Batman (Christian Bale) last donned the cape. He’s become a recluse, having assumed responsibility for District Attorney Harvey Dent’s crimes in the hopes that if the Dent anti-crime act worked Gotham would become a peaceful city. It was successful until a cat burglar named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) put into motion a series of events that would draw the caped Crusader from retirement to fight his mightiest foe yet, Bane (Tom Hardy). In a battle that will no doubt delight and confound Occupy veterans, Wall Streeters are gunned down and a billionaire strives to take back the streets from the 1%.
It’s a story that seems like it played out in real life on our streets, albeit without capes, gadgets and murderous villains. When Seline purrs “You’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large, and leave so little for the rest of us,” into Bruce Wayne’s ear, it sounds ripped from the headlines. Such is the timeliness of the film, but let’s not forget that this is a summer blockbuster, not a treatise on the haves and the have-nots.
It aspires to deeper meaning, to be “A Tale of Two Cities” with a cowl, and there’s lots of talk of “restoring the balance of civilization,” but it is also a very entertaining action movie. The first seven minutes is as wild a scene as has ever been captured by IMAX cameras and there’s no shortage of colorful characters.
Bale grimaces and growls with the best of them. As loyal manservant Alfred Michael Caine emotes more than usual for a superhero movie, Morgan Freeman is an oasis of calm amid the chaos and Gary Oldham is the very model of steely determination as Commissioner Gordon. All well and fine, and the expected complexity of character is on ample display, but it is the new characters that shine.
As the brooding hulk that speaks like a slightly loony Shakespearian villain, Hardy is an imposing presence. Grandiose though he is, Bane lacks the chaotic charm of Heather Ledger’s take on the Joker, but as sadistic scoundrels go, he’s one part modern day terrorist, two parts Attila the Hun.
Anne Hathaway had to overcome the memory of a much-loved performance by Michelle Pfeiffer, but from her first appearance the slate is wiped clean. Charismatic, charming and sexy, she’s dropped Pfeifer’s paw-licking cat mannerisms and instead presents a physical, complex character whose chemistry with Bale burns up the screen.
On the side of law and order is idealistic Gotham cop John Blake, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He’s heavy on the exposition—someone has to explain what’s going on!—but what could have been a throw-a-way role is transformed into a real person in a movie filled with super villains and improbable situations.
Nolan favorite Marion Cotillard brings a feminine touch and some mystery to an already plot heavy and enigmatic story.
Is “The Dark Knight Rises” a perfect summer movie? It’s certainly in the running, but there are a few let downs.
It is a heroic tale and the beautiful IMAX photography creates a larger-than-life feel for the epic-ish story, but it also exposes some missteps in the fight choreography. With the picture blown up to the size of a football field (as opposed to a picture of a blown-up football field, which provides one of the film’s highlights) some of the fighting is just this side of convincing.
Also, despite being the title character The Dark Knight spends relatively little time in the cape. Instead we’re shown more of the inner life of the character. Not a bad thing, but let’s face it, clothes make the man, and the Batsuit is one of the key props in the series.
And the early fear that Bane’s dialogue would be unintelligible isn’t completely unfounded. With his mouth hidden beneath a mask Hardy delivers an effective performance with just his eyes, unfortunately lines like ‘There can be no true despair without hope!” often end up sounding like a baroque but garbled mixture of drunken whispers and baby talk.
“The Dark Knight Rises” is a very accomplished blockbuster. At two-hours-and-forty-four minutes it manages to provide the thrills associated with the genre, but also takes time to create memorable characters.
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
