Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Erin Paul to discuss whether “Wonder Woman” is all that wonderful, if “Captain Underpants: the First Epic Movie” is crappy or not and if “Drone” lives up to its name.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
At this point in history the superhero “origin story” is about as welcome as head lice or burning your tongue on hot coffee. From the turgid “Suicide Squad” to “Green Lantern’s” uninspired story and the below average “The Fantastic Four,” just to name a few, comic book movies have offered up enough colourful folklore to make Greek mythology seem positively uneventful by comparison. Trouble is, they are often bogged down by their own mythology, crushed under the weight of dead parents, mysterious cosmic rays, fateful choices and magical benefactors.
The odd one gets it right. “Batman Begins,” “Deadpool,” “Iron Man” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” all kicked off their franchises with style and I’m happy to add “Wonder Woman” to that short list.
The story of Diana, the Amazonian princess who becomes Wonder Woman, actually began at the end of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” She was a woman who “walked away from mankind” only to be drawn back into the saving-of-humanity business.
The new film, directed by Patty Jenkins, recounts Diana’s (played by Lilly Aspell and Emily Carey as a preteen and teen) childhood on the secluded paradise island of Themyscira. Inhabited by Amazons, a race of women who helped Zeus fight off a coup by his treacherous son, the war god Ares, the isle is a retreat from the horrors of the world. Led by Diana’s mother Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), the all-female society trains in all manner of hand-to-hand combat, preparing for the return of Ares. “It’s our sacred duty to protect the world,” she says.
Meanwhile, in the outside world, World War I rages on. The Amazon’s worst fears are realised when the planet’s unrest comes to Themyscira in the form of Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), a US military pilot who crashes a plane into the waters just offshore of Diana’s (played as an adult by Gal Gadot) home. Rescued by the warrior princess—he’s the first man she’s ever seen—the fallen pilot tells Diana about the war and a new chemical weapon being developed by the Germans. Convinced the conflict is the work of Ares, Diana decamps from the only home she’s ever known to London, then the heart of the action, the Western Front. “Be careful in the world of men Diana,” says Hippolyta, “they do not deserve you.”
“Wonder Woman” is the first major studio superhero film directed by a woman and the first female lead superhero movie since Jennifer Garner’s “Electra” twelve years ago. The success of director Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman,” both artistically and financially (at the time of this writing the film is tracking to make $175 million globally) should guarantee we won’t have to wait until another Bush is president until we see another one.
Equal parts Amazon sword and sandal epic, mad scientist flick, war movie and rom com, it’s a crowd pleaser that places the popular character front and centre. As played by Gadot, Diana is charismatic and kick ass, a superhero who is both truly super and heroic. Like Superman she is firmly on the side of good, not a tortured soul à la Batman. Naïve to the ways of the world, she runs headfirst into trouble. Whether she’s throwing a German tank across a battlefield, defying gravity to leap to the top of a bell tower, tolerating Trevor’s occasional mansplaining or deflecting bullets with her indestructible Bracelets of Submission, she proves in scene after scene to be both a formidable warrior and a genuine, profoundly empathic character.
The action scenes are cool. The Lasso of Truth sequences look like a glow-in-the-dark Cirque du Soleil scarf dance and the iconic Wonder Woman battle poses placed against the terrible beauty of World War I frontlines are stunners, but it’s ultimately her strength of character that keeps the movie interesting. Even the prerequisite CGI overkill at the end is made palatable by her potent message that only love can save the world. It’s a welcome and refreshing change from the deep, dark pit the DC movies seem to have fallen into of late.
“Wonder Woman” works because it maintains a human core in a fantastical good vs. evil story. As Diana’s understanding of heroism and mankind deepens, so does the movie. As she questions authority and man’s capacity for cruelty there are several very funny moments—her “How can a woman possibly fight in this?” routine at Selfridge’s clothing department is very funny—and action galore, but Jenkins wisely and wonderfully keeps the character true to her self confident, mythic comic book roots.
In Toby Young’s aptly named book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, now a motion picture starring Shawn of the Dead’s Simon Pegg, he detailed how not to become a success in the cut throat world of New York magazine publishing. In 1995 English journalist Young accepted a job with Vanity Fair as a contributing editor. He may have envisioned himself to be the next Alistair Cooke, but from the second he stepped off the plane from London he was doomed to failure. His laddish stunts and seemingly bottomless aptitude for offending people made him an outsider in the oh-so-proper world of Conde Nast.
For example he broke every office sexual harassment rule by hiring a Strip-o-gram for a fellow employee, and to make matters worse he did it on that most politically correct day of days, Take Your Daughter to Work Day. For most of the time he worked at Vanity Fair he sat idle, collecting a large pay packet for doing very little work. He blew the biggest story he was assigned, interviewing actor Nathan Lane by asking him a series of inappropriate questions, culminating with a discussion about his sexual practises. Lane walked out of the interview, and Young’s career at VF was pretty much over. Perhaps his most pathetic move was to add the prefix “Hon” (short for “Honourable”) to his VISA in an attempt to impress New York women. The Sunday Times called the book “the longest self-depreciating joke since the complete works of Woody Allen.”
For legal reasons, I would imagine, many of the names have been changed—Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter becomes Clayton Harding—and some of the details are different—Vanity Fair is now Sharp Magazine—from the famously sharp tongued memoir, but star Simon Pegg does manage to capture most of the “negative charisma” that Young describes himself as having in the book.
Comparisons to the best selling book end there, however. The basic storyline is the same and many of the incidents from the book are faithfully reproduced, but Young’s analysis of where everything went wrong, the thing that made the book a delight, has not translated. Instead we’re offered up a catalogue of his endless faux pas, many of which are quite funny, without much in the way of social commentary. Compared to the book it’s a rather empty exercise in slapstick and humiliation that plays up the romance between Pegg’s character and Kirsten Dunst at the expense of the book’s in-depth fish out of water story. Like the magazine he was fired from Young’s book is a mix of high-brow ideas presented with low brow appeal. The movie, however, tends to concentrate on the low brow.
The actors are well cast and fun to watch. Danny Huston is suitably oily as Lawrence Maddox, the unctuous editor of the magazine’s On the Town column; Jeff Bridges is effortless as the oddball publisher Harding; Dunst brings a frumpy appeal as the damaged love interest; Gillian Anderson is spot on as a manipulative publicist and Megan Fox ups the sex appeal of the character of starlet Sophie Maes, but this is Pegg’s movie.
As usual he is wonderfully watchable as the oafish Sidney Young (for some reason the author’s name was changed) and brings a great deal of charm to a character who should be unlovable in the extreme.
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People suffers for concentrating on the basic elements of the story—his oafish behaviour and the romance—sacrificing the juicy gossip and insight that made the book a best seller, but is saved by engaging performances from Pegg and Bridges and some funny, but cringe worthy moments that redefine social awkwardness.
It’s amazing that more bad stuff hasn’t happened in the isolated town of Barrow. Located literally at the Top of the World, this fictional Alaskan town is desolate, freezing cold and has one month a year with absolutely no sunshine whatsoever. It’s the stuff that Hollywood nightmares are made of.
When this sleepy little town is invaded by blood sucking freaks who move fast, howl for no reason and are in desperate need of a visit to the dentist, the townsfolk are terrified yet spend most of the movie running through the snow yelling, “What the hell is going on?” to anyone still left alive.
Why they are surprised is a bit of a mystery to me. Anyplace that dark and out-of-the-way is just asking for a supernatural invasion of some kind. They should just be thankful it didn’t happen a long time ago.
It’s a good set up for a horror film. 30 Days of Night mixes the isolationism of The Thing with the conventions of a zombie film—the survivors hole up in a “safe house” while chaos reigns outside—to create an effectively creepy story with enough gore to keep the hard core fans happy.
With a setting this perfectly creepy the cast doesn’t have to do much other than swing the odd axe and grimace appropriately through blood smeared lips. Josh Hartnett is the love-sick sheriff who one ups George A. Romero’s classic “shoot them in the head” defense by getting up close and personal with these creatures of the night and using an axe to decapitate them. Former Australian roller skating national champion Melissa George is his gun toting ex-wife, while Danny Huston, son of Hollywood legend John, brother to Angelica, is Marlow, the head vampire with a mouth full of rotten fangs and a wardrobe that looks borrowed from Marilyn Manson. Mark Boone Junior is great as a Grizzly Adams type who meets a particularly… grizzly end.
Based on a graphic novel of the same name, 30 Days of Night is packed solid with thrills and is the best horror film of the year.
