When British author H.G. Wells created the term “time machine” way back in 1895, he could never have imagined the lasting impact his ideas of fourth dimension travel would have on the career of Rachel McAdams.
His book, The Time Machine, has been filmed twice for the big screen, but the ideas of shifting ripples of time have also inspired three very different movies starring the London, Ont., born actress.
This weekend she co-stars with Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy in About Time as the present day girlfriend of a 21-year-old who uses his ability to switch time zones to learn information to woo her.
“I know I have a little bit of time travel in my past but this is different,” McAdams says. “The element of time travel thrown in was unique and quirky and dealt with lightly.”
Previously the Mean Girls star appeared as Clare Abshire in The Time Traveler’s Wife, starring opposite Eric Bana playing a Chicago librarian with a genetic disorder known as Chrono-Displacement that causes him to involuntarily travel through time.
From the outset their relationship is a strange one. When they first meet she has known him since she was six years old, but because his syndrome flips him to random times in his life on an ever shifting timeline he is always meeting her for the first time. Confused? Not as confused as Clare, who tries to build a life with Henry even though his ailment keeps them apart.
Based on a best-selling novel, it’s a three-hankie story about love with no boundaries and how romance can transcend everything, even death.
In Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris it’s Owen Wilson who jumps through time — finding himself transported back to 1920s Paris and hanging with F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston and Alison Pill), seeing Cole Porter sing at a party, drinking with Hemmingway — while McAdams stays put, bringing him back to reality, as his irritating present-day fiancée Inez.
But what about actual time travel? When she was asked by AOL if there was anything she would go back in time and change in real life, McAdams said, “I was a figure skater, so I would take back a lot of fashion choices on the ice. A lot of sequins. I would pull back on the sequins a little bit and maybe less blue eye shadow.”
Is Saoirse Ronan the new Meryl Streep? For years Streep was almost as well known for her facility with world accents as she was for her acting ability. Her aptitude for everything from Danish (“The Bridges of Madison County”) to Polish (“Sophie’s Choice”) to New Zealand (“A Cry in the Dark”) to Bronx (“Doubt”) to Midwestern (“A Prairie Home Companion”) dialects became such a topic of conversation that even her Wikipedia page has a section titled “Accents and dialects.”
Now, along comes Ronan, a prodigiously talented young actress, who speaks with an Irish brogue in real life, but uses a variety of inflections on-screen. Scottish (“Atonement”), American (“The Lovely Bones), Polish (“The Way Back”) and English (“Death Defying Acts”)—she can do it all.
In her new film, “Hanna” she aces a German accent putting her one step closer to Streep territory. She plays the title character, a blonde, blue-eyed killing machine, the right age to be a Hannah Montana fan, except she’s never heard music and has no idea who Miley Cyrus is. She was home-schooled with über tough love by her father and ex-CIA agent Eric (Eric Bana) in the remotest part of Finland. He trains her to survive, to adapt or die. When her boot camp is completed she activates an electronic signal and with the words, “Marissa Wiegler, come and get me,” begins a wild life-or-death chase through Morocco and Europe. CIA operative Wiegler (Cate Blanchett) is desperate to bring Hanna in before a secret about her past is revealed.
“Hanna” isn’t exactly an action movie, although there are a number of breathless fight scenes, it’s more of a coming-of-age story about a feral girl learning about the outside world. Director Joe Wright weaves the action sequences throughout, but never forgets to develop Hanna’s character. Ronan plays her almost like an alien or someone from another time. She’s unaccustomed to TV, electricity and the comforts of modern life and you can really see the learning curve on the actresses’ open face. It’s a remarkable performance aided by Wright’s sure handed direction. Set to an anxiety inducing soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers he frames every scene with its own personality. For instance, when Hanna is with an English family she adopts for a time, the pace is gentle, there’s music and the tone is poignant as she observes a real family for the first time in her life. When she’s on her own the settings are discordant and strange.
It’s engrossing filmmaking—check out Hanna’s introduction to the modern world in a hotel in Morocco—that wordlessly brings the viewer into Hanna’s world.
“Hanna” is as good a thriller as we’ve seen for a long time, but it’s about more than just the thrills. There’s genuine heart here and that’s what makes it great. That and the mini-Meryl acting skills of Saoirse Ronan.
“You’re making me angry,” says Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) before transforming into the muscle bound Hulk. “You won’t like me when I’m angry.” Oh yes we will Bruce. In fact, we like you lot more when you’re angry. Director Ang Lee has taken the comic book bully’s story and added touches of intelligence, style and grace, everything in fact, except personality. Bana (whose Ken doll hair I found very distracting) plays Banner as an emotionally detached zombie, draining him of any spark.
Recent Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly doesn’t fare much better. Her Betty Ross is a pretty picture – beautiful to look at, but lacking in any dimension. It is amazing that a movie which expects the audience to buy a wild chemical explanation as to why Banner blows up into his hulking alter ego can have so little chemistry between its two lead actors. There is barely a glimmer when they are on-screen together.
Not so when the big guy enters the picture. The CGI creation is part King Kong, part Frankenstein and all Harryhausen, but yet seems like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Like Frankie and Kong before him, he capable of mindless violence and mass destruction, also has a gentle, compassionate side. In one scene that seems to echo King Kong, Hulk picks up Betty in his massive fist before gently placing her on the roof of a car so he car get a better look at her. Here we see the marvels of the CGI and the Hulk’s wonderfully expressive face. This collection of pixels and binary code ironically brings the movie to life. Of course the Hulk on a rampage is more fun, but Lee paces the action carefully, barely giving us a glimpse of the main attraction until almost an hour into the film, and then uses him sparingly.
People expecting to see an action movie will be sorely disappointed. Hulk (the movies drops “the”) has its moments – the battle with the killer mutant dogs is exciting and violent while Hulk’s desert show-down with the army has the makings of a classic in the superhero oeuvre – but favours the cerebral over the physical. Most of the action here takes place inside Bruce Banner’s mind as he battles with his fate. Hulk historians will note that stylistically Lee has crafted a film using crazy jump-cuts, dissolves and split screens that emulates the wild design of the original comic books.
The supporting cast fares much better than the above the title actors. Josh Lucas hands in a one-note performance as the fleabag military weapons contractor turned Hulk’s punching bag, but seems to be having a good time while doing it. Sam Elliott plays Ross, an army muckety-muck who is bent on destroying the green blowtop. In the hands of a lesser actor this would have been a stereotypical turn as the paranoid, untrusting military man. Instead Elliot gives us the stiff façade of a career warrior, but reveals a softer core – someone who is tormented by the unpleasant choices he has to make.
But it is Nick Nolte’s scene chewing that steals the movie. With his hair standing on end (think of the famous mug shot from last September) and wild eyes blazing Nolte is an organic visual effect that rivals his CGI co-star. As David Banner, the scientist father of the Hulk, he experimented with his own DNA and passed the genetic flaw on to his son. The elder Banner is only playing with only 44 cards in the deck, and Nolte’s over-the-top performance makes his a riveting character.
Hulk may have its flaws, but Ang Lee has done something really interesting here. He’s taken the hoary old superhero genre and freshened it up visually while adding a level of thoughtfulness and context that is missing from other movies of its kind.
In Lucky You Eric Bana plays a professional card shark trying to raise enough money to compete in the World Series of Poker at a Las Vegas hotel. Things haven’t been going well for him. His father, poker legend LC Cheever (Robert Duvall) is back in town; he loses a ten thousand dollar bet; the girl of his dreams, lounge singer Billie (Drew Barrymore), dumps him when he steals money from her and he gets roughed up by some Vegas thugs. If it wasn’t for bad luck, he wouldn’t have no luck at all.
Fortune, however, favors the bold, especially in Hollywood, and he finds a way to come up with the money, play kissy face with Billie and get his private life in order all in one marathon two hour plus movie. It’s Cincinnati Kid-lite, a movie about the gritty sub-culture of Vegas gamblers that is completely without grit.
Director Curtis Hanson, best known as the helmer behind L.A. Confidential and 8 Mile, has succeeded in the past by creating interesting, richly textured worlds for his movies to inhabit. The former wouldn’t have been as effective if not for the lush, sexy and dangerous Los Angeles he created, and the latter’s grungy depiction of the wrong side of Detroit’s tracks added a great deal of flavor to that film. Both seemed authentic and were integral parts of those movies. Lucky You isn’t so fortunate to have such a well defined sense of place. Las Vegas is probably the least authentic city on the planet. Everything there is artifice, which should create interesting possibilities to for a director to place some real people in amongst the surreal surroundings. Instead Hanson’s Las Vegas is populated by characters we’ve seen before—wacky locals who’ll bet on anything, the down-on-his-luck gambler, and the supportive love interest.
Eric Bana has been given four shots at A-list stardom in the past few years—more than anyone else I can think of—and yet leaves virtually no impression on me as a viewer. I wanted to like him in The Hulk, but found his performance flat. I barely remember him in Troy even though he was second billed to Brad Pitt and in Munich he, once again, failed to impress. As Huck in Luck You, a gambling addicted poker player with deep personal issues, we should understand his compulsion. Instead he spouts a handful of catch-phrases which are suppose to shed light on his compulsion, but end up sounding more like excuses than explanations. Unfortunately Bana just isn’t strong enough or interesting enough an actor to carry this kind of material.
Barrymore is wasted in a supporting role that requires little more from her than to be the resilient and supportive girlfriend.
Third billed lead Robert Duvall, however, schools both these younger actors in how to walk through material like this with your dignity intact. His performance as L.C. Cheever is the highlight of the film.
Lucky You? Lucky you if you don’t have to sit through this.
This past Christmas season saw two movies hit the theatres that could easily have been Stephen Spielberg productions—The Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong. Both feature the kind of fantasy that he made his name with, and both are the kind of large epic style films that he has as deft touch with. Instead we were treated to the flip side of Spielberg—the serious filmmaker.
Munich is loosely based on the book Vengeance by Canadian journalist George Jonas and details the aftermath of the Black September terror raid at the 1972 Olympics in Munich in which eleven Israeli athletes were murdered. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruited a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack.
Eric Bana plays the head of the team of Mossad hit men, and for my money is the film’s tragic flaw. Bana has been given three shots at A-list stardom in the past couple of years—more than anyone else I can think of—and yet leaves virtually no impression on me as a viewer. I wanted to like him in The Hulk, but found his performance flat. I barely remember him in Troy even though he was second billed to Brad Pitt and now in Munich he, once again, fails to impress. As Avner, a former bodyguard of Golda Meir, we should believe that he is willing to do anything for his country, that he is an ideologue who is willing to break the law to get revenge, but also feel empathy for him. Unfortunately Bana just isn’t strong enough or interesting enough an actor to carry this kind of material.
Munich is a technically well-made film, although seems a bit flabby. Overlong at 164 minutes, the movie often feels like a grocery list of assassinations. One after the other people are stalked and blown up with very little variance in their modus operandi. Mid-way through I was dreading having to sit through all eleven killings. Luckily the movie is more than simply a revenge drama, and starts to take a different shape as Avner’s conscience gets the best of him. His moral wrestling match should be at the heart of the film, but unfortunately is a bit too obvious and in Bana’s hands doesn’t seem realistic.
Munich is an ambitious film that sags under its own weight.
You don’t hear the term ‘bodice ripper” very often anymore. By definition it refers to a historical romance that emphasizes the sexual excitement of seduction and ‘ravishment,’ usually in intriguing settings and populated by royalty, pirates, highwaymen and wenches. In book form they often feature Fabio on the cover, in a new movie set in the court of Henry VIII Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman both have their bodices ripped by Eric Bana as the womanizing king.
Based on a historical novel written by British author Philippa Gregory The Other Boleyn Girl is a melodrama centered around the life of little known 16th-century aristocrat, Mary Boleyn (Johansson), who was the sister of Queen Anne Boleyn (Portman) and one-time mistress of King Henry VIII of England.
At the beginning of the film the Boleyn family is minor aristocracy with a desire to better their station in life by marrying off their two beautiful daughters, Mary and Anne, to wealthy men. When a scheming uncle cooks up a plan for Anne to seduce the King of England, become his mistress and hopefully provide him with a much needed male heir the simple family is introduced to the Machiavellian workings of the Royal Court. Things take an unexpected turn when Mary, an uncomplicated soul with a good heart, is actually the first to catch the King’s eye. Soon, however, his attentions turn to her devious older sister Anne.
In order to woo Anne he must first dispose of his wife, Queen Katherine. This split causes a rift with the Pope and directly leads to the creation of the Church of England. When Anne is unable to give birth to a son she finds herself alienated from the King and later the subject of scandalous charges that lead to her execution.
While watching The Other Boleyn Girl I couldn’t help but think what a different movie this would have been had been made by MGM sixty years ago. Certainly the bodice ripping aspects would have been toned down in favor of the kind of smoldering, suppressed sexuality that dominated mid-Century Hollywood films, but specifically I was thinking about the casting.
In the 40s or 50s the cast would likely have included Bette Davis as the devious Jane and, maybe Celeste Holm as Mary, the kind hearted sister. Those actors would have the heft needed to bring a sense of drama to the proceedings. To paraphrase another old time Silver Screen actress, “They had faces back then.”
As it is Portman and Johansson, both good actors, simply don’t have the gravitas needed to convincingly portray the conniving inner workings of the court. Portman’s performance as Anne would be better suited to a teen drama set in high school than palace life in Tudor England.
Other than the somewhat fatal casting flaw The Other Boleyn Girl has, at least, production value to spare. Period details are nicely presented with costume design by Sandy Powell who also worked on Shakespeare in Love and impressive locations such as Penshurst Place, Knole Park, Dover Castle in Kent, the City of Bath, and Bude in Cornwall.
Historians should be warned that The Other Boleyn Girl plays fast and loose with the facts—Mary was actually the older sister, rumored to be promiscuous and not the blushing flower she is portrayed as in the movie—and really amps up the melodrama. There are soap operas that don’t have this much intrigue. It’s interesting to learn about the brutal Royal court, a gossipy and cruel place so vicious the other ladies-in-waiting make the London tabloid press look like Miss Manners.
The Other Boleyn Girl plays like a mix of Masterpiece Theatre and Clueless, an awkward blend of historical drama and modern storytelling that skates over important details—was the love of Anne the only reason to break from Rome and form a new church?—while spending too much time on the more salacious aspects of the whole sordid tale.
The Time Traveler’s Wife is part of a rare genre: romantic science fiction. But just because one of the characters flits through time and space doesn’t mean this is like an episode of Star Trek. Nope. The Time Traveler’s Wife is a romance first and sci fi second. Based on a best selling novel the story is equal parts Back to the Future, Benjamin Button and The Notebook. It’s a story about love with no boundaries and how romance can transcend everything, even death. Sounds like a three Kleenex kind of movie, doesn’t it?
Eric Bana is Henry DeTamble, a Chicago librarian with a genetic disorder known as Chrono-Displacement that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams) is an artist. From the outset their relationship is a strange one. When they first meet she has known him since she was six years old, but because his syndrome flips him to random times in his life on an ever shifting timeline he is meeting her for the first time. Confused? Not as confused as Clare who tries to build a life with Henry even though his ailment keep them apart.
Once you get past the twisty-turny time travel story device, I’m sorry to say there isn’t much left. The Time Traveler’s Wife is at its core a very old fashioned romance about the enduring qualities of true love tarted up with a sci fi twist that only serves to muddle the story. (On film at least, I haven’t read the book.) It’s theme of love conquering all is well played out, but the flat performance from leading man Eric Bana casts a pall over the whole movie.
Bana has been in my bad books for some time now, although he redeemed himself recently with a star turn as the bad guy in Star Trek. Unfortunately The Time Traveler’s Wife was shot before Star Trek gave him a boost on the old charisma meter. His work here is understated to the point of indifference. Henry should be one of the wonders of the world, a man who can jump from year to year, but instead is played as a mope; a sad sack crippled by his remarkable ability.
Rachel McAdams, on the other hand, underplays the role of Clare, but instead of disappearing into the fabric of the film as Bana does, brings subtlety and grace to the character. When she tells her friend about Henry’s condition, adding, with rueful understatement, “It’s a problem,” she shows us a vulnerable side to Clare, the side that realizes her life will never be normal, but also the side that knows she is powerless to change her situation. It’s a nice, quiet performance that conveys the power of her love for Henry and the frustration of the predetermination of her fate.
But it takes two to tango and unfortunately no matter how lovely McAdams’s performance is, she’s twirling around an empty dance floor. The themes from the book are firmly in place but there is no real spark between the actors.
True to its name “Deadfall” tumbles downward after an exciting opening sequence.
Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde are Addison and Liza, a brother-and-sister crime wave fresh off a successful casino heist. In the opening minutes of the film their getaway car loses control, crashing on an icy roadway. After Addison kills a state trooper who stops to help the pair decide to split up and meet later to escape over the Canadian border. Liza connects with a parolee Jay (Charlie Hunnam) on his way home for Thanksgiving dinner with mother June (Sissy Spacek), and father Chet (Kris Kristofferson). On the run, Addison hides out in a hunting cabin before the police catch up to him, forcing him to move along toward a protracted climax.
There are some nice moments of tension in “Deadfall.” Bana’s overly polite—“Serve the pie please June.”—but psychotic take on Addison lends some menace to the story but his good work is undone by a predictable script that relies on convenient and unbelievable coincidences to tell the story. Add to that a (possibly) incestuous relationship, daddy issues galore and an unconvincing love story and you’ll wish the Coen Brothers had been free to edit this script before it went to camera.
Also, there will be no spoilers here, but let’s just say if you are looking for the chance to see the entire cast in one place, brought together by coincidence, you’ll get it.
The photography, however is as gorgeous as the story is lackluster. You’ll feel the chill in your bones watching the harsh winter landscape portrayed so beautifully.
“Deadfall” feels incomplete, like a missed opportunity. Bana’s a good bad guy but he deserves a better story than this.
“Closed Circuit” has most of the makings for a good thriller. There’s MI5 spooks, double-dealing, corruption, an attractive cast and ripped from the headlines style story about overreaching security in the age of terror and information. What it lacks are the thrills.
Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall are Martin Rose and Claudia Simmons-Howe, lawyers and ex-lovers who find themselves in the crosshairs when their defense of Farroukh Erdogan (Denis Moschitto), a suspected terrorist, uncovers evidence that could cause a national scandal. Rose represents Erdogan in open court, while she is a special advocate whose business all happens behind closed doors.
They’re not supposed to communicate or have any contact, but as the case heats up, are forced to work together in order to survive.
In its rush to get to the climax—which is actually twisty-and-turny enough to be interesting—“Closed Circuit” blasts through plot details, not giving us any reason to care about the characters.
Like all good stories of spy huggermuggery, the movie is stylish looking, but beneath it’s slick surface there isn’t enough to keep us interested.
Which brings me to its male star. Once again Bana proves to be a handsome cipher—he’s a good-looking actor but as dull as dishwater. Hall has charm to burn in an underwritten role but sparks don’t exactly fly between these two, despite their apparent fondness for one another.
“Closed Circuit” could have been a comment on the British legal system’s use of closed sessions following the July 7, 2005 London bombing and who determines what information the public has a right to know but instead attempts and just barely succeeds in telling a much simpler story.
When British author H.G. Wells created the term “time machine” way back in 1895, he could never have imagined the lasting impact his ideas of fourth dimension travel would have on the career of Rachel McAdams.
