Giant labyrinthine puzzles are almost as old as mankind: Prehistoric mazes were built as traps for malevolent spirits, while in medieval times the labyrinth represented a path to God. But recently, the idea of people struggling through a complicated network of paths has made for some striking visuals in movies.
This weekend, The Maze Runner sets much of its action inside a gigantic maze where frightening mechanical monsters called Grievers wander, tormenting Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) as he navigates the maze to pick up clues that help him piece together memories of his past. The sci-fi story is just the latest to feature a maze as a major plot point, but just as Labyrinth’s Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) is warned, “nothing is as it seems” in these movie puzzles.
Remember Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? Like Thomas in The Maze Runner, the boy wizard has to make it through a maze (in this instance to find the Triwizard Cup), but instead of fighting magical creatures, this hedge maze is magical; shape shifting to make the journey extra difficult. The 1972 horror film Tales from the Crypt contained an even more sinister maze.
Made up of five stories, the film culminated with the tale of a labyrinth told with razor-sharp wit. Set in a home for the blind, the patients get even with the institute’s cruel director by placing him in the centre of a maze of narrow corridors lined with razor blades. It’s a cutting edge story, that, according to besthorrormovies.com “rivals the ‘death traps’ of Saw and ‘tortures’ of Hostel while only showing a single small cut of the flesh.”
In The Shining, the axe-wielding father Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) chases his son Danny (Danny Lloyd) through the Overlook Hotel’s hedge maze. The quick-thinking boy escapes by retracing his steps, confusing his maniacal dad. The documentary Room 237 offers up a number of interpretations of what the maze and Danny’s escape represents. One theory suggests it reflects Greek hero Theseus’ slaying of the Minotaur and escape from the labyrinth, while another speculates it’s a metaphor for conquering repression. Whatever the subtext, it remains one of director Stanley Kubrick’s most tense scenes.
And finally, Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Dracula sees Lucy (Sadie Frost) sleepwalking through a garden maze, chased by Dracula (Gary Oldman) in wolfman form while Pan’s Labyrinth features a maze as a place of safety for Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) to evade her attacker.
“Noah” is not your father’s biblical movie. It’s an art house epic that filters the story through director Darren “Black Swan” Aronofsky’s impressionistic style.
The best way I can describe “Noah” is emotionally ambitious. It takes a familiar tale and shines a new light on it by highlighting Noah’s spiritual quandary. In the film—which takes liberties with the biblical story—he’s a vegan prophet who grapples with doing God’s will while balancing the needs of all of humanity, particularly his family. The meaning of faith and the consequences of adhering to that faith are the film’s main thrust, but as interesting as that is, the movie feels like one thing when it is addressing the spiritual and quite another—possibly a “Lord of the Rings” flick—when it is in action movie mode.
The movie starts at the beginning. Literally.
After a quick recap of Old Testament highlights—the Creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and Cain vs Abel—we meet Noah, the last descendent of Adam and Eve’s good hearted son Seth. The world he lives in is a dangerous place, ruled by Cain’s bloodthirsty bloodline but Noah (Russell Crowe) and family (Jennifer Connelly, Douglas Booth, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Leo McHugh Carroll) live peacefully as nature loving, proto hippies. That is, until Noah has a disturbing apocalyptic dream. Consulting with his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) he determines The Creator wants him to build an ark and laden it with two of every creature on earth in advance of a great flood that will destroy mankind and the violence they perpetrate. It’s ultimate Mulligan—a do over for the planet—but Noah will have to make some troubling decisions to fulfill God’s will.
Some may criticize the movie for not being reverent enough, but Aronofsky treats the story as a living breathing thing and not an artifact from another time. The addition of a spectacular creation of the world sequence, as narrated by Noah, may annoy Creationists, but is a moving and beautiful retelling of the biblical story.
Aronofsky may play fast and loose with Noah’s story, but underlines the spirituality that is at the very heart of the tale as evidenced by the Seven Days of Creation scene.
He’s also aided by a terrific performance from Crowe.
Crowe’s been in a bit of a slump in recent years. The dangerous, complex actor of movies like “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind” seemed to have taken a backseat to the performer who thought making “The Man with the Iron Fists” was a good idea. “Noah” is a nice reminder of Crowe’s delicate mix of fearsome masculinity and subtle sensitivity and his tortured performance hits Noah’s zealotry square on the head.
But having said that, Aronofsky moves in mysterious ways. He shot the epic almost entirely in close up and the flood scene could have used a bit more Cecil B. DeMille. Aronofsky means this to be a personal story of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, but it is still an end of the world movie. Despite the occasional Peter Jackson flourish—like the stone giants The Watchers and sweeping crane shots—“Noah” doesn’t feel as big as it should. It has big ideas, but the expected sweeping visuals aren’t there.
“Noah” is a thought-provoking take on a familiar story that will keep you guessing until the end credits roll.
Synopsis: After a quick recap of Old Testament highlights we meet Noah, the last descendant of Adam and Eve’s son Seth. The world he lives in is a dangerous place, ruled by Cain’s bloodthirsty bloodline, but Noah (Russell Crowe) and family (Jennifer Connelly, Douglas Booth, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Leo McHugh Carroll) live as nature-loving, proto-hippies. That is, until Noah has an— apocalyptic dream. Consulting with his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), he determines The Creator wants him to build an ark and laden it with two of every creature in advance of a great flood that will destroy mankind and the violence they perpetrate. But Noah will have to make some troubling decisions to fulfill God’s will.
• Richard: 3/5
• Mark: 4/5
Richard: Mark, the best way I can describe Noah is emotionally ambitious. It takes a familiar story and shines a new light on it by highlighting Noah’s spiritual quandary. In the film — which takes liberties with the biblical story — he’s a vegan prophet who grapples with doing God’s will while balancing the needs of all of humanity, particularly his family. The meaning of faith and the consequences of adhering to that faith are the film’s main thrust, but as interesting as that is, the movie feels like one thing when it is addressing the spiritual and quite another — possibly a Lord of the Rings movie — when it is in action movie mode.
Mark: Richard, I queasily bought the transition from religious allegory to action pic because I admired the tone and quality of the movie. I shuddered when I first heard about the picture, but then got interested when I found out Aronofsky was directing. Unlike most biblical epics, the dialogue isn’t embarrassing and the lead actor isn’t over the top.
RC: It’s not your father’s biblical epic, that’s for sure. This is an art-house epic that filters the story through Aronofsky’s impressionistic style. Some may criticize the movie for not being reverent enough, but I thought he treated the story as a living, breathing thing and not an artifact from another time. But having said that, Aronofsky moves in mysterious ways. He shot the epic almost entirely in close-up, and the flood scene could have used a bit more Cecil B. DeMille.
MB: He also indulged in some sci-fi flourishes I don’t remember from the Bible! But I accepted them as part of the world of wonder when the Earth was a pre-prehistoric place. The movie has a strong environmental message and also feels critical of doctrinaire religious fundamentalism. Noah, at the end, almost makes a choice that only a deranged religious kook would make. Speaking of which, what did you think of Russell Crowe?
RC: Crowe’s been in a bit of a slump in recent years. The dangerous, complex actor of movies like Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind seemed to have taken a backseat to the performer who thought making The Man with the Iron Fists was a good idea. Noah is a nice reminder of Crowe’s delicate mix of fearsome masculinity and subtle sensitivity.
MB: I thought he was wonderfully restrained in the part even when he was deranged with fervour. My only complaint is that the movie peaks too soon. I guess there’s a bit of a problem with the story… arc.
According to Genesis God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.”
Noah, a righteous man, was commanded to build an ark and stock it with “two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.”
For forty days and forty nights Noah, his family and precious cargo withstood a flood so severe it submerged the tops of mountains until “every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out.”
Once the flooding stopped and the Earth dried, God commanded Noah to come out of the ark and release the animals, “so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”
The story of Noah’s Ark and the flood is one of mankind’s most famous tales and Hollywood has retold it a number of times.
This weekend Russell Crowe plays the title role in Noah, co-starring with Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins and Emma Watson. Director Darren Aronofsky says he has been obsessed with the story since he was thirteen, calling it “the first apocalypse story.” Nonetheless, he has added his own spin to the tale.
“When we first started working on the project, we were very clear not to have sandals and robes and long white beards,” he told Rolling Stone. “The first thing I said to Russell Crowe was, ‘I’ll never shoot you on a houseboat with two giraffes standing behind you.’”
More traditional are two Disney short films. Father Noah’s Ark is a 1933 “Silly Symphony” for children that tells the narrative in song. Lively animation shows how the animals may have helped build the ship and why skunks almost didn’t make it on board.
In 1959 Disney released the twenty-minute Noah’s Ark, their first stop motion animated film. A jazzy score accompanies equally jazzy animation as pencils, pipe cleaners and other household items are inventively used to create the animals.
Shooting the flood scene in the 1928 version of Noah’s Ark endangered the life of a future Hollywood icon. John Wayne was a swimmer in the famous scene, and emerged unhurt, but other weren’t so lucky. Three extras drowned and a dozen others suffered broken limbs.
Finally, a 1977 documentary claims to shed some light on the real story. In Search of Noah’s Ark is an investigation into the speculation that Turkey’s Mt. Ararat in is the landing place of Noah’s Ark. “This may be the most incredible film you will ever see,” says narrator Brad Crandall, “but the facts that will be presented are true.”
Have a Labyrinth Christmas! celebrate with The W0rm, the extremely hospitable cockney creature who encourages Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) not to give up the quest to save her brother in the classic Jim Henson film. “I’m just a worm. Say, come inside, and meet the misses!”
From think geek.com:
What a night. Her parents leave her to babysit her little brother, never bothering to ask if she had plans. Goblins come and take the poor boy away. And then, Sarah finds herself outside the Labyrinth, tasked with finding her way to the center or losing her baby brother forever! David Bowie sure can be mean. Once inside the Labyrinth, the first creature she meets is only referred to as “The Worm” (and no complaining, because she met Hoggle outside the Labyrinth). Take a little magic from the Labyrinth home with you now, when you buy a Limited Edition Labyrinth Worm Plush.
Each Limited Edition Labyrinth Worm Plush is actually a pumped up version of the character from the movie. It just had to be distorted a little, in order to be more huggable – sort of like the plush characters in Sarah’s room (if you know what we mean, you’ll know what we mean). So, come inside, have a nice cup of tea, meet the missus, and take home your very own Limited Edition Labyrinth Worm Plush today.
Limited Edition Labyrinth Worm Plush
Adorable plush of one of the Labyrinth’s most adorable creatures.
Fully licensed, limited edition collectible.
Can also be used to enhance your Jareth costume. Just saying.
He’s Just Not That Into You, a new romantic comedy with an all star cast, is being described as Love Actually meets Sex and the City. Not surprising since the book it was based on was inspired by a line from the latter. The book’s authors Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo’s eureka moment came when they saw the episode Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little. On the show Miranda (if you don’t know who that is, stop reading now) was telling Carrie’s boyfriend Berger about a date who declined her invitation to come up to her apartment. “I have an early meeting,” he said by way of an excuse. Berger analyzes the situation and concludes that “he’s just not that into you,” adding that “when a guy’s really into you, he’s coming upstairs, meeting or no meeting.” That one exchange inspired a self help book which became a bestseller and now a two hour movie starring Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston.
The multi-pronged plot involves a seemingly unconnected group of Baltimore men and women who by the time the movie is over have swapped spit, broken up, gotten back together, dated, stalked and generally dabbled in all forms of human interaction. The unifying theme is that one person in each relationship is more “into” the other person than vice versa. According to director Ken Kwapis the relationship tango goes like this: “Character A is going out with character B, character B is really into Character A, but Character A is really into Character C who’s dating Character D…”
The first thing you’ll notice about He’s Just Not That Into You is that every good looking actor or actress in Hollywood is in this movie. It’s a panoply of blue eyes, shiny coiffed hair and jaw lines so sharp you could use them to cut granite and, of course they all live in beautifully designed homes and have cool jobs. So go see the movie for the clothes, the apartments, the general beauty of the cast, but don’t expect anything useful in terms of relationship advice.
Despite the movie’s source material and general self-help premise this is one of the most toxic looks at male – female relations since the Brittney Spears, Kevin Federline wedding video. The women are either portrayed as a.) incomplete without a man in their lives, b.) home wreckers, or c.) pathetically man crazy.
The men don’t fare much better. The guys are needy, cheaters, slobs or downright smarmy. One man, played by Bradley Cooper, has a slip of the tongue where he says “funeral” when the word he should have said was “wedding.” That’s about the extent of the character development on display here. (In case you don’t get it, he’s wondering if he ruined his life by marrying too young.) All in all despite their obvious genetic gifts it’s no wonder these characters are terminally single.
He’s Just Not That Into You makes the point that dating is hard and relationships are difficult and confusing. Well, thanks for the info. I get it. I got it after the first hour. By the end of the second hour of watching these hapless characters flop around from one warm body to the next I could only think of one sure fire way to test for a prospective mate. Make them watch He’s Just Not That Into You. If they want to leave midway through you may have found someone worth hanging out with.
“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.
Reservation Road opens with every parent’s nightmare. At a rest stop, while the mom and dad gas up the car, little Josh wanders away and is killed by a hit-and-run-driver along a rural Connecticut road. What follows is meant to be an examination of grief and the repercussions of loss, but is in fact, little more than a revenge drama tarted-up with an a-list cast
Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly play Ethan and Grace, parents of the young boy. Behind the wheel of the deadly vehicle is Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo), a lawyer and father of Lucas, who he lost in a custody battle with his ex-wife Ruth (Mira Sorvino) and now only sees on the weekends.
Try as they might to cope with the death of their son, Ethan and Grace fray at the edges. Grace tries to move on, but Ethan, consumed with thoughts of revenge and retribution becomes obsessed with finding his son’s killer in lieu of finding inner peace. In the kind of twist that only happens in Hollywood movies Ethan hires Dwight to help him with his case.
A guilt-ridden Dwight—a recovering something—rage-a-holic, alcoholic—struggles with doing the right thing and turning himself in, but he knows that as soon as he speaks to the police he will likely never see his son again.
Reservation Road can boast good performances all round. Phoenix and Ruffalo hand in the kind of work that has made them both award magnets in the last few years, but for my money it is the quiet portrayal of a grieving mother from Jennifer Connelly that wins the movie. As Grace she seems to actually experience the steps of grief and work through her pain, and in doing so becomes a much more rounded character than Ethan, who simply retreats into a miasma of hate and revenge.
Based on the novel by John Burnham Schwartz Reservation Road is a serious minded, glum film for adults—a la 21 Grams or In the Bedroom—which may pick up a couple of nominations for acting, but despite its heartrending subject, falls flat. Perhaps a different director could have tightened up the pacing and really developed an emotional connection with the audience, but as it is this story of loss is missing something.
No one has spent as much on screen time jumping from dimension to dimension as Keanu Reeves. All the way back to Bill and Ted’s excellent time traveling adventures through to Neo in the Matrix and Constantine his characters have tripped the light fantastic, jumping from one plane to the another. His latest film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, a reinvention of the 1951 classic, sees him once again careening from outer space to the more mortal plane of Earth.
Reeves is Klaatu, an alien messenger in human form who comes to Earth to rescue the planet, but not necessarily its inhabitants. “If the Earth dies, you die,” he says. “If you die, the Earth survives.” When his attempts to communicate and reason with the leaders of Earth fail, he goes ahead with his plan to eliminate all humans. Humankind’s only chance of survival is in the hands of Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) and stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith) who work to convince Klaatu that humans are worth saving, that given the chance they will mend their wasteful ways and save the planet. Can they convince the strange visitor to spare them before his coconspirator GORT, a giant biological robot hell bent to complete his mission, finishes the job?
The Day the Earth Stood Still updates the original’s Cold War themes of the dangers of nuclear warfare to the more contemporary hot button issues of the environment, global warming and man’s systematic destruction of the planet. It’s a good message wrapped up in an average, listless movie.
The film gets off to a s-l-o-w start when, without any explanation, Reeves is seen chipping away at a mysterious orb on a mountain top in India in 1928. Cut to eighty years later the orb lands in Central Park and expels the human now wrapped in gelatinous goop. The sequence takes forever and sets the tone for the rest of the languidly paced story.
Reeves’s take on Klaatu doesn’t help matters any. As the intellectually gifted alien housed in human form he is even more deadpan and monotone than usual. It is, I suppose, an attempt to portray Klaatu’s otherworldliness but Keanu’s low-energy performance as he drones on about the environment makes staid enviro-warrior Al Gore look like the easily excitable Richard Simmons by comparison.
Ditto for John Hamm. His work as Don Draper on Mad Men is so detailed and interesting it’s a shame to see him reduced to bland second-leading man here.
The film doesn’t limit itself to the environmental situation; it also takes jabs at America’s current political climate. When Benson asks why she has been summoned by the government she’s told simply and vaguely, “It’s a matter of national security.”
“Well, that could mean whatever you want it to mean,” she says.
That’s a clever and insightful exchange. It’s just too bad it’s one of the few moments in the film that gives off sparks.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a big budget but unnecessary remake of a sci-fi classic; a movie that doesn’t improve on its source material despite its best intentions.
Giant labyrinthine puzzles are almost as old as mankind: Prehistoric mazes were built as traps for malevolent spirits, while in medieval times the labyrinth represented a path to God. But recently, the idea of people struggling through a complicated network of paths has made for some striking visuals in movies.
