I feel like I've been waiting for this movie almost as long as I waited for The Phantom Menace. After Return of the King opened in 2003, there was talk that Peter Jackson would make The Hobbit next. Then after a few years, it was happening. But there was just the problem of getting the rights from MGM. And then MGM went through bankruptcy. Then Guillermo del Toro left.
After all that, we finally have The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opening today. And while it's not the disappointment that The Phantom Menace was, it can't live up to the brilliance of The Lord of the Rings.
Set some 60 years before the events of Rings, the story concerns young Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman, taking over for Ian Holm), a simple hobbit who lives in the Shire. One day the wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) shows up and asks Bilbo to go on an adventure. It seems there are these dwarves who were kicked out of their homeland by a dragon named Smaug. Their quest is to defeat Smaug, and steal back his treasure, so the dwarves can go home again.
And that's basically the story. No quest to save the world this time. That in and of itself isn't a problem. It shouldn't matter whether a movie is about the fate of the world or just a simple adventure story. But it's hard not to compare this to the LOTR movies. And while those movies were epic enough to justify their 3 hour plus running times, this movie should have been at least a half hour shorter.
One problem I had was the beginning. It's at least a half hour before the quest begins. First Gandalf appears to Bilbo, and then one by one we meet the dwarves. It seems like they stay in Bilbo's house forever eating, throwing dishes around, and singing. This gets very boring. And you would think that with that much time, they could have developed the characters of the dwarves better. While some of them have a distinct look (the one with the funny hat, the really fat one, the one with the crazy beard), with the exception of Prince Thorin Oakenshield, none of them are memorable.
In LOTR, you had Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. Then after we got to know them, we got Strider, Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir. In The Hobbit, the only characters we really care about are Bilbo and Gandalf. And just like the other movies, Gandalf has a habit of disappearing for stretches of the movie.
There were several sequences that dragged on too long, and I got kind of bored. But there are some fun moments too. The best is when Bilbo meets Gollum. I have to admit that it's nice being back in this world with these characters again. And the movie does get me excited for the next chapter. I just wish that Peter Jackson would restrain himself a bit. Not every movie needs to be 3 hours long.
Hopefully the next movie is even better. I am looking forward to seeing what they do with Smaug, since we hardly see him in this movie.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Hitchcock - 3 1/2 stars
This isn't a biopic of Alfred Hitchcock. This movie just focuses on one year of his life. The year is 1959 - 1960. North By Northwest has just been released, and it was a huge success. The studio wants him to make another movie just like it, but he wants to do a horror movie. He finds the book Psycho and decides that will be his next movie.
We get to see his battles with the studio, who refuse to finance the movie, leaving Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) to finance it himself by taking out a load against his house. We also see him battle the censors about everything from violence and nudity to showing a toilet. The funniest scene in the movie is when the head of the censor board argues about showing a toilet flush, which no American movie had ever done.
Helen Mirren plays Hitchcock's wife, Alma. She may be having an affair with an author named Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), and this subplot is where the movie lost me a little. But Mirren delivers a great performance and her scenes with Hopkins are great fun. Hopkins does a great impersonation of Hitchcock, and I would love to see him play the director again just to get more of this performance.
The movie works best when it's focusing on the making of Psycho. Scarlett Johansson is very good as Janet Leigh, and James D'Arcy is wonderfully creepy as Anthony Perkins. I just wish he was in the movie more. Danny Huston is very good, but unfortunately his scenes are the ones that are the most unnecessary to the movie. Any time the focus is on Alma and Whitfield, I was just wanting to get back to Hitchcock.
We don't get to learn a lot about the man himself except that he was in an almost loveless marriage, and he liked to eavsdrop (and peep) on his actresses. This movie is a lot of fun.
We get to see his battles with the studio, who refuse to finance the movie, leaving Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) to finance it himself by taking out a load against his house. We also see him battle the censors about everything from violence and nudity to showing a toilet. The funniest scene in the movie is when the head of the censor board argues about showing a toilet flush, which no American movie had ever done.
Helen Mirren plays Hitchcock's wife, Alma. She may be having an affair with an author named Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), and this subplot is where the movie lost me a little. But Mirren delivers a great performance and her scenes with Hopkins are great fun. Hopkins does a great impersonation of Hitchcock, and I would love to see him play the director again just to get more of this performance.
The movie works best when it's focusing on the making of Psycho. Scarlett Johansson is very good as Janet Leigh, and James D'Arcy is wonderfully creepy as Anthony Perkins. I just wish he was in the movie more. Danny Huston is very good, but unfortunately his scenes are the ones that are the most unnecessary to the movie. Any time the focus is on Alma and Whitfield, I was just wanting to get back to Hitchcock.
We don't get to learn a lot about the man himself except that he was in an almost loveless marriage, and he liked to eavsdrop (and peep) on his actresses. This movie is a lot of fun.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Skyfall - 3 1/2 stars
Casino Royale was great. It was the most exciting and emotionally satisfying James Bond movie ever. I can't remember ever being this excited to see a James Bond movie again. I liked it so much I took other people to see it.
Quantum of Solace was a disappointment. It wasn't bad, but Casino Royale set the bar so high and QoS would have been a let down even if the previous movie was Die Another Day.
Skyfall is somewhere in the middle, although the finale is one of the more interesting and exciting climaxes a Bond movie has ever had.
The movie does not begin with the traditional gun barrel. I wish it did. Star Wars movies open with "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ..." and Bond movies start with the Bond music and the gun barrel.
Anyway, Bond (Daniel Craig again) and another agent named Eve (Naomie Harris) are trying to catch someone who has just stolen a hard drive containing the identities of undercover agents. If he gets away, they could all be killed. So Bond and Eve chase him through crowded streets and onto a train. Bond uses everything at his disposal, including a Catepillar, to try to catch the guy. Eve gets ahead of the train, finds a good spot and pulls out a sniper rifle. She doesn't have a clean shot, but M (Judi Dench), who is monitoring the situation from MI6 headquarters, tells her to take the shot. The mission is more important than one agent. If you have seen the trailer, you know that the shot hits Bond and he falls to his presumed death far below.
The opening credits sequence is very cool as it always is, and the Adele theme song is really growing on me. While Bond is enjoying death by living on a tropical island, sleeping with women and drinking, MI6 is attacked. Bond sees this on TV and decides to come back to work. The man behind the attack, and the theft of the hard drive, is Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Silva used to be just like Bond, but he was abandoned by M and tortured. He now wants revenge against M.
At first, this movie doesn't seem to be wasting time. The opening action sequence is great. But the whole sequence of Bond enjoying retirement then coming back seems to happen too quickly. It seems like a little more time should have been spent on Bond doing nothing, then having to think about whether to come back to work. As usual, he has a pretty easy time finding out who the bad guys are. He heads to Shanghai and the movie grinds to a halt for at least 20 minutes. Bond spends a lot of time wandering around and observing people. There is a fight here and there, but the plot doesn't advance much and it seems like this whole sequence needed a re-write.
Once he meets up with Silva, things get exciting. Bardem gives the best performance I have seen in a Bond villain since, I don't know, Goldfinger or Blofeld. He has good reason to hate M, and when we find out what he went through, it makes his character really complex. He also introduces some sexual tension in his scenes with Bond, which I think is a first for this series. And Bardem is such a good actor that any time he is on screen, I was loving it.
The finale is also something different. Bond movies usually end up with some kind of a shootout and a big climax, but no Bond movie has given us something like this. Instead of Bond being inside the villain's lair, Silva is going after Bond on Bond's territory. It becomes something of a home invasion movie.
I also enjoyed how much screen time Judi Dench got. M has never been this involved in the action, even to the point of shooting a gun. And Ralph Fiennes shows up as a bureaucrat who thinks Bond and M should retire. He starts out as kind of a dick, but I liked the way his character evolved.
There is a point in the movie where it seems like a character is going to be killed, and it sets it up wonderfully, but then the character survives. This sequence was done really well, and while I like it when a movie has the guts to kill off a major character, I was glad this time that the character survived.
Now I'd like to address some problems with the script. Where to begin? There will be some mild spoilers in this review, but Bond movies are rarely about surprise twists. Was anyone actually surprised that Sophie Marceau turned out to be the villain in The World is Not Enough?
During the opening sequence when Bond is shot by Eve, he didn't know she was there with a gun, right? Or did he? I seem to remember he and Eve communicating with their earpieces earlier in the chase. And I don't remember seeing Bond lose his, so Eve should have been able to alert him that she was in position with a sniper rifle. He could have ducked. I think this was proven when he sees M for the first time. He tells her exactly what she said to Eve ("Take the bloody shot!"), so I think this should have been addressed. All they had to do was show Bond losing his earpiece at some point in the fight. And they couldn't have had Bond say M's line back to her.
I know Bond movies aren't Le Carre spy stories, but there should be a little bit of espionage. I hate it when it's so easy for Bond to find the bad guys. Like in Moonraker when he is exploring an abandoned warehouse, and he finds a nice big patch that says "Drax Industries" which they accidentally left behind. Too easy. In Skyfall, Bond pulls shrapnel out of his chest and luckily there are only 3 people in the world who use this kind of ammo. Of course they know exactly who they are, Bond identifies the man, and luckily the FBI is tracking him. He will be in Shanghai tomorrow. Go there and intercept him.
To me, that is lazy writing. They could have tried to make it a little harder. But then it gets worse. The assassin lands in Shanghai and Bond follows him to an office building. Instead of apprehending him, Bond just watches while the guy kills a couple of security guards, puts a sniper rifle together and shoots a man in another building. Then Bond decides to grab the guy. Why did he wait and let the guy kill 3 people? Bond had no idea why the guy was assassinating the man in the other building, and the security guards were definitely innocent victims.
After he kills the assassin (continuing the theme from Quantum of Solace where Bond can't help killing people before he gets the information he needs), he finds a casino chip in his pocket. He goes to the casino, cashes it in, and immediately finds a woman who knows everything. She knows who is behind everything and she works for him, so she takes Bond to him. This is simplifying the events, but that's basically what happened. It doesn't make sense that Bond would know who this woman is, or how connected she is.
Those are my biggest gripes with the movie. So why did I give it 3 1/2 stars? I guess I forgive the writing flaws more in a Bond movie than I would in other movies because much of that stuff is typical in a Bond movie. It has always been easy to find holes in the scripts. Plus most of the movie was so good that I could overlook the things that bugged me. I enjoyed it overall and the end of this movie really made me excited for the next Bond movie.
Quantum of Solace was a disappointment. It wasn't bad, but Casino Royale set the bar so high and QoS would have been a let down even if the previous movie was Die Another Day.
Skyfall is somewhere in the middle, although the finale is one of the more interesting and exciting climaxes a Bond movie has ever had.
The movie does not begin with the traditional gun barrel. I wish it did. Star Wars movies open with "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ..." and Bond movies start with the Bond music and the gun barrel.
Anyway, Bond (Daniel Craig again) and another agent named Eve (Naomie Harris) are trying to catch someone who has just stolen a hard drive containing the identities of undercover agents. If he gets away, they could all be killed. So Bond and Eve chase him through crowded streets and onto a train. Bond uses everything at his disposal, including a Catepillar, to try to catch the guy. Eve gets ahead of the train, finds a good spot and pulls out a sniper rifle. She doesn't have a clean shot, but M (Judi Dench), who is monitoring the situation from MI6 headquarters, tells her to take the shot. The mission is more important than one agent. If you have seen the trailer, you know that the shot hits Bond and he falls to his presumed death far below.
The opening credits sequence is very cool as it always is, and the Adele theme song is really growing on me. While Bond is enjoying death by living on a tropical island, sleeping with women and drinking, MI6 is attacked. Bond sees this on TV and decides to come back to work. The man behind the attack, and the theft of the hard drive, is Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Silva used to be just like Bond, but he was abandoned by M and tortured. He now wants revenge against M.
At first, this movie doesn't seem to be wasting time. The opening action sequence is great. But the whole sequence of Bond enjoying retirement then coming back seems to happen too quickly. It seems like a little more time should have been spent on Bond doing nothing, then having to think about whether to come back to work. As usual, he has a pretty easy time finding out who the bad guys are. He heads to Shanghai and the movie grinds to a halt for at least 20 minutes. Bond spends a lot of time wandering around and observing people. There is a fight here and there, but the plot doesn't advance much and it seems like this whole sequence needed a re-write.
Once he meets up with Silva, things get exciting. Bardem gives the best performance I have seen in a Bond villain since, I don't know, Goldfinger or Blofeld. He has good reason to hate M, and when we find out what he went through, it makes his character really complex. He also introduces some sexual tension in his scenes with Bond, which I think is a first for this series. And Bardem is such a good actor that any time he is on screen, I was loving it.
The finale is also something different. Bond movies usually end up with some kind of a shootout and a big climax, but no Bond movie has given us something like this. Instead of Bond being inside the villain's lair, Silva is going after Bond on Bond's territory. It becomes something of a home invasion movie.
I also enjoyed how much screen time Judi Dench got. M has never been this involved in the action, even to the point of shooting a gun. And Ralph Fiennes shows up as a bureaucrat who thinks Bond and M should retire. He starts out as kind of a dick, but I liked the way his character evolved.
There is a point in the movie where it seems like a character is going to be killed, and it sets it up wonderfully, but then the character survives. This sequence was done really well, and while I like it when a movie has the guts to kill off a major character, I was glad this time that the character survived.
Now I'd like to address some problems with the script. Where to begin? There will be some mild spoilers in this review, but Bond movies are rarely about surprise twists. Was anyone actually surprised that Sophie Marceau turned out to be the villain in The World is Not Enough?
During the opening sequence when Bond is shot by Eve, he didn't know she was there with a gun, right? Or did he? I seem to remember he and Eve communicating with their earpieces earlier in the chase. And I don't remember seeing Bond lose his, so Eve should have been able to alert him that she was in position with a sniper rifle. He could have ducked. I think this was proven when he sees M for the first time. He tells her exactly what she said to Eve ("Take the bloody shot!"), so I think this should have been addressed. All they had to do was show Bond losing his earpiece at some point in the fight. And they couldn't have had Bond say M's line back to her.
I know Bond movies aren't Le Carre spy stories, but there should be a little bit of espionage. I hate it when it's so easy for Bond to find the bad guys. Like in Moonraker when he is exploring an abandoned warehouse, and he finds a nice big patch that says "Drax Industries" which they accidentally left behind. Too easy. In Skyfall, Bond pulls shrapnel out of his chest and luckily there are only 3 people in the world who use this kind of ammo. Of course they know exactly who they are, Bond identifies the man, and luckily the FBI is tracking him. He will be in Shanghai tomorrow. Go there and intercept him.
To me, that is lazy writing. They could have tried to make it a little harder. But then it gets worse. The assassin lands in Shanghai and Bond follows him to an office building. Instead of apprehending him, Bond just watches while the guy kills a couple of security guards, puts a sniper rifle together and shoots a man in another building. Then Bond decides to grab the guy. Why did he wait and let the guy kill 3 people? Bond had no idea why the guy was assassinating the man in the other building, and the security guards were definitely innocent victims.
After he kills the assassin (continuing the theme from Quantum of Solace where Bond can't help killing people before he gets the information he needs), he finds a casino chip in his pocket. He goes to the casino, cashes it in, and immediately finds a woman who knows everything. She knows who is behind everything and she works for him, so she takes Bond to him. This is simplifying the events, but that's basically what happened. It doesn't make sense that Bond would know who this woman is, or how connected she is.
Those are my biggest gripes with the movie. So why did I give it 3 1/2 stars? I guess I forgive the writing flaws more in a Bond movie than I would in other movies because much of that stuff is typical in a Bond movie. It has always been easy to find holes in the scripts. Plus most of the movie was so good that I could overlook the things that bugged me. I enjoyed it overall and the end of this movie really made me excited for the next Bond movie.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Argo - 3 1/2 stars
In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was overrun. Around 50 people were captured and held hostage. Before the embassy fell, 6 diplomats were able to escape and they hid out at the Canadian ambassador's house. The CIA wanted to get them out but since there were a bunch of others being held as hostages, they couldn't just go in and rescue them. Since the Iranians didn't know they were free, they had to be retrieved secretly.
CIA agent Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directed) comes up with an idea. He will fly into Iran with fake passports for the diplomats and they will all fly out together. Their story will be that they are a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a Star Wars ripoff. It's a bad idea, but as he says in the movie, "It's the best bad idea we have."
Before the embassy is taken, the movie opens by giving us a brief history of Iran and the US involvement. I had heard stories of how the CIA covertly deposed friendly rulers and helped install evil dictators in various countries, but I didn't know about Iran. According to the movie, we helped oust Iran's leader, who was loved by the Iranian people, and we helped install a dictator who tortured and murdered many of Iran's citizens. No wonder the Iranians hated the US. To make matters worse, this dictator had fled the country and was given asylum by the US. Just imagine if Saddam Hussain or Pol Pot were living freely in the US. The Iranians rightly wanted him returned to them so he could face justice.
Anyway, this is a very good movie. In order to sell the cover story, Mendez goes to Hollywood to enlist the help of make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin). Siegel knows that they need the press to help sell their lie, so they stage an elaborate script reading with full costumes. All the scenes with Arkin and Goodman are funny and really help to lighten the tension.
This is based on a true story (although I can't find Lester Siegel on imdb.com), and it was only declassified in the 1990s. It's the kind of movie that would be hard to believe if it weren't true. This is also Affleck's third movie as director (after Gone Baby Gone and The Town), and at this point he has established himself as a very good director. He seems to only go after good material, and so hopefully there will never again be a really crappy Ben Affleck movie.
CIA agent Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directed) comes up with an idea. He will fly into Iran with fake passports for the diplomats and they will all fly out together. Their story will be that they are a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a Star Wars ripoff. It's a bad idea, but as he says in the movie, "It's the best bad idea we have."
Before the embassy is taken, the movie opens by giving us a brief history of Iran and the US involvement. I had heard stories of how the CIA covertly deposed friendly rulers and helped install evil dictators in various countries, but I didn't know about Iran. According to the movie, we helped oust Iran's leader, who was loved by the Iranian people, and we helped install a dictator who tortured and murdered many of Iran's citizens. No wonder the Iranians hated the US. To make matters worse, this dictator had fled the country and was given asylum by the US. Just imagine if Saddam Hussain or Pol Pot were living freely in the US. The Iranians rightly wanted him returned to them so he could face justice.
Anyway, this is a very good movie. In order to sell the cover story, Mendez goes to Hollywood to enlist the help of make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin). Siegel knows that they need the press to help sell their lie, so they stage an elaborate script reading with full costumes. All the scenes with Arkin and Goodman are funny and really help to lighten the tension.
This is based on a true story (although I can't find Lester Siegel on imdb.com), and it was only declassified in the 1990s. It's the kind of movie that would be hard to believe if it weren't true. This is also Affleck's third movie as director (after Gone Baby Gone and The Town), and at this point he has established himself as a very good director. He seems to only go after good material, and so hopefully there will never again be a really crappy Ben Affleck movie.
Taken 2 - 2 1/2 stars
If you remember Taken, that was the movie where Liam Neeson used to be a special forces-type guy, but now he works in private security. His daughter was kidnapped in Paris, while she was on the phone with him. He went to Paris, rescued his daughter, and killed all the guys who took her.
Now the relatives of the men who were killed in the first movie want revenge. And luckily his ex-wife and daughter just happen to be coming to see him in Istanbul. So they are going to kidnap all 3 of them and kill them.
I admit that this movie mostly recycles the first movie, but not as well. It may have been hard to believe that he could find his daughter in the first movie, but this movie really stretches logic. Even though he was hooded and driven across town in a van, he is still able to retrace his route using sounds. He has his daughter throw grenades and uses the sound of the blast to lead her to him. And he kicks a lot of ass.
If you can suspend disbelief, the movie is decent. Not great but there are some good moments. There isn't much humor, but it works. I like that he talks to the bad guys a few times. When they try to make him feel bad about killing their brothers and sons, he actually brings up the fact that they kidnapped his daughter, and many other girls before selling them into sexual slavery and ruining their lives. They don't really have an answer to that except to say I don't care, but you killed my son, blah blah blah.
I enjoyed this movie almost as much as the first one, but I can't quite recommend it. I only recommend it to people who loved the first movie and want to see more of the same. That may be a bit of a cop out, but too bad.
Now the relatives of the men who were killed in the first movie want revenge. And luckily his ex-wife and daughter just happen to be coming to see him in Istanbul. So they are going to kidnap all 3 of them and kill them.
I admit that this movie mostly recycles the first movie, but not as well. It may have been hard to believe that he could find his daughter in the first movie, but this movie really stretches logic. Even though he was hooded and driven across town in a van, he is still able to retrace his route using sounds. He has his daughter throw grenades and uses the sound of the blast to lead her to him. And he kicks a lot of ass.
If you can suspend disbelief, the movie is decent. Not great but there are some good moments. There isn't much humor, but it works. I like that he talks to the bad guys a few times. When they try to make him feel bad about killing their brothers and sons, he actually brings up the fact that they kidnapped his daughter, and many other girls before selling them into sexual slavery and ruining their lives. They don't really have an answer to that except to say I don't care, but you killed my son, blah blah blah.
I enjoyed this movie almost as much as the first one, but I can't quite recommend it. I only recommend it to people who loved the first movie and want to see more of the same. That may be a bit of a cop out, but too bad.
Looper - 4 stars
Finally, a great science fiction / action movie about time travel. Written and directed by Rian Johnson (who gave us Brick and The Brothers Bloom), Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Joe. Joe is a looper. Set in the year 2044, loopers are hit men. In 2074, bodies are particularly difficult to dispose of, so the mob sends their victims back in time to 2044, where a looper is waiting to shoot them.
The trailer shows that Joe will encounter his older self, who is sent back to be killed. His older self is played by Bruce Willis. What the trailers don't show you is that all loopers know this is an eventuality. When the mob wants to end a looper's contract, they send them back in time to be killed by their younger self. So while it's a bit of a surprise to Joe when it happens, it isn't completely unexpected.
One good thing about the movie is that this is only the setup. Will younger Joe succeed in killing his older self? Obviously old Joe can't kill young Joe. Will young Joe let old Joe live? Will the mob catch up to them first? See, if a looper lets his older self get away, the mob kills both of them. When old Joe first arrives, he is able to escape before young Joe can kill him, so the mob thinks he let his target get away. Then the movie introduces some story elements that I had no idea were coming.
Jeff Daniels has a lot of fun as the mob boss. I always enjoy his performances, and it reminded me of The Lookout, another good movie that teamed Daniels up with Gordon-Levitt.
One thing I really liked is how the movie dealt with old Joe's memory. As his history was changed by running into his younger self, his memory started to change. He had a wife in the future, and he started to forget her because it became more likely that his younger self wound not end up meeting her. This is something I always think about in time travel movies. In Back to the Future, as Marty interacted with the Doc Brown of the '50s, would the older Doc Brown's memory instantly change so he would remember meeting Marty in 1955?
This is a great movie. I only have a couple of reservations. One is the way they made Gordon-Levitt look more like Willis using makeup or CGI. It was a little distracting, especially his lips. I never complain that an actor doesn't look enough like another actor when they are playing different ages of the same character. They should have just left it alone.
It's hard to talk about my other issue with the movie without getting into spoiler territory. I think I can safely say that there is a leader in the future that old Joe is really upset with. He says this guy is closing all the loops. Well, I thought the movie established that all loopers were eventually killed, so why was old Joe so surprised by it? I understand why old Joe didn't want to be killed, but he acts like closing the loops is a new thing. Every looper knows it's a possibility so he should have known it was coming.
The trailer shows that Joe will encounter his older self, who is sent back to be killed. His older self is played by Bruce Willis. What the trailers don't show you is that all loopers know this is an eventuality. When the mob wants to end a looper's contract, they send them back in time to be killed by their younger self. So while it's a bit of a surprise to Joe when it happens, it isn't completely unexpected.
One good thing about the movie is that this is only the setup. Will younger Joe succeed in killing his older self? Obviously old Joe can't kill young Joe. Will young Joe let old Joe live? Will the mob catch up to them first? See, if a looper lets his older self get away, the mob kills both of them. When old Joe first arrives, he is able to escape before young Joe can kill him, so the mob thinks he let his target get away. Then the movie introduces some story elements that I had no idea were coming.
Jeff Daniels has a lot of fun as the mob boss. I always enjoy his performances, and it reminded me of The Lookout, another good movie that teamed Daniels up with Gordon-Levitt.
One thing I really liked is how the movie dealt with old Joe's memory. As his history was changed by running into his younger self, his memory started to change. He had a wife in the future, and he started to forget her because it became more likely that his younger self wound not end up meeting her. This is something I always think about in time travel movies. In Back to the Future, as Marty interacted with the Doc Brown of the '50s, would the older Doc Brown's memory instantly change so he would remember meeting Marty in 1955?
This is a great movie. I only have a couple of reservations. One is the way they made Gordon-Levitt look more like Willis using makeup or CGI. It was a little distracting, especially his lips. I never complain that an actor doesn't look enough like another actor when they are playing different ages of the same character. They should have just left it alone.
It's hard to talk about my other issue with the movie without getting into spoiler territory. I think I can safely say that there is a leader in the future that old Joe is really upset with. He says this guy is closing all the loops. Well, I thought the movie established that all loopers were eventually killed, so why was old Joe so surprised by it? I understand why old Joe didn't want to be killed, but he acts like closing the loops is a new thing. Every looper knows it's a possibility so he should have known it was coming.
Friday, September 21, 2012
The Master - 2 1/2 stars
The movie is set in the 1950s. It's about a troubled soldier who becomes a drifter after World War II. Joaquin Phoenix plays the drifter, Freddie Quell. He has a lot of problems. He's probably got PTSD. He's also horny as hell. When the soldiers are on a beach goofing around and one soldier makes a woman out of sand, Freddie gets on top of it and starts humping it. This makes the other soldiers laugh until it keeps going on too long. Freddie isn't trying to make the other soldiers laugh. He's actually trying to get off with this sandwoman.
After the war, Freddie tries to lead a normal life but he keeps getting fired for getting into fights. Eventually he meets Lancaster Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the leader of a cult or movement or something like that. Dodd likes Freddie instantly, and here Freddie finds his purpose. He gets into The Cause and becomes Dodd's right hand man and chief enforcer. He does things like beat up people who speak out against The Cause.
A lot of people assumed this movie would be about Scientology. It isn't, although there are similarities. Paul Thomas Anderson (writer, director, producer) said that Dodd was inspired by L. Ron Hubbard, and there are similarities to the way Scientology began. But the movie is about a fictional man and a fictional movement, and Dodd isn't even the main character. The movie is really about Freddie and his journey.
I loved the first 30 - 45 minutes of this movie. I was fascinated watching Freddie's journey. Phoenix gives probably the best performance of his career, and will be nominated for an Academy Award for this movie. He is so good that he manages to steal every scene he is in with Hoffman. It's nice to have Phoenix back after the whole crazy quitting acting to become a rap star fiasco.
Once Dodd starts putting Freddie through strange tests, the movie starts to drag. The tests, called processing (like auditing?) are interesting at first, but when Dodd starts making Freddie close his eyes, feel the walls and describe them, I almost dozed off. It gets so monotonous and doesn't go anywhere.
There is a good movie here. I wish we got to know more about where Dodd came from, what The Cause is all about, something. But the longer the movie goes on, the more it meanders without a plot or narrative. During the first half, I thought I was watching the best movie of the year. Then the movie just lost me. I can't quite recommend it, although there is stuff in this movie worth seeing. This one is a tough call.
After the war, Freddie tries to lead a normal life but he keeps getting fired for getting into fights. Eventually he meets Lancaster Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the leader of a cult or movement or something like that. Dodd likes Freddie instantly, and here Freddie finds his purpose. He gets into The Cause and becomes Dodd's right hand man and chief enforcer. He does things like beat up people who speak out against The Cause.
A lot of people assumed this movie would be about Scientology. It isn't, although there are similarities. Paul Thomas Anderson (writer, director, producer) said that Dodd was inspired by L. Ron Hubbard, and there are similarities to the way Scientology began. But the movie is about a fictional man and a fictional movement, and Dodd isn't even the main character. The movie is really about Freddie and his journey.
I loved the first 30 - 45 minutes of this movie. I was fascinated watching Freddie's journey. Phoenix gives probably the best performance of his career, and will be nominated for an Academy Award for this movie. He is so good that he manages to steal every scene he is in with Hoffman. It's nice to have Phoenix back after the whole crazy quitting acting to become a rap star fiasco.
Once Dodd starts putting Freddie through strange tests, the movie starts to drag. The tests, called processing (like auditing?) are interesting at first, but when Dodd starts making Freddie close his eyes, feel the walls and describe them, I almost dozed off. It gets so monotonous and doesn't go anywhere.
There is a good movie here. I wish we got to know more about where Dodd came from, what The Cause is all about, something. But the longer the movie goes on, the more it meanders without a plot or narrative. During the first half, I thought I was watching the best movie of the year. Then the movie just lost me. I can't quite recommend it, although there is stuff in this movie worth seeing. This one is a tough call.
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