X-Men: The Last Stand

X-Men: The Last Stand (hereafter referred to as X3) is a skimpy, shallow follow-up to the excellent X-Men and X2. Director Bryan Singer, who left this series to tackle Superman Returns, is replaced at the helm by Brett Ratner, best known for the Rush Hour franchise and Red Dragon (his modestly successful stab at a serious thriller).

To X3 Ratner brings little of the smarts and humanism evident in the first X-men films. Singer obviously cared about the characters and lent some weight and heft to the stories, and emphasized the subtext of the social outsiders considering how to interface with a hostile culture. Ratner seems to keep plot and character to a minimum and skip as quickly as possible to the next action sequence or cool digital effect. In contrast to the classy, almost art-house photography of the Singer films, the look of X3 is cheap, approximating a B-grade or direct to video movie. There’s even a bad continuity error at the climax, with day suddenly turning to night, unforgivable in a big-budget picture. Even the action sequences that are clearly the film’s raison d’etre are generally flat and uninspiring, shot with a lack of imagination. Though X3’s rushed production schedule are no doubt partly to blame, Ratner displays little grace in his direction of the movie.

He isn’t well served by the script, either. The story attempts to bring two main threads together: a cure for the ‘Mutant X’ gene offered to the mutant population and the differing responses it provokes from Xavier (Patrick Stuart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen); and the resurrection of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) as the Phoenix, an incredibly powerful mutant that may be unable to control her powers. Both storylines have potential, but joining the two in one film gives short thrift to both, and the Phoenix storyline in particular suffers direly from truncation.

The script also needlessly kills off several major characters, with the result that at the end, as the remaining X-Men go into battle, we are left with almost no-one to root for (or at least almost no-one that we give a damn about anymore). Halle Berry was probably one of the few on the planet that thought Storm’s role should be expanded. Unfortunately, this is a big misstep as the character is as dull as ditchwater and is misguidedly supposed to be the centrepoint of the X-Men at the barely-engaging climax. Thank god we have Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, who is around to provide one of X3’s few endearing characters and toss off a couple of genuinely witty one-liners.

The ‘action-packed’ climax of X Men: The Last Gasp is seriously flawed because: (a) we don’t particularly care about the characters; (b) the idea of Magneto making a section of the Golden Gate Bridge detach and fly away was probably more exciting in concept than it is in dreary execution; and (c) what the X-Men and Magneto’s forces hope to accomplish in their big battle is muddled, and I don’t think this was a result of conscious ambiguity.

Though the ending hints at another sequel, I doubt there will be an X4. And you know what? I don’t particularly give a rat’s ass. Bring on a Wolverine movie. Oh, and leave Ratner out of it, ok?


--
Directed by Brett Ratner
Written by Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn

Starring:
Hugh Jackman....Logan/Wolverine
Halle Berry....Ororo Munroe/Storm
Ian McKellen....Eric Lensherr/Magneto
Famke Janssen....Dr. Jean Grey/Phoenix
Anna Paquin....Marie/Rogue
Kelsey Grammer....Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast
Rebecca Romijn....Raven Darkholme/Mystique
James Marsden....Scott Summers/Cyclops
Shawn Ashmore....Bobby Drake/Iceman
Aaron Stanford....John Allerdyce/Pyro
Vinnie Jones....Cain Marko/Juggernaut
Patrick Stewart....Professor Charles Xavier
Ben Foster....Warren Worthington III/Angel

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED

The present is illuminated by the past. That is the simple yet moving theme behind Everything is Illuminated (2005), actor Live Schrieber’s first film as director. Based on a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, it is the story of, well, Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood), an odd, passive collector of artifacts of family members’ lives who travels to the Ukraine to find Augustine, the woman who saved his Grandfather in World War II. All he knows of Augustine is a faded sepia photograph of her together with his grandfather, and in the Ukraine he enlists tour guide Alex (Eugene Hutz) and Alex’s grandfather (Boris Leskin).

Everything is Illuminated negotiates tricky territory. The first half is an oddball comedy cum road movie that accentuates the quirks of its nudged-off-centre characters. Jonathan regards the world with distant, cautious curiosity through thick goggled glasses, silently dropping various objects in Ziploc bags for his collection of personal artifacts, and has trouble convincing his traveling companions that his vegetarianism isn’t a sign of mental deficiency. Alex is in love with Western pop culture, strutting gold-medallioned around the streets of Ukraine in trendy clothes and break dancing at the local disco, adept at linguistic gymnastics with the English language. And Alex’s grandfather thinks he is blind (he’s not) and has a deranged dog called Sammy Davis Junior Junior. Their adventures together in a tinpot car, puttering around the dingy towns and desolate countryside in search of Augustine’s town, are dourly humourous.

And then the tone of the film shifts to a serious, moving drama. The linchpin scene where it begins to do this I will not describe, but writer/director Schreiber manages to navigate the change and, more importantly, keep the viewer with him. The photography alters subtly in the last third of the film to become brighter, more hued and, well, illuminated. A shot of a house nestled within an expanse of luminous, aureate sunflowers is imbrued with a transcendent beauty. The travelers find Augustine, or at least her story, and it is connected with a Nazi atrocity, and also unexpectedly joins together another individual. As the past sheds its light upon the present, the story and characters grow introspective as they reexamine and shift their conceptions of the present.

At this point, the script could have been expanded and deepened by added more layers to the story. As such, Everything is Illuminated falls short of the transformative experience it could have been. Nevertheless, in what is essentially a three-character narrative, Eugene Hutz, Elijah Wood, and Boris Leskin deliver simple, effective, humanistic performances, though Wood’s character can come across as somewhat flat. Even the crazed dog becomes strangely endearing.

The closing passages of Everything is Illuminated are deeply moving, which is a testament to the skill behind the acting and filmmaking. It is no mean feat to begin a story as an odd comedy and conclude it in affecting, humanistic drama.

Everything is Illuminated is available on DVD.

--
Directed by Liev Schreiber
Written by Liev Schreiber, based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer

Starring:
Eugene Hutz....Alex
Elijah Wood....Jonathan Safran Foer
Boris Leskin....Grandfather
Lista....Laryssa Lauret

Mission: Impossible III

TV writer, producer, and director J.J. Abrams comes on board to helm the spy action film Mission:Impossible III. And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to forget about Cruise’s public antics and Scientology crap while watching and let it all wash over you. If you do that, you’ll likely have a blast.

Like many action franchises on a return trip, the movie attempts to shake things up character-wise by having the protagonist in a serious relationship. And so IMF superagent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is engaged to be married to Julia (Michelle Monaghan), pretending to work at the Ministry of Transportation while in reality training new agents. He is called into the field, of course, and some viewers may begin to wonder if Julia will last any longer than James Bond’s wife did in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Initially called upon to rescue kidnapped agent Lindsey (Keri Russell), Hunt is drawn into a mission to thwart terrorist technology dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and capture the “Rabbit’s Foot” (a McGuffin, as Hitchcock would call it). The mission turns personal, of course, upping the stakes in the final act with a cleverly constructed and adrenalized finale in Shanghai.

Inventive, stylish, globe-trotting, and stentorian, Mission:Impossible III ultimately delivers the goods. Director Abrams shows his TV background by shooting in close or medium shots, and so the film lacks the visual panache of the first two installments, which were shot by two of modern cinema’s most stylish directors, Brian DePalma and John Woo. However, there are several beautifully-constructed and shot sequences and a refreshing injection of wit.

The break-in set piece in the Vatican is entertaining, tense, and funny. We see Hunt’s team work together on a plan that in the real world would have taken several months to plan, using high-technology that of course works perfectly. (Side note: someone should make a movie with a sequence where the suspense comes from a computer on Windows XP that freezes and has to be rebooted in the nick of time.) Hunt dresses as a priest and we get to see a detonator in the shape of a crucifix and how the mask-making technology works, not to mention the single most spectacular shot in the movie—that of the infinitely long and shapely legs of Maggie Q as she exits a Lamborghini (a shot that will inspire many freeze-frames when the DVD comes out). Another action sequence set on a causeway over the ocean (a la True Lies and Licence to Kill) is exciting and nicely shot and edited as Hunt’s team is attacked by an armed drone plane and helicopter full of bad guys.

For all the impressive digital effects work in the film, the most effective moments tend to be the simplest. Hunt dodging traffic as the camera follows the Rabbit’s Foot rolling around on the road with the agent in hot pursuit and a tracking shot as Hunt runs bionically down a street in Shanghai while holding a phone and listening to directions piped from IMF techie Benji (Simon Pegg) are both classic, uncluttered cinematic constructions.

Though the final shot is, as one friend observed, test audience approved the screenplay is well-constructed with just the right amount of plot and characterization to connect the set pieces. Upon an initial viewing at least, the action seems to flow naturally within the story. The main characters aren’t exactly deep, but they are not mere ciphers either, and are expertly brought to life by a stellar cast. Cruise is perfect as the main character, and even gets to emote. Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, though only in a few scenes, creates a memorable villain. The way he calmly threatens Hunt while the agent appears to have the better of him borders on chilling. Hunt’s team is composed of shallowly-written characters, but the cast does what they can (Ving Rhames, a recurring character, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Asian superstar Maggie Q). The ever-reliable Laurence Fishburne gets to hound Hunt for botching missions, police thriller captain style. And British comedian Simon Pegg shines in his two brief appearances.

Mission:Impossible III is a slick and entertaining blast of popcorn cinema. There isn’t any deep drama here, but you get exactly what you came for. Without giving anything away, though, I wonder if this will be the last film in this series. Which would be a shame as it has delivered three gratifying doses of spy action fantasy.


--
Directed by J.J. Abrams

Written by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci. Based on the television series created by Bruce Geller

Starring:
Tom Cruise....Ethan Hunt
Ving Rhames....Luther Strickell
Keri Russell....Lindsey
Philip Seymour Hoffman....Owen Davian
Laurence Fishburne....John Brassel
Jonathan Rhys Meyers....Declan
Billy Crudup....John Musgrave
Simon Pegg....Benji Dunn
Michelle Monaghan....Julia
Maggie Q.... Zhen

A 'Crash' on the Road to the Best Picture

So far, I've seen three of the films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: "Crash", "Brokeback Mountain", and "Munich." Of these three, while not a bad picture,"Crash" is by far the weakest. It is also the film that won, of course.

My thoughts on both "Brokeback Mountain" and "Munich" are both recorded elsewhere on this blog, but I haven't written about "Crash", mainly because I felt ambivalent about it. It is too forced, contrived, and stilted to really work as a serious drama. All the characters spout racist comments not because it is what they would naturally do as characters, but because the film is about racism and the screenplay requires that they do so.

For instance, in the aftermath of a car crash that opens the film, a woman from South America accuses the Chinese woman driver of the other car of not being able to drive because she's an Oriental. The Chinese woman angrily levels a similar race-based insult at her. Would either of these women really behave this way at an accident scene, belligerently exchanging racial comments? Highly doubtful. The same contrived insincerity glares out when a black male cop (Don Cheadle) makes a comment to his Hispanic lover about her culture "parking cars on their lawns." Say what? And the film is stuffed with scenes like this that do not ring true, incidents that are glaringly false, and coincidence stretched beyond believeability.

What "Crash" does have going for it is an excellent ensemble cast, including Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser in roles of a type they have seldom, if ever, tackled before. But the great cast does not make up for shallow plot contrivance. I am genuinely mystified that "Crash" won the Oscar nod over well-written, interesting, artistically shot films like "Munich" and "Brokeback Mountain." But I guess I shouldn't sweat it as the trail of Best Picture winners is littered with films that are largely, and deservedly, forgotten today, while other superior films lacked even a nomination.

Still, the wide acclaim "Crash" has received is puzzling. Anyone, especially admirers of the film, have any insights?

UNITED 93

On September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 departed Newark for San Francisco with 33 passengers and seven crew members. Four of the passengers were an Al-Quaeda cell, and the plane became the fourth to be hijacked that awful day. United 93 tells what happened, in real time, aboard the plane and on the ground. It cuts between the passengers and crew aboard the plane, air traffic controllers, and military commanders, and shows the struggle to understand the unthinkable and the slow realization by the passengers that they have to band together and do something or they will become the victims of a suicide mission that will kill people on the ground as well as themselves.

Writer and director Paul Greengrass has crafted an astonishing, tense, beautifully shot, edited, and acted syncretism of fiction and documentary filmmaking. As in Greengrass’ similarly excellent Bloody Sunday, United 93 uses, brilliantly, several tactics to drop viewers in the centre of the events and ratchet up the verisimilitude.

Greengrass shoots the film using handheld cameras and grainy film stock. As in a documentary film, the cameras follow characters around and pan quickly from person to person in an attempt to take in vital conversations. Crucial dialogue and actions often happen at the edges of the frame, forcing us to strain to take in everything, exactly as if we were an observer on the ground. The film’s POV offers no Godlike omniscience; we know exactly as much as the characters know, as they know it. There are no shots in the film that could not be interpreted as the view of a human observer.

Many of the actors are simply playing themselves in the roles that they inhabited that day. Ben Sliney, for instance, plays himself as he was, the supervisor of the National Air Traffic Control Center in Herndon, Va. The passengers are played by an ensemble of mostly unknown actors. These actors studied the lives of their real life counterparts and together with Greengrass, partially improvised the dialogue and actions aboard Flight 93. Dialogue is sharp but underwritten, frequently overlapping as in real life when events race ahead of people’s ability to take them in. All the people in the film are humanized, even the terrorists aboard the plane, so we can relate on some level to everyone.

The result of Greengrass’ ‘fictional documentary’ techniques is an utterly convincing journey into the events on the ground and aboard Flight 93. And the ultimate effect is completely harrowing. The final 30 minutes of United 93 are, without exaggeration, the tensest moments I have ever experienced in a movie. It is, quite properly, frightening and disturbing, but also essential viewing for anyone even slightly interested in exploring the events of September 11 and in studying how cinema can have a profound effect on viewers.

Though the film has no heavy political subtext, there are political messages to be found connected to United 93. According to Greengrass, “by examining this single event something much larger can be found – the shape of our world today.” The passengers and crew of flight 93 were faced with a terrible choice: sit back and hope the situation resolves, or fight back and face the potentially devastating consequences. The world has faced this dilemma since 9/11, but there has been another choice, the nature of the fight. Many have naturally assumed that ‘fight’ means violence, and the shape of the West’s response has been military. Flight 93 ended in destruction for both sides. There are other ways to fight. Greengrass has also opined that there were two hijackings that took place that day: the hijacking of the planes by terrorists, and the hijacking of Islam by religious fanaticism. U.S. actions have certainly made that latter hijacking more effective. Another point raised in the film is the complete inability of the military to receive authorization to use force against the hijacked planes and clear rules of engagement. A further discussion United 93 may raise is the appropriateness of the U.S. government’s response to the attacks.

At its core, though, United 93 is about a group of people, on the ground and in the air, who have to rapidly come to grips with the unthinkable. In its depiction of the responses of terrified, confused people to horrific circumstance, United 93 is one of the best films of its type ever made.

---
Written and Directed by Paul Greengrass

(Cast list too long to duplicate here.)