"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One"
Richard's Review: 2 stars
The opening line of "Harry Potter 7.5," the second to last in the series, is "These are dark times we are living in." Intoned with great gravitas by the Minister of Magic (Bill Nighy) it foreshadows the tone of the movie which includes a people eating snake, Ron going all "Death Wish" on some bad guys and the slithery presence of the one whose name we dare not speak.
This time out Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), the ginger haired point of the Potter trident, continue their battle with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and his evil band of minions, snatchers and Death Eaters. They must locate and destroy the Horcruxes which contains a fragment of a wizard's soul, battle the fascistic Ministry of Magic and confirm the existence of the three most powerful artifacts of the wizarding world: the Deathly Hallows.
Like all the Potter movies, this one will appeal to the fans of the books but likely leave anyone who hasn't read the books as unsatisfied as a Dementor in a soul to suck. If you haven't been keeping up with the exploits of the boy wizard do yourself a favour and google "Horcrux" and "mudblood" before laying down your twelve bucks.
Otherwise get ready for a head scratching experience.
The movies are good linear adaptations of J.K. Rowling's books, and are filled with moments that will resonate with Potter fans but they do not cater to non-Potterheads. Like the other movies this one is a big handsome beast, almost 2 1/2 hours long, with high production value -- it echoes everything from Charles Dickens to Triumph of the Will to the Wizard of Oz -- and good performances from every English actor currently employed by British Actors' Equity.
But as nice as the movies look -- this one has a spectacular animated sequence telling the story of the Deathly Hallows -- and as well intentioned The Kids are Alrighhtas they are, they are a closed club, really for fans only. That's OK, because there are millions of fans out there, but they leave me a little cold. I get the appeal of the films. They're a clever mix of the worldly -- friendship, intrigue, good vs. evil -- and the otherworldly-everything else -- with some action and amiable characters thrown in, but for me the Potter magic wore off some time ago.
"The Next Three Days"
Richard's Review: 2 stars
Recently in "Conviction," Hillary Swank played a woman who studied for eighteen years to become a lawyer to prove the innocence of someone she loved and earn his release from prison. In "The Next Three Days," the new film from writer / director Paul Haggis, Russell Crowe takes a different, more impatient approach.
Three years ago Laura and John Brennan (Elizabeth Banks and Russell Crowe) were a happily married couple with an adorable child (Ty Simpkins) and a perfect, up-scale suburban life. That was before Laura was accused and convicted of murder. With his wife jailed for life John sets about playing by the rules, exhausting appeal after appeal. When all his legal avenues are shut down he turns to an illegal one, and plans an elaborate jail break.
The key to the success of "The Next Three Days" is getting the audience to believe that teacher John Brennen can turn from leather elbowed English professor to John Dillinger virtually overnight. Haggis has cast well in this regard. Russell Crowe can convincingly cry and kick ass in equal measures, but desperate though John's situation may be it never comes across that he could put this very elaborate plan into motion. Experienced crime genius Lex Luthor would have trouble pulling this off, let alone someone whose last gig was teaching Don Quixote's "triumph of irrationality" to community school students.
We see him planning the break, staring at maps, pinning photographs to a wall and cruising the net -- apparently everything you need to know about breaking someone out of a high security prison is available on google --but are given very little in the way of the details as to how he is actually going to make it work. Planning a prison break is a complicated business but we never really get a sense of that. When he finally puts his farfetched plan into motion we are left wondering, How exactly did he know how to do all this stuff?
The movie certainly takes its time getting to the breakout -- at 2 hours and 15 minutes it overstays its welcome by at least half-an-hour -- but ultimately delivers only the kind of unbelievable and over-the-top of action that only happens in movies. By the time Crowe's car is careening around the highway all emotional connection -- not there ever was much to begin with -- is gone and we're simply watching acrobatics instead of people we care about. Perhaps Haggis took his time getting to the end because in reality there is no satisfying way to end to this story. [NO SPOILERS AHEAD!] He kind of writes himself into a corner. If they get away it condones the crime of breaking a convicted criminal out of jail. If they don't it's unsatisfying for the audience and is they get killed in a hail of bullets it leaves a little boy an orphan. It's all kind of no win, for Haggis and, I'm afraid, for the audience as well.
"A Christmas Carol" (on DVD)
Richard's Review: 2 stars
Before I saw the Jim Carrey version of "A Christmas Carol" I wondered why remake a story that has been done so often and so well in the past. I've seen it and I'm still wondering.
There have been at least 21 versions of the story made for the big screen and dozens more for television.
Director Robert Zemeckis and his high tech bag of motion capture tricks don't add anything to the story, in fact, occasionally his CGI actually gets in the way. Zemeckis wisely hasn't toyed around with the 166-year-old story.
Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is a miserly bah humbugger who doesn't believe in the spirit of Christmas until he is visited by three spirits -- the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future -- and finds salvation in their terrifying visions.
"A Christmas Carol" is Zemeckis's third attempt at creating a film using motion capture -- filming the actors and using their motions as a template to create a computer generated film -- following "Polar Express" and "Beowulf."
"Polar Express" was meant to be a heart warming Christmas tale but exposed the problem with Zemeckis's technique -- dead CGI eyes. The weirdly lifeless animation was creepy, akin to a Christmas story performed by zombies. "Beowulf" was an improvement but like "A Christmas Carol" there are still kinks to be worked out. Chief among them is: Why bother with this at all?
On the plus side the CGI allows for camera moves that would otherwise be impossible -- endless dolly shots through a Dickensian cityscape for example -- and the Ghost of Christmas Present death scene is a spectacular scene of gothic creepiness, and is actually enhanced by the use of computer animation. On the minus side the Ghost of Christmas Future, a stand-out in the 1951 Alastair Sim version, is reduced to a show-offy platform for Zemeckis's 3-D CGI magic.
My main complaint though, is the medium itself. Much of the animation looks great --the texture of Scrooge's leather chair for instance -- but there are enough artificial looking things -- the flame in the fireplace or the steam from people's mouths -- that remind us that we're watching flashing binary code and little else.
Some of the characters are well animated but the work is inconsistent, occasionally looking photo realistic, but often not. Unlike live action or even hand drawn animation, there's nothing that feels organic about motion capture, so the moments that are supposed to strike an emotional chord -- like young Ebenezer dancing with his beautiful bride to be, or old Scrooge watching Bob Cratchit's family deal with the loss of Tiny Tim -- have little resonance. Whatever impact the movie has, and it does have the occasional moment that engages not only the eye but the heart, could have just as easily achieved with a live action cast.
Perhaps Zemeckis should have taken the lead from one of the more famous lines from the story, "Mankind was my business," and made the movie's business more about mankind and less about technology.
"The Kids Are All Right" (on DVD)
Richard's Review: 4 stars
The people at the center of "The Kids Are All Right" are Nic (Annette Benning) and Jules (Julianne Moore), a long time lesbian couple raising their two kids, Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson) in the suburbs of L.A.
The Moms are opposites -- Nic is a perfectionist doctor, Jules a free spirit still searching for her way -- but the family is happy. Happy, that is until Joni contacts her biological father via the sperm bank.
Turns out donor dad is Paul (Mark Ruffalo), a SoCal restaurateur who had no idea his sperm bank contributions resulted in one child, let alone her brother Laser as well. Despite Jules and Nic's trepidation the kids form a relationship with Paul, but his presence brings with it some unwanted consequences. There is a scene near the end of "The Kids Are All Right" that sums up the feel of the whole film. At a dinner party Nic and Paul sing a Joni Mitchell song.
The "performance" is joyful, ridiculous and poignant simultaneously and is a perfect microcosm of the script. Like real life, the ups and downs of this particular group of folks are unpredictable, sometimes funny, sometimes not. This well drawn cast of characters keeps the basic story afloat, adding richness and color to a story that could have been an average romantic comedy.
Bening and Moore are warm but complicated presences. The audience never doubts for a second that they've been a couple for twenty years, and their intimate moments, their testy moments, their funny moments and their heartbreaking moments are believable and dynamic because of the skill of these two actors.
As Joni, Mia Wasikowska, such a flatline as Alice in "Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland," shines here as the brainiac who is just coming into her own. Also impressive is Mark Ruffalo as Paul, the interloping sperm donor. He's a lonely guy in search of a family, and despite the trouble he causes -- both wittingly and unwittingly -- Ruffalo makes him charming and believable. There's that word again. Believable.
Believability is the main strength of this film. The characters have a lived-in, realistic feel so even when the story falters the people in it don't. It's a story that is both very specific and rather universal, all at the same time. Nic and Jules may have an nontraditional marriage but their story of parenting issues, mid-life crisis and long term commitment is as traditional -- and crowd pleasing -- as we've seen in a movie this year.
