Total Recall (2012)

When I first heard that there would be a remake of Total Recall (1990), I was a little upset.  It might not be the most subtle movie (hint: Arnold), but it is a pretty awesome and ridiculous (hint: three-breasted lady) piece of action/sci-fi.  Why mess with a classic?  But then I thought it over.  This is a Philip K. Dick short story, so you could redo this film as a paranoid science fiction nightmare, like something Cronenberg would make.  Or you could play up the idea of someone not knowing their identity; it could be like The Bourne Identity, only in the future!  The only wrong way to remake Total Recall would be to try and out-action an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

Hmm...that trailer makes it look like they made the wrong choice.

By the end of the 21st century, the Earth has been reduced to a wasteland, following large-scale chemical warfare.  Only England and Australia remain inhabitable, although they are a tad overcrowded.  The teeming masses of Australia commute to England to work low-end jobs, while native English get the higher paying leadership positions.  Naturally, that leads to some complaints from the Australian servant class, and some domestic terrorism/freedom fighting has broken out.  Times are tense, but I know what you are wondering.  How can people commute across the globe on a regular basis?  If you guessed via a tunnel bored through the center of the planet, you defied logic and guessed right!  Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is one of these menial Australian laborers.  While he has a home, a gorgeous wife, Lori (Kate Beckinsale), and a job, he is unsatisfied.  He has recurring dreams of another woman, with them on the run together from the government.

He's married to Beckinsale, but dreams of Biel.  Quaid is an ungrateful bastard.

Quaid keeps hearing about a company called Rekall.  It's a place where they implant fake memories that seem totally real, but aren't.  Essentially, it's a way for a boring person to remember an exciting life that they never had the opportunity/balls to actually experience.  Quaid decides to give it a try, and opts for the "secret agent" special.  But that's when things get bad, very fast.  Quaid already had his memories tampered with!  Now he's on the run from the police for something he doesn't understand, his wife is trying to kill him, and it appears that dream girl is actually a real person?!?  Is this all in Quaid's head, or is it really happening?

I vote real.  My imagination wouldn't come up with that dumb hairstyle.

The acting in Total Recall (2012) is pretty mediocre.  Nobody is fantastic, but nobody hams it up, either (which is probably an upgrade from the original film).  In the lead role, Colin Farrell looked suitably confused and he was convincing in his action scenes.  This role doesn't play to his strengths (thick brogue and empathetic eyebrows), but he plays a generic hero well enough.  Kate Beckinsale took on the role of the primary villain, which is a change of pace for her.  She doesn't actually seem evil, so much as she is paramilitary with crazy eyes.

Exhibit A

More than anything else, Beckinsale was cast to look hot and perform action stunts, which she handles easily.  Her role isn't very deep, but she does run around a lot to distract you from that fact.  Jessica Biel plays the part of the "good girl," which for all intents and purposes has her running for her life whenever she's onscreen.  I keep wanting Biel to show off some acting talent, but she can't seem to get past "mild alarm" in this role.

ACTING!

Bryan Cranston once again plays an authority figure in a film, and once again underwhelms when he is given generic characters.  The man can obviously act, but his movie roles don't show it.  This is the first time I have seen Bokeem Woodbine in a role that wasn't obviously sinister; he was fine playing a character part, but I think he's got enough charisma to carry a more complex role in a big movie.  Bill Nighy makes an all-too-brief appearance, probably due to his history with the director.  I love Nighy, but he is awfully boring when he plays seemingly normal people, and that's what he was here.  Rounding out the noteworthy cast, John Cho played the owner/operator of Rekall, which is a surprisingly minor role that didn't really require a recognizable actor.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, they did bring back the prostitute character with three breasts.  She's played by Kaitlyn Leeb, and the extra breast appears to be fake.  Maybe.

This is only director Len Wiseman's fourth effort behind the camera (and his first since 2007), but it's hard to tell.  Wiseman (best known for the Underworld series) slips effortlessly back into glossy action movie-mode with Total Recall (2012).  There is a metric crap-ton of action in this movie, and it all looks great.

Although it sometimes seems like an excuse to check out his wife's butt

Wiseman is not known for his storytelling skills, though, and that shows.  Total Recall (2012) is effectively one long chase scene.  The smarter elements in the plot --- the mind games and the interesting science fiction aspects --- are lost among the countless shootouts and explosions.  When he slows down to play up some of the supposedly less exciting elements, they're pretty cool, but sadly underused.

A hand-video-phone?  That's awesome!

Wiseman is also not much of an actor's director, which can be seen by the fact that his entire cast is one-dimensional.  I can't blame him for the script, but any character development --- at all --- would have been appreciated.  Story logic would have helped out a bit, too.  I couldn't have been the only person who realized that Kate Beckinsale's character is a covert agent out to capture one man, and yet she destroys more buildings and cannon fodder characters than the entire cast of Terminator 3.  That was not terribly covert.

...but she apparently enjoyed every minute of it

Total Recall (2012) is definitely a well-produced film, and it is undoubtedly full of action.  None of that means anything if the characters suck, though.  Well, I suppose that's not entirely true; if the action is ridiculous enough, it can balance out terrible characters, but that's not the case here.  Let's take one of the many chase scenes as a for instance:

Okay, this is a little reminiscent of Minority Report, but looks exciting enough.  When you look back on the film, though, this scene just blends in with dozens more that feel just like it.  However, ten seconds of Quaid at Rekall plant a lasting image in your mind.

Planting courtesy of Rekall

That is the most frustrating aspect of Total Recall (2012) --- it has some very cool sci-fi ideas and moments, but exclusively emphasizes the dumb action movie parts. As far as dumb action movies go, Total Recall is decently made.  It's nothing special, but it moves almost fast enough to keep the audience from noticing plot holes.  It's not very original, though, even for a remake.  Generic action sequences give way to homages to Minority Report, Blade Runner, and the 1990 original, but none of them are particularly clever or fun (except for tri-breast, which still makes me laugh every time). 

Cue fight scene 27

It was an incredibly poor choice to try an out-do the action in a remake of a film starring THE action star of the last 30 years, but the filmmakers didn't fail.  They were just adequate and bland.  And when you're being compared to something that was --- whatever your take on it --- unique, being boring looks even worse by comparison.  I thought about knocking this movie down a few notches for falling short of the original, but it's really a decent mindless action movie.  It should have been more, but it's perfectly mediocre for what it is.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Does this remind anyone else of Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills"?

It's been a while since I've read a Harry Potter book. I've read them all, but in the intervening years, many of the plot details have faded from my memory. Maybe that's a good thing; when I'm too familiar with a story, I notice any variations acutely and also know every beat of the plot. For the seventh installment in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, that was not an issue. I even completely forgot what a Deathly Hallow was, it's been so long. Isn't it a 70s punk band? Does that make this movie like a Scooby-Doo team-up episode (Harry and the Hallows take on Joker and the Penguin!)? Anyway, it was a nice change to know the gist of the story, but not feel the need to nit-pick every little change made. I have to wonder, though, if more familiarity would have actually helped with this film.

I'm going to make some basic assumptions about you, the reader right now. First off, you are familiar with the wizarding world of Harry Potter. You know that Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is a good wizard, and he must eventually battle the Bowser of the wizarding world, the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). Harry is accompanied primarily by his friends Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), and frequently aided by his school's headmaster (and Voldemort's only magical equal), Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon).

Now, here's a quick catch-up on the series. Unfortunately, Dumbledore was killed at the end of the last Harry Potter. Voldemort's bad guys are running the wizarding world through terror and murder, which are admittedly pretty non-magical ways to rule anybody; only Harry and his friends know how to stop Voldemort. Oh...you want to know, too? Well, Voldemort (let's call him Morty for short), in order to gain immortality, split his soul into six parts and hid them inside ordinary items. As long as one of these Horcruxes exists, so does Morty. The good news is that, through the events of earlier movies, two Horcruxes have already been destroyed. The bad news is that the other four could be anything, anywhere, and the longer it takes to find (and figure out how to destroy) these things, the more likely it is that Morty and his minions will kill Harry, removing the last viable threat from Morty's reign of terror.

This movie marks a distinct departure for Harry and his friends. Instead of going to Hogwart's and finishing their last year of wizarding school, they go on the lam. Morty's men are hunting them, and they need to lie low and run when they are found. That means that they stay outside of wizard communities and spend some time in London before ultimately settling on a series of desolate camping grounds scattered throughout England. As it turns out, without Dumbledore's help, these kids are pretty helpless. Like, you know, kids. They know that they need to find Horcruxes, but they only manage to find one for this entire movie. It takes them the entire movie to learn how to destroy it, too. Meanwhile, Morty spends his time searching for a special magic wand, one that will kill Harry. Things begin to fire on all cylinders when Harry and his friends get over their teenage attitudes and work together to solve their problems. Of course, that only gets you so far if you get captured by Morty's people...

The biggest difference between The Deathly Hallows and any of the preceding chapters is the tone. Gone is the sense of wonder at magic. That is replaced by a hopelessness that becomes the defining tone of the film. We're used to seeing Harry and his friends encounter a puzzle and solve it within two hours (even though those two hours encompass their entire school year). Seeing them stuck, with no promising leads, is surprising to see on the big screen; I liked this choice, because it actually makes their tasks seem suitably difficult for a lead-up to the inevitable big wizard fight. However, the movie can drag at points when nothing seems to be happening. It is at these moments, though, where we get to see how well these young actors have developed over the years. Director David Yates leaves a lot of moments as better shown than told, which is especially surprising in a family film (even if it is rated PG-13, this is a movie that young fans will grow into), a genre that usually leaves subtlety locked in the car with the window cracked. His confidence pays off pretty well; Emma Watson is still the class act of the bunch, but Daniel Radcliffe was pretty good and Rupert Grint looks like he might be a pretty good comedic actor at some point, even if he is so very, very ugly. This movie relies more on these three to carry the acting load than any other Potter film, with special effects and the always wonderful adult supporting cast making only occasional appearances.

The film is certainly not without fault. You can justly criticize this movie for having very little happen in its two-plus hours running time; actually, many things happen, but very little to advance the larger plot of Harry vs. Morty. I've also heard people complaining about an abrupt ending. It's not abrupt; the action leading up to the ending is sudden, when compared to the pace of the rest of the film, but the ending makes sense and I was okay with it.

What I didn't like about this film was the fact that it is clearly a set-up film. I actually enjoyed this movie --- it had action, humor, and several sad moments, even if it was slow --- and I think it did a fantastic job setting up The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, especially with the way it built up Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) as a prime villain. That doesn't make this a strong movie on its own, though. While I was okay with the ending, it isn't as strong or final as the other Potter endings; it definitely feels like a "switch to disc 2" moment. And that's too bad, because I think that, if they could have found a good stopping point, this could have been the awesome downer movie of the series; they are trying hard to be the wizard version of The Empire Strikes Back, where the heroes have had bad news all day, and are getting ready to attack those stupid Ewoks. It doesn't quite hit the same note of "we've taken their best shots, now it's our turn" feel, though. I also felt that this movie had scenes where you were just attacked by cameo appearances. Of the adults, only Bill Nighy and Ralph Fiennes had decent screen time, with Helena Bonham Carter, Toby Jones (as a voice) and Rhys Ifans also making good with their brief appearances. Alan Rickman, Jason Isaacs, Michael Gambon, Peter Mullan, Robbie Coltrane, Brendan Gleeson, David Thewlis, John Hurt, Imedla Staunton, David O'Hara, and Warwick Davis were all just flashes on the screen. Sadly, most of these (for the most part) very respectable actors were limited to less that four lines and maybe one visible emotion. Even the other child actors, like Tom Felton, Clemence Poesy and Bonnie Wright were barely given any time to much of anything. This barrage of familiar faces and characters was sometimes distracting for me, as I searched my memory to identify certain characters or recall why someone was in the position they were in (I'm still not sure why the Malfoys were on Morty's bad side).

There was a lot that I really enjoyed, though. I really liked Ben Hibbon's dark and visually interesting animated tale that explained just what the hell a Deathly Hallow is. I liked the supporting cast, even when their input was limited. I thought the emotional scenes were handled better than in any previous Harry Potter, and that includes an extended sequence of watching them mourn an ugly CGI character, which could have been hilarious if it was handled poorly. And this movie did what it set out to do (set up the final film), and it did it well. Does this story need to be two movies long? After all, the last three movies were also based on enormous books. I don't know, but I guess we'll see when Part 2 comes out this summer. As it stands right now, though, I expect that this film (both parts together) will prove to be like any classic double album in rock; bloated and long-winded, and certainly with some moments that could have been left out, but it's the White Album, what are you gonna do?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I've done a little research and have concluded that there are four types of reactions for those that have seen The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

• - those that have read author Douglas Adams' work and are relieved by this adaptation of it
• - those that have read Adams' work and hate what happened between the page and the screen
• - those that have not read the books and end up being charmed by the whimsical nature of the storytelling
• - those that have not read the books and see this a a hit-or-miss movie with no story and little character development.

All of these reactions are justified, but they all miss the point.  Like the book that it is based on, this movie is less about plot and more about how the story is told.  The whos, wheres, and whys are largely inconsequential; the emphasis is on the delivery.  And that delivery is excellent.

This is a story about how the world ends.  I'll save you the suspense; aliens blow it up within the first ten minutes of the film to make room for an intergalactic highway.  From there, our everyman point-of-view character, Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), is taken on a pan-galactic adventure with his best friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def).  Ford was an undercover alien on Earth, doing research on the planet for his employer, the constantly updated and best-selling book in the universe (literally), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Ford uses his hitchhiking skills to save Arthur and himself, and there their adventure begins.  Before the movie ends, we find out the answer to "life, the universe and everything," what the smartest creatures on Earth are, and what it feels like to be a woman.  For those of us that might be curious.  On this adventure, they gain some new companions, including the last human female in the cosmos, Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), a chronically depressed robot (with Alan Rickman providing the voice while Warwick Davis manned the costume), and the President of the Galaxy (Sam Rockwell).

If that all sounds fairly random...well, it is.  The primary plot device for this film is a spaceship that has an "Infinite Improbability Drive," which allows just about anything to happen in this movie.  Randomness might not be great for a coherent plot, but it does help with some fantastic visuals.  This movie doesn't do much with CGI special effects, instead opting for men in rubber suits, and it's a great choice.  All the aliens in this movie look amazing, from the bovine Vogon race to Humma Kavula's (John Malkovich's) spindly lower body.  These special effects choices were made, I think, not to impress you with the action sequences, but to be as funny and weird as the source material demanded.  Could this movie have been made with an animated depressed robot, voiced by Alan Rickman?  Of course.  They could have gone the Scooby Doo route, but it's much funnier to see an actual person wobble around with such a top-heavy costume.  Director Garth Jennings' only previous film work was on music videos, and it shows here.  His concern is clearly on the visuals and the timing of little moments, not on the film as a cohesive whole.  And he does an excellent job with that.  This is one of the most visually exciting movies of the past decade; Hitchhiker's has it all, from aliens and robots, to an entire scene where the characters and setting have been turned into yarn.

The visuals would not hold up nearly as well without impeccable casting.  Choosing Martin Freeman as the everyman character was a good move and Zooey Deschanel does a good job as a woman looking for the extraordinary.  Mos Def does a fantastic job as Ford Prefect, showing a talent for timing an understatement that he hasn't used a lot since (the adorable Be Kind Rewind being the only notable exception).  Sam Rockwell is hilarious as the bombastic airhead, President Zaphod Beeblebrox; I can totally understand his character annoying some viewers, but even his little gestures make me laugh here.  If you're not perfectly entertained by those two interacting, then there's nothing I can do to make this a more pleasurable movie experience for you.  Well, I guess I could point out the always awkward and charming Bill Nighy and his understated performance as a custom-made planet designer.

It is rare for a live action film to have the need for several voice actors, but this is an odd film.  Voice acting is, nowadays at least, a hit or miss field.  Movie studios usually want someone famous to lend their voice, regardless of how expressive that voice may be.  Luckily, this movie has some of the best voice acting you will find in any movie.  Ever.  Alan Rickman as a droll, clinically depressed, super smart robot?  Yes, please!  Helen Mirren as the biggest, smartest, and fastest computer ever created?  Sure, why not?  Thomas Lennon as an inappropriately optimistic computer for a spaceship?  That's an interesting casting choice, but it definitely works here.  Rounding out the voice cast, Stephen Fry does a perfect job as the narrator of the story and the reader of any Hitchhiker's Guide entries.

Douglas Adams wrote the screenplay for this movie, but died before it went into production.  The screenplay does differ significantly in parts from the book, but Adams made radical changes every time the story was adapted to a new medium (it's been on the radio and TV, as well), so that shouldn't be a big deal for rabid fans.  This isn't a movie that is slavishly indebted to the book that it is based upon.  This is a movie (written by the book's author) that understands the need for visuals to match the storytelling of the book.  No, this isn't a great story.  It is a lot of harmless fun, though. 

The Constant Gardener

 Most of the time, when I finish a movie, I know how I feel about it right away.  I'm pretty good at articulating my responses, so when I find myself at a loss, it's noteworthy (to me, at least).  I guess that makes The Constant Gardener noteworthy, then.

The film is based on a novel by John le Carre, author of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, which I haven't read.  I'll be honest, I'm more of a Robert Ludlum type of guy than a le Carre fan, but for those that are unfamiliar with him, he writes spy novels filled with lots of subtle moments instead of big action.  So, despite the presence of a gun on the movie poster, I assure you that this is not an action packed spy film.  Instead, it is a love story...in the middle of a deadly conspiracy.

Ralph Fiennes is married to Rachel Weisz; he is a British diplomat and she is an activist.  They are in Nairobi for his job when Rachel's character is murdered, reportedly by her friend.  When Fiennes starts to investigate the murder on his own, he realizes that his wife had uncovered a corporate cover-up.  I don't want to spoil anything (the plot is very detail-driven), but the cover-up risks billions of dollars, which always leads to important people trying to cover their assets (see what I did just there?  I'm so clever).

While this film is plot heavy, it is a more character-driven piece than any other conspiracy or spy movie I have seen.  That's partly what makes this an odd film for me.  Most of the time, in a movie like this, you have a spy that is a total bad-ass as the main character.  Or you can go the other way, and have an every day guy  thrust into extraordinary circumstances.  This, though, does not feel extraordinary; it feels all too plausible.  Fiennes' character is the prototypical uptight British man; he tends to repress his emotions and is very understated.  This makes for a realistic portrayal, but it bored the crap out of me.  Fiennes' acting really saved the film for me.  He was able to show a wide of emotions range with limited source material; Ralph Fiennes needs to be cast in bigger movies because he has a ton of talent, but has been using it in too many bit roles lately.  Rachel Weisz, on the other hand, plays a very over-the-top character and brings her down to earth.  Weisz absolutely deserved the Oscar she won for this performance; she should have been nominated for the lead acting role instead of supporting, because she totally could have beaten Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line.  The juxtaposition of the uber-emotional Weisz and the anti-emotional Fiennes is interesting to watch because the characters show their love in different, subtle ways.  Yes, Weisz is dead as the film begins, but this movie is really about their romance and Fiennes' realization of its importance once she is gone.


Danny Huston was good as a back-stabbing scoundrel, although I barely recognized him...apparently, this is his normal appearance, not how he looked in 30 Days of Night.  Silly me.  This is also the best dramatic work I've seen from Bill Nighy, a very capable comedic actor, but a dreadful action star (ugh...Underworld...).  In fact, if the two lead roles were not played so capably, Nighy's work would have been the standout for this film.

The acting is very noteworthy, but the film style is quite unusual, too.  The film proceeds in a dual-linear chronological fashion.  In other words, the plot proceeds chronologically, but frequently cuts to an extended series of flashbacks for Fiennes' character that also occur chronologically; for example, when Fiennes identifies Weisz's body, he has a flashback to the moment they met and as he deals with his loss in the present, his flashbacks proceed in time from that first moment they shared together. Most of the time, when a movie has flashbacks, they are usually just one or two important scenes that add background to a character's history.  The rest of the time, the film is edited so that the chronology is out of order, but there is a sense of thematic unity closure (like Pulp Fiction or Memento).  While not unprecedented (Slumdog Millionaire and the director's City of God have also used this device), telling the story this way made it interesting to watch, for a change.  These two characters should not have liked each other, but the flashbacks show how important Weisz was to Fiennes, which made his actions in the present seem more logical and have more meaning.

Okay, so far it all sounds pretty good.  Why was this a difficult movie for me to respond to?  Well, as technically impressive as this film is, and the acting and editing show how much director Fernando Meirelles did, I had a hard time caring.  Is this a good movie?  Yes, but I don't think I'll watch it again for a long time.  My problem lies with Fiennes' character.  Since he is the focal point of the movie, he needs to be interesting and he is not.  Fiennes is capable of so much charisma on screen, so it's frustrating for me to watch and appreciate his work here and still not enjoy it.  Really, the plot is good, the acting and directing are great, but when the main character is painfully and deliberately plain, it's hard to overcome.