Argo

So what's the big deal about Argo?  Aside from the fact that it sounds like something a pirate might say, I mean.  Argo is one of those movies that wears its "based on a true story" claim as a badge of honor.  There are two types of movies that push claims like that: movies that want to be capital "I" Important and movies that are so unbelievable that they have to legitimize themselves by pointing out that the unbelievable sometimes actually happens.  Which is Argo?  A little from column A, a little from column B.

When the American embassy in Iran was invaded in 1979, there were six embassy employees that managed to sneak out and avoid being part of the Iran hostage crisis.  They weren't able to leave the country, though.  Every Westerner (or, I guess, anybody looking American) was closely monitored and security in and out of the country was multiplied.  The six escapees managed to find shelter with the Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber), but they couldn't go anywhere or do anything, or else they would risk becoming hostages and probably being executed.  To make matters worse, circumstances (or the plot) dictate that the escapees have to leave soon or not at all.  That's where Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) comes in.  When all other half-baked, dumb-ass ideas for getting those people out of Iran appear doomed for failure, Tony comes up with something ambitious and outlandish --- although it is still a pretty awful idea.

These are the faces of men smelling shitty ideas

Tony wants to pass these six people off as part of a film crew, because everyone knows that Hollywood is full of complete jackasses who eat up stupid ideas, like filming a movie in we-have-American-hostages-era Iran.  Like all cover stories and identities, this needs to be able to pass the sniff test in case anybody doubts their claims.  That means that Tony needs to create a fake movie.

"Should we make a Reindeer Games or Gigli joke?"

To do that, he needs help from some Hollywood types (John Goodman and Alan Arkin) to convince Hollywood that a terrible science fiction movie called "Argo" (that should be filmed in Iran) is actually in production.  If they can convince Hollywood, they should be able to convince Iranian militants, right?  Once all that is done, all they have to do is confidently sneak six Americans out of the country while lying their asses off.  Piece of cake.

"Hello, do you have any unmonitored or under-guarded ways out of this lovely country?"

Argo is definitely the work of an ensemble cast.  Ben Affleck is on all the posters and gets the majority of the acclaim for this movie, thanks to his direction, but there are no star roles here.  Ben Affleck is good and understated as a CIA operative that specializes in getting people out of bad places.  While he is the main character, the star of this movie is the plot, so all of the actors are basically playing character roles.  This is probably my favorite Bryan Cranston movie role to date, if only because he had multiple dimensions.  John Goodman was clearly having fun lampooning Hollywood, but the best supporting actor in this cast was definitely Alan Arkin, who...well, I guess he did more or less the same thing as Goodman, but crankier.  They were both fun to watch and helped balance out the rest of the film, especially with their "Argo fuck yourself" bit.  The rest of the cast was made up of recognizable actors in uncomplicated or tiny roles.  Victor Garber, Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Kyle Chandler, Rory Cochrane, Christopher Denham, Kerry Bishé, and Zeljko Ivanek all lent their presence to this movie more than any particular acting skills.

Look at this crap.  They haven't even memorized their lines!

It is nice to see Chandler getting work in high-profile movies, but he (and Bryan Cranston) needs meatier roles to show off his talent.  Of the six not-hostages, Scoot McNairy was the only one that actually developed as the movie progressed.  Of course, that was because he was the obstinate jerk character, but I still thought McNairy was pretty good.

Argo is the third movie directed by Ben Affleck, and the first one set outside of Boston.  This is also his first attempt at something that isn't a crime story.  Affleck's biggest impact on Argo is the sense of urgency.  The pacing in this movie is excellent, especially in the second half.  That is remarkable, considering that this is, at its core, a movie about people waiting to go to the airport.

THRILLS ABOUND!

It's hard to gauge how well Affleck directs the actors, since this movie is so plot-driven.  I guess he was fine in that regard, since everyone played their parts decently.  The other aspect of the film that I was impressed with was the production design.  Granted, it can't be that hard to re-create 1979 in Hollywood, but the side-by-side comparisons between the real-life people and places and the stuff in the movie was eerily accurate.  Attention to detail is important in all movies, but realizing just how much effort went into duplicating every single thing on the screen made me wonder what little things I took for granted in this film.

The actual magazine ad for "Argo" in the Hollywood Reporter

Argo is a tense, funny, and generally entertaining film that has a little more gravitas because it is based on true events.  How accurate is this movie?  With a few minutes of research, I would say "fairly," with most of the liberties being taken for pacing reasons.   I've seen and heard a few comments about the subject matter of Argo (with the least nutty objection coming from Daniel Tosh), and I see their point.  Why make a movie about the six people who were not held hostage and tortured?  Probably because the US and Canada didn't team up to fake a goofy movie as a means to sneak out the 50-odd hostages.  Argo is a good movie, and is one of the better true-life adaptations I have seen in a while.  It is missing performances that will draw me back to it, but I am now fully on board with Ben Affleck (the director). 

If you're interested in the back story on this script, it appears that comic book legend Jack Kirby did a number of concept drawings for the movie-that-never-was.  Cool stuff.

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.

John Carter

You've probably heard about John Carter's box office performance, even if you didn't care to see the film itself.  It was a bomb.  A dud.  A disaster.  Disney announced that, between the production budget and advertising costs, it lost $200 million by making John Carter.  I'm not exactly sure how that math works, since every source I have found pegs the budget at $250-300 million and theatrical and DVD sales combining for nearly $300 million, but I suppose that advertising could account for the significant difference.  Even accepting John Carter as a financial failure doesn't mean it's actually a bad movie, though.

An alien with a prosthetic leg on her back doesn't help, though

I don't normally focus much on the advertising campaigns for movies, but check out these trailers for John Carter:

This is the teaser trailer from July 2011, which was shown before some that Summer's biggest blockbusters.  An interesting choice of music (Peter Gabriel covering the Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage") gives this a moody, romantic feel.  Opening with the title character apparently dead and a direct reference to author and Carter-creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, it continues with some scenes reminiscent of Star Wars ("Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" and destroyed settlements on Tatooine) and flashes of battles, Victorian dress, and an homage to movie Westerns.  And then Taylor Kitsch jumps very high, which is enough to impress the disembodied voice of Willem Dafoe.

And his disembodied voice is hard to please!  Remember Spider-Man 2?

This trailer feels like an idea salad, where a bunch of stuff was thrown in together and presented by a very serious French waiter.  Well, at least the weird tattoo design for the logo is kind of cool.  If I had to guess, based only on this trailer, I would assume that John Carter was a science fiction romance with swashbuckling overtones.  Not the most bankable idea, but an early March release date means several weeks without any serious competition in theaters.  It might not "wow," but it didn't look stupid, at least.

Okay.  Let's see what we have in January 2012.  Some sort of arena battle, some large-scale battles with aliens, and a rousing ripoff Braveheart-style speech.  With the added gravitas from a symphonic version of "Kashmir," this looks like an epic sci-fi action movie.  Well, except for the exasperated look on Taylor Kitsch's face when he's fighting the bantha white bear-thing.  I wonder what happened to those romantic overtones?

Huh.  Attempt #3, aired less than two weeks before the premiere, appears to be dropping the epic pretensions for an all-out science-fiction war movie.  John Carter uses chains, swords, rocks and guns to fight a variety of evil.  The last set of scenes didn't make a whole lot of sense, though, as it was obviously spliced from different parts of the movie.  Why would they do that?  Why would they keep changing their focus with this ad campaign?  How bad can John Carter be?!?

John Carter is the tale of (surprise!) John Carter.

Because 13 seasons were not enough

The movie opens with the announcement of Carter's death to his nephew, Edgar Rice Burroughs (Daryl Sabara); after the funeral, Burroughs is given his uncle's journal, from which the rest of the tale is told.  In the post-Civil War Wild West, John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) hints at his tortured past while a military muckety-muck (Bryan Cranston) lists some of the reasons the audience should think Carter is a bad-ass (great solider, awards, etc.).  While Cranston is doing this, John Carter is undermining his legendary value by getting the crap kicked out of himself, over and over again.  And then (more or less), he wakes up on Mars, where the lower gravity gives him incredible leaping powers and super-strength.  He is quickly taken in by the barbaric Thark tribe (or race, or species...it's not too clear), a large, four-armed and green-skinned group, led by Tars Tarkas (voiced by Willem Dafoe).  Soon after, John Carter notices a battle between spaceships; it is between the humanoid cities of Helium and Zodanga (obviously), so the Tharks don't really have a dog in the fight and are willing to ignore it.  Not John Carter.  Not when he can save a chick in a Princess Leia metal bikini and have her turn out to be Princess Dejah (Lynn Collins) of the great city of Helium. 

Metal bikinis: the most exploitative protection available

At this point, all John Carter wants is to go home and continue getting hit over the head by Bryan Cranston's men, but Dejah's plight gradually grabs his attention.  It turns out the the leader of Zodanga, Sab Than (Dominic West), has somehow gotten his mitts on a superweapon and could destroy the mighty city of Helium.  He will pardon the city if he can build a truce between the two eternally-warring nations by marrying Dejah.  She refuses and runs, because the freedom of the individual is paramount over the livelihood of millions.  But it's not that simple!  There is a secretive group of beings, the Thern, who are pulling the strings of Martian history from behind the scenes, and they are the ones planning the wedding of Dejah and Sab Than.  Why is a clandestine Martian race with powers above and beyond everyone else putting so much effort into a royal wedding?  I blame residual William and Kate fever.  Whatever the reason, the wedding must happen.  But can the Heliumiites trust the Zodangarians?  What about the Tharks?  And what's up with the Therns?  And how does a former Confederate solider with mad hops fit into all this?  Most importantly, when did "jumping high and far" become an invaluable weapon of war?

You'll need to look harder than that to figure it out

The acting in John Carter isn't bad.  It's not great, but it is certainly on par with other epic sci-fi tales.  Taylor Kitsch doesn't exude charm or charisma, but he makes up for it by doing his best Batman Bale Voice impression.  There are moments, though, where Kitsch shows a bit of promise --- usually when he's not doing epically serious things --- and is fairly likable.  Unfortunately, those bits are too far between, and his overall performance is pretty bland.  Honestly, my favorite scenes for him were when he kept trying to escape Bryan Cranston in the beginning.  Lynn Collins' role was pretty stereotypical --- a tough princess with a soft heart --- and she didn't add much to the role.

Plunging necklines don't count?

Dominic West continues to play only awful villains on film, and his work here is along the lines of everything else he's done in the big screen.  Think slimy and sleazy, and you've got the picture; it's too bad, really, because he's fantastic on The Wire.  Mark Strong also plays a role typical for him; he's a bad, bad man with little regard for life.

"It's only acting if I'm faking it"

The rest of the live-action cast doesn't do much.  Bryan Cranston's talents are wasted with his bit part.  Daryl Sabara is barely in the film.  Ciarán Hinds could have been replaced with a frowny-faced emoticon.  James Purefoy had a few lines and Art Malik was onscreen barely long enough to make me think "Oh hey, True Lies guy...!"  And then there are the Tharks.

Still prettier than Dafoe

Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Thomas Hayden Church, Jon Favreau, and David Schwimmer are some of the recognizable names in the voice cast.  Granted, Schwimmer and Favreau are just cameos, but that's still more talent that you might expect from CGI-based roles.  I have no problem with any of the voice actors.  I always like Dafoe's voice, so he stuck out the most for me, but it was decent work, all around.

While the acting wasn't great, I've enjoyed movies with worse acting.  The direction in John Carter is one of the weak points for the film.  Co-writer/director Andrew Stanton didn't really know where he wanted to go with this film.  It certainly has epic aspirations.  It certainly wants to shows some romance.  It also wants to have huge CGI battle sequences.  And yet, at its core, this is ultimately a family-friendly adventure movie, along the lines of an Indiana Jones.  There are a few scenes with slapstick comedy (Carter learning to walk on Mars), there is a cute pet (the super-fast dog-thing), and the hero takes more than a few humorous lumps (especially in the beginning).  These pieces don't meld together, like ingredients in a soup.  They are like jigsaw pieces that were re-cut and assembled by a stubborn child, regardless of where they actually fit or if they make sense.

Example: epic rescue scene or mowing a space lawn?

Stanton's failure is not complete, but kind of like the Star Wars prequels; yeah, it sucked, but there were a couple of cool ideas.  The aliens and the world of Mars were well-developed enough so that I was not constantly reminded of the many films that have borrowed from this material in the last 40 years.  It just wasn't very interesting.

Even the actors can't stand this script

The plot is over-dramatic.  The acting is not very compelling.  The script is mediocre at best, with an unhealthy dose of unneeded complexity and unintentional hilarity.  My favorite line in the whole film is "Beans.  The first item ***dramatic pause*** is beans."  That wouldn't have been a deal-breaker, but the action scenes were pretty tame, giving this movie absolutely nothing exceptional to stand on.

Except the costume choices

The ultimate sin of John Carter is that it is pretty boring.  Is that the fault of the source material, as some have claimed?  I don't think so.  There's enough in this movie that almost works to make me think that it could have been the flagship title that Andrew Stanton obviously hoped for.  Had it played up the adventure angle more and the dramatic epic-ness less, this could have been a fun sci-fi pulp romp.  But it is presented as an epic, and it just doesn't work.  This is one of those films where you watch it and are constantly reminded how much it cost to produce.  I don't think I've seen a movie since The Adventures of Baron Munchausen where I was so frequently surprised by the ratio of the film's scope to the size of it's inevitably tiny audience.  It's a failure, but it's not all that bad.  Which actually makes it less fun to watch, unfortunately.  It's not cool enough to legitimately enjoy, but it's not bad enough to enjoy while drunk.  It's just...John Carter.  And that is a stupid name for a movie.

On a closing note, I never realized how many things I like have been influenced by Burroughs' work.  Never mind all the film influences (Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar, etc.) --- one of my favorite comic book issues growing up was a direct homage, and I never even realized it!  Here's the cover to Excalibur (Vol. 1) #16:

Metal bikinis?  Check.  The title "Kurt Wagner - Warlord of ?"  Check.  And the story involves four-armed aliens, a beautiful princess, and a strange hero destined to rule them all.  It's not exactly Alan Moore or anything, but it was a fun issue that still holds up.  It's one of the few times where comic book Nightcrawler was as cool as X2: X-Men United Nightcrawler was, and it's cute seeing a character (Kitty Pryde) who is uncomfortable in a metal bikini.  Good work, Chris Claremont.  Now take a look at one of the many covers made for The Warlord of Mars:

Man, Frank Frazetta could paint.  It's not a big deal by any means, but stumbling across this image and the nostalgia it sparked in me almost made me care about this intellectual property.  Almost.

Drive

It is easy for the casual film fan to dismiss Drive without seeing it.  A character, identified only as The Driver in the credits, moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals.  The star is Ryan Gosling, a heartthrob just starting to come into his own with three extremely successful movies in 2011, as well as the subject of one of the internet's more peculiar obsessions.  Hot actor + getaway driving = An ode to Burt Reynolds, right?  At the very least, Drive sounds like it should be a Fast and the Furious-type movie.  Heads up, people: if you walk into Drive with those sort of expectations, you will be thoroughly confused and maybe even upset.

An actual reaction to Drive

Here's the expectations you should have with Drive: it stars an actor that has (so far) avoided dumb action or pretty boy roles, directed by a man known for making weird movies with fantastic lead actor performances.  Fair enough?

Drive opens with The Driver (Gosling) ready to take part in a heist.  He doesn't help with the crime, he doesn't carry a gun, he doesn't talk to the people he's driving --- he drives.  And he's the best at what he does.  When he's not acting as a wheelman, The Driver is still driving.  He's a part-time movie stuntman that works in a garage and cruises Los Angeles to relax.  He doesn't say much, though.  He just stares and waits for awkward pauses to fill most of his conversations whenever he can.  Thanks to a little luck, The Driver winds up befriending his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son, Benicio. 

Hey girl.  Miming masturbation with a water bottle in a hallway?  Classy.

Their friendship is quiet and a little awkward, but ultimately chaste.  A week later, Irene's jailbird husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), is released from prison and comes home.  Now, you might assume that the aggressive Standard is going to become the antagonist at this point, because he is clearly suspicious of The Driver.  But no.  The newly freed Standard apparently owes a lot of money to some violent people for protecting him in prison; his wife and son will pay the price if he doesn't commit a particular robbery soon.  The Driver can't have that, so he offers to do what he does best: drive.  Not because it's a job, not because he wants to, but because he needs to protect Irene and Benicio, and it soon becomes apparent just how far he is willing to go for a few moments of kindness.

There are many things that make Drive stand out from most films, but what caught my attention first was the intentionally minimalist portrayal of The Driver.  He barely speaks, and when he does, his responses are typically odd.  He is fairly free of personality and emotions.  And yet, The Driver is so impossibly calm that you start to anticipate the moment where he just explodes. 

And that definitely happens

Ryan Gosling turns in a strong, silent-type performance that is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name.  The only difference is that Eastwood's Man was obviously dangerous at all times (and that makes him cool) and Gosling's Driver is cool with danger bubbling underneath.  I was very impressed with Gosling.  It's always nice to see acting with subtle layers and to play such an impassive role (at times, his face was almost a Michael Myers mask of blankness) and then flip a switch to being so passionate --- and do that convincingly --- was a pleasure to watch.

...and stare at, and with.

Carey Mulligan was very sweet as Irene, and I thought she did a pretty good job.  It was a timid role, and those can come across as wimpy or clingy, but I liked how well she balanced Gosling's character.  Oscar Isaac is good at playing heels, and he's as unlikable as ever here.  Christina Hendricks looked naturally busty and a little trashy; I wasn't too impressed by her acting, but she is a key part in one of the most jaw-dropping moments in the film.  Bryan Cranston shows up to play a small part; I like Cranston and understand how hard it must be to find good film roles that fit him, but I think he's better than the half-dozen supporting roles he churned out this year.  I was happy to see Ron Perlman playing a character that was not placed in the Middle Ages.  Perlman's not a fantastic actor, but his ugly mug and gruff voice make any character plausibly tough.  My favorite performance in Drive, though, definitely belonged to Albert Brooks.  I normally hate Brooks, but he was absolutely fantastic here.  I would have liked his work from the first half of the movie alone, but his soothing, reasonable voice contrasted so beautifully with his actions in the second half that I was simply blown away.  You wouldn't think it, but his character wound up being more frightening than Perlman's.

...but not as frightening as Driver's mask

That Drive has so little dialogue should come as no surprise to fans of director Nicolas Winding Refn.  His last film, Valhalla Rising, featured a lead actor with zero lines and no attempts to communicate.  The stunning use of the soundtrack (so warm...so lush...so...oddly 80s) also fits in with his established modus operandi.  In fact, most of what you notice of the direction in Drive has shown up, from time to time, in Refn's admittedly difficult filmography.  What makes his work here so impressive is that Refn managed to make a compelling story with confusing but plausible emotions without ditching his distinctive style. 

The camera work was good, the way the shots were framed was gorgeous, the lighting was effective, and his direction of Gosling was great.  Refn's best work on Drive, though, was in how effectively he builds tension.  The car chases in this movie are not just excuses to show crashes or goofy stunts; they are intelligently played chess matches, with all the deliberation that implies.  The scenes where The Driver is waiting --- for someone to get into his car, for a helicopter to pass, whatever --- were the most taut moments I saw on film this year.  The silence on screen was so intense that The Driver's gloves were audibly distracting, and when gunshots shatter the silence, well...that was awesome.

Still, you can definitely make some good arguments that Drive was over-hyped by critics this year.  The pacing is unusual and awkward.  The main character is barely relatable as a human for most of the movie.  He wears an awesome, but ridiculously recognizable jacket at all times; the jacket is never ditched, even after its is covered in blood, and the scorpion stitching is never explained.

Like Driver is going to explain anything to you

In fact, a lot of things are left out of Drive.  When Irene gets the news that Standard is being released from prison, Refn cuts away so the audience doesn't hear the news.  Obviously, we find out moments later, but little choices like that can add up to annoy an audience.  The violence is abrupt and excessive; aside from some truly gruesome moments, Drive also contains the best head-splattering gunshot I have seen outside of a Tom Savini movie.  And yet, some of the deaths were surprisingly played down.  Film critic types can also point out similarities to other filmmakers, with the most apt comparison being to Jean-Pierre Melville.

I get all of those complaints.  I really do.  But they don't matter.  Drive doesn't ape anyone's style, it is the logical result of many years of Nicolas Winding Refn's film evolution, and it is easily his most entertaining and accessible film.  I loved the pacing and the awkwardness and the ridiculousness of The Driver; his character is, in many ways, absolutely unbelievable, but I loved his style.  Drive sets the audience up to expect one type of movie, but quickly switches gears (see what I did there?) to provide almost the antithesis of the typical car chase film --- and then the shit hits the fan and The Driver starts hitting people, again upsetting expectations.  This is definitely the best movie-as-art film I have seen from the past few years, and it just happens to be one of the coolest, too.  The only thing keeping it from a ten in my book is the fact that I've only seen it once so far.