Zero Dark Thirty

Of all the Oscar-nominated films of 2012, none was as controversial as Zero Dark Thirty.  There were a few different reasons for this (most of which boils down to election-year political babbling), but the element that received the most discussion --- intelligent or otherwise --- revolved around the film's portrayal of torture as an effective interrogation tactic.  I certainly will not be as eloquent as some of those articles, but I will try to address the issue in a small way.  First things first, though.  I went in to Zero Dark Thirty as the final film in a marathon of Best Picture nominees.  I had high hopes, even though I wasn't in love with Kathryn Bigelow's last film, The Hurt Locker.  I heard that this was a film that asked a lot of tough questions and did not give comforting answers.  America has been fighting its War on Terror for over a decade now, and we still haven't gotten a movie that (in my mind, anyway) makes an awesome statement about it.  It may be a lot to ask of a movie, but that was what I was hoping for with Zero Dark Thirty.

Zero Dark Thirty is the somewhat true-ish tale of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden (played by the always delightful Ryan Reynolds).  Maya (Jessica Chastain) is a fresh CIA recruit in 2003, newly assigned to the task force that is trying to track down Bin Laden.  Right out of the gate, Maya is confronted with the harsh reality of torture.  One of her new coworkers, Dan (Jason Clarke), spends a good amount of time at a Black Box site, interrogating detainees.  Dan and his subordinates threaten, badger, and offer the occasional kindness in their quest for information --- aaand they also torture the shit out of their prisoners, too.  Waterboarding, humiliation, sensory deprivation, and just general abuse are some of the more colorful ways Dan elicits information.

Above: Dan, scraping some "torture juice" off his shoes

While no one is willing to dish on Osama Bin Laden, Dan and Maya managed to trick one detainee into naming a courier that delivers messages to Bin Laden. In and of itself, that little morsel of information doesn't mean much, but over the next few years, Maya is able to piece together a small piece of the larger picture.  If she is correct, and this courier is trusted with an important job, then that means he actually meets with the elusive Osama Bin Laden.  If that is true, then all Maya needs to do is track down this courier (who she does not have a picture or real name of) to find Bin Laden.  It's as easy as combing through literally tons of intelligence reports for a single clue over an eight-year span, while negotiating changing political and professional priorities and surviving a terrorist bombing.

She went in a novice and left a female David Caruso.  YEAAAAHHHH!

If nothing else, Kathryn Bigelow does an excellent job subverting expectations with Zero Dark Thirty.  This is less of a war movie or a manhunt than it is a police procedural.  In that regard, it's a pretty solid one.  Jessica Chastain fills the role of the obsessive person who just knows that they're right capably, and Bigelow does a good job making her look like the most capable person in the room at any given time.  When it finally gets to be Zero Dark Fifteen-ish, Bigelow shifts gears and reminds audiences that she knows how to add tension to military scenes.

What I found most interesting about Bigelow's approach to the material was that it felt surprisingly light on judgement.  The torture scenes seemed to affect the characters just as much as suicide bombers, or the final assault on Bin Laden's complex.  This could easily have been a propaganda piece, like The Green Berets, but Zero Dark Thirty strove for a much more documentary feel.

As a movie that is, essentially, a procedural with documentary tones to it, Zero Dark Thirty is not a great spotlight for acting.  Jessica Chastain was pretty good as the emotional core of the film, but even her fairly rounded character exhibited frustration more than anything else.  She did morph into a convincingly bad-ass intelligence agent, but I felt that the personal investment of the character --- which was mind-numbingly large --- didn't translate into her performance. 

Jason Clarke was impressive in a supporting role; the more I see of Clarke, the more I like him and truly believe that he's close to a breakout role.  He had one of the more despicable parts in the film, but he gave it some unexpected humanity, too.  Most of the rest of the film was filled with bit parts, and many of them were played by character actors.  Still, in the cast of thousands, there were some familiar faces.  On the political side of the plot, Kyle Chandler was (once again) a bureaucrat, Mark Strong was a sneakier type of bureaucrat, James Gandolfini was kind of a military bureaucrat, and John Barrowman essentially acted as Jessica Chastain's hype man with his sole line.  All of those are good actors, but only Mark Strong had an opportunity to show off any (which he did).  On Maya's team, Harold Perrineau made a very brief and very welcome appearance and Jennifer Ehle was pretty good as the intelligence character that always seemed to be wrong.  When the story turned to the military side of things, Chris Pratt and Joel Edgerton were the face of the strike team.  Pratt was surprisingly engaging as a slight goofball, while Edgerton played his part more through glaring than with dialogue.

Their haircuts match their characters

Okay, I've covered the plot, the direction and the acting.  What about all that torture?  On the one hand, I can agree (to an extent) with the argument that acceptance can be construed as condoning.  I honestly don't get where people are coming from when they say that the overall message here is that torture was necessary to find Bin Laden.  At worst, this film takes an indifferent stance on the issue.  Of course, the message is not that torture did no good, either; information gleaned through torture did eventually lead to the film's climax, but the methods are not shown as heroic or even necessary evils.  As with so much of Zero Dark Thirty, it would be so much easier to derive meaning and intent if this film had given in to machismo or back-patting nationalism.  Instead, the audience is subjected to extended periods of unpleasantness as the detainees are tortured on-screen.  If there is a message in Zero Dark Thirty about torture, I would argue that it is closer to "torture sure is messed up, right?" than anything else.

I was not sure how I felt about Zero Dark Thirty when it ended.  It certainly did not live up to my expectations, but that is not a bad thing.  This was a substantially different film than I was expecting, and I respected the emotionally-neutral choice of tone.  I would have preferred something that asked questions instead of simply reported issues, but that would have fundamentally altered Bigelow's documentary-feel.  I wish it had felt more immediate, though.  I was so separated from the emotions of these characters that the exits of Kyle Chandler and Jennifer Ehle had no impact on me, much less anything that happened to Jessica Chastain.  Everything just felt too impersonal.  That can happen in procedural dramas, but the main character's charisma or brilliance helps keep things exciting as the audience is drip-fed clues.  Chastain was at her best in conference room scenes, convincing bureaucrats to believe her.

There was a shocking amount of whatever you want to call this

For Zero Dark Thirty to work as a procedural, her best scenes needed to be her putting the pieces of the puzzle together.  This is a movie that could have done more, but also could have been truly insufferable.  Instead, it landed somewhere in the middle for me.

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.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I have seen every James Bond movie at least four times (except Quantum of Solace).  I mention that to point out just how much I enjoy spy movies.  I have also read most of the original James Bond books, as well as several spy novels by Robert Ludlum and John le Carré; I mention that to prove that I understand the difference between a James Bond movie and an actual spy film.  The reality (according to the fiction I have read) of espionage is that unremarkable people patiently do a lot of work as subtly as they can, with potentially Earth-shaking results.  When I saw the first trailer for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy --- based on one of the best action-free spy stories ever --- and saw the excellent cast, I knew I would be in for a treat.  A subtle, quiet treat, but a treat nonetheless.

Above: an action sequence in the film, shown in real time

Control (John Hurt) is dead.  The former head of British Intelligence (AKA SIS, AKA MI6, AKA --- in le Carré's books, anyway --- The Circus) died in disgrace.  Convinced that there was a high-level mole feeding information to the Soviets, Control approved a mission to bring over a defector from the Eastern bloc that allegedly had hard proof as to the mole's identity.  The mission was a failure; the MI6 agent, Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), was identified and shot (not dead, though), and an international incident was born.  Control and his right hand man, George Smiley (Gary Oldman), were forced into retirement.  The rest of Control's elite inner circle of intelligence men simply moved up a few rungs and have been ruling ever since.

First new rule: reclining seats for the Q-Bert room

After Control's death, Smiley is approached by someone in the British government to investigate a claim made by a Circus operative, Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), that there was a mole in The Circus; the incident that made Tarr suspicious happened after Smiley was sacked, so it seems that A) Control was right all along and B) Smiley couldn't have been the leak, since he had no access to Tarr's situation.  Smiley is tasked with finding the double agent amongst the Circus elite, but doing so without The Circus' knowledge, and without direct access to The Circus himself.  That may sound difficult, but that's because it is.  And also because Control was certain that the mole had to be one of his inner circle.  He even assigned them each a code name; "Tinker" was Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), "Tailor"  was Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), "Soldier"  was Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds), "Poorman"  was Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) and "Beggarman" was Smiley.  Even the most trusted spies in The Circus were suspect.  But if we know who Tinker, Tailor, and Solider are, who is Spy?  That's what Smiley's trying to find out.

...and probably who's on the receiving end of this shot

The acting in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is very low-key, but also quite good.  I really liked Gary Oldman's portrayal of Smiley; it is difficult to make a deliberate, contemplative character come to life on film, but I thought Oldman's Smiley was brilliantly cold and calculating, but also jealous and lonely.  His performance was more inaction than action, but I think that's what draws you in.  The rest of the cast (which is pretty huge) is good, but the silence of Smiley is really what this film is about.  Tom Hardy was good as the spy equivalent of a blunt instrument with awful, awful hair. 

Shouldn't spy jackets conceal things better than this?

Rivaling that hair was Mark Strong's combover, although it was nice to see Strong playing a non-villain for a change.  It turns out that he's still fun to watch, even when he's not evil.  John Hurt was probably the most explosive character in the movie, which seems a little odd, given that he's in his seventies, but just imagine him being loud and cranky and you'll get the gist of his performance.

"Get off my lawn!"

The other fairly emotive character in the film was current holder of the coveted "Most British Name" award, Benedict Cumberbatch.  His character was understandably nervous, but I felt he was a little too high-strung at times.

I just like saying his name.  Try it: Cum-ber-batch!

The rest of the cast was made of fine, establish British actors.  Colin Firth is the most noteworthy, but I thought Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds also gave solid performances.  I also found it interesting to see Konstantin Khabenskiy in a film released in the West that was not directed by Timur Bekmambetov; Khabenskiy basically played the stereotype of a hard-drinking Russian jerk, but he's pretty good at that.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the first major English-language film from director Tomas Alfredson, and I think he was a good stylistic match to the source material.  For some reason, most of the Swedish directors I have seen have excelled at slowly-paced, subtle films, and that's exactly what this story needed.  I liked how quiet and claustrophobic this movie felt at times, and I thought Alfredson did a great job with the actors.  My only problem was how dense the narrative was.  I like that Alfredson didn't dumb the story down or over-explain things, but this is a movie that demands your attention --- and if you're not sure that it makes sense, you're going to need a few viewings and a flow chart to make a definite conclusion. 

Because Smiley sure as hell won't tell you

As much as I enjoyed this subtle, complex film, I wasn't as blown away as I had hoped.  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is definitely a solid movie, but it's not the sort of movie that I want to re-watch in the immediate future.  It's very, very slow --- and I think that pace fits the story well --- so I will need to be in just the right mood to watch this again.  There's isn't anything about the film that I downright disliked, but (aside from the overall consistent quality) there wasn't anything that I positively loved, either.  Oldman was great, but his role is almost an anti-presence in the film; who he isn't spending time with and what he's not saying aloud are kind of his defining traits.  While that was artfully done, it's not the sort of performance that amps me up.  Still, this is a very cerebral spy drama.  It might not exactly "thrill," but it is one of the best examples of what espionage is (probably) truly like.

Green Lantern

With Marvel Studios doing such a good job (so far) establishing several comic book-inspired movie franchises (Iron Man, Thor, and X-Men, with Captain America and The Avengers on their way soon), it only makes sense for DC Comics to try and launch some of their heroes onto the big screen.  With Christopher Nolan's Batman series wrapping up next year and the stalled attempt to reboot a Wonder Woman TV show, the pressure was on Green Lantern to be the first major DC property (that wasn't Superman or Batman) to have success as a feature film.  Is this movie up to the challenge?  Well, they say that Green Lanterns know no fear, but unfortunately, courage isn't all you need to make an entertaining movie.

Eons ago, a bunch of powerful and blue-skinned aliens who apparently named themselves the Guardians of the Universe (boy, they sound like a fun bunch) found a way to harness the green (not eco-, just the color) energy of willpower as a means to police the universe.  The power of will is given off by all creatures, collected by these Guardians and channeled into green power lanterns, which in turn power green rings, which enable the users to do just about anything they can think of.  The universe is divided into over three thousand sectors, with each sector getting one Green Lantern Corp member to patrol the several galaxies that make up each sector.  But all is not well in Lantern Town; an evil entity named Parallax (voiced by Clancy Brown), an ancient foe of the Corps, has escaped his Green Lantern-devised imprisonment.

Witness the face of the voice of fear!

Parallax feeds on the yellow power of fear, leaving nothing but burned out husks in his wake, and his number one priority is to punish Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison, best known as Jango Fett in the Star Wars prequels), the Green Lantern that imprisoned him.

Well, if he has his own movie poster, he must be pretty important, right?  Right...?

I would like to point out that we haven't spent any time on Earth just yet.  That's not a big deal, but it's still a little strange.  Abin Sur gets ambushed by Parallax, who looks like an amorphous yellow-black cloud, and is fatally wounded.  Instead of seeking out medical attention, Pinkie and his (talking) ring opt to find his successor before he dies.  Wait...he's in the movie for only a few minutes and still gets his own movie poster?  That's like giving Thomas and Martha Wayne their own poster for The Dark Knight!  Whatever, fine.  Abin Sur and the ring wind up on Earth, where the ring chooses brash pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) to be the next Green Lantern.  Now, you might assume that this is a fish-out-of-water story where Hal goes into space to fight the big scary yellow cloud and seems completely out of his depth.  That's true, to some extent.  But there is also an Earthbound story in this movie, too.

Not the only time he looks like a doofus in the movie, trust me.

Hal is an irresponsible man whore (okay, that's a judgement call from a scene that is eerily similar to one in Iron Man) who spends his time being snarky and finding ways to show off his ripped abs.  He and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) totally don't get along at all because she is tired of his man-childish ways --- you had better believe that these two will not go from mutually antagonistic to deeply in love within the space of two hours.  Not a chance.  Hal's problem is that he is afraid of big decisions and falling short when he is compared to his late father.  Getting a super powerful ring doesn't make his life easier; the greater the responsibility, the more likely it seems that he won't measure up.  Hal's not the only character with daddy issues in the movie, though.  Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a fairly dorky scientist, grew up with Hal and Carol and knows that his bookish ways have always been a disappointment to his politician father (Tim Robbins).  Hector gets the chance to do the initial inspection of Abin Sur's alien body and he manages to get pricked by a piece of yellow Parallax bits stuck in Abin's wound, which leads to some slight side effects.

Mmmaybe you should get that checked out, Hector.

So, on the one hand, we have Hal, who feels unworthy of controlling the power of will because he's afraid of failing.  On the other hand, we have Hector, who is tired of being lame and suddenly can tap into the yellowy power of fear.  And don't forget about all the aliens!  This is a busy movie!

In the lead role, I thought Ryan Reynolds did a pretty good job as the cocky Hal Jordan.  He was pretty likable and occasionally funny; I enjoyed seeing his figure out his powers as the movie progressed.  I don't know if I would have cast Reynolds --- who is as sarcastic as ever in this movie --- as a death-defying man of iron will, but he works well with the script.  Blake Lively, though, was a bit of a mess as his romantic interest.  I understand that playing a superhero's girlfriend essentially makes you a damsel in distress, which is never a flattering showcase for acting, but damn.  In the words of my wife, a "two-by-four with a brunette wig" would have been more entertaining.  Her part wasn't very hard --- she had to look pretty (mission accomplished) and partake in just a little bit of witty banter (Least natural.  Laugh.  Ever.), with a moment to show the depth of her emotion (mission aborted).  I will give her credit for not screaming in this movie, which is shocking, given her role.  Peter Sarsgaard did a good job playing a snivelly scientist, but I would have liked to see him be less of a weenie on his own turf or when he started gaining his powers.  I didn't particularly like his character, though.  And for every opportunity Lively had to give a damsel scream, Sarsgaard delivered two anguished moans, which got old quickly.  As for the rest of the cast, I really liked Mark Strong as Sinestro, the most powerful Green Lantern; Strong did a great job with a character that could have come across as simply a dick.  Instead, he made the character seem driven and burdened with responsibility, which is more complexity than I expected to get out of any of the aliens in this cast.  I liked the other aliens Green Lanterns, too, especially the fish-like Tomar-Re (voiced by Geoffrey Rush, who also narrated) and Kilowog (voiced by Michael Clark Duncan).  I was a little disappointed that Clancy Brown's voice acting skills were under-utilized, but that was no big deal.  Rounding out the cast, Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, and Jay O. Sanders all play boring character roles.

Geoffrey Rush, out of costume.

As in most movies, especially blockbusters, there were some strong performances and some weak ones in Green Lantern.  But acting was never going to be what truly decided how good this movie would be.  Director Martin Campbell's job was to make Hal Jordan into a cool hero.  He's done it well in the past (two Bond movies), so you would think that this would be second nature to him.  I believe that he gave his best effort, but was overcome by a few difficulties.  Campbell made a truly fantastic visual spectacular, and I thought the CGI looked great, without a single cheap-looking moment; this was a bright and shiny superhero movie, no doubt about it.  There were certainly parts of the movie I really enjoyed; I thought the scenes set in space were all pretty cool and Ryan Reynolds gave a likable performance.

"Likable" in a "Smell me" kind of way.

And yet, this movie falls tragically short of being cool.  What's wrong with this film?  To put it bluntly, the story is a bright green steaming pile of crap.  Let's look at the story choices first; I'm not talking about the plot, just the way the story was written.  There is no reason for there to be so much back story in a superhero movie, especially before the audience is given a glimpse of the main character.  Wouldn't it have been way cooler for the audience and Hal Jordan to discover the galactic majesty of the Green Lantern Corps together?  As a space opera, Green Lantern is pretty solid.  It's those pesky Earthlings that screw up the movie. I was seriously disappointed in the ways Hal used his power ring; if the fish-looking alien can do cool stuff with his, why does the human Green Lantern have such a limited imagination?  That ring can do anything, and he resorts to giant green fists and guns?  To be fair, though, that is a problem that definitely exists in the comic, too (check this article for more info).  I hated the obvious story parallels between Hector Hammond, Hal Jordan, and the development of their powers; that was a lazy plot device to point out that Hal is a hero because overcoming fear is good.  And I thought that the character that fed on the fear of others would end up being the sympathetic hero!  What an insulting theme.  Hector Hammond's character also had waaaaay too much screen time.  Hammond, in this movie, is a henchman of Parallax; we learn about his childhood, his family, his job, and his lust.  This guy is a glorified Odd Job and he has more development than the big villain, Parallax.  That's a problem.

But the problems don't end with the ideas behind the story, they definitely made it into the plot.  What is Parallax's evil plan?  To destroy the Guardians of the Universe and the Green Lantern Corps.  Well, after he kills Abin Sur, he then waits for a few days, until Hal Jordan has time to come to travel across the universe a few times, doubt himself, and ultimately come to grips with his new responsibility.  Apparently, Parallax had underwear gnome logic.

In his case, Phase 1 was killing Abin Sur, Phase 3 was Destroying the Corps, and Phase 2 is where this movie takes place.  That is far from the only instance of extreme pointlessness by a character in this movie.  Hal finally decides to grow a pair and fight the yellow cloud thing to protect the Earth, but he can't do it alone.  He travels to the Guardians and asks for help, but is refused any.  So, what does the guy who traveled across the universe to get help because he can't defeat his enemy alone do?  He asks permission to face his enemy alone.  What?!?  That's the stuff of headaches, my friends.  And at least Hal left his planet undefended with the yellow apocalypse on its way to make that scene happen.  **face palm**  Perhaps the most frustrating plot line involved Sinestro, who was a pretty cool character.  SPOILER ALERT: Sinestro decides to fight fire with fire and has the Guardians create a yellow ring to channel the power of fear in his fight against Parallax.  The ring is made, and is handed to Sinestro.  And he never uses it.  If this movie had to have two villains, I would have much preferred to see Sinestro as the tough drill sergeant-type antagonist, using the yellow ring and failing, corrupting himself in the process.  But nooooo, we needed Hector "Lumpy" Hammond to lurch his way across the screen.

Many possibilities, few actualized.

As much as this movie frustrated me, I have to admit that it was mediocre dumb fun (emphasis on the "dumb").  It looked gorgeous and had a few pretty cool characters, and lots of things went boom.  There were several moments where I was entertained, although most of them were not terribly relevant to the larger plot.  And it definitely could have been worse.  That doesn't mean that this ridiculously ill-conceived story is anything less than an enormous disappointment, both for fans of the comic and people looking to enjoy some cosmic-level movie fun.  Ultimately, this mess gets a disappointing

By the way, am I the only person who hated Hal Jordan's Green Lantern costume?  I was fine with the glowing stuff, but I thought the mask was awful and the choice to make it skintight was downright peculiar.  The ring presumably makes a suit to fit the personality of the wearer, right?  Well, how vain is Hal Jordan if he needs a costume that flaunts his butt and abdominal muscles at all times?  I get that Ryan Reynolds is an astonishing hunk, but that uniform was tighter than Catwoman's.

Syriana

 Syriana is a challenging film to watch.  Its title alone --- which I don't believe the movie ever directly addresses --- refers to the idea of people or countries molding other nation-states however they see fit, and the hubris behind such thinking.  As you might have guessed, this isn't a romantic comedy.

The plot behind Syriana, while comprehensible, is very complex, so I'm not going to waste any time detailing it.  It would take me forever and you wouldn't want to read it anyway, since this is a film where paying attention to the story is the only way not to get lost.  The basic idea is that the world dependency on foreign oil is bad for a number of reasons.  Way to take a stand, Hollywood.  It also addresses the need for oil states to develop their own identities, the effectiveness of the CIA, and the costs/benefits of high-level corruption.  What makes Syriana interesting is that it chooses to handle these issues simultaneously, so we can see how each issue impacts another.  You won't see how everything fits together for some time, as there are four storylines that exist largely independent of each other until the final quarter of the movie.  When they dovetail together, though, you are left with something to think about.  Or not.  One thing that everyone can agree on is that this is definitely not an action movie.

I did a Google Image search for "syriana action" and found this.

The cast of Syriana is shockingly noteworthy, although many of these actors do not get a whole lot of screen time.  George Clooney won his only Oscar for his role as a CIA agent who specializes in protecting American interests in the Middle East.  The big news with his performance here is that Clooney gained some weight and a beard to play the part; I don't know how much that impacts his character.  Was this an Oscar-winning performance?  Eh.  It's a fine effort among an ensemble cast, but I don't find it particularly outstanding.  Matt Damon is also fine as a consultant hired by the prince of the oil-rich emirate to make the nation more fiscally sound.  His character is also handling marital issues and a family tragedy, so Damon has the opportunity to show off some complex skills in this film; I thought he did a very good job, given the businesslike script.  Jeffrey Wright plays a lawyer that has been hired to smooth the way for an enormous oil company to merge with a smaller one that has cornered a key market; his job is convince the antitrust people that the merger is corruption-free.  I like seeing Wright in key supporting roles, but I thought his character here was a too void of emotions.  I never really had a sense of his character, and the recurring attempt to give him depth just felt clumsy.  Those are the big three, as far as characters in this movie go.  None of them are fascinating in their own right, but they are all quite believable as ordinary people that are good at their respective jobs.

This is not Ocean's 14

There is a fourth storyline that addresses the plight of immigrant workers in the Middle East and the allure of militant Islam.  Of the three actors in this story, only the missile-buying militant (Amr Waked) acts with any sort of regularity, and it shows.  The two innocent youngsters are played by two innocent actors without much more than half a dozen visible emotions between them.

And then there's the rest of the cast.  In George's storyline, William Hurt does his typical good acting thing as a confidant and Mark Strong plays a very very bad man.  Both roles are easily within the acting range of these men, but it was nice to see them handled so well.  In Damon's story, Amanda Peet plays his wife; while not a particularly strong role, she didn't screw it up, which is much better than Peet's leading roles.  I thought Alexander Siddig was very likable as the progressive-minded Prince Nassir, possibly the most positive portrayal of a Middle Eastern Muslim I have seen in years.  In Wright's story, Chris Cooper plays a domineering business owner with an abrasive personality (shocker!), Christopher Plummer is one of those white men who like to be the power behind the throne, David Clennon is interested in corruption, and Tim Blake Nelson plays a corrupt oilman.  Of all these capable actors, only Nelson delivers anything exceptional.  He gives a speech about corruption (he's unapologetically pro-corruption, by the way) that was the highlight of the movie for me.  I would show a video clip of his rant, but apparently nobody on the internet cares about TBN (as his buddies undoubtedly call him) laying some truth down on Jeffrey Wright.  I was able to find my favorite scene of his from O Brother, Where Art Thou? though:


This is a difficult movie to direct, I'm sure, and I thought that Stephen Gaghan did a respectable job here.  I do not believe he got any great performances out of his wealth of actors (with the exception of Nelson), but he did do a good job piecing this film together in a comprehensible whole.  He doesn't dumb down the story (which was loosely based on See No Evil, a memoir by an ex-CIA agent), instead choosing to overwhelm viewers with the plot.  That choice may alienate some viewers, and that's understandable.  Personally, I was able to follow along, even though I was irritated by his seemingly arbitrary choices on when to cut to another storyline, which storyline to cut to, and when to include a caption on the screen to indicate where it was taking place.  The film looks decent enough, although the camera work is nothing special.  That's not too surprising, since Gaghan is an award-winning writer, not a director; he co-wrote this movie, as well as Traffic.

As much as I appreciate what Syriana does right --- an interesting and relevant political story, interweaving plot threads, and moral shades of gray --- there are just too many things that it does wrong or simply avoids to make it a great movie.  The only character in the film that has a full character arc is Clooney's, and that development is mostly off-camera and is cut short.  There are so many characters and so little time given to them that it was hard to care about any.  I realize that, as a plot-driven "issue" movie, that isn't really the point of the film.  I also don't care.  There are three potentially interesting stories in this film (the terrorists-in-training one was predictable and dull) and all three had the acting talent to make them work.  The fact that this isn't an acting tour de force (or at least fun to watch) is almost criminal.  There are five Oscar winners involved with this movie, and the best scene features Tim Blake Nelson monologuing?  That makes no damn sense, and I like Nelson.

Not as much as Lisa does, though.

I also didn't find the story to be particularly revelatory.  Maybe I'm cynical, but the CIA trying to control foreign governments to get America what resources it needs sounds pretty accurate.  The stuff of bastards?  Sure.  But it makes sense, from a "me first and screw everyone else" point of view.  Nelson's speech was the only interesting take on these issues in the whole movie, and that's a shame because I think this could have been so much more interesting.  The whole story with Damon and Siddig had potential --- how to introduce political and socioeconomic change effectively within an orthodox Islamic culture has relevance, right? --- but didn't have enough time to develop on its own.  Clooney's CIA agent (with a heart of gold) could have had his own movie.  Wright's legal storyline takes on thriller overtones as soon as his boss starts playing king maker.  But when you squeeze these stories into one (well-edited, mind you) movie, they don't have room to grow.  Syriana has some great ideas in it, but the barrage of plot simply distracts you from the fact that you can't care for any of these characters.

Robin Hood (2010)

You might not remember this, but when Russell Crowe originally signed on to this project, it was to play the Sheriff of Nottingham.  As a hero.  Whatever.  Later, he was going to play both the Sheriff and Robin Hood; I don't know if he was going to do an Eddie Murphy makeup job to pull it off, or if it was a plot twist that had one character assuming the role of the other, or if he was going to be costumed like Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever or what.  Eventually, the project mutated further, which brought it back to the more recognizable form we see in this film.

I mention the history behind the project because it helps make sense of some of the choices this movie makes.  A lot of the iconic scenes from past Robin Hoods are absent here and a few characters that have been historically important roles are pushed aside here.  That doesn't make this a bad movie, mind you.  It's just different.  If you think of this as "Robin Hood Begins," then you'll be able to approach the movie with a fresh mind-set and appreciate it for what it is: a Ridley Scott-directed, Russell Crowe-starring action movie.  And there's nothing wrong with that.

Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) is coming back from the Crusades in the army of King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) of England, when the army pauses on their journey home to pillage a French castle.  Bad idea; the Lionheart dies.  Robin and his buddies decide to rush to the coast while they can, because they know the rush to England will make boat rides pretty scarce.  They weren't the only ones with this idea; Robin Locksley of Nottingham was leading a party of knights to the king's ship to escort his royal crown back to England and give it to the royal family.  Again, bad idea; the knights are ambushed by French soldiers, led by Godfrey (Mark Strong), the right-hand man of Prince John.  Godfrey is working as a double agent, pretending to be loyal to England, but is really working for France's King Phillip in exchange for power and riches.  Robin and his men ambush the ambushers, killing most but Godfrey escapes with a nasty Joker-esque scar from Robin's arrow.  Robin promises the dying Locksley to return his family sword to Nottingham and the crown to the royal family.  Oddly enough, he does both.

That synopsis doesn't even get into the meat of the story, does it?  This is a pretty complicated plot for a character that is supposed to rob from the rich and give to the poor.  I could go on, but it gets a little silly.  I suppose that should be rephrased as, "I can go on, and it gets a little silly out of context:"

• Robin assumes the identity of Robin Locksley, then abandons it, only to assume it once more upon the request of Locksley's father (Max von Sydow).  
• The sheriff of Nottingham is bullied by Godfrey's men and contributes absolutely nothing to the plot or character development of the movie.  
• Robin is only referred to as "Robin Hood" twice in the entire movie.
• Are those the Lost Boys from Peter Pan in Sherwood Forest?
• Robin fights for King John.  
• Robin is married to Marion before they even kiss.  
• There is an implied orgy.
• He steals from the rich church and gives to the poor plants crops in the night.

Surprisingly, this all works pretty well.  Godfrey and his French soldiers have been attacking the towns and property of the British nobles, in the name of King John.  Logically, the nobles prepare to team up and attack King John; this is Godfrey's plan to weaken England's army so France can invade.  Robin steps in and essentially suggests the Magna Carta by declaring that every man should have liberty by law.  This is enough to get England to band together and they attack France's invading forces in a suitably epic battle.  To put it simply, a lot happens in this movie.

Ridley Scott can direct an action movie in his sleep, which might be why parts of this film are a tad reminiscent of the battle scenes from his previous movies.  Still, Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland (who is completely hit and miss --- The Postman AND LA Confidential?  Really?!?  A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master AND Man on Fire?!?) clearly wanted this to be a unique middle ages experience.  This is definitely the most authentic-looking Robin Hood movie to date, with what appears to be genuine military strategy from those times.  The weapons look good and they are used correctly; this is important if you're one of those people who doesn't think action heroes should be able to carry anti-aircraft guns and run at the same time.  The clothing also is very authentic.  The details throughout the film add to the appeal because they aren't necessarily obvious, but every so often I found myself thinking "Oh, look, Robin's bow fingers look different than the rest of his hand," or something like that.  Not terribly important stuff always, but nice to see.

Russell Crowe generally acts in movies where he is the only developed character, and that is basically true here.  This isn't an Oscar-worthy role for him, but he does everything you want Crowe to do in an action movie: he is tough, honorable, a little sensitive, and looks a little uncomfortable making jokes.  Oh, and he's a bad-ass.  Can't forget that.  The next most developed character is Marion, played by Cate Blanchett; Blanchett, like Crowe, turns in a pretty standard performance here.  She's still a go-to actress to play smart characters and she plays the role appropriately.  Mark Strong is dastardly as Godfrey, but he doesn't do much except be eeee-veeeel.  There is no denying that he does bad well.  There is also no denying that he looks like an evil Andy Garcia.  The rest of the characters are much less developed.  I actually liked Kevin Durand as Little John; he provides a lot of the smiles in the movie and he looks huge here, as opposed to most Little Johns, who have tended toward "big boned" as well as strong.  Scott Grimes (Will Scarlet), Alan Doyle (Allan A'Dayle), and Mark Addy (Friar Tuck) are okay as the rest of Robin's Merry Men, but they are in the background for most of the movie.  Similarly, William Hurt and Danny Huston are left criminally underused in this story.  Matthew Macfayden played the Sheriff of Nottingham, but his three scenes just leave you scratching your head, because he is ineffectual, at best.  To be fair to Macfayden, though, the character has nothing to do in this film.  On the other hand, Oscar Isaac is suitably weasely as King John, playing rude, ruthless, and wussy simultaneously.  Eileen Atkins (as King John's mom) and Lea Seydoux (King John's wife) are fittingly regal and actually succeed with the little material they are given.  Overall, I would say the acting is surprisingly good for the number of characters in the movie, but most of the performances are superficial.

That said, there were some things in this movie that bugged me.  First of all, I have a problem with movie titles that imply that their story is the definitive telling of a particular tale (see Ed Gein or Pearl Harbor for examples).  By calling this movie "Robin Hood," viewers have every reasonable expectation to see the iconic scenes from the legend and previous film adaptations, like the scene where Robin and Little John meet over a river (which is kind-of-not-really replaced with a game of medieval three card monte).  I have no problem with that scene (or any others) being omitted here; I just think that, since this is clearly a re-imagining of the story, the title should have been changed to Robin Hood Begins, The Untold Truth of Robin Hood, or even Robin Longstride or Robin of the Hood.  Any of these would have clearly pointed out that this story could differ from the more familiar ones.

Another problem I have is the historical inaccuracies.  Most Robin Hood stories end when King Richard returns to England to reclaim his throne; here he dies before Robin becomes a Hood.  Robin (and his father before him) propose a charter of rights (clearly alluding to the Magna Carta, which King John will eventually sign), but the dates of the movie set this up over a decade early.  King John never went into battle.  Oh, and one more minor point... the French never invaded England.  HA!  It's like making a Revolutionary War movie and having America fight the Spanish, or a Civil War film that uses the secession of states as the reason why Canada isn't part of this country.  Oh, our culture is ignorant.  Of course, little things like the perversion of history are not going to bother anyone. 

Inaccuracies aside, I enjoyed this movie.  It's got a lot of plot for a pretty simple story, but it still makes sense.  The action is good and the acting is pretty solid throughout.  I'm a little surprised that Robin doesn't do his normal Socialist thing of redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor.  His whole take on individual freedoms seems an awful lot like Libertarianism to me, which is an interesting direction to take such an iconic character.  I wish there was more humor in the movie, but the tone is at least consistent throughout.  If the focus had been on character development instead of a plot that incorporated so many known-but-underused characters here, I think the film would have been much more enjoyable.  Really, do we need to have Friar Tuck, Allan A'Dayle, William Marshall, or even the Sheriff of Nottingham in this story?  No.  With so many changes from the traditional tale, this movie could have easily gotten away with omitting a lot of the supporting cast.  Of course, some of these criticisms only occurred to me after thinking about the movie for a bit.  I have no problem saying that (aside from the history lesson) I had no problems when the movie was playing.