EVIL DEAD Hails to the Kings of Horror, But Must Also Live In Their Shadows

EVIL DEAD Review:

- Way back when, Sam Raimi made THE EVIL DEAD - on a shoestring budget and with a cast of unknowns - and it was pretty awesome. The film won a cult following for its visual imagination, over-the-top gore, and harrowing cinematography. At the same time, there was a do-it-yourself quality to the film that inspired horror fans. If Raimi could do so much with so little, then maybe they, too, could create low-budget scares with a little ingenuity and imagination. Still, the low-budget cult classic seemed ripe for a remake. And it got one - EVIL DEAD 2. This second installment essentially re-told the story of the original, but in a way that heightened everything that made the original so cool. The second film took advantage of star Bruce Campbell's natural charisma and made his character, Ash, into a bonafide monster-slaying, one-liner-spouting, chainsaw-wielding action hero. Evil Dead 2 birthed the modern-day cult of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell - it took the gore of the first film to Looney Tunes extremes, and pitted a crazy-eyed Ash against all manner of nightmarish undead creatures (including an army of evil miniature Ash clones). Eventually, Raimi and Campbell made a third film - ARMY OF DARKNESS - that shifted from horror/comedy to action/comedy - making the time-displaced Ash an epic hero, leading an army of medieval warriors against an army of skeletal demons.

As I said, the original EVIL DEAD was, really, already remade by its own director and star. But now, with the film series' fandom at an all-time high - cultivated over multiple generations of fanboys and fangirls - and a new generation of Evil Dead n00bs poised to discover the franchise a-fresh, the original is once again being mined for a remake. I don't know all the backstage politics behind the remake, but ultimately, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell signed on as producers (along with original producer Robert Taipi), hired newcomer Fede Alvarez to direct, and here we are - a new Evil Dead that yes, is a reboot of sorts - but also a film with definite creative ties to the original cult classics.

Before I go further, let me just say that in and of itself, it's sort of mind-blowing that an EVIL DEAD film was #1 at the box office this past weekend. While I had slightly mixed feelings about the movie, and mixed feelings about its existence in general, if the end result is a true booster shot for the franchise that helps shine the spotlight on the originals (and maybe even lead to a true fourth film, or a crossover with this version) - then, hey - awesome!

But even just based on its own merits, I am happy for this film's box office success. After seeing the film, I can say it was deserved. While I don't think it has the same spark of holy-crap awesomeness that the originals (and for me, EVIL DEAD II, in particular) possessed, there is enough coolness, enough ingenuity, enough fun to place this new Evil Dead above most of its horror competition.

I saw Fede Alvarez speak at WonderCon in Anaheim a few weeks ago, and he made a great point. What separates Evil Dead from other horror franchises is this: Evil Dead films have a hero. This is why Army of Darkness was a natural extension of Evil Dead 2 ... Evil Dead 2 wasn't just a movie about monsters preying on people. It took the next step, and eventually became about those people - one in particular (Ash) - fighting back. The same is true of this new Evil Dead, and in that respect, it honors the spirit of the originals, and leads to a scenario in which the monsters do their damage, but then, well, they get theirs.

I have mixed feelings about Alvarez's direction. On one hand, the guy is clearly uber-talented. He does some great stuff here - and the film is positively stacked with horror-movie money shots. The guy knows how to do the sorts of big, jaw-dropping, can-you-believe-this-is-happening moments that are a trademark of the franchise. He also never fails to pay homage to Sam Raimi, utilizing Raimi's (and the series') trademark "unseen evil force zooming through the woods" shot at key moments - marking this instantly as an heir to the Evil Dead empire. To his credit, he also insists on using practical f/x for most of the film, and it really pays off - giving the gore a visceral, tangible quality that is a nice call-back to the original's home-made aesthetic. What is lacking in Alvarez's direction is a little harder to quantify. I guess I'd say it's "atmosphere." Sam Raimi is the master of creating fantastic, left-of-center worlds that have a quirky, fantastical, surreal quality to them - whether you're talking the fog-filled nightmare-scape of Evil Dead or the Marvel Comics-verse of Spiderman. This new Evil Dead ... it feels too generic, too slick, too same-y as compared to other modern horror flicks. The gore and action is there, but where was the mood, the imagination? It's funny, because during the end credits of the film, the spooky narration from the original plays, describing the Necronomicon and the mythology of the series ... and it was one of the few times when the movie felt a little less in-your-face and self-consciously gritty, and a little more creepy and atmospheric.

To that end, the other place where this movie lacks is in the imagination department. Now, it's clear the film is going more for an Evil Dead 1 vibe and less Evil Dead 2. It's not trying to be quite so cartoonish. Or is it? The movie is a bit schizo in that department. Because really, the big applause-worthy moments are all either a.) call-backs to the original, or else b.) super over-the-top moments that veer towards the comedic. But the movie *also* seems to want to be sort of gritty, sort of serious. More serious, certainly, than Evil Dead II or Army of Darkness. You get the sense though, that there's a bit of an internal battle there. After all, none other than Diablo Cody was brought in to do script punch-ups. But back to the imagination thing ... when I think of Evil Dead as a franchise, for better or worse, I think of mini-Bruce Campbell's, horrifying demons, armies of skeletons. The monsters here are never all that engaging - just your usual undead-types. It goes back to that lack of Raimi's eye for characters and creature design.

Who knows though - maybe that's what this is, in some ways - a mirror of the original franchise. Maybe this film is supposed to be mostly dark, mostly played-straight, but hint at the humorous, cartoonish possibilities that could color a second or third entry in the series. The movie's post-credits tag certainly hints at a more fun direction to come. As it stands though, I think many will debate just how "funny" this movie is supposed to be. I detected an undercurrent of dark humor throughout. But I think some might label this as a mostly "serious" take on Evil Dead. Alvarez tries to have it both ways. It works, mostly. But it also feels like a movie that - even over the course of its own running time - is struggling a bit to figure out what kind of movie it is. Even many of the film's big, gory moments are walking a very fine line between hardcore/gritty and over-the-top/funny. At times, it's almost hard to know how the movie wants us to react.

Alvarez does add a very clever twist to the story though, making it about Jane Levy's Mia, and her struggle to recover from drug addiction. In the original movies - hell, in many of these kinds of movies - the characters end up going to the proverbial cabin in the woods ... just because (a cliche that was brilliantly satirized in last year's Cabin in the Woods). But Alvarez mostly avoids making "Cabin in the Woods: The Serious Version" by using Mia's story as a metaphor and framing device. In order to overcome the demons in her head, she's got to literally battle through an army of honest-to-god demons.

Luckily, Jane Levy kills it in the film. I was already a fan from Suburgatory, but man, this film demonstrates she's got the chops to be a new horror movie icon. Levy has no easy task - she's got to play drug-addicted Mia, demon-possessed Evil Mia, and then badass horror hero in the Ash mold Mia. And she does all three with aplomb. In particular, I loved Levy's evil demon-possessed stuff - seeing the sweet-faced TV star say horrible and filthy things as she taunts and torments her friends is a lot of fun.

The other actors in the film? Much more "meh." Lou Taylor Pucci is decent as the geeky English teacher who reads "the words" from the Necronomicon and accidentally dooms his friends, but post-Cabin in the Woods, he does feel a bit like a wannabe Fran Kranz. The rest of the cast is okay, but there are no real standouts. Luckily though, MVP Jane Levy is there to carry the film. During the segments where she's out of the picture though ... there is a lot of lost momentum.

What really upped my opinion of the movie though was its balls-to-the-wall third act. Once Levy gets to let loose and kick ass, I sat up in my seat and began to smile. Alvarez said it, Evil Dead is about a hero taking on the armies of darkness. And while this new one takes its sweet time establishing its hero, the payoff is pretty damn entertaining. The film finds its gory groove towards the end, and with Levy at the helm, really takes off. I'm not saying that I don't appreciate a good slow build. Only that the middle section of the film feels a little too "dumb characters making dumb decisions," and I began to lose interest.

There is a lot to like in this new Evil Dead. It pays a ton of homage to the originals, while delivering to us a new horror hero - a damaged-but-determined girl named Mia - who makes an interesting counterpoint to the square-jawed S-Mart employee Ash. Will we get to see their universes collide one day? We can hope. And it's to this film's credit that, despite its flaws, it still left me eager for more Evil Dead, and excited about the directions that the franchise could go from here.

My Grade: B

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION Is Joe For the XBOX Age

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION Review

- The first G.I. Joe movie was, to me, a pleasant surprise. Instead of an overly grim and "edgy" reimagining of a beloved kids' property from the 80's, we got a fun, over-the-top action film that embraced the show's cartoon and comic-book roots. Stephen Sommers is an underrated director who makes the most of any film he works on - visually, few can match him for sheer spectacle. Now, it's director Jon Chu's turn to try his hand at building G.I. Joe into a legitimate action franchise. Based on box office numbers, he's done his job. But is this sequel enough to get nostalgic fanboy's blood pumping? Or is this a weaksauce cash-in, whose troubled production schedule is indicative of a disaster-in-the-making? The fact is, the movie is fun and harmless - with some nice moments and some fist-pump worthy action scenes. But, it also lacks the madcap comic-book fun of the first film, giving the film a greyed-out feel, with only scattered moments of color and vibrancy.

Here's what *is* sort of awesome about the move:

1.) Jonathan Pryce playing the shape-shifting Zartan inhabiting the body of Jonathan Pryce/The President of the United States. Look, Pryce is a phenomenal actor, one who can do more with a subtle head nod or half-smile than most can do with an entire monologue. He does a fantastic job of making Evil President truly and entertainingly evil. And in fact, Pryce emerges as the movie's unlikely MVP. He spouts all kinds of gleefully menacing lines. When a terrified diplomat asks him what he wants, he flashes a sinister grin and hisses "I want it all." Awesome. Plus, Pryce even plays opposite himself - as the actual, not-evil President - and manages to do a bang-up job of it. G.I. Joe is lucky to have him as such a big part of the cast.

2.) There is something crazy going on in this movie with fan-favorite ninja-Joe, Snake Eyes. While most of the movie is a little more reigned-in, a lot less cartoonish and crazy than the first film - Snake Eyes and eternal nemesis Storm Shadow are in their own mini ninja epic that seems to be playing out in parallel to the rest of the film. In this quasi film-within-the-film, RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan plays a bushy-browed sensei, Elodie Young plays a badass warrior woman named Jinx, and there are all kinds of insane ninja fights. In fact, midway through the movie, there is an action sequence so badass and so breathtaking that it literally seems like it's excerpted from a different movie altogether. In this scene - which has been previewed in most of the trailers - Snake Eyes and Jinx engage in a jaw-dropping battle with an army of Cobra ninjas while suspended from the side of a rocky, snow-covered mountain. And it is one of the coolest action scenes I've seen in some time. And yet, nothing else in the film even comes close to it - or even feels like it came from the same director. Seriously, what is going on here? It's like someone ran up to John Chu and pumped him up with a nitro boost before he went to direct that scene. Or else Stephen Sommers was brought in to inject some Mummy-style awesome on the sly. I don't know. But damn, what a scene. Overall though, the tone of the Snake Eyes segments is pretty crazy - aping old kung-fu flicks and possessed of a reckless abandon that the rest of the movie lacks. It creates some pretty jarring tonal inconsistency, but still, I dug all the Snake Eyes stuff.

3.) Walton Goggins plays a badass prison warden. No, he doesn't use his cool accent from Justified, but he still sort of rules it, and gets in a moment or two where he gets to go toe to toe with Storm Shadow. No, this is not a part anywhere near worthy of Walton Goggins, but still, a nice surprise.

Here's what is a mixed bag in the movie:

1.) The Rock. I always come away from watching The Rock in an action movie thinking that he is a pretty solid actor. But at the same time, he rarely wows me. He's a hard worker - you can tell he's not just going through the motions. And yet, he sort of is. He's playing "The Rock" - not the charismatic and hilarious prima donna WWE character, but the toned-down, generic blue-collar badass-with-a-soft-side version that crops up in most movies starring Dwayne Johnson. Which is to say that his turn here as Roadblock is pretty bland. The Rock is watchable, he's entertaining, but I also don't know if he'll ever be as entertaining as he is when he's the WWE version of "The Rock." Roadblock is basically a generic tough guy bruiser type. Nothing special, not a memorable character in any way shape or form.

2.) Cobra Commander. There's actually a huge upside to Joseph Gordon-Levitt not returning to this film as Cobra Commander: we actually get to see the character with his mask on the whole movie, looking straight out of the cartoons, using a modulated voice that sounds awesomely evil. Great, right? Not so much, because Cobra Commander - aside from looking cool - does jack squat the whole movie. Zartan is really the one with the screentime (along with Ray Stevenson's Firefly, who's sort of the hired thug of Cobra), but it's a mistake to leave CC on the sidelines for so much of the film. We never really get a sense of the cult of Cobra, of his hold on his followers, of him as an uber-villain. He's mostly just there.

3.) Adrianne Palicki. She's pretty good as Lady Jay. She looks the part. She believably kicks ass. She does solid work here. Too bad she's stuck in a lame, chemistry-less romance with personality-less Flint.

Speaking of which, here's what sort of sucks about G.I. JOE:

1.) Flint. This dude sucks. He does parkour stuff and, well, that's about it. Not worthy of main-player status. And as played by DJ Cotrona, he's bland as hell.

2.) Destro. He makes a cameo, but then isn't in the movie, with no real explanation except Cobra Commander saying something about how he's "not in the band anymore." Um, what? Maybe this is all set up for G.I. Joe 3: Destro's Revenge? I don't know. Lame.

3.) Bruce Willis as "Joe," the original G.I. Joe. Yep, his name is freakin' Joe, and *that's* why they are called Joes. Really? Yes, really. Anyways, Willis pretty much sleepwalks through this one, and does nothing that cool or interesting. And his character adds nothing to the Joe mythology and feels tacked-on. Couldn't we have gotten Sgt. Slaughter or something for this role? I'm not saying Willis doesn't have some fun moments, but they're all based on "look, it's Bruce Willis as a world-weary grizzled badass who's too old for this $#%&." In other words, 90% of all Bruce Willis roles.

4.) The pacing of the plot is broken. Basically, the end of this movie should have been the middle. The film is way too concerned with giving extra screentime to Channing Tatum's ill-fated Duke in the first act, and not nearly concerned enough with raising the stakes and positioning Cobra as a serious threat. Zartan and co. take over the White House and replace the American Flag with the Cobra flag - awesome ... if it happened in the middle of the movie, setting up a Cobra-controlled government that only the now-rogue Joes could topple. But withing the span of minutes, the Cobra flag is flown, the Joes burst on the scene, and the day is saved before Old Glory has even touched the ground. Basically, it makes the movie's third act feel rushed and fairly anticlimactic.

5.) Cobra's plot is pretty uninspired. We can infer that they want to use Zartan-as-Prez to arrange a forced disarmament of the world's nuclear powers, but then secretly have the newly-installed Cobra world order control the last remaining nukes. I'm not saying it's not a good plan, from a practical perspective. I'm just saying from a story perspective, it's so cut and dried as to be, well, boring. I mean, this is Cobra we're talking about. They must have some master plan beyond just controlling the nukes? Perhaps if we were allowed to glimpse what the world would look like under Cobra's iron fist (see above), their plan would have a bit more oomph. But as it stands, it feels too much like we're watching the plot of a "24" movie play out, except with guys named Roadblock and Firefly instead of Jack Bauer.

Overall, I found G.I. JOE: RETALIATION to be a pretty enjoyable - if not sort-of-stupid - popcorn flick. The Snake Eyes segments showed glimpses of the type of visual imagination and flair I would have liked to have seen throughout the rest of the film. But mostly, I was a bit surprised at how, well, ordinary everything felt. Perhaps it's a sign of the times that this G.I. Joe feels in some ways less like the colorful cartoons of the 80's and more like the brown-hued worlds of Halo and Gears of War (they even replicate those games' fire-and-seek-cover mechanics in the action scenes) - more about big guns and bad attitudes than over-the-top costumes and personalities. This G.I. Joe is, certainly, more XBOX 360, less Saturday morning cartoon.

My Grade: B-

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES Is An Ambitious Genre-Mashup

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES Review:

- The Place Beyond the Pines is one of those films that I'd easily recommend that any real film fan check out asap, but also one that I had some reservations with. It's frustrating, because the movie is admirably ambitious, features some incredible performances, and has certain sequences that are truly memorable. But it's also a movie that feels like it's overreaching a bit, halting its own momentum with a clunky structure and a number of plot points and twists that feel contrived. There is greatness in this film, but it's weighted down by a number of elements that just don't quite work. Still, it's easily worth watching as an interesting and discussion-provoking film - an example of a movie that has a lot on its mind, but can't quite articulate it all in a cohesive and fluid fashion.

This is a film, primarily, about fathers and sons. From Derek Cianfrance, the guy behind Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines has a similar moody darkness that permeates throughout. It's also a hard movie to talk about without giving away major spoilers, so bear with me as I try to talk around any major plot points. I will say this though: in my opinion, the first third of this film is incredible. If the film had simply stuck to its initial narrative, expanded it, filled in some of the gaps, and called it a day, I think we'd be looking at a possible Oscar contender. But Cianfrance isn't necessarily interested in telling that sort of story. Instead, he divides the film into three distinct but interconnected segments, with each segment completely shifting its focus to a different set of characters. And unfortunately, the film seems to lose momentum each time a new segment begins.

To back up though, the first segment is an amazing piece of filmmaking. It features Ryan Gosling as Luke, a down-on-his-luck drifter circa 1990 or so. Luke, perpetually sporting a tattered Metallica t-shirt, feels like a slightly de-mystified version of Gosling's character from Drive. He's a loner, a vagabond who makes end's meat by working as a motorcycle stuntman in a travelling carnival. One day, however, while at a show in upstate NY, Luke runs into a woman, Romina (Eva Mendes) who he'd had a brief fling with a year prior. Luke discovers that Romina has a son - it's his - and Luke becomes determined to force his way into Romina and their child's life (despite Romina shacking up with another man and wanting little to do with him). But Luke is persistent. He quits the carnival and gets a job working for a burnout mechanic named Robin (an amazing Ben Mendelsohn). Eventually, Robin convinces Luke to partner with him to rob banks. Luke goes along with it, and becomes quite good at it to boot. And so a classic sort of story begins to unfold - the kind that will be familiar to fans of Breaking Bad. Even as Luke finds something he's good at, his life of crime creates two problems for every problem it solves, and even as he enjoys success, it's only a matter of time until the other shoe drops.

Man ... this initial segment with Gosling is so well done - it had me captivated. From a visual perspective, the entire first third is incredibly shot. The heist sequences are gritty, visceral, ultra-intense. Other scenes have a moody, foreboding, neon-lit film noir atmosphere. And Gosling, Mendes, and Mendelsohn are absolutely at the top of their games. Gosling brings the same sort of quiet intensity that he brought to Drive, and delivers a powerful, magnetic performance. Mendes is at her best, world-weary yet ever so slightly curious about the mystery man who's come back into her life. And Mendelsohn is wonderful - funny, charismatic, and memorable as a ne'er do well small-time hood who sees Luke as his ticket back to the bigtime. The absorbing characters, the top-flight performances, and the visually-stunning direction make this first segment positively electric. As the segment culminated in a shocking chase scene (as we are introduced, on the fly, to Bradley Cooper as the driven cop Avery Cross), I was on the edge of my seat, and my jaw was on the floor as the screen faded to black.

But that is only the first of three segments. In the second segment, the focus switches to Cooper's character, who we learn is also the father of a young son. The tone of the film switches - no longer a neo-noir, the look and feel of the movie takes on the stylings of a procedural cop drama. The film adopts a more drab, more dull look. And the story, while compelling, lacks the all-or-nothing drama of Luke's tale. As it turns out, Cooper seems to be one of the few good cops in his precinct - hailed as a hero cop following an on-patrol injury, Cross seems to be a sort of white knight figure - especially in contrast to the corrupt, racist lawman played by Ray Liotta. But as the story progresses, we begin to see that Cross is partly motivated by altruism, but also partly by an aggressively political streak. Cross may not be as inherently corrupt as his colleagues, but he's got a survivalist instinct that makes him dangerous. Similar to Luke, we see how Cross makes a series of decisions that come, initially, from a pure place, but that end up becoming corrosive and corrupting.

The movie's middle section is carried by a great performance from Bradley Cooper - right up there with his work in Silver Linings Playbook. It's nice to see Cooper continue his streak of fantastic performances - and even more impressive, he's very much playing against type here - Cross is quiet, measured, carefully masking his motives with a mild-mannered demeanor. Liotta is also characteristically excellent - scary and imposing. But while the story works well in and of itself, it unravels a bit as it becomes apparent how Cianfrance wants it to connect thematically with the first segment. The ways that Cross' story mirrors Luke's - they don't quite hold up to scrutiny. And there starts to be a contrivance to the way that Cross keeps running into characters from Luke's story. Cianfrance is going for a "we're all connected" vibe, but as that increasingly becomes what the movie is about, it comes off less as profound and more as stretching.

And it feels like stretching to the breaking point when the film gets into its third and final segment. I won't spoil what this segment is about, but it continues Luke and Cross' story in an interesting, but ultimately forced-feeling manner. The highlight is, easily, Dane DeHaan (who was great in last year's CHRONICLE), playing Jason - a high school outcast. DeHaan does some fantastic work here, but it's offset a bit by the extremely over-the-top performance of Emory Cohen as AJ, a friend/rival of Jason's. This may be one of those love-it-or-hate-it things, but Cohen's performance in the film - where he seems to be trying to channel the ghost of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire - really took me out of the film. It was just too much - too cartoonish, too weird. And the backstory of his character - which has some major gaps and makes little sense - is also an issue. And so this third segment - which is essentially a mini high school coming-of-age drama - is easily the film's weakest. As Cianfrance attempts to tie up his ambitious saga in a bow, it collapses a bit under its own weight. There's two much we as an audience must blindly accept for it all to work, and the jumpiness of the narrative ends up hurting rather than helping the film.

And yet ... the last ten minutes or so of the film are quite strong, and function as a moving, memorable, and iconic epilogue to the first segment. It really made me wish that the movie had focused on Gosling's Luke, kept Cooper's Cross as a side character/rival, and perhaps featured a short epilogue with DeHaan's Jason. The ambitious structure, ultimately, makes the movie feel less fluid and much more clunky than it might have been otherwise. Like I said, it's frustrating, because I feel like the movie has all the ingredients to be a masterpiece. And for the first forty minutes or so, I was convinced I was watching a classic unfold. It's a great cautionary tale about how to tell (or perhaps not to tell) this sort of generation-spanning saga (and who knows, perhaps the story would have been better served as a TV miniseries). As is, THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES is a movie overflowing with incredible scenes and moments and performances. This is in many ways a must-see, because the film's best moments will likely be, at the end of the day, some of the best of any movie this year. It just, sadly, doesn't quite come together as it should. But ... what is there is well worth taking in, flaws and all.

My Grade: B+

THE CROODS Rocks

THE CROODS Review:

- It's strange how the economics of showbiz work sometimes. From my standpoint, for example, Dreamworks Animation has been on quite the roll these last few years. Where I once considered them a weaksauce would-be Pixar, I now find many of their films to be right up there in the same upper-echelon of awesome as the Disney-owned 500 pound animation gorilla. Kung-Fu Panda, How To Train Your Dragon, Megamind ... these are some of my absolute favorite animated films of the last several years. And yet, it seems as though an underperforming film or two reportedly caused some major financial issues at the company, and suddenly, a lot was riding on their latest film, THE CROODS. Well, luckily for Dreamworks, The Croods was a box office success - hopefully, it keeps them afloat and making movies for a long time to come. But fortunately for fans of great animated movies, The Croods is also a major creative success. It's a visually-dazzling movie with a lot of heart, fun characters, fun humor, and a sensibility that will entertain kids and adults alike. The movie isn't sensory-overload like Wreck-It-Ralph, or as thematically complex as a Wall-E or Toy Story 3, but it's uber-enjoyable and well worth checking out.

THE CROODS tells the story of a caveman named Grug and his family, who live alone in rocky prehistoric terrain. They live alone because - as is explained in an amusing prologue - all of the other nearby families have met fairly horrible fates ... devoured by wild beasts, etc. Grug is convinced that the reason that his family has persevered is because of his super-paranoid, super-cautious, uber-overprotective ways. His family motto is "Never don't be scared." And he keeps his family sheltered in their cave - their only excursions are to go out hunting/gathering - adventures which unfold with the timed precision of a carefully-executed football play. Grug takes no chances, and leaves little room for improvisation or going off-script. This, of course, annoys his teenage cave-daughter, Eep. Eep wants to go out and explore and see the world. And she gets her chance, but not in the way she anticipated. Her world, and that of her whole family's, is turned upside down when Eep encounters Guy, an evolved human who is convinced that the world is headed for disaster of apocalyptic proportions, and that the only chance for survival is to hightail it to high ground, and head for the towering mountains that lie in the distant horizon. In fact, Guy is right - the continents are shifting, land masses are colliding, and major stuff is goin' down. And so even though it's very much against Grug's nature to leave his cave and venture out into the unknown, he reluctantly takes his family - along with the cavalier, inventive, and very un-Grug-like Guy.

The first act or so of The Croods can feel a little slow at times - there's a lot of slow-build in order to establish Grug's stubbornness and the father-daughter tension between him and Eep. But once the film gets a head of steam - as The Croods venture out into the brave new world and encounter all sorts of strange flora and fauna - it becomes very engrossing and quite the roller coaster ride. There are all sorts of captivating visuals - and a lot of imagination on display. Sure, some might take issue with the fact that the movie takes huge liberties with history (and reality), in that most of the primordial beasts that the Croods come across are pure fantasy. But it does allow for some dynamo sequences and some eye-popping encounters. In any case, all of that initial character work does eventually pay off. The third act - which puts the Croods (and Grug in particular) in some surprisingly harrowing situations - is very effective and quite emotional. While the movie is set in a heightened, oversaturated, prehistoric cartoon world - the family dynamics in the film really ring true. Anyone that's ever dealt with an overprotective dad - or been one themselves - will find a lot to relate to in the relationship between Grug and Eep. Point being: despite the cartoonish and over-the-top nature of the film, there's a real relatability and humanity to these characters.

Part of that is in the script, part of it is in the outstanding voice work in the film. Nicholas Cage, for one ... well, he just may have been born to voice a cartoon caveman. He does a great job as Grug - infusing him with his trademark manic energy, but also giving him a fatherly sense of nervousness mixed with determination to protect his family. Rarely has Nic Cage been in the sort of movie that you would call "heartfelt," but he does a great job of bringing the heart to The Croods. Same goes for Emma Stone as Eep - she's really, really good - a mix of teenage rebellion and cavegirl goofiness, she's a thickly-built brickhouse of a girl who can be both a badass huntress and a wide-eyed teen smitten with the mysterious Guy. Ryan Reynolds is also quite good as Guy - making him both a know-it-all and a dude who has to overcompensate a bit given his semi-tragic backstory. Similarly good are Catherine Keener as supportive cave-mom Ugga, Cloris Leachman as the wily grandma, and Clark Duke as well-intentioned son Thunk. It's an excellent cast, though I'd definitely call Cage and Stone the MVP's.

As far as the animation goes - the art style itself didn't wow me, but many of the action sequences were very, very impressive, and everything looked great in 3D. There are also some more serene sequences of the new world that are pretty gorgeously animated. Honestly, I've always been a sucker for stories that take place in prehistoric times, so I loved exploring the world here alongside the Croods.

And like I said, while the overall story is fairly simple, it works really well and is propelled by the character dynamics. The movie probably has one too many montages that conveniently help the film condense a lot of plot and character stuff into a couple of quick music-video-style sequences. But this is at it's core a fairly straightforward movie with a straightforward message. But that message - about *not* being afraid of new and different things, of new ideas and of new adventures - is delivered in a fun, entertaining, and sincere manner.

THE CROODS was a surprisingly fun and sweet adventure. I'd recommend it to any and all animation fans, and I would also suggest that the bar has now been raised pretty high for other animated films in 2013.

My Grade: B+

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN Is Highly Entertaining, Highly Ridiculous

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN Review:

- OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is not a good movie. The script has more holes than swiss cheese, the f/x are spotty, the direction is muddled and rushed-feeling, and even though the film plays things essentially straight, it's filled with moments that are flat-out ridiculous. And yet ... this is a highly entertaining popcorn flick that I would urge any old-school action movie fan to run out and see in a crowded theater asap. The film mixes the over-the-top, ra-ra patriotism of an Independence Day with the brutal, hilariously extraneous violence of an 80's-era Schwarzenegger flick. So for all of the movie's faults, it is, still, one heck of a crowd-pleaser. Even as I was rolling my eyes at the stupidity, I was smiling at the sheer insanity of it all.

The set-up for this film is so cheesy, yet awesomely so (if awesomely cheesy floats your boat like it does mine). The movie even begins with a lengthy prologue that establishes the back-story for Gerard Butler's Mike Banning (even his name feels old-school!). We learn that Mike was once the President's (the President, as played by square-jawed Aaron Eckhart, is clearly in the Bill Pullman-in-Independence Day mold) lead secret service agent, until a fateful day when Mike failed to protect the President's wife (Ashley Judd) from the destructive force of ICE-COVERED ROADS. Following the first lady's death, Mike resigns from the secret service in disgrace, and takes a pencil-pushing office job in DC, mere blocks from the White House. Of course, Mike being the paranoid, overprotective type, keeps one eye out his office window for any signs of trouble at 1600 Penn. And one day, trouble comes. An undercover army of North Korean extremists (note: this is NOT the North Korean government, just a radical group from North Korea, FYI) INVADES WASHINGTON. Suddenly, the streets of DC are filled with machine gun-wielding evil North Koreans blowing the crap out of everyone and everything. Their ultimate target is the White House. After mowing down nearly everyone in the vicinity, the leader of the North Koreans (who is actually named KANG - seriously!) hold the President and key members of his cabinet (including feisty Melissa Leo as the Secretary of Defense) in a security bunker, eager to extract launch code information from them. Meanwhile, the President's young son is hiding somewhere in the White House, an ill-prepared Morgan Freeman (playing the Speaker of the House) assumes the role of Acting President, and dammit all, Mike Banning springs into action, on a one-man mission to infiltrate the heavily-guarded White House and singlehandedly kill as many evil North Koreans as possible, preferably via the method of STABBING IN THE BRAIN.

There are many, many things that make little to no sense in the film ... but at the end of the day, logic and sense are thrown out the window so that Gerard Butler can stab North Koreans, Aaron Eckhart can boldly refuse to give up classified information, and many slo-mo shots of the American flag being either lowered in defeat or raised in triumph can be shown. Butler is pretty okay in the role, though I don't think he does "ordinary Joe who can kill like a mofo" as well as he does "ancient king who can kill like a mofo." Suffice it to say, I did wonder a few times what this would have been like had it just been the 24 movie and starred Jack Bauer in all of his gravitas-infused glory. But while Butler doesn't have any truly iconic "yipee-kay-ay" moments (though he does stab many people in the head in quite remarkable fashion), he does a good job overall of carrying the film. And others like Eckhart, Leo, and Freeman just feel super-overqualified. You've got to give them credit - they commit fully to their parts, and imbue every line with so much sincerity and gung-ho purpose that, my god, you can't help but root for them to save the day (and god bless America while we're at it).

While it's easy to forgive, say, Aaron Eckhart, for some of the absurdities of his character in this movie, it's a little less easy to find the good in some of the other characters. One example is Dylan McDermott's shifty diplomat, who seems to have paper-thin motivation and seems only there to be the obligatory slimeball character. I get that this is a big action movie and we're dealing with archetypes, but there are certain character beats in the film - and certain twists in general - that really have no explanation beyond "just because."

In all honesty though, the biggest distraction in the film is the spotty direction and visuals. Whole segments often seem oddly/poorly lit and hard to decipher. Director Antoine Fuqua seems to get a little lost at times trying to keep track of all the action, which often feels sloppily cut. There's a lot of chaos in the initial North Korean invasion scenes - which I get is part of the point - but it's also sometimes nearly impossible to tell who's shooting at who. The f/x also veer from decent to laughable, with some scenes of aerial combat feeling particularly Playstation 1-ish.

Still, man ... the movie is just so bombastic, so gleefully over-the-top, so unabashedly absurd ... I had to admire it. While Antoine Fuqua shows little of Roland Emmerich's directorial panache, he seems to share his love for ham and cheese. This is a movie that doesn't miss a chance for a Big Speech, a Last Stand, or a Last Minute Save. It's an SNL parody waiting to happen, but not at all ashamed of that fact.

And so I'm a little torn. There is enough that is downright silly, dumb, or shoddily-handled in this film that I really hesitate to sing its praises too much. And yet, it's uber-watchable, and I had to admire the movie's giddy sense of balls-to-the-wall, anything-goes insanity. If nothing else, I was both shocked and amused to see a modern action film that embraced both 90's-style earnestness and 80's-style violence, all in a single package. And hey, when you've got guys like Morgan Freeman onboard - it makes the madness that much more epic. If you've got a soft spot for movies from those eras, and can ironically appreciate a cheesy action film and all of its so-bad-it's-good schlock (and as a pleasant antidote to the uber dark n' serious action films we tend to get nowadays), you'll probably want to see this. Good? No. Ridiculous? Yes. See it? Yeah, you really, probably should.

My Grade: B

STOKER Is Dark, Disturbing, Creepy, and Unforgettable

STOKER Review:

- Over the years, I'd heard whispers about an already-legendary Korean film called OLDBOY. Circa 2006, I'd seen it referenced in many articles, heard it spoken about reverently by film geeks and cinephiles. Oldboy was the movie you had to see if you considered yourself a film fan, and director Chan Wook-Park was the next big thing in badass filmmaking. So one day, I drove over to Amoeba in Hollywood on the hunt for the film. I purchased the DVD (Amoeba has everything), and eagerly brought it home. I watched OLDBOY, and instantly, I got what the hype was all about. This was the dawn of a new era of Asian extreme cinema. Now, several years later, comes STOKER. Stoker is Park's first American-made film, following an already legendary career in the Korean film world. Certainly, there was reason to be cautious about this one - would Park's unique sensibility - and his tendency towards extreme, psychological, intense filmmaking - get lost in translation? As it turns out, the answer is - hell no. Stoker is right up there with the most badass films that Park has yet made. It's visually stunning, disturbing, creepy, and just downright absorbing. Like all of Park's films, this one buries into your brain, gets you thinking, gets you talking.

STOKER is a story of innocence lost. Our main character is India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska), a sullen, brooding teenage girl - only child to a wealthy family - who is an outcast at school, and who has a troubled relationship with her Stepford-esque mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). India's world is thrown into further tailspin when her father Richard (Durmot Mulroney) is killed in a car accident. While India's relationship with her mother was frosty, she spent a lot of time with her father - he even made her his unlikely hunting companion on many occasions. Things take another strange turn when India's long-absent uncle, Charles (Matthew Goode) comes in for his brother's funeral. Charles - who explains away his scarcity by claiming to be a world traveler, decides to stay with India and her mother, in their stately home, for an extended period.

I hesitate to say much about the plot, because this is a narrative that slowly and hypnotically unfolds and reveals itself, and part of the joy here is letting the various twists and turns shock and surprise you. Suffice it to say, uncle Charles is not exactly what he seems. He's a rather dark, twisted sort of person. And he's all too eager to take the lonely, tormented India under his wing - to see if his suspicion is correct, that she too shares some of his darker proclivities.

Crazily enough, Stoker's got a screenplay written by none other than former Prison Break TV series star, Wentworth Miller. And - who knew? - the man can write. The more I thought about it, the more impressed I was with the screenplay's many layers, and with its thematic depth. There is a dreamlike/nightmarish quality to the storytelling that sees the narrative, at times, unfold in a nonlinear fashion. We also alternate between reality and the characters' psyches, at times having to parse out what's actually happening, versus what a character is imagining. It could have been clumsy, but it's all handled pretty elegantly. There's also a real sharpness to the dialogue - it's all delivered in a surreal, left-of-center manner - this is very stylized stuff - but it's memorable, striking, and effective.

And of course, the strong, twisty script is augmented immeasurably by Chan Wook-Park's fantastic direction. The guy does mood and atmosphere like few others, and here he creates gothic imagery that pops. He also adds to the film's haunting quality with a number of head-spinning shots and sequences that help to accentuate the film's feeling of danger, disorientation, and steadily-growing intensity. The film is nothing if not intense - both on a plot level (where *had* George been all of those years?), and on a psychological one. Park never shies away from using the story as a psycho-sexual coming-of-age allegory. George is the catalyst that jump-starts sullen-but-innocent India into her own twisted sort of awakening - one that mixes sex, violence, rebellion, and utter disillusion with the world around you. India begins realizing how dark and dangerous the world is - how filled with malice the people in her life (her mother, her classmates) really are - and so she decides to turn the tables, and become even worse, even darker.

Mia Wasikowska is terrific as India Stoker. She pulls off India's girlish innocence, but is just as believable (and intensely creepy) when her dormant darkness is unleashed. I had similar thoughts after her noteworthy turn in The Kids Are All Right, but this movie cemented it - Wasikowska is truly a young actress to watch. This is an amazing performance. Matthew Goode is also really great as creepy uncle Charles. It's almost funny - I always thought he was perhaps miscast in Watchmen ... but after seeing him in Stoker, I'm almost curious to see what he could do as Ozymandias now that he's got more experience under his belt. I say that because in Stoker, Goode is *very* Ozymandias-like. He's got "the voice" down pat - a chilling, cold, upper-crust dialect that makes his cool - almost snobby - exterior fairly chilling. He's smooth to the point of creepy, cool to the point of threatening. Definitely some Patrick Bateman in their as well. As for Nicole Kidman, I've always liked her when she's in these sorts of off-kilter, left-of-center, semi-creepy roles (To Die For, anyone?). And so it's no surprise that she really nails the part of Evelyn - a desperate housewife with some serious issues.

Stoker takes a little while to get going, but it really weaves a web as it goes that you can't help but get sucked into. From a narrative perspective, it all comes together fairly straightforwardly in the end - despite some of the storytelling tricks used by Miller and Park. But, like I said, there's a lot of depth here - symbolism, subtext, and some open-ended psychological questions that game me a lot to chew on once the film was over. I guarantee - there are certain sequences in the film - a piano duet scene, a certain shower scene - that will leave you breathless.

It's nice to know that, even in his first American film - an American Gothic with an Asian Extreme spin - the great Chan Wook-Park has not gone soft in the least. This is as extreme, as dark, as deep, and as badass as just about any movie he's yet made.

My Grade: A-

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL: A Worthy Return to Oz?

OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Review:

- I grew up with OZ. There was the classic film, there was the 1980's Disney pseudo-sequel, Return to Oz. But most of all, there were the books. I've talked about this a lot recently, but I grew up with the Oz books because my grandparents actually had original prints of every book in the series - the originals by L. Frank Baum, as well as the later canonical entries in the series written after his passing. The Oz books were my grandmother's most treasured items - she (along with my mom) shared a love for all things Oz, and my grandmother knew the world and mythology of Oz inside and out. She often spoke of seeing the original movie in the theaters when it was released - about how the film's transition from black and white to color was, at the time, a jaw-dropping revelation. But while I liked the film, I loved the books. Part of it was how my grandmother read them to us - with her distinct, measured reading style and her never-wavering enthusiasm for the material, she transported us to the land of Oz. But I also just loved the books in and of themselves, and the weird and whimsical style that Baum (who claimed to be transcribing actual events, as related to him by Dorothy and others) wrote them in. To me, Oz was every bit as epic and as captivating a place as the other fantasy worlds I loved - Narnia, Prydain, and Middle Earth. Sure, the film had the witches and the flying monkeys - but it was, ultimately, a musical - not the epic adventure I pictured in my mind. Where was Ozma, the Nome King, Tik Tok, and Jack Pumpkinhead? Many of the Oz series' cooler elements made it into Return to Oz, but that film saw success only as a cult classic, not as a franchise-starter. But now, in an era where Lord of the Rings and Narnia had been turned into big-budget, multi-part adventure series, I wondered if the same could finally be true for OZ. Now, the pieces were in place - Sam Raimi was at the helm, the full weight of the Disney machine was there, and Oz finally seemed poised to go big on the big screen.

The new OZ has some of the elements I was looking for in a new Oz flick. First and foremost, it's visually stunning. Sam Raimi once again proves himself to be a true wizard when it comes to creating stylized worlds and roller-coaster-like sequences that are a thrill to just sit back and let yourself get immersed in. OZ is a 100% must-see in 3D, and even better in IMAX. It looks awesome. Hyper-realized fantasy worlds and landscapes and cities, massive battles, eye-melting landscapes, visceral set-piece sequences - Raimi makes OZ into a film that practically bleeds color from the screen. He also just plain has fun with the toys at his disposal. This being Raimi, he tries every trick in the book to wow you from a visual perspective. The opening of the film is in black and white, old-school 1930's aspect ratio - but then expands and colorizes as the Wizard makes his way to Oz. The 3D sees spears hurled at the audience, and all sorts of little instances of things popping off the screen. In terms of visuals, OZ is indeed a marvel.

In terms of story, OZ is less of a marvel, and a little more by-the-numbers. The film functions as a surprisingly reverent prequel - and homage to - the original 1939 classic. In fact, the movie almost seems designed to fit into the world of the original film nearly seamlessly. I have to admit, I was sort of surprised by this. In a way, it reminded me slightly of how Superman Returns felt like an overly reverent homage to the original Donner film. So this new Oz has many moments that are designed to be crowd-pleasing call backs to the 1939 film, and many plot points that are the "secret origins," of sorts, for some of the iconic aspects of that film. Given how the overall tone of the film is so different from the 1939 film (it's not a musical, for one thing), and given that that film is from, well, 1939, I wouldn't have minded if this new movie carved its own path, and/or stuck more to the tone of L. Frank Baum. There are, certainly, moments that seek to make things feel quasi-LOTR epic. Glimpses of the sprawling world-map of Oz, gleaned from the books. Large-scale battles and mammoth flying-monkey attacks. Witch-on-Wizard showdowns. All of that stuff is great fun, which makes the callbacks to the conceits of the 1939 film feel especially quaint and out of place. Did we really need, for example, the extended black-and-white intro in which we meet regular Kansas folks who will later manifest as denizens of Oz?

There are other visual cues that feel forced. The pains taken to make this film's wicked witch resemble Margaret Hamilton's iconic portrayal in the 1939 movie seem strained, and make this new witch look unnecessarily awkward. There are a couple of other examples in this vein.

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, for those not in the know, tells the story of how The Wizard first arrived in Oz, and how he became the great and powerful leader that Dorothy and friends eventually encounter. The Wizard (James Franco) begins the story as a huckster and a womanizer who works as a carnival illusionist. While being chased by some angry colleagues, he jumps into a hot air balloon to escape, but gets caught up in tornado that whisks him away from Kansas to Oz. In Oz, The Wizard finds a land besieged by a wicked witch, and finds that he is the long-expected and foretold-by-legend savior, destined to save the people from their oppressor (it can be debated to what extent there may or may not be an anti-feminist message here, but I didn't really find that). In conjunction with Glinda the Good Witch (Michelle Williams), as well as a slew of other companions, The Wizard must contend with the evil witch Evanora (Rachel Weisz), her conflicted sister Theadora (Mila Kunis), and, of course, their army of evil flying monkeys. How to counter the witch's magic, when The Wizard is not really a wizard, but simply a trickster? Franco attempts to use modern tricks and tech to go Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court on the wicked witches.

If any of this sounds familiar, it might be because Raimi once made a film very much in this same spirit - Army of Darkness. Of course, that film involved a time-lost, chainsaw-wielding antihero named Ash fighting off an army of the undead in medieval times ... but hey, it's all pretty similar in a lot of ways. And that's why many are calling OZ Sam Raimi's Disneyfied Army of Darkness. And you can't deny a lot of the structural similarities. What's interesting though is that Raimi, for better or for worse, infuses OZ with a lot of the same madcap, living-cartoon vibe as AoD. Even the Wizard's wise-cracking, smart-alecky dialogue seems almost lifted from the classic Raimi playbook, and from iconic cult-hero Ash. Now, it's sort of cool to see that anarchic sort of subversiveness make its way into this film. But it also never 100% works, because Raimi is clearly being pulled in multiple directions here. On one level, you sense him wanting to do a really subversive, madcap take on Oz. His version of The Wizard is even very much in the Ash mold - a blue-collar hero who thinks on his feet and makes all of the women around him (even the goddess-like Glinda) swoon helplessly (and man, it would have been fun to see Raimi partner-in-crime Bruce Campbell - who has a small cameo here - take a crack at playing The Wizard). And yet, this is also a Disney movie and a major family-friendly franchise-starter, and so Raimi can't really go full throttle. You can tell that Raimi is perhaps less interested, for example, in really building up the cute sidekick characters all that much. And so the silly good-flying-monkey voiced by Zach Braff, or the uber-cute china-doll girl voiced by Joey King, or the jive-talkin' munchkin played by Tony Cox ... they all feel sort of one-dimensional and tacked on (though I will say, China Girl is one of the most amazingly-rendered digital characters I've yet seen in a film). And some, like that aforementioned jive-talkin' munchkin, are just plain out of place in this world (you wouldn't see that in Lord of the Rings, that's for sure).

In any case, OZ is tonally a bit all-over-the-place. There's a little LOTR-style epicness, a little Raimi madcap action and insanity, a little Disney fairy-tale magic and cutesiness, a little broad humor, a little darkness. a little Tim Burton-esque weirdness and hyper-stylization (and a super Burton-esque / Nightmare Before Christmas-esque score courtesy of Danny Elfman) ... somehow it holds together and basically works, but it also feels like a movie with a lot of cooks in the kitchen - like no one was sure what, exactly, this movie was supposed to be. That also means that a lot of the movie's most interesting concepts - Chinatown, for example (a town where all of the denizens are made of breakable china) - don't feel as fleshed-out as they could be.

That unevenness also extends to the casting. Some of the casting choices here are just effortless and fit like a glove. Rachel Weisz as Evanora - basically perfect, pretty much iconic. Michelle Williams as Glinda - also completely works and feels exceedingly right. Both actresses disappear into the roles, which is what you want in a movie like this. But James Franco ... he's still pretty much James Franco. I just am not sure that Franco has it in him to play a fantasy character like this convincingly - to lose all of his Franco-ness and be someone else entirely, to be The Wizard. Franco does a pretty good job here, overall. He elicits some big laughs and, mostly, sells the sweeter parts of the film. But he just seems ill-suited to this type of role. Same goes for Mila Kunis. Kunis gives it her all as Theadora, but throughout the film, she still seems like Mila Kunis. There wasn't that timeless sort of quality that a Rachel Weisz brings to the table. Even worse, I kept hearing Meg Griffin whenever Kunis voiced her character post-CGI transformation. Kunis is great in that she has such a girl-next-door, blue-collar quality to her that many actresses don't. But that's not what you need for OZ - you need larger-than-life. And neither Franco or Kunis brings that to the production, and the movie suffers for it.

Despite these complaints, there's still a likability to this new OZ movie that's hard to deny. The visuals are so overwhelmingly awesome that it tends to drown out everything else. And when the movie hits its big, go-for-broke beats in its third act ... man, it really nails 'em. Raimi knows more than most how to hit a home run with those big, crowd-pleasing moments. But as much as OZ was a fun, theme-park ride-esque theatrical experience, I have to wonder what legs it will have as time goes on. Perhaps future entries in the revitalized Oz franchise will ultimately cement this film's place in the larger Oz cannon. And perhaps its legacy will prove to be less about this movie's lasting impression, and more about serving as a gateway to the world of Oz that L. Frank Baum created. The original 1939 film is famous for overcoming a fraught production filled with mishaps, re-starts, and dozens of creative challenges to somehow emerge as a classic. This new OZ may not end up with such a notorious backstory, but it does, more so than The Wizard of Oz and Return to Oz, feel more like the product of the Disney machine rather than a Peter Jackson-style labor of love. Raimi's visual inventiveness and subversive streak shines through, but it isn't quite enough to propel Oz to greatness. Funny, because the entire lesson of the film is that The Wizard must learn to strive less for greatness, and more for goodness. The movie seems to have had it slightly backwards in that regard. Still, there is enough goodness here to make the film worth checking out, and kids in particular will likely get caught up in Raimi's eye-popping adventure.

My Grade: B