In Bruges

It's been nearly 14 years since Pulp Fiction re-popularized and re-mythologized the hitman for its generation, and through this time, cinema has seen more than its share of men (and sometimes, rarely, women) executing people for money.  Anyone who was paying attention to such things can remember the tiring glut of mostly abhorrent, jokey crime dramas that followed in Pulp's wake, so much so that it often seemed that the film's legacy would be the forever tied to these lesser pictures.  And, of course, in many ways that's true.  To this day, Pulp Fiction represents a change in filmic paradigm, but it paved the way for both its lesser imitators as well as those that exceeded it in quality.  Without it, it's hard to imagine No Country for Old Men winning its well-deserved Best Picture Oscar, and it's even harder to imagine the existence of In Bruges, a wonderful film that unearths a surprising amount of truth and humanity from this genre (and should maybe win a statue of its own).  With a similar cynical, but humane tone that vacillates from wrenching drama to high comedy, it's a perfect counterpoint to Tarantino's opus: the crime film in thoughtful mid-life crisis compared to Pulp Fiction's adolescent swagger.  

 

In Bruges has a sickly, diseased charm.  The experience of watching it is not unlike those times when you lie awake, unable to sleep, contemplating all the harm you've done other people, and feeling oppressed by the associated guilt (the film may lose those who don't experience such moments in their lives, but I contend that they're worse off).  In such dark, personal moments, one might be tempted to abandon everything by hopping on the next train out of town or even committing suicide, and this film looks those temptations square in the face and examines them through the good-natured, but confused lens of the following morning.  All of its characters harbor life-draining, bottled-up secrets and regrets, but they get through their days with a dose of old-fashioned cynicsm, physical exertion, and mind-altering substances.  It focuses on two hitmen who are holing up, on instruction from their boss, in the small Belgian town of Bruges after the younger of the two (Colin Farrell) botched a hit.  They're instructed to lie low and wait for instructions.  The older hit man (a scream-to-the-rafters good Brendan Gleeson) is delighted to take the opportunity to sight-see, and he drags the indignant Ferrall to a variety of the town's historic destinations.  During these excursions, the father-son dynamic between the two men is perfectly played; Ferrall comes off as a pouty, incurious teen, more interested in drinking and hitting up the local women than Gleeson.  The older hit man clearly understands where the younger man is coming from, but, feeling his years, is nevertheless interested in matters of a religious and historic nature and wishes to impart his young companion with the important lessons these things provide.  

 

This good-natured, but contentious relationship between the two men is established efficiently by the actors and the script, and, by itself, it's a marvel.  They're so good, you could watch Gleeson and Farrell chat and bicker their way while grocery shopping for two hours and never feel less than entertained.  But part of the thrill of the movie is in how writer-director Martin McDonagh pushes this relationship to the breaking point.  Farrell is torn by guilt, suicidal even, and desperately wants help or advice from Gleeson, but the older man has no answers for him.  Gleeson carries his own pain around with him, but years have calloused him to the emotional complexities of his life as a hit man.  And while Gleeson tries to convince Ferrall to stay alive while they wait for further instructions, it's suddenly clear that In Bruges is using its hitmen to tackle an exploration of the very meaning of life itself, using their high-stakes, hard-lived lives to ponder the question--to be, or not to be?  And while, like Hamlet, In Bruges doesn't come up with a definitive answer that we can all take home and apply to ourselves, it, like Hamlet, shows us how that it's hard, but worthwhile and important to arrive at an answer.

 

But, lest it seem that the movie is a moody, muddy work of tears and ruminations, it should be noted that In Bruges is a hysterically funny film.  McDonagh has written some clever, rancid dialogue for his sleazy characters.  From Ferrall's scathing condemnation of American tourists to the racist drivel spewed by a coked-up little person, the film pulls no punches.  At times it seems like the movie's about to go off into shock-for-shock's sake offensive humor, but it's much more clever than that.  Unlike, say, the worst episodes of South Park, the script holds the characters responsible for the inevitable consequences of their attitudes, and the bigger laughs in the film come from showing the ignorance behind their offensive gibberish.    But, even better, is the funniness of the McDonagh's plotting.  There's a perfect, dark joke somewhere in the middle that also serves as a plot point, a botched suicide attempt that forces both men to confront a new wrinkle in their relationship and their own respective attitudes toward their lives and their work (I would love to go on about this moment, but I wouldn't dream of giving it away to anyone, not now, not 100 years from now, and, so, I remain coy).  It's a moment of absolute genius, as confounding and contradictory (and thereby hilarious) as life itself. 

 

If In Bruges has a flaw, it's only in its immaculate structure.  The drama is nice, tidy, and economical, and, while these are all good things, it may be a bit too tidy, too pat.  As the film nears its conclusion, it gathers up all of its loose threads and begins to tie them off, weaving all of them into the final beats of the story.  It does this marvelously--everything that has happened in the film has some effect on the ending--but the machinery behind the scenes does start to groan and strain a bit to fit everything into the final location and the pacing slows as McDonagh moves all of his pieces to the appropriate positions on the board before kicking-off the finale.  It's interesting, though, that the plot of In Bruges is so tidy, while the emotional and philosphical ramifications for its characters are not.  With its fractured narrative, spontaneous digressions, but tidy morality, exactly the opposite is true of Pulp Fiction, and this, to me, is a clue as to why I prefer one or the other depending on how I spent the previous night

Would be a good double feature with: Pulp Fiction   

Robo-NO

Rumblings of a Robocop remake/sequel/whatever have been flitting about for a while now, and despite Darren Aronofsky's attachment, the whole thing makes me sour. Complaining about remake-itis and sequel-itis is common practice these days amongst film folk such as myself, but, as I have such strong personal feelings about the original Robocop, this one pains me on a gut level. Anyway, I guess it's moving forward as stated here at the Hollywood Reporter. Jerks.

Briefly Noted: Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs is good, funny stuff for about 45 minutes, and then it sags under the weight of its plot. There are some key problems like the fact that a lot of the jokes feel like recycled business from previous episodes and there's not a very clearly defined "A" story, but its biggest problem lies in the pacing. This 90 minute movie has the feel of TV act breaks running through it, and the repetition of climactic builds (that would precede a commercial break were this a string of 30 minute episodes) soon wears the viewer out. As a fan of the show and these characters, I can't help but enjoy the extra life this property has gotten through these direct-to-DVD movies, but I hope that the next one shows a little more understanding of the unique demands of feature-length storytelling.

It is a sign

RING THE BELLS! WARN THE MAYOR! PROTECT MCCLANAHAN AT ALL COSTS!

THE TIME IS UPON US! GOD HELP US ALL!

FROM THIS MOMENT ON, NO ONE WILL SHOOT IF YOU DON'T STOP!

ESTELLE GETTY IS DEAD!

ESTELLE GETTY IS DEAD!


ESTELLE GETTY IS DEAD!


ESTELLE GETTY IS DEAD!


ESTELLE GETTY IS DEAD!

The Dark Knight

Batman Begins, the reboot of the Batman franchise that precedes The Dark Knight, was a novel take on the whole Batman mythos. It spent most of its running time justifying the wackiness of a dude putting on a costume and fighting crime in real-world terms. It was also the first Batman movie that (finally) correctly identified that Batman does, in fact, have a super power, after all--he's rich. Playing with themes of noblesse oblige and grounding the action in the landscape of an urban crime drama, it found a new, welcome spin on the character and justified its re-telling of the Batman origin story. It also barreled past a perfect ending about an hour or so into the film and went on and on through some ho-hum plot about supervillains poisoning the water supply or something. Now, on the heels of that film's success and amidst a huge cultural footprint comes The Dark Knight, a film even more overstuffed and overplotted than its predecessor. It goes even further in the attempt to remove Batman from the arch, exaggerated comic book universe and place him in the middle of a modern American city, and also outwears its welcome by going on far longer than its plot deserves. The film is two and a half hours of superbly produced scenes of dour, sweaty machismo, but features little-to-no dramatic tension for most of this time. It's weird, because the script has the air of a well-structured and nuanced procedural with motifs and themes that bounce off of one another, reflecting the ultimate larger purpose of the film, and the chief villain is a wondrous, relevant rendition of modern day anxieties. But the film is, ultimately, a dreary experience puffed up with unearned self-importance, and, while there's a lot of chaotic movement and things blow up real good, it's monotonous. Everything is always happening at the same level; each scene and each gesture is as grand as the last one. As a result, The Dark Knight congeals into a puddle of pretty goodness, its ambitions encased in the ceaseless drone of the execution.

That said, it's still often a mesmerizing film. When it's working and everything is clicking (which is about half of the time), it's a magnificent crime drama about a desperate, rotting city. A large part of this success is due to Heath Ledger's Joker. The late actor's performance is crazy-good or good-crazy; like Johnny Depp in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, his performance elevates the entire film. As written, this Joker is an anarchic terrorist, a self-described agent of chaos (...calling Maxwell Smart...). He may have a purpose, but whatever it is, his methods eclipse his politics and render them irrelevant. It's a perfect villain for the times, an exaggerated version of America's terrorist bogeymen whose methods and beliefs can seem so utterly foreign and impenetrable. Ledger's clearly having a good time with this; he employs a bunch of crazy tics and grimaces, and intones most of his lines with a chilling deadpan. A less capable actor would have gone too crazy, but Ledger imbues the craziness of the character with a palpable sense of masochism and self-loathing. It's soon clear that Batman's use of force and technology is no match for the sheer psychological guile that this villain possesses. All of this informs the best scene in the film (and Ledger's in most of the movie's best scenes), an interrogation scene where Batman is free to pummel and torture the Joker, but finds himself powerless nonetheless. It's the first and only time in any Batman film that the villain and the hero seem completely equal, flip sides of the same coin, and the only moment in this film that truly embraces the scarred, freakshow nature of its characters.

What a shame, then, that Ledger's buried amidst the movie's rambling, listless plot. The movie has a lot going on, enough to fill a few episodes of a weekly TV series, but it doesn't find any traction until around the halfway mark, when things begin to get a bit personal for the characters. As mentioned, it's all very smartly written with its themes of scarring and despair and loss and so-forth. And I liked the way it cared enough about characters on the periphery to give them their own mini-stories within the main plot, but a lot of the film's subplots don't work and just wind up as padding to the runtime. Early in the film, Batman goes to Hong Kong to capture a money launderer, but the whole thing just rings of a pretty diversion, an excuse to shoot some cool exteriors and throw in some exposition about a pivotal piece of technology. And, for all of the work the screenwriters did to foreshadow the eventual corruption of Aaron Eckhart's District Attorney, Harvey Dent, his transformation is rushed and sloppy. This is doubly disappointing because Eckhart is also crazy-good in his role, but he's hampered in his most interesting moments by a makeup job that looks like it belongs in the Halloween display at Spencer's gifts. There are buried hints of greatness in the script, but the movie spreads itself too thin and the plot becomes so convoluted that it distorts anything resembling a coherent or intelligible or relatable story.

The most troubling aspect of the film is its use of Batman himself. For one thing, someone chose to give this hero an unintentionally hilarious vocal effect, like someone accidentally pressed a reverb button on the sound board when mixing in his dialogue. His unnaturally deep and echoy vocal presence is just silly. He sounds like an incompetent lead singer of a Goth band who covers up the inadequacies of his voice with audio effects. This would be easily overlooked but for the fact that Batman is quite chatty in the film--he seems ready to invite characters over for tea at times. Anyway, Christian Bale isn't exactly the most commanding of presences here, and his life as Bruce Wayne is all but ignored in favor of the corruption of Eckhart and the Joker's preening. Batman is forced to make several choices throughout the film, choices with dire consequences for his character, but it makes no difference, no impact because it's not clear who Batman is anymore. Frankly, the character seems to be about as confused and random in his own morality as the Joker. He sees killing as the ultimate taboo, the one thing he won't do, but when he's perfectly content to smack people around, violate civil rights, and wantonly destroy property with barely a second thought, it just comes off as an arbitrary rule. The movie tries to exploit this by having the Joker force Batman to confront the futility of ideals in the rotting, festering world of Gotham City, but, while the confrontation is fun, the filmmakers do very little with it. They basically turn Batman into a square, like Kevin Costner's boy scout Elliot Ness from The Untouchables, lamenting his impotence under the threat of the sexier bad boy. But, really, the character is just ignored. You could quite easily remove Batman from this movie completely and have a much tighter and probably better film about a valiant District Attorney facing the perilous evil in himself while trying to stop a sadistic madman. This is bad news for a film that ends with Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon monologuing about Batman's mythic importance to Gotham City.

But, look, all of this complaining about the shortcomings of The Dark Knight is really a bit of scolding. The movie isn't bad, really, just disappointing. I find myself wanting to wag my finger at it to set it on the right path. There's quite a bit of good, grim fun in the film, and while the overbearing sameness of the execution is wearying, the film is nevertheless commanding. If you're willing to ignore the awfulness of the film's climactic showdown which features Batman utilizing a really stupid-looking (and, after a time, unnecessary) SONAR technology to fight the Joker and a drama on two cruise ships that plays out like the worst disaster movie from the 70s ever made, the film moves from scene to scene with an appealing confidence, indifferent to the muddled script. It's easy to get swept away by its briskness. The cinematography and the use of Chicago locations are grand; Gotham is not a cartoon here, but a stand-in for all modern urbanity. It renders the despair and hopelessness that marks city life rather beautifully, though it, of course, ignores any positive aspects of living there... you know, things like a symphony or good bookstores. It's frustrating because, with all of its strengths, the film has assembled many of the right ingredients, but just drops them into a pile onscreen. Despite the magnificent, handsome production and Heath Ledger's classic performance, the movie only works in fits and starts. Besides, there's a limit, I think, to how much real-world verisimilitude you can employ in a film about Batman before the arch, crazed nature of its main character starts to feel out of place, and the movie pushes right past it to the point that the whole thing unravels, becoming nearly as absurd and cheesy as the 60s TV series.

Would be a good double feature with: Thief

Forget it, It's Chinatown

Nothing this week. Can't be helped. Dry your eyes.

Hancock

Hancock is a surprising film. For one thing, I was surprised that Jason Bateman, usually a master of smarm and weaselly tics, was able to portray a kind-hearted, genuine good guy with such conviction. Here, he uses his formidable skill at comedic deadpan to deepen Ray, a sweet, gentle boy scout of a Public Relations man. The strength of the film’s action scenes was also quite disarming. Though director Peter Berg’s fidgety, shaky camera often confused the action or diluted the drama, the images in the film had a real weight to them, particularly when contrasted with the murky fuzz of other computer generated spectacles. During a pivotal bank robbery sequence, I felt like I was a child watching a Superman movie for the first time, such was the wonder and excitement wrought by the filmmaking. Mostly, though, I was surprised by the fact that, in a film like this, I actually found myself in uncharted territory. Something of a twist occurs late in the film, and I realized that I had no idea where the movie was headed. Because Hancock is so narrow in scope—it’s really a three-character drama masquerading as a superhero film—the consequences for this reveal felt important, meaningful. It’s quite a wondrous thing in this day and age of cookie-cutter fairy tales to feel a genuine sense of curiosity during a mainstream action vehicle. So, while it fizzles out quite a bit in its final sequences, Hancock is a taut, cheeky superhero film that manages to be both a solid comic book story and a funny lampoon on the whole genre.

The title character, a dissolute superman named John Hancock, belongs to a long line of insufferable, cranky, and lonely men in American movies. Usually, these men reform once they find the love of a good woman, like Bogart in The African Queen. Here, though, it’s Bateman as the naïve, optimistic Ray who provides the unconditional love and support for the aching, angry Hancock. Ray is impossibly sweet; his job involves asking corporations to give away life-saving drugs and food free of charge to those who need help. He’s laughed out of the boardrooms, but maintains his plucky spirit--you almost expect him to exclaim, "Gee Whiz!" at some point. One day, Hancock saves Ray from getting crushed by a train, but causes a massive derailment in the process. Angry onlookers, furious at the superman for destroying everything in his path, unleash a tirade of vitriol at the bumbling Hancock, but Ray, grateful and needing a ride, invites him to dinner. From there, the two develop a shaky relationship, as Ray, over the objections of his skeptical wife (Charlize Theron) begins using his PR skills to help Hancock become a proper superhero.

Along with Iron Man, this is the second movie of the year about a superheroic lout who eventually finds redemption, but Hancock’s approach to its character is much more satisfying. Will Smith’s John Hancock is an abusive, self-absorbed drunk of the highest order. He's indifferent to the suffering of mere mortals and fights crime, it would seem, out of a mixture of boredom and obligation more than concern for the public welfare. His disregard for the law, property values, or the safety of the general public as he swoops in to save the day is fun to watch, particularly in Smith’s able hands. Going all the way back to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Smith has often played the part of a charismatic outsider, struggling to keep up with the arbitrary rules of a strange, foreign world, and the same is true in Hancock. When he’s coached by Ray to make a landing without destroying the city streets or to tell the police at a crime scene that they’re doing a good job, Smith’s confusion is funny and understandable. His powers render him immortal and above the rule of law, so why should he care?

Funny too is the way the film takes seriously the swath of destruction that follows superheroes. Usually it's a throwaway joke at best--an action scene concludes with a car's hubcaps falling off, for instance, or a family of four looking around at the remnants of their formally happy and intact home. In Hancock, the consequences of this destruction are the very point of the film, and have a bit of political bite to them, similar to something from Team America. The movie's character is a heroic power that's above the law, that stumbles into a situation trying to do good but makes a mess out of things, that arrogantly insists people love it despite this tendency. It should sound familiar. Oh, also, his symbol is an eagle. Got it now?

While Hancock is a smart, assured film, it's also a fidgety experience. The director, Peter Berg, also directed last year's The Kingdom, and this movie suffers greatly from some of the unearned sentiment that plagued that film. Berg's got a fine command of staging action scenes and gets great performances out of his actors, but, too often, he tries to orchestrate sympathy using overlong montages scored with mournful music. It's a cheap trick, but where one of these montages may have worked, there's a few in the film. They all begin to stack up and feel redundant. More problematic is the last act of the film. After the fun, nearly incomprehensible twist, Hancock is bogged down with too many explanations, too much dramatic stillness. The pace sputters to a halt as everyone--the audience and the characters onscreen--have to be told this or that or the other thing about things that happened long ago and far away. A key relationship between two characters is the basis for the entire climax of the film, but it isn't developed near enough to work, so the film (almost literally) limps to its conclusion.

Still. In a world choking with a glut of formulaic superhero films, Hancock is refreshing. It fizzles out after a 3rd act twist, but, for most of its running time, it’s a breeze of a film. It’s mercifully short at 90 minutes and manages to do much more with its running time than most movies of this sort do with almost twice as much. But, really, it's all about that bank robbery scene. When the reformed Hancock flies in to the rescue, it's a powerful moment that revitalizes the whole genre. He's not just saving the hostages in the bank, he's also saving himself from a lifetime of arrogance and unintended consequences. Speaking as an American myself, it's somewhat inspiring.

Would Make a Good Double Feature with: Mystery Men

A bit of good news

I have been chosen to be an entertainment blogger for the website for a(some) TV station(s) in North Carolina. Starting with this week's review of Wall-E, my work is being republished at this site:

http://www.news14.com

Today the Wall-E review is on the front page under "features".

Wall-E

While Wall-E is a feast for the eyes and ears, it's, first and foremost, a treat of good, old-fashioned filmmaking. If you see it in the theater, you will undoubtedly be bombarded with previews for other 3D computer-animated films featuring animals that scream, jump about, and act as obnoxious as the four-year-old sitting next to you. Though they leave me with the impression of having lukewarm high-fructose corn syrup drizzled onto my head, I know that these films have their place and provide some measure of enjoyment for undiscerning children and obnoxious adults (I, myself, was quite fond of the wretched Transformers: the Movie at a young age and am glad to say I grew out of it). Everything in these trailers is played big and loud--all the better to milk laughs from the audience--so, it's doubly refreshing when the feature attraction begins and nobody talks for a long, long time. Wall-E develops its story and characters with a minimum of dialogue, relying, instead, on the much more satisfying (and hundreds of years old) convention of editing meaningful bits of visual information together and letting the audience fit the puzzle pieces together.

Whenever I see a film use these tried-and-true cinematic conventions (usually it's when watching a well-made silent film, but there are other modern examples), I feel as if my brain is being flossed of the detritus of more pandering, shallow entertainments found on TV and in the multiplex. It's no different here; the opening passages of Wall-E are delightful for the elegant and earnest way they ladle out the exposition for the the titular main character and the world he inhabits. Wall-E is set in a distant future where the Earth has become a giant landfill, uninhabitable due to the heaps and heaps of garbage wrought by human industry. Humanity itself has taken to the stars in a giant spaceship named The Axiom, leaving the Earth to the care of a robotic cleanup crew. Wall-E is the last surviving member of these robots, and, some 700 years after the evacuation, he's still dutifully following his programming. Every day he gathers garbage, compacts it into cubes, and stacks the cubes into giant piles, some as tall as skyscrapers. As he undertakes the Herculean task of cleaning the Earth, it becomes clear that this robot has more to his existence than work. He has a penchant for collecting; while sifting through the garbage, something strikes his fancy--an egg beater, a Rubik's Cube, and, one day, a single stalk of plant life poking through the muck--and he takes it to his home where he places it amongst other treasured possessions. One of these is a VHS tape of an old musical, and, as he watches scenes of romance unfold, it becomes clear that this is one lonely robot. He yearns to dance and hold hands with a paramour of his own. All of this is revealed with an expert eye towards efficiency. The details of the world are tucked into the frame as we watch Wall-E on a day's work, until slowly the entire picture is clear. The animation is gorgeous to look at and evokes such a powerful feeling of loneliness and isolation, that it's almost a bummer when another robot named EVE shows up from outer space.

EVE is a probe, sent to find signs of life. At first she's as oblivious to Wall-E as he is smitten, focusing only on fulfilling her mission. But soon, they meet, strike up a budding romance, and, just as it seems Wall-E may have found a dance partner, they are swept away to the deliriously satiric confines of The Axiom. It's here that the film (inevitably) finds its way to a more conventional, yet incredibly endearing Chaplin-esque story rife with sentiment and good-natured comedy. If the second half of the film doesn't quite live up to the timeless, soulful quality of the opening moments of Wall-E's solitude or his courtship with EVE, it's nevertheless suffused with wit. As Wall-E begins to explore The Axiom, he finds that the humans onboard are entirely dependent on robots. They can't move around without assistance from robotic chairs, feed, much like babies, from cups with giant straws provided for them, and live lives dictated by well-timed advertisements ("Blue is the new Red"). They continuously watch television, and they don't even seem to know where they are or the history of how they got there. It's not so much different than watching people in a shopping mall on a Sunday afternoon. It's not the most brilliant or inventive satire of modern times I've ever seen, but it's certainly funny and has a deafening ring of truth to it. Wall-E, bumbling through this world, brings with him the promise of a real life--a home planet with work and problems and, above all, plants. It isn't long before the captain of the ship, delighted to learn of his history, is up all night asking the computer to tell him everything there is to know about this little planet named Earth. Even hoedowns. This leads to a revolution, of sorts, as passengers aboard The Axiom awaken to a larger purpose and reclaim their dominance over the rigid, unbending automatons that run their lives.

There's an underlying message here, of course, about waste and the ecological responsibility of the common man and moving beyond mere survival to something more fulfilling, but, thankfully, the movie avoids the hypocrisy of having a Disney film hammer home a didactic screed about the horrors of disposable junk. Wall-E is more interested in telling the story it wants to tell, and it does this with a deftness that looks deceptively easy. It's pretty much a perfect film, one that accomplishes everything it sets out to do. It scrapes the surface of greatness at times, but it never quite achieves this. I find this is often the case with films as tightly constructed and written as Wall-E; it's like they're powered by clock springs and, as such, there's delight and surprise and magic, but not enough spontaneity or, if you will, life to them. This is just a quibble, though, and a very minor one at that. This is a wonderful film. It earns its laughter and sentiment through quiet, thoughtful honesty about its characters. You will believe a robot can love.

Would Make a Good Double Feature with: Modern Times

This review can also be viewed at: news14.com

Get Smart

Dear Hollywood types,

I really don’t care if you feel the need to labor over the beginnings of Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Zorro, and all manner of superheroes, turning them into mournful, lonely souls whose isolation and despair lead them to carry out acts of vigilante justice. I’m cool with that. But could you, at least as a favor to those of us who enjoy a good chuckle here and there, refrain from burdening our iconic comedy characters with these troubles? Get Smart, the television show upon which this recent Steve Carell vehicle is based, was never, like, great or anything, but it was, for the most part, a consistently funny little cartoon of a show whose Maxwell Smart was a bumbler due as much to his indifference as his incompetence. He was cocksure, steady, and consistent in the face of all manner of troubles, and it was these qualities that led to some genuinely funny moments. In this film version, you’ve, for reasons I can only guess at, saddled Maxwell Smart with unrequited desires, a desperate longing to become a field agent within the spy agency known as Control, and turned him into a bookish analyst who is, we’re told, out of his depth in the field. So, as this wimpy, nerdy version of Maxwell Smart proves himself worthy of Field Agent status through the plot of this film, you’ve given us, yet again, a fucking origin story.

Now that you’ve shown us where Maxwell Smart comes from, what’s up next, guys? Do we get to suffer through 80 minutes of Groucho Marx’s father abandoning him at an early age, leading him to develop a caustic wit as a defense mechanism against a harsh world that clearly doesn’t want him? How about a Naked Gun prequel that details the young Frank Drebin’s ascent through a hilariously hellish Police Academy (Steve Guttenberg could play the tough, but fair instructor who passes the young Drebin because, while he’s stupid, he’s sure got a lot of heart!)? Or perhaps we get to see a jilted young woman wailing at the altar while her father holds her and says, “I love you, Lucy.” I heartily encourage you all to grow a pair. Plant your fucking feet. Please stop telling us how things came to be, and start telling us what happens after.

I didn’t hate this movie version of Get Smart, though it was all over the place. It had a funny bit here or there (most of them came from the original show, but I won’t blame you for sticking with good material instead of coming up with good, new stuff. That’s hard!) The action climax of this film was genuinely involving. It was well-done, the stakes made sense, and it had an exciting, even funny, kinetic energy that propelled it forward to a logical, again, funny, conclusion (I will note that it was way too loud; the blaring of the obnoxious score nearly ruined it). I really enjoyed Anne Hathaway’s performance. I thought she showed very well-attuned comic timing in her role as the straight woman to Smart’s bumbling and that she and Steve Carell had a very nice rapport. This, no doubt, led to my finding the climax being as involving as it was, despite the fact that, for most of the film, I was disappointed that the jokes were so stale and (since the comedy wasn’t working) the narrative was so pat. Good job guys!

But, I mean, come on. We’re here for the yuk-yuks, and most of your jokes seem like bits that didn’t make the cut from either Austin Powers or The Naked Gun movies. The Get Smart television show has a pretty clear ancestral relationship to both of these franchises, so setting the bar as low as you do and branding it with the legacy of motherfucking Buck Henry feels, not only pathetic, but somewhat malevolent. There’s a moment where Terrence Stamp as the ultra bad guy, tries to blackmail the United States for 200 billion dollars and, despite the fact that the moment is played entirely straight, you could pretty much feel everyone in the theater sharing a chuckle about Dr. Evil’s one millllllion dollars. Did you not care? Are you just tone-deaf? And what’s with the fact that your movie had absolutely zero target for satire? You weren’t lampooning anything, and, in fact, had some weird, almost didactic moments kind-of shoveled in there about understanding that our enemies are human and that being the key to success in war or something. But you didn’t think to, like, ever show the opposite view and how it’s doomed to (maybe, fingers-crossed, if you could be bothered, hilarious) failure? And, forgive me if I'm overstepping here, but why on Earth would you seriously try to play any of this film straight?

Look, I get it. We’re living in the Judd Apatow universe now, the one where it says that comedies require some underlying dramatic tension and honest character work. And this is something I, generally, agree with. There should be, at the very least, a certain amount of "dramatic relief" to the comedies you’re creating. And I’ll give you credit that you didn’t show a teary-eyed Maxwell Smart realizing what a boob he’d been and vowing to change or grow up or whatever, since it’s common for these modern comedies to mistake such unbearable treacle for conflict and resolution. But I also firmly believe that the drama should be absolutely entwined with the comedy you’re making. If you’re working in a two dimensional space, as the character of Maxwell Smart most certainly is, your drama must exist in that same space. Otherwise, you’ve made the mistake of trying to turn a cartoon into a real boy. I submit that you leave that nonsense to the Blue Fairy, and, next time, take aim at something--anything!--before you fire.

Yours,
David Wester

p.s. YOU MISSED IT BY SOOOO MUCH! AH HAHAHAHAHAHA HA HA HA HA!

Long Live Stan Winston

Just adding my voice to the fray. I can't even remember when I became familiar with his name, but his creature creations had a heavy influence on significant portions of my childhood and adolescence. Terminator, Aliens, and Edward Scissorhands would not have been the life-shaping experiences they were without his work. Hell, I even have a soft spot for his directorial effort Pumpkinhead and that beast from The Relic. Hearing that he'd passed was a gut-punch. It's incredibly odd to be affected by the death of someone you've only known through their work, who you would most likely never have known or met or interacted with in any meaningful way. It rings with a slight embarrassment, like remembering when you were a teenager and locked yourself away and cut yourself because The Beatles were breaking up, or something. And yet, the sadness remains, along with the knowledge that any chance you might have had to know, meet, or interact with this person whose work touched you and whose thoughts and insights might have taught great lessons is gone forever.

Thanks for the monsters.

The Happening

From the moment Bruce Willis realized that he was dead in The Sixth Sense, most of M. Night Shyamalan's films have featured a rejection of an understandable, rational universe for a mysterious, magical one. In fact, Shyamalan's films seem anchored to this notion that there is more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophies. Thus far, he has not done much more with this notion but craft increasingly desperate cinematic pleas that we all share this viewpoint with him. His last film was Lady in the Water, and its ludicrous, unbearable fairy-tale plot demanded an entire apartment community believe in pixies or whatever so that a writer could write a book that would singlehandedly make the world a better place (we'll generously ignore the fact that this writer was played by M. Night himself to avoid labored armchair psychoanalysis). While this theme in Shyamalan's films has only worked for me once before (with Mel Gibson's spiritual re-awakening in Signs), these filmed pleas (even the wretched Lady in the Water) have been at the very least compelling, if not ultimately convincing. And so arrives, The Happening, a film where Shyamalan (inadvertantly, I'd wager) points in the opposite direction; the plot awkwardly takes the magical and renders it rational. Poorly.

About halfway through this terrible movie, I gave up. I stayed to watch the rest of the film, if only to witness the disaster, but struggled to keep from shouting obscenities while the movie's idiocy drove me bats. At this point in the film, the main characters, supposedly intelligent adults, tried to outrun a gust of wind. This cannot be repeated enough. In The Happening, a group of people attempt to outrun the wind. And, from all cues, the movie thinks that such a thing might be possible and that, indeed, an audience would be willing to root for its heroes to defy reality in such a way. It was here I realized that I could no longer keep a list of the film's shortcomings in my head. The Happening bested me. I would love to type out a laundry list of this film's failures, pointing out what's wrong scene by scene and cackle with schadenfreude the whole while. Alas, the movie short-circuited my brain with so much mind-boggling awfulness, that I can only shake my head in awe. So, from here, let's all just take it for granted that the plotting, dialogue, acting, and pacing are pretty atrocious for a mainstream release like The Happening, and everyone involved is or will be smarting from a collective spanking delivered by hundreds of thousands of millions of people once they see this movie.

The Happening opens with a bunch of people in Northeastern America mysteriously killing themselves en masse. Though it is marked by the awkward staging and weird, bad acting that permeate the entire film, this is the only moment that actually connects. Images of a group of construction workers plummeting from the top of a construction site or a group of people in Central Park suddenly frozen in place deliver a momentary shudder. However, once the film cuts to Mark Wahlberg as a New York City science teacher, it's game over, man. Here, it becomes clear that the film is going to have something to do with science, but, as written, Shyamalan's conception of science is as confused as a young child's notions of what sex is all about. Wahlberg, in class, asks his disinterested students for theories on why bees are disappearing and when one of them ventures, "It's a natural phenomenon. We'll never understand it," this shaper of young minds replies, "That's right." He actually then goes on to state the creationist code phrase that scientific explanations for natural phenomenon are "just theories," and babbles about forces beyond our understanding. It's not that any of this is objectively false or that I necessarily disagree with it on a philosophical level or that I care what these fictional kids are taught in their fictional science classes. It's that it indicates that the writer-director of the film has no clue what the hell he is talking about. Scientific theories are more than "just theories," and anyone with a modicum of knowledge about science, much less an instructor, will bristle at such a blithe dismissal of the collected, ever-growing understanding of the natural world that science represents. Unless, of course, the Shaymalan twist (unseen in the film) is that Wahlberg is an Intelligent Design proponent, a fact that would make more sense of the character's idiocy and emotional immaturity.

What gets me the most, though, is the amazing, scary paternalistic world the characters inhabit. With strange frequency, Shyamalan points the camera at Wahlberg or John Leguizamo as the deadly happenings continue to befall the group of survivors that they've fallen in with. The two men grunt and sway under the pressure as every person in the group looks to them for leadership or guidance, despite the fact that they've done nothing notable to deserve such reverence. One scene, in particular, is crazily bad about this. As several people start dying, Wahlberg is struggling in his foolish quest to (hilariously) use the scientific method to determine the best course of action. The other people in his group who wish to help the affected, scream, "Tell us what to do!" or something like that and also, "People are dying!" at Wahlberg as he remains frozen in indecision. One wonders why these people don't just, you know, do something themselves if they're so invested? There's an assumption behind this, that large problems must be placed onto the shoulders of heroic martyrs. This sort-of thinking made some sense with Mel Gibson's ex-priest in Signs, not least because he was the oldest person around with children to care for, but here it's just nonsensical to watch men and women, presumably no less special than Wahlberg, look to him as if he is some sort of wizard.

All this has wasted too many words on the film. The crux of The Happening is that the plants of the world are suffering due to humanity's rape of the environment, and they've rapidly evolved the ability to make people kill themselves in order to repel this encroaching threat. Fine. While it's best, perhaps, if fantasists like Shyamalan and Roland Emmerich abstain from trying to teach ecological lessons, I'm not opposed to the concept in theory. However, you can call me misanthropic, but I need a reason to think that saving humanity, or at least the characters I'm watching, is a good idea. Judging solely from the whiny, idiotic people that populate this film, I'm content to set down the weed whacker and let the plants take over. At least they don't make movies like this one.

What's Happening?

So, uh... if you're curious about The Happening, just know that it is pretty rotten. At its core. It is rancid. It is poison. Save yourself. Run away from all the wind.

Full review on Sunday.

Jumper

Jumper is the kind of movie that plays much better on video than it ever would in a theater. It's a modest, relatively unpretentious (as far as these things go) science fiction action film, and, with the lower expectations, distractions, and confines that come with home viewing, it achieves a half-shrug of success. Its primary virtue is one of scale; that is, Jumper focuses on one character and keeps its stakes tied directly to its protaganist. At no point in the film is the fate of the entire world in peril--indeed, Jumper refreshingly attributes such "savior of humanity" thinking to its villains--nor does the film's conflict gain resolution via a punching match between two superdudes who differ only in the color of their underoos. So, while the movie's storyline is formulaic (boy becomes man through understanding superpowers? REALLY?) and the acting is shallow at best, I was pleased that this film knew exactly what it was about and scaled its running time to an appropriate 90 minutes. That's backhanded praise, to be sure, but it's a relief to see a film of this nature that is as light on its feet as Jumper.

Not that the film is all that great. The main character, played by Hayden Christensen (he doesn't ruin the movie), has the ability to open wormholes (or whatever), allowing him to jump to any location he wishes. He discovers this super power as a teenager and uses it to flee from his abusive home in a small town to the big city. Once free, he learns how to control his jumping and robs a bank by jumping into the vault, setting himself up (financially, at least) for life. The character lives an easy life, jumping around the world to exotic locales while scoring with the local women and supplementing his income with further robberies. Even though he ignores whatever impulse he might have to use this power for selfless acts, it's clear he's the hero as he's guilt-laden enough to leave IOUs at the scene of the crime, and, you know, the casual sex is made acceptable by showing it as joyless. He's still pining for the girl from high school that he left behind. These are easy, pat answers to making this criminal philanderer an engaging hero, and I wished that the film had embraced the protaganist's hedonism in a more honest, delighted way. It's not as if audiences won't embrace a pleasure-seeking antihero who learns hard lessons (oh, hello Iron Man). The longing for the high school sweetheart, in particular, set my teeth a-grinding, since this fellow has gone all around the world but still can't see what a dullard she is. Love is oblivious, I guess, but dramatic action shouldn't be.

A bigger problem with the film are the villains. Represented by an unsurprising, growling Samuel L. Jackson, they call themselves "Paladins" and, for reasons that are never compellingly explicated, they track and kill jumpers like Christensen. The reasoning, it would seem, is that they believe all Jumpers will go bad, and human beings are not socially or morally equipped to handle the responsibility of this great power. This is a nice flip-flop of the usual comic book movie paradigm (the usual film would have featured the Paladin tracking the Jumper) but not much is done with it. Jackson screams, "There are consequences to your actions!" at Christensen in one scene, but, really, what consequences he's talking about aren't explicated at all. It sounds like he's talking about more than just the victims of a bank robbery, but whatever it is, the movie's too coy to tell. This coyness about the mythology of the movie's superhumans (and the normies who chase them) runs throughout, and it's both a boon and a weakness by the end. It's all intriguing enough at first, but after a while, with no answers, it just makes everyone seem as if they're jumping around and shouting at each other for no reason.

Still, if you're willing to overlook these (glaring, I'll admit) flaws, Jumper has some charm. As mentioned, it's well-paced, moving efficiently through its plot, never lingering too long on the angst of its characters. Furthermore, I confess, I found the "Jumping" visual and sound effects to be endlessly delightful; they're simple and elegant, moving the jumping characters out of the visual space with a minimum of bombast, but with plenty of real-world kick to them--the world around the transporting character reacts to the disruption. I've grown so sick of arbitrary, loud effects that defy any semblence of real-world viability, that these well-considered treatments of the magical elements of the movie's premise were nearly enough to win me over single-handedly. And, truth be told, there's a fun fight and chase between two superdudes about 2/3 of the way through. Christensen and another jumper hop from place to place, hurtle objects from one space into another, and lead the other into spacetime-related traps. It's inventive and comes to a satisfying conclusion, the stakes are clear and personal, and the editing and staging are top-notch.

Around the time of this chase, I realized that I was enjoying Jumper the same way I enjoy certain B-movies from the past. I took the stilted acting and obvious plotting as a given; it's clear enough early on that there will be no relief from these things, after all. But for all its problems, there's an honest-to-God beating heart behind this movie and, even with all the sci-fi hokum, it's plainly presented with a minimum of show-off artistry. All of these observations are, of course, born of the lazy eye with which I watched the film. But if ever a movie was made to satisfy the viewer while watching TBS on a rainy Sunday afternoon, it's Jumper. Take that how you will.

_Space for Rent_

Nothing will be posted today, family obligations. Will have a review up on Wed.

The Strangers

In a lot of ways, The Strangers is a throwback. It's first and foremost a fright film/rollercoaster, designed and built to scare you and nothing more. The plot harkens back to the hard-edged horrors of the seventies, particularly Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. Both of these previous films share with The Strangers a certain pointlessness; the plot of all three could be accurately summed up with the phrase, "Sometimes, bad shit happens." That there is no reason, theme, or message other than the randomness of violence, feels, in this case, more like a limitation of the rollercoaster genre than the film, and, really, it is enough that The Strangers is well-made for one of these vehicles. In the interest of full discolsure, I will admit that for a good fifteen or twenty minutes it had me right where it wanted me: a quivering mass, shielding my eyes from the horrors onscreen and inwardly shouting advice to Liv Tyler, trying desperately to save her and myself from further encounters with terrifying masks. Additionally, The Strangers recalls a time when great directors cut their teeth and announced themselves by raising the stakes in the forgiving, formulaic horror genre. It would not surprise me if Bryan Bertino, the writer/director of this movie, went on to greatness, but, whatever his future, he's certainly put himself on my radar. While the film ultimately trades in too many cliches and emerges as too-familiar an experience to be branded an undisputed classic, it's still quite a ride and finds a surprising amount of clever riffs on its well-worn formula.

The Strangers opens with a nice, intriguing setup, giving us a quick summary of what we are about to see. As a 911 call plays and a woman screams about intruders in her house and blood on the walls, two boys walk through what remains of the caller's home. There they find a wrecked car outside, a bloody knife, blood on the walls, and a turntable revolving endlessly. The inhabitants are gone. It's a low-rent, William Castle version of The March of Time sequence in Citizen Kane, showing the basic outline of the plot before diving in, but it's quite effective for a time. After the film flashes back to show how the house came to be in this state, a character puts the needle down on a record and it raises the tension in the theater. When the record needs to be flipped and the needle put down again, it's suddenly clear that the record player is part of a game, and The Strangers is toying, cleverly, with its audience. We're aware that, eventually, the characters will put the needle down for the last time, but not which time. Each instance of this otherwise innocuous act seems like it will bring on the intruders and the knife and the blood. Eventually, maddeningly, though, this conceit wears thin and what was a fun, sadistic game becomes a dull grocery list of things that must occur before the movie can end. Blood on the wall? Check. Knife on the floor? Check. And so-on.

After giving us the layout of the carnage, the film flashes back to a young couple making their way to this very same remote country home in the middle of the night. These opening beats are nearly perfect, depicting the awkwardness between lovers whose relationship is undergoing a new strain. We learn (far too soon, and, disappointingly, in another flashback) that he's proposed to her and she's said no. The awkwardness, tenderness, and animosity between the two characters is wonderfully played by Tyler and co-star Scott Speedman. He, in particular, captures the well-meaning, sensitive facade that jilted men often use to mask their hostilities. Unfortunately, and equally maddening, the scenes between the two of them, go on for an excruciating amount of time and keep repeating the same dramatic beats. They keep telling each other, essentially, "We don't know who we are as a couple or how to be with one another anymore after this shake-up," over and over again. It's soggy with heartfelt, one-note, bleary-eyed scenes, and really betrays the elegance of the opening moments between the characters.

Luckily, Liv Tyler runs out of smokes, the beau gallantly offers to pick some up for her, then there's a SPOOKY knock at the door (all knocks are spooky when it's four in the morning). The titular Strangers have arrived to save the film from the sort-of unearned schmaltziness and repetitive writing that stinks up Kevin Smith films. So begins the fifteen or twenty minutes that make this a film worth seeing and one that has me still jumping at noises four days after seeing it. Moments after this sequence range from good to amatuer, but none match the sheer power and delightful filmmaking found when the Strangers begin their attack. Decked out in genuinely scary masks, they aren't so much trying to harm Tyler in these moments as they are trying to terrify her. They toy with her, knocking at the doors and windows, moving objects in the house around, popping up in unexpected places, and converging on her without directly harming her. What's happening is scary, but seems ludicrous and unreal. Each moment builds on the next until a chilling critical mass is reached. My own brain, trying to rationalize through my own fear, started wondering if what was onscreen was "real" or if the film was pulling a Repulsion-style meditation on feminine vulnerability and employing an unreliable narrator mindfuck (it wasn't).

A single shot in this sequence is almost worth the price of admission alone. In this shot, Tyler busies herself in the foreground while a masked man emerges from the darkness behind her. She, unaware of his presence (or of the fact that he's wonderfully balancing the frame), continues her business until this "Stranger" disappears back into darkness. The use of a masked figure stalking the edges of a widescreen frame (and balancing it, thus giving us what we unconsciously wanted all along) is nothing John Carpenter didn't do 30 years ago, but this works all on its own. Scarier than the figure is the figure's disappearance. He disappears before Tyler sees him, and the darkened doorway now contains multitudes, dredging up all manner of childhood boogeymen. This is masterful horror filmmaking. It's a prefect combination of elements, coalescing into an iconic, classic image that speaks to the fragility of existence and the fear of the unknown. I wouldn't hesitate to call this moment in this otherwise commercial, manipulative movie a work of art. As such, it makes all of the moments in the film when the movie employs cliched, cheap scare techniques (something pops up and the soundtrack makes a loud noise... two for flinching!) or, worse, false scare techniques (same as previous, but as it turns out it was just the cat!) seem even more shoddy and manipulative than they usually do, the way the sheer speed and noise of an old wooden roller coaster will sometimes put to shame its shinier, loopier counterparts.

Surprise Party

I just did something I haven't done in forever. I went to the movies and bought a ticket for a movie about which I had nearly no knowledge. The film was The Strangers,and I only knew (vaguely at that) that it was a horror film.

I seriously think it's been since seeing The Usual Suspects that I've gone into a movie with so little foreknowledge.

The movie was all right. Read about it on Sunday. Or Monday as it happens.

I am ignoring the Sex and the City movie because I completely missed the boat on the show. I'm happy, though, to see that there's a culturally significant, no-doubt shitty movie out there that plays primarily to women rather than men for once. The theater was crawling with women, all in the same demographic, all buying tickets for this film. You go girls. I'M NOT A MISOGYNIST!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

New rule: no more movie-going nostalgia. It's not that I hated Indy 4... I didn't. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. Walking out of the theater, I remarked, "Well, that was actually not too bad." The lesson of the Star Wars prequels burned into me, I had gone expecting disaster, expecting the entire beloved series to be tarnished by this curiously late-game entry into the series. But, hey, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull doesn't commit any serious infractions to the character or the legacy of films that precede it... certainly none more injurious than those found in Last Crusade. And it's pleasant enough, though it's plotting is weak (even for an Indiana Jones film) and Spielberg makes some bracingly stupid choices at times (usually marked by some really embarrassing CGI). But while it's pleasant and nice to see Harrison Ford reprise the role (and it really, really is... Ford is as charming as ever here and what affection I have for the film I lay almost entirely at his feet), the experience of the film is maddening and empty, and the thing really that kills me is how irrelevant it all feels. At this point, the Indiana Jones films have acted as a template for countless imitations and the patterns and rhythms of the formula have been played and re-played, so without any particular reason to revisit the character, the movie exists for arbitrary reasons. Like Spielberg et. al, called us up and said, "Hey guys, we decided to make another Indiana Jones movie, because we thought it would be fun. You wanna see?" At this point, Indiana Jones is too large, too mythic, to return to the series twenty years later with nothing more to say but the same ol' song and dance.

And so, the new rule. I gave this movie too much credit while watching it due to the power of the ever-rousing music and the familiar, appealing aesthetic of the film. Writing about it, I feel like it's necessary to include countless navel-gazing reflections of how Indiana Jones shaped my world view from a young age, how I'm not qualified to assess the film due to this. But it's just an irrelevant film, kind-of fun, kind-of cute, kind-of dumb. The magic just isn't there; the villains are weak, the set-pieces range from inexplicably stupid to mildly enthralling, and Indiana Jones spends nearly the last third of the film watching things happen around him. Pairing him up with Karen Allen again does nothing, particularly as Allen is shockingly bad in the movie, grinning instead of acting. In talking about the movie with friends, I kept almost saying "Nazis" instead of "Russians" or "Soviets," which tells me that the time period wasn't used to any good effect. Even the score uses too many cues from previous films (why is the Ark's theme from Raiders used here?). I give Spielberg credit for eliciting warmth and some degree of excitement from such a sloppy script. But there's no sweat, no dirt under the fingernails of this movie, and as it turns out, that was an essential part of the previous films' charm all along.

Things that happened to me last week

1. I became terrifyingly ill.
2. While sick, I watched The Golden Compass, intending to write about it. After seeing it, I felt the less said about this horribly mediocre movie, the better. No need to further beat this sorry thing down.
3. I completed re-watching the previous three Indiana Jones films in preparation for the release of the fourth movie this Thursday. My girlfriend and I have been watching 1 of these per week for the past three weeks. It goes without saying that Raiders of the Lost Ark is the best of the lot, and I still find that I like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade the least of all three, despite age making Temple of Doom's horrifying flaws much more apparent than before. It's just that Temple, for all of its problems, is a bit more pure, more of a stand-alone piece (it wouldn't have been as good an introduction to the character as Raiders, but could stand alone outside of Raiders) whereas Crusade has the lazy air of franchise around it. And let's be clear: I love all three films like favored members of a family.
4. I turned 30.
5. My ever dreamy girlfriend somehow gave me an Xbox 360 Elite and Grand Theft Auto 4 on my birthday (my "gamertag" is Docpotato if anyone cares).
6. I forgot about everything else for several days in a row.

See you after Indiana Jones and the Skull of Crystal Meth (or WHATEVER) comes out.

Iron Man

It's clear that things are going to be far too insular or self-congratulatory or poorly thought out in Iron Man when Robert Downey Jr, as Tony Stark, shows the plans for a robotic exoskeleton to his cellmate in a terrorist-run prison. The terrorists have captured Stark, an ingenious weapons manufacturer and engineer, so that they can force him to build his latest weapon of mass destruction for their use, not the US government's. Rather than capitulate to their demands, Stark decides to use the resources they provide him to craft the super-suit that will allow him to defeat his captors and gain his freedom. The cellmate, a man of not inconsiderable intelligence, looks at Stark's blueprints and, rather than ask, "What is that? A robot?" or any of the myriad rational responses to Stark's farfetched, ludicrous idea, intones with great reverence, "Impressive." It's not that it's not impressive. Stark's suit, even when cobbled together under these less-than-ideal conditions, is, indeed, the stuff dreams are made of. But at this moment the cellmate, the stand-in for the audience who acts as Watson to Stark's Holmes, has already bought the bill of goods. And, thus, in this early moment, the film assumes that the audience has too.

One scene or moment like this wouldn't be a particularly notable problem, but Iron Man's script keeps making the same problem over and over again. After Stark escapes from this prison, destroying the first incarnation of his supersuit in the process, he returns to the United States with a newfound political outlook. He announces, to the chagrin of his business partner, played by Jeff Bridges, that his company will abandon weapons manufacturing (where it has found great success) and focus on more altruistic pursuits. This creates considerable hubbub and Bridges, protecting his stock, I guess, chafes at such idealism. The film is poised to be a philosophical battle (Altruism vs. Capitalism, do we need advanced weapons to protect peace? and other such conundrums) between the two characters, but then Downey, for reasons that seem murky at best, begins building another one of his suits and all loftier ideas dissipate under the too-familiar story arc of an emerging superman. It's disappointing for a lot of reasons, mostly because the script never follows through on any of its more interesting concepts, but also because the actions of the characters feel so rote and perfunctory. At the end of the film, a newspaper article's headline reads something like, "Who is Iron Man?" but because the film focuses more on the construction of the suit than its utilization for vigilante justice in the public sphere, it doesn't seem as if Iron Man has really done enough to earn such a moniker. Again, it's like the movie assumes everyone is so completely on board with what it's going about, it doesn't have to work as hard to bring you into the world.

The film, as you've probably heard, is almost a success based on Robert Downey Jr.'s performance alone. Miraculously teasing the line between irony and earnestness, Downey brings off both Stark's hostility to the lesser mortals who don't possess his wealth of knowledge and his yearning for meaningful human contact with considerable charm. But, more than this, Downey, somehow manages to exemplify the American mood of the moment, giving us a hero who's drunk on American excess but plagued with non-specific liberal guilt over the global cost of his toys. In the current political climate, it is an endearing fantasy to see a successful corporate fellow renounce the means by which he gained his wealth and speak the truth about his own complicity in the horrors he's helped bring about. Anchoring the film with this utterly enjoyable performance was a smart move; Downey's playing at a higher level than the script and his work is a rising tide that lifts the entire operation from middling to highly enjoyable.

Even still, the whole thing feels pointless and milquetoast. It ends with a drab showdown between Downey and Bridges who battle it out in respective exoskeletons, but there's not a whiff of invention in this sequence. Bridges has a clunky, oversized suit that moves slowly, so the fight is often like watching a turtle battle a balloon (without the hilarious novelty of actually watching a real turtle literally battling a balloon). It's especially frustrating as Bridges plays a fun, charming corporate slimeball and his declared motivations are a perfect mirror of Tony Stark's. His climbing into a similar suit immediately puts him in a weaker position than the hero, since it's clear that he doesn't have the intimate understanding of the technology that Tony Stark possesses. His only advantage, then, is one of firepower, and if there's anything audiences weaned on the lessons of Star Wars (which are, of course, many of the same lessons the U.S. learned from the failure of the Vietnam War) understand it's that there's always a two-meter exhaust port on the hulking technology that the lesser folk can exploit. The stakes in this fight feel so small, so insignificant that all excitement is drained from the procedings. I left wishing that the scriptwriters had taken a page from Robocop, a film whose characters were smart enough to understand that technology is not nearly as threatening as people. (I also wished that the film began at the very moment it ends, since that was the moment in Iron Man that felt new, exciting, and actually interesting.)