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Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Brian McDonough — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:24:43 +0000

[rating:3] Director: Andrew Adamson Starring: William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, Ben Barnes It’s round two of C.S. Lewis’ beloved adventure-story-as-Christian-allegory, and apparently at this point we’ve reached the Crusades metaphors. All right, there are no specific references to wiping out unbelievers, but there sure as hell is a lot of medieval war. Our cast of engagingly unengaging British waifs returns to Narnia a year after the last flick, finds out that something like 1300 years have passed, and spends the entire sequel battling Spanish conquistadors who apparently got very, very lost looking for a shortcut to Asia. “This is like Braveheart,” my companion whispered in my ear. And she didn’t mean anyone had painted their asses blue. She meant it was a huge amount of ragtag loser army fighting well-disciplined badguy army, only now with centaurs and dwarves as your crazy fictional characters (in place of Mel Gibson, then). Related posts:

The Golden Compass

Brian McDonough — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:01:31 +0000

[rating:2.5] Director: Chris Weitz Starring: Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig If you want the capsule review of The Golden Compass, everything you need to know is in the poster. It looks pretty, with lots of clean stuff. There's a handsome man and an icy, beautiful woman, and a floaty chick and a balloon and an armored polar bear with what may be a little girl riding its back. All four principal figures and their respective backgrounds are obviously individual posters meant to convey a different aspect or “feel,” and on a moment's reflection, it's clear that they don't work together, and that they don't tell any kind of actual story, which is saying a lot considering how much crap they've thrown onto that oversized rectangle. And other than being the backdrop of the title design, there's no actual golden compass apparent. If you'd seen the movie, you'd know that it's entirely about the tiny girl on the back of the polar bear, who's so small you can't even see her. You'd know that the guy at top left is barely in the film at all, and is really an entirely unnecessary character—his contributions to the advancement of the plot could've been handled in any of a dozen other ways. You'd also know that there's parallel universes, a rather clerical-feeling dictatorship, flying witches, lots of blue-eyed gypsies, and one very lost cowboy. But just going off what we do know from the poster: It's a hodge-podge of arguably pretty things and familiar fantasy elements (not the saddled polar bear. That seems kinda new) that lacks focus and doesn't add up to anything. Related posts:

Beowulf

Brian McDonough — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:00:17 +0000

[rating:4] Director: Robert Zemeckis Starring: Ray Winstone, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich You remember that movie where a grotesque computer animation of Tom Hanks is, like, ticket collector on Santa's choo-choo train? Yeah, I didn't see that either. The reason I didn't see it is because while it was clearly meant to be heartwarming holiday fare, the characters were all animated in an excruciatingly near-realistic manner that rendered them more disturbing to look at than those Disneyland mannequin horrors. Robert Zemeckis' new film, Beowulf, is roughly the same kind of animation. It's set somewhere in Denmark in the year 507, and I'm pretty sure the place's name would translate as Uncanny Valley. You really have to overcome the not-quite-ness of the characters to enjoy this movie, and it's a huge leap to make. The good news is that, thanks to Zemeckis' no-holds-barred direction and a daring script by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, viewers should be able to cross that valley and enjoy the hell out of the two-hour experience. Related posts:

Stardust

Stardust

Brian McDonough — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:36:07 +0000

[rating:4.5] Director: Matthew Vaughn Starring: Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert DeNiro, Claire Danes Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of Stardust, the ten-year-old fairy tale written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Charles Vess, takes the best of that magical adventure and shakes it up a little for movie audiences. It's a remarkable and rare adaptation in which the essential story is preserved, and the deviations are an improvement for the cinematic presentation. It's also a film that strikes a perfect tone between the ponderous, serious, interminable Lord of Rings films and the breeziness of The Princess Bride, which both celebrated fantasy stories while being awkwardly self-conscious about how dorky such stories are. Stardust neither takes three hours to make you really, really believe in dwarves and well-mapped dream continents, nor does it apologize, scuffing its toe in the dirt, for being an adventure and romance. It's the late 1800s, and a village in the English countryside sits beside an unassuming entrance to Faerie, which has magic and a more medieval cast. A foolish boy trying to woo a girl (who sees him only as a foolish boy) promises to bring her a falling star they spot plummeting down to the east—across the wall that keeps separate this world and that. That the star turns out to be personified as an understandably grumpy (but, appropriately, radiant) Claire Danes, and that there is an evil witch and murderous princes vying for a throne also after the celestial prize, provide all the complications and misadventures you could want. Related posts:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Brian McDonough — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:01:44 +0000

[rating:3] Director: David Yates Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon So is it good or bad that the fifth Harry Potter film feels so much like the previous four? The Potter movies are always flawed in the same way — too crowded with characters, ideas and unfinished threads — yet they're also always weirdly enjoyable beyond their limitations. So the downside is that nothing really stands out in this film. I defy you to go up to anyone who has been watching the films, but hasn't read the books, and ask them to tell you the key plot MacGuffin of “Chamber of Secrets” or “Goblet of Fire.” In the end, they all blur into one underlit labyrinth through which three insanely fortunate child actors run to or from one excellent, aging character actor after another. Yeah, there are some differences this time — Daniel Radcliffe's Harry is mopier and angrier, with J.K. Rowling's plot to the fifth novel showcasing teen angst — but the movie still blends in with all the rest. Once again, we cover an entire school year, this time adapting with unreasoned fealty a book that ran nearly 900 pages, in a movie that's not quite two and a half hours. Again, plot points are touched upon to not disappoint the manic readers of the book series, but then dropped without satisfying the movie audience at all. And of course, most of the film is shot in darkness, and there's a vague and ill-understood menace that includes a noseless Ralph Finnes dancing through quick-flash insert shots and hissing menacingly. At least this one doesn't end with a big banquet scene announcing that Harry's sub-unit of the Hogwart's School had earned more points than its rivals, all while keeping to an acceptable body count. The backstory of Harry's late, lamented parents is filled in with some interesting details, and Harry's relationship with the villainous Voldemort is given a bit of a theoretical wrinkle that may play out interestingly in later films. The sameness of the films, despite different directors, is impressive when compared to other long-running franchises, though. “Star Wars” episodes never felt the same, and the series tanked midway through the third picture. “Alien” should've stopped at two, “Star Trek” films are a total crapshoot, and the James Bond movies have had more highs and lows than Robert Downey Jr. on a three-week Vegas bender. So the fact that you can go to a Harry Potter film and know that you're going to get exactly what you're paying for, in the exact same ratio of murky angst and dead-end plot threads, is actually an impressive achievement in delivering the promised product, which too few movies manage to do. Related posts:

King Kong

Brian McDonough — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 08:21:08 +0000

Peter Jackson’s epic remake of King Kong has two things going for it. One, it delivers some of the most exciting action sequences and special effects ever put on film. Imaginative, non-stop, terrifying adventure occupies more than an hour of the three-hour film. Two, it is the love story between a beautiful blonde and a giant, savage ape. And that, dear readers, is some fucked-up shit. Related posts:

The Brothers Grimm

Brian McDonough — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 06:18:27 +0000

The premise of The Brothers Grimm should immediately induce two thoughts: Recasting dull German scholars Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm as adventurous young hearththrobs fighting real fairy-tale creatures is the absolute dumbest premise for a movie outside of casting Rob Schneider as a man women would pay to have sex with. Second, that only a genius of Terry Gilliam's caliber could pull this off. And you'd be half right. Gilliam fails so badly here, you want to check the credits to make sure it wasn't done by some unknown cousin, maybe a Jerry Gilliam. I mean, the premise of Time Bandits is pretty dumb if you reduce it to a sentence, and The Fisher King could be a tough pitch, too. I'm not sure you even can reduce Brazil to one coherent sentence. Yet in each case, the inventive lunacy of Gilliam makes the films not just successful, but masterful. The Brothers Grimm just sucks. And you know, I would not have thought I could possibly hate a movie that casts Monica Bellucci as an evil queen. But by god (who, if she really exists, would have to look exactly like Monica Bellucci), that's what happens here. Related posts: