Change Your Image
Jeff Softley
Reviews
Superman Returns (2006)
I Though They Yanked Tim Burton from this Film ... ???
This lumbering dullard of a superhero movie feels very much like a Tim Burton film: overlong, slightly pretentious, draggy in places, and filled with characters that are social retards - people incapable of actually directly expressing themselves so that true feelings are left unspoken or words not meant are said instead. Overall, very unsatisfying.
That said, the effects are good, and the film has that sleek, clean visual style director Singer favors, but the story is lame with errors in logic and some very bad choices.
When Superboy is more interesting and leaves you wondering what he'll do more than the title character, you're in trouble. For that matter, what the hell is the mini Superman doing in the story anyway? Kevin Spacey is simply terrible, and Parker Posey's unique, er, acting, is wasted entirely.
I thought I was watching a Tim Burton film, full of socially inarticulate emotionally crippled Gen-Xers talking past one another to the point they fail to connect when they so obviously want to. This has the same effect on an audience that too much misdirection in a mystery has, you begin to glaze over and not care.
Routh does a fine job and will rightfully book plenty of more work, but hopefully if there's another Superman movie, they'll put an actual story into it and aim a lot higher.
The Omen (2006)
The Only Evil is that They Got My Money!
Why did I think for even 2 seconds that this film would be worth watching? Every single element that made the original a classic has been dumbed-down and made ridiculous in this version. Truly a terrible film.
If you actually see this travesty hurry to see the original as soon as possible afterward to get the stench of this one out of your system.
Did a British Gen-Xer under age 35 make this film? It would explain so much.
The best review trashing this piece of garbage I've read so far is Harry Knowles on his Ain'tItCoolNews website.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Gen-X-Men III: Mutants for the Dumbed-Down
To those not familiar with the X-Men comics this movie will stand as solid entertainment, with plenty of action and continuity in the storyline from the two previous film incarnations to hold their interest. It is a by-the-numbers slugfest between the X-Men, who want to protect a mutant that can drain all mutants nearby of their powers and is the source of genes used to create a vaccine or "cure" that the government uses as a weapon to de-power mutants and Magneto and his ad-hoc army of Gen-X skanky mutants who want to kill the boy and fight the government and normal humans for dominance.
Exactly why the X-Men wind up fighting side-by-side with corporate rent-a-cops of the company that makes the virus and the US military and their plastic weapons against Magento and his army is not explored. The story is a train wreck caused by too many story tracks meeting in one place. Oh, and why cast Michael Murphy as Angel's father when he looks so remarkably similar to Bruce Davison as Senator Kelly?? To anyone at all familiar with the X-Men as characters from the comic book series, this film is a mish-mash of Gen-X drivel.
We all know the story, journeyman mainstream Gen-X director Brett Ratner was brought onto the film when most of the creative elements were already set. He did a good job, considering. He's not an artist, and this film isn't art, but it's not bad - just without a soul is all.
Bad creative choices were made, for example - killing off three main characters who are the pillars of the X-Men!?!? Obviously an X-Men IV will have to involve the Pheonix (Jean Grey) resurrecting and bringing back Xavier and Cyclops, and just as with time-travel movies, it is too easy an out. But there is no point in making and X-Men IV without those characters. It would not be true to the legacy of that comic to move on instead to truly lame characters like Gambit.
What we got with X3:The Last Stand is the Gen-X X-Men, a whole bunch of skanky tattooed mutants who reflect the Chris Claremont influence upon the comic series.
For true fans of the X-Men, Chris Claremont represents the turning point of when the X-Men started going downhill. Rogue was always a lame character, but in the films thank goodness for a truly gifted actress in Anna Paquin to give her relevance.
The real X-Men were Cyclops, Iceman, Jean Grey, Angel and Professor X. The Beast was always a lame character, and the fact that the filmmakers chose to include him this time around reflects the level of poor artistic choices which went into this project. We get Angel in this film, but he's a useless presence, there simply to band-aid together story elements for the film that found their roots in the comic.
The fact that the filmmakers decided to use the Phoenix storyline yet not have her character flare into the bird of fire form makes you wonder, "why'd they bother?" Throughout the series we've never seen Scott Summers as Cyclops really convey his leadership of the team nor use his powers in full-force demonstrating that he is one of the most powerful mutants. Why not bring Havoc, his brother, into the storyline? Havoc is one of the best characters. The Cain-and-Abel aspect to that relationship was always compelling reading, and Havoc's plasma power was cool. Bobby as Iceman is wasted as a pubescent boy beset more with the troubles of teen angst and is never allowed to demonstrate his full power until one stupid little moment where he turns all gray and icey (like a bad outtake from Terminator 2) instead of white while fighting Pyro. Where are the sheets of ice Bobby can make from the air? His power looked like a clogged snow-blower at a ski resort.
The studio should just thank their lucky stars that they got Hugh Jackman for the role of Wolverine. I always hated that character, as most fans of the early X-Men series do. Jackman made me actually like the character. As written, Wolverine is like a murderous muscle-bound Bob Hoskins - and he was never the heart of the X-Men.
I can see the films are going to go in the Gen-X direction of more dark story lines and skankier characters. We'll probably get that awful Gambit and Bishop in X-Men IV. (sigh)
Path of Destruction (2005)
David Keith is slumming
Although it looks like he did only 2 or 3 days of work on this utter shlockfest of a Sci-Fi Channel piece of junk, poor David Keith has his name attached to this garbage. At least he's working and drawing a check, but it's a long way from the Brubaker days ...
This sci-fi mess should be required viewing for all films students: as an example of what a film looks like when things go completely wrong. The production design is all but nonexistent, the direction is sloppy and terrible at the same time, the acting is as bad as it gets, and the script sounds like an 11th grade English class did it as a week-long project, an hour at a time over five days.
I'm still waiting for the David Keith / Keith David co-starrer. These are two good actors when they get good material, and they've suffered long enough in the B-movie realm. Tarantino, are you listening?
Excalibur (1981)
Perfect
A perfect film, from first frame to last.
A wonderful visual rendering of the Arthurian legend, with several iconic images to inform cinema for the ages (most particularly the sword-in-the-stone insertion and removal; meeting Lancelot; the final battle of Arthur; and the red sunset at the end when Arthur is floated away to
the other realm).
Textural, rich with color, perfect use of light and color for thematic effect, wonderfully cast, with an economical script and well acted throughout.
It is folly to attempt any kind of remake when this film is around.
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Vernita Green Kills Bill, er, Aliens
Completely entertaining in that Big Hollywood Summer Movie Shlockfest kind of way, Alien vs. Predator (or AVP as they packaged it for short-attention span Gen-Xers), has a sexy-but-tough black chick protagonist who gets blooded and bonds with the toughest of the crab-faced Predators as she fights for survival in the shifting labyrinth multi-cultural pyramid of doom under a half mile of ice where the Aliens have taken over and threaten mankind with .... blah blah, you get the picture.
What is truly entertaining is the unintended camp of this film.
At one point, after a lucky defensive spear thrust, AVP's version of Vernita Green earns the last Predator's respect and together they seek to destroy the aliens and escape from the Pyra-maze-complex ... you almost expect a scene of them relaxing and smoking cigarettes after sex it gets so preposterous.
The Matrix-Charlie's Angel slow-mo of a face-hugger flying across a room is moronic - some studio suit no doubt wrote the note for that one.
Our heroes outrun explosions and collapsing ice - after vanquishing an angry queen Alien, of course. One must simply laugh at the movie at this point.
If the makers of these films could just ground them a wee bit more in reality - like following the rules of physics for one - they would be so much more suspenseful - and better.
I sure hope the spoofs of this film pick up on the Vernita Green angle and blend in a Christie Love aspect too. I'd love to see a bell-bottomed, big-afroed sistah kicking ass with her man the Predator and then smoking after some serious inter-species lovemaking. Tarantino rips off black culture from the 70s, and so should the spoofers of AVP.
White Chicks (2004)
A Goof, but at times hilarious
The film is a goof, but is simply hilarious at times.
The story is weak, with some real errors in logic and timeline problems, but this isn't the sort of film in which you contemplate such things.
The Wayans' make feel-good films, and that's what White Chicks is all about. Sean and Marlon create such loopy, goofy characters that you just enjoy spending time with them. Race, class, sexuality and materialism are all addressed with a soft touch, but at least they made a stab at these issues - with humor.
Some gags are obvious and slow (the dog, for example), but the audience I saw it with in jaded L.A. (about half black, half white and other) laughed throughout and some of us laughed so hard we cried in some scenes.
It's a little long but the Wayans' must bring these girls back for more.
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
At Least Irwin Allen Movies Had Camp
The Day After Tomorrow is so horrendously bad I can hardly describe it.
Imagine you are at a high school party and drinking keg beer out of plastic cups. After a while you are buzzed and listening to the loud music and talking with people and reach over to take a sip of your beer. As you drink you realize you didn't look before picking up the cup and accidentally picked up the cup people used as an ashtray and the putrid dreck in the cup suddenly assaults your taste buds.
THAT is what it is like watching this terrible movie. You feel assaulted by stupidity, violated by inanity, tortured with bad acting, and hazed with the most implausible and idiotic script since, well, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
Dean Devlin somehow didn't participate in this travesty of a motion picture about a SERIOUS SUBJECT, but he partnered with DAT's director Roland Emmerich on several other stupid films such as Independence Day and Godzilla. These people are cinematic criminals who should be permanently barred from making films.
Think Irwin Allen's The Swarm and you get the idea of just how bad DAT really is. The audience I saw it with laughed throughout the whole movie, and only twice in the intended places. Jake Gylenhaal is the new poster boy for Hollywood nepotism. How does this ugly bug-eyed slacker rate a leading role in anything other than his high school production of Bye Bye Birdie? [oh yeah, Mommie and Daddy are in the business]
I can't believe I gave these clowns my money again!
Troy (2004)
Makes Gladiator seem like child's play
Gladiator won Best Picture at the Oscar's. It was a joke then, but now that Troy is out, it is especially clear how Gladiator was a trifle compared to Troy.
Troy is film-making as good as it gets when it comes to complex and difficult subject matter compressed into a movie less than 3 hours long. Wolfgang Petersen doesn't have the sumptuous and warm visual aesthetic of Ridley Scott, but stages the fight scenes and battles beautifully and gives us locations and buildings and uniforms we've not seen before. Troy has a much more you-are-there feel about it than any other film about the Classical Age.
Gladiator homogenized and made pretty its ugly world, and had so much CGI, you almost thought you were watching a George Lucas film.
Troy gives us extras in uniform for the battle scenes, hundreds of them at least, if not thousands. The CGI is kept to a bare minimum and the difference really shows.
Let us remember that Troy is based on The Ilaid and the story covers at least 10 years. So it is no small feat to compress the timeline.
I wasn't thrilled with the choice of removing the supernatural from the story, or the homosexual relationship between Achilles and Patroclus - two of the central pillars upon which this epic story is built. But, hey, this is Hollywood, and we have Oliver Stone for the homosexual love story in his version of Alexander the Great (to Stone's credit he didn't shy away from the reality of this actual historic figure), and most Americans under the age of 50 are so undereducated and/or dumbed-down that it would take a 2-hour movie just to explain all of the Greek gods and their significance as it relates to the human characters in the Iliad/Troy.
Troy, as is, really works, with no homosexuality (it is obliquely referenced for those who've read the book), and no Mount Olympus gods. Achilles' mother Thetis is a sea-nymph but that is also referenced indirectly.
It would have been really cool to see Achilles' new armor glowing, but, Peterson chose to keep his film grounded in the human dimension. An explanation of just why Achilles was vulnerable in his heel (his mother held him there when dipping him in the River Styx to make him invulnerable thus that part was not made invulnerable) would have proved helpful for the purpose of heightening the drama when he is finally felled by Paris at the end.
What is great about the film is its pacing, the superb acting by all involved, the look of the film, the visceral and effectively executed battle scenes, and the sense of another time.
A weakness of the film is the casting of Helen. My vote would have gone to German actress Xenia Seeberg, but Diane Kruger did a fine job acting-wise... her beauty and presence were not grand, as required though. It would have been nice to have a beauty that was truly breathtaking to underpin the story for the viewer as to why she could launch a ten-year war.
The greatest weakness of the film has to be the music. The original score was tossed out and excellent composer James Horner was brought in at the last minute and created a score that lends nothing, really, to the film. Imagine some of the surreal music by Nino Rota from Satyricon in place of Horner's music and you get an idea of how otherworldly and brilliantly the right kind of music could have elevated this film.
Despite its minor flaws, I give the film a 10 out of 10 because it is clearly the best film ever made in the genre.
X2 (2003)
X3, X4, 5,6,7 ... everybody loves a steady paycheck
Bryan Singer and the entire cast should count on doing one of these films every 12 to 18 months ... they are realizing the story perfectly, and none of the actors should get pretentious and big-headed and say they need "new creative challenges" ... don't walk away from a multi-million dollar paycheck kids ... your talents are being perfectly used for terrific pop-culture cinema that requires what - 6-10 weeks of your time for the actors. X-2 is better than the first, which was terrific. Bring on the Sentinals but skip the outer space stuff - stay with the classic storyline from late 60s through early 80s. Let's see Havok, Angel, Inhumans, and Iceman riding sheets of ice (Pheonix is obviously next up for X3), but not the Hellfire Club crap or Bishop, or any Chris Claremont stories (the guy who ruined X-Men for those of us who read it from the beginning).
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
A visual feast, better than the original
NO SPOILERS - THE STORY IS SECONDARY ANYWAY ...
If I could use one word to describe the film, I would have that surfer fish-dude from SpongeBob say, "Aww-uh-uh-uh-uh-Su-uh-uh-uh-uhm!!!"
Matrix:Reloaded is much more than its predecessor, and in one way a bit less. Much much more in terms of beautifully choreographed sensory overload, and more in the depth to the story of man vs. machine, but less in that the element of mystery is gone, the story is quite literal and the reality/unreality head-trippiness of the first film is no more. This is no longer a voyage of discovery for our protagonist, but a mission to save one's beloved and perhaps save a people.
Forget the TIME review and all that you've heard or read, the film will exceed your expectations unless you are a total sensory overloaded 14-year-old computer-gaming geek. Action action action - get ready to hold on to your seat. The best special effects ever, and the green palette of the film used perfectly. Stunning fight and chase sequences, amazingly realized expressions of Neo's now massive power within the Matrix. Every performance is more assured, the logic of the story more propulsive and less ponderous (except for the strange Shakespearian cadence to Lawrence Fishburne's Morpheus - what is up with that speaking style? Who made this fine actor do that?). You will want to see this film at least one more time, to feel the rush of riding this thrilling roller coaster again. Probably not since the first Star Wars came out in '77 will people see the same film so many times.
I'll reveal no story details, because, frankly, they don't matter much - the plot points were laid out in the first film, and this story is a natural continuation of the storyline, and it perfectly sets up the final installment of the trilogy Matrix:Revolution which comes out in November (but one does wonder where all those underground dwellers get their food and take showers). Reloaded is mostly fight sequences with mythology becoming a stronger strain to the story. I can almost predict the final line to the third film Revolution will be from Terry Gilliam's Brasil, "'Ere I am, the ghost in the machine." Ponder that theme for a second and you get the drift of where they're taking the story. But love and power is at the heart of Reloaded, with a mix of earnestness and deception thrown in for spice.
It is all about the visceral in this film - movement movement movement, which starts with a dream and ends with us wondering what is real and what is real-real, with the "real" Neo doing something that defies the laws of physics - and sets our minds wondering, how deep does the illusion go? In the meantime we get a visual feast and stunts so spectacular and fight sequences so creative, it's no wonder actress Carrie-Anne Moss broke her leg. The film will stand the test of time as a work of art for its visuals, and the mish-mash of themes and character archetypes we've seen in countless other science fiction films and in novels that populate Reloaded have the chance to coalesce into something terrific for Revolution - if the brothers can pull it off. They have raised the bar very high indeed for Revolution with Reloaded. Will our characters live a hell a thousand times over or will renegade programs do more than survive and/or serve themselves?
Don't bother looking for clues to what's in the story before the film opens, better to let it wash over you when you do finally strap in for the wild ride - you will not be disappointed. And I really didn't think the first one was all that great. Reloaded is better than Matrix. Much better.
Phase IV (1974)
The best of the nature strikes back genre
A classic 70's eco-film. Along with Andromeda Strain, Silent Running, Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, A Boy and His Dog, Demon Seed and others, Phase IV is a 70's film standout for its message of human hubris, greed and excess causing harm to nature. And in Phase IV the ants strike back. Thought-provoking, and beautifully shot for a low budget film, Phase IV generates real suspense and heightened drama through good performances, a well-crafted story, and excellent editing of the extreme close-up shots of the ants. I'm sure some Gen-Xers will remake this film and totally f**k it up through the use of CGI. See the original and take to heart its message.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Mulholland Drive Explained
**SPOILERS**I finally saw David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. on DVD last night (9/15/02), and do not know what all the controversy is about regarding the plot. Really it is quite simple.
First of all, it is one of Lynch's better films, after Fire Walk With Me and Wild at Heart.
The real story begins in the last third of the film, when blonde Diane (Naomi Watts) wakes from the bed (remember the 'Cowboy' telling her to "wake up now"?) and involves a story of a lesbian romance gone terribly wrong. The character of Diane is obsessively in love with an amoral brunette actress named Camilla (Rita in the earlier part of the film). Diane hires a hit man to have Camilla killed.
SPOILERS
The Cowboy is like Chronos, resetting the clock so the hellish dream can be lived over and over again - hence the last third of the film actually occurs BEFORE the descent into hell of the first two-thirds of the film.
The old couple are gateway demons, ushering Diane into hell for her crime, and leading her to her suicide in the 'real' part of the story.
The blue box is a stand-in for Pandora's box, which the crime Diane sets into motion causes to be opened by Pandora - the evil looking bum behind the wall of the diner. Don't forget that hope was the one good thing unleashed with all the evils contained within Pandora's box, hence the hopeful tone of the dreamlike descent into hell for Diane (now Betty).
All of the characters and circumstances of the first two-thirds of the film are idealized representations of what went on in Diane's life in the 'real' part of the story.
The aunt is alive, helpful, concerned but still distant in the hell story. The director suffers all manner of torments in the hell story - Betty's imagination creating these torments for what he did to her (Diane) in the 'real' story - stealing her girl and humiliating her at the party. Coco, the director's mother, is the only person who is nice to Diane in the 'real' story - politely asking her questions about herself at the party while everyone else seems to ignore or be cruel to her, hence in the hell story Coco is helpful and kind - and now the apartment building manager. The hit man is a bungler and a buffoon in the hell story, a far cry from the crisp efficiency of the murderer in the 'real' story, who very quickly leaves the receipt for the murder - a conventional blue key - for Diane to find it. Rita (Camilla) is a blank: vulnerable, and even kind - the opposite of the amoral and self-serving Camilla of the 'real' story. Betty meets Rita naked, foreshadowing the lesbian relationship. The strangely shaped blue key and the black bag stuffed with money in the hell story link back to the real blue key and the money (a lesser amount) of the 'real' story ... and just when the mystery is to be solved, the blue box for the blue key found at the strange basement club where the singer dies but the song of love goes on (and the devilish MC intones that it is "all recorded") ... they open the box only to ... DISAPPEAR ... Cowboy appears and tells Betty/Diane to "wake up now," starting the endless cycle all over again. The man in the diner who had the vision of evil behind the wall had been paying his check at the register in the diner when Diane contracted for the murder and sensed the evil unleashed, and in the hell story he is represented as a customer, sitting exactly where Diane had sat, and recounts his dream of seeing evil behind the wall behind the diner.
Recap: Lesbian love story gone wrong. Spurned lover hires hitman to kill her movie star lover. Blue key found is receipt for the murder and causes her to go insane. She kills herself. Awakens in hell to relive her life over and over, but it is representational and not an exact accounting - and just as she is about to attain all that she wants - her lover, money, and a solution to the mystery of Rita ... Cowboy resets the clock to start it over again.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Lucas Again Conjures the Magic
Crouching Yoda, Hidden Sith Lord could well describe Attack of the Clones. Whether conscious or not, the references to other films are several in George Lucas's latest Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones ... and it all works brilliantly. Fans of Star Wars truly have a feast before them with this latest installment of the series. Visually stunning, and chock-o-block full of action sequences that flow logically as the story progesses into a crescendo until the satisfying climax, Attack of the Clones is as good as the original Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back - in fact it is like a mix of the two, with the thrills of the former and the more adult dark tones of the latter.
There are moments of the film that feel like Predator, Bladerunner, North by Northwest, 007 (any number of the Bond films), and even Lord of the Rings - and all in the best sense of homage, for these references seem effortless, as if they infused the work rather than were the basis of the particular scenes which evoke these earlier films. Lucas is at the top of his game here, and the CGI work is the best yet, and Lucas moves his camera almost constantly - taking a page from Peter Jackson. Certain vistas are works of art, and the detail and texture now possible is simply stunning - a testament to Lucas's vision and to the technology.
For those who thought the magic they felt upon the release of the original Star Wars back in 1977 would never be recaptured, I have news for you - Lucas has made lightning strike again. You will see this movie more than once.