iimsoul Reviews

The Last Mimzy (2007)

Mediocre direction almost brings down a fascinating screenplay.

[27 January 2008]

If you're a fan of Ray Bradbury's blend of fantasy and science fiction, you will undoubtedly find this small, endearing movie a pleasurable experience. The screenwriters do an exemplary job of incorporating hard science and child-like wonder into the story's DNA without bogging down the more intimate and important story of a family dealing with things beyond their understanding. The actors also do an exemplary job at playing believable human beings. This is something I rarely see in both family and science fiction films, with notable exceptions like ET and THE TERMINATOR. As a white, upper middle-class family they were entirely believable. The ideas regarding genetics, time travel, intellectual curiosity, and the endurance of humanity are refreshingly stimulating and thought-provoking. Some if it may go over your children's heads but there's enough whiz-bang to keep them planted in their seats.

Unfortunately, Bob Shaye's direction isn't up to fully rendering the subtleties and thrills of the script. His framing is ugly and claustrophobic, his staging is awkward, and his take on the futuristic world is downright uninspired. Had this been in the hands of someone like Tim Burton, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, or Brad Bird, this may well have been a tiny masterpiece.

Southland Tales (2006)

Film-making with no regard for the audience

[28 February 2007]

Renais, Bunel, Godard, and Lynch; these are all filmmakers who use the medium to challenge and provoke audiences. They often times subvert genres, norms, and cinematic conventions and give us provocative, brain-nutritious cinema. Though their movies tend to alienate a large portion of viewers, they still create their art, with their audience in mind, knowing full- well that at the end of the day, a connection needs to be made between the film and the people.

Richard Kelly's DONNIE DARKO, while clearly the work of a not-yet-matured filmmaker, gave us the promise of a budding artist whose intentions might have been similar to those aforementioned filmmakers. Unfortunately, after seeing his follow-up, SOUTHLAND TALES, I believe his potential has either been stilted, stalled, or misperceived. In fact, viewing TALES and DARKO back-to-back, his second film comes across as utter regression.

TALES felt like the longest, most expensive student film I've ever seen. At just under three hours, it's a sprawling mess. Oddball for the sake of being oddball, cryptic for the sake of of being cryptic, tonally confused, structurally struggling, I think, no matter how they "clean it up," it will be impossible to salvage.

There's nothing on screen to make you care. To make you invested. There are no stakes. Actually, there's no plot, just a bunch of incidents which are all happening at the same time seemingly to justify why these characters would criss-cross. The characters are so thinly conceived, you find yourself looking at the scenery (all in LA), trying to name the street, beach, or building. The imagery is repetitive and banal. The themes are jumbled and stated over and over again by on-the-nose voice-over from Justin Timberlake.

Watching this was like watching a movie by a severely Autistc filmmaker; in his mind, this all works and has a rhyme and a reason but to me, the viewer, there was absolutely no way to access it. This is not for my lacking of intellectual depth or intelligence. I was awake, aware, acute, and ready to absorb this film. Only, the film wasn't ready to engage me.

Next time at bat, Mr. Kelly should look to the masters he was trying to emulate and see that beneath their audacious sometimes even experimental surfaces, there are real stories and real characters at play.

In Good Company (2004)

Deeper than one might expect

[28 February 2007]

I felt compelled to write something on this effectively made dramedy. Its theme is simple: aging. Essentially, it is a story about growing up, or "coming-of-age," but it deals with three separate generations: a teenage girl, a twenty-something man, and a man in his mid-life.

They're all coming to grips with who they're "supposed" to be at they're respective ages and what they're "supposed" to be doing with their lives. Over the course of the movie, they learn about each other and even more about themselves.

The coming-of-age theme is explored using a somewhat contrived plot device (though not so unbelievable). The teenage girl begins dating the twenty-something man, who happens to be her father's boss.

There are several instances when the filmmakers fumble opportunities to enhance the drama; instead of giving us a bit more character and a bit more beneath the surface, they too often opt for an easy gag or a cute laugh.

The tonal shifts are not handled in the smoothest way either and yet, by the end, I got the sense that these characters had finally begun their life-long journeys to "find" themselves. It left me with a deeper and more contemplative feeling than do most standard Hollywood flicks.

Certainly a cut-above your average date movie and undervalued by critics and audiences upon its release.