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Reviews
Elysium (2013)
One of the worst movies I've seen in a while
Massive spoilers ahead! The main concept of Elysium is a dystopian future (a mere century from now, actually) where Earth has turned into an overpopulated, poor and diseased slum and a small group of super-rich people have managed to build a better life for themselves on a space station orbiting the planet, called Elysium. This space station, which looks suspiciously like a cross between the one from "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the Citadel from the "Mass Effect" games, comes complete with artificial gravity and air, gorgeous houses, beautiful gardens and lots of pretty women in bikinis. Perhaps if the film had spent more time on Elysium, it would at least have been more agreeable to look at. Instead, three quarters of it take place on Earth, more specifically the postapocalyptic garbage heap that is L.A., where hero Matt Damon is trying to make up for his previous life of crime by being a factory worker. Of course he also has a love interest and tries to prove to her that he is now a decent guy. In order to make us care more about the love interest, the movie gives her a cute, terminally ill daughter. Heavy-handed storytelling is an understatement, but I have to admit that the woman who plays the love-interest-nurse does an admirable job and at least made me care more about her and her daughter than about anyone else in the story, including the actual protagonist.
The concept of "Elysium" is not a bad one. Sure, dystopian futures are hardly original, but the main idea here is interesting. I was hoping that the film would tell us a bit more about this terrible future: its politics, what people are like on Elysium, how it got this far. It does none of these things. Instead it focuses entirely on profanity-spewing, muscular tough guys with tattoos who shoot each other all day long and talk in gravelly voices, emphasising words like "fuck" and "kill" a lot. The only people from Elysium given any time to do anything are Jodie Foster's one-dimensional arch-villain and her accomplice, some ridiculously caricature of a snob who dies in the middle of the movie. Foster's character gives the impression that she's sick of her job as protector of Elysium, and not in an "I'm starting to have moral qualms about this whole thing" kind of way, but just in a "how many innocent civilians can you blow up before it just gets boring" kind of way. So she sends out yet another caricature to do the dirty work: this time it's an alcohol-swilling, bazooka-wielding, South-African lowlife with a heavy accent.
Anyway, Matt Damon has an accident in the factory which will cause him to die in five days. This sets him on a quest to get to Elysium ASAP because they have technology there that can cure anyone in literally a few seconds... Of anything. Whether it's cancer or broken bones, all you need to do is lie down in a glass cabinet and -poof- you're healed. It's like walking over a heart in an old video game. Now I'm not even saying that every sci-fi film should be scientifically sound but if you're actually trying to comment on where we're headed as a society, and you're trying to present a bleak vision of a possible future, you should at least make some effort to be in the slightest bit credible. This wouldn't happen in Harry Potter. And it's not like the writer-director is ashamed of his painfully cheap solution to the world's health problems. In fact, he seems to be in love with it. In one of the most ridiculous scenes I have seen since "The Room", the South-African thug's entire face is blown off (shown in gory detail), so they put him in one of those medical thingamajigs and guess what? His face grows right back! Tadaa! This is not the only magical technology in the film (there is also the uploading and downloading of data straight from one man's brain into another) but this is so stupid, I thought I had fallen asleep and started having an absurd dream. But I checked with my girlfriend who was also there and unless she had the same dream, this is actually in the movie. Anyway, after long, long stretches of gritty action scenes set in ugly, graffiti-infested locales, the movie wraps up with Matt Damon sacrificing his life (*yawn*) and changing the whole system of Elysium so that now, the same medical technology that makes the inhabitants of Elysium so ridiculously immortal is given to everyone on Earth. Aww... And they lived happily ever after, the en-- wait a minute? Wasn't the big problem on Earth the massive overpopulation? And now they're going to make everyone immortal? And suddenly everything's solved? Apparently so, because the music signifies we have to be happy now and end credits have made their way to the screen already. What makes me so angry with this movie – besides the horribly clumsy action scenes where I can't see what's going on and I just get seasick – is that everything about it seems to shout that this is a serious, mature sci-fi thriller about pressing social and political issues (because it's GRITTY and THEMATIC, you know) but it has absolutely nothing intelligent to say. So you want to talk about the massive gap between the haves and the have-nots? At least show us something from both sides instead of just one-dimensionally vilifying all the rich and powerful. You say overpopulation is a problem? Then don't pretend you're solving anything by bringing physical immortality to the poverty-stricken, crime-infested masses. If this were just a simple dumb action movie, I would have still been bored, but I'd have shrugged and moved on, but the filmmakers want to make you feel they have made a statement about the world. This is not it. This is an insult.
The Room (2003)
Hard to decide: should I give this a very low or a very high grade?
There are a number of "so bad it's hilarious" movies out there but almost all of them are in the sci-fi and horror genres. "The Room" is exceptional in that it's intended as an edgy independent psychological drama. To see a "Plan 9 From Outer Space"-style version of that genre is even funnier! This film is absolutely bizarre. The dialogue is at once very childlike and yet it tries to tackle "heavy" themes like adultery, terminal illness, drug abuse and the like. As a result, it feels like it was written by an alien from outer space. And when you see The Room's protagonist, who is also the director, writer and producer, you'll see that he very likely IS an alien from outer space! It's absolutely unbelievably, jaw-droppingly awful... And highly recommended!
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
Masterful!
There was always a certain "damned if you do, damned if you don't" dilemma to the filming of "The Hobbit" and I think Peter Jackson knew that going in, which may be why it took him so long to take on the project as director. "The Lord of the Rings" was famous for being unfilmable until Jackson did it and proved he could not only make a good adaptation of the material, he could actually turn it into one of the greatest commercial AND critical successes of all time. However, I think "The Hobbit" is a harder book to film, especially after the success of the Ring-triloy. It's essentially a children's story that Tolkien wrote mostly for his own kids and long before he had any idea himself how it all tied in with his vast mythology. Because of that, the book has a very light, childlike tone, and yet it still exists in the same universe as all the other, much grander and more dramatic tales of Middle-Earth.
How do you maintain the lighter touch and charming magic of "The Hobbit" while also making it a credible prequel to LOTR? How to you balance the jolly "let's go on an adventure" feel with something that works for contemporary cinema goers who desire to see some action and drama taking place? How do you make sure those 13 dwarfs don't become a homogenous blur of beards and hoods while still retaining respect for Tolkien's vision? How do you bring a sense of menace and danger into the film without sacrificing its humour? And so on... It's an incredibly difficult and fine line to walk. I think the writers took a gutsy decision by deciding to tell not just the story of Bilbo's adventure, but to tell it as a real prequel trilogy to LOTR. It is after all something Tolkien himself desired to do but never got round to.
With seemingly effortless joy, "An Unexpected Journey" manages to capture all the magic and heart of the book while also giving us an insight into the depth of the history of Middle-Earth and hinting to the coming darkness of Sauron AND on top of that, it's just a rollicking good action adventure that any 13 year-old should love. Jackson's adaptation does all that and manages to elegantly honour the human themes in Tolkien's work as well: Bilbo's "Tookish" side winning over his reserved "Baggins" side is a genuinely inspiring call to adventure for all of us. The compassion Bilbo grants Gollum is delivered poignantly and beautifully and sets something up that pays off years later in "The Return of the King". Thorin's pride and stubbornness are introduced, leading up to what is sure to become a baffling and powerful climax in the third installment of this trilogy. All of the dwarfs are given genuine personality. The acting is superb. Richard Armitage's Thorin in particular is a sublime performance, both threatening and noble at once, single-minded in his pursuits yet always concerned for the safety of his friends.
Howard Shore's score is both light-footed and fairy tale-like and suitably grand and epic where needed, all while tying into the established themes of his "Rings" scores with precision and dedication. The truth is, movies like this are rare and exceptional. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is both a first-class cinema adventure for all ages as well as one of the best and most challenging adaptations of a literary work ever put on film.
Man of Steel (2013)
Just another big loud blockbuster, lacking in heart
I had seen the trailers for "Man of Steel" and the artistic shooting style and inner monologue made it seem like this was going to be a Terrence Malick-style take on Superman, which made sense to me. Superman is no doubt the most clearly spiritual of all famous superheroes. A film that charts Clark Kent's origins and growth into Superman, focusing on deep love for mankind and the sacrifices that he makes for them could be powerful and moving. So I was excited to see this.
Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. Don't get me wrong, "Man of Steel" is still an enjoyable film, but ONLY if you take it as simple testosterone fun akin to the Monster Truck Rally or something like that It's far more Michael Bay than Terrence Malick. If it did try to go deeper it failed miserably. I'm not a big superhero fan but I do like DC's two big ones: Superman and Batman. Superman is a decidedly different kind of hero compared to Batman and he should be treated differently as well. Batman is all about being broody and traumatised and living in a world of darkness. Superman, however, is not. He is a symbol of hope, of all the very best that mankind can aspire to. He is a simple all-American farmboy from Kansas raised by loving parents as well as the most powerful man alive. He should make you feel warm inside.
The old Superman movies got this. "Superman Returns" got this. "Smallville" got this. Even "Lois & Clark", in all its deliberate cheesiness, really got this. "Man of Steel", however, tries to "Batmanify" Superman. Instead of the warm colours and romantic sunsets of previous entries, Zack Snyder goes for what's currently cool, which means grim faces and washed-out colours which wouldn't be so bad, considering there are some gorgeous visual designs here, but Snyder ruins it for me by shooting the entire film in completely unnecessary shaky-cam and applying exaggerated lens flare effects that put JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" to shame, in extremely fast-paced scenes where no shot lasts longer than a few seconds. The scenes that are supposed to shed light on Clark Kent's youth and his relationship to his parents are so brief and so few that he seems to be completely detached from them. The budding romance between Superman and Lois Lane is handled like an afterthought. Even the moment when Clark finally learns who he really is and gets to speak to his real father is simply used as a piece of exposition that ultimately amounted to little more than dad telling his son "here's your costume, now go and be super and stuff", never stopping to contemplate how all of this makes Clark feel.
Some of the characters do get some motivation; in particular general Zod, the villain.. But even then, Zod was still just a straightforward bad guy you've seen in a thousand other movies before. Most other characters are not just one-dimensional, they are there as nothing more than mechanistic plot devices, with Jonathan Kent as the worst example. Clark's foster father is reduced to a sickeningly cold and detached man who at one point even tells his son it would probably have been better to let a bus full of children die a terrible death than to risk anyone knowing he has special powers. It was one of several "What??" moments I had during the film. And I'm usually a very forgiving guy. I forgive stories that don't make logical sense as long as they make emotional sense. Unfortunately, several key moments in this movie don't make ANY kind of sense.
There is no sense of joy here, unless it be the "joy" of destroying things and making lots and lots of noise. The action scenes are exceedingly long and over the top. Superman seems to actually have fun smashing into buildings and causing as much collateral damage as possible (how it is possible to still excite people with this kind of imagery as something "fun" in post-9/11 America is beyond me). While, sure, I get it, the mayhem is cool, it does get REALLY exhausting and worse: it focuses on Superman's powers as a violent force, rather than something noble and beautiful he actually uses to save people.
There were still good things, though, that earn it the few stars I did hand out. For one thing, I loved the visual look of the opening scenes, showing the final hours of Krypton. The designs were suitably fantastical and rich and it really felt like an epic space opera in which big and important events were happening.
I really liked Henry Cavill as Superman. He has the look, the voice and the quiet inner strength that the character needs. His acting is reserved but he radiates a sense of nobility that really works with the character.
I thought it was nice that the story didn't feature any Kryptonite, which I am kind of sick of by now.
And I enjoyed Hans Zimmer's memorable score, which evokes the promise of something epic going to happen the whole time. Unfortunately, I still have to criticize even this aspect, because, yes, it feels like something epic is GOING to happen the whole time, but it remains stuck in that mode. It never quite really soars, and in my opinion, it ultimately completely pales in comparison to John Williams' majestic symphonic themes I thought this film had enormous potential and some incredible talent behind it, and I believe it could have been so much more if it had focused on the people more and if it had given them heart and humour and warmth. If it had just told the story, building anticipation to that great moment when Clark Kent accepts his destiny and becomes Superman, instead of pasting that moment almost randomly in a patchwork narrative. If it had dared to NOT be "edgy" and "gritty" like everything these days.