Layer Cake
I’d heard raves about this movie, but I’ll be damned if I
can figure out what the big deal is.
Daniel Craig (the next James Bond) stars as a coyly unnamed drug
dealer
who is shocked – shocked! – to find out that violence, revenge, and
general
bloody mayhem often accompany drug dealing.
The movie seems to take as read his assumption that dealing
could be run
like any other business, which is just absurd.
I guess the performances are good (I always enjoy Colm Meaney),
but
nothing about the movie grabbed me.
Yet another movie that doesn’t live up to its
potential, but
I give I ♥ Huckabees points for effort
and level of difficulty – and
for its principled pro-tree, anti-oil, anti-Wal-Mart – sorry,
anti-Huckabees –
stand. If director David O. Russell had
stuck a little closer to the central idea of a man who hires detectives
to help
him figure out the meaning of his life, it could have been a wacky,
quirky,
thought-provoking comedy, but he’s got to go into all this weird,
spacey folderol
that just detracts from the story and never really hangs together. A more compelling leading man than the
shlubby Jason Schwartzman might have helped, too. And
then there’s the subplot, with Jude Law
and Naomi Watts as a pretty, vacuous couple, that feels flat. Paring the movie down, holding its ambitions
in check, would probably have produced a better result.
The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
What a disappointment!
I expected better from the talent lined up behind this movie,
but it’s
mediocre at best. Nice performances from
The Office’s Martin Freeman as Arthur
and Mos Def as his alien friend Ford Prefect, and Bill Nighy is fun as
Slartibartfast, the architect of the earth.
But it all seems curiously lifeless – amazing that the BBC radio
play we
listened to when I was a kid was so much more evocative and
entertaining than
this movie (Marvin the robot sounds just the same, and Alan Rickman,
who does
his voice, provides most of the few laughs in the film).
The radio play had the added benefit of being
free of the cringingly awful “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”
dolphin dance extravaganza.
I guess I was expecting a little more, given everything I’d heard about Batman Begins, but it was a pretty good movie. Christian Bale does a fine job as young Bruce Wayne (although seeing Bale stand bravely in the midst of a swarm of bats would have been a lot more impressive if I hadn’t just seen Jeff Corwin do the same thing a couple of weeks earlier, without all the drama).
I can’t say the same of his love interest, Katie Holmes, who looks too young to be in high school, much less a district attorney. And from certain angles, she looks like she’s had a stroke – her face seems to droop on one side, and she slurs a bit.
I was somewhat disappointed in the bad guys. So, let me get this straight: the villain’s big thing is to put a burlap bag over his head. Oooo, Scarecrow! I would totally be terrified… if I were a crow. It doesn’t help that Cillian Murphy has all the imposing presence of a prepubescent asthmatic.
Batman Begins is a welcome return to the darker side of Batman (both psychologically and visually – no bright cartoony colors for director Christopher Nolan). Now, let’s just find Bruce Wayne a smart, strong woman played by a talented actress, and we’ll be in business.
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
So finally it’s over. As everyone else probably found out long before I did, Revenge of the Sith is indeed the best of the three Star Wars prequels (like that’s a tough accomplishment). In fact, it made me wonder why we even needed The Phantom Menace and When Clones Attack! (or whatever the hell it was called). It’s a decent movie on its own – Hayden Christiansen is the least annoying he’s ever been (unfortunately Natalie Portman takes up the slack in the irritating department) – but much of my reaction to its strongest moments, like when Darth Vader appears for the first time, is based on my childhood connection to the first set of movies, not something generated by Sith itself.
The transformation of Anakin into Darth Vader
is visually
impressive but completely unconvincing in how it comes about. That’s a major flaw, when none of the
problems and worries besetting Anakin seems like enough to make him
turn
utterly and irrevocably to the dark side.
Entertainment
Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman phrases
it well: “[S]ince the ‘Hold me like you did by the lake on
Naboo!’ love
scenes are embarrassments of cheesy acting and cheesier dialogue, they
have the
unfortunate effect of hinging Anakin’s descent on the worst moments in
the
entire series.”
It’s sort of funny – but mostly annoying – to note all the contrived lines that are clearly meant to refer to the original movies. Like, Ewan McGregor randomly announcing that his mentor, Qui Gon, has figured out how to talk to him from beyond the grave, thus clumsily setting up Obi-Wan’s similar appearances to Luke. I heard that in the DVD extras, someone mentions that they had to go back and film McGregor picking up Anakin’s lightsaber after their climactic battle because they forgot that Obi-Wan will later give it to Luke. Is it too much to ask that they either let the movie stand on its own, or they, oh, I don’t know, maybe go back and watch the first movies to make sure they organically work into the script all the relevant details, instead of cramming them all in at the end? Apparently, yes, it is.
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