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knoxvillian
Reviews
300 (2006)
Not nearly what it ought to be.
I had high hopes for the film 300. I really did. The previews showed scenes of cool, stylized violence with the twinge of a historical epic. The writer, Frank Miller, was fresh off his success with Sin City, showing what stylized violence and innovative visuals could do against a film noir story and background. Letting him go after a big budget epic with Gladiator overtones seemed like a sure thing, or at least a fun diversion for a warm Sunday night.
I was wrong. 300 turned out to be a deeply flawed film, and Miller is at least partly (perhaps mostly) to blame for it. On Miller's end, we are presented with a story of heroism and honor and freedom encapsulated in the struggle between 300 warriors from Sparta and the advancing hordes of the Persian army led by "god-king" Xerxes, bent on capturing and enslaving Sparta. It is based on the actual battle of Thermopylae between Sparta and Persia, but the film departs from the historical record in many notable ways. I personally won't begrudge Miller and director Zack Snyder for wanting to play fast and loose with history in the name of a more compelling film.
This is a good premise, but the film never really moves out of the premise. Lost in its own sense of portraying what a hero really is, the movie forgets to tell a compelling story or employ any strong narrative. Instead, it almost feels like a series of vignettes wherein the Spartans clash against one Persian attack or another, with brief flashes of the struggle at home between a corrupt senate and the noble queen. There is a slight sense of progression towards the end, but as a whole the narrative feels like it replays itself and thus, when the ending comes, the plot feels tired. Not unlike a Clint Eastwood film, 300 clings to a moral and proceeds to hammer that moral into its viewers with the subtlety of a crowbar.
Unfortunately, Miller also seems to have run dry in dialog and character development as well. What succeeded in Sin City is almost entirely absent in 300. Instead of ethically complicated characters making tough moral and utilitarian decisions, as was the case in Sin City, 300 tells you exactly what the characters are going to do and seems to imply that they only have one route to take. There is no ambiguity to their decisions, and so the warriors of Sparta come off as much more bland and uninspired than Dwight and Marv and Hartigan. The dialog and long-winded monologues don't help things either. Instead of a hip, insightful and fun narration, 300 gives us trite speeches about "freedom not being free," loud but empty chants of "Sparta!!," and contrived meetings where characters who are in all ways good spout clichés at characters who are in all ways bad.
Even with a weak story and characters, at least the film is fun to watch, right? Actually, it is on the whole something compelling to look at. Director Snyder, best known for a remake of Dawn of the Dead, does give the film a very distinct visual feel, opting to create Sparta and it's surroundings entirely from scratch instead of relying on location shots and the like. Although not as stylistically heavy-handed as Sin City, the film does have a vaguely artistic feel with washed-out colors in the background (for the most part, beautiful or compelling landscapes) contrasting with the red of Spartan cloaks and the gold of Spartan shields. Some of the battle sequences are fun to watch as well, but after a while I began to wonder if Snyder was just overly fond of slow-motion sequences or had no other directorial tricks to use (thus, some of the battles seemed like they were shot by a very amateur director). Unfortunately, style is not enough to carry the film through to the end.
300 is a film that should have been a great film. It aspires to be, and does it's damnedest conjure up epic films. But it is ultimately an empty film, pretty to look at but lacking any real core or resonance.
The Island (2005)
Islands on the screen, that is what we are.
The Island is a big budget summer blockbuster. Directed by Michael "Blow Stuff Up" Bay, the film performs well as exactly what it ought to be, a flashy action-filled popcorn flick. What the film does wrong is extend beyond that.
With a story loosely based on the venerable but poorly produced "The Clonus Horror" (check Mystery Science Theater 3000 if you're interested), The Island has an exceedingly interesting concept. We are presented with the life of Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor), a man living as a highly-monitored automaton in a facility chock full of similar automatons. We see the routine, the conformity, and the high orchestration that surrounds Six Echo and his peers in their controlled environment, a facility that is completely isolated from the outside world which has been contaminated by an unnamed illness. Every day (or week?), various inhabitants of this facility become winners of a lottery which carries as its prize a chance to be transported for life to The Island (applause), the last pathogen-free area left on earth, a true paradise. Following a mind-numbing routine, occasionally hobnobbing with his good friend Jordan Two Delta (the irrepressibly cute Scarlett Johannsen) while waiting for his chance to be transported to The Island (applause) should be enough to keep Six Echo happy, but from the beginning of the film on we see that he is not content and, in fact, is somewhat wary of his idyllic surroundings. Of course, his wariness is proved correct when he sneaks into a part of the facility he is not allowed to go to and sees horrors that he is not supposed to see, and so he must make a daring escape with Jordan Two Delta, who, coincidentally, has just won the lottery and is packing to leave for The Island (applause). They escape and eventually learn the horrifying truth: they are simply clones purchased by people in the real world as a form of insurance and a way to cheat death.
From this point on, this Michael Bay film becomes, well, a Michael Bay film. What was about to blossom into a fine, thoughtful sci-fi thriller instead explodes (quite literally) into a bloated action feature. Plot points are introduced when they are necessary to predicate another high-octane chase scene or tense shootout. So much of the potential built up by the film in its first part is squandered away in the second. Unfortunately, Michael Bay was given more movie than he knew what to do with, and so the relevance and poignancy that the film might once have been able to capture is suffocated by a string of bullets, explosions, and destroyed cars. This is indeed a great shame given the real chemistry and ability of McGregor and Johannsen. The films greatest strength is easily its stars, who pull off the interesting role of naive "strangers in a strange land" with aplomb. If nothing else, you are continually rooting for the beleaguered duo, and this makes the movie more than worth watching through its noisy phase.
The film is one that I would recommend despite its faults. It is one that is interesting (at least to a point), it contains some good suspense, good acting, and, yes, lots of glittering scenes of everything getting blow'd up. However, if you see the film, I do hope that you, like I, mourn the fact that it really could have been something more.
Batman Begins (2005)
Batman's Back, baby.
I am still very fond of the original Batman (which is actually the 1989 version, I suppose, and not the original...). As such, I have repeatedly balked at comparing this incarnation of the Batman series against the Tim Burton versions. Basically, Batman Begins is dark, but dark in a different way than the previous four attempts in the series. Whereas the Tim Burton Batmans (Batmen?) were dark in that overcast, circus-like Tim Burton way and whereas the other Batman/Batmen were dark in that "I just spent ten bucks to see this movie and now I want revenge on the world" sort of way, this film is dark in a new, refreshing, and, frankly, necessary way. Batman is the Dark Night, but not just because he works at night. This is a fearsome Batman (an idea that is laid on pretty thickly, mind you) and a vengeful Bruce Wayne. Thus, the film is not just dark for its setting and characters; it is dark in its own moral ambiguity. The darkness is in tone and ideal. Just as one might expect with the genius behind Memento leading the charge, Batman Begins is a story told of a flawed character with mixed motivations who we see become a hero (as opposed to Memento). The failing of this movie is in its peripheral characters (the Katie Holmes character in particular) are less complex, more openly altruistic, and thus much less interesting. Although Morgan Freeman, Micheal Caine, and Gary Oldman are generally likable enough for this to not be an issue (and I suppose that their characters serve a very practical purpose in providing anti-matter to the darkness and creepiness of Batman and his enemies), Katie Holmes does not possess such a likableness, at least not in this film. However, despite this minor distraction, this film is very enjoyable, especially for those of us who are fans of Batman and comic book flicks in general. So go see it.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Is it really a movie?
Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the musical numbers. I thought that the scenes were beautifully shot, and I thought that some interesting characters were introduced. But introduced only, and that is the fault of this movie. It only gives us surface, and no depth. You learn a great deal of background on one character, but you don't see enough outside of what becomes a forced progression of events, and, as such, you don't get a lot of character depth. This is compounded by the fact that you also really only see the one character, Hedwig.
I do not mean this to be an indictment of the talent of John Cameron Mitchell. This must have been a vibrant and greatly entertaining musical as a stage show. On screen, however, the entirety of the movie feels more like a series of music videos (well crafted music videos, mind you, but music videos nonetheless). There is little depth, only gloss, and in the end you're left searching for a point. It leaves you wanting something meaningful. Great as a concept album (perhaps), great as a stage show, but ultimately unsatisfying as cinema.
A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)
What a film, Charlie Brown
This has got to be one of the most overlooked films in talking about classic stories. The storytelling of this film is wonderful, with a surprisingly insightful point for an animated film.
This film follows the fortunes of our title character, Charlie Brown, as he finally proves his worth by making it to the National Eliminations Spelling Bee, Second Grade. Along the way, we see his failures in baseball, his troubles with an overly imaginative dog, and his entanglements with his closest friends. All of the classic scenes from the comic are there as well. With only this mix of characters and the superb storytelling, the film would have been a classic.
But wait, there's more! The story is set against a beautiful backdrop of color and inventive imagery (Schroeder's concert of the "Adagio Cantabile" by Beethoven or the Snoopy's ice-skating interlude come to mind). In addition to all of this, there is the always transcendent score by Vincent Guaraldi as well as several fun songs sung by the characters and a title song by Rod McKuen that makes me wonder why one is unable to find a soundtrack to this movie anywhere.
If you haven't seen this movie, then I highly recommend that you do. Perhaps you'll see why this is easily on of the very best animated films out there.