Change Your Image
![](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjQ4MTY5NzU2M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDc5NTgwMTI@._V1_SY100_SX100_.jpg)
contact-447
Reviews
Babel (2006)
Incoherent mess
I found this pretty disappointing, especially given the director's past form with '21 Grams'. Brad Pitt does the best he can as a husband desperately trying to get his wife medical attention in rural Morocco. His part of the film works quite well, even if Cate Blanchett's character comes across as a paranoid xenophobe who'd rather bleed to death than get stitches from a village doctor.
But instead of focusing on Brad Pitt's struggle with backwoods infrastructure and insensitive tourists who think a dying wife is less serious than being stuck on a bus with no air conditioning, the film makers mix in a bunch of other 'connected' story threads that turn the film into a rambling two and a half hour long mess. This parallel stories approach has worked well before in films like Traffic, but here the plot is spread too thin and the threads linking the different stories are too tenuous. Background and character development are so minimal I suspect there's probably another two and a half hours of this lying on a cutting room floor somewhere.
The other side of the story in Morocco at least has a clear connection to Pitt and Blanchett's struggles, but it's pretty daft, involving a young boy who spies on his elder sister getting undressed, and who thinks it's a good idea to test his father's new rifle by taking pot shots at passing vehicles. Conveniently, the boy can pretty much out-shoot an entire squad of police marksmen, and is stupid enough to try it.
Meanwhile, back in California, Brad Pitt's illegal immigrant nanny has decided it's a good idea to take his kids across the border into Mexico when she can't find anyone else to look after them for a few hours while she goes to her son's wedding. She then lets her obviously inebriated nephew drive them all home afterwards, resulting in some (probably unintentionally) funny scenes at the border crossing that look like out-takes from Chris Rock's "how to not get your a** kicked by the police" sketch. The Mexicans in this film are so incredibly dumb and caricature-like, you'd think it was racist if the film's writer and director weren't both Mexican themselves. Surely they don't see their countrymen this way?
The most loosely connected of all the plot threads takes place in Japan, and centers on a deaf schoolgirl who's so desperate to lose her virginity she spends most of the film flashing random strangers. To be fair, bits of this story thread are actually pretty good, including a great scene showing a drugged up night out in a club from a deaf person's point of view. But the constant gratuitous nudity renders this storyline more comedy than tragedy for the most part, and the connection to the events in Morocco that pops up near the end of the film seems like a slender excuse.
The main story (or the section in Japan, for that matter) could have made a half decent direct-to-TV movie in a less ambitious film maker's hands. But all the self-conscious arty twaddle that's been piled on top of it layer-after-layer renders the whole thing about as coherent and structurally sound as the infamous tower it's named after.
Paycheck (2003)
Not Woo's best, not PKD's best, but entertaining enough
Having heard a lot of bad things about this film and skipped it when it first came out, I was actually pleasantly surprised when I finally got around to renting it. OK, so it's far from the best John Woo or Philip K Dick film, but the result is entertaining enough, and to be fair the original short story it's based on wasn't exactly PKD's finest work either.
I don't recall there being many chases and shoot-outs in the original story, and certainly no slow motion flying white dove (gnngh - give it a rest already, Woo!). A lot of the mysterious items in the envelope have been changed too, but the overall premise remains the same - Ben Affleck plays an engineer who has his memory wiped after each job to ensure the confidentiality of his clients. At the end of a particularly big job on a top secret project, he's understandably a bit miffed when he goes to pick up his pay, only to find that he apparently signed away all the money in favour of taking an envelope full of seemingly worthless knick-knacks - hairspray, cigarettes, a bus ticket, a pair of naff looking sunglasses...
Of course, he soon discovers that all those items are there for a reason, and in true 80s text adventure game style spends the next couple of hours running around trying to figure out where and when to use each item, while being chased by both the FBI and the company he was working for.
Sure, it's a bit hokey in places, the action isn't as spectacular as you'd expect from John Woo (it's more of a thriller than an action movie, to be honest), and the future looks remarkably like the present, apart from a few holographic displays borrowed from Minority Report and that nifty memory wiping machine they keep strapping Ben into. But the ride's fun, as long as you don't stop too long to pick holes in the plot.
Lord of War (2005)
Funny and disturbing in equal measure
Surprisingly effective black comedy about the arms trade that manages to be laugh out loud funny one moment and disturbing as hell the next. Yes, the film owes a lot to Goodfellas, from the decade spanning story to the constant voice overs. But it does a good job of sucking you in and entertaining you while at the same time showing you how the arms trade works, all without coming across as overly preachy.
Nicholas Cage puts in a solid performance as the arms dealer at the center of the story. It's not a sympathetic character, but he's so open and audacious in his evil-doing, and Cage is so amiable in the role, that it's hard not to like him. All too often Cage's acting is either over-the-top or wooden as a plank, but here he gets the balance just right and carries the film pretty much single-handed, with constant monologues and more screen time than most of the rest of the cast combined.
Jared Leto's also effective as the troubled younger brother who has the misfortune of developing a conscience (never a good thing for a gun runner), and Ian Holm has a nice little cameo as a rival arms dealer. But it's Eamonn Walker's turn as the psychotic African dictator Andre Baptiste which really steals the show.
Despite being a 'message' film, Lord of War is also slick and highly entertaining. Whether or not you're interested in the politics behind it, it's well worth a watch.
The Island (2005)
THX 1138 for the MTV generation
A surprisingly smart thriller from Michael Bay, best known as creator of goofy CG-laden action movies like Armageddon and Pearl Harbour. The setting, story and style borrow liberally from classic sci-fi movies like Blade Runner, THX 1138 and Logan's Run, but its focus on the ethics of cloning and using people custom-made as organ donors is very timely, reflecting the current debate about stem cell research and designer babies.
This being a Michael Bay movie though, it also includes more than its fair share of wild chases and fight scenes, including one of the most impressive freeway chases I've ever seen, and some flinch-inducing shoot-outs in a crowded city with huge chunks of debris raining down all around. A surprising amount of this action was done for real using practical effects and stuntmen instead of falling back on CG, and the results are all the more impressive for it.
The action does threaten to overwhelm the story at times, particularly during the escape from the facility that houses the clones, where for several minutes seemingly every line of dialogue consists of Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson shouting 'run!' at each other. But overall it's a good balance of story and spectacle.
Despite the potentially rather grim subject matter and simple black and white morality (quite literally - the people running and guarding the facility all wear black uniforms, while the clones all wear white jumpsuits), the film also avoids being overly preachy and even manages to throw in a bit of humour, mostly thanks to a fun cameo by the always reliable Steve Buscemi as a sleazy maintenance worker in the facility who befriends Ewan's character.
Given Michael Bay's track record I was a little sceptical about this film going into it, but it turned out to be a real winner.
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
Well what did you expect?
Anyone looking for an intelligent movie should go look elsewhere, because this is a good old fashioned big dumb action movie that delivers exactly what the title promises - snakes on a plane, with Samuel L Jackson trying to stop everyone on board from dying before it reaches LAX.
The plot is fairly bare bones, and a little preposterous if you stop and think about it, but you didn't come here for the plot. Or characterisation, I hope, because the plane is stuffed full of clichés - the hostess on her last flight, the young couple wanting to join the mile high club, the arrogant rap star and his overweight bodyguards, a woman with a baby, the bad ass FBI agent and his reluctant star witness...
What the film does offer is lots of laughs (some of them intentional), lots of snakes (some of them dodgy CG), and lots of gory deaths by snake bite. Check your brain in at the gate and enjoy the flight.
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
What went wrong
Combining Fox's two great sci-fi movie monsters, Aliens and Predators, with a Stargate-esquire back story about alien gods and ancient pyramids in the Antarctic must have seemed like a great idea at the time. But somehow it falls flat. I'm usually a big fan of writer / director Paul WS Anderson (I loved Event Horizon, and the first Resident Evil is one of the few video game movie adaptations that stands on its own merits), but I'm afraid he really stumbles here.
The script could have used another pass to tighten it up before shooting began. The opening is rather clumsy and shows too much too early, missing out on the slow build up of tension which worked so well in Alien, Aliens and Predator. Most of the "characters" are faceless cannon fodder, even the central characters are woefully under-developed, and everyone dies too quickly for the viewer to really care about any of them.
There are also a host of glaring continuity errors, plot holes and contradictions of things we've already seen in previous Alien and Predator movies, like the way the Aliens in AvP apparently go from an egg being laid to hatching to implanting to chest bursting to being full grown adults in the space of a few hours.
All of which would be forgivable if the action lived up to expectations. But it doesn't. There aren't any memorable set pieces, the Predators look like chubby WWE wrestlers, the occasional slow motion shots don't really add anything, and there just isn't enough Alien on Predator action to keep you interested, while the humans are predictably pretty much wiped out within a few minutes of encountering the two alien species. Unlike the original Predator and all four Alien movies, there just aren't any fights, chases or reveals that really stick in the mind, and the whole film flashes by in a blur in just over an hour and a half.
All in all its a bit disappointing, and the prospect of Aliens vs Predator (see what they did there?) coming soon is enough to fill fans of either franchise with fear.
Shi di chu ma (1980)
Hardly Chan's best
There are a few nice set pieces, including a Chinese lion dance near the start and a fight using a wooden bench of all things, but overall I was a bit underwhelmed to be honest.
The story drags a bit in the middle and there isn't the usual quota of physical comedy and crazy stunts you'd expect from a Jackie Chan film to tide things over in the meantime. Also, the cameraman seems to have been on a caffeine rush during the filming of several scenes, as Young Master has the highest number of crash zooms per minute I've ever seen in a movie. There are a couple of scenes where the camera is rapidly zooming in and out almost constantly and seemingly at random, which is kinda distracting.
Not a great place to start if you're new to Jackie Chan then, but it's an enjoyable enough way to pass the time if (like me) you're a Chan fan.
The Departed (2006)
Disappointing
As a big fan of both Martin Scorsese and the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs that The Departed is based on, I was looking forwards to this film. Sadly I've come away somewhat disappointed.
Taking it on its own strengths, it's a decent thriller with a good premise, but it really needed another pass on the script to tighten it up and (sad to say) stronger direction. I love Goodfellas, Casino, Taxi Driver, even The Last Temptation Of Christ. The Departed can't match the narrative or visual flair of those films.
The script is full of dead ends and wasted potential, and it doesn't help that the editing is choppy at best, downright sloppy at worst. It's almost as if (despite the two and a half hour running time) half the story and character development has been left on the cutting room floor.
The FBI connection never really goes anywhere, the pregnancy comes out of nowhere and goes straight back there, the love triangle never gives the pay-off you expect at the end (such as the identity of the baby's father), Costello's wife is a waste of space who doesn't add anything to the story, the envelope Billy gives Colin's wife is never used for anything, the mainland Chinese gang with their corrupt official in tow seem to have wandered in from Infernal Affairs 3 and are totally irrelevant to the plot, and when they get arrested (off-screen) a couple of scenes later, the target of the bust on Costello's gang just switches from the stolen micro-processors (which vanish into McGuffin Land almost without comment) to a drugs shipment (which appears from much the same place).
On the other hand, while Monahan and Scorsese find time for all these narrative cul de sacs, the characters and core storyline are poorly developed. Only Leonardo di Caprio's Billy is really fleshed out, and it's no coincidence that he comes out of the film with one of the strongest performances. The supporting cast in particular is woefully wasted, with actors of the calibre of Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg reduced to virtual cameos.
Where the film really suffers though is in comparison to Infernal Affairs. For example -
- Matt Damon's Colin is one dimensional and uninteresting compared to the equivalent character that Andy Lau plays in IA.
- Martin Sheen's Queenan doesn't have the same close relationship with Billy that Anthony Wong has with Tony Leung in IA (or the screen time to develop it), making his death far less moving and Billy's extreme emotional reaction to it somewhat bizarre.
- Making Matt's girlfriend and Billy's shrink the same person was a good idea, but the relationship between Billy and the psychiatrist isn't given as much time to develop as it was in IA.
- The numerous scenes that The Departed lifts almost verbatim from IA (from Queenan's death and the elevator shoot-out to the encounter at the movie theatre and the smashing of the cast on Billy's arm) mostly come across as pale imitations, lacking the emotion, tension and visual flair that cinematographer Christopher Doyle and directors Alan Mak and Andrew Lau brought to IA. It doesn't help that some of these scenes have been lifted entirely out of context and inserted into a different place in the story.
- IA's intro is flashy and concise, getting you straight to the heart of the story in double quick time without leaving any room for confusion. By comparison, The Departed takes far too long to set up all the pieces at the start of the film and does it in a rather clunky manner, making the opening a little muddled and long-winded.
- The constant texting and mobile phone calls in The Departed lack the tension of Tony Leung's morse code messages in IA.
- And so on and so forth...
It's no surprise to me that fans of IA found The Departed a bit of a let down by comparison. It does surprise me to see so many Scorsese fans here waving the flag for what is in my opinion one of his weaker movies.
Is The Departed a bad movie? No. Is it a great movie? No. Is it one of Scorsese's best? Definitely not. Is it as good as Infernal Affairs? Not even close.