The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

December 6, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Fantasy, Theatrical

***½/****
starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin
screenplay by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson, based on the novel The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
directed by Peter Jackson

Fellowshipoftheringby Walter Chaw At the heart of Peter Jackson’s brilliant The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring–the first of three cinematic adaptations of Tolkien’s beloved fantasy, shot simultaneously for release in consecutive years–is a favourable melancholy, a despair born of two things: the crucial feeling of desperation that infests a small band of heroes striving against an invincible evil; and the knowledge that this film will soon end, its sequel twelve months away. Jackson has translated nearly every element of Tolkien’s universe, from a vast, sprawling history implied in the language and the actions of its multi-specied characters, to a completely immersive fantasy realm with nary a seam to spoil the illusion, to a quest that’s worthy of epic attention. He’s captured the sadness and moral weight of Tolkien with the kind of deep reality that seems effortless but is born of a meticulous preparation and all-consuming vision. It takes a certain skill to make things look good; it takes genius to keep the pretty pictures from overwhelming the narrative of what is, in this case, a universally familiar story. Ridley Scott never quite got the hang of it.

Jurassic Park III (2001) [Collector’s Edition – Widescreen] – DVD

November 25, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Sci-Fi, Spielberg, Thriller

**/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola
screenplay by Peter Buchman and Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor
directed by Joe Johnston

by Walter Chaw Jurassic Park III is completely critic-proof, a smirking cash machine with its amplifiers turned up to “11.” That it happens to be an amazingly tight little film (every single element of its first half predicts a correlative in the second) doesn’t excuse its bratty attitude. If Jurassic Park III were the insolent snot-nosed little punk it most resembles, it’d be turning out its lower lip whilst jutting an insouciant chin at potential critics and naysayers: “Go ahead,” the pipsqueak would say, “hit me with your best shot.”

Okay, here goes.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

November 16, 2001Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Family, Fantasy, Theatrical, UK

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
**/****
starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, John Cleese
screenplay by Steven Kloves, based on the novel by J.K. Rowling
directed by Chris Columbus

Harrypottersorcererby Walter Chaw There is such a dedicated lack of controversy and tension in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone that all of its benefit as a children’s fiction is lost to the machinery of Hollywood spectacle. Gone is the dread uncertainty, the persecution of a child because of parents or class, and any true appreciation of consequences in the various action scenarios that lockstep unfold to the strict dictates of the plot; it’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory without the candy. At a bloated 152 minutes, the film depends to a peculiar degree on our familiarity with J.K. Rowling’s outrageously popular series of books: it does little to establish the characters and has such a feeling of clockwork inevitability that it’s shocking when the finale comes and goes with almost nothing resembling purpose, much less resolution. Though it’s arguably faithful to the major movements of the book (thus satisfying a large population of its tyke fans until they begin to develop discretion), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone suffers from what I like to call the “Wizard of Oz” malady: no brain, no heart, no courage.

Halls of Montezuma (1950) – DVD

November 13, 2001Posted in1950s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, War

***½/**** Image A Sound B
starring Richard Widmark, Jack Palance, Reginald Gardiner, Neville Brand
screenplay by Michael Blankfort
directed by Lewis Milestone

by Walter Chaw Released in 1950, Lewis Milestone's Halls of Montezuma is gritty and fascinating, free of a good deal of the jingoism that flavoured earlier WWII studio productions and as influential as they come within the genre. A haunting sequence set during a nighttime rocket attack and lit only by occasional strobes while an unseen enemy screams out at frayed Marines recalls a similar one from Coppola's Apocalypse Now, while Richard Widmark's reluctant Lt. Anderson (a quiet former schoolteacher beset by doubt and anger) and Neville Brand's Sgt. Zelenko are clearly the prototypes for Tom Hanks's Capt. John Miller and Tom Sizemore's Sgt. Horvath, respectively, in Saving Private Ryan. The film's most impressive to the war-movie vocabulary is its ambiguous philosophy: Halls of Montezuma is alive with the creeping suspicion that war may not be all it's cracked up to be–that it might in fact be hell. While there's certainly nothing shocking about that sentiment in our post-Vietnam, post-Korea psyches, that kind of philosophical dissention was rare in the pre-Korea 1950s, and in regards to the unflagging "popularity" of WWII, uncommon even today.

Planet of the Apes (2001) [Special Edition] – DVD

November 10, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: Tim Burton, DVD, Sci-Fi

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
starring Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham-Carter, Estella Warren
screenplay by William Broyles Jr. and Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal
directed by Tim Burton

by Walter Chaw A failure of sense, a failure of cohesion, and, most remarkably for director Tim Burton, a failure of atmosphere, Planet of the Apes is a messianic space opera fantasy in the Dune mold that never goes anywhere and takes its time getting there. Rick Baker’s special effects make-up is spectacular, no question, but the screenplay by William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner, and Mark Rosenthal is a trite, bloated thing further crippled, ironically, by the make-up (which tends to slur speech), and by the abominable last-minute slap-dash editing that condemns Planet of the Apes to a conspicuous lack of poetry. The script’s failings should come as no surprise: These three hack screenwriters have produced between them such cinematic dead weight as Apollo 13, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, The Jewel of the Nile, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. What does come as a considerable shock–as well as a considerable disappointment–is the almost total lack of anything resembling the quirky neo-expressionistic ethos that has made Tim Burton one of our most vital and interesting directors.

Monsters, Inc. (2001)

November 2, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Family, Pixar

***/****
starring the voices of Billy Crystal, John Goodman, James Coburn, Jennifer Tilly
screenplay by Dan Gerson & Andrew Stanton
directed by Peter Docter and David Silverman & Lee Unkrich

Monstersincby Walter Chaw Ten feet tall and covered in blue and purple fur, James “Sully” Sullivan (voiced by John Goodman) is the leading scarer at Monsters, Inc. and best friend to his “handler/assistant,” a green nebbish of a cyclops named Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal). Despite their occupation, they’re sweet fellas; less so is Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi), a colour-changing, chameleonic thing who is jealous of Sully’s reputation. When a dreaded child escapes into the monster’s factory, Sully and Mike gradually unearth Randall’s nefarious plot to overtake Sully for “Most Bloodcurdling” while trying to hide the renegade kid from their tick-like boss Henry J. Waternoose (James Coburn) and Celia (Jennifer Tilly), Mike’s girlfriend.

The Hobbit (1978) + The Return of the King (1980) – DVDs

October 29, 2001Posted in1970s, 1980s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Fantasy, Musical, Television

THE HOBBIT
**/**** Image B- Sound C
screenplay by Romeo Muller,
based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
directed by Jules Bass & Arthur Rankin Jr.

THE RETURN OF THE KING
**½/**** Image B- Sound C
screenplay by Romeo Muller,
based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
directed by Jules Bass & Arthur Rankin Jr.

by Walter Chaw There are a couple of ways to tackle screen adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and its prequel, The Hobbit. One is to do as Ralph Bakshi did with his 1978 animation The Lord of the Rings and present a sexualized and disturbing vision of Middle Earth; the other is to make a film for children that omits the more troubling elements of Tolkien (the racism, homoeroticism, religiosity), as with Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr.’s two feature-length television specials: The Hobbit (1978) and The Return of the King (1979).

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) [Special Edition] – DVD

October 12, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Fantasy, Japan, Romance, Sci-Fi

***/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras B
starring the voices of Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Peri Gilpin, Ming-Na
screenplay by Al Reinert and Hironobu Sakaguchi and Jeff Vintar
directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi

by Walter Chaw So the dialogue’s not so bad (having seen Pearl Harbor), the story’s not so obscure (having seen Akira), and the voice acting’s pretty decent (having listened to Claire Danes do San in Princess Mononoke). It almost goes without saying that the film is hands-down the best ever based on a videogame, and that Squaresoft’s 3-D captured animation is breathtaking and exciting, not just for the fact of itself but for what it portends of big-budget Stateside anime. What Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within reminded me of the most is Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s seminal 1988 anime Akira, and the revolution Akira heralded for the popularity and scope of the anime genre in Japan.*

The Mummy Returns (2001) [Collector’s Edition (Widescreen)] – DVD

September 20, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Fantasy, Thriller

*/**** Image A Sound A+ Extras B-
starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo
written and directed by Stephen Sommers

by Bill Chambers The Mummy Returns reminds me of a little film called The Mummy. Actually, it made me think of Trail of the Pink Panther, which was assembled from outtakes of other Inspector Clouseau movies due to star Peter Sellers expiring before, it would seem, his contract did. The Mummy Returns is all but a patchwork quilt made up of, if not leftover scenes, then scrap ideas. In The Mummy, a looming face of swirling sand pursued our hero; in The Mummy Returns, it materializes from a waterfall. The kind of production for which the writing credit should probably read “cocktail napkin by,” The Mummy Returns fails to distinguish itself from the undistinguished original. Why are they both superhits?

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

September 14, 2001Posted in1970s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Satire, Theatrical, UK

***/****
starring Monty Python
screenplay by Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Terry Gilliam & Eric Idle & Terry Jones & Michael Palin
directed by Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones

by Walter Chaw Comprising Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Graham Chapman, the comedy troupe Monty Python had as their stock in trade the dialogue-dense, mildly absurdist short-form sketch. To that extent, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a series of comedic skits and improvisations bound loosely–very loosely–by the contention that this merry sextet of Britons is attempting to tell the Arthur myth without the aid of budget, plot, or accuracy. All of them are classically educated, and the film seems to be a giant flip of the nose at the pretension of the British literary tradition. In the act of being such, it nearly becomes the best telling of the Grail legend available. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a satire that instructs with its informed irreverence, a piece that knows the rules before it breaks them and has shown itself over the course of 26 years to be almost as immediate and hilarious as it was upon initial release.

The Goonies (1985) – DVD

September 13, 2001Posted in1980s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Family, Spielberg

*/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman, Kerri Green
screenplay by Chris Columbus
directed by Richard Donner

by Walter Chaw I went to see The Goonies at the age of twelve because I was a Cyndi Lauper fan. As co-star Ke Huy-Quan (now “Jonathan Ke Quan”) hammed it up, I glimpsed the torments of my upcoming sixth-grade year. See, Quan in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom doomed me to being called “Short Round” for several months, accompanied by Pidgin English recreations of choice line readings (“You caw heem Meesta Jones, Doll!”)–which was admittedly better than the “Wassa happenin’ hot stuff?” jibes inspired by Gedde Watanabe’s legendary act of race betrayal as Long Duk Dong in John Hughes’s execrable Sixteen Candles.

The Musketeer (2001)

September 7, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Germany, Luxembourg, Romance, Theatrical, UK

ZERO STARS/****
starring Justin Chambers, Catherine Deneuve, Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea
screenplay by Gene Quintano
directed by Peter Hyams

by Walter Chaw There is a moment in the trailer for Peter Hyams’s absolutely abominable The Musketeer where a series of scenes are edited in such a way as to suggest that Justin Chambers’s dashing D’Artagnan is promising stunned-looking waif Francesca (Mena Suvari) he will return for her. In the film, in truth, D’Artagnan makes the promise to his fallen horse (it’s an easy mistake to make). I mention this to right an injustice, for the great beast lying there frothing in all its exhausted equine glory turns in what is easily the best performance of the whole catastrophe. I felt a lot of sympathy for that poor steed, the only character in the film with which I had even a moment’s identification: we’d both been ridden hard and put away wet.

Extreme Limits (2001) – DVD

August 26, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD

Crash Point Zero
½*/**** Image D Sound C Extras B
starring Treat Williams, Hannes Jaenicke, John Beck, Susan Blakely
screenplay by Steve Latshaw
directed by Jay Andrews

by Walter Chaw Beginning with stock footage of mountain climbing and a wholly unexpected (and unwelcome) reference to Hudson Hawk, Extreme Limits (formerly Crash Point Zero) is a micro-budgeted neo-Corman knock-off that boasts of an admirably irresponsible body count and a script so ludicrous that, once it’s deadened your senses (after about five minutes), it actually gets sort of funny. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I’ve laughed as long and as well as when a man gets mauled by a grizzly that is obviously some poor schmo in a bear suit, pinwheeling his arms when he gets struck by a flashlight.

The Mexican (2001) [Widescreen] – DVD

August 5, 2001Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Mexico, Romance

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, James Gandolfini, Bob Balaban
screenplay by J.H. Wyman
directed by Gore Verbinski

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover I don’t have an idea to start this review. This is in large part because The Mexican has no idea to start itself, or give itself a middle, or pay off nicely with a tense climax. It just rambles on, with no reason to live, justifying a few paychecks and leaving this reviewer simultaneously puzzled and bored. Puzzled, as to how such a vast array of professionals could have wanted to cobble together such a passionless and irrelevant film as this; and bored, at events meaningless and contrived. The Mexican isn’t even ambitious enough to be offensive: its conceptual hook is so weak and its follow-through so perfunctory that the film can’t rally the strength to be more than a petty nuisance, like a dinner disrupted by the noisy party the next table over.

The Great Muppet Caper (1981) – DVD

July 17, 2001Posted in1980s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Family, Muppets, Musical

***½/**** Image B Sound B-
starring Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo
screenplay by Tom Patchett & Jay Tarses and Jerry Juhl & Jack Rose
directed by Jim Henson

BUY @ AMAZON

by Bill Chambers Jim Henson said that The Great Muppet Caper was the Muppet movie nearest and dearest to his heart, and it’s little mystery why. For starters, it’s the only one of the original trilogy he officially directed. And it’s closer in execution to “The Muppet Show”, Henson’s surreal, Emmy-winning brainchild that ran on TV for five years, than either The Muppet Movie or The Muppets Take Manhattan in not only showcasing a wide variety of song styles and involving the human guest stars in the musical performances, but also framing itself as what it is: a movie. With tongue firmly in cheek, The Great Muppet Caper deconstructs itself all the while. The film taught me a lot about the cinema–conventions, techniques, genre–as a kid, for which I am grateful.

The Magnificent Seven (1960) [Special Edition] – DVD

July 13, 2001Posted in1960s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Western

**/**** Image A Sound B Extras A+
starring Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson
screenplay by William Roberts
directed by John Sturges

by Walter Chaw Based loosely on Akira Kurosawa’s seminal The Seven Samurai, The Great Escape director John Sturges’s wildly uneven The Magnificent Seven vacillates from superbly choreographed (if stagy) action sequences to moments of sublime dialogue, and to extended character-enhancing business that grinds the film to a complete halt no fewer than five times. It has aged poorly in four decades, losing a great deal of modern appeal in a way that Sergio Leone’s adaptation (and extrapolation) of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, the “Spaghetti Western,” A Fistful of Dollars, never has.

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) [Special Edition] – DVD

June 19, 2001Posted in1970s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Japan, War

***½/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras A
starring Martin Balsam, Joseph Cotten, E.G. Marshall, Tatsuya Mihashi
screenplay by Larry Forrester, Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni
directed by Richard Fleischer and Kinji Fukasuka & Toshio Masuda

by Walter Chaw A joint project between a Japanese film crew and veteran American director Richard Fleischer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), Tora! Tora! Tora! had Akira Kurosawa assigned as the lead Japanese director, poised to make his American debut with a mammoth script weighing in at well over four-hundred pages–and that just for the Japanese side of the story. Accustomed to complete autonomy in his projects, Kurosawa bowed out after several weeks following a series of run-ins with Fox executives over not only the unwieldiness of his vision, but also disagreements concerning the shade of white used in the interiors of the Japanese carrier ward rooms! Unfortunately, Kurosawa’s initial involvement with the picture resulted in his regular cohort Toshiro Mifune turning down the role of Admiral Yamamoto (a role he would play in Jack Smight’s 1976 Midway and in 1968’s Yamamoto biopic Rengo kantai shirei chôkan: Yamamoto Isoroku), as the two titans of Japanese cinema had lingering bad feelings over their last collaboration, the underseen Akahige.

Donovan’s Reef (1963) – DVD

June 16, 2001Posted in1960s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Romance

*½/**** Image A Sound B
starring John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Elizabeth Allen, Jack Warden
screenplay by James Edward Grant and Frank Nugent
directed by John Ford

by Walter Chaw One of legendary director John Ford’s last films, and his final collaboration with John Wayne, Donovan’s Reef is, like much of Ford’s later work, a derivative amalgam of his earlier successes. Curmudgeonly and vicious, it’s a lighter-than-air farce with a black heart that feels suspiciously like the mad rantings of an old soldier describing his vision of a bucolic Valhalla to which he one day hopes to return. Released in the same year (1963) that saw Sidney Poitier become the first black man to win an Oscar in a major category (for Lilies in the Field), Donovan’s Reef is a shockingly, unapologetically racist and misogynistic film about braggadocio, therapeutic rape, and belittling the natives. In other words, John Ford apologists need to work overtime to dig their favorite auteur out from under this surreal bilge.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

June 15, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Fantasy, Germany, Japan, Theatrical, Thriller, UK

*½/****
starring Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Leslie Phillips, Mark Collie
screenplay by Simon West and Patrick Massett & John Zinman
directed by Simon West

by Walter Chaw To say that Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is completely incomprehensible is not entirely accurate, for the basic plot appears to be pretty straightforward. The British Lara Croft (played by the American Angelina Jolie) is a sort of jet-setting archaeologist in the Indiana Jones mold who is extremely well outfitted by a gadget man in the James Bond mold, and who boasts of a loyal, shotgun-packing butler in the Batman mold. Her task is to discover two pieces of a triangular artifact before the Illuminati do on the day that a rare syzygy coincides with a solar eclipse, allowing the triangle-bearer to control time.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) – DVD

June 11, 2001Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Coen Brothers, Comedy, Crime, DVD, France, Music, UK

**½/**** Image A+ Sound A
starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Time Blake Nelson, Charles Durning
screenplay by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
directed by Joel Coen

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover We can start by making two things perfectly clear. One: despite an opening credit to the contrary, the new Coen Brothers opus, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, has almost nothing to do with Homer's Odyssey–a few episodes notwithstanding, the bulk of the film is radically different from the great classical work. Two: it bears only a passing resemblance to the films of Preston Sturges, whose Sullivan's Travels provides the title; a ridiculous deus ex machina ending aside, it has none of the affection–if all of the wildness–of that writer-director's memorable oeuvre. So, having been smokescreened by these red-herring references, you have to ask: If it has nothing to do with Homer or Sturges, what the heck does it have to do with?