Tuesday, June 26, 2007

REVIEW: Evan Almighty

In EVAN ALMIGHTY, a spin-off of 2003’s BRUCE ALMIGHTY, Steve Carrel plays Evan Baxter, a former Buffalo newscaster who has just become a newly appointed congressman. After moving his family to the D.C. suburbs, and getting settled into his new lifestyle complete with the family Hummer, a monstrous home, and a stray dog that likes to bite him in the privates, Evan gets a special visitation from God, played once again by Morgan Freeman. God tells Evan that a flood is coming, and that he must build an ark in order to save his family. Evan dismisses what God is saying until all different types of animals, in pairs, start following him around the D.C. area, from lions to lamas, and toucans to tarantulas. Birds fly into his capital hill office, sheep show up in the back seat of his car, and people in Washington are beginning to take notice. He even starts growing an unstoppable beard, and finds the ancient robe that keeps showing up in his closest quite comfortable. Evan eventually decides to build the ark with the help of his family, and in the end God will use Evan to save them from a man-made disaster, as well as national parks from being taken over by a greedy politician (John Goodman) who wishes only to suburbanize them.

Steve Carell (40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) plays an everyman Evan Baxter but never really feels completely secure in his role. His physical comedy is humorous, but at times feels forced. Carell’s strength here lies more in his restrained side which is stronger when he shares the screen with Morgan Freeman, who shines with a particular grace as the ACTUAL ALMIGHTY. Each scene between God and Baxter is done with a special sweetness and charm. You can almost sense Director Tom Shadyac’s admiration for the subject matter through the way in which he instructs Freeman to recite his lines. Lauren Graham as Joan, the wife of Evan, is both forgettable and flat, and is given no other objective than to whine and complain about Evan’s Other comic actors such as Wanda Sykes, playing Evan Baxter’s assistant, have some great bits of comedy, but are there purely to make us laugh, instead of making us laugh while moving the story along.

This movie is in essence flawed on many levels. Where is the real tension, or drama in this story? In BRUCE ALMIGHTY, Bruce (Jim Carrey) has to contend with his selfishness, his pride, and the fact that he fails at being God. In EVAN ALMIGHTY, Evan has to contend with non-stop shaving fits, building a boat, and people at work laughing at him. How is it that everyone could possibly dismiss Baxter as being crazy about his Ark ranting when exotic animals (lions, ostriches, etc) are following him around town, and when he doesn’t even bother to actually show people that his beard is instantaneously growing back? What are these EXOTIC animals really in danger from in the first palce? Why would God bring them to Washington D.C. in the first place when the flood only threatened a small area in the first place? Also, in the flood, which is not by the way, a “global” flood, wouldn’t people be drowned? The film makes not mention of the flood affecting anyone else but the main characters who are riding down it like an inner tube on the ark, though it forces its way down the streets and waterways of Washington D.C. One a theological level, how is Evan’s faith really tested when God keeps making himself known to Evan in blatantly obvious ways. Loads of building materials arrive from a mysterious company 1-800-GO-4-WOOD, acres of land suddenly become available across the street from Evan’s house, and did I already mention the hoards of animals that keep showing up at Evan’s front door. In the films final moments God tells Evan that the purpose of ARK was to spread Acts of Random Kindness which have the power to change the world. I give the film kudos for explaining how loving God is, but the filmmakers tend to skirt around the fact that God is also wrathful, jealous, and vengeful. I also understand that their intentions were to make a family-friendly movie that anyone could enjoy, and I think to some degree they achieved that. EVAN ALMIGHTY is void of the sex, violence, and language that tend to comedy films these days. It is always refreshing to see a comedy that is willing to just have a great time, yet not fall into the abyss of fart jokes, and sex humor, it is the formula that made NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM nearly $573 million at the worldwide box-office this past year, and for that, I give Shadyac major accolades.

In the end, EVAN ALMIGHTY is an over the top, ridiculous, nonsensical comedy that has instances of sweetness and sprinkles of theological truth rapped up in a warm-hearted family comedy filled to the brim with good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions don’t always make the best movies.

GRADE: C

RECOMMENDATION: For those that don’t mind some cheap laughs, a flawed story, and some absurdities amongst some truly good-intentions.

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

First Pic of INDIANA JONES!

It has been almost 19 years since Harrison Ford was seen on a film set wearing one of the most recognizable costumes in film history, and today we finally get another look at him in it. Could May, 2008 come any sooner! Behold, Harrison Ford returns to the silver screen as INDIANA JONES, in the fourth installment of the beloved series which started filming last week...

Sunday, June 17, 2007

3:10 to Yuma Trailer Hits!!!

Christian Bale takes on Russel Crowe in James Mangold's (Walk The Line) latest film!

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

American Gangster Trailer

Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Director Ridley Scott, and the writer of SCHINDLER'S LIST, do I smell a winner? It has a very FRENCH CONNECTION kind of feel to it, and if they pull it off it could very well be this years THE DEPARTED. It could also be a flop like Zaillan's remake of ALL THE KINGS MEN, but we will have to wait for November in order to find out. Can't wait for this one!

Sunday, June 03, 2007

REVIEW: Pirates of the Carribean - At World's End

When PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL came out in 2003, no one thought that it would last one week at the box-office, let alone gross nearly 700 million dollars worldwide. Especially a cornball pop-corn action flick based on a theme park ride at Disneyland. Who could have guessed that it would soon become a phenomenon that would spawn a franchise of films, loads of merchandise, video games, and action figures? But what made our first visit to the Caribbean so enthralling was the whimsical, almost Charlie Chaplin meets slapstick western, nature of it. It had everything that an audience wanted out of a summer blockbuster: cursed pirates, high sea battles, sword fights, large set pieces, witty writing, and the foundation that held it all together, the creation of Captain Jack Sparrow played in every sense with freshness an energy by Johnny Depp. Depp brought so much to the role as to make Sparrow clearly one of the most original film characters since Indian Jones, or Han Solo, and it even earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. In PIRATES, Sparrow is a total scoundrel, but we love him anyway because underneath all of his selfishness and egoism's, he struggles to make the right decisions, and in the end he does so by helping to thwart the plans of Captain Barbossa, but never without a sense of outlandish flair. What PIRATES created was a sense of newness to high-seas adventures after a string of box-office blunders (CUTTHROAT ISLAND, WATERWORLD), and as soon as Disney saw the dollars roll in, they ordered-up two more installments to be filmed back-to-back. It was a move ala THE MATRIX trilogy of sorts, though even THE MATRIX films got the idea from the first trilogy to use this method - BACK TO THE FUTURE.

In PIRATES 2, we find ourselves surrounded again by a world of slapstick silliness, hungry cannibals, outlandish battles with a giant sea monster, more cursed pirates lead by the tyrannical and squid-faced Davy Jones, and at the core, Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp continues to ignite his performance in this installment with enough eccentric showmanship that we marvel at his ability to make meandering about as a drunken dimwit look easy, and showing just how much fun he has at playing this role. PIRATES 2 takes on a quite a darker tone than its predecessor, and the plot starts to get quite vexing and complicated, but it still remains a fantastical romp of a film from beginning to end. After all, it is a movie based on a theme part ride, can you really expect much more? The biggest fault in PIRATES 2 is that it leaves things completely open ended: Sparrow sacrifices himself to the Kraken, in which he is plunged into the metaphysical pirate purgatory known as "Davy Jones Locker"; Will Turner rallies to save his father Bootstrap-Bill Turner from his life debt to Davy Jones; Colonel Beckett, now possessing the heart of Jones as well as Jones's allegiance, wants to rid the world of pirates altogether; Elizabeth Swan wants to somehow make sense of everything that's going on, even after sentencing Sparrow to his fate; and in the end, Turner, Swan, and Sparrow's faithful shipmates set out on a voyage to save Sparrow from pirate hell, but not without the help of the recently resurrected Captain Barbosa.

And that leads us to PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END...

If you thought it was hard keeping track of all the plot lines, last minute betrayals, and twists of PIRATES 2, then you are in for an even greater treat with the latest installment of the franchise, which shows no signs of slowly down the production of future installments. That fact became almost certain when PIRATES 3 broke the worldwide opening weekend record with an estimated box-office gross of nearly $400 million, an impressive achievement. But there is only one way to truly describe PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END: an overstuffed turkey on the brink of bursting. For all its meandering, absurdities, and fatty excess, it remains no more than a pile of action sequences sewn together by unintelligible dialogue, cardboard characters, and a plot so absurd that it makes Terry Gilliam's THE BROTHER'S GRIMM a harrowing achievement of substance, heart, and meaning. The only meaning that I got out of PIRATES 3, with its constant tendency for characters to betray each other, lie, cheat, back stab, and steal, was how glorious it must have been to be a pirate, and to get away with such self-less behavior. The films tendency is to almost glamorize the act of piracy by painting a somewhat tyrannical picture of the British soldiers, and showing little sense of morality or conscience within the bub of main characters, who are suppose to represent heroism, but instead represent that which they have become, bumbling idiots. Hardly a moment passes by where characters actually have any type of moral dilemma about what they are doing, and why. They purely act out of their own self-righteous and self-loathing ideals from beginning to end, flaunting their prideful attitudes.

Another major issue I had with PIRATES 3, was its complete departure from the energy and liveliness of the first two films. Gone is the whimsical fun of the first films, and in its place is a plot that tends to revel in torment, violence, and making the audience feel utterly depressed. Throughout the whole film, I can hardly remember the moments that I actually laughed, or even smiled. Not only was this film stretched to an abhorrent length of nearly three hours, but it left me physically exhausted, and wanting nothing more than for the credits to role. It quickly lost its sense of entertainment, and became an exercise of pure endurance. The opening scene of the film involves the hanging of a slew of people, all condemned for their connection to piracy. The scene even features a young boy being hanged, his feet shown dangling in mid-air. Before the films end the audience must experience scenes of digits being snapped off, characters being impaled, a brain being licked, what many would consider an attempted rape, and what I would consider the most grotesque image, Davy Jones killing someone by shoving his tentacles down their throat. Where the first two PIRATES films left the violence between our hero's and immortal pirates comic swordplay, the third film takes it to a whole new level by making the it more realistic, more harrowing, and much more brutal.

From a filmmaker standpoint, what Director Gore Verbinski has crafted is a film of impeccable quality. His use of colors, cinematography, costumes, editing, and visual effects are impeccable. I think the only threat to PIRATES 3 winning the Oscar for Best Visual Effects film to be TRANSFORMERS, which has seemed so flawless in all of the previews. Also, the production design is both haunting, beautiful, and unique, most notably for the extreme details placed into the sets featuring Singapore. But in the end, the film remains void of a memorable story, heroic characters, or without the fun and whimsical soul which the first two PIRATES films reflected so masterfully.

GRADE: C-
RECOMMENDATION: Only if you can stomach storytelling on steroids, horrible dialogue, and complete buffoonery.

THE JOKER!!!


I could not be more excited about THE DARK KNIGHT, the sequel to 2005 hit BATMAN BEGINS. Also, it seems as if the marketing campaign has already begun even though the film doesn't hit the screen until next June. The photo above is a glimpse of Heath Ledger in his full-on JOKER make-up. I absolutely love the approach the filmmakers are taking with this character. They are returning to the comic book by making JOKER less clown, and more psychotic maniac, and in the picture you can see for yourself how they will achieve this. I was not all that excited when I heard that Heath Ledger would be playing one of, if not the, greatest comic book villains in history, but this picture defiantly gives me more confidence. Christopher Nolan (MOMENTO, THE PRESTIGE) continues to give us glimpses into the male psyche and I trust that he will take us to dark places as we see what it is that makes the JOKER truly tick.

Can JUNE 2008 get here any sooner!!!