Change Your Image
LokiWasAnAmateur
Reviews
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Who are you, and why are you here?
How can I communicate all of the things that went wrong with this movie? The first two installments, while not necessarily very faithful to the comic books story lines they were supposed to reflect, told a pretty decent story from beginning to end. We knew who each character was. We knew their relationship to virtually every other character. We knew what drove them to do what they did, and with whom they were aligned.
These things, both incredibly basic and absolutely essential to screen writing, are inexcusably missing from this installment.
Juggernaut, Multiple Man, Arc Light, Callisto, Colossus, Angel, Beast... who are they?
Juggernaut is Professor X's jealous step-brother who stumbled upon an ancient magical power, and is immune to psychic attacks.
Multiple Man is a former member of a superHERO team (I forget if he was X-Factor or X-Force).
Callisto is a mutant whose power, appearance and dispostion force her into a subterrainean existence, rife with its own political implications of intra-class warfare. Arc Light, subsequently, is more or less a face in Callisto's crowd.
Colossus is a Soviet refugee who fled Russia with his sister Ilyana to find a better life for her, and finds it with Professor X.
Angel is an ORIGINAL x-man whose overbearing rich father made life a living hell for the would-be Long Island playboy. As if this isn't bad enough, he's eventually kidnapped by Apocalypse, his wings turned metal and skin turned a light blue... a reflection of the Apocalypse's evil taint.
Beast, another ORIGINAL x-man, is a former high-school football star whose desire to become human was so great that he conducted an experiment to rid himself of mutantism, only to have said experiment backfire and warp his appearance irreversibly.
There, I think I've just about covered it. Why did I do this?
Because there's absolutely NO MENTION of any of these rich and fleshed-out backstories at all in X-3, and people not familiar with the comic book would have no clue about any of this without the aforementioned crash course.
This film makes a grievous error: squeezing in a bunch of fanboy material alien to mainstream movie-going audiences, without actually following through on the development of that material, which loses the fanboy audience, too. The result? Nobody's happy but Brett "can't-find-a-style" Rattner.
My point is that every character that appeared in this movie, with maybe one or two exceptions, has a well-developed and complex story in the comic book. It's not as if there wasn't a wealth of material to draw upon.
But enough complaining, it's time to suggest what could have been done to improve this film... Drum roll... CUT HALF THE CHARACTERS OUT!!! Seriously, if you don't have the time to present all your material well, then cut some of what you decide to present!
Suggestions:
Multiple Man served one disgustingly contrived purpose: use his power to fake high numbers. CUT!
Juggernaut did nothing. Period. His purpose seemed to be attempting a lame summer-movie quote, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" (I won't even go into why that's totally inappropriate for the character to begin with). CUT!
Angel... How to begin? There was a perfect opportunity to bring into Xavier's school. Squandered... why? CUT!
Arc Light & Callisto effectively exist so that we can see some "kewl powerz" on screen. We're supposed to ignore that Magneto never actually proves himself to them, or gives them a reason to come out of hiding.
The problem with Colossus is very basic: either expand his role (his friendship with Nightcrawler and Wolverine for example), or just let him go. The "fastball special" Colossus-Wolvie maneuver is not so groundbreaking that it warrants a completely arbitrary character.
I could continue, but I think you get the point.
Shame on you, Avi Arad. Shame on you, Brett Rattner.
And shame on any comic OR cinema fan who lets the inappropriately "dazzling" effects distract from the fact that this simply is a bad, bad movie.
The Dark Phoenix saga should not have been used to throw a bunch of meaningless, underdeveloped drivel onto the screen. If anything, this was the prime opportunity to expand on the character development begun in the first two editions.
Please... save your eyes. Avoid this movie.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Major Disappointment
I wanted so badly to enjoy this. However, I cannot let my Potter fandom cloud the fact that this movie is NOWHERE near a "10."
Now, I will admit to having held high standards walking into this movie. But that standard was set by the quality of the previous films in the Potter series. The previous three installments have been mind-blowers, so I unwittingly assumed that this would top them all.
I was wrong.
While visually stunning and well-directed, it simply tried to do too much, and wound up doing very little.
I imagine a screenwriter's mad scramble to appease book-loving audiences, while not losing the casual viewer.
The result was, quite frankly, an unfocused hodge-podge of book fragments.
A short list of what didn't work for me and why:
1. The budding romance between Cho Chang and Harry was forced, at best, into awkward moments of little chemistry. This subplot needed much more development in order to be effective, because as it is, they speak to each other maybe three or four times within a three and a half hour movie. Nowhere near the screen time to warrant the attention it attempts. So essentially, this whole subplot felt like filler.
2. At no point had I felt that anyone was going to "lose themselves," in the final challenge. Krum, the only example that comes close to this mock threat, was under Voldemort's influence (an ambiguous leap at best, by the way). Despite Cedric's courtship of Cho Chang, I had no reason whatsoever to suspect that Harry would "lose himself," as Dumbledore forewarned.
3. I did not feel that there was really any threat, even from Voldemort. He seemed to be an afterthought, and the big confrontation at the end felt like a teaser to yet another sequel.
Another example of missed opportunity is in the supposed threat of the tournament. Simply saying that "wizards have died," in the tournament previously does not do justice to what even a single visual example can. And let's not forget that the tournament didn't even kill Cedric; Voldemort did.
4. I felt that the entire opening, up until the point where the tri-wizard tournament began, was arbitrary and only served to set a mood. I feel that the set design (a major strength, in my view) and basic story did the job well enough. Not that it was badly done, but that the opening half-hour could have been used for better development of other subplots. By the end of the movie, and apparently Harry's fourth year, the audience is left scratching their heads, as no tangible chronology is provided for ANY PART of this movie.
I could continue, but my point is clear: an eight-hundred page book adapted into one three and a half hour film either cuts prominent sections of the original text out of the finished product, or tries to make a mad scramble to stay relatively close to the original work.
The result here, unfortunately, is a film with a lot of potential, and little else. The script is simply too unfocused, and the result is the ambiguous and underdeveloped mess this film slowly became.
Maybe Mike Newell would have been wise to listen to the studio's wishes. It could well have saved this film from what it became.
All in all, it was a feast for the eyes, but still only a well-directed train wreck.
Housesitter (1992)
Godawful...
Housesitter begins simply enough: Steve Martin has secretly built a dream house as an engagement ring to his lifelong love, Dana Delany. When he springs it on her without warning, she rejects his proposal.
We also learn that Martin is an architectural purist, working under a boss who, frankly, doesn't care what Martin has to say.
So far, so good, right? Sympathetic character, clear goals and intentions, and an emerging plot line that seems plausible...
Enter Goldie Hawn, in her same old Laugh-In "What, cute lil' ol' me?" role that has been her lame crutch for decades. Not that she doesn't have range, but it seems that whenever she gets hold of a bad script, she falls back on it like one of Pavlov's dogs.
She plays Gwen, a part-time waitress and full-time transient liar. After she and Martin have a one-night stand, she decides, after looking at a napkin drawing of Martin's dream house, that she is going to squat in it for a while.
She moves to his hometown under the guise that she is his wife. Keep in mind, this is a town where Martin GREW UP. And the people here have known him ALL HIS LIFE. Yet somehow, his closest friends, family, and even his would-be lover all buy Hawn's vapid deceptions, despite having never seen Martin and Hawn together, or having heard anything about Gwen existing. At all.
This is the first act, the only somewhat redeemable portion of this mindless drivel that Stein and Oz seem to think people will actually buy.
To prevent spoilers, I'm going to be vague in plot description.
Essentially, Martin finds out what happens and decides to use Hawn to make Delany jealous. How excitingly original. Nevermind that she's been using his money to furnish his home and buy herself food and clothing. Nevermind that his money is, "all tied up in that house." Where this money comes from, we never know.
And honestly, if anybody as straight-laced as Martin's character found one-night stand squatting in his house, he wouldn't just kick her out? Call the cops? Send some of the extravagant objects back? But it's a convenient plot device to ignore all of this, and it allows Hawn to be "cute"...so it's okay, according to Director Frank Oz and Writer Mark Stein.
Unfortunately, Martin turns from a likable everyman into a dishonest and manipulative heel. He becomes every bit as unbelievable as any of the lies the two of them weave, but not nearly as unbelievable as every supporting character in this film.
Remember now, these people are lifelong friends and kin to Martin. Yet they never know when he's lying, and never seem to catch on when Hawn and Martin's stories are entirely contradictory. They don't even wear wedding rings, another oversight in this limp story.
These emerging flaws in Martin, and Hawn's nauseating unbelievability (not the "good" kind portrayed as cute in this movie, but the acting kind) provide a major sympathetic vacuum. The only person you feel anything for is Dana Delany and Martin's parents, who are the target of the most manipulation.
So...who do we care about, really? It's Martin and Hawn's story, but somehow there's no reason to care. By the end, Stein artificially interjects Delany's materialism, with only a few sparse lines in the early third act to evidence this. Too little, too late. A few shallow lines towards the end of the story do NOT make an adequate antagonist.
By the time this movie ends, there's no reason to care about anybody. Martin is a manipulative sneak who lied his way into a better life (which, for some reason, is never discovered...ever), Hawn is flat and doesn't seem to care about the material at all, and Frank Oz and MArk Stein have overlooked one major flaw in this movie...
It completely depends on the audience's attachment to the Hawn-Martin mechanic, substituting this identification for anything resembling a viable plot line or characterization.
The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Enjoyable, but flawed
Terry Gilliam's absence from film for the last few years has been truly disappointing (stupid Quixote project), so when I saw his name attached to this, I was genuinely excited.
And make no mistake, this film feels like a Terry Gilliam; a little noir-ish, low visiblity, dry humor...should be great, right? It's hard to articulate what went wrong here. First of all, the humor in this film simply didn't come across as it was supposed to. Gilliam seemed to apply his timing sensibilities to material that didn't warrant it. Matt Damon and Heath Ledger were actually pretty believable as brothers, and the family mechanic was apparent, right down to the "magic beans." In many respects, I enjoyed this movie. But there were so many jarring attempts to squeeze in as many "wink & nod" Grimm references that it became hokey, and, during the gingerbread man scene, just plain stupid. Add to this a predictable "bid bad wolf" pseudo-twist and I could understand why some people dislike this movie.
That being said, I actually cared about the plot line. It took elements from so many different fairy tales that the result was, paradoxically, a unique tale unto itself.
Visually stunning, and I love Terry Gilliam, but maybe this should have been a Burton vehicle.