Ninja Assassin

Sometimes a ninja assassin movie is just a ninja assassin movie. This is what this movie aspires to be and it does it very well.

This doesn’t mean it’s one-dimensional by any means. While the story is fairly simple, telling of Raizo’s (Rain) training by his clan, his fall from their ranks and the fight for his life, it’s not merely a frame for a set of fight sequences. The filmmakers actually saw fit to tell this story well. While I felt there was a small drag at the beginning to set the plot up (especially after a gripping opening action sequence), the rest of the movie did a very good job of balancing action with plot. It helped give the characters depth that made the ensuing fight scenes that much more impact.

And the action really delivers. A lot of people behind the Matrix movies were involved in making this movie and that expertise shows here. The fight sequences are as engaging as anything you would expect from the producers of the Matrix movies. These are also enhanced by some very interesting digital work. Raizo’s main weapon is a chain whip dagger and using CG to show the deadly path it forges creates some very cool scenes that would have been impossible to make practically. That along with the copious amounts of blood and gore. The carnage, while plentiful, doesn’t feel gratuitous. It serves to show things like the deadly effectiveness of the ninja and the brutal nature of clan training.

Rain, known more as a singer/entertainer in South Korea, does a great job in this movie, bringing not only his physical training to the role, but also some good acting chops showing the pain and discipline this character has gone through. Also performing well in this is Naomie Harris (also known for her role as Tia Dalma in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies) as government agent Mika whose investigations into ninjas get her involved.

This was fun to see in the theater and is definitely worth a purchase once it’s released to the home market. A very good action film that does just what it does and does it very well.

Planet 51

In trying to start this movie with a quick summary, I find that I have trouble doing so. Not that the plot is convoluted or incomprehensible (Dude must win over girl while helping astronaut get back to ship. There, twelve words.) but that there is a lot of trope surrounding it and trying too hard to be funny that it almost succeeds in distracting from the plot (Kid finds courage saving human to woo girl. Eight words this time.)

About the only thing that was original about this movie was the decision to make the world ‘alien’ and the spaceman human. Unfortunately, the filmmakers took that starting point and boldly went where every comedy kids movie has gone before. Planet 51, while being a nod to Area 51 is also an obscure reference to the fact that socially and culturally, this alien world almost identical to America in the 1950′s (Even down to the fact that for no adequately explained reason, this world has the same English spoken and written language and has a breathable atmosphere identical to Earth). That combined with the astronaut is from our world and our time, allows the film to joke about or drop reference to pretty much every sci-fi film from 50′s schlock cinema to recent classics. Unfortunately, all the jokes either fall flat or were used in the trailer. The characters are also pretty typical, so much so that instead of naming them Neera, Skiff, Grawl and Kipple they might as well have named them Love Interest, Goofy Friend, Grumpy Antagonist, and Grumpy Antagonist’s Sidekick.

I had no complaints about the animation. It was well done, but again, nothing groundbreaking. Probably the most unique character (Yes, even more interesting than the green-skinned aliens) was Rover, the robot sent ahead of the astronaut to take pictures and gather samples, and even he looked highly derivative of WALL-E. All the actors did well voicing their characters, but no one is going to be remembered for this movie. Justin Long (Lem) will still be known as Mac, Dwayne Johnson (Captain Charles Baker) will still be The Rock, and John Cleese (Professor Kipple) will still be known as old and English.

I value the time I spent seeing this movie as a matinee because of the people I saw it with. I don’t think it would have been worth seeing at full price, and I definitely don’t think it’s worth purchasing when it comes out. Pretty but dull. (Boy saves spaceman, gets girl. Ha! Five! New record!)

Where The Wild Things Are

Spike Jonze has made the first emo children’s movie.

If I had limited time to give you a summary review of this movie, that would be it. Whenever a movie is made out of a source that doesn’t seem to have enough material to qualify for a half-hour TV special (do they even make those anymore?) let alone a full movie, there is the risk ruining the movie version by adding to the original. It is to Jonze’s credit that the choices he and co-writer Dave Eggers made are not effects-laden filler, but real strides to flesh out the story.

However, this doesn’t add up to a typical ‘kid’ movie. It’s very obvious that Jonze sees this story as a sad one. His Max is lonely, misunderstood and trying to find a place where he can be accepted. Something that a lot of kids and adults can relate to. It goes a long way in creating sympathy for the character by not just being a brat who got sent to his room for bad behavior. The creatures that he comes across when he runs away are just as sad and lonely as he is, and on the verge of dissolving as a family until Max talks his way into making him their king.

The look of this movie is quite different from any recent kid’s movie by a long shot. The natural color palatte of the wild things’ world are a welcome break from the fully saturated rainbow colors of most kid’s films, but it doesn’t make the landscapes any less awe-inspiring. The dark forests and windy deserts manage to have a very otherwordly feel to them, perfectly matching the creatures. I have to admit a bias here, being a long-time fan of anything involving Jim Henson. His Creature Shop created the full-body puppets that stay very true to Sendak’s original illustrations yet fit into the natural landscapes quite well. These are enhanced by using CG to make the monster’s faces talk and emote. The computer work is subtle and seamless and gives these creatures an added believability.

As imaginative as their outward appearance is, their names and voices are very ordinary. Carol? Alexander? Ira? For me, the names weren’t an issue. These are obviously monsters and giving them names like Treepuncher or King Furball would have been too distracting. The voices follow the same logic, as no one is trying to voice a ‘monster character’ as they are just acting out a character, and this works except for James Gandolfini. I couldn’t help being reminded of Tony Soprano whenever he spoke. Gandolfini is a good actor and does Carol justice in this movie, but it might have been better served to have a less distinctive voice fill this role.

In all, I’m glad I saw this movie in the theater. Don’t know if I’d buy it though. Like the movie, it was a very enjoyable ride, but sooner or later you get over being sad and then you need to get back on the boat and go home.

Does It Play On A Mac? – Unreal Anthology

This installment looks at Unreal Anthology, the collection of five games from the Unreal/Unreal Tournament franchise.

Surrogates

Today’s technology makes it easier for most anyone to hide behind a digital mask. Everything from the personas some project in chat rooms, posts and tweets that say things they might never even whisper in real life to the domination of Photoshop applied to models on magazine covers and MySpace pages that are decried as unattainable, to the stories of singers’ voices being automatically corrected with Autotune.

In this movie a majority of the population lives through their titular surrogates: robots that transmit all sensory input to their controller sitting in a remote control chair in their home. If there was any type of setting that is ripe allegory for our online habits, this is it. The problem is that it doesn’t dive very deep at all. We are to believe that surrogates can look like anything the owner can imagine, but aside from one shot on a subway with one surrogate covered in metallic blue skin sitting next to a female with mohawk of actual spikes the main character’s robots are not much more than idealized versions of the actors with impeccable hair and skin just on the unrealistic side of smooth. Considering at least one character’s emotional and physical scars (Greer’s wife, played by Rosamund Pike) it would seem to me that her surrogate might be a chance to adopt a wildly different appearance in order to distance herself from her past.

While controlling a surrogate, one is not supposed to be able to be harmed. Your surrogate get crushed, burned, or otherwise destroyed, you’re still safe in your chair. Yet someone has found a way to kill people through their surrogates. This idea was something that could really add some unique twists to the usual murder/investigation plot. Yet this too felt a bit pedestrian. When FBI agents Greer (Bruce Willis) and Peters (Rahda Mitchell) relate that this is the first murder to occur in years, they do it with an inexplicable air of nonchalance. It didn’t make this event very significant for me. It might as well have been another body on Law and Order. A story like this should bring characters who aren’t what they seem, so in a setting where anyone can be anything, it doesn’t lend itself to a surprise the audience couldn’t foresee. I blame another part of this on the trailers released for this movie. This is unfortunately one of those instances where the trailer pretty much gives away the ending of the movie. I tried to find a trailer to embed here that didn’t have any of that footage, but all of them have that footage, so I’m not even embedding one in this post. This is probably one of the worst offenses marketing has made on a film’s trailer.

The movie isn’t bad. It’s certainly not unwatchable. The tribe and I were entertained by this movie. Bruce Willis, who has played the investigator role many times before does a great job in the lead. Rosamund Pike did some excellent work in creating distinct performances for when she was controlling her surrogate and when she was herself. Many of the other players in this film could have taken cues from her, as this was one of the few things that really touched on how people behave in public and private.

In the end I’d say this is worth seeing as a matinee once or when it comes out for rent. It might be worth a purchase. But that’s about it. Decent story. Interesting setting. But it leaves you with a sense that a lot more could have been made from the material.

9

9 is the name/number of the main character, a burlap-covered creature who literally comes to life in the beginning of the film who must find his way through a landscape demolished by human war and sparsely populated by other numbered creatures and find a way to defeat the giant robotic machine that seems capable of sucking the soul out of whoever it encounters.

Anyone who saw the ads or posters for this movie might look at the funny-looking creatures on them and guess that this might be a kid’s film while they ignore the bleak backdrops these ragdolls occupy. This reflects the film quite accurately, in fact. This film dives into very heavy concepts: war, death, fear, humanity’s inner drive to create as well as destroy, even drug addiction, all serving as the setting for the adventure of these bizarrely cute little creatures.

The tone of this film is something you would expect from something with that involves Tim Burton (he executive produced) but it doesn’t feel like a film that would get the type of advertising exposure it has received. It’s a very atmospheric film, happy to let characters’ actions speak for them if at all possible. I like the fact that although they used many celebrities to provide voices (Elijah Wood as 9, Jennifer Connelly as 7, Christopher Plummer as 1, Crispin Glover as 6, John C. Reilly as 5), they are all very excellent actors who bring character to their roles and not just fall into the usual convention of ‘big-name actor lends voice to cartoon’.

When I was younger one of the major yearly events for me was when the animation festival would come to the local theater. It was always amazing to see the different styles and designs that animators could conjure onto the screen beyond what was fed to us on Saturday mornings and showed how truly versatile the art of animation was. However in doing so, the art could be raised above the story, which tended to be the most uneven part of the event. True, there was some brilliant pieces that could make me laugh much harder or reflect on concepts much more deeply than any live-action film could, but some films were so caught of in their visuals that the animators lost sight the story. I was reminded of these festivals when I was watching 9. This made even more sense when after doing some research I found that this was based on a short film from 2005 by director Shane Acker, one that most likely made the rounds in similar festivals, that served as the basis for this film (I’ve included the Youtube post of that film in this review). There’s a lot of questions about the characters and the world that both the short film and the feature film leave up in the air. While this works for the short film to keep focus on the main plot, it doesn’t quite work in the feature. There is a lot more room in the feature to expound on why things are the way they are so the audience doesn’t get lost and this room wasn’t used to it’s fullest capacity. A little mystery is good, of course, but I don’t think I had enough information or familiar ground to see why I should care about the creatures and their plight, and in one part of the story the characters’ actions actually made me lose quite a bit of sympathy for them and question why they would act this way in the first place.

This film is really beautiful, with a some imaginative visuals and some good action and distinctive characters, but I would have felt ripped off seeing this at evening price in the theater. It was worth seeing as a matinee and It might be worth the purchase of a download. However, this doesn’t really get beyond more than eye candy for me. It would have been nice to have an equally compelling story to match the visuals.

Gamer

TheJoe, DJ and I saw this Friday at the AMC in the Santa Monica Promenade.

Movies about video games suck. They’re either lackluster and disappointing adaptations of a game or a half-hearted attempt to ‘connect’ to the gaming culture by dropping a few gaming terms that Hollywood hopes will be enough to connect with the gaming crowd yet not be so alien as to confuse the average viewer.

Nothing about Gamer struck me as something that was going to impress me, either. The main plot about an inmate fighting for his life in a violent game against other inmates (It’s MORE than a game! It’s REEEAAAALLL!) has been done in other movies and games before, and the idea that the main character is being controlled in the game by someone else has also been explored before (and seems to be the trendy story hook used in upcoming movies like Surrogates and Avatar).

This is the mindset I had going into this movie. The most exciting thing I was looking forward to was checking out this theater I’d never been in and whether the popcorn was any good.

The story concerns a very dystopian world where the opiate of the masses is in the form of games where real people are willingly placed under direct neural control of a gamer with enough money to make they’re character do whatever they want. This takes the form of two games: “Slayers”, a massive first-person-like shooter where violent inmates use overpowered firearms to survive and make it to through enough matches to win their freedom, and it’s predecessor, “Society”, a very Sims/Second Life-like MMO where lower-class people fortunate enough to be pretty enough earn a living as ‘characters’ that follow the (usually) sexual whims of whatever gamer is in control.

When I got out of this movie I wanted to give it no thumbs up. As I was talking to TheJoe about the movie I talked about how gamers really weren’t put in the best light in this movie. There’s the cocky young gamer who controls are protagonist who talks trash and has a bloated ego from being the top player. There’s the wife of the protagonist working in “Society” that’s really controlled by an overweight male shut-in. There’s the juvenile, nonsensical names characters are given in “Society”. When I was complaining about all this to TheJoe, his response was basically, ‘isn’t that what gamers do right now?’ I realized that I was taking the material too personally. I also realized that this movie was made by people who understand the gaming world and I was giving a lot of thought to the concepts presented by a summer action movie.

This movie was written and directed by the team of Neveldine and Taylor, the same guys behind the Crank movies, which I thought of as movies about a video game character that had yet to be created, never mind the numerous video game references in the movie itself. These are definitely two people that understand the gaming culture (and the internet culture) and have more accurately portrayed it onscreen than anyone has done lately, giving it a future-tech sheen of 360-degree surround sound screens and ‘the-computer-just-translates-my-movement-into-action’ controller schemes. I wasn’t bored by this movie by any means. The story moves along OK, and it goes beyond it’s action movie shell to make statements about control and class. These people indeed DO behave the way gamers and internet surfers behave these days. The act of giving those actions real consequences to real humans tends to expose a mindset that some would consider very ugly. Like I said, I had to step back from this part of the movie. I play a LOT of first-person shooters.

I had no complaints about any of the acting in this film. Gerard Butler delivers as the top Slayer Kable trying to get out of the game and back to his wife (Amber Valletta) and daughter (Brighid Fleming). Michael C. Hall plays Ken Castle, the mastermind behind the technology driving the games and richer than God and Bill Gates. He plays him with a full evil and cockiness he doesn’t get to flex in his role as TV’s Dexter. Ludacris works well as the face and leader of the underground hacker group Humanz. An unexpected cameo is made by Milo Ventimiglia as “Society” character Rick Rape. Despite the name, his turn is actually amusing.

Not everyone is going to ‘get’ this movie. Although many more people play games now than in the past, some people might still get lost in the use of concepts like ping, mods, and memes. For those people this is a one thumbs up movie. For those that game like me, this could very well be a two-thumbs up. I’m glad I saw it in the theater and will definitely download it upon release. It’s one of those few movies that, for me, will actually be different upon repeated viewings.

Video game movies suck. But then comic book movies used to suck too. Then people who understood the culture of comics started making movies that took it as the legitimate art form it is and realized that there were real stories to be told from this medium. I don’t think this is the turning point for game movies, but it is a step in the right direction.

Does It Play On a Mac? – Deus Ex

For this episode, I check out Deus Ex, the classic game combining RPG elements with a first-person shooter set against a story touching on many major American conspiracies.

District 9

An interesting campaign for this movie was launched in Los Angeles. On busses, benches and billboards, graphics declared areas as “humans only” with a phone number to call and a website to visit should one spot any alien activity. It was a very simple design that brought one of the issues of the movie to the attention of the passerby. This campaign is an excellent match for the movie, which takes racism and other issues and uses sci-fi to twist to these issues into new perspectives for people to examine. Those people who wished the recent reboot of “Star Trek” had more allegory with its’ action will find plenty to like with this film.

The tribe and I caught this at Mann’s Chinese Theater on the main screen and we enjoyed it very much. It was a very well-done movie with a lot of over-the-top sci-fi action. The big screen really showed off the crisp digital picture (this film was shot on high-end RED cameras) and the excellent digital sound. I was very entertained by this film.

So why only two thumbs up? You really have no idea how close this film was to getting the full three. Really. It’s soooo close.

Neil Blomkamp has spent more of his career as a visual effects artist (Dark Angel, Stargate SG-1, Smallville) and he definitely puts as much of the budget onscreen as he could and it shows. The aliens and the spaceship look amazing and the interaction with humans is very realistic. Great care was taken to blend the CGI with the real world as seamlessly as possible. There is no no doubt of Blomkamp’s skill in this area. He is also the writer and director, though, and for all of his creativity in the visual effects field, the story is very pedestrian. I could see the plot progression coming a mile away. I’m usually able to let myself go along for the ride in a good sci-fi movie and not notice these things but the story was very obvious. However, Blomkamp’s talent as a director really helps make up for this weakness. While the story is nothing new, it is told excellently. I could guess what happens next, but I was certainly not bored waiting for the next thing to happen.

Peter Jackson’s name was hyped the most in the movie’s advertising even though he’s a producer and not a director, which makes sense business-wise, but the influence on this movie is not from the Lord of the Rings fanatic most of the public knows. This movie has more in touch with the guy who splattered his way through “Bad Taste”, “Meet the Feebles”, and “Braindead” (“Dead Alive” in the US) and if you’ve ever wondered what THAT Peter Jackson would do with a bigger budget, this is the answer. One scene in particular paid homage to the grisly opening of “Braindead”, putting the protagonist in an almost identical predicament.

Speaking of protagonists mention must be made of Sharlto Copley who plays the lead role of Wikus van de Merwe. According to my research, he is more of a writer and producer and had no plans or even aspirations to act or have any type of part in front of the camera, PLUS he improvised most of his dialogue. Coming from this background, I have to say he does an amazing job taking an unlikely wimp like Wikus and making him a sympathetic character. Part of this is probably due to the fact that many of the other human characters are very UNsympathetic and out to get Wikus for reasons that I’d rather not venture into spoiler country to explain, but Copley does a good job of making sure we like this guy. If he didn’t want to act before, he’d better learn to start turning down offers.

Maybe it’s the shifting of roles (effects artist-turned-writer/director, producer-turned-actor) or the fact that the story doesn’t take more risks (including setting itself up for an inevitable sequel), but there’s just a small amount that separates this very good film from a great film. It was well worth seeing in the theater, maybe even twice, and it is a solid digital download. If there is more from this story in the future, I really hope they step it up a notch.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I went to the opening midnight showing at the Arclight with the Technochubby tribe.

This movie shares kinship with Transformers in being based on a toy line (The same company, Hasbro, in fact). It’s also based on the 80′s cartoon incarnation, taking the origin-story route. It follows Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) as they discover and are inducted into the secret that is G.I. Joe while tracking weaponry that ultimately marks the (as the title says) rise of the Cobra organization and its key players. Charting the beginnings with a property like that is a real balancing act between a multitude of characters’ backstories and the main story. I think the writers got a little heavy on the characters origins to try and satisfy the fan base. While I didn’t feel like anything put a drag on the pacing, I do think some things could have been trimmed out and saved for a sequel, particularly the flashbacks about Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee). Their backstory feels like it’s supposed to lead up to their big conflict in the big battle, but it really doesn’t have a payoff for either character. Again, if the writers are holding back for a sequel with these two, I think it would have been much cooler to keep these two martial artists’ conflict shrouded in secrecy (Or at least saved for a director’s cut, as the young actors playing these two in the flashbacks made some enjoyable fight sequences).

The leads on the file, Channing Tatum (Duke) and Marlon Wayans (Ripcord) are competent and compelling as the soldiers who stumble on this (somewhat) secret war. I was actually surprised by Wayans, who actually gives a more grounded and subdued performance in his sidekick role. I actually found him to be funny without being annoying. The actors for this movie run a very international gamut in keeping with the more global flavor of this version of G.I. Joe. The overall movie follows this route, leading to a more sci-fi, action route than a war movie.

It’s this last point that seems to perplex some people. The tribe and I attended a midnight showing of this movie with a lot of people some would classify as geeks, including a few wearing G.I. Joe T-shirts, all looking forward to the film. At the end of the film I could overhear many of these same people trashing the film and making fun of it for being basically like the cartoon. And this movie is that: a big-budget, live-action version of the cartoon, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything more than that. It doesn’t provide some deep insight into the horrors of war or why we fight. Going into G.I. Joe expecting to see “Apocalypse Now” is like going to Transformers expecting to earn a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and robotics.

This is a popcorn movie with lots of cool, advanced-looking weapons, armor and vehicles getting into big fights. Air battles, undersea battles, laser fights, hand-to-hand combat, giant global landmarks in peril. All the stuff anyone playing with G.I. Joes as a kid imagined was happening, and aside from a couple of effect shots that, to my eye looked horrible, the effects and setting were well-done.

I can summarize this way. To prepare to see this movie, I took a nap as soon as I got home from work so I wouldn’t nod off after midnight (as anyone that knows me can tell you, this is a herculean task), woke up, showered, assembled with the whole tribe to travel to the theater together, get parking, get some food beforehand, and got our seats. I can say, that while I wasn’t highly-impressed with the movie, I didn’t feel like my time was wasted. I enjoyed myself. Everybody had a great time. I’d say at least see it as a matinee and it will make a solid home purchase. Don’t let any overblown expectations get in the way of a good movie.

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