Short Review: Proof that even superheroes hate to go to work everyday.


Director Christopher Nolan has shown that even if you have your hero dressed up for Halloween, it doesn’t mean you have to play down to your audience. This is easily the best version of Batman to be produced. Where the Tim Burton line of Batman films were comical and goofy, this one is brooding and serious. I believe the latter is more suited to this hero. Batman is a guilt-ridden anti-hero, he’s not Superman. Nolan was very smart to take this opportunity to explore the underside of the conflicted post-modern hero.

Exposing the darker side of the Batman character is an interesting choice because he is essentially a god (notice the lower case). Today’s superheroes are much like the pantheon of Greek gods of old. They are a stopping point between us and God (notice the upper case). The superheroes (gods) are super human but sub-God. The Greek gods were powerful and controlled the fates of men but were flawed with lust and greed like man. It is interesting to see one of these fallen gods (Batman) be troubled with this situation. This film takes the fallen hero’s humanity very seriously and that makes this film worth the investment.


Christian Bale is a solid choice for this reinvention of the cinematic Batman. The darker take on Bruce Wayne is a perfect fit for Bale's intense performance style. He is the kind of performer who can read the instructions for a can opener and make it sound like its the launch codes of a nuclear warhead about to be unleashed. Bale's brooding presence heightens Wayne's guilt-ridden, conflicted personality. Through the strong display of Wayne's emotional baggage, his transformation into Batman makes more sense. In the goofier versions of the character, there was always a disconnect. He was heroic, yet he was dressed up like a bat - a shadowy vermin.

I appreciate that Nolan and David S. Goyer, who wrote the screenplay, have left us with a perfect set-up for the sequel. I won’t ruin the ending but with Gotham left in the state that it is in, the rise of The Joker is perfectly logical. The ending of the film is a far better beginning for The Joker than having him being dipped in a vat of goo as they did in the Burton version.

Too bad they messed up The Dark Knight so badly. For more on why The Dark Knight is useless, read my review.

Overall, this is a top-notch film that has more brains that a majority of films released today. By the time this film was released, Nolan had already proven himself to be a director of notable talent. This production marked him as one of the top of his generation

I highly recommend this film but would caution people with small children. While this is a superhero movie, there are some rough scenes that may frighten smaller kids to death. Be warned.


Related Reviews:
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Inception (2010)
The Prestige (2006)


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Labels: Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, film, Gary Oldman, Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, movie review, superhero, Tom Wilkinson

I did not have high hopes for this one. Tom Cruise starring in a film about the failed assassination of Adolf Hitler? We already know how it ends and Cruise hasn’t shown his ability to act in nearly a decade. Luckily, the production was helmed by Bryan Singer and co-written by his The Usual Suspects partner Christopher McQuarrie along with Nathan Alexander. This production makes it clear that Singer and McQuarrie need to work together more often.

Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise) is literally torn to pieces following an attack in Nazi occupied Africa. He comes to admit that Germany has been duped and the Fuhrer is leading them to destruction.

Stauffenberg is a German solider and he loves his country. To protect his homeland he decides the only answer is to assassinate Adolf Hitler. In this goal he finds many willing conspirators looking to do their part. As history tells us, they fail. Hitler survives the attempt and all the men are executed.

Despite the history, the film is surprisingly suspenseful. Singer managed to get me to hope the conspirators would succeed in their plot. Smartly, Singer and crew focused less on the conspiracy itself at the beginning and built up the personalities involved. This allows the audience to invest themselves in the doomed men. The men are presented not as Nazi stereotypes but for what they were, real men caught up in an impossible situation. Their leaders weren’t what they seemed and were an existential threat to everything they knew.

It should also be noted that Singer avoids delving into the worldviews of the Nazis, the concepts that they were fighting for. Its easier to create a sympathetic character if you avoid all of that Jew-hating, racist rhetoric he believes.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Cruise. This is primarily because I don’t find his films to be worth watching. He is a good actor when prompted and this film shows his ability. He’s a good and inviting lead who carries a bulk of the production. I would say this is his best performance in years, but that should go without saying. When he hasn’t been starring in Spielberg’s self-indulgent failures, he has been gritting his teeth in those tedious Mission Impossible movies. This is his best performance in years because this is his first film in years that called for a good performance.

Those who love historical and/or war movies will most likely enjoy this film. It is intelligently crafted while still being a Hollywood-safe version of history. It has enough conventional film making to have audiences entertained while having enough thought behind it to make it something more than just a waste of time.




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Labels: Bill Nighy, film, Kenneth Branagh, movie review, Terrance Stamp, Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson

Screenwriter: Tony Gilroy (Proof of Life)
Director: Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton)
Actors: Clive Owen (Shoot-em Up), Julia Roberts (Charlie Wilson's War), Paul Giamatti (Sideways) and Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins)

Labels: Clive Owen, film, Julia Roberts, movie trailer, Paul Giamatti, Tom Wilkinson

My one year old daughter will make a face or say something that gets a laugh from her mother and me. Flushed with the attention she receives, she will do the shtick again in hopes of getting the same reaction. Sometimes it works out for her. If so, she will then do a third, fourth and sometimes a fifth time. The longer the trick goes on the less effective it is. Unlike Guy Ritchie, my one year old daughter has the sense to stop her routine when it fails to get results.

This is the same old same old hyper-stylized, popping paced, snap edited "ain't we too cool for the room" dribble we've seen before. When writer/director hit the scene with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels his style was exciting and new. He make a statement and his fresh voice was heard. When he broke and took the next step with his follow up Snatch he seemed like he was a notable rising power in cinema. A film maker with a talent for crime flicks. Like a British Tarantino but without the massive cranium and he didn't come across as someone desperately making up for his missing dad. Then Richie stagnated and hasn't grown one bit. If you have seen his first two films you've seen this one.

The thing that strikes me about this film is how immensely controlled it feels. Every shot is obviously carefully planned, the design work is obvious and the characterizations are calculated. I never felt as if I were doing anything but watching a very elaborate movie. This is not a good quality since it means I was never able to "get lost" in the movie. Ritchie's governing hand is seen the whole time, he may as well be heard yelling out direction in the background of all of his scenes.

The performances by the likes of Tom Wilkinson, Gerald Butler, Mark Strong, Idris Elba and Thandie Newton are passable. They all strut across the screen with appropriate confidence and toughness but it is all hollow. Their lines are contrived and sound like dialog not actual people talking. They may have done admirable jobs delivering their roles but the combined end product is completely soulless. This drains their efforts of any value.

Ritchie opens his film with a fat knot of facts, motivations and plot all delivered in a kinetic package. The opening five minutes is more flashy and distracting that most children's cereal commercials. One would expect the film to settle a bit as it moves forward so the audience can register the ideas presented in the flurry but Ritchie chooses to keep the flashiness up. We're given more characters, all are oh, so cool and posed, more conniving and more deliberate camera work. This continues throughout the film until Ritchie has devised a Rube Goldberg contraption for a plot that all fires off at once only to provide the uninspiring result of a lighter being snapped on. The problem with creating multi-layered, complicated narratives is that you had better make it worth people's time. This film doesn't meet that criterion.


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Labels: British Cinema, film, Gerald Butler, Guy Ritchie, Idris Elba, Mark Strong, movie review, Thandie Newton, Tom Wilkinson

Short Review: This film boasts some of the WORST action figures I’ve ever seen.


This may be the only time I’ll have the opportunity to say “Sure, the film has male strippers but guys you’re still gonna like it.” The word that best fits this odd little film is “endearing”. It isn’t terribly funny and its not weighed down with drama. It is a mix of the two, a little like real life.

Much of the film hits close to real life for many men. The industries of Western societies have evaporated and many jobs have been lost, never to come back. The promise of steady employment is gone. The roles men once played are gone as well. In addition, many of the things men used to do to define themselves are now considered to be social ills. Following the advice of modern culture, many guys now have broken marriages and fleeting moments of court defined fatherhood. This film finds explores these bitter points with its lost characters. The story surrounds the rudderless lives of out of work steelworkers who are running out of money and meaning. They devise a ridiculous plan to put on a Chippendale’s like show with themselves in the spotlight. These men are worn down blue-collar workers who mostly have physiques that resemble coat racks. One of the men has the shape of a bag of mayonnaise. To water this down, we watch the men struggle with their personal lives while they spend their spare time learning how to dance as the big day gets closer. This is not Shakespeare but it certainly has its moments.

Much of the film rests on the shoulders of the two leads Robert Carlyle and Mark Addy. The natural chemistry between the two actors is plain to see and they work off one another well. This is not a vibrant script but these two add the needed flavor. Carlyle has an intensity that he tries to tone down for this piece but it still comes through. I get the feeling he doesn’t just sit well. Against this is Addy’s lumbering, oafish persona which anchors Carlyle. The two are a great match on screen both physically (one is an ox, the other spindly,) but also in regards to personality.

Low on the nudity, this film isn’t really about stripping. It is more about self-definition. Simon Beaufoy’s script is very dry and simple. However, it provides some pertinent moments of reflection for its characters. In the hands of first time director Peter Cattaneo, the script finds a voice that supports its quirky tone. The two working in unison produces a sleepy but memorable movie worth watching – even if it is about a bunch of slobs dangling their tackle.


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Labels: British Cinema, film, Mark Addy, movie review, Robert Carlyle, Tom Wilkinson

Screenwriter: Guy Ritchie (Snatch)
Director: Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels)
Actors: Gerald Butler (300), Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace), Jeremy Piven (The Kingdom), Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton), and Thandie Newton (Crash)

Labels: film, Gemma Arterton, Gerald Butler, Guy Ritchie, movie trailer, Thandie Newton, Tom Wilkinson

Labels: exorcism, film, Laura Linney, movie review, Tom Wilkinson