Santikos Cine-opsis

Did you watch “Kill Bill Vol. 1″ and say “Where’s the blood?”  Did you think “Punisher: War Zone” was too plot-heavy?  Did you like “Sin City,” except for all those bright colors?  If so, then you’ll love “Ninja Assassin!”

Yes, if you like ninjas, assassins, and redundancy, then “Ninja Assassin” is the movie for you.  “V for Vendetta” director James McTeigue pulls out all the stops and turns off all the lights, allowing shadowy ninjas to materialize out of the tiniest corners of darkness at every turn.  These appearing acts are really fun to watch, and they create some spooky moments that will make you want to turn on all your lights when you get back home from the theater.

Unfortunately, those exciting moments of ninja-lore are drowned out in a sea of CG blood that comes gushing out of slit throats, severed limbs, and hacked torsos, which would be totally cool if we could actually see who was doing the slashing.  But most of the big fight scenes happen at night or in buildings where the power had been shut off by those crafty ninjas.  And while poor lighting is a good strategy for ninja fighting, it does make it hard for the audience to follow along, or even appreciate the effort of Korean pop star Rain’s work as ninja badass Raizo.  Rain does a serviceable job with his spoken lines, and even gets a good intentional laugh or two with his camerawork (a security guard who sees the pop star on tape says he looks more like a singer in a boy band than a killing machine, which is good for a chuckle even if you didn’t know who he was).

But ninja movies aren’t about acting.  They’re about ass-kicking, and that’s where Rain is at his best.  Rain’s grace and physical prowess as a dancer translates very well to the martial arts world, giving his moves a fluidity that makes them believable.  Watching the film, I immediately accepted that this guy had spent his whole life learning to fight.  Of course, I may have just believed it because the movie spends the first hour flashing back between present day Raizo’s fight against the Ozunu clan who raised him and his childhood trials and tribulations that eventually forced him to flee said “family.”

When “Ninja Assassin” isn’t explaining what a good person Raizo is, it’s trying to sell us some cop drama angle that’s as lame as it is unnecessary.  Naomie Harris and Ben Miles play a pair of “Europol” agents snooping around into the clan’s history of assassinations.  This part of the film never really meshes with the “clan betrayal” story, even when Rain and Harris join forces.  It feels like two separate bad movies are trying to be crammed together.  The end result is a clumsy, jumbled mess of bad story and character cliches, interrupted by hard to follow action scenes that masquerade as “stylized” by hiding behind poor lighting and excessive gore.

It seems like McTeigue believes that if he just makes the fight scenes flashy and gory enough, the audience will forget the rest.  And for the most part, we did.  I had a great time watching “Ninja Assassin” in a packed theater, laughing with my fellow audience with each decapitation.  It wasn’t until later on, when my bloodlust faded and my critic-brain turned back on, that I realized that I’d been duped.  Ninjas are masters of deception, and McTeigue wraps a black t-shirt around his head and tries tricking you into believing that what he’s doing is edgy or artsy or inspired.  But it’s actually just a hodge-podge of recycled plot lines and clumsy fight scenes hidden behind special effects wizardry and a cool soundtrack.

No wonder the Wachowski brothers wanted to produce it!  As always, leave your comments below.  And I’ll leave the lights on for you.

When a major literary franchise is adapted to the screen, there are many factors considered in the process. “How closely do we remain to the source material?” “What parts of the source material can we trim to avoid turning the film into a bloated mess?” “How do we make the film understandable to new audiences?”  “Do we even care about new audiences, or is this a ‘fans only’ experience?”

And as each film in the series is made, the balancing act between source and translation, between fan and newcomer, continues.  Or, at least, it should.  However, that’s not the case in the “Twilight” series…at least, not through the first two films.  Even after a directorial change, “New Moon” follows the same formula as its predecessor, spending too much time on the dour mood swings of its brooding protagonists and not enough recreating the dark, imaginative story lines that “Twilight” fans assure me I’m missing by not reading the books.

But shouldn’t watching the movie provide the same experience?  After each movie, I’ve asked friends who saw the films and read the books if each movie lived up to its expectations, and without fail, they’ve told me “Absolutely!  It was great!  Just like the books!”  So, if that’s the case, then the “Twilight” books appear to be lacking in momentum and substance, yet still manage to be full of dangerous and misguided moral lessons for young adults to absorb.

In no particular order, here are some of the lessons I learned from watching “New Moon.”  I wonder how many parents would want their children believing that:

1.  The best way to handle a breakup is to do something insanely dangerous, because the adrenaline rush will help you remember what it felt like when you were with that person.  Or, you could die, which would also be fine, because then it would end the pain of being apart.

2.  An attractive young girl can repeatedly put herself in dangerous positions and somebody will always be there to save her.  In these situations she is at no fault of her own, and nobody is ever upset at her for putting herself in that position.  Again - and I can’t stress this enough - someone will always be there to make sure she is protected, and no harm will ever come to her.

3.  That same young girl can string along multiple men by showing them the slightest bits of affection, yet continue to shy away whenever they make any serious physical advances.  This will only strengthen their love for her.

4.  All physical contact is dangerous and could lead to death, so it’s best to just be abstinent.  However, don’t let that stop you from using your attractiveness to get what you want from men (see item 3).  If they call you on it, just say that you’re selfish and crazy and you’ll never be whole again.  Men love to try and fix things.

5.  When it comes to men, the best options for you are either a home-schooled mechanic who has a family history of violence and spousal abuse (and lycanthrope), but also some sweet pecs and a 6-pack; or a much older yet still attractive man who also has a family history of violence, a fear of commitment, and believes that allowing you into his world would destroy your innocence.  Sure, there are other guys, but they’re boring and wimpy and not worth your time.

6.  While the jury is still out on Meyer’s plagiarism of living authors, it’s obvious that Romeo and Juliet can be “sampled” at will and the only result is a big fat paycheck.  Hell, they practically spell it out in the movie (opening quote?), and one of the first scenes revolves around Bella and Edward reading R&J in class.  The warring clans of werewolves and vampires are supernatural Montagues and Capulets, and Bella (being the daughter of the sheriff who has been basically adopted by the local werewolf tribe) is stuck between her childhood friends (wolves) and new lover (Capu-er, I mean vampires).  Replace poisons and knives with cliff-diving and exhibitionism, give it a happy ending, and watch the money flow into those bank accounts.   Right, Stephenie?

7.  18-year-olds are legally adults and can leave their parents and run away with their lovers at any time, as long as they leave their folks a note.

8.  You can spend 80% of a film dwelling on non-plot-oriented relationship minutiae, and as long as you throw a couple of hastily choreographed scenes of vampires tossing each other around a cathedral in towards the end, it counts as a vampire movie.  Seriously.  This has to be the first vampire movie I’ve seen where NOBODY WAS DRAINED TO DEATH BY A F*@&ING VAMPIRE!!!! HOW STUPID IS THAT?!?

There are many more lessons to be learned from “New Moon” (it’s easy to make a nightmare scene uninteresting, it’s best to ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet, etc.) but as I left the theater, those 8 were the ones that stuck with me.  Now, if those are all from the books, I take back every negative thing I’ve said about the “Twilight” movies.  If those are the themes learned from reading the books, then the movies are an accurate translation, and the books suck.  So if you’ve read all this, and you’ve read the books, please leave your comments and let me know if I’m right.  Until then, I’ll just assume that the “Twilight” films are accurate portrayals of a really crappy book series that happened to strike a chord with tweeny girls looking for something a little bit darker than Hannah Montana.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got 12 hours to kill.  “Lord of the Rings” marathon, baby!

A subscriber (yes, I actually have those) commented on the 2012 review and sent me this youtube video (read: commercial) about the limo driving sequence.  Sure, it’s a 2-minute commercial for SWAY, but I thought it was still worth a viewing.  Leave your comments, commercials, plugs and opinions about 2012 below.

News Flash!  Roland Emmerich does not have a passion for subtle film-making.  He does not enjoy investing time in the gentle nuances of character development.  He does not paint on the canvas of message films, filling in his moral questions with nearly imperceptable shades of gray. 

No, Roland Emmerich likes to blow stuff up.

You want to watch a movie about aliens?  Roland Emmerich will hover those big-eyed mothers over the Rose Garden and turn the White House into match sticks!  You want a patriotic war movie about the American Revolution?  Roland Emmerich will stab you in the chest with the Ol’ Glory!  You want a movie about environmental sensativity?  Bam!  Statue of Liberty in a glacier!  You want a movie about Armageddon?  Bring on “2012.”

California sinks into the Pacific while The Vatican crumbles on the heads of the faithful.   Tibetan monks are swept off the tops of the Himalayas by massive whitecaps while Washington DC gets crushed by aircraft-carrier-turned-surfboard.  Did we need to see the White House destroyed by the USS John F. Kennedy?  No.  But it sure did get a wow - and then a guffaw - out of the packed theater.

Among all this panoramic panic, John Cusack plays failed writer Jackson Curtis, whose wife divorced him and took the kids because he spent all his time writing (you’re not gonna believe this) a post-apocalyptic novel about humanity coming together in the wake of a global natural disaster.  As Cusack himself says in the film, “what are the odds?”

After his book flops because nobody believes humanity will become selfless in the face of impending doom (OOOOH! MESSAGE!), Cusack apparently took a course in stunt-driving clumsy vehicles.  Through the course of the film, Cusack and Co. survive the impending apocalypse in white-knuckle chase scenes in: a limo, an RV, a twin-engine private plane piloted by Curtis’ ex-wife’s new boyfriend, and a Russian cargo plane, also co-piloted by the aformentioned boyfriend.  Oh, and did I mention that both the limo and the RV do the “jump the chasm by stepping on the gas” trick?  Because they do.

Now, not everything in “2012″ is completely unbelievable inane audience-pandering.  The actual reason for the destruction of the planet is pretty well thought out.  I’m no astrophysicist, but I don’t have any trouble buying that strengthening solar flares coupled with a weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field over-heat the planet’s core to destabilize tectonic plates in the crust, sending California to the bottom of the pond and turning Yellowstone into Vesuvius on crack.  San Andreas crack, no less.

Not only that, but I absolutely buy Oliver Platt as the corrupt-politician-selling-seats-on-the-escape-pods-to-wealthy-financiers-guy.  If the Earth were to turn into Pangea again in 3 years, we’d all learn about it….in 2 years and 364 days.  No way the government would risk global panic and economic collapse by telling people the truth.

And while it’s a shame that these morally disturbing and eerily possible moments are completely overwhelmed by the other 2 hours and 30 minutes of emotional pandering and roller coaster chaos…what did we expect?  It’s Roland Emmerich.  This guy didn’t make “Citizen Kane,” he made “10,000 B.C.”  This is a director who equates “big” with “good,” and “2012″ is his biggest movie yet.  And if that’s what we know he likes, and if that’s what we expect from him, and if that’s what audiences want to see, then how can we as critics call this movie a failure?  I know I can’t.

I’ll be the first to admit that when I saw an animated miniature Ebenezer Scrooge falling down a rooftop and slamming into icicles, I thought Robert Zameckis had lost his mind.  I mean, the mo-cap “Beowulf” was pretty cool, but Scrooge as action hero really didn’t sound like a good idea.  However, in spite of my better judgement, I went and saw “Disney’s A Christmas Carol.”  And I liked it.

Well, I liked most of it.  The out of place chase sequences and the conspicuous attempts to make things jump out of the screen at you kept the movie from reaching its true potential.  Like Ebenezer’s obsession with wealth, Zameckis’ greedy approach to 3D motion capture animation tends to drive away the human elements of his movies in favor of unnecessary action scenes that, while flabbergastingly fun to watch, hurt the film as a whole.  But they don’t hurt the fun factor, and if I had a choice between traditional Dickensian sentimentality (read: melodrama) and Zameckis’ carriage-chase escapism, I’d stick with the 3D glasses, knowing full well that the former would be a better piece of art, but the latter would be more entertaining.

And in spite of himself, for the most part, Zameckis stays on point.  Unlike the previous animated Disney version (the one with all the mice), this version feels more authentic, and at times, becomes quite unnerving.  “A Christmas Carol” is a ghost story, after all, and Zameckis never lets us forget that.  From teeth-spitting doorknobs to the shadowy hand of death pointing right at us, the ghoulish apparitions of Ebenezer’s partner Marley (a very creepy and surprisingly funny scene) and the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future are each given plenty of time to work their magic on ol’ Scroogy-pants (although the Christmas carols in the background get a bit old after ghost 1).   But the end result, excesses and all, never made me want to hum-bug it out of the theater.

Another delightful surprise was the vocal talent in “A Christmas Carol,” and by surprise I mean Jim Carrey.  From the Grinch to Count Olaf, Carrey has destroyed many a classic children’s character, and I assumed that his role as Scrooge would follow suit.  But not only does he pull off the gravely intonations of a miserly old moneychanger, but he excels as the voice of the ghosts!  And, not only that, but he manages to handle Scrooge’s catharsis well, making Scrooge sound so positive that the town almost thinks him mad, but not so over the top that we think he sounds like an overacting Jim Carrey (although there were a couple of times that he got close).  Add to that strong performances by Gary Oldman as both Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim (and as the ghost of Marley, whose moment, as I mentioned, was one of the best in the film), Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth, Robin Wright Penn, Cary Elwes, and so on made the film feel so very Victorian.

And visually, the animation was as stunning as it was creepy.  I’ve always found mo-cap to be a conundrum, as it feels realistic but looks fake.  Zameckis has taken this art form about as far as I think it can go here, and the lines on Scrooge’s aged face alone are worth the price of admission.  There are great scenes visually that would be really hard to pull off in a non-CG world.  In particular, the scene where Christmas Present rips off the top of Scrooge’s house and flies around the city in it, sort of like a glass bottomed room, was one of my favorites, and an example of how Zameckis SHOULD have used his skills to enhance the story, not run away from it.  But it still creeps me out that Belle looks like Robin Wright Penn, but not really, or that Old Fezziwig looks like what would happen if Bob Hoskins had his own mini-me.  Even after all these movies, it’s still unsettling to me.

That aside, I think “A Christmas Carol” is a fun way to bring Dickens’ often-told tale back to life.  And even though I’ve seen it a million times in a million different ways, it never hurts to be reminded that it’s better to be generous than gruff, and that we should try to act like it’s Christmas 365 days a year.  Now if we could just edit out that icicle chase scene….