Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Puss in Boots (2011)

    Puss in Boots (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2015)  Given the success of “Puss” in the Shrek films, this spin-off prequel was as inevitable as it was likely to be disappointing.  Not all supporting comic characters have enough presence to sustain a full-length movie, and so Puss in Boots is largely forgettable despite Antonio Banderas’ vocals and the efforts of the Dreamworks Animation team.  Part of the familiarity is the once-again approach in poaching modern storylines from fairy-tales: Here, there’s not much Puss in Boots and a lot of Humpty-Dumpty and Jack and the Beanstalk as the protagonist gets embroiled in a heist plot.  (Thankfully, the links to the Shrek movies are very, very thin –not even the settings match.)  It works sporadically, just well enough to earn continued attention throughout.  Much of the rest is straight from the contemporary animated-movie framework: escalating action sequences, recognizable voice cast, spirited gags and conventional storytelling.  Plus a big helping of cat-related jokes.  But then again, originality doesn’t really pay in developing family-friendly animated films, especially if they don’t aspire (like Pixar often does) to thematic greatness.  Thankfully, Puss in Boots is light on pop-culture references, stands up on its own as a non-Shrek movie and pairing off Banderas once again with Selma Hayek, even if only vocally, seems like the right thing to do.  There may not be much to love in Puss in Boots, but there is enough to like.

  • The Calling (2014)

    The Calling (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2015)  One wouldn’t expect a low-budget Canadian films starring a small-town police chief investigating a gruesome murder to evolve into a national crime mystery weighting important issues of faith and redemption.  But thanks to some clever storytelling (and a solid source novel), that’s exactly what The Calling ends up doing out of not much more than a very low budget.  Susan Sarandon anchors what is otherwise a recognizably Canadian cast (Donald Sutherland bonus!) as a burnt-out police chief grappling with a baffling murder.  As clues accumulate, it becomes obvious that she’s after something more than a random killer, and even more than a simple serial killer.  The film cleverly pretends to take place in three provinces and involve a national scope despite shooting in small-city Ontario.  Drab, slow and Canadian winter-cold, The Calling nonetheless earns a bit of attention throughout, and manages to do a little bit more than expected with the standard clichés of serial killer low-budget cinema.  The ending isn’t as strong as it should have been, but by the standards of low-budget Canadian films (and you know it’s going to play endlessly on Canadian TV due to the CanCon requirements…), it’s actually better than average.

  • Love & Other Drugs (2010)

    Love & Other Drugs (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, April 2015) Consider me pleasantly surprised: I wasn’t expecting much from this romantic comedy, but Love & Other Drugs has more than enough bright moments to earn a marginal recommendation despite an unsatisfying conclusion.  The two best things about the film, obviously, are the performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, both of whom manage to elevate potentially reprehensible characters into likable romantic leads.  The third best asset of the film is the first half of co-writer/director Edward Zwick’s script, which manages to deliver a witty introduction to the world of pharmaceutical product selling, along with a mature love story that seemingly holds little back.  Yes, this means plenty of nudity.  But more importantly, it also means two protagonists who delight in making their coupling as difficult as can be, negging each other relentlessly and desperately clinging to an unrealistic ideal of non-attachment.  The dialogue is biting, the love scenes have a bit of heat to them, Hathaway looks spectacular (on-par for Hollywood’s idea of terminally-ill young women) and Gyllenhaal plays up his motor-mouth hustler character in a way that’s actually charming rather than infuriating.  But Love & Other Drugs goes awry somewhere past its midpoint, as it struggles with the realization that it has introduced a romance with no possible satisfactory conclusion.  From sharp-tongued comedy, it becomes both a weepy drama about an incurable disease then a routine romantic film with an expected ending.  The credits roll on happy characters, but we viewers suspect a much darker aftermath.  The last-act blend of romantic idealism clashes with the grim advice received by the protagonists and the cynical spirit of its initial scenes.  As much as I enjoyed the first half of the film, it does set up expectations that are impossible to fulfill.  There may have been a better film lurking in the basic premise, one with a more biting denunciation of Big Pharma and fewer emotional dead-ends.  In the meantime, you can always be riveted by the first half of the film, and let your attention wander during the rest. 

  • Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)

    Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, April 2015)  Watching this film from 2015’s viewpoint, I’m actually surprised that it dates from 2005 and not from, say, 2010.  As a comic take on suburban desperation after a severe economic catastrophe, Fun with Dick and Jane may have been inspired by early-2000s Enron, but it feels designed for the late-2000s Great Recession.  While it’s nominally a remake of a 1977 film, Fun with Dick and Jane is conceived as yet another excuse for Jim Carrey to goof off, as his executive-level protagonist turns to a life of crime after losing a high-flying job and seeing his comfortable upper-middle-class threatened with foreclosure.  Carrey gets play up his clean-cut goofiness, banter back and forth with a game Tea Leoni and generally cut loose.  Not every gag in the film works (there’s a subplot, arguably an entire character, designed to culminate in a series of immigration jokes) and the denunciation of corporate malfeasance is more caricatured than effective, but Fun With Dick and Jane at least delivers another fair classic-Carrey performance, and a few decent chuckles along the way.  It does feel like a film out of time, though, far more appropriate five years later (alongside The Other Guys or Tower Heist) than for 2005.

  • The Other Woman (2014)

    The Other Woman (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2015)  Revenge fantasies may not be good for the soul, but they can certainly drive a comic film.  Here, two (and then three) women are united when they discover that they’re being cheated upon by the same man, who also turns out to be a con artist in other ways.  Cameron Diaz is dependably amusing as the lead, whereas Leslie Mann becomes a delightful foil as the most mercurial of them—she has the shrieking madwoman thing down to a science.  Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, in another striking big-screen role, does have the requisite mixture of charm and sliminess as a philandering fraudster.  Other additions to the cast aren’t as memorable: Despite prominent billing, Kate Upton is a bit bland as the Third Woman, whereas I remain unimpressed by Nicki Minaj’s performance in her short scenes (and this despite unexplainably liking Minaj as a musical performer).  It’s a cheap and fast comedy without much sophistication, but it does get the chuckles it’s aiming for.  There are a few false notes along the way (the ending is a bit more bloodily cruel than I had expected) and the script doesn’t embarrass itself with unpredictable plotting, but The Other Woman pretty much hits its target and delivers unchallenging entertainment for a solid 90 minutes. 

  • Man of Tai Chi (2013)

    Man of Tai Chi (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2015) I can’t help but see in Man of Tai Chi an echo (and only an echo) of the kind of Hong-Kong martial arts movies I consumed so frequently in my twenties.  It’s all about fights, fights and more fights, loosely coupled with a plot about a young man being seduced into a world of underground fighting.  Surprisingly enough, the plot is a bit more interesting than the action sequences, especially in seeing how the protagonist (Tiger Hu Chen, sympathetic enough) eventually goes against a cold and mysterious business man (Keanu Reeves, making the most out of a relatively cold screen persona) while a policewoman (Karen Mok, surprisingly credible as a driven cop) tries to take down the lethal fighting organization.  It’s more noteworthy to point out that this is Keanu Reeves’s first film as a director, and that he does pretty well in his freshman outing: his action sequences (choreographed by the legendary Yuen Woo Ping) are fluid, he makes good use of lengthier shots and keeps the plot moving effectively.  Man of Tai Chi also has the advantage of explicitly taking place in modern metropolis China, providing an interesting look at an area of the planet that is often ignored on American big screens.  While this may not be more than comfort food for martial-arts enthusiasts, it’s well-made enough to be interesting even in-between the action sequences.  As an homage to martial-arts film shot by a westerner, Man of Tai Chi would make an interesting double-bill with the more visually sumptuous The Man with the Iron Fists.

  • Inherent Vice (2014)

    Inherent Vice (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, April 2015)  “Chinatown meets The Big Lebowski” is an imperfect and unfair way of describing Inherent Vice, but it’s better than most.  As a thriller set in the drug-addled subcultures of 1970s Los Angeles, featuring a protagonist not overly concerned with the trappings of the Private Investigator lifestyle, this is an investigation that doesn’t necessarily go to expected places, each elliptical scene not entirely connected to the previous one.  It can be heartbreaking, hilarious, confusing and fascinating in rapid succession, floating above its own plot in a haze of altered perceptions.  If, from this summary, you’re getting the idea that this is a challenging film that doesn’t really want to be seen conventionally, you’re right.  But it is, after all, a Paul Thomas Anderson film, and so it’s best approached as an experience than a story.  Fortunately, there are a few fantastic moments: Martin Short has a hilarious small role as a drugged-up dentist, there is a raw long single-shot love scene that’s a thing of wonder, and the recreation of 1970s Los Angeles is credible.  But the film does annoy as much as it rewards: there are more than a few lengths, the scenes aren’t necessarily accessible, the plot gets overly complex (the way it flouts genre conventions doesn’t help) and the use of a few actors rings falsely at time (Owen Wilson in a dramatic role, as unfair as it sounds, is a bit of a stretch)  Inherent Vice may not be to everyone’s liking, but there are enough great moments here and there to warrant a viewing even for those who may not be entirely enthusiastic about Anderson’s films.

  • Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

    Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, April 2015)  It’s been nine years since the original Sin City, and that’s frankly too long in-between installments.  I’m older, wiser and less likely to tolerate the kind of juvenile attitude in which overdone noir can indulge.  It really doesn’t help that A Dame to Kill For seems delighted in showcasing brutes and corrupting whatever innocence had escaped the first film intact: Despite toned-down violence (well, ignoring the mid-movie thirty-second marathon of decapitations accompanied by grotesque audible sploshes), it feels like an even more pointless film than the original.  It’s not all bad, especially if you can get yourself in a mood receptive to noir style and overdone dialogue: the special effects are well done (albeit inconsistently used), the quasi-parodic script is good for a few laughs and anyone wanting a little bit more of that first film’s style is likely to enjoy it.  Director Robert Rodriguez may be repeating himself (it’s about time he directs a film that’s not part of a series), but he’s doing so stylishly.  Mickey Rourke seems to have fun playing the brute once again, while Joseph Gordon-Lewitt and Eva Green (in a typical performance, as seductive as she seems insane) are welcome addition to the cast.  Plenty of smaller roles are given to big-name actors, leading to a sustained game of spot-the-celebrity.  Still, what curdles A Dame to Kill For is the ugly script, which not only has pacing issues but (unlike the original) forgoes the protection of innocence in favor of revenge, revenge and some more revenge: Jessica Alba’s character is corrupted to the point of destruction, more than one sympathetic characters are killed to set up the never-ending avenging and the effect is far more nihilistic than healthy, even for a noir film. (And that’s not even mentioning the troubling glorification of Rourke’s character as an invulnerable killer.) For all of the polish of the film’s style, it doesn’t work if its ideals and plot points leave a sour taste.  It’s not a good sign that of the film’s interlocked stories, the worst two are the ones especially written for the sequel.  I would still watch A Dame to Kill For again (someday, not any time soon) just to enjoy the visuals and the atmosphere, but I would be wary of recommending it to anyone else, and I sure wish the script had been more upbeat and less self-satisfied by its own pointlessness. 

  • The Imitation Game (2014)

    The Imitation Game (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, April 2015)  As a Computer Science major, I’ve been waiting at least twenty years for this biography of Alan Turing.  Consider: one of the father of computing, inventor of the Turing test, key figure in World War 2 war efforts, tragic victim of institutionalized homophobia… what’s not to like in Hollywood terms?  Of course, The Imitation Game takes rather large liberties with the historical facts, making Turing an arrogant and socially inept wunderkind and torturing the historical events to make it look as if Turing was the sole key figure in WW2 cryptography, maybe even war-making strategy.  As much as these deviation from fact rankle (and never more so than when a team of analysts gets to decide how to use their decrypted information in specific tactical engagements), they do try to streamline Turing’s often-complicated life into something that can be presented in a movie theater.  Benedict Cumberbatch is (delightfully) practically playing Sherlock-as-Turing, which is a treat for those who like him in that mode and less of a treat for those who don’t find his persona interesting.  Matthew Goode steals a bit of the spotlight as Turing’s almost-entirely-fictional opponent, while actors such as Charles Dance and Mark Strong plays what they’re best known for.  The historical re-creation is fine (it’s a bit of a treat to see Bletchley Park on-screen), and the war sequences are used without dwelling on the combats.  It doesn’t amount to anything but a prestige bio-fiction in the classical mold, but it does present at least the basics of Turing’s life, and makes a good case arguing for the tragic waste of his last few years.  It’s also an interesting companion to other recent British-scientist biographies such as Creation and The Theory of Everything.

  • Interstellar (2014)

    Interstellar (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, April 2015) Some movies are more difficult to approach in a capsule review than others, and while Interstellar is certainly one of them, the fact that I saw it with a raging fever doesn’t help matters at all.  My expectations about it were running high: Christopher Nolan is an ambitious director, and daring to present an original hard-SF space exploration spectacle at a time where superhero franchises are the rage would be ironic even if The Dark Knight Returns hasn’t directly financed Interstellar.  The film certainly delivers on its promises: With a two-and-a-half hours running time, it tackles new frontiers of science (thanks to physicist Kip Thorne’s collaboration), time-travel (in a way), an extinction-level crisis, weighty family matters and humanity’s future in one big wide-screen package.  Matthew McConaughey stars as an intrepid engineer bucking against a subsistence-mode Earth, selected to lead a mission that may offer a way out of a decaying environment.  The rest of the film is an interlocking puzzle of big ideas brought home through very personal stories, exploiting the dramatic possibilities of physics in a way often realized in prose Science Fiction but rarely attempted on-screen.  The result is like a good solid hard-SF novella brought to life, with careful direction and mind-expanding sequences.  I liked it a lot, but surprisingly enough didn’t quite love it like I loved Inception.  The length of the film is an issue, and so are some of the shakier elements of the world-building in which the story takes place.  I couldn’t sufficiently suspend my disbelief when it came to Earth-side matters, although some of the dreary details were all-too-vivid.  Still, I enjoyed toying with the film’s ideas and theme, and think that this is a major Science Fiction film in the way it successfully manages to feel like a mid-seventies hard-SF novel, combining a decent amount of science with a decent amount of fiction.  I’m half-tempted to blame my fever for not being bowled over by the result, but it may also be that Interstellar is designed to be admired more than to be loved… which, in itself, is a very hard-SF intention.

  • The Beach (2000)

    The Beach (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2015)  I seem to remember The Beach being some kind of minor cult-classic film for disaffected young adults in the early 2000s, and watching the film fifteen years later does offer a few clues as to why.  The Big One is the promise of pure escapism, as our backpacking protagonist hears of a secluded Thai beach where expatriates have established their own little hedonistic society.  But as our main character understands soon enough, utopia doesn’t work so well in the real world.  The Beach at least has a bit of a plot running through it, even though the real star here remains either Leonardo DiCaprio (who, at the time, was starting to transition from teenage heartthrob to the serious actor he’s become today) or Danny Boyle’s direction, which showcases the fondness for hallucinatory deviations from objective reality that would be used to such good effect in later films such as 127 Hours.  The film doesn’t always move quickly, but it does have a small number of standout sequences, a lovely setting, an interesting performance by DiCaprio and a younger Tilda Swinton attempting a fairly generic role.  Still, there’s a whiff of pretention here in the way our privileged hero philosophizes on the nature of life through a temporary escape.  What’s meant as meditative comes across as jejune, and the protagonist isn’t much to cheer for.  Still, the stylish touches remain interesting and there’s always the scenery to look at. 

  • Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

    Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, April 2015)  Call it encroaching old age, but I’m getting a bit tired of mashups combining historical references with monsters.  Whether those monsters are zombies, vampires, robots or (in this case) witches, and whether those familiar references are fairytales, established genres, historical figures or classic fiction, the result often doesn’t have anything to offer but a blend of buzzwords.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter!  Jack the Giant Killer!  The concept becomes the crutch, and once you’ve grown accustomed to buzzword blending, there’s often nothing beyond the high-concept.  All of which to say that Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is nothing more than what it says in its title (ie; grown-up fairy-tale heroes become witch hunters… I told you it was the title), and that it doesn’t do much with its own premise.  There is a bizarre mixture of high comedy (most absurdly a reference to a missing kid picture on a milk carton) and low horror that never quite solidifies into something meaningful.  Many of the action sequences repeat themselves, and the occasionally-good visuals doesn’t excuse the film’s overall tedium.  What’s too bad is that I quite like Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, but neither have much to do here aside from running and shooting.  (Famke Janssen does seem to have fun playing pure evil, though.)  The script is weak and contrived –especially when it comes to the heroes going back to their childhood home and discovering that their backstory means something in the current moment.  While the martial anachronisms can be amusing, most notably by providing Big Guns to dark-ages heroes, the film doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with the assets at its disposal.  The problem with Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters isn’t its premise; it’s that it’s just its premise.

  • Billy Elliot (2000)

    Billy Elliot (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2015) How can a feel-good movie like Billy Elliot feel so dull?  Maybe when it’s set in a time and place (industrial England, mid-eighties) that I find insufferable, featuring a story told so many other times in other better movies, with placeholders rather than characters, and a finale that’s entirely unsurprising.  The plot is simplistic enough: a young boy (Jamie Bell) wants to become a ballet dancer, and that aspiration doesn’t go over well within his own blue-collar worker community.  Many obstacles are overcome on the way to a foregone conclusion.  Now, buried deep within this review is the admission is that I waited far too long (like, months) in-between watching the film and writing this review, and I can recall almost nothing of the film other than its crushing boredom, alongside a side-order of despair at the setting.  At least I’ll admit that I’m about as far away from the target audience of this film as I can be, and that I’m not seriously arguing that it’s a bad film in any way.  Still, I found little of interest in Billy Elliot, despite the film’s triumphant finale and generally amiable presentation.

  • As Good as it Gets (1997)

    As Good as it Gets (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2015) While As Good As It Gets was a good box-office hit and a monster award contender in 1997, I had somehow managed to avoid it until now.  Featuring iconic performances and oft-quoted material, I thought I knew what the film was about.  I was wrong, of course, but the idealized version of the film that I carried in my head remains more satisfying than the one on-screen.  Both don’t start to diverge until fairly late in the film: As a confirmed obsessive-compulsive misanthrope who has somehow become a much-loved best-selling author, Jack Nicholson has one of his signature character here, and the cockiness with which he delivers either put-downs or compliments is nothing short of legendary.  (And those quotes… they’re ever-green.) Opposite him, Helen Hunt has rarely been more appealing as a single-mom waitress whose boundless compassion is tested by a thoroughly detestable human being.  (Meanwhile, Greg Kinnear is just fine as a gay artist overcoming the trauma of an attack, although this is really not his movie.)  As Good as It Gets is enjoyable as it forces these characters to be together for a while, their eccentricities and neuroses bouncing off each other through great dialogue and telling details.  But the film seems to lose itself somewhere in its third quarter of the film: For all of the interest in the platonic friendship between our two leads, I feel that the film takes a step too far by matching them together romantically.  The age difference between the two is bad enough (twenty six years!), but the film itself seems to acknowledge how bad a fit they are, and the small moment of détente at the very end isn’t particularly convincing: I would have been far happier a viewer at seeing both of them heal each other, and evolve in their own respective directions.  But, eh, what do I know?  As Good as it Gets made money, got great reviews and remains a bit of a reference almost twenty years later.  Given that, I’ll take my opinion and keep it for myself.

  • Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014)

    Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2015) As useless as Planes: Fire & Rescue can be (it’s an unneeded sequel to an unneeded spinoff of the much-lambasted Cars), there’s still a bit to like about this film.  The basics of the plot are far-fetched and simplistic at once, but they do manage the trick of making this sequel a refreshingly different film from the race-minded Planes.  This allows for new characters, a different focus, exciting visuals and some built-in tension as the protagonist and his team fight forest fires.  It’s obviously made for kids, but there are a few moment in the film and its depiction of the joys of flying that should appeal to air-minded adults.  There are enough details, jokes and visual elements to make the film interesting on a moment-to-moment basis, even though most of the characters don’t fly much above basic traits and temperament.  Direction-wise, it’s flatter than the Pixar/Disney state-of-the-art, although some of the sequences do have a bit of a visual oomph to them.  Otherwise, there really isn’t much more to say here: Destined to be forever seen in tandem with its predecessor, Planes: Fire & Rescue is good enough to be worth a watch, but not enough to stick in mind.