Movie Review

  • Monster Brawl (2011)

    Monster Brawl (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2013) This “film” isn’t any good, but at least it gets points for monster-movie homage, unorthodox narrative structure and cost-effectiveness.  A low-low budget Canadian production, Monster Brawl is less a movie than an attempt to put horror monsters into a 90-minutes wrestling brawl special: Eight monsters battle it out until only one is left, and everything else is context… which is to say filler.  Much of the filmmaker’s cleverness is spent stretching their reported 200,000$ budget to accommodate eight distinctive monsters and moody brawling pit.  (The graphic design work of the film is pretty good, though, as so is Lance Henriksen’s God-voiced video-game narration.)  Color commentators, either taken from the wrestling world or clearly inspired by WWE specials, add very little to the proceedings: While it’s fun to see Dave Foley in just about anything, he doesn’t get much to do but simulate inebriation and spout sports-commentator clichés.  The problem with Monster Brawl is that the fights are dull and everything surrounding them is even duller: The fleeting attempts at a narrative framework are undermined by a conclusion that cuts away without resolving anything or providing satisfactory closure.  The acting isn’t particularly good, although the make-up makes up for it somewhat.  With a decent budget and more imaginative writers, this could have been quite a bit better.  But failing that, and given the above, it goes without saying that if you’re not a fan of wrestling and/or monster-movies, then there’s little of interest in Monster Brawl.  Trust me; I’m one of you and I just checked on your behalf. 

  • The Host (2013)

    The Host (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2013) I read Stephenie Meyer’s The Host shortly after publication five years ago, but while I recall buying, reading and eventually giving away the book, I recall almost nothing from the novel beyond “romantic twaddle featuring parasite aliens and teenage love triangles”.  As it turns out, this also describes the film pretty well: While The Host features body-riding aliens having taken over Earth in a fit of benevolent eradication, there’s no real science-fiction to be found here: no extrapolation beyond base sentimental melodrama, no extrapolative surprises, no real world-building.  It’s not really surprising to see Meyer stick close to what made Twilight such a runaway young-adult success; it’s what she presumably knows and does best –but the real bitter disappointment here is seeing writer/director Andrew Niccol waste his time and energy by slumming in a framework so far away from his cerebral track record: The Host needs a lot of sloppy romanticism to work, but Niccol seems to have far more sympathy for the gleaming-chrome cleanliness of the aliens than for the messy humans in the story.  That’s fine (I liked the aliens better than the human as well), but when it’s played straight it means an interminable and somewhat silly film.  Saoirse Ronan does as well as she can with the material she has (and it’s a measure of her potential that her reputation as a fine actress will survive this film intact), but The Host is a clear example of how some aspects of a novel don’t survive the literalisation process of the movie medium: Having a protagonist engage in internal dialogue works fine on the page, but just sounds silly on-screen.  Saying that the film is aimed at teenage girls sort of misses the point given how many car crashes are crammed in a story that didn’t even have any on the page.  Some of the details are mildly entertaining (the cars, the ultra-generic “store”, the mirror-powered cavern fields) but there’s little else to lift the film above its basic problems: The dialogue is bland (try reading the IMDB quotes page and try not to fall asleep), most of the young men of the cast can’t be told apart, the story doesn’t go anywhere interesting once it becomes obvious that Meyer’s intent is far too nice (“You’ve been doing it all wrong!” our protagonist says of the alien-removing effort, “You need to do it with love!”).  Give me a year, and I’m pretty sure I will remember nothing more from The Host as a film than I do from the novel.

  • The Frozen Ground (2013)

    The Frozen Ground (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, December 2013) There isn’t much about The Frozen Ground’s script that’s in any way special.  Based on the sordid story of Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen, this is a film that does the usual serial-killer thriller in more or less the expected fashion.  Much of the execution is equally bland: Newcomer writer/director Scott Walker is entirely too fond of shaky camera tight close-ups and the result can be a bit annoying.  But location and casting both manage to raise this B-grade thriller to a level that’s worth watching.  Most noteworthy here is Nicolas Cage as the lead investigator: For once, he dispenses with the usual Cage histrionics in order to deliver a far more measured performance, and the result is an interesting throwback to early-era Cage, before he started playing a grander-than-life himself in every role.  (Make no mistake: I love operatic “nouveau shamanic” Cage, but the occasional change of tone is nice.)  It isn’t the only against-type casting coup of the film, as the repellant antagonist is played by John Cusack (far best known for smart good-guy roles) while Vanessa Hudgens, moving farther away from her earliest squeaky-clean roles, plays the vulnerable victim who is the key to breaking the antagonist’s secrets.  The Frozen Ground’s other big asset is location: by setting itself in cold dreary Alaska, the film gains a distinctive visual atmosphere, and seems to crank up the tension of the events a notch further.  The most satisfying scenes come late in the movie, as a subdued Cage and a wily Cusack face off against each other in an interrogation room.  None of those strengths make The Frozen Ground any better than a run-of-the-mill thriller, but they help make the film more memorable than another cursory effort at the serial-killer sub-genre.

  • Jobs (2013)

    Jobs (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, November 2013) I will admit that I was among the skeptics when they announced that Ashton Kutcher would be playing Steve Jobs in a film biography: How could Kutcher’s slacker personae fit with the Apple founder’s latter-day visionary reputation? As it turns out, Kutcher’s casting is one of the best things about Jobs, an average docu-fictive effort that nonetheless has a few good moments.  Kutcher is at his most Kutcher-esque early in the movie, playing Jobs at a time when the man was a free spirit open to eastern mysticism and counter-establishment thinking.  Much of Jobs follows its subject during the eighties as he becomes a shrewd businessman, combining visionary thinking with available technology.  It’s not a seamless nor magical film: Despite a rich re-creation of the nascent personal computing industry in the 1980s, Jobs gets progressively sparser at it moves throughout the nineties, eliding some important transitional periods in Jobs’ life (such as the years at NeXT, his co-founding of Pixar, the way he reconciles with his daughter or indeed much of his personal life) in the rush to present him triumphantly re-taking the reins at Apple.  Little is said after 1997 save for a 2001 prologue introducing the iPod, and nothing at all about Jobs’ last years.  Visually, the film is a bit flat save for the period re-creation, and while there are several interesting actors in small roles (including James Woods in a single early scene!), there isn’t much here to raise the film above made-for-TV specials.  On the other hand, Kutcher is surprisingly credible, so at least there’s that.  One hopes that Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming competing effort will be a bit flashier, and hopefully more substantial.

  • Parker (2013)

    Parker (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) Jason Statham can act quite a bit better than his usual screen personae allows, and while I do like his stock character a lot, it’s a shame that we don’t see him attempt more ambitious movies than cookie-cutter efforts such as Parker.  It’s not that Parker is badly made: Director Taylor Hackford knows what he’s doing and gives a nice gloss to his visuals –especially once the action moves to Miami Beach.  Statham is his usual gruff-but-charming self, while Jennifer Lopez gets a few comic moment as a desperate real estate agent.  But Parker really can’t rise above its generic nature: Not only has the “left for dead good-guy criminal seeks revenge” shtick been done to death, it has often been executed in far more economical fashion: For a film with such as straightforward plot, Parker overstays its welcome at nearly two hours –Lopez, nominally billed as one of the two lead characters, doesn’t show up until mid-movie.  It’s a bit of a shame that this first titled adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels is so generic: I recall Mel Gibson’s 1999 vehicle Payback with a lot more fondness.  (It’s not the only late-nineties to be favorably compared to Parker – it’s hard to see Lopez in this film without thinking about Out of Sight.)  The dead-end romantic subplot doesn’t help, and there’s a sense that much has been wasted in this hum-drum effort.  Ironically, the best reason to see Parker remains Statham himself –even in the most generic of vehicles, he remains curiously compelling.

  • Lo imposible [The Impossible] (2012)

    Lo imposible [The Impossible] (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) There are disaster movies made to be entertainingly exhilarating, and there are other designed to make the audience experience going through an ordeal themselves.  So it is that watching The Impossible feels like going through a natural catastrophe.  Dramatizing the life story of a British family that survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, The Impossible spares no effort in graphically showing the devastation unleashed by the natural disaster.  Watching some of the sequences of the film, it’s hard to believe that director J.A. Bayona has found a way to stage this amount of mayhem without destroying an entire country.  Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor star as a couple who find themselves (and their three boys) separated from each other, forced to survive and find each other despite all odds.  (Watts gets the most thankless role, including a gory moment in which the extent of her leg injuries are revealed.) It’s a harrowing film –the tsunami sequences are brutal, but they’re the only fun part in a film that graphically portrays an incredible amount of suffering and destruction.  The end of the film, as heart-warming as it is, comes as a welcome return to comfortable reality for viewers.  The Impossible is impressive, but it’s certainly not a pleasant experience, and anyone looking for easy entertainment may want to push this one further back in the queue of upcoming viewing.

  • Man of Steel (2013)

    Man of Steel (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, November 2013) There’s something both annoying and admirable about the entertainment industry’s insistence at rebooting and shoving down superhero movies down our throats.  DC’s maniacal insistence at reviving Superman after the 2006’s disastrous Superman Returns is understandable: Superman is iconic, the superhero film genre is still going strong, and there’s still some goodwill among genre fans for a good Superman film.  Man of Steel, fortunately enough, is pretty much as good as it gets from a narrative perspective: Screenwriter David S. Goyer (with some assistance from Christopher Nolan) has managed to find a compelling story to tell about a fairly dull character, and it’s more thematically rich than we could have expected.  Man of Steel, in the tradition of Nolan’s Batman films, voluntarily goes gritty: Zack Snyder’s direction favour pseudo-documentary aesthetics, the cinematography is more realistic than glossy, and the final act’s destruction feel more traumatic than purely entertaining.  Much of this grittiness feels wrong for those raised on the squeaky-clean Superman character, causing more discomfort than necessary.  On the other hand, the result is a film that’s reasonably captivating to watch: Superman has an inner conflict to solve, the action sequences aren’t generic and there’s a real effort to ground Superman to an identifiable reality.  Henry Cavill is pretty good in the lead role, while Amy Adams does the most with a somewhat generic character.  Michael Shannon brings some unexpected complexity to the antagonist, while both Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner get small but plum roles as the protagonist’s two fathers.  While Man of Steel is (ironically) a bit too down-to-earth to feel like a blockbuster epic made to be re-watched over and over again, it’s a cut above the usual superhero fare: There’s some real pathos here, an origin story built on well-used flashbacks, sense of personal growth for Superman (something rarely seen) and the solid foundation for further entries.  Recent superhero movie history has shown that it could have been much worse, and if I’ll happily take a glossy Superman movie over an unpleasantly gritty one, it would be churlish to deny the successes of this version of the character.

  • Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden (2013)

    Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) Seeing this HBO documentary right after Zero Dark Thirty, I’m most struck by the way the fictional film isn’t nearly as interesting, dramatic or compelling as the real story.  Manhunt isn’t much more than talking-head testimonials cleverly intercut by director Greg Barker with stock-ish footage and computer-generated infographics.  But the talking heads are largely CIA analysts, case officers, high-level officials and expert journalists, so the true-life espionage drama they paint of the hunt for Osama bin Laden is fascinating.  Manhunt starts by explaining that a group of CIA analysts (mostly women, hence “The Sisterhood”) started tracking down bin Laden in the mid-nineties, and their efforts intensified following 9/11.  The film acts as a big primer on real-world espionage activities, underlining the mixture of signal interception and street-level human work required to track down bin Laden.  While some linkages remain curiously elusive (I blame operational security), there are fascinating stories built in the narrative, including the fantastic almost-buried story of how al Quaeda consciously mounted an offensive operation against the CIA, killing a number of Agency operatives at Camp Chapman through a triple-agent.  While Zero Dark Thirty does portray the same event, Manhunt does so in a more fascinating way, and ends up being far more effective in two hours than the fictional film’s nearly-three-hour running length.  Nearly everyone interviewed for the film leaves us wanting more; in particular, people like Nada Bakos, Marty Martin, and Cindy Storer (who apparently wrote the infamous “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US” memo) seem endlessly fascinating: enthusiastic, reflective, knowledgeable and often funny.  They bring a human face to a lengthy collective effort, and do so far more effectively than the fictional film.  This being HBO, the film isn’t blind to the ethical implications of targeting an individual for termination –it ends on a fairly somber note far away from triumphalism: Sure, the man is dead and the symbolism is powerful, but the ideas live on.  While Manhunt is worth seeing on its own, it becomes essential viewing for anyone who has seen Zero Dark Thirty.

  • Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

    Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) Given the acclaim that Zero Dark Thirty received upon release (all the way up to Oscar nominations) and the interest in its premise, I frankly expected more than I got from the film.  Telling the story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden seemed essential given his decade-long bogeyman stature in the American psyche… but who expected a film about such a gripping subject to be, well, so dull?  Clocking in at a near-oppressive two-and-a-half-hour, Zero Dark Thirty takes forever to tell its story, underplaying some moments (such as the strike against CIA employees at Camp Chapman) while letting others take place in near-real time.  The pacing is tepid, and the basic tools of the film (cinematography, dialogue, direction) aren’t all that compelling either: For all the good that I think of her films up to and including The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow’s work here seems more average than anything else, and does little to fight against the heaviness of the rest of the film. Fortunately, the performances are quite good: Jessica Chastain is splendid as the personification of the “Sisterhood” of CIA analysts that doggedly pursued bin Laden for more than a decade, while Jason Clarke is curiously compelling as a CIA interrogator.  As far as the gulf between fiction and reality is concerned, a look at the HBO documentary Manhunt should help clear up the historical liberties taken by Zero Dark Thirty –although viewers should be forewarned that Manhunt is considerably crisper and more compelling than its fictional counterpart.

  • Our Man in Tehran (2013)

    Our Man in Tehran (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) While Canadian Caper documentary Our Man in Tehran was not entirely motivated by the historical inaccuracies in Argo (it began planning well before Argo made it to screens), there’s no denying that the film earned enormous publicity and good-will (at least in Canada) as being “the answer” to the Hollywoodized fictional account.  It’s certainly riveting as a companion piece, as much for the context it establishes around the event than for the ways it reveals a true story often more interesting than the fiction itself. (Consider that the Swissair plane that flew the hostages out of Tehran was named… Aargau.)   Canadian diplomat Ken Taylor is the acknowledged titular hero of Our Man in Tehran, but much of the film’s credit go to writer/directors Larry Weinstein and Drew Taylor (along with Robert Wright, who wrote the book on which much of the material is drawn) as they spin a talking head montage into a short history of the Iranian revolution, a narrative of the Canadian Caper and gentle jabs at the Hollywood version of events in which the CIA “allows” Canada to claim credit for the success of the operation.  There’s a lot of interesting material here, not the least being how much Canadian assets contributed to the reconnaissance portion of the failed Desert Claw rescue operation.  It’s easy to label Our Man in Tehran as an essential companion piece to Argo… but that’s undermining the film, which is equally worth a viewing by itself.

  • Argo (2012)

    Argo (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) This Iranian-hostage thriller annoyed me for several reasons: Never mind the last few lines that so generously allow Canada to take credit for a CIA operation, or the selective political context, or the way that a Hollywood production self-importantly suggests that Hollywood can be important on the geopolitical stage (no wonder it won the Oscar…): the way real-life facts are tortured until they end up with the kind of breathless thriller in which a departing plane is followed by jeeps filled with would-be killers is enough to make your eyes roll waaay back.  Shamelessly rearranging history to suit the purposes of crowd-friendly entertainment, Argo practically demonstrates how bad Hollywood can be in distorting reality.  But the real surprise is that despite all of those flaws… the film is actually quite enjoyable.  Director Ben Affleck manages a third solid film in as many attempts, even through Argo is a bit more ambitious in its historical setting than the Bostonian crime dramas of either Gone Baby Gone or The Town.  The rhythm of the film is steadily engrossing, and the Hollywood interludes (featuring a splendid Alan Arkin) bring a bit of levity to a premise that naturally lends itself to a somber tone.  Argo arguably becomes more interesting as it deviates further and further away from reality, as the CIA agent goes rogue in refusing an order to abort the operation, as the fake film-crew takes unjustifiable risks, as the Iranian security forces get closer and closer to the fleeing fugitives.  By the time the jeeps are chasing the departing plane on the airport tarmac, it’s practically an unintentional comedy.  It’s hard to deny that Argo is splendidly entertaining, and that’s a significant edge over the not-dissimilar Zero Dark Thirty.  Still, as a Canadian I feel a duty to tut-tut this film over its historical inaccuracies.  You should still see it for its craft… but follow it up with a documentary such as Our Man in Tehran for a more thorough overview of the real events.

  • Un Monstre à Paris [A Monster in Paris] (2011)

    Un Monstre à Paris [A Monster in Paris] (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) With advances in rendering technology and more widely-shared expertise, the universe of computer-animated feature films is getting bigger and more diverse, leading to the existence of charming oddball entities such as A Monster in Paris.  Set in flooded 1910 Paris, this is a story about a flea being transformed into a seven-foot-tall signing sensation, but it’s remarkable in that it’s more heartfelt than comic, and definitely recognizable as a French film.  The script is strange in ways that may feel unpolished to Hollywood-fed audiences: its concept of a “protagonist” is a bit fuzzy (The first five minutes are arguably devoted to a sidekick), the humor is all over the place, the villain is too broad to be taken seriously and the concept of a flea becoming a soulful singer can’t work without a bit of arbitrary super-science and audience suspension of disbelief.  The animation is noticeable less polished than the current state-of-the-art, but the film’s charm more than compensates for simpler visuals.  Writer/director Bibo Bergeron definitely gets to show an original vision on-screen, and the character design is frequently lovely, to say nothing of the songs put together by Mathieu “-M-“ Chedid.  (Vanessa Paradis’s “La Seine” is instantly catchy: Hear it now) A Monster in Paris becomes more conventional as it goes on, but its charm gets stronger at the same time, leading to a fuzzy pleased impression in time for the end credits.  It’s a pretty good family film as well, as if you needed any further reason to give it a try.

  • Red Dawn (2012)

    Red Dawn (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) Most remakes are useless, but this one is more useless than most.  The original Red Dawn was a product of its time: a Reagan-era jingoistic anthem that dared take an implausible premise (The United States gets physically invaded by its enemies) and run with in in full macho glory.  This time around, though, the premise is flat-out impossible enough that the film never gets past its own ability to suspend disbelief.  It doesn’t help that there’s little of value in Red Dawn: At best, it’s a by-the-number treatment of an obvious premise, with a few good action sequences and some likable young actors (most notably Chris Hemsworth) in the lead roles.  There’s practically no thematic depth: the most intriguing idea (that the Americans are suddenly forced in the insurgency role they confronted in their recent military excursions) isn’t developed beyond a brief mention, and it gets turned into patriotic pap anyway.  For a more intriguing treatment of the same basic idea, adventurous viewers are advised to take a look at the 2010 Australian invasion film Tomorrow, When the War Began, which isn’t all that good, but certainly feels more interesting than this limp American effort.

  • Antiviral (2012)

    Antiviral (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) So the “Best Cronenberg movie not directed by Cronenberg” award goes to… Cronenberg.  Brandon Cronenberg, that is: son of David, who’s been on an extended break from his body-horror shtick for a bit more than a decade but who finds his own tradition more than upheld by his writer/director progeny.  By targeting celebrity worship through willingly transmitted diseases, Cronenberg-fils’ Antiviral certainly goes for the gross: people with a sensitivity to seeing graphic close-ups of needles breaking skin, coughed blood, quasi-cannibalism, virulently sick people and other joyous expressions of the frailty of human flesh may want to steer far away from this film.  The clinically white-dominated direction is as cold as its characters, which is both unnerving and easy to dismiss.  For all of its strengths and ideas, Antiviral just doesn’t work as well as it should.  While Caleb Landry Jones is a special effect of his own as the red-headed, spectacularly-freckled protagonist, he’s saddled with a script that doesn’t give him much to do but act sick and mumble lines enigmatically.  As a result, Antiviral is watched at a remove, as it features unpleasant characters doing even more unpleasant things to themselves and each other.  There are no heroes (and fewer sympathetic victims than you’d expect): one wonders if a better movie about ideas of celebrity worship could have been achieved through the viewpoint of someone becomes a celebrity without intending to.  Alas, this would have required quite a bit more emotions that are on display here.  While Cronenberg has enough directing skill and writing ideas to maintain interest in Antiviral from beginning to end, it’s not as successful as it could have been.

  • This Means War (2012)

    This Means War (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2013) On paper, This Means War has a terrific (if risky) premise: What if two spies vied for the same woman?  What could they do with the resources of the state at their disposal if the goal was all-and-out romance?  It’s a promising idea, tempered only by the balance required to tone down the unbound misogynistic stalkerism inherent in the premise.  But that’s asking far too much of director McG’s rather silly take on the idea, as he’s barely able to present the basic idea in an entertaining fashion.  The fault, to be clear, isn’t in leads Chris Pine, Tom Hardy or Reese Witherspoon: All three are capable actors more than able to use their established screen persona to elevate the film above its true weight. But it’s just not a good script, and McG’s execution doesn’t do much to make it better –to the point where it’s easy to wonder what happened to the guy who delivered two relatively successful Charlie’s Angels film in the more or less the same vein.  It’s easy to blame a mid-sized budget: This Means War was visibly shot in Vancouver (all the US Post boxes in the world can’t hide the Vancouver Public Library, President’s Choice breakfast cereal, or transform an HMV store into a video-rental place) and its obvious Hollywood gloss (spies in shiny high-tech offices, implausible apartments, CIA having access to priceless paintings, a foreign national working for the CIA… aaaagh.) only make it a lazy, contemptuous film.  The most infuriating thing about it may be how it makes a mess out of a can’t-miss idea, a director who’s done good things in the past, and three actors who basically show up to play their usual kind of role.  (Tom Hardy is particularly wasted given his chance to riff off his violent-guy persona into something more accessible.)  While there are a few suitable scenes of mayhem, a few good quotes and the occasional directorial flourish, there’s very little in This Means War that works on a sustained basis.  It’s the kind of Hollywood film that gives a bad name to Hollywood films, and the fact that they shot a film set in Los Angeles in Vancouver may be all that is required to be said.