Reviews

  • Mortal Kombat (1995)

    Mortal Kombat (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, December 2017) I’m not sure if I first saw Mortal Kombat in theatres or on VHS (probably theatres, and probably because there was a girl involved), but after twenty years the biggest memory I kept from the film was its soundtrack. (I kept the CD in heavy rotation in my late nineties playlist.)  Watching it again shows a film that has visibly aged, but perhaps not as much as I had feared. The early-CGI special effects are clearly dated, showing a lack of sophistication and restraint that calls attention to the effects rather than their usefulness. The dialogue is not particularly good, and the plot is a serviceable way to get characters moving from one action set-piece to another. On the other hand, the actors are likable: Robin Shou is terrific once the action starts, Christophe Lambert gets a great excuse to play a cackling version of his own persona, and one of the few things I did remember from the movie was Bridgette Wilson’s film-long progression from ponytail-headed tough professional to curly-haired blonde kitten by the time the film ends. Visually, director Paul W.S. Anderson made a splash with this Hollywood debut and much of the film still holds up decently well even after the wave of arthouse martial arts movies of 1999–2009 from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to Hero. While I acknowledge that a heavy dose of nostalgia in a big factor in re-watching Mortal Kombat, I wasn’t as disappointed as I thought I’d be by the result.

  • Stalag 17 (1953)

    Stalag 17 (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2017) It’s hard to watch Stalag 17 and not think about the fetishization of history. Like it or not, World War II drama has grown more and more ponderous over the past decades, to the point where a World War II movie is presumed to be all about gravitas and serious considerations of the terrible cost of war. It wasn’t always so, though, whether we’re talking about the blockbuster WW2-themed action adventures from the seventies (The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare) or, even closer to the war itself, a film like Stalag 17 that spends a lot of time in silly comedy before getting down to the thriller business. Early parts of the film, such as the white-line painting sequence, really wouldn’t feel out of place in an Adam Sandler movie. Keep in mind that Stalag 17 is based on the real-life experiences of its writers (filtered through a Broadway play adapted on-screen) and so presents the full range of humour and horror of German POW camps—not the almost idealized portrayal of later writers with an indirect knowledge of events. As such, Stalag 17 uniquely captures in time a historical truth of sorts, then wraps it up in entertaining thriller mechanics about uncovering an informant and helping a marked prisoner escape. William Holden is quite good as the resourceful but unjustly accused protagonist, while Don Taylor plays the other lead engagingly. Writer/director Billy Wilder has a long and varied filmography, and his Stalag 17 is still quite entertaining to watch, even as its closeness to the subject does give it a now-unusual quality.

  • Forbidden Planet (1956)

    Forbidden Planet (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, December 2017) How could I call myself a science-fiction expert, reviewer or even fan given that I hadn’t even seen Forbidden Planet? Isn’t it in the running for the title of the fiftiesiest of the 1950s science-fiction movies? Featuring an almost-unrecognizable Leslie Nielsen (with not-white hair!) as the captain of a mission investigating the disappearance of a colony, Forbidden Planet begins with a saucer with theremin (ish) music and clearly shows itself to be a predecessor of the Star Trek template. Much of the film is hopelessly dated by today’s standards, but consider that to be a compliment, as it can be enjoyed as a retro-futurist period piece, not wrong as much as existing in its own reality. Even the mumbo-jumbo of the third act can be excused by the rest of the film, a big-budget science-fiction spectacular with effects that are still mildly impressive today. The pacing is off, the SF devices are clumsy (Robbie the Robot, ugh!) and the acting clearly comes from a pre-realism era, but Forbidden Planet has, in sixty years, acquired a patina of charm that shields it from more conventional criticism. I enjoyed seeing it quite a bit more than I expected, and it’s not just about filling in a gap in my knowledge of the genre—there is enough good stuff here and there to make the film enjoyable on its own terms.

  • The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature (2017)

    The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, Video On-Demand, December 2017) There normally wouldn’t be much to say about The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature. It is, after all, firmly in-line with the current crop of B-tier animated movies for kids: animal protagonists, frantic action sequences, song-and-dance numbers, and so on as if it was rolling down an assembly line. Watch it with the kids for the cuteness, skip credits, the end. This being said, two or three things are worth mentioning … the first being that the sequel does feel slightly better than the original. In fact, The Nut Job 2 spends its first few minutes literally blowing up the conclusion of the first film, moving the protagonist toward self-sufficiency rather than the simplistic treasure trove obtained at the end of the first film. This sense of more complex issues shouldn’t be seen as absolute (after all, this is a one of those kids’ movies where the antagonist is a corrupt mayor/land developer), but it does make the series advance forward ever so slightly. Some of the gags do land effectively, and the madcap pacing of the action sequences works if you like that kind of thing. While I don’t often comment on French dubs of movies, there is one glaring irritant in the Canadian-French version of The Nut Job 2 that needs to be mentioned: They actually translate the word “cute” as … well, cute. This is lazy and ludicrous, especially when perfectly good French alternatives along the lines of mignon, chou or joli already exist. Ugh. But never mind. At least the credits aren’t a singalong version Gangnam Style like in the first one.

  • The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

    The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2017) I distinctly remember the cymbal climax of The Man Who Knew Too Much from boyhood memories, so technically this would be a second viewing … but given that I only remembered that, let’s not pretend that I’m revisiting it. After all, watching it today I’m more interested in seeing another Alfred Hitchcock movie starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The result is in line with expectations, although I’ll note that overall, and compared to other Hitchcock movies of the same era, The Man Who Knew Too Much feels more average than it should. It’s overlong, with some sequences milking the same emotions to diminishing return. It takes much longer than it should to get started, and the “Que Sera, Sera” climax, while effective, is extended far too long after the cymbal moment to be as satisfying as it could be. Even Stewart, as good as he is, seems to be coasting on an average performance in an average film. Some of the plot curlicues are suspiciously convenient (such as having Day’s character being a retired yet still famous singer) but that’s to be expected. Still, for all of what’s not so good about The Man Who Knew Too Much, it’s still a Hitchcock film from the director’s competent period, with likable smart leads in Stewart and not-so-icy blonde Day. The suspense is well handled and if the film feels lacking today, it’s largely because it has set the standard through which modern thrillers are examined. As an entry through Hitchcock’s filmography, it’s a painless enough viewing. 

  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

    The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2017) My understanding of James Stewart and John Wayne’s screen persona is still incomplete (especially when it comes to Stewart’s latter-day westerns), but as of now, “James Stewart and John Wayne in a Western” tells me nearly all I needed to know about The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’s plot. The clash between Stewart’s urbane gentility and Wayne’s tough-guy gruffness isn’t just casting: it’s the crux of the film’s nuanced look at the end of the Western period. The film’s classic set-up (an eastern-trained lawyer comes to town, becomes an enemy of the local villain) becomes an examination of Western tropes when the easy fatal solution is rejected by the protagonist as being against his values. When John Ford’s character steps in as a necessary conduit for violence, this deceptively simple film becomes a thought-piece questioning an entire genre. I surprisingly liked it upon watching (save for an extended sequences in which American democracy is slowly explained) and liked it even more upon further thought. Stewart is terrific in a role that harkens back to his more youthful idealist persona, while Ford is impeccable as a somewhat repellent but ultimately heroic figure. (I find it significant that my three favourite Wayne movies so far, along with The Searchers and The Shootist, have him willing to play roles that are critical of his usual persona.)  Under John Ford’s experienced direction, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance acts as an epilogue to the Western and a hopeful examination of American values that emerged from the period.

  • Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017)

    Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2017) For this newest entry in the Smurfs movie series, The Lost Village wisely dispends with the live-action angle to deliver an all-CGI adventure in which the Smurfette goes looking for a second Smurfs village. In some ways, this isn’t much of a departure from the two live-action films: it’s once again an adventure in which a few selected Smurfs go far away from the village, encountering various hijinks en-route. Once again, Gargamel is along for the ride, doing whatever he can to be a pest. It’s familiar, but it has the decency of being relatively well executed. Some of the jokes are actually funny, the animation is fine by contemporary standards, the creature design is often very cute (wait until you see that glow-bunny!) and the script has a decent amount of girl-power to it since it explores Smurfette’s character and eventually uncovers an all-female second Smurf village. The climactic funeral scene goes on a bit too long, but the rest generally holds together. The Lost Village isn’t particularly challenging, but it does have that Smurfs charm (that same one that the live-action films worked hard to sabotage via such things as testicular jokes) and won’t drive parents of the target audience to distraction.

  • Sleepless (2017)

    Sleepless (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2017) While we cinephiles are all here talking about the death of original middle-budget movies (i.e.: non-sequels, non-comic book, non-franchise, non-superhero stuff), there are movies like Sleepless to remind us that even those movies can be underwhelming. It’s not that Sleepless is bad—it’s that it shows things that countless other crime thrillers have done better. Crooked cops, undercover heroes, internal affairs, large drug deals, threatened family members … and so on. Even set against the glitz of Las Vegas and with the combined appeal of Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan and Gabriel Union, Sleepless can’t really rouse itself out of complacency. It does get slightly better toward the end by resorting to semi-insane action movie tricks such as a car chase in a casino and a rather impressive car flip executed with ramping frame rates and a moving camera (no, seriously, it’s quite good and you even see it again later during the credits if you’ve missed it) but the vast majority of the film is as bland as it comes. Average dialogue, expected plot developments and middle-of-the-road direction don’t really help, even though Monaghan and Union are expected delights in their roles, and Foxx doesn’t do too badly either. Ultimately, Sleepless is the kind of crime thriller that works well enough as an evening’s distraction, but soon fades away as nothing more than an average genre title.

  • All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records (2015)

    All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2017) I think I’ve shopped at Tower Records once, while on a trip in Boston in 2005 or 2006, but as documentary All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records plays out, describing the triumphs of the chain and its end at the hand of a changing retail landscape, I couldn’t help but flash back to the fate of Canadian chains Sam the Record Man (gone 2007) and HMV (gone 2017) and how I, even as a moderate music fan, enjoyed going to those stores. But the story specifically being told here is about Tower Records, the American chain that started in Sacramento in 1960 and grew to include a worldwide network of stores including iconic flagship locations in Los Angeles and New York. Told largely through interviews without an audible narrator (although some of the interviews sometimes break out of their structure and feature off-screen interjections), All Things Must Pass is an impressive documentary debut for Colin Hanks. The first half of the documentary is about the rise of the chain, and it’s great good fun: stores that were instantly popular upon opening, hijinks from young employees, various innovations from ground-floor people becoming corporate policies … it’s also a portrait of the music landscape for forty years, evolving through genres and styles. This fun first half inevitably leads to a considerably less amusing second half, as the music retail industry faces its digital reckoning in the early 2000s. Having run out of physical formats to upgrade, losing sales from inflated prices and being unable to compete with the convenience of online file-sharing platforms, Tower Records got stuck with heavy debts and dwindling revenue. Much of the last five years of the company are a swirl of things getting worse and worse, leading to the complete shutdown of the chain in late 2006. While All Things Must Pass doesn’t quite shy away from the various issues that destroyed the company (including brief mentions of bad management), it’s definitely an authorized history of the chain, meaning that it has access to the founder’s inner circle and does not feature any of the critics that could talk about Tower Records putting small stores out of business, or comment on the more salacious rumours surrounding the management’s mistakes. (Two interesting articles: Forbes’ 2006 commentary, and a skeptical look at the documentary, with great comments.) Still, the people featured on-screen are interesting, the documentary flows nicely from one thing to another, and it does manage to create a longing for record stores. I’m not given to nostalgia, but I do miss that I can’t go to Montreal or Toronto and wander the floors of HMV’s flagship stores. I do miss the posters, the deep inventory of obscure genres and the experience of being in a place dedicated to music. I suspect that, sometime in the future, there will be an interest for virtual recreations of such stores, algorithmically tied into digital inventories of available music. Until then, there’s All Things Must Pass to give all generations a taste of what it was to be in a record store.

  • The Pledge (2001)

    The Pledge (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2017) I will vigorously defend the right of filmmakers to make the movies they want to make … but then again I will also defend the right of viewers to have the reaction they want to the movie they’re seeing. This is relevant to The Pledge insofar as director Sean Penn wanted to make a movie that upended the traditional conventions of a crime thriller. (Warning: Spoilers.) The point of the script—based on a novella significantly titled “The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel”—is to show that not all investigations end up finding the culprit, and some of the time this can be a mere stroke of luck (or bad luck). The ending doesn’t go for full bleakness by killing the killer without the investigator knowing about it, but such meagre comforts do nothing to save the protagonist from ending up a ruined alcoholic mumbling to himself about his failure. Such a downer ending, coupled with the grim premise of a child killer, means that The Pledge will never become a crowd favourite. There are plenty of vastly more entertaining and deliberately satisfying crime thrillers out there if you’re looking for that kind of stuff. On the other hand, there’s quite a lot to like in The Pledge despite its intentionally downbeat nature. Jack Nicholson turns in one of his last good performances as an out-of-persona retiring detective who comes to obsess about the murder of a young girl, and promises to her mom that we will find the truth. Director Sean Penn delivers a rather good movie, handled with some care and unusual flourishes despite insisting a bit too much on some elements at time. I also suspect that Penn is the reason why the film is studded with known actors in small roles, from Benicio del Toro’s early brief turn to people such as Hellen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave and Mickey Rourke in rather minor roles. There’s even an intriguing plot point midway through, as the protagonist spends his retirement funds buying a gas station in order to gather more information on possible suspects. The Pledge works much better when considered as a drama rather than a thriller: it places more emphasis on the cost of obsession (even justified) and less on the achievement of detection. Still, it is a kick in the gut and I can certainly understand why many won’t like that.

  • The Rocketeer (1991)

    The Rocketeer (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, November 2017) For proof that “old-fashioned” in no insult, look no further than The Rocketeer, a glorious throwback to the adventure serials of the 1930s and a highly enjoyable comic-book movie from a time well before the current glut of comic-book movies. If this film has a secret weapon, it’s charm. The kind of quasi-goofy, rather comfortable charm that you get with a morally upstanding square-jawed hero (Billy Campbell), a curly brunette heroine (Jennifer Connelly), a scenery-chomping villain (Timothy Dalton), a fun piece of technology (a rocket backpack!) and a voluntarily retro setting that pays affectionate homage to the best features of the era. Here we are at the heroic age of aviation, with Gee-Bees barnstormers, Hollywood glamour, Nazis lurking at the edges of the screen and Howard Hughes coming up with fantastic inventions. It’s certainly not challenging, but it’s a lot of fun. Director Joe Johnston has proven time and again his ability to deliver straightforward adventures, but The Rocketeer still stands as one of the highlights of his career. The special effects aren’t particularly good, but who cares when the script, and the film, have this scene-to-scene watchability that will keep viewers glued to the screen. A similar movie would probably do better today (The Rocketeer is definitely a spiritual ancestor to Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger), and as it turns out there are steady rumblings about a sequel any time soon. I’m looking forward to that.

  • Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)

    Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2017) Watching some films from bygone days is almost an anthropological experience. Not just for what’s shown on-screen, but what led to what’s shown on-screen. Around the World in Eighty Days is one such curio, not only portraying the world of 1872 as seen from 1956 (84-year difference), but also telling us much about 1956 Hollywood from today’s perspective (61-year difference). The basics of the film are simple enough, adapting Jules Verne’s globetrotting adventure tale into a lavish three-hour-long spectacle. But it’s the way it is put together that captivates as much as the narrative of the story. Famously filled with cameos, Around the World in Eighty Days regularly grinds to a halt as then-famous faces grin at the camera to remind us that they’re in the movie. Of course, sixty years later, it’s hard to identify most of them unless you’re a dedicated movie buff: what remains are nearly incomprehensible skits revolving around famous people without us knowing that they’re famous people. (The Fernandel and Frank Sinatra examples are particularly egregious, except that Sinatra is still somewhat recognizable.) David Niven is good but occasionally inscrutable as the main character, while Cantinflas (wildly popular then, almost unknown now) is a revelation as Passepartout. Around the World in Eighty Days remains strange and kind of charming in its own way. What’s not quite so funny is the cavalcade of ethnic stereotypes that parade through the entire film. Nobody escapes unscathed, whether it’s the British (eccentric to a fault, and never willing to sacrifice tea in the middle of a crisis) or the Americans (frontier barbarians obsessed with electioneering) or any of the non-English-speaking nationalities. The Native-American segments are particularly tough to watch, but by no means the only uncomfortable moment in the movie. Still, the film moves with a decent amount of action, humour and scenery—while largely filmed on Hollywood studios, the production did spend a lot of effort to make sure that the details were correct, and did travel to foreign countries in order to capture establishing shots. The result is one-of-a-kind. I’d normally welcome a remake, except that a loose comedic remake was completed in 2004 and has since already sunk away from view so thoroughly that I still haven’t seen in on TV or any of the major streaming platforms after a year of searching. In the meantime, the original Around the World in Eighty Days remains available for anyone’s viewing pleasure, but if there’s a film that screams out for pop-up notes, it’s this one.

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

    2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, November 2017) I’m not going to overstate how important 2001: A Space Odyssey was in my developing a taste for Science-Fiction, but it’s a movie that does show up a few times in my early memories. As a kid, seeing it in the early eighties when 2001 was still in the future, I remember seeing snippets of the film, being fascinated by it, disappointed that they didn’t show more of future life on Earth and rather confused by the whole thing. (My father, for all of his benevolence in allowing me to watch the movie, wasn’t much help in trying to make sense of it.)  As a slightly older kid, I remember being told that the answers to the movie were in the Clarke novel. As a somewhat older teenager, I remember reading the book in the middle of a solid Arthur C. Clarke binge. I must have seen the movie again sometime in the early nineties because I have more recent memories than watching it as a kid, but anyway: Watching it now, nearly fifty years after its release, having read countless SF books and even written a few … is a different experience. I’m weirdly fascinated by the movie, for what it does well as for what it doesn’t, for the chances it takes and for the impact it has. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s insanely ambitious from a time when SF movies were not usually considered ambitious. (Keep in mind that 1968 is before the moon landing, before desktop computers, before CGI. The other big Science-Fiction movies of the year were Planet of the Apes and… Barbarella.)  It’s still frustratingly ambiguous in terms of narrative, although reading the novel does help quite a bit making sense of it and relaxing enough to appreciate the rest of what the movie does well. I find it fascinating that it has both moments of intense cinematic poetry, while delivering a solid hard-SF thriller in its middle section. I’m more amused than annoyed at the way 2001 doesn’t say anything about its biggest mystery, but will babble on at lengths about the nuts and bolts of its setting. I’m still astonished at the quality of the special effects, the scientific verisimilitude of its middle section or the realism of its setting—all of which remains rarely equalled even fifty years later. Stanley Kubrick was a certifiable genius, and 2001 proves it as much as any other of his movies: just take a look at the million-year cut, the long segments without dialogue, the way even small details show how much the filmmakers cared. 2001 remains a cultural fixture for a reason, having invented, codified or popularized a bunch of the clichés largely associated with Science-Fiction by the general public. I’m struck by how there’s something in this film to appeal to a wide variety of viewers, both as the very prosaic level, and at a more metaphorical one. More narrative-driven viewers will appreciate having read the book for hand-holding through the roughest patches of the narration. More trippy viewers will be happy to be taken for a ride. (And I think that having read the book is one way to watch the movie as both kinds of viewers.)  I’m not going to say that 2001 is the perfect SF film, or even among my top favourite ones. But it’s still a rich experience with a lot to offer, and that makes it almost just as good today as it had been for the past five decades. 

  • CHiPS (2017)

    CHiPS (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2017) Why does it seem so hard for Hollywood to make an R-rated action comedy these days? I may be selectively misremembering things, but it seems to me that every halfway promising action comedy screws things up by throwing far too much crassness, gore and unfunny material into the mix, until even the good bits are drowned out by the bad ones. The case in point here is CHiPS, another unsuccessful attempt to bring an old TV show to the big screen. To be fair, there are a few things to like in the result. Michael Peña is fantastic in a super-organized horndog role, stealing scenes as he reliably does. Co-star Dax Shepard (who also co-wrote and directed) is far less successful, playing an abrasive screw-up that annoys more than he amuses. While the plot (revolving around uncovering crooked cops) has some heft to it, it often becomes far too violent (witness: graphic suicide-by-throwing-oneself-out-of-a-helicopter, graphic decapitation, graphic amputation of a lead character’s limbs) to remain fun as a comedy. While some mature content is fine, CHiPS often overplays its hand into something repellent in what isn’t supposed to be a gross-out comedy. Fortunately, the stunts and action scenes are generally solid despite being hyperactive—knowing Shepard’s fondness for cars (as seen in Hit and Run), it’s easy to understand why he’d take on CHiPS as an almost-passion project. There are a few known faces (David Koechner, Maya Rudolph and, of course, Kristen Bell as Shepard’s wife) in minor roles. The sunny Los Angeles setting is used effectively, and doesn’t revisit overly familiar places. Alas, the script does feel lazy, especially once it takes up running gags that aren’t funny the first time and then proceed to grow increasingly exasperating through repetition. The result is not particularly good, although it does have some better moments thanks to Peña and the action scenes. Still, especially as compared to not-so-distant examples of the form such as 21 Jump Street, it’s disappointing.

  • Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

    Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2017) I remember reading George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four during high school and being bleakly depressed for the rest of the day. I’m pretty sure we saw clips of the movie in class, but not the entire film. As it turns out, Nineteen Eighty-Four itself is just about the most straightforward adaptation that anyone could have made of the novel. The high points are all there (even down to the device of having the protagonist keep a diary as a way to insert voiceover narration), the atmosphere is bleakly industrial and the film, at times, seems to have emerged straight from the dreary post-war years in Britain, all bathed in dusty grays and dirty browns. It is also powerfully depressing to a degree that I had almost forgotten: By the time the film discusses removing fundamental biological imperatives as a way to further control the masses, we’re way past most of the nicest dystopias out there. (In fact, Nineteen Eighty-Four makes most post-apocalyptic stories look positively cheerful in comparison.)  John Hurt is both bland and good as protagonist Winston Smith—Richard Burton is more lively as voice-of-authority O’Brien. Writer/director Michael Radford did an exceptional job putting Orwell’s genre-defining vision on-screen. But, as faithful as the film can be to the novel, it’s also limited by that faithfulness. Having seen Brazil, I know which bleak dystopia I prefer.