John August

The Nines (2007)

The Nines (2007)

(On Cable TV, March 2019) It took me twelve years to make my way to The Nines, and I’m glad I eventually did. I guarantee you won’t guess where it ends from where it begins, as it starts with Ryan Reynolds playing an actor on house arrest, but then becomes weirder as clues accumulate that we shouldn’t take that reality for granted. Eventually, we end up in science-fiction thriller territory, with three stories crashing into each other in ways that are increasingly strange. It does make sense in the end, even though the final impact is lesser than could have been anticipated twenty-five minutes in. One good reason to watch The Nines is the number of pre-stardom actors showing up: Reynolds lends his charm to three linked roles, while Octavia Spencer uncharacteristically shows impressive cleavage, and most notably Melissa McCarthy shows up here as a rather sweet character before her post-Bridesmaids screen persona settled (at least temporarily) on an abrasive nature. Her stripped down, classically traditional performance will make converts of those who couldn’t stand her in the 2010s. Taking a step back, there’s a quite a bit of fun in putting the various said and unsaid layers of the story together—the “Nine” symbolism isn’t hard to see (although 9 as “I, X” or if you prefer “I, an unknown” isn’t dwelled upon) but the film has fun blending together acting, writing and videogames into a panopticon of assumed identities. I’m a bit annoyed that it took me twelve years to see The Nines—while it’s not the greatest film ever made, it’s a happy discovery and one that may play better now than in 2007 due to the rising fortunes of its stars and how we perceive them … adding another layer to writer-director John August’s film.

Beowulf (2007)

Beowulf (2007)

(In theaters, November 2007) Hollywood can make dumb mincemeat out of everything, and classical English literature is no exception. High School teachers everywhere will be devastated to see one of their favourite form of Olde Englishe torture defanged forever by an adaptation that reaches for low comedy, high action and cheap 3D effects. That last item, incidentally, is why the movie is best seen on an IMAX 3D screen: Director Robert Zemeckis is so naively obsessed by the technology that he crammed his film with arrowheads, spires and people being flung at the (virtual) camera, all of which look silly on a regular 2D screen. But they’re far from being the silliest element of a film that borrows from Austin Powers in order to present a naked hero fighting a monster. Yet little of this is as annoying as the not-quite-there quality of the CGI actors, which suffers from the Uncanny Valley cliché as they stutter without grace from one mo-capped pose to another. Pieces of the second Grendel battle are so jerky that they look like a deliberate homage to Harryhausen stop-motion claymation. But if we’re going to list all of the bone-headed ideas of this film, we’re going to be here a while: What about Angelina Jolie’s kinda-naked scene, complete with high-heeled feet and Transylvanian accent? Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the film is the way John August and Neil Gaiman’s script ends up feeling silly, clumsy and forced: Their intended mythical gravitas ends up swept under the carpet of a generic fantasy film with 3D effects. The only enjoyable part of the film comes late, as the elderly Beowulf fights off one of the finest dragons yet seen on-screen: the action beats are numerous, well-designed and completely thrilling. But then the 3D effects kick in again, and the film flops on a series of meaningful glares that leave us uncertain as to whether the film was supposed to be a comedy or not. In any case, it’s miscalculations upon miscalculations for a film that has more value as a technical showpiece than an actual plotted story.