Review: The Wolverine

Who doesn’t love Marvel Studios?  Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers – those movies make money; they entertain; they sell toys; they help Disney stay in the black even when they produce stinkers like The Lone Ranger.  The most amazing thing is that this success has been achieved while focusing on what most would consider second tier properties.  Truth be told, the cinematic rights to Marvel’s two largest assets, Spiderman and The X-Men, reside with Sony Pictures and 20^th Century Fox respectively.  For fans of The X-Men, and more specifically Wolverine, this is an unfortunate situation, because try as they might, the fine folks at Fox just can’t seem to get Marvel Properties right.  If you need evidence, go back and watch Fantastic Four 1 and 2, Daredevil, X-Men 3, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The most recent miss in Fox’s version of the Marvel cinematic universe is simply titled The Wolverine.  The movie, which is set after the events of Brett Ratner’s stinker X-Men 3, marks Hugh Jackman’s sixth time playing the character.  The plot of the film is based on one of the most popular Wolverine story arcs, which finds Wolverine in Japan and embroiled in a battle between a Japanese conglomerate and the Yakuza.  When his mutant abilities are compromised, he must fid a way to protect an heiress (Mariko played by Tao Okamoto) with whom he has fallen in love with from harm, while struggling to reconcile the events surrounding Jean Grey’s demise.

So let’s get right to it.  What works best in this movie is the action.  It’s not “blow your mind” next-level stuff, but it’s solid and the shots are framed well by director James Mangold and crew.  The pacing of those scenes makes it feel like what’s happening onscreen really means something as opposed to the action-for-the-sake-of-action that sometimes takes over in big budget flicks.  It also helps that there are ninjas wielding bows and arrows and samurai swords.  Actions fans across the board tend to geek out when these silent warriors make their way onto screen so in this regard, they will not be disappointed.

What does not work quite as well is Hugh Jackman in the lead role.  This is tough for me to say because I am a big fan of Jackman.  He is a true triple threat as an actor as he can act, sing, and dance.  The problem then is not that his performance is terrible.  To the contrary, he sells the anger, remorse, and defiance that are written into the script.  The issue is more that it’s no longer Wolverine that you see onscreen but Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine.  While I am no X-Men purist, it’s become evident that the scripts are written with Jackman in mind rather than the spirit of the character.  This doesn’t necessarily cripple the movie, but it makes you wonder what makes this a Wolverine movie beyond the protruding claws.

As for what really hurts this movie, that distinction goes to writer Mark Bomback.  For two thirds of the movie, there is action and some exposition that for the most part does not offend.  But in the third act, when everything comes to a head and threads are meant to be tied up in a neat bow, the plot completely falls apart.  Too many transparent attempts at misdirection, a completely telegraphed twist, and some head scratching logic compromise what for the most part had been a competent albeit unspectacular action movie.  And while this should not completely obliterate all of what is good in this film, it’s hard to walk out of a cinema feeling entertained when the last act completely falls flat. 

As for the cast, it’s hard for me to really rip almost anyone and equally difficult to heap loads of praise.  Tao Okamoto (as Mariko) displays good screen presence and shares good chemistry with Jackman though at times her acting inexperience shows.  The same can be said for Rila Fukushima as Yukio, a trained warrior, who becomes something of a sidekick for Jackman’s Wolverine.  Hiroyuki Sanada, Svetlana Khodchenkova, and Brian Tee  are just adequate as one-dimensional antagonists in this film, but this is as much the result of poor writing as it is their respective active talents.

The lone cast member that I feel compelled to single out from this film is Famke Janssen as Jean Grey.  While her presence is clearly an attempt to tie the standalone film back to the original X-Men franchise, she never really played the character particularly well in the previous movies and in this one she is even worse.  Janssen delivers a performance that would be more suited for a really cheesy bitter film on Lifetime Network than a big budget theatrical release.  Every time she appeared onscreen, my eyes began to roll into the back of my head.

So when you look at all the different pieces in this film and how they work and don’t work to varying degrees, it becomes apparent that The Wolverine is a rental if and only if you enjoy action movies.  If you crave character development, intelligent story telling, and a clear and fluid arc, this is definitely not the film for you.  The good news is that if you are somehow roped into watching this film, it won’t stick in your memory too long.  It’s fairly forgettable.  In regards to superhero movies, Disney and WB have upped the ante, but judging by this outing the folks working with Fox’s Marvel properties never received the memo. 

Standout Performance:  The post credit scene.  It’s by far the most interesting part of the film and clearly is a lead in for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past.

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Review: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

When Snow White and the Huntsman had a modicum of financial success, you knew it wouldn’t be the last time we’d see Hollywood dip their toes into the pages of children’s literature in search of another tale that could be spun into a commercially viable action narrative geared towards an adult audience; hence the production and theatrical release of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.  That the movie was released in January is a telling sign of how the execs at Paramount felt about the film, but it still managed to pull in a respectable $223M worldwide.  But does that mean Hansel & Gretel is actually a good movie?  Not necessarily.   

The movie kicks off by retelling the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel and using it as the origin story for the witch hunting adult version of the siblings (played by Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton) we are introduced to onscreen.  The plot finds Hansel and Gretel hired by a village to stop a group of witches from kidnapping their children, but as the duo investigate the occurrences, Hansel and Gretel uncover a deeper more nefarious plot that may ultimately shed some light on their long lost family.

So it’s not the absolute worst premise, but what little hope there might be is critically damaged by some curious choices on the part of the creative team.  Unlike Snow White and the Huntsman, the tone of this film makes you feel like no one from top to bottom is taking this movie seriously.  There’s always a tongue-in-cheek/ wink wink vibe that gives the impression that the entire production is one inside joke, and Jeremy Renner’s natural inclination towards wry sarcastic delivery only fans these flames.  As a result, the movie feels off kilter, unbalanced, and makes it a difficult narrative to digest.  It’s like eating food during a blind taste test; you’re hesitant and distracted because you’re not really sure what they are feeding you.

Where this film truly falters though is in its failure to get you to invest in the characters.  Orphaned, traumatized, always venturing perilously close to death, and yet it is near impossible to care for the protagonists and their cohorts in the least.  The blame for this has to falls on the shoulders of director Tommy Wirkola and his inability to flesh out the characters and build tension and suspense into the plot.  Besides getting the film in the can on budget, ensuring those two elements were probably his primary points of emphasis, so it’s hard to view his work as anything but a failure.

Jeremy Renner does him absolutely no favors as Hansel.  Renner is very good in certain roles, but I don’t think he is the fountain of acting talent that many claim him to be.  He’s a one-gear actor limited range and this role resides far outside his wheelhouse.  His Hansel costume looked more suitable for a bad SNL and rendered him every bit the fish out of water that Mila Kunis seemed in Oz The Great and Powerful.  While he does provide the occasional entertaining moment, his work for the most part feels clunky and awkward.

If there is a redeeming quality for this movie it has to be Gemma Arterton as Gretel.  She may not be significantly more successful than Renner at disappearing into her character, but she does perform most of the heavy lifting in regards to advancing the plot and does so with an impressive screen presence.  I am guessing that Arterton could read the pages of the phone book and make it sound like a canonical piece of literature with her voice inflection and accent.  It’s a quality that is not lost on the viewer despite the morass of incidental nonsense taking place on the big screen.

As for the rest of the cast, Famke Janssen reprises the role of Jean Gray from X-Men: The Last Stand only this time she is supposed to supposed to be Muriel, a wicked witch.  Unfortunately, the performance is as weak this time out as it was six years ago in the Brett Ratner directed fiasco.  Peter Stormare as Sheriff Berringer also recycles the past as he delivers the exact same performance that he has put forth in last ten movies.  Sooner or later someone is going to figure out that they can just edit his past performances into each subsequent movie and save him the trouble of showing up to the set.

So what you have then in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is a movie with a soft of premise, poor directing, uninspired acting, and moderately entertaining action scenes – all of which collectively induce apathy.  I don’t think the movie is a complete write-off as there is just enough to keep you occupied on an extremely slow night, but in order to appreciate this film, you will have to approach it with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and very low expectations. It’s not a purchase or a rental and maybe not even a pay cable channel movie.  My best suggestion is to forget about it until that one day you randomly happen upon it while flipping the channels.  Those conditions probably give you the best chance of enjoying this film.   Under any other circumstances, it is probably a “no.”

Standout Performance: Gemma Arterton.  She’s not the best actress of her generation and at times she may not even seem like a very good one, but she has an indefinable screen presence – something sorely lacking in today’s cinema.

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Review: Taken 2

When I look back at the first Taken, what made it great was that Liam Neeson’s grim no nonsense vibe really fit the character and he had enough physicality left in the tanks to back it up.  The result was a resurgence in his career that saw him recast as the kind of total bad ass one might imagine Jason Bourne would become during his AARP years.  In fact, Neeson’s perceived age enhanced both the role and the film as it legitimized his character’s experience and made you believe that his Bryan Mills could remain three steps ahead of his less cerebral European antagonists.  In Taken 2, Neeson’s Mills is still very sharp (perhaps a little too sharp), but seems to have lost a bit in the physicality department and because of this, the film fails to deliver in the same way its predecessor did.

The plot follows Neeson’s Mills as he finds himself in Istanbul for work with Maggie Grace’s Kim and Famke Janssen’s Lenore in tow.  A group of Algerians led by Rade Serbedzija’s Murad plots to capture and murder Neeson and his family to avenge the deaths of the Algerian sex traffickers from the first film.  It’s not a direct rehash the way The Hangover 2 is to The Hangover, but it is in the same neighborhood.

Nuts and bolts action movies must have strong pacing, expertly framed action scenes, good use of foreground and background visuals, and a handful of defining moments to divert attention from what typically tends to be thin plot lines.  Unfortunately, Taken 2 comes up short nearly across the board.  While part of the blame for this has to be heaped on writer Luc Besson, that the movie lacks the pace and urgency of its predecessor ultimately falls on the shoulders of director Olivier Megaton.  Handed the keys to a property featuring an interesting protagonist with a deep fan base, Megaton fails to weave a taut narrative and he frames the action in a way that robs Neeson’s Mills of his well-established physical credibility.

As for Neeson, the four years he’s spent away from the character looks and feels like fourteen years.  Clearly time has taken its toll.  Neeson does not seem up to the challenge of playing the physically imposing former CIA operative and it seems that Megaton and his creative team amp up the use of unsteady cameras to mask Neeson’s hand-to-hand combat deficiencies.  Another issue I had was the increased focus on Neeson’s skills of detection.  Instead of cool filler between action sequences, these scenes are drawn to the fore and are so overblown that they take matters well beyond the breaking point of the suspension of disbelief.  At one point I felt like I was watching a cross between an episode of CSI and Chris Farley’s Haru from Beverly Hills Ninja.

As for the supporting cast, four years ago Maggie Grace looked and acted like a vibrant fresh-faced young woman, but those qualities are sorely missed in this outing.  For the majority of film, she seems drab and disinterested as she goes through the motions.  Famke Janssen is given a more robust role this time out, but Janssen - never known as a strong performer – does little with the opportunity.  Emotional engagement in her Lenore is paramount to the success of the film as much of the tension is tied to her peril, and thus Janssen’s supremely pedestrian performance truly weakens the film.  Rade Serbedzija as Murad Krasniqu and his band of nameless goons also are culpable for much of what is wrong with this movie, as they never seem to represent a legitimate physical or cerebral threat.  A hero is only as good as his villains are bad, and this is a major factor as to why Neeson’s Mills loses much of his luster.

I really wanted to love this movie.  I was ready for a fast paced riveting narrative with action and chase scenes that would capitalize on the old world aesthetic of Istanbul.  Unfortunately, not only is Taken 2 completely void of the fun and panache of the first film, the action sequences are muted and the logic somewhat flawed.  I wouldn’t recommend that you run out to watch this film, because I can’t envision a scenario where one would walk out of the theater fully satisfied, but as a Netflix movie it has some value.  It’s mildly entertaining and utterly forgettable and probably a reasonable way to pass the time in the comfort of your own home.

Standout Performance: D.B. Sweeney.  Not so much for anything he does in this movie, but because I don’t think I have seen him in anything since The Cutting Edge.  Toe pick!

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