Review: San Andreas

Anything you (or anyone else) can do, the Rock can do better.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look at his resume and you will find that it is littered with projects that have re-imagined and re-engineered other films simply by turning up the volume on the action and infusing Johnson's larger than life screen presence into the plot.  The results at the box office have been nothing short of impressive.  They don’t - after all - half-jokingly refer to him as The Franchise Viagra.

The plot of Johnson’s most recent movie, San Andreas, follows three simple steps.  First, establish the credentials of the protagonist.  Second, unleash unfathomable disasters of epic proportions on an unsuspecting public.  Third, follow the protagonist as he/she sets out to save endangered family members.  If this also sounds like the plot of The Day After Tomorrow, or 2012, you would be correct.  In fact, this is the plot of nearly every disaster flick ever created.  So what makes San Andreas worth watching?

For starters, the visuals are epic.  Major kudos go to the artists involved with the special effects, who really utilized the vast majestic California landscape to paint a sweeping disaster scenario that is both horrific and breathtaking.  It helps that the scenario feels incredibly real.  Whereas most disaster films tend to depict radically accelerated climate change incidents that could only manifest on the silver screen, San Andreas fictionalizes an earthquake scenario that could occur at any moment.  That’s not to say, the film’s account is accurate and grounded in sound science (because it’s not), but the notion of it is quite real.

Still, if special effects was the sole criteria upon which the quality of a movie measured, then the second Star Wars trilogy would have surpassed the original trio.  No, it takes something more and in this case, Johnson is just that something more.  His ability to bring credibility to lines that on paper must be cringe inducing is one of his greatest skills.  It’s an ability he no doubt crafted during his WWE days, delivering over-the-top one liners to live crowds with unwavering commitment and conviction.  So when Johnson makes a daring declaration or an ill-timed comment about getting to second based while facing insurmountable odds, it allows the audience to both groan and chuckle.  And that he has a larger-than-life presence, allows the audience to suspend just enough disbelief to buy-in.

However, none of this means that San Andreas is a great movie, because ultimately it’s not.  Some might say it’s not even good.  What most could agree on is that it’s entertaining.  Watching the California coast - from the glitz of the Hollywood hills to the nouveau riche technological epicenter that is San Francisco – crumble to the ground offers a horrifically exhilarating backdrop to the perfectly melodramatic chemistry between Johnson, longtime screen veteran Carla Gugino, and Alexandra Daddario.  More simply put, it’s watching good-looking people survive or not (no spoilers!) a stunningly visual disaster.  And who could possibly decry a gluttony of eye candy.

So long story short, it’s worth a watch.  The summer slate has been and will be fairly tepid this for the remainder of 2015 and the list is short on films that really bask in being an unapologetic popcorn flick.  The visuals are massive and worth that big screen treatment and will provide you with a nice break from having to think, process, or decipher.

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Review: Rock of Ages

In my review of The Roommate, I tabbed it – as well as Johnny English Reborn, Jack and Jill, and Footloose (2011), as the worst movies I had seen in the last year.  Well, I owe a sincere apology to the creative teams and acting talent behind those films, because I have found a movie that truly takes the cake; a movie so onerous that I did not make it past the halfway point before calling it quits.  That movie is the well-intentioned but incredibly misguided Rock of Ages.  One quick disclaimer before I launch into my review is that I have history with this projoect.  It’s incredibly poor theatrical performance almost singlehandedly derailed a significant entertainment opportunity for me, but I have long since moved on from that.

The movie features an ensemble cast acting out the lives of a bunch of people tied to the 80’s rock scene in Hollywood via a fossil of a dive bar on Sunset Boulevard renown for live shows.  The plot is lined with every possible paper thin stereotype you would expect against this backdrop from the innocent Midwestern aspiring songstress to the burnout eccentric metal head cut from the same cloth as Guns ‘N Roses and Def Leppard.  For this you can thank Chris D’Arienzio – the creator of the Broadway musical on which the film was based.

Before watching a single frame of this film, you know immediately that it is a tricky proposition as it’s a filmed musical. Most screen adaptions of live musicals not named Grease tend to be underwhelming.  That this film is built around 80’s Rock anthems really makes this an even greater stretch.  In the forty minutes that I watched, there wasn’t much to grasp on to.  Occasionally there was the semblance of a plot (romantic and otherwise) to pass the time between the songs, but even the musical numbers felt forced and really poorly choreographed. 

As for the cast, their overall work is subpar from start to finish.  Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta get the most screen time and neither have the charisma and acting chops to carry a movie.  Alec Baldwin, Malin Akerman, and Catherine Zeta-Jones seem painfully out of place in this film, and to Tom Cruise, Bryan Cranston, and Paul Giamatti, I would ask what they were thinking when they signed on the dotted line for this one. Nothing in this film works on any level and I tend to find some entertainment value in just about everything. 

So it should come as no surprise that I am not recommending this movie.  It doesn’t matter if you are a fan of Cruise; you think Julianne Hough is cute; you love 80’s rock; you are in theater troupe; or any other reason you can find to consider this film.  Whatever you can come up with, it won’t be enough.  Bad is just plain bad, and this is something far worse.  For those of you itching for a musical fix, I suggest you wait two weeks and pony up the fourteen dollars to watch Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables on the big screen.  While it’s not really my cup of tea, I can firmly say that it features a superior cast and infinitely better source material.

Standout Performance: Russell Brand.  The guy was asked to play a burn out wannabe rocker who is constantly liquored up, so basically he was asked to play himself.  

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Review: The Ides of March

With a cast that includes Paul Giamatti, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, George Clooney, and current it-boy Ryan Gosling, it isn’t hard to figure out why the buzz for Clooney’s latest directorial effort was so positive.  But I have to go against the grain here and echo what Shakespeare (or not if you believe the nonsense in Emmerich’s forthcoming film) once wrote in Julius Caesar,  “beware the Ides of March.”  It may be the result of expectations, but I walked out of the film feeling completely unimpressed by the dumbing down of political machinations that may occur on the campaign trail.  The most egregious mistake Clooney makes as writer and director is that his film finishes with the message that politics leave its participants cynical and jaded – not exactly an earth-shattering revelation - when in fact it should start with this as a premise and then build out a compelling story.

In a lot of ways, the movie plays out like the Bill Clinton pseudo-biopic “Primary Colors” minus the camp, humor, and overacting.  In its place you get a robust helping of George Clooney’s much publicized political ideologies and as you watch him on screen you can’t help but feel like he is playing out his fantasy of running for office.   As for Gosling, he wilts as the lead of the film and firmly cements himself in the same category as Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds as actors who excel at playing sharp-witted characters in comedic settings, but come off as drab and pedestrian in roles that demand more gravitas.  Case in point: can one believe that Gosling is a sharp political consultant jousting with grizzled veterans Giamatti and Hoffman?  Maybe.  But the important question is…should one even care?  The resounding answer is no.

Not even an ensemble littered with actors recognized by the Academy can save this film from becoming utterly mundane.  For the most part, all the players are solid within the context of what the source materials ask them to do – which is bring their respective B-games.  As you watch these fantastic actors spend far too little time onscreen as mere foils to advance Gosling’s plotline, one can’t help but wonder if the film would have been significantly better had the proceedings centered on someone else.  Surely the blend of paranoia and narcissism that marks Hoffman’s character could have made for a more riveting narrative, or watching Tomei’s journalist meddle and scour for the next headline could have made for better theater.  Ultimately though we are left to watch the least accomplished individual of the principle cast play the least compelling individual of the principle characters.  And that is where the film fails its audience.

This is not a film to be seen in the cinema, but it works as a midweek rental.  You’ll watch it; be moderately entertained for about half of the film, and when it is over shrug your shoulders, turn out the lights, and go to sleep all the while wondering if you missed something in the proceedings that made this film better.  This is probably the last Gosling movie I’ll watch for a while which is no easy fete since he has opted for Nicolas Cage cash grab and take on every film that comes across his plate.  

Notable Performance: Phillip Seymour Hoffman delivers a genuine performance and stands out in limited screen time.

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