Blu-Ray Review: The Road

The Road is a movie with a terrible reputation. At one point hoped to be a 2009 Oscar contender, it was quietly released into theaters after many delays and disappeared almost as quietly.  People who've Netflixed it out of curiousity and were perhaps fooled by its terrible trailer that made it look an action movie (the studio had no idea what to do with this film) were turned off by the gruesomness of the post-apocalyptic hellhole that this movie is. 

But if you see this movie when you know what you're getting into, you're going to discover that this is an amazing, criminally underlooked film.  Based on the 2006 Cormac McCarthy novel, The Road is a story about a father and son travelling through a world destroyed by an unknown disaster.  We never find out what caused the world to end, nor do we even learn the main characters' names, but that doesn't matter.  This is a story about survival, and what a father needs to do when his only job left in the world is protect his son. 

Unlike The Lovely Bones, an adaptation that I was so disappointed with, the film version of The Road doesn't pull any punches from the book, even though it doesn't include the book's most gruesome moment (yes, the baby scene, for those of you who've read the book, although it was apparently filmed).  The rest of it is all there, the cannibalism, the starvation, the absolute dread and danger in almost every place they go.  

A movie where much is left unexplained and the characters are nameless wouldn't work without good performances, and here the acting is extraordinary.  In a behind-the-scenes feature on the blu-ray, Viggo Mortensen actually holds up his copy of the book which is filled with notes about the story and his character and you can see every bit of it in his performance.  This is a character who is not a survivalist-type.  Ten years ago he was a normal guy, a husband and an expectant father.  Now he's someone who has to teach his child how to put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger if they get into trouble.  When a man threatens his son and tells him that he knows he's never shot anyone, he's right.  You sympathize with him because he's not an action hero.  He was such perfect casting for this role and it's unfortunate it went mostly unrecognized at awards time.

The same can be said for Kodi Smit-McPhee as the boy.  First of all, the kid is Australian, but you never know it watching the movie because his American accent is flawless.  Obviously, this is a tough role, not just because the things he goes through are horrible (again, he's barely 10 and he knows how to blow his brains out), but it's a character that played wrong could run the risk of becoming annoying.  But he's an amazing little actor, and his performance was downright heartbreaking.  There comes a point in the movie where you realize he's protecting his father almost as much as his father is protecting him, and their chemistry onscreen together is flawless. 

The movie also features Charlize Theron, who appears in flashbacks as the wife of Viggo's character, and is given a little more to do than she did in the book (although she ends the same way).  A barely-recognizable Robert Duvall has a small, but memorable role as a fellow survivor.  But it's the performance of Michael K. Williams as The Thief that's sticks in your head long after the movie has ended.

Director John Hillcoat really got this book, and he made an incredible film.  Yes, it's as depressing and disturbing as everyone says it is, and the ending is as ambiguous as the rest of the story was.  But regardless, I recommend giving it a chance.  It's a terrific film. 

Eclipse

Hey, did you guys know there was a new movie released this week to go along with the Twilight saga? Yep, Eclipse, the third installment in the series hit theaters Monday night at midnight, and it seems that you can’t go anywhere without hearing something about it.

I like to keep my reviews somewhat light on spoilers, but, for those of you who don’t want any knowledge of the film before seeing it for yourself, you may want to skip to the next article.

It starts off with an opening scene that, at that point, I considered to be the best of the trilogy. In a way, it mirrored the opening scene of The Lost Boys, where the cop runs from the camera, scared for his life by whatever was after him. There’s a lot of quick, sweeping camera movement that can never quite catch up to what we as the audienc knows to be a vampire, but is scaring the bejeezies out of the teenage boy in peril. The scene cuts away with him looking down at his bleeding hand and screaming.

Obviously the movie picks up right where New Moon left off with Edward trying to get Bella to agree to marry him and Bella trying to get him to turn her into a soulless, bloodsucking monster of movie making proportions. I’m sorry. Is that politically incorrect? The agreement is still in place that he’ll turn her after graduation and they’ll be wed, but as the film progresses, although she never admits it aloud, she seemingly has second thoughts due to the fact that she would have to say goodbye to her family and Jacob forever.

You remember Jacob, right? You know, Sharkboy. He plays a bigger part in this story, and the tension between him and Edward over Bella’s affection provides some much needed comedic relief that I personally didn’t think existed in the first two movies.

With a new (and old) threat on the horizon, Edward agrees to leave Bella in Jacob’s care while he joins his covenant to feed and prepare for an upcoming battle with a clan of newborn vampires, who we learn is stronger than older vampires, because some of their human blood is still in their body. I guess that’s how it is in Washington. Down in Bon Temps, LA, the older the vampire is the stronger they are. But that’s a fang of a different color, I guess.  

During her stay with the wolf pack, so to speak, Bella is subject to a story about the tribe’s past that explains the on-going war between the wolves and the “cold ones”.

To match that bit of history, we also get separate back stories on Jasper and Rosalie.

It was during the history channel version of Rosalie that I realized why I was enjoying the film more than its predecessors. It actually had a little grown up material in it. Although, thankfully for the younger crowd it didn’t show it, she eludes to the fact that she was gang raped and left in the street to die before she was turned. Then, of course, she took her revenge on all of her assailants.

Another big plus was the improvement of special effects. I hated, HATED, the scene in the first film where Edward climbed the tree with Bella on his back, because of the obvious cable work. It looked cheap. I’m thinking maybe the director saw the same thing, albeit too late, and decided to go a different direction. They also created a new method of destroying vampires, in which they crumble like stone statues. It was a pretty impressive idea when dealing with younger audiences. Especially since one of the main scenes ends with a decapitation. I would assume that a preteen girl would much rather see broken concrete lying on the ground between a body and its head.

So, all in all, it really was a pretty decent film. You have the obvious love triangle between Jacob, Bella and Edward. You have the immediate duel threat of the vampire army and its leader, along with the looming threat of the Volturi, who watched over the entire proceedings without interference, and then Bella’s weighted decision of leaving her life behind her. All that topped with a smoother arrangement of special effects and camera work makes for an unexpected fun time in the theater.

Knight & Day

Let me just start by saying Tom Cruise is the man! He's only thing keeping you interested to the end. Which sucks, because its hard to fully enjoy any movie where one person has to carry the show on their shoulders.

The plot makes little to no sense, but you roll with it for the first bit anyways. Roy Miller aka Matt Knight (Tom Cruise) is a CIA secret agent who was assigned to guard a brilliant young scientist with another agent. But the other agent planned to steal the technology and sell it to the bad guys. All this actually happens off screen, but Knight fills us in. He uses June havens (Cameron Diaz) as a mule at the airport to bring the "zephyr" (the technology) through customs, but she has no idea she's being used. The CIA then puts June on a plane with Knight where they plan to kill him and retrieve the "zephyr". In an amazing opening sequence Knight kills everyone on board (all bad guys), crash lands the plane, drugs June, and then disappears.

In another off screen set up he drops her at home and leaves her several notes for instructions. There are very few plot twists you don't already see coming, and dialogue that was meant to be funny but wasn't. What you end with is a very predictable but fun story that definitely runs too long, and with the wrong actress along side Cruise.

If you're going into this as pumped as I was after seeing the trailers. I'd lower your expectations some. Cruise delivers everything you'd expect from him in a role we almost always see him in. Diaz on the other hand was terrible for the first half or more of the film. It's not until the third act that she actually seems to show up ready to act. Another disappointment was Peter Sarsgaard, who normally I would  praise his acting, but in this scenario he seemed to have just phoned in his performance as well.

The other big down fall for Knight and Day is the Score. It doesn't at all follow the plot very well, and in no way resembles anything you heard in the trailer. The adrenaline pumped up tempo music we hear through out the trailer during action sequences in nowhere to be found. The action sequences themselves were actually pretty awesome, but the story felt like it was dragged on 20 minutes too long.

For a generic and predictable plot Tom Cruise gives you a few things to enjoy. But its not nearly enough to ignore the other weak performances or plot holes. I'm sure Cruise fanatics, if there's any left will love this no matter what me or anyone else tells them. The general audience on the other hand is not likely to pass word of mouth on nearly as much as the studio would hope for.

I'm giving Knight and Day an overall 6/10

Toy Story 3

Pixar's brilliance has been reported to the point of nausea this week with the release of Toy Story 3, which had scored a stunning 100% on Rotten Tomatoes after 139 reviews until two jerks had to go and screw that up (I'm looking at you, Armand White and Cole Smithey).

Having seen the film this morning in IMAX/3D, I'm just going to repeat what everyone else is saying, because it's true:  Pixar is freakin' brilliant, and while it may only be June, it's going to be hard to top Toy Story 3 as the best movie of the year.  It's as hilarious as it is complex right up to its heartbreaking, but perfect ending.

The toys' beloved owner Andy is now a teenager.  He's outgrown most of his old toys (sorry Wheezy and Bo Peep), but a few favorites have lingered in a toybox, where they haven't been played with in years.  With Andy about to leave for college, Woody and the gang prepare themselves to be moved to the attic for storage.  But after a mixup with a garbage bag nearly gets them tossed out with the trash, the toys wind up being donated to a local daycare.

At first, this doesn't seem like a terrible fate.  The toys are desperate to be played with again, and after a tour from the strawberry-scented Lotso-Huggin' Bear, Sunnyside Daycare seems like a post-Andy paradise.  But it turns out that Lotso isn't quite the cuddly friend he appears to be, and they wind up being terrorized in the daycare's toddler room.  Woody, who of course knows that Andy hadn't thrown them out on purpose, stages a daring prison break to save his friends and get everyone home.

The film is a little darker in tone than the first two films.  They both dealt with growing up and being outgrown of, but in this film it's finally happened.  Like Jessie the Cowgirl, Lotso's story is told in a sad flashback, but his story leaves him angry and vengeful, making him an even worse villian than Sid or Stinky Pete ever were.  The final action sequence at a landfill was scary enough that I was amazed it managed to keep the G-rating.

Like I said at the top of the review, I saw it in 3D.  You don't need to.  Like last year's Up, the 3D enchances everything to the point where you kind of forget you're watching a 3D movie after awhile, and it looks fantastic, but I'm thinking its got to be just as good in 2D. 

But it's funny as well, from Buzz Lightyear getting stuck in Spanish mode to scene-stealing moments from Michael Keaton as Ken, all keep you from getting too miserable at any point during the movie. 

A lot has been said about the tearjerker ending, and it is a tearjerker.  There was a lot of sniffling going on in the show I saw this morning.  But it's not a sad ending at all.  I won't go into specifics about it, but it does confirm something we've know all along - that Andy loves these toys as much as we do.

An amazing finale to an incredible trilogy.  Definitely see it.

A Team (2010)

The A Team is based on the popular 80's TV series of the same. But for those of you who haven't seen the show. The premise is about four American military rangers screwed over by their own government, and then forced into exile after they help one another escape from various maximum security prisons around the world. They then seek revenge, naturally, on the bastards specifically responsible for ruining their reputations.

Liam Neeson leads the group, Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith a seasoned war vet who always has a plan. Bradley Cooper is the smooth talking ladies man lieutenant Templeton “Face” Peck, yes that's really his name. Sharlto Copley is the hilarious Looney tunes Captain H.M. Murdock, a pilot that can fly anything... even a tank. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson takes on the role of B.A. Baracus from Mr T best known for the role, and his catch phrase "I pity the fool". The acting from the main cast was on par with the story. The dialogue was almost always cheesy, but it worked nicely coming this group of actors.

The first 15 minutes are used to quickly establish somewhat of an origin for the team, and how they came to know one another and work together. Once we get that out of the way let the cheese and senseless action begin. After being set up by their own government upon completion of a covert operation they were ordered to do. They are sent to different maximum security prisons throughout the world. Not to worry the the same guys that put them in their will oddly enough be helping them to break out.

The plot revolves around a scandal within the CIA involving US currency printing plates, and the General believed to have ordered the mission to retrieve them from Saddam Hussein. After escaping from prison they set out to find the corrupt CIA operative that screwed them over, but they're also being chased by the Department of Defense as Federal Fugitives.

The story sounds simple and even generic when described, but with out spoiling anything for anyone The A Team is always two steps ahead of everyone else. The clever plan executed in the climax, and the action leading up to it were actually very impressive.

The action scenes, and there were plenty, were fun. The scene where they attempt to fly a tank after dropping from the plane they were in that blew up was great. But not nearly the best sequence of the film. The Spider-Man franchise could learn a thing or two from them about a falling action scene, you'll know what I mean when you see it.

Even with all the cheesy dialogue and plot holes The A Team was a really fun popcorn flick.

I'm giving it an overall 6.5/10