Total Recall

Plot: Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a factory worker, who wants a better life, but has nightmares of fighting a revolution against the government. In this Blade Runner-like world, memory manipulation is commonplace, and Quaid pays to have exciting memories inserted into his head like a cheap vacation. Seemingly the treatment goes wrong, and suddenly Quaid is thrust into the middle of a revolution against the government, and his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) is a government minder and super-spy that wants to kill him. Quaid kills dozens and escapes, and meets resistance fighter Melina (Jessica Biel.) He tries to figure out what is real and what is not, then the movie thunders to its action movie climatic conclusion. 

[imdb link]    [photos]

Review: This is a successful summer movie -- lots of action, just a little thoughtful reflection on "What is real?" and a little romance. 

Best parts: I liked the funky city-scapes. I loved the beat-up streets, the texture of the buildings, the signs, the big jaws that hold the train, and all the crowds. I liked the Quaid/Lori fight scenes even if it seems like Lori can never die, and is two places at once. Action movie villains are supposed to be tougher than real life. I liked Jessica Biel, who was tough and likable. I liked how everyone knows more about Quaid than he does. I liked Lori's last gasp attack on Quaid: really surprising.  I liked Bryan Cranston's portrayal of the British Chancellor; especially how he digs in and fights like a super-villian.

Superimposed on the Phillip K Dick story there is another story about the revolution, and it includes an elevator that goes from Britain to Australia through the center of the earth.  It is dumb to criticize Sci-Fi for being impossible, this is more like a fantasy premise. There are also white-plastic garbed storm troopers just like Star Wars.  

Worst parts:  The politics around "The United Federation of Britain" and the "Colony". The half hearted attempt to question whether the whole movie was a dream or real. This was a big theme in the 1990 movie, but it isn't  in the book. It didn't work too well in 2012 version.  At the end the movie speeds along -- action heavy and light on plot. It is cool to see an army of storm troopers like Star Wars, but it is distracting. 

Quaid is fighting a war where he does not know what side he is on because of his memory implants on top of memory implants. Writer Wimmer wants us to question whether we should be killing people if our minds can be changed so easily.

Major Spoiler: I read the original Phillip K. Dick short story this afternoon, and most of the plot of this version is not in the story. The original has the memory implant, Quaid being a revolutionary with a repressed memory, and his wife being a government minder. 

Cast: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston

Directed by: Len Wiseman

Rating: 2.5+ stars: nearly three

More: Somewhere in America,  some one is planning to have  an extra boob sewn on.

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[Batman] The Dark Knight Rises

Plot:  Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has been retired for eight years. Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) shows up at at Wayne Manor to steal Bruce Wayne's fingerprints and a pearl necklace. Catwoman sells the fingerprints to Dagget, a rival millionaire (Ben Mendelsohn.) Dagget hires Bane (Tom Hardy) to takeover a stock exchange and enter false transactions (using the fingerprints) to bankrupt Wayne Industries. Bane has other plans, and creates a mercenary army in the sewers, and using a nuclear bomb stolen from Wayne Industries as bait, he traps the police force underground, and blows up all the bridges. Bane takes over the city and begins to kill the government officials, the police, and rich people generally. Bane gives a speech with pro-communist ideology and releases all the prisoners. Bane then beats up Batman and puts him in prison. Batman eventually escapes, and with help from Commissioner Gordon saves the day. [imdb link]    [photos]

Review: This is a dark tense movie with a lot of pain and striving by all. It is not a feel-good summer escapist blockbuster, because shows a bleak world where neither the rich nor the poor nor the criminals are happy. Bruce Wayne fights purposelessness, and the villains seem to be more ideologically pure than the government. Batman himself is brooding and self-absorbed. Although the bad guys are defeated, the end is not especially happy.

I liked the story because it was complicated and still easy to follow. (Except for the post-ending scene at the end, which was bogus -- see spoiler below.)  There was lots of conflict between well developed characters. 

The music is dramatic, and the special effects are great -- especially the motorcycle rides. The action scenes are not so much spectacular as tense and dramatic. I got a little tired of the helicopter. 

Early there are some 1% vs. 99% lines, and the good guys try to align with the 99%. Once Bane hits the scene with his revolution, the politics goes away and its cops and robbers. The ideology is used to give the villains a purpose, but not more than that. That is Bane is not building a communist utopia after he frees the prisoners from the prisons. 

Cast: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Thomas Hardy, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Rating:   2.5 stars: A good story; more successful as a drama than as an action movie. Fun, but not super fun. 

More: MAJOR SPOILER At the end, Batman saves the city by sacrificing himself, carrying a nuclear bomb away. There is a funeral and nice words, then in a post-ending Alfred (Michael Caine) sees Bruce Wayne in Italy.  What the heck!?  If they wanted a happy scene at the end, then they needed to write a script that delivered one, not just staple it on.  

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To Rome with Love

Plot: To Rome with Love has four comic vignettes set in Rome that are intercut together; there are twenty characters, with so much story that I can't describe it all here. One story is about a mortician who sings opera, but only in the shower; another about two honeymooners who come to Rome who get separated and then hook-up with others; another about a woman who puts up a friend, who then steals her boyfriend; another about a regular guy who suddenly becomes famous for being famous -- and how it affects his life.
[imdb link]    [photos]

Review: Overall, it was a fun movie. Vignettes lend themselves to light comedy. Each of the four stories had well-developed likable characters, and the dialog is always good. The famous guy's (Roberto Benigni) segment is all in Italian with subtitles, but it is easy to follow.

Even though To Rome with Love is all for fun, the stories are intelligent and make an occasional political or societal point.

Alec Baldwin has an interesting role; he starts as a regular character in the story about the boyfriend stealer, but soon he become an on-screen advisor and conscience for the soon-to-be cheating boyfriend -- like a little angel on the shoulder to talk to.

Ellen Page played the girl hustling her friend's boyfriend, and she did a great job creating a character in just a few minutes. The script and dialog were also great.

The movie is a big commercial to visit Rome, but the photography is not super-great. Mostly the people talk about the city, and the best video are simple street scenes.   The music is old-fashioned, and the credits are especially old-fashioned.

Overall, the highlights are the dialog and the light comic fun. The downsides are that he lightness means lack of substance, but its July -- that is OK. Woody Allen gets criticized that his movies are either all the same, or that they are uneven in quality. This one isn't trying to be Annie Hall or Interiors.

Cast: Flavio Parenti, Roberto Benigni, Alison Pill, Ellen Page, Alessandro Tiberi, Judy Davis, Allessandra Mastronardi, Alec Baldwin, Carol Alt, David Pasquesi, Lynn Swanson, Woody Allen, Penelope Cruz

Written and directed by: Woody Allen


Rating:   3.0 stars is a little generous; perhaps 3-: because it was fun; because the dialog was so good; because if you see it you'll like it. 

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More: Better than Midnight in Paris, better than Whatever Works, not as good as Vicky Christina Barcelona.

Even more: Woody Allen is a master of dialog.

Brave

Plot: Merida is a Scottish princess. Her father, Fergus, wants to her to marry a prince from a neighboring clan. They have a contest to pick the best prince, but Merida does not like any of the boys so she runs away, gets a magic spell that back-fires, and that leads to a big plot twist. In the middle of the movie Merida and her mom, Elinor, spend time bonding, while all the men drink and fight -- also act stupid and run around naked. In the end, modern American values triumph over medieval tradition. No spoiler there. [imdb link]    [photos]

Review: This is a good film for moms to see with their little girls. Like all princess movies in the last 40 years, the princess is super-competent, and the values of the film reflect middle class American values -- aside from the pro-monarchy thing. No one is for arranged marriages -- hard to believe you can still build a movie plot on such an idea. 

There is nothing surprising about the  basic story except how conventional it is. The positive aspect is the sequence after the plot twist -- clever and suspenseful -- and I have not seen that before. 

This film is most retro in that all the men are incompetent -- I suppose they needed to be losers so that we did not sympathize with the suitors. Screen-writers know it is possible to have a strong female character in a story that also had likable male characters, but that was not this movie. The guys don't have to be heroes, but maybe someone can not be an idiot or a jerk. 

The core curls in Merida's hair. Here is an article on it.

The best thing about this movie is Merida's hair. It is like its own big fuzzy red character. Computer animation sure has progressed. All the characters and the animals had lots of hair too. We have come a long way from Toy Story.

I also liked the mix of photography with animation in the outdoor scenes. 

In the end, Merida and the princes shirk off any adult duties for an extended childhood.  This is not so unlike what is happening with young adults here and in Europe -- although the economy is a factor in that.  

Written and directed by: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman with  Steve Purcell and Irene Mecchi

Rating:   1.5 stars: not recommended

More: MINOR SPOILER  I wonder if they made this film before or after Sarah Palin made her famous "Momma Grizzly" speech. 

The concept art for Merida

Even more:  Maybe Merida's hair can have a sequel!

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The Amazing Spiderman (3D)

Plot: Amazing Spider-man revisits the Spider-man creation story with Peter as a high school student.  Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) visits his dead father's scientific collaborator, Curt Conners, (Rhys Ifans) and gets bitten by a genetically engineered spider -- and get super powers. Super powers make him more popular at school, but complicate his relationship with his favorite girl, Gwen Stacy, (Emma Stone.) Spider-man fights criminals and then fights an evil lizard man. [imdb link]    [photos]

Review: I did not think it was time to redo the Spider-man origin story again, and I was not excited about seeing it.  Happily, Amazing Spiderman is a better telling of the Spider-man origin story than the 2002 Spider-Man movie. It was better because it was more authentic and less comic. This movie is almost a romance because it spents so much time on the Gwen & Peter love story, and because the acting & dialog were so good. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone really stepped up. All their scenes were engaging, and better than the lizard fighting scenes. To use a cliche' "they had great chemistry." 

Amazing Spiderman was a straight-forward story without campiness or comedy like James Bond or there previous Spiderman series. 

Even though the root cause of the Lizard Man was a greedy chemical company, I did like the positive roles for scientists in the movie. 

I liked the scenes of Spider-man swinging around the streetscape. It looked like so much fun to do that, and it had such energy and grace. I understand it was an animation, but I liked it. I did not think the 3D was effective. The interior scenes had almost no 3D, and the outdoor web swinging scenes did not use the 3D that well. 

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans with Sally Field, Dennis Leary and Martin Sheen

Directed by: Marc Webb -- no really his name is WEBB.  Marc grew up in Madison Wisconsin.

Rating:   3.0 stars: the talking scenes were so good. The action part of the movie was weak and not as suspenseful as it could have been. The action movie effects were competent, but not outstanding.

More: Stay for the extra scene after the first group of credits. 

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Moonrise Kingdom

Notice how they in front of a picture.
This is typical of the humor in the film. 

Plot: Sam (Jared Gilman) escapes from scout camp to meet up with Suzy (Kara Hayward) and together they run away to camp out in the woods. The Sheriff (Bruce Willis), Scoutmaster (Edward Norton), and Suzy's parents (Bill Murray & Frances McDormand) get together with the remaining scouts to search for them. Sam and Suzy are both social misfits who connect in the wilderness. [imdb link]    [photos]

Review: Moonrise Kingdom is absurdist comedy -- campy, satirical, and ridiculous. It is funny because it is ridiculous. Suzy and Sam watch as ridiculousness spins around them. 

Everyone in the movie plays with deadpan earnestness -- different from a sitcom where people act out.  Only Suzy is able to see how silly her situation is. In the end, the audience is suppose to think how ridiculous their lives are.

The adult characters seem like they have back-stories, but they aren't given enough screen time to develop themselves. Generally, the adults provide a back-drop for the kids.

Director Wes Anderson films are all absurdist, existentialist humor. Moonrise Kingdom is more purely absurd than Fantastic Mr Fox, Darjeeling Limited and Life Aquatic. Moonrise Kingdom had more sweetness and emotion than the others. Life Aquatic had the most plot and was the strangest and funniest. Darjeeling Limited had an Ayn Rand political twist that I didn't like. The animated Fantastic Mr Fox was the most entertaining.

In summary, Moonrise Kingdom was always interesting and engaging.  It was fun, occasionally funny.

Cast: Kara Hayward, Jared Gilman, Edward Norton with Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, and Tilda Swinton. 

Written and directed by: Wes Anderson; the humor is similar to other Anderson films. The similarity to the other films makes this seem less fresh. 

Rating:   2.75 stars: Fun, but not super-fun. Interesting, but ultimately without a message beyond the absurdness of life. 

 and 3/4

More: The Narrator (Bob Balaban) is dressed like a traveling gnome, and shows up with silly facts about the island. 

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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Plot: Some old English people move to an old folks apartment-hotel in India to save money in their retirement. Immediately soap opera love stories develop among the old folks. The hotel is broken down, but some of them learn to like it. The hotel owner can't afford to marry his girlfriend, and his mom wants him to sell the hotel.  [imdb link]    [photos]

Review: Marigold Hotel is unpleasant to watch. The individual characters are interesting, but when they talk to each other its boring. Slow pacing and unrealistic dialog kill this movie. None of the relationships are believable. There is constant sermonizing, and offensive racism early in the movie. None of the racist jokes were funny. 

Maybe director Madden thinks that repeated calls to break out of your shell are inspiring, but it is actually old and familiar. Have you ever seen a Hollywood movie where the message is to stay in your shell?  No, it is an overworked movie trope; no amount of stilted language and blank verse voice-overs is going to change that. 

I liked Sonny's (Dev Patel) relentless optimism, especially at the end when things look worst. 

Some of the photography was excellent, especially the texture of the buildings and the wrinkled faces of people. Mostly the scenes were disorganized and chaotic. The pace was too slow for a comedy. 

Cast: Judi Dench, Dev Patel

Directed by: John Madden based on the novel by Deborah Moggach. I have to believe the novel is better than the movie. 

Rating:   1.5- stars

More: Dev Patel was the actor in Slum Dog Millionaire.

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