Archive for gary oldman

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)

Posted in 2012, Action Movies, Based on Comic Book, Cinema Knife Fights, DC Comics, Revenge!, Superheroes with tags , , , , , , , , on July 24, 2012 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)
By Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(SCENE: INTERIOR OF THE BAT CAVE. MICHAEL ARRUDA enters and presses a button that opens a secret panel. Inside is a BATMAN costume, which he puts on. He is next seen standing in front of a mirror, looking at himself)

ARRUDA
(Looks very serious)

I’m Batman.

(L.L. SOARES suddenly appears behind him, also wearing a BATMAN costume.

SOARES

No, I’m Batman.

ARRUDA

Not this again! We can’t both be Batman!

SOARES

That’s right. So you’ll have to change.

ARRUDA

I was Batman first.

(ALFRED the Butler arrives and pushes the two of them apart)

ALFRED

Enough of this fighting! You two hooligans have a movie to review.

SOARES

He’s right, you know. Alfred’s always right.

ARRUDA

Then why don’t you start it off, then.

SOARES

Maybe I will!

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012) is the third movie in the Batman trilogy by director Christopher Nolan, which began with BATMAN BEGINS (2005) and THE DARK KNIGHT (2008). As this new movie begins, it is eight years after the events of the last one. The death of Harvey Dent, the crusading district attorney who was also the villainous Two-Face in the last movie, has been blamed on Batman. Bruce Wayne—who is Batman’s alter ego for anyone who just arrived from Mars…

(JOHN CARTER walks by.)

JOHN CARTER

Thanks for letting me know.

SOARES

So, as I was saying, Bruce Wayne not only retired his caped persona, he completely retired from the outside world, holing up in his room and becoming a mysterious, unseen figure who everyone thinks is a reclusive nut like Howard Hughes. Wayne now walks with a cane and has his meals delivered to his room by servants.

Enter Selina Kyle, a waitress for a party at Wayne’s mansion, who is really a nefarious cat burglar (although she is never called it in the movie, she’s obviously the Batman nemesis Catwoman!!). She sneaks up into Bruce Wayne’s room to deliver his dinner, and robs his safe in the process. He lets her get away because he has a tracking device on the pearl necklace she swiped.

ARRUDA

Actually, the movie begins with a bang with the villain Bane kidnapping a Russian scientist from an airplane in mid-flight. It’s a rapid-fire action scene, that was very Bond-like.

SOARES

True enough. I liked that scene a lot, by the way, and I wish the whole movie was as action-packed.

What makes Bruce Wayne return to the world, especially his beloved Gotham City, is the arrival of the murderous Bane, who takes up residence in the sewers of the city, with an army of mercenaries who will do anything for him, even die. As Wayne (and we) eventually learns, his past and Bane’s are actually linked. And in this bad guy, Batman might have finally met his match.

So Bane is the main baddie here, but Selina Kyle shows up a lot to provide more villainy, although hers is less obviously bad, since there’s a lot of sexual tension between her and Batman. In a lot of ways, Catwoman seems more like an anti-hero who makes her living stealing expensive stuff than a true villain. And while there are moments when she proves she might not be the best person to trust, there are other scenes that give her a chance to redeem herself.

By the time Bane has taken over Gotham City with his gang of thugs, cutting the city off from the outside world by blowing up all ways out, and getting that previously mentioned Russian scientist to activate a nuclear bomb (formerly a fusion device to create unlimited clean fuel, but now turned into a weapon)in order to hold the city ransom, the story has become a comic book-inspired epic with only Batman standing between the life and death of Gotham! Bane tells the citizenry that he is doing this for their own good—leading a revolution to give the city back to the people—a revolution that includes freeing all violent convicts from their prison for some reason…

Of course, Batman isn’t much help later on in the movie when his back is broken!

ARRUDA

Yes, his back is broken, but not his spirit.

SOARES

Well, once again, Christopher Nolan delivers a big, nicely shot film with lots of atmosphere. Let’s face it, Nolan movies look great.

ARRUDA

I agree.

SOARES

But I had some big problems with this one. While I thought it looked good, and I liked the story for the most part, I thought THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was way too long, and that the pacing was incredibly slow at times.

ARRUDA

I don’t know if I’d call it incredibly slow, but yes, there were some parts where things slowed down a bit.

SOARES

This is not the first time I’ve felt this way about a Nolan movie. Both of his previous Batman films were over two hours long as well, with BATMAN BEGINS clocking in at 140 minutes and THE DARK KNIGHT coming in at 152 minutes. But THE DARK KNIGHT RISES has them both beat, clocking in at 164 minutes—well over two and a half hours!—and there were lots of times when the movie felt that long to me, if not longer. Instead of being an action movie, more than half of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is an inaction movie. But this isn’t just the case with his Batman movies. I felt the same way about Nolan’s INCEPTION (2010), which was also big and complex and ambitious and flashy, but also painfully slow at times. This guy needs an editor who can actually say “no” sometimes. And if he finds one, he should lend the person out to Martin Scorsese, too, who has been just as indulgent the last couple of decades.

I just really don’t like the pacing here at all. And I think Nolan is only able to get away with this because he’s considered a director with “vision” —and the fact that these movies make a ton of money!

In comparison, a movie like Marvel’s THE AVENGERS is a lot less complex, but twice as much fun.

ARRUDA

Yes, THE AVENGERS is more fun, and I definitely liked THE AVENGERS more than THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, but it’s more fun because the whole Marvel superhero world is more fun than the darker DC Batman world.

 SOARES

But there’s a lot to like here as well. The performances by the lead characters are great. Christian Bale again plays Bruce Wayne/Batman, and he does a decent job here, even if I think Batman is a lot more interesting than Wayne.

ARRUDA

I would have to say that of his three performances as Batman, Bale impressed me the most here in this movie.  I bought that he had given up on the world, after the death of his girlfriend Rachel in THE DARK KNIGHT.  I liked his Bruce Wayne scenes here much more than in the other two movies, I think because he wasn’t going around as the silly billionaire playboy.  Bruce Wayne seems to be facing some problem in nearly every scene he’s in.

And I really felt his anger as Batman when he was trying to defeat Bane and failing.  Batman feeds off this anger as the movie goes on, and he uses it to drive himself to get back into shape, to heal his body and break out of prison and eventually get back to Gotham.

I really enjoyed Christian Bale’s performance in this movie, more so than in the previous two Batman movies.

SOARES

Anne Hathaway actually surprised me as Selina Kyle/ Catwoman. I have to admit, when I first heard she had been cast in the role, I thought it was a mistake, but she turns out to be one of the best things about THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. She’s pretty much perfect in her scenes, and I wished she was onscreen more!

(CATWOMAN pops up in a window)

CATWOMAN

That’s a simply puuurrrr-fect description of my role in this movie.

SOARES

Why thank you!

ARRUDA

I liked Hathaway a lot too.  She delivers a fine performance. However, I was more wowed by Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in BATMAN RETURNS (1992).  Of the two, Pfeiffer delivered the more dominating performance.

(THE PENGUIN pops up from under the floor)

PENGUIN

But how come I’m not in this one? Quack quack quack.

CATWOMAN

You can’t be in all the movies.

PENGUIN

But I’ve never even heard of this Bane guy before. Quack quack.

SOARES

I always wondered, Mr. Penguin. Why do you always quack like a duck when you’re supposed to be a penguin?

PENGUIN

How dare you, you whippersnapper! I might just whack you with my old umbrella. Quack quack quack.

ARRUDA

I always wondered that too.

CATWOMAN

Me, too!

SOARES

I don’t think he knows a whole lot about birds.

ALFRED

The real Batman is on his way! He’s coming!

PENGUIN

Yikes! I better waddle out of here! Quack quack.

CATWOMAN

Me, too!

SOARES

I also really liked Tom Hardy as Bane. Not only is he a character who underwent the same physical training as Batman, and is not just brawn but brains as well, but his fight scenes with Batman are very intense and really seem dangerous. He’s a formidable bad guy who isn’t afraid to get his hands (or anything else) dirty, and Hardy makes him pretty menacing. With his thick, muscular body, and a freaky mask that looks like something out of the SAW films, Bane is visually intimidating as well.

ARRUDA

I liked Hardy a lot too, and his performance as Bane was one of my favorite parts of the movie. As you said, he’s a formidable foe—brutal, scary, and intense—and that first fight scene between Bane and Batman is one of the better scenes in the movie.  You really feel that Batman just wants to pound this guy, but since they’re so evenly matched, he can’t, and then, once Bane gets the upper hand, the shift in power make Bane all the more deadly and reduces Batman to a near-dead prisoner.

SOARES

I thought that fight scene, especially, was amazing. It’s so visceral. It has more in common with a great boxing movie than a superhero movie.

ARRUDA

I had heard that it was really difficult to understand what Bane was saying in the movie, but I didn’t find this to be the case.  Other than maybe for a brief line here and there, I understood him fine.

SOARES

Yeah, I understood him for the most part, too. But with that intricate mask of his, it is sometimes a little difficult to hear what he’s saying. Before I saw the movie, I’d heard a lot of people saying it was hard to hear him, too, but I noticed, if you listen carefully enough, it’s not that bad. Rumor has it that, for the final movie, Hardy redubbed some of his lines to make them more understandable, and yet sometimes you still have to listen closely to figure out what’s being said. For a big summer blockbuster, I don’t understand why his voice couldn’t have been even clearer. You shouldn’t have to struggle at all to hear a main character talk every time he’s onscreen.

ARRUDA

Like I said, I didn’t have a problem with this at all.

SOARES

I also thought Hardy should be applauded for keeping his mask on throughout the movie. If you notice, most actors want you to see their real face as much as possible. Think of Iron Man, who, even when he’s suited up, we get to see inside the helmet to see Robert Downey Jr.’s face a lot. It’s no doubt a matter of ego—actors, by nature, want to be seen—but in the comics, masks are a big party of the story, and movies that give us a lot of unnecessary unmaskings just to appease actors’ vanity (the Tobey Maguire SPIDER-MAN movies come instantly to mind) just annoy the hell out of me. If you’re going to play a masked character, go all the way with it, and Hardy does just that. But it doesn’t matter if you get to see his real face or not; he’s terrific in the role, and not seeing his face actually makes his character even darker. You forget that Tom Hardy is playing him and believe that this is Bane onscreen. The illusion isn’t broken.

As for the other characters in the movie, I always feel that the masked characters are the most interesting ones in a Batman movie, and I don’t care about the “normal” people as much. And the same is true here. No matter how much I think Gary Oldman is a great actor, his Commissioner Gordon mostly bores me to tears, as do most of the characters who aren’t the “big three.” Even Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a “cop with a secret,” while he might be the most compelling of the “civilian” characters, wasn’t exactly all that riveting a lot of the time. And Michael Caine is an acting legend, but his Alfred Pennyworth is one of his more mediocre roles at best.

ALFRED

How dare you!

ARRUDA

The role might be mediocre, but Caine certainly isn’t!  He’s excellent here as Alfred.  The same can be said for Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon.  Neither one of these guys is boring.

SOARES

Says you!

ARRUDA

And while Joseph Gordon-Levitt is very good here, I felt the movie spent too much time on him.  I would have rather seen more Catwoman scenes.

SOARES

Me, too. More Catwoman!!

But I’ve felt this way about all of the Nolan Batman movies, and thought this was the most glaring in the middle film, THE DARK KNIGHT, which might also have been the best film of the trilogy, where compared to Batman, Two-Face and especially Heath Ledger’s amazing turn as the Joker, the normal people were a total snooze.

ARRUDA

I completely disagree!  There’s not a boring nanosecond in THE DARK KNIGHT, what are you talking about?

SOARES

Maybe if you weren’t such a fawning fanboy, you’d know what I’m talking about. The whole Asian gangster storyline in THE DARK KNIGHT especially, is tedious as hell. The slowness of the rest of the movie is what makes the Joker scenes even better, because Heath Ledger is the only one in the movie with a real pulse!

ARRUDA

That’s crap.  The Asian gangster storyline in THE DARK KNIGHT isn’t dull at all.  Have you forgotten the scene where Batman abducts the head Asian gangster from his heavily guarded skyscraper in a daring airplane escape, not to mention the scene where the Joker humiliates the Asian villains in front of the other gangsters?

But we should move on from THE DARK KNIGHT and get back to today’s movie, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.

SOARES

What this means is when costumed characters on not onscreen, the movie lags. And when a movie has as many pacing problems as THE DARK KNIGHT RISES does to begin with, this can be a little painful.

(A strange little creature appears out of thin air, dressed in a little Batman outfit)

SOARES

Who the hell are you?

BAT MITE

I’m Bat Mite! Don’t you recognize me from the old Batman cartoons of the 1970s? They added me so that little kids would watch the show. How come I’m not in this movie?

ARRUDA

Maybe because you’re awful.

SOARES

Yeah, for some reason I think you’d be out of place in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. You’re kind of a silly character.

BAT MITE

Silly? How dare you! I’ll have you know that I was even more popular than Scrappy Doo!

ALFRED

The real Batman’s coming! He’s almost here!

BAT MITE

Yikes, I better get out of here before he yells at me!

(BAT MITE disappears in a puff of smoke)

SOARES

I never understood what kind of creature Bat Mite was supposed to be. Do you know?

ARRUDA

Enough about that. Finish the review before the real Batman catches us here!

SOARES

Okay.

The screenplay by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan (based on a story by Christopher Nolan and comic book-screenwriter extraordinaire David S. Goyer)is uneven, but has a lot of potential. With a decent editor, tighter pacing, and the removal of unnecessary scenes that do not further the plot, this script, and the movie, could have been terrific. But it’s weakened a lot by its inability to keep things brisk and exciting throughout.

There are also lots of holes in logic if you look at it closely, one of which is how Bane and his gang were able to occupy Gotham for three whole months without the government or anyone else being able to stop them. And where are the other superheroes in the DC Universe? I guess they don’t exist in Nolan’s movies, but Superman could have been a big help here.

And, when Bruce Wayne finds himself in a weird prison called The Pit in another country, how does he get back to Gotham City when he finally finds his way out? It looks like he’s in the Middle East somewhere. And it’s not like they left him with his wallet and American Express traveler’s checks.

And did I mention the movie lags at times?

I thought there was a lot to like about THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, but also plenty that inhibited it from being the masterpiece Nolan set out to make. It’s more a movie with lots of potential than one that totally delivers the goods. For that reason, I give it three knives out of five,  mostly because of the film’s epic scope and the fine acting of the leads.

What did you think of it, Michael?

ARRUDA

I liked it, but I can’t say that I loved it.

I can’t ignore the inevitable comparison to THE DARK KNIGHT, a movie that fired on all cylinders and was nearly perfect in its execution.  It’s nearly impossible to repeat perfection, and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is no exception.  I agree with what you said about it being uneven.

First and foremost, the story isn’t as strong as the story in THE DARK KNIGHT.  I understood completely where the Joker was coming from in THE DARK KNIGHT and what he was doing.  He was all about one thing:  chaos.  It was simple, but it worked.

SOARES

Not entirely. The Joker’s storyline worked. Even the Two-Face stuff was pretty good. But the rest of it wasn’t all that compelling. I actually think, in some ways, the story in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was a little better.

ARRUDA

I thought THE DARK KNIGHT story was tighter and much more compelling from start to finish.

Back to THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, I didn’t find Bane’s motives quite as easy to understand, and as much as I liked Bane as a villain, Tom Hardy doesn’t quite match the brilliance of what Heath Ledger did with his Joker.

SOARES

The characters are as different as apples and oranges. Bane was powerful and visceral and mostly spoke with his fists. The Joker was compelling because he was completely insane and unpredictable. Of course the more flamboyant role is going to be more entertaining.

ARRUDA

I don’t care if they’re not the same type of character.  They’re both villains, and as such, Ledger’s performance as the Joker was off the charts.  Hardy’s performance as Bane wasn’t.

The action scenes all looked good, but none of them really blew me away.  I did like that first fight scene between Batman and Bane, but the second time they meet, the fight should have been better, but it’s not.  That was disappointing.

I mentioned earlier how the opening scene was very James Bond-like, but at times, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES reminded me of another movie series:  ROCKY.  Like Rocky Balboa, Batman loses his “bout” to a stronger foe midway through the film, and then he has to train his older, broken body to fight against a stronger foe.  I could almost hear Bill Conti’s ROCKY theme playing when Batman was building himself back up in that prison.

Like you, I wasn’t wowed by the screenplay, thought there were too many characters, and would have preferred a tighter story about Batman, Catwoman, and Bane, because I really liked these three characters.

And again, I think this was Bale’s best performance as Batman.

I place THE DARK KNIGHT RISES in the middle of Nolan’s Batman trilogy, behind THE DARK KNIGHT but better than the first one, BATMAN BEGINS.

I give THE DARK KNIGHT RISES three knives.

 SOARES

That’s all? I was sure you were going to like this movie more than I did!

ARRUDA

In my book, three knives is a very good rating.  I view two and a half knives as average, and I certainly found THE DARK KNIGHT RISES to be above average.

SOARES

Barely…

(The REAL BATMAN enters the room and is shocked to find two imposters wearing his costume)

REAL BATMAN

Alfred, what’s going on here? Who are these two idiots?

ALFRED

I have no idea, sir. I told them they couldn’t stay here, but they won’t leave.

ARRUDA

Uh oh, I guess we’ll have to wrap this one up.

SOARES

Yeah, thanks a lot for finking on us, Alfred! (to Arruda) We better get out of here before he tries to break our backs.

REAL BATMAN

(Shaking his fist)

I’ll get you two yet!

-END-

© Copyright 2012 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

Michael Arruda gives THE DARK KNIGHT RISES~three knives.

LL Soares also gives THE DARK KNIGHT RISES ~three knives.

2 Comments »

RED RIDING HOOD

Posted in 2011, Horror, Michael Arruda Reviews, Monsters, Werewolf Movies with tags , , , , , , , on March 22, 2011 by knifefighter

MOVIE REVIEW:  RED RIDING HOOD (2011)
By Michael Arruda

 

 

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I liked RED RIDING HOOD. I liked it a lot.

Oh, I REALLY wanted to hate it. I wanted it to be a TWILIGHT clone, just as horribly boring and painful, and since it was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, the woman who directed the first TWILIGHT movie, I figured it would be. I certainly didn’t want to be the only critic in the world singing this movie’s praises, but in this business you gotta tell the truth, and the truth is, there’s a lot to like about RED RIDING HOOD.

We all could have been saved a lot of trouble had the filmmakers decided not to make a movie about Red Riding Hood but just about a werewolf terrorizing a medieval village instead. I mean, why in the world would any adult want to make a movie about Little Red Riding Hood that wasn’t a kid’s movie?  What were they thinking?  Truth be told, the WORST part about RED RIDING HOOD is its title, and I think a lot of people might not be able to get past the fact that they’re watching a story based on a well-known fairy tale. It’s based on Little Red Riding Hood, so it must be stupid!  Well, it’s not.

Forget about the name “Red Riding Hood,” and what you have is a movie about a medieval village terrorized by a savage monstrous werewolf. That’s not such a bad story.

And that’s one of the strengths of this movie. It tells a good story.

In a medieval village in some picturesque unnamed mountainous location, Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is in love with Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) but her marriage has been arranged, and she is to marry Henry (Max Irons), since he’s wealthier than the lowly Peter, who is just an orphaned woodcutter. Fate intervenes when Valerie’s sister is murdered by the werewolf that’s been terrorizing the village for years.

In frustration, the men of the village decide to take it upon themselves to hunt down and kill the werewolf once and for all. The men do indeed hunt down and kill a wolf, but Henry’s father is a casualty of the hunt and is killed by the wolf.

Just as the village is about to celebrate, the famed werewolf hunter Solomon (Gary Oldman) arrives with his entourage of werewolf hunters, and he announces to the village that they have killed an ordinary wolf, that the werewolf is still at large. Solomon explains he knows about werewolves firsthand and their secret identities, because years before as he and his men went out to hunt a werewolf that had been terrorizing his village, he cut off the beast’s hand, and when he returned home, he found his wife bleeding to death, missing her hand.

He tells them the werewolf is still alive and most likely is one of the people living right there in their village.

The villagers basically tell Solomon to go to hell, that they’re going to party anyway, and they do. During the celebration, the werewolf does attack and kills a whole bunch of people, including some of Solomon’s men. The beast eventually escapes, but not before it corners Valerie and speaks to her—at least, Valerie understands its language, others only hear growls. The wolf tells her he wants to take her away with him into the countryside and make her into a creature like him.

When Solomon learns that Valerie communicated with the werewolf, he arrests her for witchcraft, a charge she doesn’t deny since she admits to understanding the werewolf. She also tells him what the wolf said to her, which gives Solomon the idea to use her as bait. Since the werewolf wants her, he will come for her.

And come for her he does. Valerie escapes and eventually finds her way to her grandmother’s house, and it is there, just as in the fairy tale, where the mystery is resolved, the werewolf’s identity is revealed, and Valerie’s fate is sealed.

I realize this movie is getting slammed by a lot of critics, but I have to tell you, I was entertained throughout, and when all was said and done, I really liked this one.

First off, RED RIDING HOOD looks terrific. Admittedly, I’m a sucker for period pieces, and the sets and costumes brought back memories of Hammer Films in their heyday, even though Hammer’s stories were primarily 19th century stories, and this one takes place during medieval times. RED RIDING HOOD looks better than SEASON OF THE WITCH (2011), which also took place during medieval times.

The costumes by Cindy Evans were excellent, as was the use of color and cinematography by Mandy Walker. Sure, a lot of the long shots of the village are CGI, but this is a fantasy, and the look really works here. The movie doesn’t suffer for it.

And yes, director Catherine Hardwicke directed the first TWILIGHT movie, and so the obvious comparisons must follow, but I’m here to tell you, as someone who suffered through those TWILIGHT movies, RED RIDING HOOD is much better than the films in that series. Sure, there are teens in love in both movies, but the characters in this one aren’t annoying. And stuff actually happens in this movie! It’s not boring.

I actually thought Hardwicke did a really good job at the helm. The werewolf scenes are actually pretty cool in this one, and the celebration scene, the feast where the villagers celebrate the “death” of the werewolf, was surprisingly erotic and reminded me of something you’d see in THE WICKER MAN (1973).

A lot has been made of the weak story, but I found the story pretty darn interesting, and I enjoyed the screenplay by David Johnson.  He also wrote ORPHAN, which was one of my favorite movies from 2009. I thought the mystery regarding the identity of the werewolf really worked here. The story does a good job of keeping you guessing. Nearly everyone Valerie comes in contact with is a suspect.

Speaking of Valerie, that’s another reason this movie is better than TWILIGHT. RED RIDING HOOD has Amanda Seyfried in the lead role. Seyfried, who we saw in CHLOE (2009) is beautiful, and she’s amazing to watch. She projects such a strong sexuality to her roles, she’s almost hypnotic. I could watch her act all day.

The rest of the cast is also very good. Gary Oldman as the tyrannical werewolf hunter Solomon – so driven he wears silver fingernails—provides his usual stellar performance. It’s nothing we haven’t seen him do before, but he’s damn good at it!

I thought both Shiloh Fernandez as Peter and Max Irons as Henry were very likeable. They were certainly more enjoyable to watch than Edward the vampire and the buff shirtless werewolf, Jacob, from the TWILIGHT series.

Julie Christie was excellent as grandmother, as were Billy Burke (Bella’s dad from TWILIGHT) as Valerie’s dad and Virginia Madsen (THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT (2009)] as her mom. Lukas Haas also stood out as Father Auguste, the young priest who at first admires Solomon but soon grows wary of his overzealous methods. I was really surprised by how interesting all these characters were.

Now, the werewolf itself— yes, it’s CGI created, and no, it’s not quite as good as what we saw in THE WOLFMAN (2010), but it is much better than the cutesy creatures we saw in TWILIGHT. This werewolf is even a little scary, and to be honest, in a story like this, based on the Red Riding Hood fairy tale, the look of beast works.

A talking werewolf could have been incredibly awful, but its mouth doesn’t move, and so it doesn’t play like a character in a kids’ movie.

I also really enjoyed the music score by Alex Heffes and Brian Reitzell. It was lively, haunting, and erotic, all in the right places.

RED RIDING HOOD is not hardcore horror. But it is an entertaining well-made movie that tells a compelling story about a monstrous werewolf terrorizing a medieval village, has likeable characters, provides a decent mystery, and sports above-average special effects. I like a good werewolf story, and as werewolves stories go, RED RIDING HOOD is excellent.

—-END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda

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FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS – Part 3 – Who Was the Best Dracula?

Posted in 2011, Cinema Knife Fights, Classic Films, Dracula, Friday Night Knife Fights, Hammer Films, Universal Horror Films, Vampire Movies with tags , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2011 by knifefighter

FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS:  BELA LUGOSI vs. CHRISTOPHER LEE
WHO IS THE ULTIMATE MOVIE DRACULA?
With MICHAEL ARRUDA & L.L. SOARES

PART 3 (CONCLUSION)

(The Scene: Back at the Cinema Knife Fight studio.  MICHAEL ARRUDA & L.L. SOARES are seated across from each other on stools.  Behind them are movie stills featuring Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee as DRACULA, as well as photos of Count Chocula and The Count from SESAME STREET.)

MA:  Welcome back to Friday Night Knife Fights.  Tonight, L.L. and I will conclude our discussion of Bela Lugosi vs. Christopher Lee and decide which one is the ultimate movie Dracula.  Lugosi came out on top after our Round 1 discussion two weeks ago, and Lee won the second round last week, so tonight’s third and final round will decide the victor.

Time for the final question.  It’s actually several questions.

LS:  Make up your mind.

MA:  I can’t.  Anyway, here we go.  Which one is more iconic?  In other words, when people think of Dracula today, who do they picture: Lugosi or Lee?  And who do you think modern audiences prefer?

LS:  I really don’t know who people today picture when they think of Dracula. It may even be neither Lugosi or Lee, since there have been other versions since then, like Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the material: BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992).

Gary Oldman caught in the act, in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

MA:  Come on!  You can’t seriously believe that anyone today would actually picture Gary Oldman as Dracula!  The guy looked like John Lennon!

LS:  Who knows what people think? What am I, a psychic? I only know what I think!

MA: I don’t think Lugosi and Lee have much competition, unless you include Count Chocula and The Count from SESAME STREET.

LS: So that’s why those photos are up. I just figured you had the mind of a child. Who knew you were going to make a point.

MA: Well, certainly not you, since you don’t know what other people are thinking!

LS:   And you do, I suppose?

MA:  I have a pretty good idea what you’re thinking right now, and I can’t say it out loud.

Anyway, people certainly aren’t going to picture Frank Langella, who played the role in the weak 1979 film version.  Who else as Dracula could they possibly imagine?

LS: Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen in the TWILIGHT movies? He’s not Dracula, but he’s certainly just as popular a vampire these days. (groans). And if he ever played Dracula, then I’m sure, for a whole generation, he’d be the definitive one. Imagine that, and be truly horrified.

But for me, Lugosi will always be my first choice. He may not have had a lot of roles that were as good as the original DRACULA (1931), but that is his shining moment, and the movie, as atmospheric and almost surreal as it is, will always be the real deal to me.

MA:  I would have to agree with you and say that Lugosi is more iconic, at least here in the United States, and that when people today think of Dracula, they most likely think of Lugosi.

The great LUGOSI, from Universal Studio's DRACULA (1931)

LS: And how do you know this? Did you take a survey?

MA:  I’m speaking in terms of Lugosi and Lee here.  If you ask someone to impersonate Dracula, chances are they’re going to do the Lugosi voice.  They’re not going to speak in a British accent like Christopher Lee.  That’s what I mean when I say that when people today think of Dracula, they most likely think of Lugosi.

It’s largely due in part to the influence of Universal Pictures.  They constantly re-package their old black and white monster movies, along with their merchandise, so that the images of the Universal monsters never seem to be out of the modern-day collective consciousness.  I think when people think of Dracula, they think of Lugosi, complete with his trademark accent.  I don’t think people today picture Christopher Lee, even though he starred in those seven Hammer DRACULA movies.

But even without Universal’s marketing department, I think people would still picture Lugosi as Dracula, which shows the power of Lugosi’s legacy.  Even after all these years, he remains in most people’s minds the definitive Dracula.

LS: I bet you there’s a whole generation who has no idea what we’re talking about, and they haven’t heard of Lugosi or Lee.

MA:  That’s why you and I write about these guys, so this doesn’t happen, so people don’t forget.  That’s why we need readers, readers, and more readers, so out there in horror movie land, if you like reading Cinema Knife Fight and this spin-off, Friday Night Knife Fights, tell your friends!  Okay, enough with the self-promotion.  Where was I?

Oh yeah.  I don’t know who modern audiences prefer.  At one time, I would have easily picked Lee as the fan favorite, but today I’m not so sure.

Christopher Lee, the star of seven DRACULA films from Hammer Films.

LS: Now you say you don’t know who modern audiences prefer? Make up your mind!!

MA: What?  Before, I said people think of Lugosi when they think of Dracula.  Now, I’ve moved on to the next question, which is, which actor do we think modern audiences prefer?  Having trouble keeping up or something?

LS:  I’m having trouble keeping up with the number of times you change your mind!

MA:  Whatever.

I have a story to share on this subject.  Several years ago, when I was teaching a movie class to eighth graders, at Halloween time I showed my classes both DRACULA and HORROR OF DRACULA (1958).  In the follow-up essays, I expected students to overwhelmingly pick HORROR OF DRACULA as their favorite film, but I was surprised that this wasn’t the case.  The majority of students went with the Lugosi version, citing Lugosi’s performance as the major reason why they liked it better.  And I think it was because Lugosi played Dracula the way the students expected Dracula to be played.

LS (snoring): Zzzzzzzzz

MA: Wake up! We’re having a debate here.

LS: Huh? Your “stories” always bore the hell out of me.

MA: I’m sorry.  I forgot you have the attention span of a gnat.

All right, we’ve reached the moment of truth.  Time for us to decide:  which one is the ultimate movie Dracula: Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee?

LS:  I hesitantly choose Lugosi. Not because I don’t feel he’s the ultimate movie Dracula—because I do— but because Lee is no slouch either. I really like Lee’s take on the character and in many ways it’s just as satisfying as Lugosi’s. But for me, Lugosi is the more iconic figure: the first (at least after the silent age) and the best.

MA:  I feel your pain. I went back and forth so many times with this, it almost made me dizzy.

So, who’s my pick for the ultimate movie Dracula, Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee?  This is such a difficult choice for me to make, and I’ve gone right down to the wire with my final decision.

LS:  Just spit it out already!

MA:  Okay, okay.

Without further hesitation, here it is:

As much as I like Christopher Lee as Dracula—and even though I think he is far scarier as Dracula—when it comes to the complete package, I can’t deny that Bela Lugosi is the ultimate movie Dracula.  For the most part, this opinion is based on the strength of Lugosi’s initial performance in DRACULA.  From the way he speaks, to his mannerisms, to his commanding presence, Lugosi is Dracula.

LS: Hell, Lugosi was even buried wearing one of the capes he wore in DRACULA. That’s dedication to a role.

MA: I love Lee as Dracula, but there’s no comparison to moments where Lugosi utters such lines as, “Listen to them, the children of the night, what music they make.”  “To die, to be really dead, that must be glorious.”  “There are far worse things, Miss Mina, awaiting man, than death.”

Bela Lugosi is the ultimate movie Dracula.

So, there you have it.  The decision is unanimous, but boy was it close!

LS: (laughs) Yeah, I’m sure everyone was sitting on the edges of their seats.

MA: That was quite the bout.  I need a drink of water.

LS:  I need a drink of blood!

MA:  Well, don’t look at me.

LS (groans):  I’ll settle for a beer.

MA:  That sounds better.  Anyway, it’s been fun.

LS: Yes it has.

MA (addresses audience) :  Thanks for joining us tonight.  We had a good time, and we hope you did too.

LS:  And don’t forget to join us every weekday for new content about your favorite movies, new and old, right here at CinemaKnifeFight.com!

MA:  This has been FRIDAY NIGHT KNIFE FIGHTS.  Good night everybody!

—-END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

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THE UNBORN

Posted in 2009, Cinema Knife Fights, Exorcism Movies with tags , , , , , , , , on January 20, 2010 by knifefighter

Cinema Knife Fight: THE UNBORN
by Michael Arruda & L.L. Soares

FADE IN:

(LL SOARES is jogging across a bridge when he sees a woolen mitten on the ground. He stops and turns around, to see a scary-looking zombie kid with glowing eyes – wearing just one mitten.

ZOMBIE KID: Gumby wants to be born now!

(LS blinks, and suddenly the little zombie kid has an upside down Gumby head on his shoulders.)

GUMBY: I’m Gumby, dammit!

(LS wakes up screaming and MICHAEL ARRUDA enters the room.)

MA: What’s the matter? Did you have a nightmare?

LS: Yes. I dreamt I was forced to watch THE UNBORN a second time.

MA: Hmm, there’s a twisted idea! Aw, you were just dreaming. Serves you right for eating pickles before bedtime. (glances at empty pickle jar on bed stand).

LS: I sure am glad that wasn’t real. Seeing that movie once was bad enough!

MA: Well, it’s not over yet. Now we’ve got to review it.

LS: Do we have to?

MA (patriotic music begins to play): Yes, it’s our duty as critics to spare others the pain of sitting through a bad movie.

LS: Well, if you put it that way—.

THE UNBORN (2009) is the story of Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman), a pretty college girl who looks kind of like Jennifer Connelly.

MA: We saw Yustman in last year’s hit, and my pick for the best horror flick of 2008, CLOVERFIELD. While she was good in CLOVERFIELD with limited screen time, here as the lead in THE UNBORN, she’s not as good.

LS: For some inexplicable reason, Casey starts having very vivid dreams about a spooky little boy who looks a lot like those evil ghost kids we’ve seen in lots of American remakes of Japanese horror movies (like THE GRUDGE). She also starts seeing the boy in real life, although no one will believe her. Is she losing her mind, or is something more sinister afoot?

As Casey starts investigating things, she finds out that she was a twin in utero, but that her umbilical cord was wrapped around her twin brother’s neck, so that he died before he could be born. Her parents even had a nickname for the unborn boy – prepare yourself – “Jumby” !

MA: Who’s the genius who thought that one up? Jumby! Hmm, I’ve got it! We’ll call the ghost Jumby! All I could picture was a giant oversized baby a la Baby Huey. Does anyone out there remember Baby Huey?

LS: There are lots of other weird things going on. The boy next door that she babysits starts acting weird and terrorizing people. And Casey’s mother, who killed herself in a mental hospital, also starts appearing to her daughter. What the hell is going on?

For answers, Casey has to go to a nursing home to talk to an old woman named Sofi Kozma (Jane Alexander) who was also a twin, and who survived the Holocaust. She has a strange tale to tell including twins, Nazi experiments, and a dybbuk – an evil spirit from Jewish folklore that seeks to take over the bodies of the living.

Casey is convinced she is being tormented by a dybbuk that had originally wanted to possess the body of Jumby, so she goes to see Rabbi Sendak (Gary Oldman) to perform an exorcism on her and banish the dybbuk to the nether realms from whence it came.

MA: Excuse me, but what in the world was Gary Oldman doing in this movie?

LS: I don’t know, but man, is he too good an actor for this crap!

Along the way, there are spirits who use mirrors as doorways, dogs running around with their heads twisted upside down (and one old man who is similarly mutilated), and possessed people whose mouths grow ten times too big with lots of sharp teeth.

(Keifer Sutherland’s face appears in a mirror on the wall)

KEIFER: Hey, remember me? I was in the movie MIRRORS last year and we already covered the evil spirits in the mirror thing!

LS: Shut up or I’ll get out the Windex, Jack Bauer!

There are some interesting ideas here, since there really were Nazi experiments done on twins in concentration camps, and the whole Jewish demons thing is a fresh angle on a tired formula, but in the end, the movie is poorly executed and acted. The result is an unscary mess that just seemed incredibly dumb by the time the end credits started to roll.

MA: Yes, I thought the whole angle with the Jewish demons and exorcism was interesting in an intellectual sort of way. You know, “yeah, Jewish demons, that’s different, creative, neat.” But, on its own, the concept certainly wasn’t enough to save this movie. I would have liked it more had the whole Jewish angle been a bigger part of the story. Give us some background, some insights into Jewish culture and history. Now that would have been interesting! As it stands now, it’s like someone said “let’s make the exorcism/demons related to Judaism rather than Christianity,” and then they just plugged it into the story without reason.

LS: Yeah, the idea sounds more interesting than it is. There’s also a part that makes no sense to me. Casey goes to a library to read up on Jewish mysticism and the librarian brings her an ancient copy of the Kabbalah in Hebrew. It is obviously a very rare book and the librarian makes a big deal about Casey being careful with it. A few scenes later, Casey brings the book to Rabbi Sendak to translate. Did the library let Casey take such a rare book off the premises? And if she stole it, which would make more sense, wouldn’t the librarian have kept a watchful eye on her to prevent that (the book’s pretty big, too)? That just seemed silly to me.

(MADONNA appears in another mirror)

MADONNA: Did someone mention the Kaballah?

LS: Go lift some weights, you has-been.

MA: Hey, I like Madonna!

LS: Also, the men in Casey’s life sure seem to disappear a lot. First of all, there’s her father Gordon (James Remar, who plays Dexter’s father on DEXTER), who seems to always be away on business trips (we hardly ever see him at home – and for the most part Casey appears to live alone). Then there’s her boyfriend Mark (Cam Gigandet), who seems supportive at first, then disappears for about a third of the movie before he comes back at the end to help with the final exorcism. Where was he all that time?

MA: You’re right, but since they were both unbearably boring, I hardly missed them!

LS: The rest of the cast includes Meagan Good as Romy, Casey’s annoying best friend who constantly has answers about any dumb superstitions that pop up. And there’s even an appearance by your old pal Idris Elba (from last year’s PROM NIGHT remake) as an Episcopal priest who’s a close friend of the rabbi’s.

MA: Way to go Idris Elba! My new favorite horror film actor! Well, he’s not quite there yet, but I’ve seen him in 3 recent horror movies (THE REAPING with Hillary Swank, PROM NIGHT (2008), and this one), and he’s been great in all three. However, he’s only in THE UNBORN for a few minutes, all towards the end, so he doesn’t really do a lot here.

LS: All in all, there are some good ideas here, and it’s interesting to see the whole exorcism storyline from the point of view of Judaism instead of the usual Christian take on things. But the movie is pretty awful.

I expected more from David Goyer, who wrote and directed this movie. He also wrote the screenplays to movies like BLADE II, BLADE: TRINITY, and BATMAN BEGINS, as well as the story for THE DARK KNIGHT. Clearly, the guy has some talent. But it’s not very evident from THE UNBORN.

MA: That’s certainly an understatement. The guy who wrote BATMAN BEGINS and the story for THE DARK KNIGHT wrote this? Hard to believe. Of course, truth be told, those of us who write know firsthand you don’t write great stuff every time. So, no hard feelings, Mr. Goyer!

LS: Everyone has an off day, but this is a lot worse than that. What did you think of this one, Michael?

MA: As you probably already have guessed, I didn’t like THE UNBORN either. I thought it was uninspiring, unimaginative, and unnecessary. Didn’t we just see this same kind of plot in MIRRORS? Which was another movie I didn’t like.

LS: I liked it a lot more than this one.

MA: THE UNBORN had too many similarities to MIRRORS for my liking, right down to a scene where Casey smashes all the mirrors in her house to destroy the demon’s doorways. By the way, couldn’t she just hide the mirrors some place, or throw them away? Is it really necessary to smash them to bits?

I found the first third of THE UNBORN very boring. It was slow and plodding, with uninteresting characters with uninteresting conflicts. And I really wish someone would write in a new rule for horror screenwriters to exclude forever the slow moving scene of a single person moving slowly through a hallway or down a staircase with scary music playing while we wait, wait, wait, and wait, for something to happen, something we all know is going to be scary because otherwise why would we wait, wait, wait, and wait, just for someone to discover that everything was all right? These scenes are not scary, period. People start text messaging during these scenes, okay? They’re boring!

LS: That’s another thing that pisses me off. Every time I go to see a PG-13 horror movie on opening night to review it, the audience is full of teenagers yakking and text messaging. I can usually block them out if a movie is at least good. But this one was a nightmare.

MA: I don’t mind the text messaging, but yakking by people of any age is annoying.

Anyway, the plot grew on me as soon as the concept of the ghost of an unborn twin was introduced. I thought this had potential. There have been plenty of child ghosts in the movies, but not a whole lot of ghosts of children who hadn’t even been born! However, my interest was short-lived, because this interesting plot point was ruined when we learn that the menace isn’t the ghost of the dead twin after all, but another spirit or demon that is using the dead twin to haunt the world.

Which brings me to another point: why do demons want to haunt the world? Don’t they have something better to do? If haunting the world is their only reason for being, they must have boring lives. You’d think with an eternity of time to make plans, they’d come up with something better!

As soon as the movie introduces this plot element of the demon seeking to enter the world through others and using mirrors to do it, it really begins to resemble the recent movie MIRRORS, and I didn’t like this at all.

I really like Gary Oldman a lot, and as I already said, I like Idris Elba too, but both these actors were not in the movie very much, and even when they were, they weren’t given a whole lot to do. Now, had this movie made these two actors and their characters co-leads with Odette Yustman, then we would have had a movie! Yustman’s character wasn’t deep enough to carry a movie, nor was her acting captivating enough, but throw in Oldman and Elba, with a background story for each of them, and then we might have had something compelling.

I also had a problem with the climactic exorcism scene. There were too many dramatic effects, which made me aware that I was watching a Hollywood movie rather than a scary exorcism. These effects diminish any frightful realism this scene might have had.

LS: The big finale is just a mess, too, with one character after another getting possessed by the dybbuk. It’s just not satisfying at all.

MA: I agree. The last sequence is phony and forced. It’s like tag, you’re it! Your turn to be the dybbuk!

THE UNBORN is filled with bizarre and supposedly scary images (like the dog with the upside down head, and the mutilated old man – which is a rip-off of a far scarier scene originally cut from THE EXORCIST and now since restored with Linda Blair in a similar contorted position running down the stairs-) that, strangely enough, aren’t all that scary. In fact, they actually generated chuckles from the people in the audience with me. I think part of the reason for this was the special effects weren’t all that good. I thought they looked rather fake, actually.

LS: Where I saw it, the audience was laughing their collective asses off during those scenes, too.

MA: So, this is one of those rare occasions where we seem to agree wholeheartedly. THE UNBORN is unbearable. So, horror fans, don’t waste your time or money. Skip it.

THE UNBORN was a disappointing way to start 2009.

LS: Okay, I’ve had enough of this talking about a bad movie. I’m going back to sleep. Would you mind getting me another jar of pickles?

MA: Do you really think that’s such a good id— (suddenly imagines LS screaming as a zombie kid attacks him with a mirror in one hand and a photo of Keifer Sutherland in the other) (smirks). Sure, I’ll get you more. I’ll be right back.

LS: Thanks.

(MA opens door to exit and is suddenly confronted by a giant cartoon chicken wearing a diaper with an upside down head).

CHICKEN: Huey wants to be born now!

(MA screams and slams door.)

MA: On second thought, you can get your own pickles!

—END—

(Originally published on Fear Zone on 1/11/2009)

© Copyright 2009 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

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THE BOOK OF ELI

Posted in 2010, Cinema Knife Fights, Post-Apocalypse Movies with tags , , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2010 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT : THE BOOK OF ELI (2009)
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(FADE IN)

(The Scene: a dusty western town. There are some people walking around, but it’s pretty sparse. MICHAEL ARRUDA and LL SOARES stand in front of a saloon, dusting off their clothes)

MA: It sure is dirty around here.

LS: That’s the apocalypse for you.

MA: I know. Isn’t it awful? (Unbuttons top button of his shirt and sprays his underarms with a bottle of blue window cleaner.)

LS: There are so many post-apocalyptic movies lately. How many ways can you watch the world end?

MA: That’s a good point, and I was thinking about that while watching the movie. What is it these days with these movies?  Do people really think it’s all going to tank in 2012?  Is that why moviemakers are making so many of these flicks now, because they think it’s on people’s minds? Is this a subgenre that’s making lots of money right now?  I don’t get it.

LS: You’d think the Cold War was back. It’s the 1950s all over again!

UNSEEN NARRATOR: Duck and cover!

(There is a sudden explosion and a  mushroom cloud in the distance)

MA (Watches cloud): Very pretty. Anyway, why don’t you get us started about today’s movie?

LS: This time around, we’re reviewing the new Denzel Washington movie, THE BOOK OF ELI. As you might remember from our “January Preview” column, I wasn’t too thrilled about the trailer for this one. It reminded me too much of another recent film, THE ROAD. And, while you can’t always judge a movie by its trailer, this time around, it pretty much lived down to my expectations.

THE ROAD, which came out late last year, starring Viggo Mortensen, was based on Cormac McCarthy’s best-selling novel. It’s the story of a man and his young son, traveling along a main road after the world has come to an end. They’re seeking warmer climates, and the man has made it his mission to protect the boy with his life.

In THE BOOK OF ELI, it’s a very similar storyline, except, instead of protecting a child with his life, Denzel Washington’s character, Eli, is protecting a mysterious book with his life.

(A humanoid ALIEN with a large head pops up)

ALIEN: It’s a cookbook!

LS: Wrong movie (shoos the ALIEN away)

Okay, so Denzel’s character is a post-apocalyptic warrior, traveling alone, trying to stay alive in a world gone mad. He comes across desperate feral people, who might just want to eat him (also very much like THE ROAD), but he’s more than capable of taking care of himself. Between his lightning-fast reflexes, his guns, and his big old knife, he seems to be able to make mincemeat of whole gangs of vicious men pretty easily. It’s basically Denzel as a cross between a samurai and the Terminator.

In fact, comparing him to the Japanese samurai character ZATOICHI (who appeared in a whole series of movies) is pretty apt.

MA:   Zatoichi?  Sounds like a squash.

LS:  If you don’t know who he is, you should look it up.

MA (flipping through pages of a book):  I will fight to protect this information……Maybe.

LS:  When he comes upon a town in the middle of nowhere, it’s very reminiscent of a town from the Old West – which brings us to yet another influence. Eli doesn’t say his name until late in the movie, and for awhile, he plays it like the Man With No Name, that iconic figure Clint Eastwood portrayed in those old Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns.

As far as Eli is concerned, he’s just passing through. But once the town’s boss man, Carnegie (Gary Oldman) finds out that he can read, and that he has a book with him, things get complicated. Carnegie has been having his thugs scour the surrounding area for a certain book for a while now, killing other survivors without a second thought. When Carnegie hears about Eli’s special book, he’s sure it’s what he’s been looking for.

But Eli is not going to just give it up. He’s on a quest. And this town is not his destiny.

So there you have the basic conflict of the movie. Oldman wants the book. Denzel has no intention of letting him have it. Oldman has a gang of murderous henchmen on his side, led by Redridge (Ray Stevenson from PUNISHER WAR ZONE). Denzel has his wits and his weapons. Who’s going to win?

There are also a couple of women in the mix. Jennifer Beals plays Claudia, who at first appears to be Carnegie’s lover, but who is actually more like his prisoner. She’s beautiful, but blind, and he controls her through her daughter Solara (Mila Kunis), who works in the local saloon (she’s the one who fills up Eli’s canteen with water when he first comes to town).

When Solara  is sent to Eli’s room to seduce him (he refuses, since he is celibate, but instead they talk all night, and emotionally he ends up seducing her in a way), this begins a friendship that leads to her eventually becoming his traveling companion and his helper in his quest.

Denzel is pretty much a solid actor in whatever he’s in. And he is believable here as a character who is harder than nails when he needs to be, but he also has that vulnerable side women love so much. While he does what he can, it’s a pretty limited role that doesn’t give him a lot to play with.

MA:  Yes, Denzel Washington is one of those actors who I believe could star in pretty much any movie and make it worth seeing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him deliver a poor performance. I’d pretty much see him in anything at this point, and I guess I’m not alone, as I was just reading an article recently that named him as one of the country’s most popular actors.

Anyway, regarding the movie THE BOOK OF ELI, which I also found to be a mixed bag, he’s by far the best part of the film and the only part that makes it worth seeing.

LS:  There are a lot of good British actors in the cast, as well. Like Gary Oldman (Sid Vicious himself from SID AND NANCY (1986), although most people these days would know him as Commissioner Gordon from the recent Christopher Nolan BATMAN movies) plays the main bad guy, and I’ve thought Ray Stevenson was great since his performances on HBO’s ROME and in the very enjoyable PUNISHER WAR ZONE. There’s even a fun scene with Michael Gambon (a really gifted actor who starred in the original BBC version of THE SINGING DETECTIVE (1986) and Peter Greenaway’s classic,  THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER (1989), but who is probably best known now as Dumbledore in those HARRY POTTER flicks) who, along with Frances de la Tour, play a couple named George and Martha who take Eli and Solara in, but they don’t necessarily have the best of intentions. You see their hands shake a lot – and in this movie, that means they eat human meat.

Even  Malcolm McDowell (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, CALIGULA, and he played Dr. Loomis in Rob Zombie’s recent HALLOWEEN films) shows up toward the end as a white-haired old librarian.

Beals, a good actress, does what she can with the thankless role of a constant victim. Kunis is the wild card. I couldn’t tell if she was good here or not. She’s very wide-eyed and has charisma onscreen; at times she almost reminded me of a young Angelina Jolie. At the same time, she seemed way too clean and normal for this movie. The world has come to an end. Everyone is filthy and struggling to survive. She just looks too well-fed and too normal for the world around her.While I liked her, I found her character distracting, because she just didn’t seem like she belonged in this movie.

MA:  I completely agree. I thought the cast was terrific. Gary Oldman is another actor I almost always enjoy, and he’s excellent in this movie as well, though at times I detected he was doing a Jack Nicholson impersonation. I thought Ray Stevenson provided strong support as the major henchman in the movie, and he gave the guy a human element often missing in these kinds of roles. I liked Beals, and unlike you, I thought Mila Kunis was strong throughout. I thought she looked just fine, and then some!  Her acting was pretty good too!  Actually, her acting was very good.

And Malcolm McDowell, in spite of going for the Albert Einstein look, was more enjoyable here in his few minutes onscreen than in either of the two new HALLOWEEN movies.

(MICHAEL MYERS pops up behind them. Lifts knife above LS’s head.)

LS: It wasn’t me. He’s the guy knocking your new movies (points to MA).

(MYERS lifts knife over MA’s head.)

MA (Opens arms in a sympathetic gesture and speaks with a British accent):  Michael, Michael, what are you doing?  Put the knife down.

(Addresses audience)  I’m sorry. Couldn’t help myself. I’m just doing my Malcolm McDowell Dr. Loomis impersonation.

(Back to MYERS) Seriously, Michael, don’t take it personally. It’s just business. I loved your original movies, and if you make another one that’s better than the last two, I’ll be the first to congratulate you. Thanks for being on the show. Here’s a gift card from Kitchens & Things so you can go pick out some new kitchen cutlery. (MYERS exits).

LS:  I thought the soundtrack by Atticus Ross was pretty good. Most of it is a percussive, synthesizer-driven theme that recurs throughout the movie, and is very effective. I also thought the cinematography by Don Burgess was pretty good, and features some long, painterly panning shots – including one that opens the movie.

What I didn’t like that much was the story.

(Fireworks explode overhead, multi-colored lights flash all around, loud bells and whistles roar, and MA is wearing a tacky jacket and top hat, decked out like a carnival master.)

LS:  What the hell?

MA:  You’ve won the jackpot my friend:  THE BOOK OF ELI has no story. (Hands LS a stuffed Teddy Bear with fangs.) Bring it home to the kiddies.

LS:  Gee, thanks.

MA:  Watch out. It bites.

LS: Sweet!

MA (Back in his regularly clothes):  Yes, I agree, by far, the weakest part of THE BOOK OF ELI was the story. You’d think in a movie where the major plot point involved a book, the screenplay would be somewhat more literate!  I was hugely disappointed with the story.

LS:  First off, there’s not much original about it. Aside from being obviously influenced by THE ROAD, the use of oversized vehicles and an anarchic society is straight out of THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981).

MA:  I’m glad you mentioned THE ROAD WARRIOR, because that was a movie that roared with excitement. THE BOOK OF ELI grunts, even growls, but it never roars.

LS:  At least one of its influences is worn on its sleeve, though. When Denzel stays overnight in the town (He doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter), there’s a poster on the wall of A BOY AND HIS DOG (directed by L.Q. Jones in 1975), based on Harlan Ellison’s classic novella, which was the first time I ever saw this kind of post-apocalyptic, cannibal-filled wasteland that seems to be copied by every post-apocalypse film since.

(A MUTT walks over to them)

MUTT: Why thank you for the plug, Albert.

LS: Anytime, Blood.

(MUTT lifts his leg and pees on Michael’s pants leg)

MA: Hey!  What the hell?  I oughta— if you weren’t a dog—.

MUTT:  If I weren’t a dog, I wouldn’t have peed on your leg.

MA (chews it over):  Why, that’s true. (Removes his pants to reveal his tacky carnival pants underneath). I knew these would come in handy.

LS: When Denzel’s book is revealed, it’s not a surprise – you can figure out early on that it’s the Bible – and it’s just not believable that there would only be on copy left in the world. Denzel’s character chatters on about everyone burning the books after the apocalypse because some people blamed what happened on it. But that’s very hard to swallow. The Bible is the most printed book ever. There are billions of them, and suddenly they’re all gone and there’s only one left? This just seemed like a hokey premise to me. Once the book is revealed, the whole movie seems to skip a groove. And skip, and skip.

Oldman’s character wants to use the book to control the masses (Ah, the spirit of televangelists isn’t dead in the future!)  Denzel’s character has a mission from God to bring it somewhere west where it will be revered and protected. He knows this because, as he explains, a voice inside him tells him so.

The results toward the end (including a surprise twist about Eli), where the book finally gets to where it “belongs,”  reminded me a bit of the ending of Francois Truffaut’s (and Ray Bradbury’s) FARENHEIT 451 (1966).

The very last scenes, though, seemed like an action-movie afterthought, especially Mila’s last scenes. And they really didn’t belong here. The ending should have been more powerful and less by the numbers.

The direction by the Hughes Brothers (who also gave us movies like DEAD PRESIDENTS and FROM HELL) is serviceable but unremarkable. The fight scenes are well done, but there’s nothing particularly poignant or awe-inspiring here.

Save your money and see THE ROAD, ROAD WARRIOR or A BOY AND HIS DOG instead. If you’re going to see a post-apocalyptic movie, at least see a good one.

MA:  I agree, though because of the presence of Denzel Washington, I may have liked it more than you.

Without him in the movie, I think I’d be saying THE BOOK OF ELI features a strong cast led by Gary Oldman, but that none of these players could carry the movie, which would be true, since it’s a flawed film. Denzel Washington is strong enough to carry this movie, and he does.

You mentioned the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, and I think that’s an excellent comparison, because for a large part of this movie, that’s how it plays. Eastwood used to carry those films, and Denzel carries this one, but there’s one major difference, and that is, the stories in those westerns were a helluva lot better than the story in this movie. Not only that, but those films featured exciting endings. The climax here is a dud. I think it’s the worst part of the movie. The ending falls completely flat.

The fight sequences are first rate. The “Put that hand on me again, and you’re not going to get it back” scene which is shown in all the trailers, really worked for me, especially since a key scene of violence is excluded in the trailer. The fight in the bar, and the confrontation at the elderly couple’s house are also topnotch scenes. Sure, these scenes are filmed flawlessly, but they mostly work because of Denzel Washington’s performance. He has the neat gift of making the unbelievable believable. What he does in these scenes is completely impossible, yet I believed that he could do it.

However, in a post-apocalyptic story like this I expected something more memorable than just exciting fight scenes. There’s nothing in the way of superior stunts, like in THE ROAD WARRIOR, nothing that lifts the action above the fray and makes it special.

While I liked the look of the movie, it certainly didn’t blow me away. Basically, THE BOOK OF ELI presents unimpressive visuals that looked good. Roads and bridges look the way you might expect them to look after the apocalypse, but by the time we get to San Francisco, at the end of the movie, where we finally have a chance to see an impressive visual – what post-apocalyptic San Francisco might look like – the film falters. The city looks fake and disappointing.

Movies like AVATAR, DISTRICT 9, and WATCHMEN all had more impressive visual images in them than anything we see in THE BOOK OF ELI.

But by far the weakest part of the movie is its story. I never got the sense of why the book was so important. Denzel is going to fight to protect it, and Gary Oldman wants it so he can become more powerful, but so what?  Nothing in the movie convinces me that the book is what they claim it to be. It’s all flat and uninspiring. I didn’t see THE ROAD, but a story about a man fighting to protect his son sounds a helluva lot more compelling than protecting a book.

Now, in terms of the book being The Bible, I get it, and I understand the importance of saving it, but the film doesn’t do a good job of getting this feeling across. I get it because I know what the Bible is, not because of what happens in the movie. Intellectually, I appreciated this story. I enjoyed following Eli’s journey west to fulfill his destiny because it was an admirable thing to do, but in a story like this, I don’t think “intellectually” is what the filmmakers were going for. I want to feel this emotionally. I want to be moved and feel that if Eli fails, it would be a horrible thing, but I never really felt that way. I wasn’t moved emotionally by this film, and I think it’s because the story was so dull. They might as well have been fighting over a pair of shoes.

LS: That’s a very good point.

MA: THE BOOK OF ELI seems like an excuse to feature Denzel Washington kicking butt. Now, it’s highly entertaining to watch Denzel Washington kick butt, but as a whole package, the film fails to impress.

Still, you gotta like Denzel, and I do. So, see it to see Denzel Washington. He carries this movie, and for that reason alone, I think it’s worth seeing.

LS:  I like Denzel Washington, too, and he’s obviously the best thing in it. But I don’t recommend it. If you gotta see it, wait to rent the DVD. This is not a movie you need to pay a ticket price for.

(LS and MA realize that while they’ve been talking, a group of vicious-looking thugs have formed a circle around them)

LS: Looks like it’s time for Michael and me to kick some butt. See you next time!

(One of the thugs picks his nose.)

MA:  Hey, you put that finger in there again, you’re not going to get it back.

—END—

© Copyright 2010 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

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