Eagle Eye Has Tunnel Vision

EAGLE EYE (2008)
d. D.J. Caruso 

Executive Producer Steven Spielberg and director DJ Caruso muscle in on Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott territory with this techno-thriller involving a Kafka-esque persecution of Copy Cabana boy Shia LaBeouf and single-mother Michelle Monaghan as they are “activated” in scenes reminiscent of The Matrix into Jason Bourne-style American homeland security terrorists. It’s Disturbia taken out of the next door neighbor’s yard and moved to the entire country.

The conceit here that American privacy has been handed over to the government and that we are subject to the whims of technology and identity theft feeds our paranoia and distrust of power out of control that would make many conspiracy theorists and Luddites feel justified in their beliefs.

After a somewhat surprisingly slack first act where the world of hi-tech “smart” warfare is introduced and we get to know our leads, the film takes off on a thrilling cross-country chase from Chicago to our nation’s capitol where the plot threads lead our hapless protagonists to confront Aria (voiced by an uncredited Julianne Moore), a super smart self-aware computer that seems to be the love child of HAL and Mother, and the progenitor of VICKI and SkyNet, who has taken it upon herself to act in the nation’s best interests and decides to assassinate the President and others in top Cabinet positions.

Shia proves to be capable and charismatic in the lead, and Michelle is adequate and able to keep up. Less convincing is the hyperreal use of technology in this world and Aria’s reach — from remote control cranes gone amok to the ability to down power lines (though being able to listen in on a conversation by analyzing the sound waves vibrating the coffee in a mug is pretty cool). And even less convincing is how Shia and Michelle are able to survive and avoid capture.

Other name actors fill out the rest of the cast — Rosario Dawson, hot and convincing as an Air Force officer who is investigating Shia’s twin brother’s connections to Aria; Billy Bob Thornton, ornery as ever as the Fed hot on the trail of the two victims; and Michael Chiklis as the Secretary of Defense who barely registers a presence.

Overall, the action sequences are well-staged and provide a modicum of thrills, but the main conceit of omnipresent and omniscient technology collapses under its own weight as it escalates from plausible to ridiculous. If not for the presence of Shia and Michelle to ground some of the high concepts, this film would have been less watchable.

**1/2 stars.

High Wire Act Highly Entertaining — Man On Wire

MAN ON WIRE (2008)
d.  James Marsh

Phillipe Petit, the charismatic subject of this documentary, recounts his wirewalking stunt and enters the history books as the only person to ever traverse a wire strung between the Twin Towers a scant several months after the building was first erected.

It is a story he tells with relish and flair, filled with dramatic beats and tense moments. Speaking of wirewalking as his art, Phillipe turns the iconic image into a metaphoric symbol of ambition and dreams realized.

His accomplices and girlfriend of the time are on hand as well to fill out the details and provide context, and it is obvious that they too are moved by Phillipe’s grand gesture.

What amazed me about this documentary, other than the behind-the-scenes account of their strategy to infiltrate the WTC, was the vintage footage of the young schemers showing us their plans (especially the scale model of the roofs of the Twin Towers).

Man On Wire is a touching and entertaining recounting of an amazing one-of-a-kind stunt and is well worth the watch.

***1/2 stars.

When Bad Times Get Worse — The Strangers

THE STRANGERS (2008)
d. Bryan Bertino

A very effective thriller/horror movie in the vein of Straw Dogs about a couple terrorized by three masked individuals in an isolated summer home that starts really strong, but a number of missteps on the way and the film goes off the rails that by the conclusion I was left feeling empty and sour.

The One On The Right Is The Cutest

Winner and Still Champion — Aronofsky’s The Wrestler

THE WRESTLER (2008)
d. Darren Aronofsky 

Perhaps the single most astonishing visual effect this year that doesn’t involve the digital removal of limbs or the digital placement of heads on children’s bodies is the stunning and somewhat grotesque physique of Mickey Rourke in Aronofsky’s The Wrestler.

His beefy pumped up body and home-bleached long hair and sprayed-on tan is the most convincing body transformation since Christian Bale shed pounds for The Machinist or Rescue Dawn. But it all fits in the world of the professional wrestler, and Mickey Rourke wholly inhabits the life of Randy “The Ram” with eerie echoes to his own life as an actor turned boxer turned actor again.

His Technique Is Strong — Kung-Fu Panda

KUNG-FU PANDA (2008)
d. Mark Osborne & James Stevenson

Another top-notch animated feature, but with a very engaging storyline, Kung-Fu Panda delights with its depiction of the least likeliest of heroes in the form of a fat panda, Po.

Po (Jack Black) starts off as the son of a noodle-shop owner (James Hong), dreaming of glory and adventures with the Furious Five, a team of kung-fu masters made up of Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Crane (David Cross) and Viper (Lucy Liu) and led by their master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) and his master, Oogway (Randall Duk Kim).

With the threat of the evil Tai Lung (Ian McShane) escaping prison and making his way back to the valley to retrieve a sacred scroll that promises unlimited power, Oogway holds a celebration to choose the fabled Dragon Warrior who will protect and save the valley from Tai Lung. Guess who gets picked.

Po, burdened with a new responsibility, perseveres to train to become the Dragon Warrior in spite of everyone else’s misgivings and judgements. What we are treated to are some of the best animated and most hilarious training sequences committed to film. Honestly, these bits were the funniest parts of the film.

The training sequences, the bridge fight and the final confrontation between Po and Tai Lung stand out as the most amazingly choreographed fight sequences in animation that I have seen in a long time. Taking some cues from The Matrix, the animators slow down the action to emphasize hits while milking the laughs all the while. Its quite a balancing act that is successful every time.

The only misgiving I had was that the Furious Five voices did not bear easy recognition. I had no idea of all the big names attached to the characters until the end credits. Really, the only voices I recognized were Jack Black, James Hong and Dustin Hoffman. Other than that, I have no other complaints against the film.

Kung-Fu Panda is laugh-out loud funny and at the right moments very touching. Especially when Po comes into his own and realizes his own worth and power.

Another cool thing about this movie is how they allow Po to have total geekgasms when he meets the Furious Five and enters the hall of memorabilia. It’s a great way to allow us to empathize with Po, because who doesn’t act that way around their heroes?

*** stars.

Dead On Arrival: Resident Evil: Degeneration

RESIDENT EVIL: DEGENERATION (2008)
d. Makoto Kamiya

In this direct to DVD computer-animated feature, the world of Resident Evil is expanded slightly, but the main thrill is seeing Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield reunited since their first pairing in the videogame, Resident Evil 2.

The storyline is what one expects from Resident Evil: an outbreak of zombie-ism perpetrated by a mysterious person behind the scenes. The location this time is an airport terminal where Claire must protect a little girl and a slimy Senator, and Leon is sent in to rescue survivors. However, this only takes up the first act.

The rest of the story has Leon and Claire splitting up. Leon teams with an SRT member, Angela (who bears a striking resemblance to Angelina Jolie) to track down a suspected bio-terrorist, who turns out to be her brother, Curtis. Claire, meanwhile, travels with a doctor to the WilPharma institute where she discovers that they have a cure for the T-virus, but they house the G-virus as well. Danger!

The two threads draw together when Angela’s brother attacks the WilPharma institute and injects himself with the G-virus, transforming himself into a deadly creature.

While the narrative, on the whole, is clunky and peppered with leaden dialogue typical for this series, the animation is crisp and detailed; I found myself admiring the rendered dust motes more often than paying attention to the story.

For plot-hounds, this story takes place after Resident Evil 4 as there are mentions of Leon’s involvement with Ganados and the President’s daughter; I have a sneaky suspicion that there is the most tenuous of connections to RE5 with the appearance of the TriCell members toward the end as they sift through the rubble for remnants of the G-virus.

In any case, the story is so-so, and the animation is top-notch — though the people are somewhat stiffer than the zombies.

** stars.

The Fat Lady Sings, But Not For Hitler — Valkyrie

VALKYRIE (2008)
d. Bryan Singer 

Bryan Singer reteams with Chris McQuarrie for the first time since The Usual Suspects to deliver a taut thriller about a group of Germans officers, led by Colonel Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise), who plan on assassinating Hitler and taking control of the government in an effort to end the war.

It’s an interesting fact that there were 14 previous attempts on Hitler’s life, and as History attests, Stauffenberg’s attempt is doomed to failure. Much like characters subject to their inescapable fate in Benjamin Button, Stuaffenberg and company set up the pieces that inevitably leads to their own downfall. Most of the thrill of the movie is seeing how an elaborate well-thought out plan unravels.

In the age of the Internet and immediate information, it is a marvel to see how the engine of misinformation in the age of telegram and phone calls back in the 40s almost resulted in a different outcome to World War II. Stuaffenberg, having believed that a bomb has killed the Fuhrer, controls the flow of information by simply having an inside man severing the phone connections from the Wolf’s Lair (Hitlers strategic bunker) to Berlin where the coup is taking place. And it takes several hours before rumours of Hitler’s demise are dispelled.

It’s also amazing how far the plan was actually executed because of such delays in communication. Valkyrie refers to a contingency plan where, if Hitler were killed, the German National Guard would be given power to arrest anyone in order to keep civil unrest at a minimum. Stauffenberg and his staff’s plan was to use Valkyrie to arrest all SS officers and troops in order to prevent them from retaking the government; in their absence, Stauffenberg would have his men wrest control of the government.

Of course, all this would have gone according to plan if Adolf Hitler were actually dead.

Tom Cruise displays great restraint as he boils internally as everything he has is at stake — his career, his family, and his life. His performance is commanding and forceful, and it helps that he is surrounded by the most amazing ensemble of British actors ever assembled outside of a Harry Potter movie.

On his side are Bill Nighy, Terrence Stamp, and Kenneth Branagh all giving nobility and dignity to their characters. We also get major supporting roles from Thomas Kretschmann (King Kong), Tom Wilkinson, and no less than 3 more actors from Pirates of the Caribbean (Tom Hollander, Kevin McNally and David Schofield in addition to Bill Nighy).

So in spite of knowing the outcome, the twists and turns of a plan that almost came to fruition makes for a thrilling and tense movie filled with great performances.

***1/2 stars.

Looking Great For His Age(s) — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2008)
d. David Fincher 

“You never know what’s coming for you.”

So says a number of characters in David Fincher’s excellent film, and in many ways, it speaks about events within the film as well as commenting on the narrative. Showing the same masterly restraint (compared to his earlier work) that steered his overlooked Zodiac, Benjamin Button is many ways a study of life’s lessons over time as the former film was a study of procedure and investigation over time.

Fincher’s control and exercise in period detail help support a strong romantic story about the person (Brad Pitt) who was born old and grows younger as time passes. We learn as the character learns how life has its own plans and how one can live within that. It is in many ways a very tragic tale as the story, framed in the present in a hospital ward where the dying Daisy (a luminous Cate Blanchett) is tended by her daughter, centers on Daisy’s doomed romance with Benjamin.

When Benjamin is born, a wrinkled dying baby, his father, horrified, abandons him at the steps of a nursing home. It is this setting where time’s inexorable forward march and life’s fleetingness surrounds Benjamin; people come and go, either through death or traveling through. As he grows younger, he meets Daisy when she is but 5 years old, but it is love at first sight. They meet time and again as she grows older, and despite our hopes that theirs is an eternal love story, we know as the characters also know, that nothing is perfect forever.

Along the way, Benjamin meets many interesting characters who help teach him about life and its passing. His adoptive mother, played brilliantly by Taraji Henson, loves him and treats him as the son she always wanted. Everyone from his father (Mahershalalashbaz Ali) who quotes Shakespeare, to the tugboat captain (Jared Harris) who reveals his desire to be an artist, to his first real love (Tilda Swinton) who attempted to swim the Channel, all teach him that there is more to people than meets the eye; that, like himself, you can’t judge a book by its cover, and that there is depth beneath the skin. Each actor does amazing work here, all better supported by a great script by Eric Roth (no stranger to the historical epic as he also wrote Forrest Gump and Munich).

And through it all there are portents of fate, that, in spite of the opening story of Gateau and his desire to turn back time with his backwards counting clock and regain his son who was killed in WWI, time cannot be thwarted. And as Benjamin grows older and towards his inescapable fate, so too does the story countdown to when Katrina makes landfall in New Orleans, its flood waters rising to wash away the past in an unforgettable last image.

This haunting tale of love, loss and life is carried on the talented (and perfectly formed) shoulders of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, whose performances shine brightly. Outstanding work by everyone involved.

**** stars.

High Level Spy Shit — The Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading

BURN AFTER READING (2008)
d. Joel & Ethan Coen

The Coens return to comedy a year after their intense thriller No Country For Old Men with a movie that also marks a return of many themes and character-types seen throughout their work.

Burn After Reading’s basic premise revolves around a disgraced Washington analyst (John Malkovich) who, while undergoing a divorce (from Tilda Swinton), has his memoirs and financials on disc end up in the laps of two gym managers (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt) who mistakenly believe that it is high-level spy shit. The double pun here concerns the burning of information onto the disc as well as a reference to the book Burn Before Reading, which was about CIA goings-on.

A large part of the fun of the movie is witnessing how the errors of judgement and farce pile up in typical Coen fashion until the last act is a dazzling maze of twists and turns all predicated on mistaken identities and the idiotic choices made by people way in over their heads.

Frances McDormand brings in a brilliant performance as one of the gym managers who, prisoner to her desire for plastic surgery, decides to use the disc as an opportunity for a blackmail scheme. Her character is an amazing study in how everyday people can think they are in control when in reality they are anything but.

Her actions, based on her greed and self-absorption — to the point of idiocy, are a theme constantly explored in the  Coens’ films. They of course always spell disaster for several characters. It’s something we see from Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo to the barber in The Man Who Wasn’t There  to even The Ladykillers.

For example, she unwittingly sends Brad Pitt to his doom by having him break into Malkovich’s house in order to get more information they can use to supply to the Russians. Part of the humour is that her espionage skills all seem to have been culled from an antiquated idea of spy-politics during the Cold War. Even the Russians are baffled by her actions.

Another character whose world falls apart in the Coens’ hands is George Clooney’s. He is cheating on his wife with Tilda Swinton, and, because of his womanizing ways, ends up crossing paths with McDormand. But what sinks him is an event that blindsides him and reveals his inadequacies and mortality. From that point, his paranoia takes over.

It’s all done humorously and with the classic Coen irony that allows us to finger-point and laugh without feeling as if we are implicating ourselves even as we identify with these characters.

Despite the heady and mesmerizing last act where all the jigsaw pieces fall into place with expert handling, the feeling of having been there done that does linger, and I was somewhat disappointed in Brad Pitt’s antics this time around, though his character’s final scene is tense and horrifying.

Overall, a fine effort by the Coens, but not the best. Perhaps on par with The Man Who Wasn’t There in its finely crafted execution and the sense of spiraling dread it creates, but not enough to blow my expectations out of the water.

**1/2 stars.

“Looks Are Everything” — Carnal Knowledge

CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (1971)
d. Mike Nichols 

Daring for its time, and still somewhat disarming today, Carnal Knowledge deals with the heightened reality of two men and the relationships they forge with women over several years. The movie opens with a voice-over dialogue between best friends Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) that lays down their basic philosophies. They both would rather love someone than be loved; Jonathan especially believes that both states are exclusive to one another and not mutual.

Domestic Bliss