The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

I joked in a tweet that The Man from U.N.C.L.E. may have been a good movie, but I was too distracted by Alicia Vikander's legs to notice. Even though I kid, there did seem to be an unusual focus on them. That could just be me though.

I actually did enjoy The Man from U.N.C.L.E. though. It's pretty straight forward and run-of-the-mill as far as spy films go. There's no twist or turn that you don't see coming from a mile away, and there's nothing special about any of the action. This is probably sounding more like reasons I didn't like it, but what made me enjoy it was a likable, charismatic cast and above average humor. It's not funny to the point where it's a spoof of the genre, but we've already had a few of those this year, so that's probably a good thing.

It's kind of ironic that this stars Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill when just a few years ago I remarked in another review (not The Lone Ranger) that Hammer would be an interesting choice for Superman, only to have Cavill announced as Superman shortly after. Now that I see them acting against each other, I still stand by my statement, and it's not just because Hammer is clearly taller. It did seem unusual to me to cast an American to play a Russian and a Brit to play an American. What's the real motivation behind casting people and them forcing them to do strained accents? Like Jared Harris. What the hell kind of accent was he trying to do?

As far as the rest of the cast goes, I could have used a lot more of the ladies. Alicia Vikander was cute and charming, but it would have been nice to see her fleshed out a bit. There's hints here and there, but they don't follow through. Elizabeth Debicki was one of the few things I liked in The Great Gatsby and I've been waiting to see what she was doing to do next, so I was disappointed to see her underused here. She tries to do her best and has this evil sexiness quality, but there's not much more to her than the cold villain with a generic motivation and undeveloped character. It's not her fault, it's simply an underwritten role.

A friend asked me after I mentioned seeing this if it felt like a Guy Ritchie movie. Unfortunately, it doesn't, and it's not even worth comparing this to things like Snatch or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. While there are a few moments in the film that I really enjoyed that did feel like authentic Guy Ritchie moments, this feels more like his Sherlock Holmes movies than his earlier films.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is enjoyable enough for a lazy Sunday matinee. It's slick looking and reasonably fun, but you'll forget you saw it an hour later. You won't miss anything if were to wait for rental. I've seen much worse this summer though, so you could do a lot worse during Dump Season.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Lone Ranger (2013)

"My favorite part was when the horse drank a beer and burped" - My 5-year-old nephew.

This is the kind of humor you can expect from The Lone Ranger, Disney's latest resurrection of an old character that nobody was asking for.  You also get to see things like a grown man having his head dragged through fresh horseshit, and Tonto repeatedly attempt to feed a dead bird as a gag.  You might think then that The Lone Ranger is a movie geared towards kids.  Well, it also features a scene of the main villain eating someones heart (although its not seen clearly), many people are shot several times, and others are brutally killed when thrown from moving trains while watching their bodies hit the ground and violently roll away.  The disconnect in tone makes it really hard to pin down exactly what kind of movie it was supposed to be or whom it's meant for.  Brutal violence juxtaposed with childish attempts at humor.  This is a Disney film?  If you're expecting family entertainment, you might have to be careful depending on what you want your kids to see.

I realize I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here as I saw The Lone Ranger with my 5 and 8-year-old nephews (and their mother), but they cut their teeth on the Indiana Jones movies, which also feature scary moments and brutal violence, so we knew that The Lone Ranger wasn't anything they wouldn't be able handle.  The younger of the two slept through most of the film anyway, so it really captivated his attention.  Oh, and don't think for a second that The Lone Ranger is in the same league as the Indiana Jones series.  Well, maybe except for The Crystal Skull.  I'm still irritated with how bad that movie was.

Anyway, my older nephew said his favorite parts were "that crazy horse" and "all the train parts", and that's really the strength of the film.  It's bookended with two pretty entertaining scenes, although I thought the final one was a little much.  That leads into one of the other main problems of the film in that it's way too long.  In between these two action scenes is two hours of meandering backstory, undeveloped side characters, and just general nothingness.

When watching The Lone Ranger, it will feel like something that was assembled together from various parts of other films.  At times it's a serious western, then it's a buddy cop film; there's undeveloped mystical elements, and a shoehorned love interest.  I get the vibe that even the writers (and there were three of them)  and director Gore Verbinski weren't sure what type of film they wanted to make, so they just tried a little bit of everything and hoped that something would stick.

Within the plot - what little there is of one - there didn't seem to be any concept of time or distance.  Characters appear when convenient or needed by the script.  Early in the film, you see Tonto in a jail cell, but in the very next scene, he's not only out of jail, but he's caught up with people that have been on horseback for several hours.  A character even asks Tonto how he got out of jail, only to not answer the question.  Just because you acknowledge the inconsistency to the audience, it doesn't let you off the hook for it, especially if you don't even bother to answer your own question.

Adding to this, I'm not even sure why this was called The Lone Ranger.  It's really all about Tonto.  The story is told from his perspective, you get more of his backstory, and he's the only competent one that does anything effective.  I get that they were trying to capitalize on Johnny Depp's star power and the Pirates connection, but while Depp is one of the only good things about the film, Tonto doesn't have any of the charm of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Armie Hammer as "The Ranger", is more of a secondary character.  He's never all that interesting or compelling.  This isn't the fault of Hammer or his performance - I like Armie Hammer - it's just not very well written.  They don't give you any reason to think he's a badass or even a capable hero.  In fact, they make a point of stating several times that he's not a fan of guns and refuses to use them on multiple occasions.  Yet every time he does shoot a gun, he hits his target perfectly.  He does this on accident at times, so you don't see where any skill comes in.  Tonto states he cannot be killed in battle, but never really delve into that either.  However, they do show you that both he and Tonto and superheroes.  In that early action scene, they are thrown from a speeding train and you see them roll around at high speed.  You see others in the film die from this, but after they are just sitting there without a scratch on them.  Later in the film, they fall from great heights without any ill effect.  I'm sure this is meant to be ridiculous action like many Summer films, but most films work up to that kind of ridiculousness as the film goes on, or even after a sequel or two.  The Lone Ranger starts with "god mode" turned on.

William Fichtner plays the main villain, and he's one of my favorite scenery chewing actors.  He was the best thing about Drive Angry and was I was able to enjoy that.  He does his usual great work, but he was underutilized.  None of the cast really has all that much to do.  Ruth Wilson, who I loved on Luther, seems to just be in the film to scream a few times and doesn't have much of a character beyond that.  Despite what you see in trailers, Helena Bonham Carter is barely in the film, so if you're expecting something from her, then you're going to be disappointed.  Tom Wilkinson is wasted as well.  Barry Pepper and James Badge Dale round out the supporting cast, but they don't have much going on either.

Before I finish up, I have to mention how hard it was not to type "The Long Ranger" instead of "The Lone Ranger".  I wonder why that is?  "The Long Ranger" sounds like a porn.  I'm sure when the Adult Film community gets around to their version they'll call it that.  If so, I want a cut, or at least a free copy.

I don't think The Lone Ranger is necessarily as bad as I've heard going in, but it's definitely a difficult movie to recommend.  I didn't come out of it absolutely hating it or thinking it was a total waste of time, but it's something I'll never watch again.  There are some entertaining action scenes and Johnny Depp has a few good moments, but it's way too long, and the story and tone are all over the place.  There's just not much to enjoy otherwise.  Depending on your view, it's not even suitable for the family.  It's a movie nobody was asking for and is just a ho-hum, forgettable summer film.  It's a rental.

2 (out of 5) Death Stars

Mirror Mirror (2012) - Movie Review

I've said in the past that I like Tarsem Singh. I think he has a very cool visual style. However, after the disappointment that was Immortals and his own public admission that a story wasn't as important to him as the visuals were, I was kind of nervous about seeing Mirror Mirror.  The first trailer didn't help things, which looked cheesy as hell, like it was some bad Disney movie brought to life.

Fortunately, Mirror Mirror isn't as bad as those initial trailers looked.  In fact, some of the jokes from that trailer were absent from the film.  Perhaps they heard the grumbles from the audience and removed some of those elements.  It was a good decision if that was the case.

Anyone vaguely familiar with the story of Snow White already knows the basics.  There's nothing ground breaking here, so I'm not even going to recap the story or get into it.  It's simply yet another interpretation of the story of Snow White.  Hell, we're getting another one this summer with Snow White and the Huntsman.  The huge problem with that upcoming flick is that they cast Kristen Stewart as Snow White, so you can expect a lot of weird stuttering, excessive eye blinking and head shaking from that.  I'll take Lily Collins as Snow White to go, please!

One comment I heard about Mirror Mirror that was kind of funny to me was that this didn't do anything new with the story.  What exactly can they do with it that's new at this point?  Change the outcome?  Kill Snow White at the end?  Trust me, if they had changed the story too much, the very same people would complain about how they deviated too much from the well established story.  It's a dumb criticism to me.

The movie, especially Lily Collins as Snow White, is gorgeous.  It's weird because before this movie, I really had never taken notice of Collins before.  It's similar to how I viewed Amy Adams before she played a Disney princess in Enchanted.  I never really noticed her before either.  Now Collins has effectively played Snow White, I'm totally into her.  Maybe I just have a Disney or princess fetish.

I'm getting way off topic.  The movie is gorgeous though.  Nearly every shot in the film has something vibrant or vivid to look at.  That's Tarsem Singh for you.  Even his movies that haven't been received well still look great.  At least he delivers on that aspect.

I think what would have made Mirror Mirror really stand out would have been a stronger script.  Once again we have a first time writer Melissa Wallack and co-writer Jason Keller (Machine Gun Preacher) involved in the screenplay.  Again, I think a more experienced writing team or a good punch up writer would have really helped.

While the look of the movie makes this feel like it's more of an adult tale, much of the humor seems to be directed at kids.  I did hear pretty much everyone of all ages laughing at the film though.  Even I laughed a few times, so take that for what it's worth.  There's still some really lame, childish jokes though and they make Armie Hammer do some things I felt were beneath him.  I still really like him as an actor though, and that he's getting more work.  He's moving towards leading man status, and I could see him playing a superhero if he'd start hitting the weights.

I've gone on about Lily Collins enough, but I really did like her here.  I thought she played the part really well and they did a good job with making Snow White a stronger character.  It seemed believable that Armie Hammer's Prince could fall for her so quickly.  I also really liked Julia Roberts.  She's such an effective bitch here and it seems like she was having a lot of fun with the role.  Nathan Lane also did a good job.  I felt the movie was best when it focused on the interaction between Snow White and the Dwarves.  They did a good job in a short time showing why they liked each other.

There's also a very nice cameo at the end that most of you will get a kick out of.  That's about all I can say about it.  Don't want to spoil it for you.  Wouldn't be prudent.  However, during the end credits there was a very overproduced Bollywood number that I felt was totally out of place.  I could have done without it.

Mirror Mirror overall is a cute movie.  It's visually stunning and actually has pretty good acting across the board.  The crowd I saw it with was pretty mixed and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  I even heard a smattering of applause as it ended.  I do feel like this is still more of a kids film, with a sprinkle of adult themes.  It is the type of movie you can take your kids to see and you'll probably end up feeling like you didn't waste your time with it.  I think this will really appeal to a young audience and they will identify with this incarnation of Snow White.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars