Everest (2015)

Beware of a movie that begins by telling you how difficult it is to climb Everest and how many people have died trying to do it. You actually want me to watch this movie, right? Throughout they continue to hammer home how dangerous it is and how things can go south quickly. Are you sure you want me to sit through this whole thing? Guess how the movie plays out?

Everest is rough to watch at times. You're seeing a group of people struggling with this feat, and then it continues to get worse and worse. It's no surprise that it's not going to end well for a lot of them. If you like seeing lots of people die or frozen solid, then this is for you. Joy and triumph are not words I'd use to describe Everest. I get the whole man against nature element, but I can't help but wonder why anyone bothers with such an extreme. Why not just do those Spartan Races, and I don't even like those things.

Ultimately. the biggest problem with the movie is that it's hard to feel sympathy for the characters. They never give much more motivation than, 'because it's there'. Nobody's making them do this. It's not like anyone's got a gun to their heads, and they are offered multiple times to turn around when it looks like it's going to be too risky. At the end, I was as cold as as Everest.

Just like how Black Mass shows you pictures of the real people involved, Everest does that too. Normally that helps me connect to the characters, but even seeing them I still couldn't. I also found it a little funny that the makers of the film weren't as concerned for nailing the look. Aside from being much better looking, most of the actors looked nothing like their counterparts. It's kind of irrelevant though, since most of the actors are unrecognizable through much of the film. If it's not their facial hair, then it's the layers and layers of clothing and facial covering obscuring their identity. I was usually confused as to who was who most of the time, unless they had a really distinctive voice. They could have cast a bunch of unknowns and gotten the same effect. Having said that, the performances are good even though it seems like a waste of a lot of big names. I thought Black Mass underutilized a great cast, but in Everest they are completely wasted. Jason Clarke and Josh Brolin stand out for the most part, but I think in her limited screen time I think the only performance I connected with was Keira Knightley's.

Great, great cinematography. Everest is a gorgeous film, even when it's at it's most perilous. I know there was some CG used, but it was used to good effect. I saw it on IMAX 3D. While IMAX was a good format for the film, the 3D did absolutely nothing for it. If you're gonna experience this on the big screen, opt for a larger format, but see if you can avoid 3D.

Everest is a great looking, well-made movie, but it's ultimately a downer. This is one of those movies you'll put in that category of a good movie that you'll never want to see again. I can't recommend anything above a matinee.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Sicario (2015)

Has anyone been watching Narcos on Netflix lately? If so, Sicario will fit right in with all the talk of cartels and hitmen on that show. Sicario feels like a distant, spiritual sequel to Narcos.

Sicario starts off with a bang, literally, and never lets up on the tension. It's so tense that I realized towards the end that I was actually sweating in my seat a little bit. There's a sense of dread that permeates the film. This is accentuated by the haunting soundtrack. I couldn't help but feel that something awful was going to happen at any moment. In a lot of ways, especially with the body count, it's a horror film. It's scarier than most modern horror films anyway.

It's super dark, complex and plays with moral and legal ambiguity. Sicario toys with you. Until I realized Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners) directed, I thought I was watching a David Fincher movie. He certainly seems on a similar career path as Fincher.

The cinematography is beautiful as well. There are multiple shots where you're just following these guys speed through the border and Juarez, and it's oddly hypnotic. Then, there's some of the best use of heat and night vision I've ever seen in a movie. I don't play a lot of first person shooters, but someone should make a video game out of this if it doesn't already exist.

The cast is great and you'd have a hard time finding better performances from Josh Brolin, Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro. I was hoping for a little more Full Metal Bitch from Blunt, but she plays a little more vulnerable here. Still, she gives a great performance. Del Toro just kills it though. From the moment he shows up on screen, you know there's something up with him. I'd love a sequel just to see what he's up to after the events of Sicario.

Sicario is one of the best movies of the year and one of the most intense movies I've seen in a long time. It really sticks with you, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I can't recommend it highly enough. Put it on the top of your list of things to see in the theater. I can't think of anything wrong with it, so you know that means...

5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Oldboy (2013)

I wasn't quite sure what to make of Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy at first.  I've seen the South Korean original by Chan-wook Park many times and it's a favorite of mine.  Was I going to be able to watch this remake objectively?  I'm not the biggest fan of remakes either, but if there's one instance where it's not always a bad thing is when doing an American version of a foreign film.  You can address issues with the story that may be cultural or lost in translation.  Really the biggest problem with a remake of Oldboy is that it features some significant twists and disturbing story elements, so all the shock and surprise is gone for anyone that's seen the original.  I tried looking at the remake from the perspective of someone that's never seen it before, and I think that's where Oldboy does work on some level.

After a night of massive drinking, Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) finds himself locked in what appears to be a hotel room.  He's unable to escape and there's no explanation as to why he's there.  After 20 years goes by, he's finally released still not knowing why.  Joe's out for vengeance and discovering why this was done to him.  He's befriended by a nurse, Marie (Elizabeth Olsen), who agrees to help him after learning his story.  Eventually a mysterious man (Sharlto Copley) reveals himself as his captor and issues Joe a challenge to discover his real identity and why he imprisoned and tortured him.  There's much more to the story than that, but I wanna try and keep this spoiler free for you folks out there that aren't familiar with it.

There are several changes between the two versions.  As you'd might suspect, many of these changes don't add much to the story, and some serve to hand hold the audience through the film a bit more. There's a little more lead up in this version where we see more of Joe's work and personal behavior prior to his imprisonment.  It's absolutely clear what kind of person he was.  I didn't think this change was really necessary (the scene of Joe's bender goes on way too long), but it did allow them to show more growth from Joe while imprisoned.  There's a change to the villain's back story which I felt made his motivation less sympathetic and much creepier.  A minor change that felt like it may have been cultural was that the length of Joe's imprisonment was increased from 15 to 20 years.  Again, without trying to spoil anything, this ages a certain character to make their profession and relationship to Joe a little more believable.  One change I did like was at the end.  The original version has an ambiguous, artsy ending, where this version has more of a full circle feel.  I liked the finality of it.

One of the more obvious differences that was likely done to appeal to US audiences is that it's extremely bloody and violent, even more so than the original.  The violence is even a little Tarantino-esque.  The infamous "hammer scene" was changed up to make it more action oriented.  In the original, it's more about the character becoming a force of nature, where in Spike Lee's version it felt more like an obligatory action scene because nobody had been killed in a while.  It's over-choreographed (in some cases badly) and changed to have multiple floors, making it feel more like a video game.

Overall, it's paced well though, and I never found myself bored with it despite knowing exactly how it was going to turn out.  While it doesn't have the same aesthetic as the original, Spike Lee put his own style on it and I thought there were some creative looking scenes.

Oldboy does feature some strong performances.  Josh Brolin is very good at portraying the mental transformation of Joe, and even goes through a physical transformation as he molded himself into a force of vengeance.  Elizabeth Olsen is also good as Marie and I though her performance and changes to her character was one of the distinct improvements over the original.  Again, some of these changes seemed to be cultural, which is likely why I feel that way.  Unfortunately, one performance that definitely was not an improvement was Sharlto Copley's choices as The Stranger.  He's way over-the-top in that bad, mustache-twirling, Bond villain way.  It seems he may have spent a little too much time at the Evil Villain Academy.  It's almost comical how over-the-top it is, but since this wasn't made to be a campy film, it really undermines the seriousness of it.  You can contrast that with Samuel L. Jackson's small role as Chaney, which was also a little over-the-top (is there a Jackson performance that isn't?), but had an element of fun to it.

If you haven't yet seen the original, or you're someone that doesn't have the patience for subtitles, then I think you'll enjoy Oldboy for the dark, twisted and violent thriller it is.  Fans of the original, however, will likely find that it doesn't add anything new to the story.  Much of the nuance and subtlety is gone, and Spike Lee's version is more of a telegraphed punch.  Even for existing fans, I think it's worth a rent just to compare the two, but it's nothing that anyone needs to rush out and see in the theater.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Gangster Squad (2013) - Movie Review

Gangsters shoot about as well as Stormtroopers.

Here's an example of when a movie 'based off true events' misses the mark.  In Gangster Squad we follow a task force created to stop gangster Mickey Cohen's criminal organization.

Set back in the late 1940's, Cohen (Sean Penn) was a ruthless gangster that the LAPD was in danger of losing the city to.  It didn't help that many local police forces were on his payroll, and just as much a part of the problem as the gangsters were. Chief Bill Parker (a super gravelly Nick Nolte), puts John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) in charge of putting together a small, 'off the books' task force to stop Cohen.  O'Mara is an honest, but tough minded cop, and is told that he doesn't simply want Cohen killed, but he wants his organization destroyed to the point where any other gangster would be scared off from trying to swoop in after Cohen is gone.

Normally a movie like Gangster Squad is right up my alley.  It's slick looking, has a good cast, and I generally love stories about gangsters, especially when based off real people.  However, the whole time while I'm watching I can't quite figure out why it wasn't clicking for me.  After a bloody opening, I thought it was going to be the kind of violent crime drama that I enjoy, but it all felt very tame somehow.  Maybe because when I compare it to something like Django Unchained the violence didn't have the same kind of impact to it.

The story itself is also very thin and there's not a lot of depth to any of the characters.  They try to show that some of the squad members are conflicted over the level of violence they are using to stop the bad guys, and is there really any difference between the police and the gangsters, but they don't really go into it too much.  Will Beall's script was based off a book Tales from the Gangster Squad by Paul Lieberman, and neither he or the book have an entry on Wikipedia, so that ought to tell you something about how popular or critically acclaimed that book is.  If you're gonna base your 'based on true events' movie off a book, maybe you should go with one people have heard of.  I'm a little nervous now that Beall is attached to both the upcoming Justice League movie and the next Lethal Weapon.  I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

There's also a love story between squad member Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) and Cohen's girlfriend Grace (Emma Stone). As much as I like Gosling and Stone, I felt they were both miscast here.  Stone seemed too young and innocent to play the kind of sexy the role needed, not that there was much to the role in the first place.  Gosling's voice had a weird affectation to it where it he sounded like he was sucking on helium in between takes, and his voice wasn't consistent through the film.  I think the biggest missed opportunity between these two was that the great chemistry they demonstrated in Crazy, Stupid, Love was all but gone here.

A movie is only as good as its bad guy, but Sean Penn's Cohen wasn't very effective.  It didn't help that they put him in ridiculous looking makeup and spoke with a overdone accent that made him feel more like a Dick Tracy villain than a real person.  It also doesn't help the realism that even with the makeup, Penn doesn't look anything like Mickey Cohen.

Mickey Cohen, 1949.  The resemblance
 to Sean Penn is uncanny, huh?

Looking at that picture, you'd think that someone like Joe Pesci or even Bob Hoskins would be a better fit.

Gangster Squad is another movie where the bad guys with automatic weapons can't hit shit, but the good guys are all crack shots.  It's like they all went to the Stormtrooper school of marksmanship.  This allows a group of just five people to take on and defeat a much larger force of gangsters.  It's not like they employed any kind of tactics to give them the upper hand either.  The bad guys even make it easy on them by refusing to take any kind of cover when being shot at or just run right up to them as they're being fired upon.

Between the over-the-top performance of Sean Penn and the silliness of his henchmen, I couldn't figure out if this was meant to be a serious drama, or if they were going for more of a humorous angle.  Confusing this further was that this was directed by Ruben Fleischer, who was on more of a comedic track with his previous films, Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less.  He's still one of my favorite up-and-coming directors, but he probably wasn't the best choice to direct if the intent was to make as serious crime drama.  I do think he did a good job with the look of the film, which was it's strength.

Gangster Squad is an example of a movie that's all style and no substance.  It's normally the type of film I eat up, but I didn't find it all that creative or original.  It wastes a talented cast with a very pedestrian story that can nobody can rise above.  It's ultimately pretty forgettable, but it's not a bad rental when you want to kill two hours.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Men in Black 3 (2012) - Movie Review

"Threequels" tend to have a pretty bad track record, especially when nearly 10 years has passed since the last film.  After the lackluster MiB 2, was anyone really demanding another?  There's a reason why it's been 10 years.  Anyway, the good news is that while not as strong as the original MiB, MiB 3 is a mostly entertaining, but flawed addition to the series.

An alien criminal, Boris the Animal, played by an unrecognizable Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), escapes a secret Lunar prison that contains the worst aliens out there.  Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) imprisoned him back in 1969, shooting off one of his arms in the process.  Boris wants revenge, and plans to travel back in time, not only to kill Agent K, but do it before he loses his arm.  Making matters worse, killing Agent K in the past prevents him from deploying a defense grid around that Earth that would have stopped the invasion of Boris' people and led to their extinction.

Boris succeeds, but Agent J (Will Smith) is somehow able to detect the fracture in the timeline.  He also goes back in time to stop Boris and restore the original timeline.  The movie picks up once Agent J arrives in 1969.  Fortunately, the movie avoids using the 60's to make fun of the times or use a lot of lame fish-out-of-water jokes  There are a few here and there, but I felt they worked since they didn't overdo it.  It sticks more to the task at hand.

You meet the younger version of Agent O (Alice Eve), but she's really not in the movie much.  This also goes for the modern version of Agent O (Emma Thompson).  This is one of the missed opportunities of the film, as it is consistently implied that Agents K and O may have had a thing at some point, but it's never developed and it's a thread that goes nowhere.

MiB 3, starts off a little rough, with some really labored and stunted dialog.  I had heard that they went into filming without a story or script and it feels like it at first.  Speaking of dialog, Will Smith seems like he's been out of it a little too long, as much of his ad-libbed dialog seemed out of date by a decade or so.   You know, like when your Dad or Uncle tries to relate to you and uses slang that nobody says anymore?  It felt like that.  Will Smith was his typical, charismatic self otherwise.

There's a lot about MiB 3 that felt underdeveloped.  In the early parts of the film, it seems like they are going to get into K's history and his motivation a bit more, but then by the time the movie ends you realize that none of the questions that are setup in the beginning are ever answered.  You still know the same amount about the characters as you did before.

As much as I like Jermaine Clement, he wasn't given a lot to do as Boris the Animal.  He doesn't have much in the way of meaningful dialog and just speaks with a weird voice and laughs unusually.  I think he tried as hard as he could, but again, there wasn't much there.

The most inspired thing is Josh Brolin's portrayal as the young version of Agent K.  He does a spot-on impression of Tommy Lee Jones (who's also barely in the film, as if he didn't really want to be there).  The impression is so good that the first time I heard him do TLJ's voice, I thought it was a dub, rather than impression.  You really do start to forget that you're watching an actor do an impression and somehow are  looking at a younger version of Tommy Lee Jones.

Another thing I thought was really interesting was the character of Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), an important alien that has the ability to see the outcome of multiple timelines simultaneously.  It's a cool concept and they use it well.  He isn't introduced until almost the end of the film though, so again, it felt like something that was underused.  Bill Hader, as Andy Warhol, was also one of the funnier things about the film.

There are a lot of weird or inconsistent things in the movie.  At one point during a fight, a metal door comes off the hinges for no reason at all. You see an alien die only to the same alien alive in the very next scene.  There a bystander screaming during the same fight, only to be one of the people the MiB are fighting against.  Why are you screaming like you're helpless, but then attack later on when you lost your tactical advantage?  There are a few things during the climax that aren't consistent either.  You'll notice moments where the bad guy would win if would do something simple, but that's 'bad guy movie logic' for you.  Some of these flaws you don't really notice until after the fact, where others are totally obvious as they are happening.

Barry Sonnenfeld did a good job keeping the tone of the film light and mostly fun.  It doesn't fully capture what made the first MiB great though.  The script by Etan Cohen (Idiocracy, Tropic Thunder) is an improvement over MiB 2, but many of the jokes fall flat.  I'm surprised at all the missed opportunities here.  As mentioned earlier, you think you're going to get more character development, but it never happens.  There's a moment at the end that's thrown in to give the climax some emotional weight, but it felt forced in.

The strongest elements of the film are the overall look of the film and the effects.  The alien and creature design was excellent, but that's to be expected whenever the legend, Rick Baker, is involved.  I didn't bother to see this in 3D for a change, and I didn't feel like I missed anything.  It is a very nice looking and colorful film though.

Overall, MiB 3 is a enjoyable enough addition to the series, but as I've mentioned a few times, it seemed like there was a lot of wasted potential.  If you're a die-hard fan of the series, I think there's a lot you'll enjoy about MiB 3.  For those of you that are dying to see this or are all caught up on your movies, it's worth a matinee.  Otherwise, I'd save it for a rental.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars