Beneath the Darkness (2011)

     I guess I am a bit of a fan of Dennis Quaid.  If I were to look at it objectively, I would realize that there is no reason to be.  Sure, there are films like Breaking Away (1979), The Right Stuff (1983), D.O.A. (1988), and Smart People (2008) that are in the decent to great range where Quaid's performance matters.  But there are many more awful – albeit some in a very enjoyable way – movies featuring Quaid.  The brief list is Jaws 3D (1983), Enemy Mine (1985; I respect what they were going for, but Enemy Mine drags for its entire running time), Innerspace (1987), Flesh and Bone (1993), DragonHeart (1996; now, if you didn't go in expecting the action movie the trailers promised, you are likely to view DragonHeart as a fun fantasy action-comedy with heart), Switchback (1997), Traffic (2000; I know Traffic was widely praised, but I found it to be a disaster that was simultaneously too obvious and lacking in having a substantive point addressed by the material), Cold Creek Manor (2003), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Flight of the Phoenix (2004), the remake of Yours, Mine, and Ours (2005), Vantage Point (2005; I don't want to fault Quaid for the overall quality of the film – the plot is just rife with holes), Legion (2009), and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009; see Vantage Point for fitting criticism).  But there is something likeable about Quaid, a rough charisma that works when he is the man forced into the 'heroic' role.  As a villain, he has a tendency to overact to the point of ridiculousness.
     Put Beneath the Darkness (2011) in that category.  Quaid plays Ely Vaughn, who runs the local funeral parlor in a Texas small town.  It being in Texas is kind of thrown in as an aside, as no one has much of a Texan accent (from any part of the state) and the people certainly don't seem as devoted to high school football as they are suggested to be by TV, movies, and real life.  The sheriff does where a cowboy hat, but a lot of lower budget movies struggle to find distinctive headwear for small town sheriffs.  Anyway, Ely is mildly creepy guy who recently lost his wife.  Well, she is dead but decidedly not lost.  Movie wouldn't work if she were dead and lost.
      Ely is also a kind of obsessive whose tendencies are restricted to one particular province of his life.  While I'm sure somebody thought this was a good idea – because many obsessives can lead functional lives – it plays as both false and as being an obvious plot device.  What kind of guy would Ely be if he didn't keep his dead wife's body around for company?  What movie would there be?
     Chances are, a much better one.  Much of the time given to the Ely character is utterly wasted, especially given how Quaid has no consistent physicality for the character.  Is he the guy who can shrink into himself, blend in to a crowd, and appear to be the mild-mannered minder of the dead, or the brute who can lift a high school athlete off his feet by grabbing him – one-handed – about the neck?  Similarly, the teen protagonists/potential victims are given a fair amount of screen time only to be developed in clichéd broad strokes.  Even the circumstances that should make Travis (Tony Oller) unique come across like they were borrowed from The X-Files (1993-2002) and number of supernatural themed low-budget horror movie.
     For some reason, it isn't supposed to matter that Travis steals the star QB/kind-of-friend's girlfriend.  Now, if I am going to be honest in my recollection, my friends in high school didn't mind going after girls other guys (even friends) were dating.  How much more miserable would I be today if I had followed that route?  But seldom is this kind of behavior endorsed as being appropriate for teen heroes in a (soft) horror film.  The girlfriend in question is Abby, played by Aimee Teegarden.  Teegarden comes across as the kind of actress forced upon audiences, the kind that is serviceable but not quite ready for a good deal of screen time.  Moreover, she comes across as though she were playing an updated Topanga Lawrence from Boy Meets World (1993-2000).
     The are holes in the story that could have been covered with better dialogue and maybe two days of reshoots.  Instead, they stand as a testament that Beneath the Darkness was operating well beneath the desired budget.  The action, what little there is, is lifeless; the suspense nonexistent.  There are worse movies, certainly, but few that seem to be fighting every chance to elevate themselves from sub-mediocrity every step of the way.  I'm not sure Beneath the Darkness has enough of its various elements to satisfy any crowd.  It is too soft for horror fans, too lacking in suspense for thriller junkies, and too stingy with the emotions of the teens to satisfy younger viewers. 

Haywire (2011)

     This is the kind of movie where the critical part of my brain would prohibit any level of enjoyment.  Because having hot coffee thrown in your eyes will leave you (at the very least) momentarily blinded.  That isn't a question of will.  You can't just decide that it doesn't affect you because you are USMC-tough.  No, I pretty much went with where Steven Soderburgh wanted to go in Haywire (2011) because it required less effort than noting what the superspy/assassin can do because she is the best.  If I learned anything from the action movies of the 1980s, it was that there doesn't have to be any relationship between the real world and what the action hero does, so long as it looks cool.
     For the most part, Haywire does just that.  It has the just-obvious-enough edits that sell the practicality (instead of camera trickery or CG shenanigans) of the fight scenes.  Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is able to survive a blow that should crush both cervical and thoracic vertebrae, stay conscious and combat effective after being repeatedly punched (full force) in the face by a much larger opponent, and braid her hair (for combat effectiveness?) in a matter of mere minutes because it is simply more interesting than the alternative.  If Mallory is knocked out in the opening scene, then there isn't much of a movie.  Unless Soderburgh was going to give an audience a torture sequence like the one in Casino Royale (2006), and that really would be torture-porn.  I'm glad he went the more conventional route.
     I found myself mostly enjoying the quick pace, the lack of any real connection of the events to a sensible plot (for any of the major characters), and the soundtrack.  Haywire has quite possibly the best action film music (discounting Sword & Sorcery fare) I have heard in the last ten years.  It helps drive the action forward, and even to hide how normal (safe) the camera shots are.  Now, if I wanted to think about it, I am positive I would have a long list of problems with the movie.  But it isn't something to think about.  See.  Enjoy.  Delete from memory banks.  That is how I feel about Haywire.  It is a diversion that is not likely to do more than make one think Carano can fight (which she had already proved before getting into acting) or notice that Bill Paxton no longer resembles Hudson from Aliens (1986) at all, even while you know that it is him.

Chronicle (2012)

     I am not much for the found footage approach to assembling a movie.  Rarely do I think it serves the story, nor does it do much to cover up when the tactic is employed to hide the smaller budget.  That being said, I am not against its existence.  Much of Chronicle (2012) works because of the lean approach the a found footage take on the story dictates.  Conversely, other than a handful of exceptional visuals, there isn't any real reason for Chronicle  to be anything other than a straight ahead, lower budget (for a studio film) teen actioner.
     There is too much focus on the emotional disconnectivity of Andrew (Dane DeHaan).  Rather than let a few stark examples stand as the emblems of his unhappy existence, writer Max Landis (famous for having a famous father and getting other famous people to appear in his video deconstruction of "The Death of Superman") and director Josh Trank hammer the point home again and again.  Essentially, they are trying to make the would-be school shooter a sympathetic character.  That is probably not a good route to go, and it doesn't help the story here.
     The other glaring problem, imposed by the found footage approach, is that the other characters who appear on screen do not much development.  Trank is forced to resort to cheats – cameras of all sorts are rolling everywhere, sometimes without sound – to keep the story going in a coherent manner.  Sometimes this is done in a mildly clever fashion, such as having Casey (Ashley Hinshaw) wandering about with a camera of her own.  Too often, however, it feels like more of a distraction than a means to become immersed in the story.  Casey is allowed to have some personality because she has a camera, and therefore a point of view.  Matt (Alex Russell) and Steve (Michael B. Jordan) are just somewhat mouthy guys playing at being somebody's (Landis) idea of teenagers, but only as they are seen by others.
     Now, I did actually enjoy Chronicle.  I think it has the best superhero fight ever put on film (and Landis has established his credentials with his comic book geekdom well before this), feeling all the more real because the characters seem to finally be having reasonable emotional reactions (for being teenagers) to what is going on.  I just think that it tries to make the kid who is going to kill everyone because he was bullied/beaten/ostracized the hero – or at the very least the emotional center of the film – before waving a hand and declaring that uncontrollable emotion is bad.  I think this would have been much stronger with a more traditional approach that had a few cut-ins from Andrew's and Casey's cameras rather than pretending that this wasn't an arduously plotted and shot production.

Echelon Conspiracy (2009) vs. Eagle Eye (2008)

     Right or wrong, I am solidly of the opinion that everyone but Shane West signed on to Echelon Conspiracy (2009) because they liked the idea of being able to see Prague and Moscow on somebody else's dime.  Shane West clearly just needs the work – unless he saved all of his money from ER (1994-2009).  Between this and Red Sands (2009), he clearly showed that life after major network television wasn't full of open doors and opportunities in shown in theaters movies.  Then again, Ving Rhames may just live in Sophia, Bulgaria waiting for opportunities to make top-end low budget unofficial zombie sequels.  And Ed Burns, well, I may be the only fan of him as an actor.  I keep wondering why he hasn't landed in some kind of franchise film or as the lead in a premium cable channel show. 
     Echelon Conspiracy has a lot in common with a major motion picture that was released at about the same time, that being Eagle Eye (2009).  However, its real roots stretch back to War Games (1983), with West having all the machismo of a nerdy, near shut-in Seattle teenager.  But there is at least some degree of internal consistency and thought put into Echelon Conspiracy.  It may all be ridiculous, but there is a sense that everyone involved – excepting, perhaps, Martin Sheen – knows that the premise of the movie is beyond any rational belief, and that allows for the action to be fun without imposing any threat of real consequence.
     There is the oddity that everyone in Prague, at least those we see, speaks English (and most seem to be American).  One would think that Czech, Slovak, Russian, and German would be more common, but that wouldn't allow for our American technician, FBI agent, former FBI agent, and combat-trained agent girl to just go around like they were in some kind of not America that accepted English as the default language and the Americans as the guardians of order.  Actually, there is some nice, if overstated, commentary on that last bit to close the film. 
     Without a huge budget, Echelon Conspiracy does not rely heavily on special effects to move the action along.  There are a fair amount of practical effects, most of them in that range between oh my god, this is as bad as those Sci-Fi original movies and the Jason Bourne films.  Yes, using a shotgun blast to blow up a gas tank and thus send the car twenty feat in the air is stupid, but it is the fun kind of stupid.  It takes the false toughness of the 1980s and manages to treat it with nostalgia while admitting that there is no way to take it seriously.  Watching someone implore a computer – or rather a complex set of programs that allows for a Skynet-like diffusion over all connected computers – to learn how its stated programming is
    

     Somehow much worse – to the point of not even being that entertaining – is Eagle Eye (2008).  Operating along the same lines of a computer or super complicated set of integrated programs that has found a way to access each and every computer, cell phone, and remote-operated giant scrap metal scooping crane-claw with zero lag time, Eagle Eye manages to be leaden and boring at almost each step of the way.  Maybe that has something to do with casting Shai LaBeouf.  This is the guy who was uncompelling in Holes (2003) and managed to take his general deficit in charisma in new heights in (at least the first two) Transformers (2007; 2009; 2001) movies.  At least he is comfortable in special effects dominated films.
     The same cannot be said for the rest of the cast.  They seem universally confused as to why they are not allowed to do more than spend long sequences reacting to things that will be added in post-production.  If there were more continuity to the story, maybe the scenes where Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson are together wouldn't feel so damn awkward to watch. 
     Where Echelon Conspiracy may have some destructive chase sequences, they are limited to cars operated by actual people, Eagle Eye decides that wholesale destruction from mysterious sources should rule the day.  So mass transit trains can get thrown in reverse like it is nothing (which shocked me, because as a regular rider of the CTA, I know that this cannot be done via remote access), construction booms can be swung around with exact timing (and we should ignore the fact that they cannot generate the force to rip through half a floor of a steel building), and the aforementioned scrap metal claw cranes operate like some demented form of the coin operated grab-a-toy crane games. 
     There is also a complete and total lack of internal consistency.  The overriding program is supposed to be in some sort of a lock down stopping it from going through with its dastardly plan.  Mind you, this isn't a plan that is essentially what it has been programmed to do – which is how Echelon Conspiracy handles it – but rather something it has extrapolated to being a good and necessary step towards being able to perform its stated function.  However, it takes all of its steps during this lockdown.  There is no need to get Jerry (LaBeouf) or Rachel (Michelle Monaghan) at all, and no computer would go through the trouble of picking people from a thousand miles away from the objective.  They are selected so the audience can watch them have adventures while trying to survive the various dangers.
      Eagle Eye doesn't even look that much more polished than its lower budget counterpart.  It looks hurried and ill-considered.  It doesn't seem to be at all aware of just how stupid it is, which makes me think that the people involved thought it was a serious type of thriller.  It isn't.  I'm sure there are people who would enjoy it, but I can't imagine why.  At least Echelon Conspiracy had a better grasp on balancing the plot with the improbability of it all. 

The Expendables (2010)

     It took quite some time for The Expendables (2010) to turn into a hyperactive, old school action cum modern kinetic fight film.  But once it got there, it was just fucking awesome.  Sure, it is incredibly dumb.  That just means it is playing it true to its old school roots.  Chances are that most of the cast wouldn't know what to do with an intelligent script.
     Still, ten minutes of awesome, stupidity inducing action does not justify a movie, so there is an attempt to offer more than just that an remember that guy? moments.  It is full of those.  Dolph Lundgren?  Didn't he try to be an actor after Rocky IV (1985)?  Eric Roberts?  Didn't he have a brief run of sobriety and a sitcom on ABC?  Randy Couture and Steve Austin?  There used to be a lot of advertisement for...well, it had to something, likely different somethings...whatever the hell you did over a decade ago?  Mickey Rourke?  Well, you've been quite active lately, but since I best remember you from Diner (1982), every film you do these days is another reminder that you really fucked up your face.  Terry Crews?  The name sounds vaguely familiar.  Charisma Carpenter?  Well, maybe this will have more of an impact on your post-Angel (1999-2004) career than posing for Playboy.
     The actors who are closer to relevancy – Stallone, Statham, and Li – have more to do than most the others, though Li's inability to say more than a few lines of dialogue (at least in English) at a time keeps him as a sort of star among the other guys in the mercenary crew run by Stallone's Barney Ross.  That's right, Sly set out to make us find the name Barney scary, tough, and intimidating.  You know he is brooding because he has a fascination with ravens.  That is the kind of character development that...well, it makes no sense at all, but in a way it is entirely true to the old school action flicks.  Statham gets a slight break from just being the guy from The Transporter (2002) or Crank (2006), or even Ghosts of Mars (2001), but he does not get the kind of dialogue that would convince a viewer that he enjoyed his time on the set of London (2005).
     There isn't much to say about the plot.  When I was referring to movies that are crap, where one can mentally check-out and just let the pretty pictures dance across the screen, The Expendables is one of the films I had in mind.  It may be drenched in testosterone, but it is the more modern variety where the women are objects to be respected instead of just objects to be captured/fucked. 
     For total and utter crap, The Expendables really is awesome.  Except for Bruce Willis, who looked like a cancer patient and read his lines like the humor was supposed to be shard and off-putting.  It is not a great movie, and probably not even a good movie.  There is a wholly needless action sequence between the main action sequences that seems to be there to remind us that these guys are complete and total action stars; they can do more than throw knives, shoot guns, and go all MMA on your ass.  But I get the appeal and understand why so many were stoked about it.  Just don't count me as eager to see the sequel.  Because I don't think there is going to be anything new.  Because new isn't old school.

Shark Night (2011)

     Had I seen Shark Night (2011) in the theater, well it would have have a ridiculous 3D attached to its name and I would have gotten up to go ask for my money back (or a ticket for a different show) once the time lapse montages started.  I really don't want something that screams mid-1980s without honoring that era.  The rules for watching a movie at home are quite different however, and I found myself able to make it most of the way through the film without wondering why I had gone through the trouble to see it.  Seriously, I made it 1:17:31 into the film before I had to pause it and just figuratively scratch my head.  What else should have filled up the slot I used to make sure I got this movie?
     I guess my biggest complaint is that director David R. Ellis (former actor, former stuntman) has no idea what kind of tone he is setting.  In what should be a ridiculously funny, over-the-top absurdist commentary on horror films that rely on creatures and scary Southerners, Ellis instead seems to be all ahead full on dull and listless.  What I suppose were meant to be scary moments have all of the plausibility of the shark eating the gorilla from The Simpsons (1990-present) episode "Lisa the Vegetarian".  If you find the video scary, then Shark Night will work for you.

     It isn't as though Ellis' record is a straight string of abject disasters.  Both Final Destination 2 (2203) and Cellular (2004) are decent, engaging flicks that find a way to mix humor with tension (more humor in the former than the latter).  But one also has to look at Snakes on a Plane (2006) and The Final Destination (2009), both quite properly loathed movies.  I would have thought that TFD was so poorly received that it would have kept any studio from even thinking about letting Ellis helm a film with a budget over $20 million. But if TFD didn't kill the Final Destination series, I shouldn't expect to be strong enough to derail Ellis' career.
     The problem with Shark Night is that there is no horror, nor terror, and not really any gore.  I am not going to complain that it isn't chock full of gratuitous nudity, but it threatens to be that kind of movie without wanting to cross the threshold into being an R-rated movie.  Why is anyone making a PG-13 horror film?  The answer is because it means more teenagers can pay to see it, and that is where horror films make their bank at the box office.  The problem is that unless the writer and director commit to a slow, steady building of threat and tension, horror films need real violence, gore, and some fucking cursing.
     Borrowing too heavily from Jaws (1975), Shark Night starts – after a lengthy, off-putting title sequence – with a female swimmer getting all eaten by a shark.  Fantastic.  Because it isn't as though Jaws was about managing economic interests versus protecting the innocent people from a man-eating shark, and the struggle from three different men to work together to end the threat.  Except that it is.  Shark Night is about a bunch of leaping sharks being able to swim faster than boats and the people who apparently have some ability to dictate there whereabouts so that the sharks only pose a danger when it is convenient for the plot.  Or what passes for a plot.
     Personally, I spent a good portion of the film wondering if Chris Carmack was somehow created by splicing the DNA of Marc Singer and Casper Van Diem, or if he was just told to have his character act like he was the result of the unlikely mating of the two actors.  That happily distracted me from the fact that his character never sued the ultra-rich parents of the girl who ripped half his face off with a propeller and then used those proceeds to fund his miscreant schemes.  None of the characters are well developed, but at least the actors help that out by not doing much to make the audience care about them.
     Shark Night could have been incredibly worse, but it would have to try to be to get there.  As an attempt at competent film-making, it fails (of gets a low D), but that has to do with the undercranking (or whatever causes fast motion on digital cameras) that makes for shots that evoke memories of The Munsters (1964-66) intercut with overcranked shots (resulting in slow motion).  Then there is the poor alterations of the coloration to make scenes shot during the day look like they were done at night.  And that the shots that were done in front of a green screen can't match even that horrible look.  Here's my advice for a film that has only a $25 million budget.  Spend less on shots of sharks leaping out of the water and more on making sure the shooting script can allow for us to give a damn.

The Caller (2011)

     Playing like an overlong and underfunded episode (specifically "Sorry, Right Number") of Tales from the Darkside (1983-88), Matthew Parkhill's The Caller (2011) manages to be mildly entertaining even as it strains whatever passes for credibility when the central premise is that a phone can connect callers separated more by years than miles.  Unfortunately, it cannot build or maintain any amount of tension, both of which are necessary for a story like this.
     Part of the problem may come from an inability to develop the story in a more nuanced manner.  Mary (Rachelle Leferve) is going through a divorce with a mildly abusive (more menacing and overbearing than anything else) mistake of a husband, Steven (Ed Quinn).  This is handled in a rather obvious, straightforward manner, which deprives any kind of slow build up of the level of threat Mary feels in her just walking around world.  As such, the would-be ex-husband never resonates as anything other than filler material.
     Another part of the problem is that Mary is not consistent in regards to temperament.  She has weird, seemingly random moods swings between being sweet, suspicious, skittish, and oblivious.  She also has no visible means of support or manner to kill time other than the one night class for which she signs up.  More than that, Mary isn't very bright.  In her few fits of being too trusting, she brings all too obvious ruin to her future past-self.
     While The Caller is set on Puerto Rico, in the town of Ceiba.  We mostly know this because Mary's father was stationed at the nearby naval air station Roosevelt Roads.  There is also an off-hand remarks about immigrants getting on the wrong boat and missing New York harbor by quite some distance.  What we don't see are many Puerto Ricans or people speaking Spanish.  While the territory is multilingual, the film makes no effort to make much of the setting.  I felt that not making the most of the setting robbed the movie of an opportunity to escape the generic city setting that many lower budget horror films effect.
     There isn't any gore or gratuitous violence in The Caller.  Indeed, Parkhill does try to make it a supernatural suspense thriller.  The problem is that neither he nor screenwriter Sergio Casci break far enough out of the mold to not have a succession of telegraphed scenes.  On the other hand, it is far more satisfying as a film than many of the larger budget horror/suspense films that have been trotted out over the past few years.

The Road (2009)

     Seeing as how I stopped reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2006) on page 82 – the bookmark is still in it – I wasn't expecting to be drawn in to the movie adaptation of the story.  I knew that it had some elements that I would like, but it is extremely hard to do the end of the world justice on film.  So much of it would be neglected refuse, which as the Fukushim Daiichi mishap has shown us is thoroughly depressing, but not overwhelming.  It makes it look like the end of the world is something that could be cleaned up. 
     Also insanely hard to do on film is conveying how repulsive and paradigm shifting cannibalism – and even more, the threat of cannibalism – should be.  The Road (2009) presents it as just the threat of other people, and while that may be a fine commentary on just how removed from society the Man and the Boy have become, it does little to engage the viewer.  Because they are removed, it makes little sense to have the Man giving a tiresome, droning voice over narration.  It also doesn't help that the Man has nearly nothing to say that isn't shown or implied by the action of the film.
     I mostly feel bad for the actors involved in this project.  Viggo Mortensen is never going to top his Lord of the Rings (2001-03) role – because Aragorn really is the shit when it comes to fantasy characters – but he isn't given much to do here rather than look weary.  Kodi Smit-McPhee, who is much better in Let Me In (2010), never manages to capture the tone of a child who was raised in the ruined world.  He seems like he was dropped off from a normal suburb to spend time with destitute, homeless dad in the land of burned forests.  Robert Duvall gets a scene, as does Guy Pearce, but given their big screen credentials, I have to wonder if they were eager to be in a McCarthy story and didn't spend enough time on set to realize that nothing was materializing.
     The destroyed world is inconsistent.  The blackened, dying forests look imposing, as do the gray, lifeless rivers and sicker looking sea.  But the houses and buildings seem to have no ash or signs of the fire that destroyed everything (maybe it had all been washed into the rivers with the last of the water pressure?).  There isn't much of a sense of distance imparted, or insight on the techniques that have kept the duo alive so long.  Having the Man explain it as they travel again reinforces the notion that the Boy is on the worst field trip ever.
     Some day I may get around to trying to read the book again.  But I know that I have no need to watch the movie a second time.  I think – and I could be wrong – that the mistake here was in trying to be too faithful scenes from the book while abandoning the spirit of the book.  This isn't about a man keeping his son alive; it is about a man not knowing what to do with the time between the end of the world and his death, and keeping he and his son alive because it seems like the right option.  It feels hollow and simplistic, and that is never a good thing for a film that aspires to be art.

The Dark (2005)

     John Fawcett directed one of my favorite movies.  Actually, it is the only movie that I wish I had directed (and I am not a director, nor am I anywhere near being a director), flaws and all.  That movie is not The Dark (2005).
     Not that I can entirely fault Fawcett for the problems I had with the movie, but his use of some of the camera techniques – and I am going to presume his hand is at work with some of the editing – that have been ruining modern horror films draws much of the moodiness and all of the etherealness from the film.  John Carpenter noted that he fucked up his version of The Fog (1980) by having it feel too grounded and solid.  The Dark may not be either of those, but instead of ghostly or dreamlike, it goes for washed-out color and moldy-looking.  Maybe that is Welsh Hell, but it isn't scary.  Worse, it isn't particularly engaging.
     No, the real problem comes from having a victim who just sort of is – Sarah (Sophie Stuckey) is both underdeveloped and unlikeable – and a mother (Maria Bello) who needs absolutely no nudging to full-on acceptance of the supernatural events.  That could work for me, but it would require setting the story around the beginning of the 20th Century, not the 21st.  There is no development of the mythology driving the supernatural forces.  Oh, and there is a prime assumption that sheep are scary.
     I do remember when this film was in theaters and how much I wanted to see it.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it was because I hadn't learned that Sean Bean isn't given much to do in movies (at least not in the ones I've seen).  Maybe I thought it would be a slow, moody, psychological examination of a parent descending into madness because of the loss of a child (I think this is what the ads promised).  Instead, it comes across as a film that spent its budget in an odd fashion – those boat searching scenes probably cost more than any special effects sequence – with an obligatory unhappy ending.

Patient Zero (2009)

     Before I spent two weeks reading books on the do's and don'ts of writing fiction, I would have merely found Jonathan Maberry's Patient Zero (2009) to be tiresome and poorly written.  Having read those books, however, I can point to Maberry's novel as a prime example of bad writing in nearly every form, though not always to a disastrous level.  Not always, but when Maberry insists on having the least likeable protagonist – ever – narrate about ¾ of the story, which only made me wish that somebody would kill that character so that the middle-of-the-road zombie-plague story could go on without me hating the story because of who was telling it.
     Why have most of the novel narrated in the first person while the rest is told in a more traditional third person?  Maybe because Maberry doesn't believe in writing conventions, and maybe because he thought it  clever.  Whatever his reasoning, it is largely an effort that shouldn't have been made. 
     The bigger question should have been why is the protagonist, Joe Ledger, the best at everything?  He is the smartest cop (though he does no kind of police-like investigations – maybe Maberry didn't want to do the research into finding out how that worked), the best shot (better than the Delta Force guys), the best Martial Artist (even though he doesn't understand how the character's form works), the best judge of character, the guys who makes all of the connections with little help (other than to have people to supply expository information) from the other characters, and, of course, he has the biggest cock in the world.  That last bit may be an exaggeration, but Maberry does let the reader know that Ledger has a big dick, and the character knows it, too.
     Overlong, full of points that go nowhere (a bad guy disfigures his face for seemingly no reason, just as this characters need to be where he disfigured his face ends up being ridiculous because he could have gotten from A to C without every needing to go to B, and B is never explored other than to have the character cut a huge gash in his face), and celebrating an adolescent's view of ultra-masculinity, Patient Zero is a prime example of a book to avoid.  That is disappointing, because the basic story is one that would make a fine supernatural (though Maberry makes it a medical issue) thriller if the author and his main character didn't get in the way.  If scenes were not consistently indescribable or characters perpetually at a loss for words, I wouldn't be convinced that Maberry is a bad writer (I may have just thought that this one book was poorly written).
     Whatever the cause for the many faults in this book, they are more than enough for me to warn everyone I can to stay away from it.  It is beyond bad.  It is a waste of time.

The Debt (2011)

     There is a compelling story wedged into The Debt (2011), but I cannot come to say that it is delivered in a way to maintain interest or allow for the dramatic tension that should be there.  Part of the problem – or maybe even most of it – comes from director John Madden's choice to let the action and espionage remain thoroughly grounded in the realm of reality.  For a film that was not short on known actors or budget, it was a daring choice.  Unfortunately, it made the Mossad agents at the center of the story seem ill-prepared and amateurish – even more than the events of the story would suggest.
     Having not seen the 2007 original version of this movie, I cannot comment on how closely the remake hews to original plot points.  I will note that the manner in which the story is told does little to build dramatic tension.  While the cast is solid (somehow Sam Worthington keeps getting work, and that is something I cannot explain), there is such a disconnect between how the characters' looks and mannerisms in 1965 and 1997 that I had a difficult time convincing myself that they are supposed to be the same people.
     There are some really good moments in The Debt.  Jessica Chastain (as Rachel in 1965) portrays vulnerability and resolve in a quite compelling manner.  Actually, the scenes that showcase the vulnerability were so well constructed and acted as to make me decidedly uncomfortable in watching them.  Likewise, the attempted escape from East Berlin is quite entertaining.
     Still, I don't think there is enough in The Debt to make it worth recommending.  Maybe I did not take the proper approach in watching this movie.  But it felt more leaden than mature.  And even though the scope of the story should be large and inspiring, it played much smaller.  Ultimately, the impact and weight of the original mission doesn't seem to translate through in the English version.  Madden may have assumed that an audience will know how important the capture and trial of a Nazi war criminal is to Israelis as the nation was establishing itself, but he failed to bring that feeling to the screen.  And that is where I think The Debt failed the most.
     It is not a bad movie.  Nobody is likely to feel that their time has been wasted in watching it.  But I would suspect that most people who see it will wonder why it isn't much better than the end result.

Hannah (2011)

     I don't know what to make of director Joe Wright's Hanna (2011).  It is part hard-edge espionage thriller, part standard action fare, and part tweener (or maybe young adult) yarn about friendship and family.  It also calls upon established stars Cate Blanchett (as CIA maven Marissa Wiegler) and Eric Bana (as Hanna's father, Erik Heller) to adopt over-the-top accents for no real reason.  That is not to say that it is poorly made or unenjoyable.  Hanna is fine, but it probably could have been better if it had been more determined as to how it wanted to tell its story.
     I will say that Saoirse Ronan (Hanna) has the creepiest, most expressive blue eyes I have seen in recent cinema.  There is something otherworldly about them.  As such, they help sell the notion that Hanna is some government concocted being, not an ordinary human being.  Add in the odd education her "father" gives her in the remote, snowy woods of Finland, and Hanna may as well be an alien in human form set out amongst the people to complete her secret mission.
     Hanna works best when the government pursuit of their renegade assets gives way to the interactions between a vacationing British family and not-quite-properly adapted Hanna.  These scenes are lighter – almost breezy – but retain the hint of danger and suspense.  More than that, they show off the contrast between people who grow up as part of a society and those who can only mimic as much.  Unfortunately, these scenes are likely not what one is expecting from Hanna. 
     Blanchett and Bana are fine here, but their roles could have been easily handled by a number of mid-grade actors.  The history between Marissa and Erik isn't given enough weight in its presentation – and where it is shown, it strikes a harsh contrast against the lighter, comic scenes – and the resolution of it is most unsatisfactory.  There is a nice call back to end the film, but that, too, stands in contrast to how the story had been developing.
     I wouldn't steer anyone away from seeing Hanna – it is entertaining, if inconsistent.  But I would warn them to not expect it to be gritty or serious.  It is a bit of fantasy, a (perhaps ill-conceived) parable about the power of women who are coming of age and the risks of the adult world they must enter that throws a little government conspiracy into the mix. 

Red State (2011)

     Kevin Smith's Red State (2011) stands as a near perfect example of how not to tell a story in film.  From its awkward imposed monologues to insert expository material to its inconsistent, schizophrenic emotional tone, to its thorough lack of any point or entertainment value as a whole, this movie is an unabashed disaster.  That is not to say that there have not been worse movies made, but I seriously doubt the directors of those have been as smug or self-satisfied as Smith seems to be with his own work.  If I were more generous, I could point out that Smith could have broken this into three separate films – each of which would have allowed for traditional storytelling or plot structure – and been better off for it.  His attempt to mash the disparate elements together comes off as amateurish and unimpressive; he should definitely be beyond the first by now.
     The sole bright point of the movie was the character of Cheyenne (Kerry Bishé), who has some depth and meaning beyond the leaden sermons and grindhouse style action sequences.  That writer-director Smith does not know what to do with the character – with any of the characters – may prove that Smith just isn't fit to be making films at this point.  Bishé stands out against the more established actors in being able to depict internal conflict without being obvious or dropping into caricature.  That may just be the writing, or Smith may have just decided that there only needed to be one role that really made the idea of conflicted loyalties and obligations well.  (I don't want to rag on Michael Angarano, an actor I usually enjoy, but he is not given enough to do – and what his character is allowed to do is often poorly shot – and his character feels thoroughly false.)
     There are many bad things I could write about this film, but what's the point?  It has the one bright spot.  Think of it as the cupcake in the pile of shit.  No matter how much you like cupcakes – and if you aren't starving – you aren't going for the one steeped in manure.  There isn't any social commentary here (though I'm sure Smith thinks there is).  It isn't the "actor's catnip" he thinks it is – who would want to be a part of something like this? – and it isn't going to matter in the space of a year.  All Red State did for me was convince me that Smith has no voice past Clerks II (2006).

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)

     Should I admit that I have seen Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde (1995) with Tim Daly and Sean Young multiple times?  Or that my enduring image of Edward Hyde comes from The Impatient Patient (1942), a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon?  I guess that is my way of saying that while I have been immensely familiar with the idea behind The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) – and I knew the title well enough to have thrown a fit when a contestant on Jeopardy! (1984-present) was credited with a correct answer while leaving "The Strange Case of" off the title – I had never gotten around to reading it.
     Robert Louis Stevenson's novella is rather brief, and it does not disclose much of the activity of Edward Hyde.  Instead, it functions as a precursor to the modern investigative thriller with a lawyer as the protagonist (see the works of John Grisham or Scott Turow).  Stevenson does not escape the device of having a character recount a lengthy story – the final two chapters function in this manner – but he doesn't lean on it like a crutch or drain the suspense away from the tale when using the device.  For the most part (and maybe this isn't surprising to those who have read Stevenson), he writes in something very similar to a modern style.
     However, I did learn that Hyde is almost always misrepresented in film.  Stevenson represents him as a hirsute man of diminished stature and bearing, and younger in appearance as Jekyll had not fed his selfish, malignant character as he had filled his nominally good self with a life well lived.  Movies tend to make Hyde into a gigantic mass of muscle and rampaging destruction.  Stevenson seemed to picture him as a slight, though powerful man with animalistic gait and savagery.  Hyde represented the seed of evil given form, and as such it was necessarily smaller than the whole from which it sprung. 
     I liked this story.  It was far better than the film versions I have seen, though I will freely admit that adapting this faithfully would result in a slow moving, cerebral movie.  Stevenson doesn't quite invest it in the investigation of morality or self-control to which I became accustomed in my philosophy or psychology classes, but I would be wrong to expect it from him.  There is a compelling investigation here, and the threat of what madness (of a sort) can inflict on both the self and others.  Ultimately, I feel stupid for not having read it before now.

The A-Team (2010)

B.A. Baracus, the New Hercules?

by Silence Do_nothing

     I'm curious if ancient Greeks moaned that their dramatists' penchant for adapting previously told tales of the gods reflected a lack of creativity, in the same way that modern audiences complain that all the film industry's remakes points to a Hollywood devoid of ideas. Which isn't to say that I didn't also roll my eyes at The Smurfs (2011) live action trailer, but that was from a strong sense that its only purpose could be as parody fuel for Robot Chicken or Family Guy, not a particular disdain for television-to-movie adaptations. I imagine the Athenians also made their share of stupid garbage. It's just that these would be far less likely to make it through the millennia than the classics which have survived to modern times.
     Falling somewhere between The Smurfs and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound in the quality of adaptations spectrum is The A-Team (2010) (in fairness, I haven't experienced either of the two I have selected for the extremes, so I can't know for a fact that The Smurfs isn't a work of unparalleled genius which single-handedly vindicates Western culture or that Prometheus Bound couldn't have benefited from the Titans employing a speech pattern which substitutes derivations of the word "Titan" for half of their vocabulary).
     Having only caught bits of the TV series while visiting relatives as a kid, most of my knowledge about the original comes from spoofs. Besides the famous theme song, the only things I directly remembered were that there was an old man with a cigar, a crazy guy, Mr. T, and a black van. I'm as susceptible to 80s nostalgia as the next guy who spent many of his childhood days entranced at the Toys R' Us G.I. Joe section, internally debating for a good hour which figures to spend his saved allowances on (the lineup for 1986 was so strong that I am only half-joking when I state that their cardbacks were works of unparalleled genius which single-handedly vindicate Western culture. But I've also argued that Halloween 3 (1982) was better than the John Carpenter original, so this may merely confirm that I have no shame. Or maybe taste. Or maybe both. I think someone yelled "Or talent." That's hitting below the belt), but this particular title didn't harken back to any warm and fuzzy memories for me. It would have to stand on its own merits.
     Whatever the medium, the plot for an A-Team adventure is never the most important thing in the world, but neither is the excessive amount of snarky fluff I type out, so fairness demands that I give at least passing mention of it. A mission for the Alpha Team, a close knit band of elite soldiers stationed in Iraq, gets them caught between competing conspiracies of rogue CIA agents and private military contracting company Blackforest. Wrongfully convicted of stealing U.S. mint plates, they must use every ounce of daring and skill to clear their names and regain their honor. The story could have worked just as well if it had the A-Team falsely accused of illegally downloading thousands of mp3s, so long as it put them in plenty of precarious situations that allowed each to display his particular talents before Hannibal broke out his victory cigar and catchphrase of "I love it when a plan comes together."
     Fairly inventive set-pieces allow The A-Team to avoid that fun-sapping staleness of many other offerings in the genre which feel like the action has been done a thousand times before. I can't recall the last time I've seen a plummeting tank harness the recoil of its cannon to safely steer its descent or port shipping containers serving as props in a giant shell game to set up an ambush. Team leader Hannibal's (Liam Neeson) intricate planning is intercut with the mission itself, making it easier to follow. None of it was a Matrix sized leap forward, but they were cool twists executed well. Given the relative scarcity of good action movies compared to good dramatic films, I maintain that action is harder to create and, therefore, more impressive (I realize this probably qualifies me for nothing more than curator of a hypothetical Michael Bay Museum of Cultural Artifacts).
     The sense of camaraderie and the casting for the team made them a fun bunch of characters to get behind. Never-mind that Liam Neeson is the only native English-speaking actor who can't do a convincing American accent. He still maintains a commanding presence which fits Hannibal. Lady's-man Face (Bradley Cooper) redeems his narcissistic arrogance through an almost religious faith in his compatriots ability to rescue him from certain doom. Oddly enough, an actor with the nickname of Rampage, the professional MMA fighter Quinton Jackson, produces a more congenial version of a character whose initials are supposed to double for Bad Attitude. This relatively quick to smile or chuckle B.A. Baracus is actually somewhat easy going when you consider how much grief he puts up with. I actually preferred Jackson's take on the character, as his is less cartoonish than having him perpetually scowling and looking for an opening to tell someone to "Shut up, fool!" The one thing that truly scares the brave men of the A-Team isn't the enemy, but what insane and insanely talented pilot Murdock (Sharlto Copley of "District 9" fame) might do. He is the wild card in Hannibal's meticulous plans. Even beneath all the crazy is a deep loyalty to the team and the possibility that he consciously exaggerates his nutso persona to gain an advantage. In contrast to the typical lone wolf action hero, they're all well aware they need each other.
     Going a more lighthearted route for the villainous PMC Pike was a good call. More times than not, these types of films seek too heavy a mood for the bad guy. It ends up clashing with the fun of over-the-top action or falls flat and ends up seeming cheesy. Actor Brian Bloom is good at playing up the humor without turning the character into a joke. Pike isn't shy about his disdain for incompetence and lets it out at inopportune times, like when he scolds and lectures a would be executioner about the proper terminology for the suppressor (definitely not silencer) and instructs the bumbling adversary how to attach it to the gun meant for his head.
     The end result of the movie is something better than just a guilty pleasure for people wanting to re-live childhood memories. It would be nice if all adaptations could be as good as Christopher Nolan's "Batman" movies, but even if they just reach The A-Team level consistently, moviegoers wouldn't be so suspicious of Hollywood's cinematic recycling.
     I think there are many creative works which were failures, but still had potential in more skilled hands. Junk culture is long on cool ideas, but short on talent. It's like inventors requiring engineers and technicians to bring their ideas to fruition.
     The A-Team was closer to what I imagine to be the quality of Prometheus Bound than what I assume to be that of The Smurfs. Whether A-Team characters will be part of the lexicon thousands of years from now is another matter. Maybe if a renowned writer pens an epic poem about B.A. Baracus venturing forth on a perilous quest to rescue his beloved black GMC van from an automotive graveyard.
     One more thing. I was completely joking about only half-joking about the cardbacks from the 1986 G.I. Joe action figures being works of unparalleled genius which single-handedly vindicate Western culture. Of course I wouldn't place them in the same league as Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" or Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. I just thought it might be a more entertaining way of getting across that I thought they were awesome than simply writing "the 1986 G.I. Joe action figure cardbacks were awesome." I can only hope that I'm not thought less than serious about completely joking about half-joking.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

     Maybe I just want to like Tom Cruise.  I was never a huge fan.  My favorite characters in Top Gun (1986) was Goose, followed by Wolfman (the latter because I like his cal sign).  There are several of his films that I have seen and wondered aloud during them, why was this made? – Far and Away (1992) immediately comes to mind.  But Cruise does have a lot of charisma, and he has built enough good will with me from Taps (1981), The Outsiders (1983), Rain Man (1988), A Few Good Men (1992), and The Firm (1993) for me to give some of his films a chance.  While I am sometimes extremely disappointed in a Cruise movie – see Vanilla Sky (2001) – I am usually satisfied with his performance.
     That brings me to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).  I know I saw the first Mission: Impossible (1996) movie in the theater and found it to be entertaining, though not especially kind to those who were fans of either TV show (I missed the 1966-1973 one, but was on-board for the 1988-1990 reboot) as it made a villain out of the iconic hero Jim Phelps.  I am sure I saw Mission: Impossible II (2000), but I could not relay any information about it.  That led me to avoid Mission: Impossible III (2006), but having seen most of it on cable TV, I kind of wish that I could erase any memory of the whole thing. 
     So why give the new movie a chance?  In part because in not calling it "Mission: Impossible IV", I was confident that there wouldn't be any assumption on behalf of the film-makers that the audience would be heavily invested in the history of the franchise.  Sure, Ghost Protocol doesn't run away from that which went before, but it is largely a self-contained story that does its best to allow the viewer to learn all the necessary information from a handful of dialogue exchanges.  There are plenty of nods to the previous films and on-going story of the many travails of Cruise's Ethan Hunt (and familiar faces popping up), but Ghost Protocol is really just an excuse for lots of death-defying stunts, earth-shattering explosions, and chase after chase after chase.  But no masks, and in that regard, it was a bit of a disappointment as a Mission: Impossible film.
     The plot?  The IMF team has to stop the end of the world; apparently no other agencies needed to be brought in on the matter.  Still, I don't think anyone goes to a Mission: Impossible for the story.  There is one (sort of).  An IMF agent on the run gets killed, and only one man can get back the sensitive information he was carrying – Ethan Hunt.  But Hunt managed to get himself put in a Russian prison and an IMF team has to break him out.  Cue a very large, extended fight scene lots of effects.  The ad hoc team has to get some information out of the Kremlin, but – oops! – somebody beats them too it and decides the best way to hide the fact that the information has been stolen is to blow up the Kremlin and blame the U.S.A. (and nobody even mentions that Chechen rebels would be more likely culprits).  This causes problems and the IMF effectively gets shut down, leaving Hunt and his team to climb skyscrapers with special gloves, run through sandstorms, and be general menaces in India before letting the villain coordinate a nuclear strike against San Francisco.
     The IMF – at least in the movie franchise – always has the best intelligence available, but puts its agents into severely dangerous situations without much hope of things working out correctly.  That continues here, but it seems that the writers cannot think of another reason for the over-the-top and repetitive action sequences.  However, Ghost Protocol has a good sense of humor about how ridiculous most of it is.  It isn't laughing at itself, but it doesn't pretend that any of it is plausible.  The only problematic part of Ghost Protocol involves an interminable sequence in an automated parking garage where director Brad Bird seems to not realize how ridiculous the whole thing is.  Super badass agent Hunt somehow cannot overcome the strength of good Swedish genes with his fantastic skills and years of training (never mind that nobody else can stop him...ever).
     As a big screen actioner that doesn't ask the audience to do too much thinking, Ghost Protocol succeeds.  It is a fun movie, and Cruise is likable throughout.  His supporting cast largely defers to him – Jeremy Renner seems more than happy to let the big dog eat up the screen time and dominate the scenes – but he is giving enough to allow them to flesh out their characters even in the Ethan heavy scenes.  I don't think Cruise is that invested in the character (it felt like a well-acted paycheck), not when compared with some of his much earlier roles.  But he was in need of a box office success, and like Eastwood used to go back to Dirty Harry, Cruise returned to Ethan Hunt.
     Ghost Protocol is not cerebral fare, but there is something to be said for reliable, predicted action movies.  In that regards, it is a rousing success.  And it sets up for continued entries in the franchise that are not the missteps that Mission: Impossible III was.  I was not disappointed with Ghost Protocol, but I didn't expect more from it than it was going to give.  It looks good on the big screen, and that is where it should be seen.

Orphan (2009)

     What if Dale Midkiff had been placed on Valium of barbiturates on the set of Pet Semetary (1989)?  Would he have given the same performance that Peter Sarsgaard did in Orphan (2009)?  I don't think this needs to be mentioned, but it is the question I kept asking myself during the overlong film.  Sure, I also could have been asking how Vera Farmiga went from a virtual unknown (read: I didn't watch the various television shows on which she was a regular) to seemingly being a top choice for a female lead from 2006-2009.  I guess the story didn't involve me enough to distract me from wondering about the actors themselves.
     As for the story, I had more questions than those related to the plot (largely because I already knew how it would play out).  Why, I wondered, make the natural daughter Max (Aryana Engineer) deaf?  It added no worthwhile element to the story – in fact, it was another complication in the seemingly impossible lives of the Colemans – other than to let the actors fumble through some ASL.  It turns out that Engineer is hearing impaired, so the question becomes, was Max effectively deaf because of the actor portraying the role?  Why did nobody throw around the accusation that Kate's (Farmiga) habitual drinking may have led to the condition?
     Why so many problems in the Coleman family?  There is the alcoholism of Kate.  John (Sarsgaard) had an affair.  Max nearly died in the back yard.  Kate birthed a dead baby.  Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) is working his way towards a Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  John's mother hates and belittles Kate with what few opportunities she is given to do so.  We get almost all of this before the problematic titular orphan enters the story.

Sure, side by side, they look pretty different.  But Sarsgaard sure seemed to be channeling his inner Midkiff for most of Orphan.  John Coleman certainly has a much nicer house in Connecticut than Louis Creed did in Maine.

     There are some other obvious problems.  A couple that is adjusting to the stillbirth of a child are apparently fast tracked for adoption; it pays to be upper middle-class, white, and be willing to take on an older child.  But not only does there seem to be no evaluation as to the fitness of the Colemans as parents (drinking problem, child neglect, oldest working towards a Conduct Disorder diagnosis), there is no interaction between the child to be adopted and the children with whom she will be living.  The child is handed over without any type of medical examination (sure hope your Eastern European adoptee doesn't have any diseases or viruses that could put the other children at risk).  Oh, and everyone except for Max and Ester (Isabelle Fuhrman) – the orphan – is an idiot.
     I picked this up because I felt it had been too long since I opined about any kind of genre film.  Orphan isn't horror; it is more like a poor successor to The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (1992).  Speaking of that film, does anyone remember when Julianne Moore was thought of as a candidate for minor roles?  It is like seeing Annette Bening in The Great Outdoors (1988).  But back to some kind of point.  My hope was that Orphan would offer some kind of meaningful story structure to explain how Esther would go from nice, if strange, new arrival in the house to terror bent on destroying everyone.  That is not what I got.  Orphan plods along, doesn't worry about keeping characters consistent, or worrying if there is any kind of back-story overload that will kill any investment in the characters.
     If the movie had been shortened by 25-30 minutes and some effort was made to explain the obvious problems with how the child wasn't vetted at all, maybe Orphan would have worked as a fun little thriller.  It wasn't, though.  And I have to add it to Source Code (2011) as examples of how Farmiga should not be asked to carry a scene or emote on cue.

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

     Maybe it is because there are no longer those big chain book stores in the area.  I always imagined that I could have done well in one of those companies, and on top of it all, I would be around books all day.  New books, books to be sold (and all the non-book items that got crammed in to those places).  But those stores are gone, and I get to the library far more often than The Book Table, the surviving local independent book seller.  The point is, I sure seem blissfully unaware of what people are reading, especially when it comes to fluff, the non-literature fiction that makes authors famous (well, known may be a better term) and movies made "based on the book".  I had never heard of The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) until the advertisements for the film started to pop-up during television programming.  Likewise, I had no idea who Michael Connelly was (this was his 16th book, and another of his novels had already been turned into "major motion picture").  I didn't have much interest in seeing The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) when it was in theaters (I passed up a chance to see it for free during its opening weekend), but decided to give it a go on DVD.
     Why?
     I have a theory that the people who don't hate Matthew McConaughey – I count myself in this group – have a somewhat desperate desire to see him in a role similar to the ones that helped define his career (in my limited judgment): A Time to Kill (1996) and Contact (1997).  Now, it can be noted that it is somewhat ridiculous to expect McConaughey to step 15 years into the past and reclaim that special mix of earnest and man-boyish charm.  Almost anything would be more satisfying than Surfer, Dude (2008) or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003).  The Lincoln Lawyer also has Marissa Tomei – who has a list of disappointing projects that can easily rival McConaughey's – in a more substantial role than I have seen her in for quite some time.  So I should be generally happy with this movie.
     The problem is I don't think The Lincoln Lawyer worked for me.  Ryan Phillippe (as defendent Louis Roulet) is allowed to bring his menace to full force, but even with this he gives a decent performance.  Tomei is reduced to being on screen more than giving a fully realized performance – and the relationship between ADA Maggie MacPherson (Tomei) and Mick Haller (McConaughey) is too loosely defined for it to have any emotional depth.  McConaughey has some fun with the role, but he has scenes where he is overshadowed by William H. Macy (as investigator Frank Levin) and others where Bryan Cranston (as Det. Lankford) gives him absolutely nothing to work with.  Supporting actors Bob Gunton (somebody give this guy the lead in a major studio picture, please) and Frances Fisher (forever Angie from Strange Luck to me) do much to give weight to their underwritten – at least for the screen – characters.
     The general pace of the movie is slow, which did work for me.  The action is largely off-camera, but even when it is not its slow.  There is an implication in the motive of the bad guy that is never addressed (I would like to imagine it is in the book, because it is a bold and plausible way to take the story), and that was rather unrewarding.  Haller doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities, and he doesn't seem to be a very good lawyer.  Actually, nobody seems to be a very good (TV or movie version of a) lawyer.  The courtroom scenes has some limited payoff, but otherwise get in the way of the expanding story. 
     I wonder if I would have enjoyed this film more if I were a bigger fan of the genre of fiction from whence it came.  There seems to be a lot of non-horrible elements to the movie, but nothing really appealed to me.  I have spoken with several other who found this to be a "great" film, but they were clearly looking for something far different that I was.  Not a bad movie, and the things that bothered me were different than what usually bothers me, but this one didn't quite click for me.

Scream 4 (2011)

     Scream 4 (2011) – marketed as Scre4m, but I think that just looks stupid – marks a return to a story that I have to think most people felt was over and done with.  Scream (1996) introduced the concept – or made it more mainstream – of the inhabitants of a horror/slasher film understanding the "rules" of such a film, and trying to use that knowledge to understand their situation.  Moreover, the killers are just as aware and feel compelled to make the right kind of spectacle of their killings to scare and entertain.  This kind of self-aware, winking knowledge has been well received by many and absolutely hated by others.  While there may have been little cause for a Scream 2 (1997) other than to make money – like the first installment, it grossed more than $100 million in the U.S. – it did continue the story in a plausible way.  Scream 3 (2000) couldn't generate the same box office, even with a larger budget, but it also seemed stretched further from the basis of the story than necessary.  Still, it seemed filled out as a trilogy with no need to bring any of the characters back for more terror and threat of death.

     A decade is a long time to wait for a horror sequel.  The longest the Friday the 13th franchise (1980-2009) went without a new installment before the reboot was the nine years between Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) and the inexplicable Jason X (2002).  The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise (1984-2010) didn't go three years without a sequel until the gap between Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) and Freddy vs. Jason (2003).  Both franchises felt the need to reboot after Freddy vs. Jason (which becomes a completely different movie after Gibb is killed, going for wacky and morbid comedy instead of any kind of horror).   The Halloween franchise (1978-2009) didn't go more than six years without churning out another film.

     Scream 4 is not some disconnected tale featuring only the "killer", but has the same central cast of characters – Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), now Sheriff Dwight "Dewey" Riley (David Arquette), and former TV Tabloid Reporter turned Crime Journalist turned unsuccessful novelist Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) – who must navigate the killers in each installment.  People die all around them, sure, but these characters are at the heart of the story (especially in Scream 2 and Scream 3).  Unfortunately, much of the time in Scream 4 is given over to other characters who are only peripherally related to these stalwarts.  It isn't that Scream 4 couldn't benefit from an injection of fresh blood, but the additions are not handled especially deftly.

     Part of the problem with Scream 4 may be the idea that the children of Woodsboro celebrate the killings of the original film as part of the local lore.  This is aided by the standard horror film conceit that adults (particularly parents) are largely absent from the lives of the potential teenage victims, but in the case of Scream 4 it begs the question of what kind of message did the parents give their children about the murders.  The Stab movies of the franchise may have brought a crass commercialization and celebration of the murders to the general public, but it is difficult to believe that long time residents would embrace and celebrate the movies (not even die-hard horror fans).  Where Craven crafted high school relationships that felt more organic is his widely ignored My Soul to Take (2010), he and returning scribe Kevin Williamson offer up a rather bland rehashing of the characters from the first film.  Only Rory Culkin (as Charlie Walker) and Hayden Panettiere (as Kirby Reed) seem to have any sense of their characters, though it is just as likely that they filled in the gaps themselves (something most of the cast didn't do).  Both Charlie and Kirby are among those who celebrate the fictionalizing of the real murders (for different reasons, though both come across as very damaged individuals), but no one seems shocked at this trend (not even Sidney).

    The killings in Scream 4 are rather lackluster, and there isn't much in the way of suspense.  Some characters are completely wasted (see Alison Brie as Rebecca Walters) while others are remarkable for their absence from any of the previous installments (see Mary McDonnell as Kate Roberts).  With a known killer running loose, Sheriff Riley calls in no extra help – at some point it should be pointed out that Woodsboro is one of those small towns that is really just a separated suburb, and that Dewey should be the Chief of Police who could call in the County Sheriff for help – even though he has the worst trained officers seen in the 21st Century.  Then there is the issue of motive, which might have seemed clever if the film were released in 2002, but feels preachy and false (a tough combination to achieve) by 2011.

     Only two things really bothered me in regards to Scream 4.   The first was the look of the film.  It was oddly dark, and not in a way that added anything to the mood or tension.  Hell, there wasn't any tension because I couldn't care about most of the characters (and just assumed that the three central characters wouldn't die).  The other was how long the movie was.  It is almost two hours long, easily twenty minutes longer than it needed to be with how it was structured.  The last two acts – this assumes that I can characterize the movie as having four acts – drag along until the credits roll.  I am aware that there are others (mostly people who are about 15+ years younger than me) who found the last two acts to be explosive and riveting.  Good for them, but it just didn't work for me.  Maybe it is because I have a small amount of knowledge about psychopathy (hey, at least I completed a college course on the subject) and have done research on murders, but the payoffs were joyless and incongruent.

     I didn't hate Scream 4.  It is a decent movie that isn't trying to run away from the previous installments, but at the same time it does little to honor them.  My first impression was that it felt like Craven and Williamson were both angry at the franchise and wanted to make an ugly film, one that was a little soulless and devoid of the kind of (sick) humor that powered the first two movies.  I have backed off this a little, but I do think that Scream 4 ended up somewhere between being faithful to the spirit of the franchise and appealing to the next generation of horror fans.  If I rated in grades (sometimes I do), I would give it a C+.  It is not a must see, even for devotees of the franchise, but it doesn't feel like a waste of time.  A waste of some characters, sure, but those same characters end up wasted, some it comes close to balancing out in the end.