Movie Reviews: In which Alex catches up on 2011

Titles Covered: The Help, Drive, Soul Surfer, Horrible Bosses, Another Earth, Contagion, American Pop, and Roland Emmerich destroys the world (2012 versus The Day After Tomorrow)

The Help (*** and a half)

Thematically, The Help is about as "safe" as you can get. It presents the ugliness of racism, but with a cartoonish villain who can soak up the blame. Meanwhile, the heroine "Skeeter" might as well be a time-traveler from the 21st century, essentially presenting a comforting conduit for modern-day audiences.

The plot involves black maids in the 1960's being allowed to tell their stories in a book, so it's appropriate that one of them also gets to narrate the movie. The two principle maids in the story present an interesting contrast to each other. "Abilene" is too timid, taking on the effective role of a slave even though slavery had been illegal for about 100 years, while "Minny" can't keep her mouth shut. The two actresses, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, portray convincing character arcs. In a subtle but powerful moment, Abilene makes a harsh criticism of her employer. When Skeeter hesitates to write this down, Abilene forcefully says "Put that in the book." On the Caucasian side of the cast, Emma Stone does fine as Skeeter, but I was more impressed with Jessica Chastain, who plays a ditzy outsider excluded from the old girls club despite being white and wealthy. Between The Help and The Tree of Life, 2011 was truly a great year for the actress. You may note that the cast is almost all women. There are a few men, but they're generally boring or irrelevant.

The Help runs on all cylinders until the final act, at which point it becomes evident that the movie has too many ideas, including many that are weak or incomplete. There's a subplot about a proposed law that goes unresolved, a male love interest who might as well be a different character in every scene he has, a series of comeuppances that could have been condensed, and a handful of other minor subplots that feel kind of thrown together. The movie's never bad, but the muddled structure is a big problem. It seems to keep the audience at the same emotional level, rather than allowing for a more dramatic buildup and catharsis.

Compared to classics about racial tension like To Kill a Mockingbird or Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Help is watered down. Ultimately, it's a movie that allows us to congratulate ourselves for living in a different time-period (I'll let people with a better eye for racial politics decide whether or not The Help is a white-guilt fantasy). However, the movie certainly kept my interest throughout, and for what it is, I thought it was very good.

Drive (** and a half)

I really wish the movie Drive had been a smash hit. Not because it's that good, oh no, but because Ryan Gosling's performance would have inspired many hilarious parodies. But since not everyone has seen this movie, I could do the best Ryan Gosling impression in the world and no one would get it!

If you haven't seen the movie, know that almost every single line of dialogue is preceded by Ryan Gosling staring into space while smiling awkwardly for several seconds. He quietly mumbles one word, looks down, tightens the smile, stares some more, and then says a second word. It's really freaking annoying.

Drive attempts to be an action thriller and a drama, and is a near-hit on both accounts. On the action part, you have some interesting chase scenes that inspire a genuine sense of tension. It has as much "hide-and-seek" as it has fast-paced hot-rodding, which is a cool combination of suspense-building elements. The pre-credits getaway sequence is rather stunning, and by far my favorite part of the movie. Meanwhile, you have The Driver turning into a guardian angel for a woman he likes, even after acknowledging that there's a husband in the picture that he also has to protect.

The problems with this come in two flavors: plotting and pacing. At first, it seems that the plot is going to get very complicated. Instead, everything actually becomes very simple because the movie systematically kills off every character and plot possibility that could have been interesting. Way to substitute gory violence for substance, guys...  Also, the movie is way too slow, and a lot of this has to do with the aforementioned acting issues. Ryan Gosling could not possibly be this bad of an actor, so I assume that someone thought having him stare off into space would be deep and meaningful. Slow and contemplative is fine until it becomes apparent that you have nothing to say.

Drive comes close to being really good, but equally close to being flat-out awful. If not for a few plot-missteps and annoying directorial decisions, it would probably be a great thriller. Then again, if not for the handful of great scenes and actors (Bryan Cranston and Albert Brooks), it'd be a complete waste of time. Overall, I thought it was OK.

Soul Surfer (** and a half)

Whoa, Anna Sophia Robb grew up! Maybe none of you know who she is, but I noticed her under-rated career as a child actress several years ago. Anyway, it was pretty weird seeing little Anna suddenly re-emerge as a sexy teenager.

The plot of the movie details the real-life struggles of Bethany Hamilton, who became a champion surfer even after losing an arm in a shark attack. Soul Surfer was marketed as a "Christian film", but that's like saying that Schindler's List is a "Jewish film" or Ghandi is a "Hindu film". It's a surfing movie about a girl who is Christian and got some advice from Christian mentors. The religion angle is just another part of her life alongside discussions about where to find the best waves or which bikinis are the most flattering.

Some movies are held back from greatness because they make too many mistakes, while others are held back because they don't take enough risks. Soul Surfer is the latter. On paper, it sounds good. The concept is good, the story is good, it's got that "based on a true story" credential, and a number of pretty good actors (mostly... Carrie Underwood is horribly miscast). For the unjaded, Soul Surfer might seem amazing and inspirational. Personally, I mostly found it bland. The characters are boring and the dialogue lacks flavor, presenting such a sanitized version of the family that they don't truly engage us. There must be more to this story, and more to these people, but we don't get that from the film version.

Also, I felt like the film pushed the surfing angle too strongly. This aspect differentiates the story from every other person who's lost a limb, but the way they played it trivialized the injury. The character's first response is "so when can I get back to surfing?" rather than appreciating that she almost died and is going to spend the rest of her life without an arm.

For its credit, the film is decently made. It's paced well, the effects used to remove Anna Sophia Robb's arm are pretty seamless, and the movie does get better as it goes along. If you like surfing and/or aren't tired of inspirational underdog stories, you'll probably like it. Just don't expect much more.

Horrible Bosses (***)

Continuing the recent stream of R-rated comedies, Horrible Bosses serves up more goofy men behaving badly. It's patterned after buddy comedies like The Hangover and Superbad, in which a trio of familiar characters (Straight Man, Weirdo, and Cocky Jerk) embark on a simple plan that goes horribly awry. They all hate their jobs, but can't quit because they're afraid of their dismal prospects elsewhere and/or are being blackmailed by their evil bosses, so they all agree to kill each other's bosses.

Frankly, I thought this sounded like a pretty horrible premise, but the movie fares surprisingly well. It explores dark subject matter without getting too dark, and has genuinely good characters. Of particular note is Kevin Spacey, the most believable of the villains, who's simultaneously very funny and very, very scary. The other two villains (Colin Farrell and Jennifer Anniston) are fine, but they seem dumb and careless enough to be taken down by a simple lawsuit, rather than a murder scheme.

I was impressed by the script. Despite the R-rated language, the film doesn't use swearing as a mere crutch. The dialogue is quick and snappy, making full use of the ensemble cast to deliver many types of humor, from bizarre slapstick to clever subversion of your expectations. A lot of humor derives from scenes with a lot of people talking at once, and it's impressive that the speech always remains comprehensible.

Where the film starts to unwind is somewhere in the second half. The story is very manic and the characters start to seem very annoying and loud after awhile. The story also misses a very obvious opportunity: exploring the bosses' point of view. How did they become so horrible in the first place? This could have been an interesting direction, offering potential for the movie to be a more substantive comedy. But instead, the bosses are just pure evil for no reason, the heroes are pretty immature (at least Straight Man and Weirdo are likeable), and the movie becomes another silly, R-rated comedy. Granted, one with much better writing than usual.

Another Earth (**)

Another Earth is a bait-and-switch.

The plot focuses on the main character dealing with the guilt of having caused a drunk driving accident. After serving her prison sentence, she meets up with a survivor of the accident to apologize for accidentally killing his family. Instead, she freezes up and pretends to be a cleaning lady, which starts a strange relationship between the two of them.

This by itself is a decent premise, but then you have to ask a simple question: "Why is the movie called 'Another Earth'? And why do the posters show the girl looking up into the sky and seeing a second Earth?'" Yes, the movie does state that there is an alternate version of our planet from a parallel dimension. We see it several times and the characters talk about it a little. There's also this subplot in which the main character wants to go to Earth 2, wishing to find an alternate self that didn't ruin her own life. I get what the filmmakers were going for, but since the parallel universe plot doesn't go anywhere until the cliffhanger ending, it feels like a gigantic tease.

Imagine if Star Wars was told from the point of view of a bickering married couple living on planet Coruscant, who never actually see any of the conflict between the Empire versus the Rebel Alliance. Instead, the whole intergalactic war is just a metaphor for their relationship. This might end up being an OK movie, but the whole time you'd get the feeling that there's something much more interesting going on elsewhere. That's pretty much what it's like to watch Another Earth.

I might forgive this bait-and-switch if the movie was an unqualified success on its own terms, but it's not. The only aspect I can really praise is the acting. The pacing is slow and the style is very pretentious. The movie uses a lot of weird camera angles and lengthy shots in which the characters don't speak a word. This is an approach to filmmaking that either has to be done really well, or not at all.  Also, there are a lot of things that simply don't make sense, scientifically or otherwise.

Another Earth is well made considering its minimal budget, but it ultimately struck me as a glorified student film.  It needs more dialogue, less plodding camerawork, and better use of its premise (or hell, just ditch the "Earth 2" idea entirely if you're not going to finish that thought...). On the other hand, the cliffhanger ending is intriguing, so I wonder if Another Earth was intended to raise money for a more interesting and costly sequel.

Contagion (*** and a half)

The premise of Contagion is that a new viral strain jumps across the species barrier and becomes a worldwide plague. Could it happen? It already did happen about 100 years ago; we called it Spanish Flu (which the movie references repeatedly).

Contagion was written with consultation from the CDC. Thus it presents a surprisingly accurate picture of disease transmission and scientific research. I might find some nitpicks with repeated viewings, but the only problem I noticed was that the virus seemed to act too quickly. Considering how badly movie-world usually portrays science, we're lucky to see a movie in which the virus doesn't turn people into vampires.

So Contagion is an excellent portrayal of science. Does that make it a great movie? Yes and no. It's nice to see a movie that spreads awareness of our own human fragility and the challenges of research. The whole thing feels very real, which fits the subject matter. However, as a story, it felt just a little bit lacking. The movie has no traditional narrative or protagonist. Rather, it's a bunch of little subplots focusing on different characters played by famous actors. You get a variety of perspectives, from admirable scientists (Kate Winslet) to despicable profiteers (Jude Law). All the actors do well, but it's a little hard to get involved in the movie without a strong central narrative or a main character that we can connect with. In essence, Contagion is the serious version of the disaster movie genre, and it simultaneously shows how silly most disaster movies are, but also why they go the silly route.

All in all, Contagion is a very interesting movie, perhaps more admirable than entertaining. It's not great, but what it does, it does well.

American Pop (**** and a half)

This is the 4th Ralph Bakshi movie I've reviewed in recent months. I've developed a minor fascination for his work, despite not considering it to be very good. I'm just weird that way.

But...  then there's American Pop. Why the hell had I never heard of this movie before? It's fantastic. Right from the opening credits it's fantastic.

The plot is a multigenerational saga about a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants who flee from the Tsar and become involved in the American music scene. Each generation has a man who wants to become a famous musician, but each one seems to fall prey to dangers of each time period (e.g. gangsters in the Prohibition era, drugs in the 60's, etc.). Since the story is about music, the film has an enormous licensed soundtrack of great songs, presented alongside very creative animation.

I've often used the phrase "soundtrack movie" in a derogatory sense, referring to films that use popular songs to save an otherwise banal film. American Pop avoids this trap because the songs are actually relevant, illustrating the spirit of the times and often acting as a literal plot element. The animation style tends to also reflect the passing of time. Early scenes are presented like a silent movie (complete with title cards), there's psychedelic artwork when the story goes through the 1960's, and even a cheesy 80's style music video.

The rotoscoped animation looks great, making the characters seem realistic without loosing the character and flavor that the animated medium can bring. It's particularly interesting how the women look. There's a lot of lascivious imagery, and the women are all drawn realistically, with actual bodies, rather than as sexually idealized images.

The movie's a little hard to follow, due to some strange dialogue and occasional difficulty telling which character is which. It's not terribly important to follow every detail, since the plot is more of an abstract journey through time rather than a series of detailed events. Overall, American Pop is a powerful experience.

Roland Emmerich destroys the world

VS. 

The Day After Tomorrow Versus 2012

Ever since he directed the smash hit Independence Day, Roland Emmerich has loved to destroy America... on film, that is.  Emmerich is often derided by critics as a purveyor of mindless special effects and jingoism, but I actually enjoy most of his movies, especially Stargate.

Both The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 are ridiculous movies. The former is supposed to be about global warming, but it quickly goes from science to science fiction. Climate-change events that should take decades (at least) suddenly occur in minutes, and the bad-weather extremes don't make a lot of sense. That said, some of the stuff they come up with is rationalized in interesting (if unbelievable) ways. 2012 goes further into ridiculous territory, with something about the Earth's core heating up and reforming the crust. I checked out the first time a character uttered the phrase "mutated neutrinos".

The action sequences are in both movies are exciting, graphic, and well-paced. However, a question keeps coming to mind: why should I be deathly concerned with the main character while the movie somewhat callously slaughters entire cities worth of people? This is a problem with the disaster-movie genre in general, but I think it's an especially huge issue in 2012. John Cusack is a completely arbitrary main character: he's barely connected to the rest of the plot and the story isn't even told from his perspective. He's just some random guy who gets to survive everything. The Day After Tomorrow (I'm going to start calling it TDAT) almost has the opposite problem: it has too many characters that are given backstories for no apparent reason. Since the sorta-main character (Dennis Quaid) is connected to the large-scale events, and portrays a more convincing hero, it seems like the movie would have been much better if it focused on him journeying across the frozen wasteland searching for his son. The son himself also has a promising subplot, being trapped with his friends in a New York library and burning books for heat. That could have easily been an interesting "The Breakfast Club of the Apocalypse" setting.

The themes and messages also illustrate how 2012 is an entertaining bad movie, whereas TDAT almost became a genuinely good movie. TDAT actually has relevant social satire, covering environmental politics, economics, and border issues. It's very cartoony, but the issues are real and some of it might make you think (though not much). Also, the "bad guys" are dynamic characters who learn from their mistakes and thus feel like real people. By contrast, 2012 is based on a pop-culture misinterpretation of Mayan lore, has bad guys who are inexplicable assholes, and ultimately becomes a straw man scenario. Yes, it tries to make a statement about class warfare, but the hyperbole seems inappropriate when commenting on a completely hypothetical issue (limited seating in the 2012 Arcs) versus an ironic reversal of real-world politics (Americans sneaking across the US-Mexico border in TDAT).

As far as visuals and sheer amounts of destruction, 2012 takes the cake. Roland Emmerich has said that it will be his last disaster movie, and apparently he decided to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the screen. Frankly, I'm not sure if there are many disaster scenarios left. By contrast, I was surprised how little of TDAT was dedicated to large-scale destruction scenes. I think there are only two really big ones: some tornados in Los Angeles, and a tidal wave in New York. So if you just want to see the world blow in spectacular detail, you're better off with 2012.

Two and a half stars for 2012. Three for The Day After Tomorrow. Both are mediocre movies with great special effects, but at least The Day After Tomorrow is kind of interesting. On the other hand, since neither story is very good, I suspect that audiences will be more satisfied with the crazy-go-nuts destruction in 2012.