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Titles Covered: Creed, Spectre, Black Mass, The Bicycle Thief, All Quiet on the Western Front, Strangers on a Train, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Big Lebowski.
Creed (***)
Nostalgia is strong at the box office, with 2015 seeing revamps of older franchises like Mad Max, Peanuts, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Terminator, and Rocky. However, Creed casts Rocky in a supporting role while focusing on Adonis “Creed” Johnson, the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed. Adonis is selected to fight a much more qualified champion, because the champ likes his name and needs a big match for money and publicity, and... Hang on a second... Isn't this the plot of the original Rocky movie? Yes, Creed plays the same game as The Force Awakens, essentially remaking the original movie by having the well-liked lead of the older movies pass the torch to a successor. For what it's worth, this didn't really bother me in Creed, in large part because there's only so many directions that a boxing drama can go.
However, I have to raise the question: What can I get from Creed that I couldn't get from Rocky? Well, there's a sad subplot about the aging Rocky Balboa, who's watched all his friends from the original movie pass away. Other than that, it's basically “Rocky 2.0” with a different lead character. That's fine, but I might have hoped for a more innovative movie.
For his credit, Michael B. Jordon is very good as the lead, and he has kind of an interesting background. The idea is that he had a tough childhood as a foster kid, but was later adopted by Apollo Creed's widow, and was raised on Creed's fortune to become businessman. So Jordon has to portray the educated former street kid with repressed anger issues, and it's an interesting mix. We might have hoped for a more compelling romantic interest, though. This movie is really missing Adrian.
The boxing scenes are also very good, using every cinematic trick in the book to keep things interesting. They're brutal, well-filmed, and exciting. The equivalent of the “Rocky Steps” scene is also a real highlight. If nothing else, I respect Ryan Coogler's direction, and his ability to breathe new life into an old story.
Creed isn't the most interesting plot, but it's very done well. I respect the solid execution of a somewhat unnecessary sequel/spin-off.
Spectre (**)
The James Bond series is known for opening with a big action scene, which is sometimes the best part of the movie. This is definitely the case in Spectre. The opening scene is a lavish re-creation of Dia de los Muertos festivities in Mexico city, set alongside a crazy helicopter action scene and an impressively long first shot that follows Bond from the streets up to a rooftop battle (the shot is actually not a single take, and doesn't even seem possible, but as least it looks pretty seamless). If nothing else, I'd recommend this opening scene. The rest of the movie? Eh... It's competently directed, and there's also a car chase through Rome that's kind of cool. Other than that, this is not a good Bond movie.
Spectre is full of ideas that might have been interesting, but are botched horribly. The movie starts by establishing that Bond is suspended and his program is being shut down. Will this cause him to improvise with limited resources, or perhaps fight other MI6 agents sent to capture him? Nope! He gets everything he needs, does whatever he wants, and nobody makes a serious effort to stop him. Then, the film tries to establish that everything in the previous movies was all part of the master plan by Christoph Waltz. That might be clever if the film actually came up with a meta-story to connect the plots of the previous movie, and bothered to show us how the plot comes together. Instead, the script just lazily name-drops people from previous movies, as if we even remember all of them. Finally, there's the big twist... I won't spoil it, but it's really petty, and the film doesn't bother to set it up properly. Even after it's revealed, it doesn't seem that either Bond or the villain give a shit, as if the whole thing is just a pretext for them to do their usual shtick.
To be totally honest, I've never been that impressed with the recent attempts to make Bond all gritty and super-serious. If you want to make James Bond into an actual human being dealing with serious drama, all power to you, but that's not what these movies are. Casino Royale was the best effort by far, and even that only got half-way there. Spectre flops the worst on this account, since it sticks with the gritty Daniel Craig style, but has the silliness of the Austin Powers movies. This includes Bond piloting a wingless plane in the snow, killing a dozen heavily-armed bad guys while not even attempting to take cover, and then blowing up an entire facility by shooting one gas canister. The problem comes to a head in the female lead, who has the limited depth and chemistry of a typical Bond Girl, but then proclaims that she actually loves Bond. Give me a break!
Spectre starts off very strong but goes downhill from there, and completely lost me in the second half. The story is bullshit, and the only decent character is Dave Bautista as a henchmen. Seriously, I would have been OK if Bautista succeeded in killing Bond and then started his own story. Now that would be something new!
Black Mass (***)
Following the success of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, Jonny Depp became one of the most recognizable movie stars. However, after a few too many bad movies with Depp doing silly accents while drowned in excessive makeup, his star started to fade. Black Mass was presented as something of a comeback vehicle, proof that Depp can act without being surrounded by gimmicks. The movie itself didn't really break out, at least it's a solid drama with a solid lead performance.
The story follows the notorious Boston gangster “Whitey” Bulger, known for his controversial role as an FBI informer, his politician brother (who apparently wasn't involved in criminal activity... huh), and his many murders. Jonny Depp is transformed to physically resemble a younger Whitey, and gives a serious performance for once. It's actually a pretty impressive turn, as you can completely forget the famous actor's persona and just seem him as a ruthless criminal. The supporting cast is also pretty well-rounded, with Benedict Cumberbatch doing a surprisingly good American accent, and the bad guy from Antman as a virtuous crusader.
An interesting aspect of the story is that much of it focuses on Joel Edgerton as a slimy FBI agent working with Whitey. The idea is that the FBI guy has a lot of childhood nostalgia for Whitey's presence in South Boston, and thus keeps protecting him even when it becomes obvious that the FBI alliance is a total sham. In the end I found myself hating Edgerton's character even more than Whitey. At least the gangsters don't have any pretense of being virtuous.
Black Mass is one of those movies that's perfectly solid, but doesn't really stand out that much. It's well done, has good acting, and is entertaining enough to watch, but otherwise didn't really stick with me. I honestly don't have much else to say about it. Recommended if you have an interest in the subject matter.
The Bicycle Thief (*****)
There was a time when The Bicycle Thief was well-known as one of the greatest movies of all time, if not the greatest movie of all time. More recently, it doesn't seem to get mentioned all that much, perhaps in part due to being a non-English-language movie.
An Italian movie set right after World War II, the movie very poignantly portrays hard economic times in Europe. Everyone is poor and desperate. Men crowd around the employment office hoping for the slightest scrap of work, while families have taken to pawning off basic household items to survive. A famous shot shows a pawnbroker climbing a massive stack of bed sheets that have been turned in for money to buy food.
The main character is a flawed and careless man, but nonetheless a sympathetic father and husband looking to provide. He gets a job hanging posters of Rita Hayworth (whose glamorous image contrasts with the reality around her), but the job requires a bicycle to get around Rome. Naturally, the bicycle is stolen, and the man embarks on an increasingly desperate search to find it. The story travels through a lot of locations in Rome: flea markets, cathedrals, high-end restaurants, brothels, and riverbanks. In each setting, there seems to be some insight about society, as well as the ethical dilemmas faced by the the protagonist. How far will you go to right an injustice committed against you? In a way, the film places its hero as an individual pitted against a corrupt or uncaring community. What do you do when the police can't help, and the other poor people have conspired against you? Beat them all to a pulp?
And then there's the ending... I won't spoil it for those who don't know the plot, but it's a very powerful ending, and one that reminded me of a my own family history. It's also one of those endings that makes good use of an abrupt finish. If the movie had gone on much longer, or included more falling action, it would have been ruined. The movie cuts to “The End” at the exact right moment to leave the audience devastated.
Sometimes old classics are just interesting historical artifacts, but not much else. However, The Bicycle Thief holds up as a genuine masterpiece.
All Quiet on the Western Front (***)
Old war epics can be fascinating to watch. Sometimes they don't carry a lot of weight, because the battles don't aren't brutal enough to feel remotely real (The 300 Spartans has this problem, despite its other merits). But other times, the battles feel more real than modern war epics, because they are real. In other words, they're filmed with thousands of extras and a lot of real explosions, with nary a hint of CGI. All Quiet on the Western Front was considered the gold standard for a long time, such that Steven Spielberg cited it as a primary influence on Saving Private Ryan. Indeed, the battle scenes are big, bold, and brutal. It's a marvelous technical achievement, and has some of the best old-timey war scenes I've ever witnessed. But what about the rest of the movie?
Well... that's where things kind of fall apart. The book is probably really good, but the movie doesn't present the story of its characters very well. I kept losing track of who was who, and most of the acting isn't very good. There's a scene in the middle in which the main character (I think) is stuck in a hole with a slowly-dying French soldier. In theory this should be arresting and powerful, but it comes off as hokey and artificial.
The most interesting scene involves the soldiers trying to figure out the cause of the war, and ultimately determining that nobody knows what they are fighting for. I had to pause and think “Wait... what was WWI all about?” There are of course historical answers to that question, but no clean narrative that can provide a satisfactory story. With other wars, we've created a narrative: WWII can be framed as a fight against fascism. The American Civil War was to stop slavery. Those are simplistic and partially retroactive explanations, but they work. And with WWI? Hell, we couldn't even come up with a sensible story after the fact. Franz Ferdinand? Yeah... that doesn't explain it at all.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a fascinating technical achievement, and an interesting milestone in cinema history. It's worth checking out just to see how battle scenes were done in the old days. Otherwise... it's OK.
Strangers on a Train (****)
Alfred Hitchcock has directed so many movies that it's honestly hard to keep up with his work. I feel like I've seen most of the famous ones, but every now and again I'll find a great flick that I missed.
Strangers on a Train is based on the concept of “swapping murders.” Two strangers meet on a train, and they agree to kill each others' enemies, leaving no discernible connection between the actual killer and their victim. However, it's a bit more complicated than that. One of the strangers is a respectable tennis pro who doesn't seriously want to commit murder, while the other is a deranged psychopath. The psychopath kills the tennis pro's wife (who is presented as such a terrible person that we don't feel too depressed about it), and then demands that his unwilling partner in crime commit another murder.
The film takes the point of view of the more sympathetic “stranger” and struggles through his dilemma. We assume that he won't actually kill anybody, but he's in a tough spot as a closely-watched suspect to a murder he didn't commit. The film ultimately conjures an incredible amount of tension in the 3rd act. It manages to connect 3 bizarre, seemingly random set pieces (a tennis match, a merry-go-round, and a guy reaching through a sewer grate), and had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. In particular, the out-of-control carousel sequence is a masterful bit that hasn't aged a bit.
The only thing bad I can say about this movie is that the acting hasn't aged well. It's definitely very forced at times. Other than that, Strangers on a Train is a fantastic ride from the Master of Suspense.
The Royal Tenenbaums (**)
I guess the best thing you can say about this movie is that it laid the groundwork for Arrested Development (for real!) and for the later, better Wes Anderson movies. I saw part of this movie back in college and thought it looked stupid. I wasn't wrong... this movie is pretty stupid, but now that I've seen its successors, I understand what it was trying to be.
As mentioned before, this movie is basically Arrested Development, the story of a wealthy family fallen on hard times, causing the quarreling adult children to return to roost. For those keeping score, there's also a corrupt patriarch, a widower with pent-up frustration towards his parents trying to keep his son(s) away from grandpa's bad influence, a blonde not-quite-sister married to a hack psychiatrist, and incestuous tensions. The movie also has the matching color schemes typical of Wes Andersen movies, with people dressed in the same colors as the backgrounds. There's also a lot of random quirk details that aren't really part of the story, but enhance the atmosphere. Special mention goes to the board game closet, and the matching pair of creepy paintings in Owen Wilson's apartment.
Some of the humor is worth a chuckle; the problem is that almost all of the clever bits are in the first 20 minutes. Actually, the opening is pretty awesome all around, as it tells the stories of 3 precocious kids who do all sorts of interesting and quirky things. However, the adult versions of these kids, all played by famous celebrities, are substantially less interesting. They're all dour, and all boring. The worst is Gwyneth Paltrow, who speaks in monotone and looks like a zombie for the entire movie. The lesser-known child actor who played her younger self is much better at portraying the quiet fury of an ignored middle child. The lone exception to the wasted adult cast is Gene Hackman. He's the only one who seems to be having any fun. Actually, one of the best segments is when Hackman takes his grandchildren on an outing of random law-breaking and hell-raising.
Aside from the few previously-mentioned highlights, most of the film is boring. The actors look dead and bored, and most of the film really isn't funny. The matching colors are impressive at first, but it doesn't stop some scenes from looking like they're drenched in Dijon mustard. The quirky tidbits are also kind of fun at first, but after awhile it starts to seem pretty dumb. There's a difference between creative and random.
Skip The Royal Tenenbaums and just watch Arrested Development, which took many of the same ideas and made them fast-paced and funny.
The Big Lebowski (** and a half)
Yes, I'm late to the party on this one... The Big Lebowski is a cult classic by the Coen Brothers. I've been pretty mixed on their past work (though I really liked Raising Arizona and True Grit), and this one... Well, this one's OK.
For starters, I will applaud the plot, which is a fairly funny concept. The movie revolves around a convoluted kidnapping caper involving the childish trophy wife of an invalid millionaire. It's a story that has a lot of unnecessary twists and turns, involving family quarrels, pornographers, a gang of German nihilists, private detectives, and a bowling tournament. The main “hook” of the story is that it's driven by a complete idiot who coincidentally shares a name with the millionaire, so he is constantly either (1) mistaken for an important player, or (2) used as a patsy in the aforementioned crime caper. In a strange way, this movie reminded me of Dude Where's My Car?, another story in which a pair of morons wander into a larger story.
However, I found the humor hit or miss. Some of it is fairly clever, but a lot of the movie just involves repeating the same catchphrase 20 billion times until it becomes a joke. It's sort of funny at first, but becomes increasingly tedious as the movie goes on. It's that sort of humor that breaks down once you realize what the movie is doing. Similarly, the characters are funny at first, but then just become a repetitive shtick. I've grown very weary of movies that are about movies, and while The Big Lebowski isn't explicitly so, the way it's written feels more like a play on cinematic expectations than an earnest effort at real character-building.
Overall, I really liked parts of The Big Lebowski, but as a whole it felt kind of empty. Still, it's amusing enough, and the central premise is clever.