Monday, December 31, 2007
I Am Legend
Directed by Francis Lawrence (2007)Do special effects make a movie special? If the end product is so-so, could they be called ordinary or mediocre effects? When should a director stay true to a written work, or risk artistic “liberties” to change the plot or story to suit a target audience? While the first two-thirds of “I Am Legend” satisfies the above criteria, the last act left me wanting. According to a studio press release, I Am Legend has been over ten years in the making. Maybe they should have kept making it. After two previous adaptations starring Vincent Price, Charlton Heston, Hollywood still can’t decide on what type of movie “I Am Legend” wants to be. Although the 2007 movie adaptation starring Will Smith has plenty of thrills, explosions, computer generated effects, and scary monsters, the latest Hollywood treatment leaves the viewer with a little to be desired with a few holes and missing information, and wondering if Lawrence should have stuck to directing Britney Spears’ music videos.
Robert Neville, the last man on earth. Will Smith is Neville - a brilliant scientist who is present at ground zero of a civilization-ending plague. Neville had been at the forefront of government disease research when the plague hits and destroys everything except for him, as he somehow has immunity. However, the infected do not die, they slowly become “Dark-walkers” – vampire-like creatures vulnerable to sunlight and hungry for the living. Neville has been alone in New York City for a couple years, surviving on what he can forage in the daylight hours. At night he barricades himself in his Upper West Side Fortress of Solitude and attempts to find a cure for the disease in his basement laboratory, while the hungry monsters roam the streets.
This movie is a great one if you can see it on the IMAX big screen. The large format enhances the epic urban vistas of a deserted New York, strangely devoid of humans, as Neville roams, forages, and hunts. After the eye-candy sugar rush wore off in about an hour, I started asking myself questions about some obvious holes in the plot. About the same time, the movie changed its dark tone and turned into a Will Smith vehicle, with the protagonist cracking jokes in the face of certain death. Unfortunately by the end of the film the plot had been twisted into the stereotypical somewhat-sappy heroic Hollywood ending, which was fine, but lacked the thought provoking actions of Neville and the vampires that occurred in the book.
I Am Legend is great on the IMAX big screen, has an interesting, although well used premise, and has an actor who can carry the movie despite the lack of a solid script in the last act. It’s unfortunate that such a great original story that asks questions about human existence, history, and man’s right to live, gets the Hollywood treatment at the hands of a good, although misguided director.
B-
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
I Am Legend
By Robert Matheson - 1954When I first heard of the vampire science fiction novel “I am Legend”, it was years ago after viewing the 70’s movie “Omega Man”, starring Charlton Heston. I picked it up years later after hearing Will Smith was slated to play Aaron Neville in the 2007 version. Similar to the neo-noir science fiction novelist Philip K. Dick, Robert Matheson is a former scriptwriter for the original 60’s series - “The Twilight Zone”, whose works and ideas have often been made into Hollywood movies or television shows. Although I anticipate the current film adaptation will have plenty of explosions and mind-blowing special effects, Matheson’s original story, published in 1955, is a successful blend of sci-fi horror story, thought provoking social commentary, interesting plot twists, and a not so optimistic vision of a post-apocalyptic world.
Aaron Neville is the last man on Earth. The world has been swept by an incurable plague he was lucky enough to have immunity. He is located in a metropolitan area populated by him and the stricken survivors, to whom the plague has turned into bloodthirsty, nocturnal vampire/zombie-like creatures bent on his death. Sequestered in his fortified house at night, the depressed, alcoholic, sexually frustrated Neville scavenges for food and supplies in the day, losing hope to find other survivors who might be out there. Lurking in the shadows are the infected, who wait for the sun to fall to descend on what remains of the former civilization.
To the vampires, Neville is a serial killer, a monster that comes during the daylight hours and kills them mercilessly. “To them he was some terrible scourge they had never seen, a scourge even worse than the disease they had come to live with. He was an invisible specter who had left for evidence of his existence the bloodless bodies of their loved ones.” (74)
Matheson’s Neville also is in inner-conflict, dealing with the fairness of his survival over the rest of the planet. Neville’s self doubt and conflict consumes him - “Who decides who is on the right side? Who am I to determine the fate of others?”(130), as he endures attacks and exterminates what he deduces as vermin. The character of Robert Neville is used to show readers just what each of us truly is, at the core of our being - the best and the worst of humanity all rolled into one very human character. In the end, Robert Neville has risen above what he was before the plague took it all away.
His discoveries, both scientific and philosophical, show him to be much more than a mere factory worker (an interesting metaphor in a book that presents the failed idea of forced collectivism on unwitting classes of a new society). Ultimately, it is Neville, the novel's hero, who becomes the scourge of this new society. And as new societies go, this one isn't any different than others that have gone before. Neville is different, and different is dangerous.
Although I Am Legend is a fairly short novel at 175 pages, the few plot twists it contains make it interesting and keeps me reading. The story progress over a couple years as Neville, as the reluctant protagonist, survives and wonders that while surviving the plague wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it beats becoming one of “them”. Although life as a survivor seems empty, bleak, and driving him to insanity, his hopes are raised a few times, discovering a dog, and running across another survivor, which leads to the eventual dark ending.
Part of its brilliance is in Matheson’s writing, which gets right into the main character’s head, and feels just detailed and realistic enough to relate to. His writing style compliments the eerie solitude with vivid descriptions of the empty city.Certain mental images - like former best friend but now pudgy vampire Ben Cortman standing outside, constantly yelling at Neville to come out, stick out as a good example of Matheson's macabre humor. I Am Legend should be required reading for anyone even remotely interested in the horror genre.
The book raises a lot of interesting questions on superstition's relation to science, normalcy, and the benefits of society and civilization. Written from the point of view of Neville, the reader enters his thoughts, feelings, and questions about being the sole survivor after watching everything he knew in the world was slowly destroyed. Although the premise of I Am Legend has been rehashed many times in film and literature, it is interesting to read a novel written from a time when such ideas originated. Even after 40 years, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend still feels fresh and original.
B+
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Throne of Blood
Directed by Akira Kurosawa(1957)
Kurosawa meditates on Shakespeare's tragedy "MacBeth" and transforms it into a dark samurai tale set in feudal Japan. Two successful soldiers - Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) and Miki (Minuro Chiaki) find themselves lost in a dense forest during a powerful storm. There they encounter a spirit who predicts Washizu and Miki's rise to power. Wahizu embarks on a ambitious path and quickly fulfills the prophecy.
Akira Kurosawa deftly displays his mastery of the medium. He creates stunning imagery through movement and landscape and borrows ideas from western literature and cinema to create a beautiful translation of the epic tale of an ambitious man. He effectively translates the knights and royalty of MacBeth's medieval tragedy into samurai and shogun of Japan's militaristic feudal era. Mifune portrays Wahshizu as a cocksure, driven warrior whose blind ambition slowly leads him to self destruction. Miki is a compatriot of Washizu who also tormented by the mysterious predictions, but does not choose the path of violence and bloodshed to determine his fate.
In Throne of Blood, Kurosawa creates a feeling of solitude that defines the culture of the samurai. The samurai are effectively realized by Mifune, with his hard, battle-worn face, scowl, and actions representative of his underlying torment, and is countered by Chiaki, who as Miki portrays a tough soldier, but with a human aspect, not consumed by ambition and bloodlust. The solitary life of a samurai is reinforced by the expansive panoramas of the remote setting in which the fortress resides. In addition, the skillful camera work and use of movement - in characters, horses and in battle scenes create swirling pattens that fortify the feeling of constant motion and change throughout the film. Much of the camera shots and angles were cutting edge at the time, so unfortunately much has to be taken in context when viewing this film. It is rumored that Kurosawa had seen Orson Well's monumental "Citizen Kane" a few years before, had been unduly influenced, and it shows. Throne of Blood is an superb rumination of MacBeth, gives new breath to a classic, and is another masterpiece by one of the greatest directors of the twentieth century.
A
Monday, October 22, 2007
Eastern Promises
(2007)Directed by David Cronenberg
In the thriller, "Eastern Promises", director David Cronenberg re-teams with "A History of Violence" leading man, Viggo Mortensen. As with the previous film, director and star explore the modus operandi of a man we know little about - Nikolai, a mysterious, ruthless, and ambitious member of a London branch of the ruthless Russian mafia: the Vory V Zakone brotherhood.
Cronenberg crafts a tale of a rising, motivated mobster and provides a vignette into a not well-known world of the Russian mob, involving murder, betrayal, and retribution. Set in present day London, the film focuses on a branch headed by Semyon, an charming elder don who is the proprietor of a plush Trans-Siberian restaurant which is a front for the syndicate. Semyon's warm charisma hides his merciless, brutal nature of a ruling head of a crime family. The gangsters are portrayed as mostly unintelligent, unequivocal henchmen concerned only with instant gratification and following orders. The exceptions are Semyon and Nikolai, whose loyalties are divided between the family and his chivalrous ideals. Nikolai's loyalties are further compounded as his path is intertwined with Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife in a local hospital, who is in search of the family of an orphaned newborn whose slave-prostitute mother was impregnated and driven to death by the Vory V Zakone, and whose diary provides information about the mob.
As with the main character in A History of Violence, Eastern Promises' Nikolai is a man of mystery. While associated with the mob, he is quiet and calm, with a smoldering edge that seems ready to explode at any moment. Nikolai is more than willing to follow orders, but has a strange compassion with the people he meets (even if they are enemies), while his peers are callous, uncaring, and willing to off anybody who crosses them at whim. Mortensen plays the part well, his chiseled features adds to his rough appeal as a tough criminal. He also summons the rage of Aragorn in a violent and gruesome fight scene in a steam bath. According to my wife, there was a brief full frontal shot of the averagely endowed Viggo during this brutal and bloody battle, but I must have missed it, distracted by flying fists and knives.
There is also a fleeting love interest with Anna who allows the film to show more of Nikolai's compassionate side. While this provides more insight into the mind of the Nikolai, I wondered why Anna would go go out of her way to try and find the orphaned infant's family, risking her life and family to deal with the mob, instead of just going to the police. Like a lot of movies, I said to myself "What an idiot. Who would do that?" But not everyone acts rationally in cinema.
While Eastern Promises is an above average thriller, an interesting account about the Russian mob, and a character study of a gangster, I couldn't help think I was watching a Russian version of the "Soprano's". The cocky, fault-ridden but charming boss. His eager-to-please, unsympathetic henchmen. The gangster's headquarters in an established restaurant. Although I would have liked a few more details about ambiguous Nikolai, background on the criminal organization Vory V Zakone, and a more complete ending, Eastern Promises delivered what I expected from David Cronenberg - Gruesome, brutal, and wincing violence, gritty subject matter, and a decent plot. The director continually provides a good product, and does not dumb down, simplify, or sanitize his movies for his audience.
B
Death Proof
Written and directed by Quentin Taratino(2007)
Originally released as a second-billed movie part of Grindhouse, Death Proof is a throwback to the 1970s exploitation road-chase movies. Kurt Russell is featured as Stuntman Mike, a former Hollywood stunt race car driver who targets and kills women with his "death-proof" stunt car.
Like many of Tarantino's films, Death Proof is a glorification of the action movies of his childhood. "Vanishing Point" and "Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry" were two road chase films that influenced Death Proof, and are even cited in the second act as basis for a test drive of a 1970 Dodge Challenger. The high speed automobile action and violence is separated by scenes of extended dialog between the characters, which seems to be a Tarantino trademark. One scene of dialog toward the end of the movie is very reminiscent of "Reservoir Dogs", replacing the gruff gangsters with attractive stuntwomen.
The slow, calm, realistic, and informative dialog not only shed light on the characters, but provide a great counter-point to the intense, high-speed mayhem that occurs in the murder scenes and final car chase scene. While Tarantino's prowess for the English language may be his bread, the showdown in all his project is his butter. And the bread in Death Proof tastes so much better when it's dripping with posi-traction, four barreled, hemi-powered, 100 mile-per-hour goodness.
The classic muscle cars in Death Proof are as every bit as visually important as the sexy women. A '69 Dodge Charger, '69 Chevy Nova, '70 Dodge Challenger, and a '72 Ford Mustang all play big parts in the struggle between good and evil in Death Proof. These cars are all muscle and no flash (except for the Mustang) to remind you that you are not watching the latest installment of "The Fast and the Furious", and they proceed to get beat up, wrecked, and destroyed, and still manage to keep on running.
Death Proof succeeds at what it is - a great car chase movie, an homage to the exploitation road-chase movies of the 70's, and a good thriller. It doesn't require much brain power to follow, and Tarantino is successful at recreating the feel of seeing a much used film at an old "grindhouse" movie theater by designing the cinematography of Death Proof with scratches, flaws, skips, occasional lack of color, and missing parts. If it was a scratch and sniff movie, you would have been smelling burnt rubber, oil, transmission fluid, sweat, and blood.
B+
