Movie Box Review

The Motion Picture Academy came up with 2 great choices and a puzzler in their selections for this year's honorary Academy Awards.  (Remember--as of last year, the honorary Oscars are no longer part of the televised ceremony, but will be presented at a private banquet on November 12.)

The unoffcial lifetime achivement award goes to James Earl Jones, and it's the standard bow to a great performer who's now 80 years old and probably unlikely to win a "real" Oscar.  The great actor's legacy, for most audiences, is probably headed by his vocal work (and deep breathing) as Darth Vader, and for intoning "This... is CNN."  But aside from that sonorous voice (let's not forget his Mufasa in The Lion King), Jones made his film debut in Kubrick's masterpiece Dr. Strangelove, and he's given decades worth of great performances in films like The Great White Hope, The Bingo Long Travelling All-Stars and Motor Kings, and Field of Dreams.  He's the kind of actor who everyone assumes must have won an Oscar at some point in his celebrated career, and he richly deserves this honorary one.

Make-Up wizard Dick Smith has won an Oscar for Amadeus, but that's hardly his most famous credit.  He's the father of the modern art of cinema cosmetics, and his films include some of the classic make-up jobs in film history:  aging Dustin Hoffman and Marlon Brando in Little Big Man and The Godfather, turning Linda Blair into a demon (before the days of CG) in The Exorcist, and creating the carnage of Taxi Driver's finale.  Smith is a fabulous 89 years old, and modern movies wouldn't be the same without his artistry.

The odd choice is the decision to give the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Oprah Winfrey.  Not that her charitable credentials are any less than impeccable, but while she's a TV legend, her connection to the film business is rather tangential.  She's only appeared in 2 major films in her career (The Color Purple and Beloved), plus a bit of vocal work in animation, and she's dabbled in producing--her most recent credit, for Precious, was a marketing decision made after the film had already been finished.  Since the honorary Oscar event isn't televised, she wasn't chosen to increase ratings--were there no suitable humanitarians around who actually make their careers in the film industry?

In any case, congratulations to all for their lifetimes of excellent work.  

There's a certain irony in the fact that, in this summer of Super 8 and its Spielberg rapture, the most successfully Spielbergian movie of the season is Marvel's CAPTAIN AMERICA:  THE FIRST AVENGER.  Its connection to Steven Spielberg is faint but important:  director Joe Johnston served as Art Director on both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and later directed an episode of TV's Young Indiana Jones; not concidentally, this is something like the Indiana Jones 4 that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never was, and although it has its limitations, Captain America is a surprisingly entertaining old-fashioned adventure.

One of the most engaging things about Captain America as a movie is that it's as unpretentious as a $150M+ giant superhero extravaganza can be.  The first section of the movie tells the story of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, CG'd in the way of Brad Pitt in Benjamin Button) a 90-pound weakling but endlessly stout of heart, who longs to join the Army in World War II and fight against Nazis, but is rejected because of his physical frailty.  Steve finally runs into Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci, putting on a great show), a German refugee scientist who has a magic serum--not to mention his gorgeous aide Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell).  Johnston and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeeley take their time with this part of the story, and it pays off; although we know that Steve will turn into, well, Captain America, we get to know him first as a plucky underdog.  Even after the transformation, there's a witty sequence where the new Steve is turned into a pitchman for War Bonds (it's like the comedy version of Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers), complete with a musical production number by Alan Menken--by the time Steve gets to Europe, we're as longing for him to see battle as he is.

The huge action sequences, when they finally arrive, deliver in size and design, but they're kept for the most part on a human scale--like the Indiana Jones movies, they stay just this side of what an actual human being might be able to do.  Evans is less interesting as the full-fledged Captain than he was as the puny version, but he has a few moments where he gets to reveal the scrawny kid within, and the rest of the time he hits the stalwart buttons effectively.  And there are welcome supporting actors to perk things up between battles:  Tommy Lee Jones does his Tommy Lee Jones thing--it's like he invented macho snark--and Toby Jones is a junior evil Nazi.  Atwell, who's been doing very good work under the radar in projects like Woody Allen's little-seen Cassandra's Dream and the TV miniseries Pillars Of the Earth, has a snappy way with dialogue to go with her looks, and the gadget man on Captain America's team is Howard Stark, who would one day father Iron Man (ah, Marvel); he's played by Dominic Cooper, who'll soon be seen to much splashier advantage in The Devil's Double.   

The very clever production design by Rick Heinrichs creates a larger-than-life version of 1940s archetypes without calling too much attention to itself (as opposed, say, to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow's attempt to do the same thing):  tanks, motorcycles and planes that make sense in the World War II context but are convincingly a bit beyond reality.  The photography by Shelly Johnson, unfortunately, is obscured by a terrible 3D conversion that has little effect beyond badly smudging the original image--this is definitely a picture where audiences should try to save the money and find a 2D auditorium.

Where Captain America really falters is in its villain.  Hugo Weaver, who may be out of fantasy role inspiration now that he's done The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Transformers and The Wolfman, seemingly does a deliberate Christoph Waltz imitation as Red Skull; he's your basic raving super-Nazi (he even listens to Wagner), with a little of Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Voldemort's noselessness.  Red Skull never says or does anything interesting in the picture, and that lowers the stakes of the drama quite a bit; at this point in movie history, if you're going to scare us with a Nazi villain, it takes more than a red digital make-up job to do it.

Despite that central flaw, Captain America is a fun ride.  It's actually disappointing that in their zeal to get the character into next year's all-important Avengers conglomerate (consumer note:  sit through all 10 minutes of credits and you'll be rewarded with the teaser for next year's everyone-but-the-kitchen-sink epic), Marvel was in such a hurry to pull him out of the 1940s.  This retro fantasy could have made a nice variation from their usual formula, but it's seemingly a one-time effort; although we must all believe in the powers of Joss Whedon, he'll have his hands full juggling half a dozen heroes in Avengers, and the Captain's charm may not age well.  That, however, is next year's movie problem.

They say that the definition of madness is repeating the same action with the expectation of a different result.  But that diagnosis doesn't allow for this:  a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up and finds himself on a train, where his reflection in the mirror doesn't look like himself, and the woman in the next seat (Michelle Monaghan) who apparently knows him doesn't address him as himself.  Eight minutes later he, the girl, and the train all blow up... and the man wakes up again, to find himself seemingly in the middle of a mad government experiment (under the direction of Army officer Vera Farmiga and scientist Jeffrey Wright), his mission to find out who planted that bomb on the train by reliving the last 8 minutes of that other man's life over and over again, hunting for clues.  That's the premise of SOURCE CODE, an intriguing sci-fi action movie twist on Groundhog Day.   

Although Source Code comes from director Duncan Jones, who last gave us the indie fantasy Moon (see review here), there's nothing esoteric about this genre exercise.  Ben Ripley's script isn't particularly interested in Groundhog Day-like existential comedy, either--despite its unusual premise, and the even more convoluted explanation of Gyllenhaal's actual place in the story, the picture is very much focused on solving its twin mysteries:  who bombed that train, and what's the experiment all about?  In truth, it's not all that hard to figure out either answer by the film's halfway point, but the picture is carried along by its brisk pace and the moderately clever way it works everything out. 

Although Source Code doesn't have a massive budget, it's certainly many times that of Moon, and Jones handles the digital explosions and thriller mechanics effectively (having proven his prowess, it would be sad if his next move is to a mega-budgeted superhero epic).  His technical team includes the very experienced Don Burgess (Spiderman) as cinematographer and Paul Hirsch (Mission Impossible) as editor.  Gyllenhaal, whose career has bounced around, has a part that's well suited to him:  not full-fledged action hero, but Hitchcockian ordinary guy thrust into a crazy situation.  Vera Farmiga, most of the time confined to a monitor screen in Gyllenhaal's testing area, proves that she can give a full-fledged performance in a box (it's like Beckett's "Happy Days" as a genre role), but Monaghan doesn't get to do much more than look attractive and be charming, and Wright is hobbled by having to play the most cliched character.

Source Code isn't a truly satisfying puzzle movie; the last reel, in particular, doesn't stand up to much scrutiny, and it doesn't have any ambition to "mean" something.  In a year where Sucker Punch represents Hollywood's idea of action fantasy, though--it'll do.  

(SOURCE CODE - Summit - PG 13 - 93 min.- Director:  Duncan Jones - Script:  Ben Ripley - Cast:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright - Wide Release)

SOURCE CODE is this weekend's major live-action opening, so here's a look at some recent work by its star Jake Gyllenhaal and its director Duncan Jones.

Gyllenhaal has had a curious Hollywood career thus far, and PRINCE OF PERSIA:  THE SANDS OF TIME, far from his most auspicious moment, was his first pre-Source Code attempt to carry a Hollywood action movie.  Gyllenhaal started out playing sensitive teens in pictures like October Sky and the cult-hit Donnie Darko, and eased his way into sensitive young men roles in The Good Wife and Moonlight Mile.  He made his big-ticket Hollywood debut in The Day After Tomorrow, which made a pile of money, although relatively little of it was attributed to him.  The following year, he scored a major critical and indie box-office hit with Brokeback Mountain--but again, it was co-star Heath Ledger who won the Best Actor nomination, while Gyllenhaal was relegated to Supporting.  In the half-dozen years since, Gyllenhaal has made largely interesting choice that haven't paid off at the box-office (Zodiac, Jarhead, Rendition, Love and Other Drugs, Brothers).  He, and no doubt his advisors, decided it was time for a blockbuster action franchise.

Unfortunately, Prince of Persia wasn't it.  Based on a video game and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the film offered plenty of CG creatures, time travel, and PG-13 violence.  But the picture, directed by the usually
very fine Mike Newell (whose credits include the much better fantasy adventure Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), was burdened by a lousy script (credited to Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard, although as with most Bruckheimer epic one assumes there were other contributors).  And Gyllenhaal, although he had buffed himself up to play a shirtless hero, was about as convincing a Persian prince as--well, as Seth Rogen would be as the Green Hornet (if you could imagine such a thing).  The picture was made with everything except imagination, emotional commitment or a spirit of fun, and on a rumored $200M budget (meaning closer to $350M when global marketing costs are included), it made $335M.  (It also did over 70% of its business overseas, a phenomenon discussed in Mitch Metcalf's column today.) Not the way to start a franchise, or a mainstream Hollywood action career.  On Starz networks and homevideo:  Still Not Worth Seeing.

Duncan Jones' MOON is an entirely different kind of fantasy.  Written by Nathan Parker (from a story by Jones), it's an indie brain-teasing piece of sci-fi.  It concerns an astronaut (Sam Rockwell) stationed on the moon under a corporate contract to periodically send fuel back to Earth.  He's completely isolated except for his computer sidekick (voice of Kevin Spacey).  And then one day he discovers that he has an exact double on the moon with him.  Is the other him a hallucination?  A clone?  The movie cleverly questions identity and existential purpose, all within the context of a puzzle thriller.  Jones' modest first film was screened and bought at Sundance, and on a very minimal budget managed to gross $10M worldwide, enough to get Jones promoted to a moderate Hollywood budget and the chance to work with a movie star like Jake Gyllenhaal.  On Starz networks and homevideo; At Home In Your Home.