Movie Box Review

The worldwide phenomenon that is Twilight often finds itself compared to Harry Potter, and for obvious reasons:  both are multi-film, multi-billion dollar franchises aimed at young audiences and telling a single continuous story.  The two series, however, are more different than they are similar:  even leaving aside evident disparities in quality, the Potter films, like J. K. Rowling's novels, are crammed with plot, character and mythology, such that when Warners made the decision to split the final Potter novel into 2 feature-length films, the only disappointment was that even with 4 1/2 hours of screen time, there was still plenty in the book that had to be left out.

This appears not to have been the case with Stephenie Meyer's final Twilight novel, because until things liven up in the last half hour or so, BREAKING DAWN PART 1 is a long, slow slog through the romantic lives of everyone's favorite supernatural threesome, Bella, Edward and Jacob (in case names are needed, respectively Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner).  The first half of the movie is almost exclusively concerned with the marriage and honeymoon of the Cullens, as Bella continues to practically vibrate in her impatience for vampiric sex and Edward continues to put off her loss of virginity for as long as inhumanly possible.  Finally he gives in on the private island where the two are honeymooning, and while the PG-13 rating doesn't permit us to see more than a tiny bit of what happens, the indications are that he just barely manages to restrain himself from killing her in the act--much, by the way, to her satisfaction.

A great deal has been written, of course, about Meyer's metaphoric treatment of virginity and her equivalence in the novels of premarital sex with death, and Breaking Dawn 1 makes that even more uncomfortable, mixing in implications of rough sex that results in Bella being covered in bruises that only leave her hungry for more (the kind of bruises that disappear entirely, to be sure, once Bella wants to don a sexy negligee).  Then we move on to a weird anti-abortion screed, as Bella instantly becomes supernaturally pregnant, and refuses to end the pregnancy despite the fact that the demon child is literally eating her alive from the inside.  (Even though she's not a vampire herself, Bella has to drink human blood to keep the little fetus--baby, an apparently pro-life vampire insistently corrects another--happy.)  But however disquieting this particular story's messages may be, the fact is that the horror genre will always be a landing place for queasy allegory, as everything from David Cronenberg's films to American Horror Story can testify.

Once Edward and Bella hurry home to tend to her dangerous pregnancy, we get the return of the fifth-est wheel in all supernatural romance:  Jacob the werewolf, who alternates between scowling and swearing undying loyalty to Bella even though she's rejected him an infinite number of times.  There's also way more about the werewolf code and pack politics than we could possibly need.  Meanwhile Kristen Stewart convincingly looks emaciated, while her vampire family hovers around with concerned expressions.  (Why is it, incidentally, that only Peter Facinelli's Carlisle has the complexion of Casper the Friendly Ghost?)  It isn't until Demon Baby is born (almost entirely off-screen, again presumably to avoid an R rating) that things spark with a little excitement before the finale's end of Act 1 of the story.

As a movie, Breaking Dawn 1 is better than the last chapter of the saga, but not as compelling as the original Twilight.  Bill Condon is known best these days as director of the classy Dreamgirls and Kinsey, but his early low-budget movies were in the horror genre, and even his biography of James Whale, Gods and Monsters, had genre sequences.  Aside from a few fun nightmare bits, though, he doesn't bring much personality to the film.  He's hindered by the plodding script (the adaptation, as always, is by Melissa Rosenberg), the need for a PG-13 rating and the format and styles that had already been set in place--Condon was presumably in no position to change the cruddy CG look of the werewolves.  One would like to think he wasn't responsible for some of the movie's truly terrible ideas, like a conversation among the werewolves played out in voice-over that's like a scene from a bad DreamWorks Animation flick (the audience laughed out loud at it), or the changes taking place in one character's body conveyed by CSI-type sequences of the camera zooming along CG veins and ganglia. 

Another difference between the Twilight and Harry Potter series is that the actors here haven't found anything new or deeper in their characters as their stories have continued.  Stewart is less mannered than she was early in the series--not so much stuttering or hair twisting--and is the best of them, but Bella still has little to do beyond casting looks of yearning, emotional agony and grim determination.  Pattinson is so much a pretty-boy that when the movie revealed that his sexual savagery had caused physical injury, the audience laughed once again.  And Lautner just plain can't act very well.  The supporting cast, virtually all of them back from previous installments, do what they'd done before, although it's odd now to see Anna Kendrick, a bona-fide leading lady in 50/50, reduced to playing a wisecracking high schooler again.  (Incidentally, for those who miss some of the most high camp characters of the entire saga, be sure to stay for a coda scene in the middle of the end credits.)

The Twilight franchise has also never had the visual or technical wizardry (sorry) of the Potter films.  Breaking Dawn 1 is glossily shot by Guillermo Navarro (his previous work includes Pan's Labyrinth), but its sets often look like they're shot on soundstages, much of the CG is second-rate, and even by the standards of movies aimed at a teen crowd, it has an unusually insipid score of pop songs.

Honestly, though, it doesn't matter much what one says about a Twilight movie:  the picture will doubtless make hundreds of millions of dollars both in the US and overseas, and the series will happily move along to its ultimate  conclusion just about a year from now.  And make no mistake, compared to Jack and Jill, Breaking Dawn 1 is Kurosawa and Gone With the Wind combined.  Audiences who want a satisfying, sexy, scary vampire story, however, would be better of tuning in to The Vampire Diaries on TV instead.

Pending the arrival of this week's finale, Mike Newell's 2005 HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE may be, on balance, the most satisfying of the series.  It combines first-rate moviemaking with one of J.K. Rowling's most ingeniously constructed, emotionally rich stories--capped, of course, by the unveiling of Ralph Fiennes as the finally fully alive Lord Voldemort.

Newell isn't the cinematic wizard that Alfonso Cuaron is, and visually Goblet of Fire is a bit of a step backwards from Prisoner of Azkaban.  Newell, who started his career in the 1960s, had made such fine films as Donnie Brasco, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Dance With A Stranger, but he wasn't exactly an epic adventure guy; when he tried the genre again after his Potter sojourn, the result was the sad Prince of Persia.  Roger Pratt, who had photographed Chamber of Secrets, returned behind the camera for Goblet of Fire, making for a somewhat more stagier look and more old-fashioned lighting.  In other respects, though, the picture certainly has more drive and snap than the Chris Columbus chapters, with sharp editing by Mick Audsley (who's worked often with Stephen Frears) and score by Patrick Doyle.

Newell handles the action well enough (the dragons and mer-people are extremely convincing, and the living maze quite disturbing).  He also compellingly guides viewers through the complications of the storyline--screenwriter Steve Kloves had his hands full with Goblet of Fire, which could easily have been expanded to 2 full-length films (it's too bad so much of the Quidditch World Cup and the Hagrid/Madame Maxime romance had to be lost).  It would have been easy to tangle the audience in the shifts between Twiwizard Cup action sequences, inter-student conflicts and the overriding Voldemort plot, but Newell and Kloves do a yeoman's job of steering the tale forward.  

Newell's greatest strength is with the actors.  The usual giant cast of British veterans inhabit Goblet, and they're joined by Miranda Richardson (who had starred in Dance With A Stranger), delicious as Rita Skeeter; David Tennant, briefly but scarily vicious as Barty Crouch Jr; and especially Brendan Gleeson, so good as Mad-Eye Mooney that it's too bad subsequent chapters didn't give him more to do.  (And of course there's Robert Pattinson, whose on-screen death became an omen of how successful he'd become as one of the undead.)  Goblet of Fire, though, is most notable as the movie that first showcased how polished its young stars had become.  The Yule Ball storylines allow them (especially Rupert Grint) to show off their comic chops, and Newell gives Emma Watson a lovely little Audrey Hepburn moment as she walks down the stairs at the ball and everyone else in the cast realizes how beautiful she is.  Later on, as the story takes its darker turns, Daniel Radcliffe faces down Ralph Fiennes--Amon Goeth of Schindler's List in all his sneering villainy--and proves himself a worthy adversary.

Sometimes even a small moment in a movie can typify how it's gone wrong.  There's a scene fairly early in WATER FOR ELEPHANTS--it's not a major plot point, for those wary of spoilers--where an animal loved by the circus performer Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) has to be put down.  The director Francis Lawrence keeps the camera on Witherspoon, who is exquisitely lit by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, so that her Depression-era platinum hair is perfectly haloed, even though the action is taking place in a dirty train freight car.  After the animal has been taken care of, Witherspoon sniffs back a single hint of a tear, wipes her nose just once, and says with just a barely perceptible quaver that she's all right.  It's like a museum exhibit of "sadness" rather than an emotion itself, and there in a peanut shell is Water For Elephants, genteel within an inch of its life.

The film opens at something of a crossroads for its principals.  For Lawrence, it follows Constantine and I Am Legend, and marks his first attempt to tell a story about people rather than CG effects.  Robert Pattinson is trying to prove himself a viable leading man as the clock runs down on his Twilight franchise stardom.  Witherspoon is following up the surprisingly total flop of James L Brooks' How Do You Know; she could use a hit.  And this is Christoph Waltz's first major film since winning the Oscar for Inglourious Basterds; he'd been unknown to US audiences before that, and no doubt would like to avoid falling back to obscurity.

Based on Sara Gruen's bestseller (which I confess I haven't read), Water is the story of Jacob Jankowski, a young man yanked from his veterinary final exams at Cornell in 1931 because of a family tragedy.  He hops a train that turns out to belong to the Benzini Brothers Circus, a third-rate outfit that's outlived the Benzinis, and is actually run by August (Waltz), who dreams of competing with Ringling Brothers.  August's wife is Marlena, the star act of the troupe and object of his obsession.  Once August, desperate to increase audiences, finds out that Jacob has veterinary training, he purchases the veteran elephant Rosie, and decrees that Jacob must train the beast and Marlena ride him.  It's not exactly hard to figure out that Jacob will have a near-mystical bond with the elephant, and that the relationship between Jacob, Marlena  and August will head for a dangerous place.

Lawrence's direction and Richard LeGravenese's script are even and pictorial, content to led the story plod forward like Rosie herself.  There's not a moment of spontaneity or a line of dialogue that doesn't further the plot, and the strenuously weathered production design might as well bear the labels of the prop houses that supplied its pieces.  Circuses on screen are difficult because some of the greatest directors in history have mined that territory:  Bergman with Sawdust and Tinsel, Ophuls with Lola Montes, and half of Fellini's films among the most famous.  Shooting a circus in an uninteresting way is practically a crime against cinema, but that doesn't seem to have troubled Lawrence much; he may as well be shooting a TV pilot.  (He makes matters even worse by slicking everything down with James Newton Howard's heavyhanded score.)

The actors might have saved things with enough sheer magnetism, but that wasn't to be.  Pattinson is far more robust than we're used to seeing him on screen--although it'd be nice to see him in a part where he doesn't have to shoot smolderingly longing looks at The Woman He Can't Have--and his performance is generally fine, but he has so little chemistry with Witherspoon that I started looking at some of the other women in the cast and wondering if he'd be better off with one of them.  (The audience when I saw the film was laughing out loud at the big love scene, never a good sign.)  Witherspoon, for her part, looks great in her period outfits and that platinum hair, but her character lacks any snap at all, leaving her thin to the point of invisibility.  And Waltz does the genial sadist shtick he perfected in Basterds, even though the material here is far less rich.

Watching Water For Elephants, you feel like not a single person involved with making it has even once dreamed of running off with the circus.  They carefully keep all the potentially wild animals of their setting and characters safely locked in cages, and the result is sedate when it should be thrilling.