Should've Been Recalled

Sometimes an interesting idea alone isn't enough. When author Eric Garcia began co-writing a screenplay based on his in-progress novel Reposession Mambo, he must have thought it was pretty cool. When the film was released a scant year after his book, he must have thought, "wow". After the movie got mostly negative reviews and made back only a fraction of the money it cost to make it, his response was probably something like "oops".

Repo Men takes place in 2025, where a corporation called The Union has made quite a fortune for itself by selling replacement organs, joints and other body parts to those that need or want them. The dark side of this is that if the recipient can't make their regular (and expensive) payments, the organs are default and The Union sends one of it's "Repo Men" to reclaim the part by breaking into your home, incapacitating you, and cutting you open to remove the part, presumably leaving you to die on the floor of your abode. It's in this act where we meet Remy, a Repo Man played by Jude Law. He's worked as a Repo Man for years alongside his best friend Jake, played by Forest Whitaker. He has a good life, makes good money, and is slowly being pulled in two directions. His wife Carol (Carice Van Houten) wants him to step away from the repo aspect of his job, and instead transfer to a job in sales, while Jake wants him to remain in Repo, to remain his best friend, which he doesn't see happening if he goes to sales. Deciding to honor the wishes of his family, Remy goes on one last job...

Law (L), and Whitaker

This futuristic setting is at first rendered in a fashion that I think was meant to be like Blade Runner, but that analogy quickly falls apart as we see less and less city as the movie progresses, taking place many times either in the unchanged suburbs or the decrepit and seedy junktown on the outskirts of the city where people are fleeing repossession. It's this mishmash of settings that is the most distracting aspect of the film, as the moviemakers don't seem to know exactly what kind of future they want to create, or even more criminally, how to use setting to emphasize the mood of a film. Night and day are used intermittantly, and while there is the obvious difference between the stark, uniform city of The Union and the pleasant, innocent aspect of the suburbs, there's little to no connection between the two, no reason to think these places would exist simultaneously in the same universe, let alone the same city.

The acting here is good, though not great. I've always thought that Jude Law was an overrated actor, with over-hyped performances in films like The Talented Mister Ripley and Cold Mountain the result more of Hollywood's search for a new Clark Gable rather than any actual talent on his part. He redeemed himself in my eyes more recently in films like My Blueberry Nights and Sherlock Holmes, and even in this piteously bad film he is in fact excellent, conveying mood in his eyes and visually believing the dialogue coming from his lips. He easily outpaces Whitaker, who seems to be once again playing a variation of himself, with little range between goofy happiness and psychotic anger. Whitaker, who teased audiences with his charismatic performance in The Last King of Scotland, seems to be constantly proving that his performance in the fictional story of Uganda's Idi Amin was a fluke rather than a process of growing talent. In smaller roles are Liev Schreiber and Alice Braga, but both were in better films this year (Salt and Predators, respectively), while cameo roles by John Leguizamo and hip-hop artist and producer RZA are surprisingly good, though Leguizamo's role appears only when the audience has lost all interest in what's happening. Van Houten hasn't exactly lit up the sky with her American film appearances since 2006's Black Book, as Valkyrie and this film hardly do her justice after being nominated for so many awards based on her role as a Jewish spy in WWII. She's underused and overqualified, and surprisingly has not gotten the same respect that has been bestowed upon a different international actress that had her big break only one year later, Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose.

The film starts off strong before dawdling and dwindling in interest about half an hour in, and abhorred pacing means that we're never sure what part of the narrative we're actually in. At least half a dozen times I found myself muttering to myself, asking why the movie was not yet over, why it was still going on. At that point I didn't need a real conclusion, I would have settled for a half-assed setup to an inevitable sequel just to see the film end. There was so much exposition, thinly-veiled plot-points and clues to how the movie would actually end, and frankly it was simply bogging down my viewing experience, a movie that played like a no-think action/thriller attempting to make me think about it's stupid ideas more than I need to. The film does finally ramp up in a final, bloody, sequence that actually brought my interest back to the film, even if it was highly predictable.

The idea of a big corporation being the blank-faced bad-guy is nothing new. I can think of at least a half-dozen titles off the top of my head that use that same theme (including one of my favorite all-time films, Alien), and seeing it here again only fills me with a ho-hum feeling, even if we actually see into the evil machinations of this particular corporation. What bothers me the most is the public aspect of it's evil. The movie states that The Union actually makes most of it's money from re-selling reposessed organs, so they sell an organ, the customer fails to make payments, they repossess the organ, repeat. That makes sense. It even makes sense that there would be people running from repossession who couldn't pay, an underground. The problem I have is that the public seems to know about these Repo Men, and they are easily recognizable by The Union tattoos printed on their necks. So that raises the question: why would people buy organs from The Union if they know there's a chance they might be repossessed? Even if they were desperate, there couldn't be THAT many desperate people out there to keep such a company afloat, let alone with a choke-hold on the government to overlook such things. Perhaps I'm simply being naive, but it simply doesn't seem feasable to me.

If there's one thing redeeming the film (besides it's ending), it's the soundtrack. Though track from the likes of RZA and Beck are not stellar, it's when the music takes a step into the far past that we get a real feeling for the film, as songs by Nina Simone and Rosemary Clooney take center stage. It's flashback music more than makes up for the more contemporary duds, and like Simone we are "Feeling Good" when they're playing in the background.

Let's be honest here, Repo Men is a bad movie. It starts quick, gets bogged down by clutter and mess in the middle, before finishing off in an exciting but highly predictable ending. The film is only 111 minutes but feels twice as long, and I wouldn't be surprised if anyone started watching this movie stood up, turned off the TV, and went into the other room to do something else. The film does have an interesting premise, but it's not nearly enough to keep the audience watching. It doesn't come close to being one of this year's Top 10 Films, as the only movie worse than Repo Men this year would have to be Legion, and that's saying something profound. Certainly more profound than anything Repo Men had to tell us.

It's Not Walky!

Even those closest to me may not know this, but every day I check the daily comics. No, I'm not talking about the ones in the newspaper; There hasn't been a funny comic to be found in the national press since the 80's. That's not the medium to which I'm referring. In fact, the medium I mean rarely if ever gets printed ON paper, unless it's popular enough to get collected. I'm speaking of webcomics, and if you don't read them you may not know what you're missing.

There have been webcomics since at least the 1980's, when they were introduced by Internet providers such as CompuServe as content for subscribers, but the era of the webcomic hit it's true stride in the mid to late 1990's. At that time, many comics that still run regularly today began their epic runs, such as Scott Kurtz's PVP and Jerry Holkins's and Mike Krahulik's Penny Arcade, the latter of which gets two million pageviews DAILY. These are just two of the hundreds to webcomics out there right now, and because they're online, they're not subject to the content regulations that are regularly put upon print comics by newspaper and book publishers, ensuring as independent a setup as the creators wish for their projects. Granted, the quality of some of these comics wouldn't fit in with your daily strips, and the topics of some would be considered controversial in and of themselves, but all these years later webcomics have come into their own, being recognized for the prestigious Harvey and Eisner Awards, which once upon a time didn't recognize them as a true comic format. With the slow decline of newspapers in society and many people already getting their news from the web, it's only natural that the comic strip would follow suit.

The cartoonist, David Willis

But I'm not here to talk about all webcomics. I'm here to mention my all-time favorite, one I discovered recently, and only after the comic had technically come to an end years prior. It's Walky was a webcomic that ran from December 1999 to October 2004 and was the creation of the very busy webcartoonist David Willis. Willis, considered one of the pioneers of the webcomic era, began creating comics as a child, using his friends as his subjects. He continued doing so when he launched Roomies! back in 1997, in the Indiana Daily Student, the school newspaper for Indiana University. Roomies! followed college roommates Danny and Joe as they get ready for the rest of their lives while meeting new friends including Danny-crazy Joyce, nerdy Howard and Howard's older, wise sister Ruth. The comic was a mix of daily humor and some continuity, drifting towards more serious topics as the comic progressed, including alcoholism, death, and sex. It became a webcomic in 1999, debuting on Keenspot with it's entire archive not long before the series itself ended. The comic also briefly introduced the readers to little purple aliens that abducted some of the characters briefly but did not at the time seem very dangerous.

Darker themes abound in It's Walky!

When Roomies! ended, Willis took up his magnum opus, It's Walky! Existing in the same universe as his previous work, Willis included several characters from Roomies! in this new title, with Joyce, Joe and Danny's high-school girlfriend Sal (who was introduced in Roomies!) as major characters, and by the end included all the original comic's characters in some capacity. The story focused on a super-secret paramilitary group called SEMME who's job was to combat the evil forces of the aliens, who are much more dangerous than they had been portrayed in the previous comic. The comic also introduced a new character, David "Walky" Walkerton, a young SEMME lab assistant who turns out to be vital to the fight against the aliens. Walky (who is the personification of the comic's creator) seems somewhat dim when we're first introduced to him, but over the course of the series his true power emerges and he's a character we really learn to love.

It's difficult to place a specific genre on It's Walky. While part of the main story did focus on imminent alien abductions, plots and invasions, the real meat of the storylines is the character driven drama, most notably the love story between Walky and Joyce, both of whom go through several character growth spurts over the course of the series. The best part is the relationship between them feels real, based on true emotions and sometimes surprisingly moving prose:

It's the rain.

It's the storm we all have to endure.

We hate it, but it's every drop that

runs down your face that traces

out who you are. Your shape.

The storm shows me so much.

I accept all I see.

We are beautiful.

When Willis would break out something like that, I'm not afraid to admit that I've shed many a tear over the pure emotion that sometimes runs through the story. That isn't to say that Willis's trademark humor doesn't make an appearance. In fact, the comic would sometimes vacillate between toilet humor and theology in a very short period of time. The best moments were when the comic was at it's most emotionally-charged, though, and the comic had many tragic characters that helped it get to that point, characters such as good-guy Anthony McHale Jr. and Walky's one-time girlfriend Dina Sarazu. (Spoiler: Dina's final living words, "I'm sorry, this was the best I could do" still haunt me) Without giving away too much, It's Walky was a sweet, fun, exciting and funny emotional ride, and I would recommend it to any who wanted to partake in it. But that's not the end of what's been called the Walkyverse.

After It's Walky! ended, Willis changed gears, focusing on a humor-first comic that takes place in a toy store. Shortpacked!, which still runs today, takes place in the same world of It's Walky! but has only faint connections to it's predecessor, mainly in the characters of Robin DeSanto, Mike Warner and Ultracar, who were major players in Walky who decide to work at this toy store after the previous comic's excitement. Besides creating insane scenarios and characters that work well together, Willis also uses this new comic with many a one-shot about his love for Transformers, Batman, and other toys or the movies based upon them. Though it sometimes takes on serious topics such as infidelity and addiction, the comic comes nowhere close in seriousness to it's previous incarnations.

Willis proposed to his future wife on Shortpacked!

But that's not all Willis has been up to. He's one of the founders of Blank Label Comics, which was created by several creators leaving Keenspot. He also hosted a series called Joyce and Walky!, which acted as both an epilogue and sequel to It's Walky! and was different from Willis's other creations in that it was the only title you had to pay to read most of the content (Roomies!, It's Walky! and Shortpacked! are all free to read) which included paid-for content being available on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with a free comic coming out every Saturday.

So why am I telling you all this? Why is a geek who usually reviews using one of his three posts this week to tell you about a webcomic that he loves if it's already ended? Well, Willis just wrapped up the Joyce and Walky comic and has just debuted his brand new comic Dumbing of Age which is a complete reboot of the Walky universe in which there are no aliens, no superpowers. Instead it's a re-imagining of the Joyce/Walky relationship and whether they would still be soul mates if they met under different circumstances, like at college. So far, many Walkyverse characters have already been introduced either directly or in the background, and what parts they'll play has yet to be seen. I'm letting you know that I will be partaking in this new title with eyes open and mouth in a perpetual grin. It's Walky! was a shock I never saw coming, and I'm pretty much committed to whatever Willis puts out now and in the future, until decides to hang up the job for good.

The resemblance is uncanny

Walky, I salute you.

Out on Bail

It was bound to happen.

It seems that every time you turn around, some form of entertainment has romanticized the few things that didn't need to be romanticized, especially employments that aren't, shall we say, deemed very stylish. Sure, A&E's Dog the Bounty Hunter has brought the necessary trade of bounty hunting to the eyes of the public, and there are fewer more memorable characters in pop culture than Star Wars's Bobba Fett. However we've never seen bounty hunters in a very romantic light, so distracted are we by the pursuit of their quarry. We've never had a "Bounty Hunter's Wife", if you will.

Until now.

I'll admit I wasn't in any hurry to see The Bounty Hunter when it was released this past March, so unimpressed I was with the theatrical trailer that I let it drop below my radar. Even when I was hunting down movies to watch recently, seeing it available for rent did not stop me from watching other, more interesting films instead. Despite generally liking Gerard Butler and (to a lesser extent) Jennifer Aniston, there just didn't seem to be enough to the film to keep my interest, at least until I saw another trailer when I rented Youth in Revolt. Maybe I was just in a good mood, but the trailer seemed funnier than I'd remembered, and so, since I like the occasional comedy with all the more action-y and angst-y films I tend to watch, I picked it up on my next go-around at Redbox.

The movie presents us with Butler as Milo, a bounty hunter who has gotten the job of a lifetime: His ex-wife Nicole, played by Aniston, didn't show up for court on an unnamed arrest and now her bail has been revoked, meaning Milo will make $5,000 to take his wife back to jail. Milo, who's run up an impressive gambling debt, and would love an excuse to stick it to the woman who made his life miserable, thinks this will the best, easiest money he ever made. Meanwhile Nicole, a reporter, skipped out on bail to meet with a contact who claimed to have important information for her about the story she's working on, an apparent suicide that doesn't add up and won't let a little thing like a bounty on her head stop her from pursuing the story.

The first thing to note about The Bounty Hunter is how formulaic it is. It's a romantic comedy first, with a few poorly-executed action and suspense scenes thrown in to appease the male audience. The idea of fate drawing Milo and Nicole together under these circumstances is not a little ridiculous and definitely trite, as it's obvious to us, the audience, that the whole premise is to create an argument for these two seemingly-mismatched characters to get back together. However, some of the best scenes in the film are those that prove that fact, such as a few where Milo impresses Nicole with his knowledge of her, and showing a sensitivity she didn't know he had.

The acting is by far the best thing about the film, and that credit belongs by far the most to Butler and Aniston. There's something to be said for having fun on the set, and both actors seem to be having a blast with both the comedic and serious material they're handed, and the natural charisma between the two suggest this won't be the last time they connect on the big screen. They both seem to feed off the other when they're onscreen together, and the scenes where they are together are the best scenes of the film. Butler is roguishly beguiling as Milo, a man who greatly loves his job and always gets his man, but also has a sensitive side and an addictive personality, exacerbated by his gambling debt. Yes, I realize I described Butler as "roguishly beguiling", do you have a problem with that? Aniston is also wonderful if not quite as good as Butler. She's never been a great actress but she plays the same archetype so well, and that's pretty much Nicole to a T. Shamelessly devoted to her job, getting the big story is most important on her list of objectives, all other things falling behind. It's been described to me that Aniston does angry well, and that's certainly true here, where she has plenty of opportunity to express that particular emotion. Their chemistry together really makes the film move forward, and it's by far the only thing I can recommend to people wanting to see this movie.

It's too bad the supporting cast couldn't live up to the talent of it's top-billers. Probably the most disappointing is the lack of a charismatic villain to hound the two heroes. Though there are two antagonists hunting both Nicole and Milo (Peter Greene and Cathy Moriarty, respectively), Moriarty doesn't have much impact as a secondary adversary. She plays a crooked casino owner who wants to collect on Milo's debt. Greene is the primary antagonist, hunting down Nicole so she can't uncover the truth about the story she's investigating, but he's not very interesting and doesn't play a large role in the film, as the crime/action aspect of the story constantly takes a backseat to the romantic angles. Jason Sudekis might be the worst part of the film, a completely superfluous character who has a crush on Nicole and stalks her some ways into the movie after she jumps bail. Between his character's creepiness and Sudekis' pornstache, there's nothing to like about the character, and the movie would have been better off without him. Dorian Messick and Jeff Garlin are fine in small roles, but the best of the supporting cast is by far Christine Baranski as Nicole's mother, a lounge singer in Atlantic City. She's the type of character that never fails to elicit at least a chuckle from me as a slightly perverted, say-anything maternal figure with a cosmo perpetually in their hand, like Jessica Walter's characters in Arrested Development and 90210. It's a shame she's not in more of the movie, but I think too much might have been overkill, so perhaps it's good they didn't over-saturate the film with Baranski's role.

The few suspense and action scenes thrown into the mix don't make the movie much better. In one scene towards the end, especially, it's ridiculous to see Milo searching throughout a warehouse trying his best to look like a real former-cop. The scenes may be the only semblance of a plot in the whole movie, as the romantic angle would be nothing without them, but one wonders if director Andy Tennant could not have done more to make those scenes as important as the rest of the film. On top of that, I can't get over the feeling that if Nicole had simply gone into court that day, there would be no movie. I need my stories to be a little more complex than ones hinging on one precarious plot thread.

In end end, I enjoyed The Bounty Hunter. That is to say, I enjoyed the performances of Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston, and the rest of the film could have been performed my monkeys on trampolines and it wouldn't have made a difference. The Bounty Hunter had a lot of things against it, including a nebulous plot, poor action and suspense bits and a mediocre and uninvolved supporting cast. Only the acting of Butler and Aniston and their interactions with one another prevent this movie from being totally unwatchable, though I still don't recommend you rent it unless you've got a hankering for romantic comedies and you've already seen the rest. Date Night, a far superior film, has already been knocked off my Top 10 list, so don't expect this one to hit that list anytime soon. It's better than it has any right being, but not by much.

Youth, Revolted

It's about time Michael Cera did something different.

Let's recap; Ever since Arrested Development first aired way back in 2003, Michael Cera has arguably been the most successful of his fellow cast, which boasts impressive names such as Will Arnett, Portia de Rossi, David Cross and Golden Globe winner Jason Bateman. The young Canadian actor has headlined many films and been praised highly for his roles in Superbad and Juno. And he was in one of this year's best films, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, even if I was somewhat disappointed by his performance.

But that's the problem with Cera. Perhaps because of his look (He's 22 but still looks like he's 12) he tends to play the same type of character, the mousy, quiet teen underdog. His characters are used to being pushed around, never rebelling or speaking up until he finds a cause or confidence to do so. It's true in every performance I've seen him in, as if the director doesn't really want him to change, since his work has done so well in the past. In Youth in Revolt, directed by Miguel Arteta, this at first seems to be the case. Cera plays social outcast Nick Twisp, a Sinatra-loving, classic movie-watching, dorky teenager living with his mother Estelle (Jean Smart), who has the worst taste in the men she has in her life and a dependence on the child supports she gets from Nick's dad (Steve Buschemi). When Jerry, the deadbeat Estelle is currently dating (Zach Galifinakis), manages to piss off some Navy sailors enough that they threaten Jerry's life, Nick finds himself traveling with Jerry and Estelle to a not-too-far trailer park, where he meets Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday), the love of his life. The movie is about Nick overcoming the obstacles in his path to be with Sheeni, both emotional and physical, in a quest to win Sheeni's heart.

So for all intents and purposes, this seems to similar Cera vehicles, right? Well, yes and no. The big difference is that here Cera actually plays two distinct characters, as to be with Sheeni, Nick creates a fictional mustachioed persona named Francois Dillinger. Francois is meant to be the "bad boy" Nick thinks will win Sheeni's heart, and while Nick as a character is no different than Cera's other roles, Francois is a delightful change of pace from an actor I wasn't sure had anything else in the bag. Nick's bad side is hilariously unsubtle, saying the things Nick wishes he could but can't bring himself to speak out loud. It's a brand new side of Cera and it's easily the movie's greatest triumph.

The other acting in the film is quite good, though nowhere near as impressive as Cera. Doubleday is the best of the rest, playing the unique and interesting love interest with such talent and precision that it's easy to forget that she's a relative newcomer onto the scene. The rest of the roles, however, are largely uninteresting. While all the actors in the roles are brilliantly talented actors and do their best within the roles, but the roles themselves are largely uninteresting, culled of any deeper feelings than what exists on the surface. Smart, Galifinakis, Buschemi, Justin Long, Ray Liotta, Mary Kay Place and M. Emmet Walsh all deserve kudos for the sheer talent they have to put forward to try and make their roles something more than bland, but overall this is Cera and Doubleday's movie. There are maybe two exceptions, with "If Chins Could Kill" Jonathan Bradford Wright playing Sheeni's ex-boyfriend who wants to get her back, and Fred Willard as the type of character Fred Willard has been playing since pretty much forever. It's the same, but still performed with a playfulness that makes it fun to watch. Also, while not a large or very important role, I bring to your attention Rooney Mara, who plays a roommate of Sheeni's at school, who was recently cast to play the now-legendary literary character Lisbeth Salander in the upcoming American remake of the Stieg Larsson Millennium Series of books and movies. This role is too small to judge whether she's right for that possibly career-making role, but at least I can say "I saw her when..."

Though the movie is mostly live-action, there are occasional scenes and sequences, mostly traveling ones, where animation is used, most notably claymation in the opening credits. These are interesting for a bit but thankfully don't exist as a large percentage of the film. They're a distraction, sometimes from how slow the pace of the film has become, or as a device to draw two points of reference closer together than they might have been in a different film. Still, the style undeniably marks Youth in Revolt as an indie film, and this probably would not have worked with a more prominent film.

The film has an interesting and entertaining soundtrack, with such varied artists as folk rockers the Fruit Bats, indie rockers Beulah, and hip hop artist FatLip. The soundtrack even features 40's-era pop standards vocalist Jo Stafford for one of the animated sequences. The music, selected and compiled by John Swihart, fits the film perfectly, composing a love story that flows quite impressively from beginning to end.

Youth in Revolt is a film that has it's share of problems. While the lead are engaging, most of the periphery characters are largely uninteresting and some excessively inconsequential. The film is a little slow to start, but picks up the pace the more you watch, and so charming by the end that you wish it had gone on a little bit longer. In short, it's an under-the-radar upstart, better than the sum of it's parts. Classy, artistic, funny, and featuring the best and most unique performance from star Michael Cera I've seen in a long time, Youth in Revolt may not be the best Cera film this year, but if you missed this one, I definitely recommend you do yourself a favor and make a little time for my new #9 film.

Crazy Town

I'm not a big horror movie fan.

Just putting that out there, letting you all know where I stand. For me, most horror is low-budget, poorly directed, and in it more for the gore factor rather than being a smart film that actually makes the audience think. If you're George Romero, you could make a non-mainstream, thought provoking horror film with your eyes closed, but most horror directors seem to not care so much about putting out quality product. Of course, there are exceptions, but for every Evil Dead or Dawn of the Dead are seemingly hundreds of titles similar to Open Graves. Now, this doesn't mean I write off horror as an inferior genre, but it usually means I don't often have a good first impression of horror films due out.

Maybe something's changed in me, but when I first saw the trailer for The Crazies, a remake of the original Romero film by director Breck Eisner, I was very excited. Here was a film that, from it's trailer, seemed to be smart, scary and most importantly sincere, which is a difficult trick to pull off when you're putting your characters in situations in which most of us may never find ourselves. My biggest concern was whether or not this film could live up to the amazing trailer, but I was confident enough to grab a rental and give the movie my time.

"And that's why you shouldn't play with matches."

The Crazies drops us in the small town of Ogden Marsh, Iowa. Ogden Marsh is one of those idyllic small towns where (sing it with me here) everybody knows you're naaaaame...

Ahem.

Let's move on.

Anyway, this town is also the kind of place where high school baseball is the talk of the town, and that's where all of Ogden Marsh, including the young local sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), is when everything starts to go down the toilet. One of the locals gets it in his head that it's a good idea to carry a shotgun onto the field of play, and after a tense standoff, David is forced to shoot the man dead. But while your local newspaper might report that story like it's the end, this only proves to be the beginning of a small town's descent into madness, sickness, and murder.

It's a zombie! No, wait, it's not?? Awwwwww.....

One of the first things you notice about this film is how well the story is paced. There's no rush to force haphazard plot points onto you, as the movie calmly introduces you to characters, slowly feeding the story in a reasonable manner as to facilitate the audience's understanding. And these characters are all well thought-out people, not just soundbites or cliches. You learn to care about them, and when they get sick and change, that feeling sticks with you. This is immensely helped by the strong acting of not only the key performers, but many of the supporting cast. The only thing I've seen Olyphant was his small role in Scream 2, so that pretty much meant he was an unknown quantity for me. So how was I to know he'd be absolutely wonderful as the mild-mannered sheriff who is determined to lead he and his wife out of the madness that has consumed their town? Also strong is Radha Mitchell in what might be one of her better performances as David's wife and the town doctor who witnesses some of the early symptoms of the illness before it gets completely out of control. But the best performance of the cast might be British actor Joe Anderson as the Sheriff's deputy, who may or may not be infected over the course of the film. He's the kind of everyman you want to root for, even when it begins to become obvious that he's turning. And these are the main roles, not the great small roles by Brett Rickaby, Larry Cedar and Mike Hickman as characters who completely get into their performances in this sick community.

I don't think that new sitter is going to work out.

The movie is truly scary, blending just the right type of atmosphere with proper pacing and believable characters and making you believe that any small town could be THIS CLOSE to this actually happening. However, it's not really anything new. While it's not truly a zombie film, it's close enough, with the sick barely keeping enough coherence to make any of them unique. Sure, they don't eat people (at least that we see), but they still have some insatable urge to kill, and act accordingly. What's worse is that there isn't anything here that hasn't been covered in any previous similar movie. It's a classic "weapons-grade chemical gets into small-town water supply and chaos ensues" plotline, with only superior performances and higher production values making it better than most titles. though the film thankfully keeps the perspective on the town's few survivors and keeps out of the affairs of the military who try to contain the sickness and fail miserably. The insular storytelling works, but only barely makes up for the fact that there are no new ideas to make this title truly unique. This is hardly surprising with Eisner at the helm. Michael's son is hardly one to work with original material, with most of his existing work and future projects either being remakes or adaptations. This isn't to say he's not a good director, simply one in need of an original thought in his head, rather than one who can follow directions.

"So, do you want full service today, or just the death?"

The Crazies is a scary, smart, exciting and jaw-dropping film that has raised the bar for contemporary horror films. However, it's also derivitive, unoriginal and a little too formulaic in it's attempt to be a true modern classic like the aforementioned Evil Dead of Dawn of the Dead. With strong performances, superb effects and breathtaking story, it's good enough to be good, and that's good enough to worm itself into the year's top ten, at least for the time being. It's the new #9. Now you should be heading down to wherever you rent your films to check it out.

God of War IV

When I saw Avatar in the theaters last winter, I was greeted by a number of 3D trailers before the show. The long-awaited James Cameron film had revolutionized what had once been a cheap gimmick for movie theaters into a full-blown mainstream must-have, as seemingly every movie studio has rushed forward with their movie using 3D technology to wow and astound audiences. Already ten films released this year have used 3D technology in their release, from family films like How to Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3 and Shrek Forever After to the much more mature Piranha 3-D, with a dozen more due to be released by year's end. 3D has become for the film industry what the e-book has become for the publishing world: a huge trend for the present with tons of good potential but also the chance to stunt industry growth with shoddy implementation.

Clash of the Titans caught a lot of flak when it was released in April for it's slipshod 3D conversion technology, and was panned by many critics (this seems to be a regular complaint for movies released in both 2D and 3D). In fact, director Louis Leterrier had approached the studio with ideas to make the film in 3D, but at the time it was considered too expensive and the technology too new. It wasn't until after Avatar's success that the studio took real interest in 3D, and pushed Leterrier to convert the film from the filmed 2D version. Despite positive opinions of the technology by the studio, the critics mostly panned the film, the basic agreement being that the film would have been good enough but for poorly-executed 3D and poorly-scripted action sequences, both thrown at the feet of Leterrier. The action scene snafu seems somewhat surprising for the French director who brought us The Transporter, but perhaps his talents in that field didn't quite translate to larger-scale scorpion battles.

Sam Worthington as Perseus

I however did not have that problem. In fact, when I rented the film last week I was quite content with the idea that I would not be seeing the movie in 3D, since I'm not quite convinced of the commercial application of the technology in more than a few different instances anyway. Alice in Wonderland didn't need 3D to be entertaining, and I was sure the same would be true here. Thankfully, I was not disappointed.

The story begins with the Greek Gods' disapproval of the rebellion by their creations. Humans, most notably soldiers of the city of Argos, have been desecrating temples and statues of the Gods, on the orders of the king and queen. Naturally, the Gods don't like this. Humans need to be put in their place, and Zeus (Liam Neeson), needing to feel loved by his creations, calls upon his brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes) to put the fear of the Gods in them. Hades does so, demanding Argos sacrifice one who the royal family dared to compare to the goddess Aphrodite, the princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos), or else face the wrath of the Kraken, a monster created by Hades and used by the Gods to defeat their forefathers, the Titans.

Monsters come in all sizes, and are ripe for killing

The only thing standing in their way? A recently orphaned fisherman who happens to be the illegitimate son of Zeus, named Perseus (Sam Worthington). Worthington's become the next big thing of late, starting with his starring role in last summer's Terminator: Salvation, continuing with Avatar and now headlining his own action movie. That success should continue with a number of movies scheduled for release in the near future, and now he's become the shining star of Australia, though that hardly comes with a guarantee for success (just ask Eric Bana). As the demigod Perseus, Worthington plays the role completely straight, showing a glaring hatred that he focuses on his enemies in this film, whether they be the Gods (whom he blames for the death of his family) or the creatures the Gods sire to put in his way. The journey to defeat the Kraken and Hades takes him on a journey across a world of Tolkienesque scale, facing creatures both familiar and not, against giant scorpions, hideous blind Stygian Witches and of course, the dread gorgon Medusa, who can turn her victims into solid stone statues.

Gemma Arterton as Io

Don't feel too bad for the obstacles thrown in Perseus's path, though, he has his allies. However, his allies are not all of the "good actor" variety. Easily the best performer in the group is Mads Mikkelsen as Draco, leader of Argos's Praetorian Guard. Bond fans may recognize Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, the scarred villain from the recent Casino Royale, and Mikkelsen is quite good in Clash, especially in scenes where he helps train Perseus in his swordplay for the battles ahead. A dark and pessimistic character, Mikkelsen was perfectly cast. Also surprisingly good was Gemma Arterton as Io, a woman cursed by the gods to never age. This curse may not technically be the true curse on Io as postulated in Greek myth, but Arterton is still very good in her role as Perseus's romantic interest (also nowhere in Greek myth), and as the film's muse and guide.

Oh, Ray, why hast thou forsaken us?

It's a shame that those chosen to play the gods couldn't have put together better performances themselves. Neeson is over the top and campy as the golden-armored Zeus, and it's obvious he's not invested in the role here, he's just playing for a paycheck. Better but still not up to his usual quality of performance is Fiennes, who usually has a head for the good movies (Okay, The Avengers was an exception) doesn't put his best work forward here, merely playing a prototypical villain. It's a shame, because these two were the veteran actors that gave the film merit, and their halfhearted work didn't do anyone any good, if you don't take their accountants into consideration.

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"Don't look, don't look, don't look, aw crap"

The story itself only loosely bases itself on the actual Greek myths (Translation: it doesn't follow the myths AT ALL) but is still easy to follow, and better if you're ignorant of the massive disparities between the source material and the final product. The story rarely takes a break to ponder itself, not surprising for a Leterrier film, and keeps the brisk pace up straight from beginning to end. It makes for a dumber story, surely, but keeping the focus more on the action than on the story seems to work for this director, I'd be surprised to see anything different.

Everybody loves a good old-fashioned sacrifice

It's just too bad the action element of the tale is so inconsistent. Despite a fabulous sequence depicting the fight between Perseus's merry men and Medusa, most of the  other action scenes are frantic and difficult to follow, with far too much close-up and things moving much too quickly to be followed. The special effects are wonderful, though, especially in the 2D sense. This was never a film that NEEDED 3D for it's effects to work, and seeing the lesser-dimensioned variation suits the graphical art better than forcing it to jump out at the viewer. It's too bad the film couldn't have been augmented by better acting performances, however, as that sort of thing might have taken the film from campy cult hit possibility to an epic tale.

With Clash of the Titans, we have a film that WANTS to be a bigger movie, but just can't seem to pull the trigger. I was able to ignore the mythic irregularities and enjoy the film for what it was, a popcorn film with outstanding special effects that you didn't miss by not seeing it in the theater. It certainly did not crack the 2010 Top 10, but for an action-oriented epic drama it wasn't bad. There are better options out there, to be sure, but this one isn't too big a risk if you'd like something to shut your brain off to.

Walk the Line

In Hollywood in 2010, it's safe to say that if you're headlining films that receive world-wide theater release, you're probably doing pretty well for yourself. If you're Denzel Washington, however, it must be somewhat disappointing to no longer command the same respect and box office draw you once owned. Seriously, despite being one of the most talented performers in the industry, his inability to pick quality projects has seemingly derailed his promising career. Not that awards and box office rankings are the epitome of career success, but they are a good source of the facts, and the facts are that not only has Washington not had a number one box office movie since 2007's American Gangster, he hasn't even been nominated for an Academy Award since winning his Best Actor Oscar for Training Day, all the way back in 2001. It's no secret that Man on Fire and The Manchurian Candidate were not especially well-received films, yet at least Denzel has never let his talent dim, his ability to command any scene he's in almost as inspiring as it was during his golden era.

Denzel hits on hard times

The Book of Eli came out early this year with almost no fanfare and in a bad spot, opening during the time when everyone was still rushing out to see Avatar and it seemed like no other movie mattered. It finished number two opening weekend, but fell quickly after that, not helped by mixed reviews and Avatar fever. It was destined to lie among the forgotten Denzel movies of the past few years. That's a shame, because I have it now ranked as my new #3 film of 2010, as shocking a placement for you as it was for me to find out how enjoyable this movie actually was, and not just resting on the laurels of it's lead actor's talents.

The breathtaking visuals are half the excellence in the film

That's not to say Denzel doesn't bring his A-Game. Throughout this story of a solitary man trekking westward through the nuclear wastelands that are all that's left of a post-apocalyptic North America, it's a one-man show through nearly the first third of the film, and Washington never loses the audience's attention whenever he's in the scene. It's just that he's not the only great thing about this movie. It's obvious from the opening scene of a slowly-dissolving forest that the look and atmosphere of this film is unlike many you may have seen; the dark gray clouds and seemingly odd sunlight that shines on the world, you feel as if this world is alien, something never seen before by human eyes. The directing is also surprisingly adept, especially coming from sibling directors Allen and Albert Hughes, who hadn't directed a major motion picture since 2001's From Hell. Taking the original story by versatile screenwriter Gary Whitta, the directors have managed to create a whole new world, populate it with survivors of a great war who barely manage to cling to their humanity in the face of unspeakable adversity.

Nothing screams "unfriendly" like a trenchcoat

The movie, as I said before, has Denzel's Eli traveling across what's left of the United States, traversing damaged highways, roads and cities, all the while showing adeptness at hunting, pathfinding and, when beset upon by bandits, personal defense. We soon discover that he is carrying a very precious artifact, an actual copy of the King James Bible, possibly the last in existence. After the bombs and the apocalypse, we learn, many of the survivors of these atrocities blamed the war on religion and sought to purge the holy book, utilizing book burnings and plain old fashioned desecration. Eli believes himself to be on a mission from God, meant to deliver this book safely to it's destination somewhere to the west. On the way, he encounters a small town ruled by the ruthless Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who by chance has been sending raiders and miscreants out into the wastes to bring back books, searching for just the kind of book that Eli is carrying in his pack. It's only a matter of time before paths cross...

Warning! Gratuitous Violence in Effect!

I was very excited to see a movie done in this post-apocalyptic setting. It's such a fascinating idea, not that we'll eventually bomb ourselves into the stone age, but the recovery from that traumatic experience. How would humanity as a whole react to this kind of setback? The innocent and just, hunted and assaulted by those anarchists who would take advantage of the new world. Irradiated drinking water. vast stretches of land where trees, buildings and cities that once stood are no more. Destroyed infrastructure. And, perhaps most unsettling, the lack of wild animals to hunt or soil to grow leading many down the path to cannibalism. I've always found it an interesting, if somewhat terrifying prospect, that humanity may one day head down this dark road. Or maybe I'm just overly excited at the prospect of playing Fallout: New Vegas by year's end, but either way, the setting was a big deal for me. Thankfully, no specifics are given to explain exactly why the war happened; We're simply plopped down here like so many survivors of the end times, and that works for me.

He still kinda looks like Count Dracula

The other reason I loved this movie so much is that finally - FINALLY - I've seen a movie where I actually thought the bad guy had proper brains, motive, smarts, and muscle to make himself a real danger to the protagonist, even advantages at times. Gary Oldman can chew scenery like a theatrical rottweiler, but the best things about his performance are what the script has his character doing, rather than what he brings to the part. Oldman'sapocalyptia, while Eli wants to bring the book west because he believes doing this will help spread God's word. That the movie perfectly walks the line between faith being used as a salve and a weapon is amazing, which even works for me, who follows no faith to speak of.
The odds are decidedly against Eli, alone but for his wits and skills, and occasionally he appears to be blessed, where he'll take a bullet to the back without getting hurt or escaping from a locked cell with an armed guard watching the door, or many such things. These seem a little out there on the oddity scale, as not all of it can be explained away rationally as an alternative to the idea of divine intervention. In this way the story gets a little far-fetched, but fortunately, don't hurt the flow of the story at all, simply makes it a little too fantastical to completely believe. The other problem I had was with the small town's ample resources. The place seems to somehow have plenty of fresh water and fuel, and while the water is explained satisfactorily, can anyone explain to me how proper fuel can exist in this type of place so that the bad guys who want to drive big trucks and motorcycles can do so? I know other movies in this setting have had vehicles that people drive, but unless they use some sort of alternative fuel, I can't believe it's gasoline they're filling their engines with 30 years after the fact.

No, this isn't what it looks like

The acting is mostly excellent, with Washington and Goldman raising the bar of what might have been expected of with a different cast. Jennifer Beals is also excellent as a blind concubine under Carnegie's control. There aren't many large roles in this movie, but plenty of good small roles, and a cast of Ray Stevenson, Michael Gambon, Tom Waits, Frances de la Tour, and Malcolm McDowell all do good jobs with their roles. The only one who could be considered a disappointment is Mila Kunis as Beals's daughter, a slave who ends up following Eli. Kunis has yet to show me any transformation in any of her roles, as they all remind me of Jackie Burkhart from That 70's Show. And she shows no deviation here. She's interesting only because it gives us a hero alongside Eli, but we didn't need that, it was a better David vs. Goliath story without the extra help.

Walking the roads

I never expected to like The Book of Eli as much as I did. It's a shame it was released when it was; if it had been released in the brief time between when Avatar and Inception had been in the theaters, it may have had a chance to do much more at the box office. Still, it hasn't been a total loss. The studio made their money back and then some, and when the movie was released on DVD, it was an excellent seller, meaning it hadn't been completely overlooked. And that's good, since this is a smart, fascinating film that has enough surprises to make you shriek and is smart enough to keep you interested until the final credits. It just goes to show, don't ever underestimate a Denzel Washington film.