Stolen Time

Is it wrong that I actually wanted to see Abduction?

Don't get me wrong; I could care less that this film is the first project to be headlined by Twilight star Taylor Lautner as a leading man, as the pug-faced bodybuilder has done nothing to convince me that he's earned the shot. Being in a successful series of films based on an even more successful series of teen supernatural novels is NOT a recipe for standalone success; Kristen Stewart has had no tangible success outside of the Twilight movies and Robert Pattinson had to adapt another popular novel (in the great Water for Elephants) to star in another hit. No, Lautner was nowhere near the top of the list of reasons I had for wanting to see this film; it was instead his director and co-stars who baited me into the theater like a mouse to cheese. I've never seen a John Singleton film, but even a middle-class white boy can understand the impact he has had with the urban titles Poetic Justice and the Oscar-nominated Boyz n tha Hood. And the talent piled around Lautner? Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina, Jason Isaacs, Maria Bello and Michael Nyqvist are all top-notch performers whose presence spoke to me and guaranteed that I would be seeing this film as soon as I could fit it into my schedule.

Movie appealing to teens? Guaranteed liberal cell phone usage

Nathan Harper (Lautner) is a normal suburban teenager. He's on the wrestling team in high school, crushes on his classmate/neighbor Karen (Lily Collins) and lives with his parents Kevin (Isaacs) and Mara (Bello). His is a fairly normal life, but he is also troubled in that he suffers from insomnia and rage issues brought on by dreams he has of witnessing a woman he vaguely recognizes being murdered. As a result Nathan doesn't always feel like he belongs in the life he leads, all more complicated by the discovery of his childhood photo on a missing person's website. Soon after learning that the people in his house are not his parents, Nathan and Karen find themselves on the run from a CIA group led by Frank Burton (Molina) and a Russian terrorist group under the leadership of Viktor Koslow (Nyqvist). If they are to have any chance, Nathan must learn about his real father and the reasons his life up to this point has been a lie.

Because every teenager need a motorcycle for... stuff

Unfortunately, there's very little good to say about Abduction. While the premise has some potential, it is utterly wasted thanks to a terrible screenplay by Stellastarr frontman Shawn Christensen. This man needs to stick to his musical career, as the film's horrid dialogue and pacing fail on every level. Almost is bad is Singleton's work as director. As far from the subjects of his earlier work as humanly possible, Abduction simply didn't have the right man in charge, as Singleton can't do for upper-class white kids what he did for lower-class urban black youths in the nineties. The whole teen angst movement that has become so popular in recent years seems over his head and one can't help but wonder what would happen if someone more in tune like Catherine Hardwicke had been in charge (of course she made the atrocious Red Riding Hood so she might not be the best example). Maybe it's time Singleton go back to writing his own screenplays, as he really doesn't seem to do well when it comes to other people's stories.

Sweaty Taylor Lautner is not a pretty thing

And yet this might have been slightly redeemable if Lautner had been a more polished lead actor; sadly, this was a bad first pick for a shot at a post-Twilight career. It's not the Lautner is a BAD actor, it's just that he can't overcome the trite material he's given to work with at this stage. Looking like a poor-man's Tom Cruise is not a good thing if you can't capture that early Tom Cruise charm, something he will desperately need if he wants success in the future. Lily Collins is no better, having not lived up to her billing as an actress to watch out for. As she was in this year's other snore-fest action film Priest, Collins is a goal and something to protect, but never breaks out of that shell and becomes her own character. She does get one moment to shine, but the scene is so overlooked by the filmmakers that it barely warrants a mention. Together, the pair make for an uninteresting set of leads, complete with an entirely implausible romance.

Trying to be slick. Failing.

And so it falls to the support cast to keep this film completely out of the gutter. However, despite the amazing amount of talent present even this group can't save this mess. Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina and Jason Isaacs are all high-impact talents who usually raise the quality of a film just by their mere presence. Look at Weaver in Paul; the perfect example of a perfectly-cast small role. And Molina was easily the best part of Prince of Persia, one of 2010's worst titles. Both are completely wasted here, with Molina not quite ringing true as a CIA operative who may or may not be trustworthy, and Weaver shockingly bland as one of Nathan's true allies. Isaacs has been good in just about every genre of film you can imagine, from the women's drama Nine Lives to the action thriller Green Zone to the sci-fi horror Event Horizon. He's always been amongst the best performers that nobody in the community recognizes, and part of the reason for that is his inability to pick the great, popular movies. In that way, he's kind of a male, English Robin Wright. Here, he's the best part of the film, only to be killed off early, along with the equally-talented Maria Bello. The biggest hope I had for this film was for Michael Nyqvist to make an impact on Hollywood. Nyqvist, best known for his leading role of Mikael Blomkvist in the Swedish adaptation of Stieg Larssen's Millennium trilogy, had an opportunity to become a known quantity to an American audience. Unfortunately, he suffers the same fate as Weaver, as what talent he brings to the table is countered by cliche characterization and the lousy script. He'll have another chance with the latest Mission Impossible film when it releases later this year, but it's still a major disappointment to see him wasted in this film.

Sadly, Excitement missed the last train to the filming of Abduction

Let's get this straight: Abduction is not a good film. It's not even a mediocre film. A cheap knockoff of the Jason Bourne series, this is a bad film that takes the talents present and cuts it all out until you cannot tell that it was ever there. One of the year's worst, it has the wrong director, a misused cast, and lead actor who can't yet cut it as a lead actor. Unlike the much more polished Pattinson, Lautner hasn't proven that he can yet carry a film with any degree of authority. Until he can, and until he starts to pick better material, I think I can safely avoid his theatrical releases for now and the immediate future.

Chameleons of the Mojave

As I've mentioned before, it often takes a lot for me to want to see an animated film in the theaters. Despite the universal appeal associated with films like The Incredibles, Up, WALL-E and the Toy Story franchise, I tend to wait until they're available on DVD rather than pay the ticket price when they first come out. Of course, "eye-popping" 3D technology has become a game-changer, as most animated films released in the past year did so with that gimmick in hand. Though 3D has yet to garner a mainstream appeal in home entertainment systems, mostly due to price and uneven reviews (thus rendering the medium moot on DVD for the time being), it still isn't enough to drive me to the theaters to see such a film. Mainly I think I have problems paying good money to see a title geared towards small children, but the best animated features appeal to viewers of all ages. Still, I tucked that thought away to see my first animated film of 2011 (and the first in the theater since who knows when) in the Gore Verbinski-directed Rango. The trailer caught my eye some months ago, and so as it was one of my more awaited March films, I chose it over The Adjustment Bureau and Take Me Home Tonight when picking which film I wanted to see this past weekend.

"Psst! Are you holding?"

Johnny Depp voices the film's main character, a mysterious stranger who goes by the name of Rango. Actually, Rango is an unnamed and domesticated chameleon who ends up separated from his human owners in the middle of the Mojave Desert, consequently a fish out of water trying to find salvation from certain death and  - possibly more important - from loneliness. Rango feels so alone in the world, and when he comes across the animal-run town of Dirt, the actor in him creates the Rango persona to be notorious, heroic, mysterious; all the things he wasn't in his previous life. It works well until the facade begins to crumble under the pressure of keeping up appearances and the town's need for a real hero, something Rango isn't sure he truly is.

Despite popular conception, cowboys and baked beans don't mix

Rango is a true homage to films set the wild west; it plays out like a light-hearted Sergio Leone spaghetti western, right down to its authentic character archetypes and camera angles. While Rango himself is more of an outsider, the townsfolk are legitimate western folk, from the orphaned daughter of an alcoholic father fighting to control her land (voiced by Isla Fisher) to an overly-nervous bank manager (Stephen Root), a bandit outlaw (Bill Nighy) and a charismatic double-talking mayor (Ned Beatty), just represented by animals. While being perhaps cliches of preexisting characters, the director and actors do amazing work by treating the material straight and making what could have been a ridiculous farce into quality craftsmanship. The film even has it's own narrative mariachi band ("manned" by owls, no less) to help keep the film going on at a brisk pace.

Most awkward wedding photo EVER

The acting here is simply outstanding, and Verbinski made the right choice issuing Depp to lead this cast, though perhaps not for the reasons you might think. Despite his fame for playing such eccentric characters as The Mad Hatter, Edward Scissorhands and of course Captain Jack Sparrow, Depp actually plays the role of "the normal guy" so well that he disappears into this role. Having a voice-over part in this vein actually helps hide the fact that Depp is in fact he character in question, adding to his smooth delivery. He is also perfect in the cockier "Rango" persona, a mix between classic Robert Redford and a giddy schoolchild living out his wildest dream. Depp's more subdued performance also plays perfectly to his less-heralded co-stars, letting them shine around him. Fisher is perfect as the tough-girl romantic interest Beans, a desert iguana with self-defense mechanism (freezing in place) so out of kink that she suddenly stops at inopportune times. She also is the most vocal advocate against the problems the town has, and is most suspicious of this new stranger in town. Nighy is completely unrecognizable as the evil bandit Rattlesnake Jake, who terrorizes the small town of Dirt. Nighy is delightfully evil and revels in the role, though it's not a very big one by most standards. Beatty is similarly smarmy as the resident mayor/businessman, eyes constantly looking towards "the future." Abigail Breslin is underused but not misused as a young smart-mouthed child who eventually looks up to Rango, and Root is his usual outstanding self as several characters, most notably the nervous bank manager. Harry Dean Stanton, Alfred Molina, Timothy Olyphant, and Ray Winstone all do great work playing characters who help and hinder Rango along the line of the film's plot. The acting, with Depp at its core, is talent extraordinaire, a testament to Verbinski's skills at finding the best people for the roles.

"Fitting in" is usually not so impossible for a chameleon

The film surprised me in a many ways, but a few of them weren't as good. For one, a film supposedly geared towards children was surprisingly violent. I'm not suggesting all kids are going to be scared by this film, but the doesn't gloss over the violence inherent in the Western genre (guns, dehydration, explosions), painting a film that probably should have been marketed to teens instead. Though not overly or even aggressively violent (more focusing on the spirit of adventure), the film does have its scary moments, mostly thanks to Rattlesnake Jake and a giant hawk. Secondly, for a supposed comedy, it wasn't particularly funny. The first half of the film elicited nary a chuckle from the dialogue, mainly dependent on the slapstick elements of the film to get over on the kids. There are some good bits after the midway point (SPOILER: When Rango and his posse go undercover as traveling actors, their target responds "Thespians? That's illegal in seven states!"), the film is much more serious than the trailers would lead you to believe, including topics of death, mild and implied profanity and the consumption of alcohol. I'm not against these things; in fact, when the subject at hand is an homage to Western film, I should pretty much EXPECT it. I didn't, however, expect to find it here.

"But why is the RUM gone!?"

One of the more amazing things about this film is that it's a 3D animated film by a company that is usually only known for it's effects work. George Lucas's special effects company Industrial Light and Magic is usually associated with other films' special effects departments, but here they created the 3D modeling for their first feature film. The biggest surprise from all of this may be how amazingly well their first time went. Visuals, especially the sun-baked desert, are perfectly rendered, and the characters are expertly built, especially the multi-faceted Rango. Still, if the film had half of the technological wonder it did, it would still have all it needs to be a worthy film. Authentic environments, interesting characters, and respect for the source material; Rango takes all these things and turn it into one of the more unassumingly fun films this year. Charming itself to #1 on 2011's Top Film's list, Rango was a very different film than I had imagined going in. But when you focus on what the film IS, instead of what it was supposed to be, you can appreciate it for the amazing feeling it gives.

A Bard's Tale

I was first introduced to Shakespeare in the seventh grade. Well, that not be entirely true. Even by that point I was aware of the enormous impact the writer had made upon not only the the literary world, but the English language as a whole. But for all intents and purposes I first read his work while at school here in Boston, and to some extent I took to it right away. The Bard is not exactly 'light reading', and many passages might have been all but unreadable to someone my age without the teacher able to explain certain convoluted passages. Shakespeare wasn't meant to be simply read: he was a playwright whose true popularity didn't come until long after his death, and the books we read growing up were always meant to be seen on stage, in performance, and there have also been numerous film adaptations of his works directed by the likes of Kenneth Branagh, Peter Hall, and Baz Luhrmann. So with this latest adaptation by stage and screen director Julia Taymor (that I saw last week alongside my friend The Opinioness) it is funny that the title is both the first of Shakespeare's plays to which I was introduced while also considered the last of the plays that he alone wrote.

See how moody we can make this?

The Tempest begins with exactly that, as the sorceress Prospera (Helen Mirren) summons a storm to sink a ship with the King of Naples Alonzo (David Strathairn) and his subjects aboard and wash them ashore. There, she plans to extract her revenge for being usurped by her brother Antonio (Chris Cooper) when he accused her of using witchcraft to kill her husband, the Duke of Milan. Having been stranded on an enchanted isle for the past 12 years, Prospera has raised her daughter (Felicity Jones) alone, with only the slave Caliban (Djimon Hounsou) and the mischievous spirit Ariel (Ben Whishaw) as company, Prospera is taking this opportunity of all her enemies being  in one place to teach them a lesson they won't soon forget.

Caliban is what they would call a "happy drunk"

While the language doesn't always survive intact, this IS still Shakespeare. That means that there are constantly more words than necessarily needed to describe a scene we can already can see with perfect clarity. Of course, Shakespeare HAD to overly describe the scenes for the audience since his performers were usually on stages devoid of all visual descriptors. While some passages and lines are cut, the presence of his words remain and in a way Shakespeare is the film's main character, as he's always at the forefront of the story; Even while watching you often overlook the acting of Mirren or the direction of Taymor and think, "This is Shakespeare," so obvious is his verbiage.

How utterly unimpressive

Sadly, this is one of the film's main faults. Despite the performers' best efforts, they are often overshadowed by the words they are speaking, when they're not being overshadowed by flies buzzing in the background. I'll see Mirren in just about anything. Possessing a powerful voice, she can make just about anything interesting, and she had the best performance in this cast. The problem is her character. Prospera (adapted from the Duke Prospero in the original Shakespeare) has a revenge plan for those that wronged her, but she doesn't seem much more sympathetic than any of the other characters, even the undoubtedly bad guys like Antonio or Caliban. Taymor tries to imply a bit of feminism in the role by indicating that she was banished because she was a woman, but it doesn't come off as legitimate here, and there's really not much difference between her and the original Prospero. At least she's better than Felicity Jones, who plays daughter Miranda, and Reeve Carney, who plays Alonzo's son Ferdinand. Both are cringe-worthy actors, and when Ferdinand sings a Shakespeare poem as a love song to Miranda, we want to cover our ears because he CAN'T SING, which is hilarious since Carney is currently the lead on Taymor's stillborn stage show Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. Perhaps it's just not his singing style on display here, but his scenes with Jones are boring and trite, reveling in the worst of Shakespeare's literary work.

Prepare to be bored to tears by Jones

The rest of the cast are mostly hard-working actors and many of them have done Shakespeare before, though some were odd selections to say the least. Djimon Hounsou is fairly powerful as the angry slave Caliban, but the truth is that he could have probably played just about any character in the film better than it's existing occupant, possibly including Mirren. So why does the film's only black actor play the trod-upon slave? I'll let that one hang, though the way his character is treated does speak volumes to issues of colonialism and slavery, as pointed out in a review by The Opinioness here. David Strathairn is an actor I love, but he seems to be mailing it in as King Alonzo. In truth, he doesn't have much to work with (I don't remember if that was the same in the play) but his performance seems surprisingly uninspired for an actor of his caliber. Tom Conti is great as the the noble Gonzalo, and Alan Cumming is well cast is not necessarily the best for the role of the King's ambitious brother Sebastian. Alfred Molina is hilarious as the drunkard Stephano (who was one of my favorites when I first read the play) and appears in some of the film's best (and, sadly, worst) scenes. Ben Whishaw plays the spirit Ariel to good effect, though I had issues with thew character that I'll get into later.

The setting and language are beautiful... Everything else, not so much

The two characters oddly cast were those of Prospera's brother Antonio and the jester Trinculo. Chris Cooper seems more at home playing modern-day blue collar characters, but he surprising comes off as effective as Prospera's loathsome brother. He's not the best, though this might be due to poor direction rather than his acting abilities. But the other odd casting choice was that of comedian Russell Brand as Trinculo. Though Brand might at first seem the right type to play the fool, he can't escape the fact that this is a work Shakespeare, and his line deliveries are often too whimsical or too often place heavy emphasis on certain words that sometimes comes with inexperienced actors tackling works like these. Brand is on occasion funny, but too often the best he could illicit from me was a  raised eyebrow and a question of when the scene would be over.

Thankfully not shown: Ariel's man-boobs

It's obvious the $20 million spent on the film's budget wasn't for special effects. Though filming around the volcanic areas of Hawaii provided scenery as beautiful as anything you've seen before, the few scenes were digital effects are used look horrid and detract from the film's natural elegance. Scenes especially with Ariel flying around at his mistress' bidding look ugly, and a recounting of him causing the tempest to sink the ship looks overly-stylized, And let's not forget his distracting man-boobs, which like a highway pileup I couldn't draw my eyes from no matter how hard I tried. The film then apparently ran out of money, as there are many more scenes that might have benefited from a digital make-over but come off more as stage tricks than cinema magic, especially towards the film's conclusion. Speaking of the film's conclusion, while I was glad to see it come I was startled by how swiftly it came, as while Taymor seems to anticipate that Shakespeare buffs appreciate the film's final act, it comes off as merely swift and a "well, that's done" attitude before the final credits.

Ah, the old "ring of fire" routine, an old favorite

Despite some interesting bits, I found myself epically bored by this version of The Tempest. I'm not sure how this happened, as you can't simply say that Taymor didn't understand what she was doing with the Bard's work. After all, she's directed Shakespeare on stage and screen before, most notably with Titus in 1999. Though her films have usually gotten mixed reviews in the past, boring is the one thing they've never before been described as. It's not too often that you can get a cast together with this much talent and fail miserably, but kudos to Taymor for doing it in style. Now Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark won't her only missed shot of 2010.

I Don't Like Sand...

Oh, how I wish I had the Sands of Time right now. Their ability to turn back time might be beneficial so that I never have to watch this Jerry Bruckheimer-produced piece of pap, the video-game inspired Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and spend my time that I had taken watching this film doing something vastly more productive, like mime. Lacking such mystical artifacts, however, means I can only send this warning out across the web, hoping to stop any as foolish as I from falling into this film's snares.

Kingley's knighting was not as exciting as you might think

I rented this on DVD because, frankly, there wasn't anything else interesting available at the time. While I had low expectations concerning this title anyway I thought that there was no way I could be disappointed with what I saw. Besides, I was a huge fan of the Prince of Persia series of games from which this was based. The games are amazing, pitting the player as a nameless prince who discovers a magical time-reversing dagger that he can use to fix mistakes or avoid getting flattened by the evil powers he unwittingly helps unleash over the course of the game. It also featured amazing platforming puzzles, featuring risky jumps, wall-running and pole-swinging that figured to appear prominently in the film. It's a very fun series of games, and it would have to be a much more superior film than it looked like to match up accordingly.

There's a lot of jumping... shame there wasn't more

It doesn't. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time had a lot of red flags up against it. Despite being set at the height of the Persian Empire, every major character in the film is not only white, but speaks with a noticeable British accent. It's a pseudo-violent film produced by family-friendly Disney Studios. Most damningly, it is produced by Bruckheimer, for whom even his best films have big weaknesses, and rarely survive translation to sequels if successful. Nobody doubts Bruckheimer's ability to blow stuff up, it's just that every film he does nowadays ONLY knows how to do that. Big actors like Johnny Depp can't always save his pieces from the trash heap (and Depp couldn't save the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels at all), but he does instill just enough big name prowess and a little but of humor to get by. This would explain his once-kinship with Michael Bay, as the duo knew how to get people into the theaters. Regardless, such a big film - and one based on video game, no less - is right up my alley, and it would be truly be against my nature to at least give it a look.

Dastan and Tamina get in a quick wet t-shirt contest

The film opens with a silly narrative opening, explaining to the audience exactly who the Persians where and the history of the royal family, starting off by insulting the intelligence of the audience while telling us something we didn't need to immediately know. We learn that the King of the Persian Empire (Ronald Pickup, the worst name for an actor I've ever heard) has had a strong rule, two strong sons, and a brother (Ben Kingsley) who is his closest adviser. He adopted an orphan from the streets after witnessing bravery in him of some sort (I'm a little hazy on how it was so brave, but whatever), who grew up as his third son, Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal). The kingdom is ruled under a mantle of brotherhood above all else, but that's really only a cheap plot point. The fact of the matter is, we didn't NEED all this info up front. If it had been leaked a little bit at a time to the audience over the course of the film, it would have been much more effective to the storytelling aspects of the film. Instead, we get an insulting intro.

The tension in this film is about what you can garner from this photo

After the King's first son leads an invasion of the city of Alamut, which is suspected of selling weapons to the Empire's enemies, Dastan manages to get his hands on a beautiful dagger by chance, only to later find out that this dagger was the sole reason for the invasion of the city. Soon, after being framed for his father's murder, Dastan mus go on the run with Alamut's ruler, Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) and try to find out who really murdered the king and to what end. It's almost laughably cliche, the plot put together for this film. Oh, a traitor, you say? Shocking! There's not a single surprising thing about this film, unless you count the fact that it for a millisecond fakes you into thinking someone else is the evil character here when everyone and their dog knows it's Ben Kingsley.

Uhm, yeah, that'll work

The film does have some good points, most notably the special effects. With some of the bigger CGI-laden scenes such as the time-traveling aspect or even one early scene with Dastan atop a pillar high above the city of Alamut, the background graphics practically scream green screen. However, the sweeping desert scenes are quite pretty, and some of the fight scenes are pretty well executed. The violence is largely bloodless, thanks to papa Disney holding the reigns. The best parts might be those decidedly low-tech, as Dastan has the natural ability, from his young life as an orphan, to climb, jump and maneuver quickly to any point to avoid capture. It's a major aspect of the games, and that the movie gives it attention at all is at least a sign that director Mike Newell was paying attention to his assistant's notes (The assistant is the one who actually played the game to give Newell all the important info he should know when he was brought in to direct, what a professional).

As a demented Jessica Rabbit clone might say: "A Maaaayn!"

The acting here is pretty bad. I won't go into the racist casting put in here, and a bulked up Gyllenhaal and the beautiful Arterton are actually not a bad pairing here, if not terribly exciting. They have good charisma together, and when they have scenes with one another, they really do have a connection between them. Gyllenhaal gets a chance to display a charm I've never seen him really put on, and Arterton has a husky voice made for these types of roles, which unfortunately doesn't mean much if she can't branch out into new character types. Most of the rest of the cast however is a mishmash of uninspired and overrated talents, many of whom have done better work elsewhere. The best of the worst is a nearly unrecognizable Alfred Molina as a desert Sheik who excels at mincing words like a used car salesman. Kingsley once again seems to have a painful disregard for the projects he signs on, as there's little in this role of the King's evil brother that needs his Oscar-winning pedigree. Steve Toussaint would have had an interesting character if it couldn't simply be boiled down to "black sidekick". Gisli Om Garoarsson is simply campy and ineffectual as the leader of a secret assassin order, called the Hassansins. I guess it's apparently taken from the real-life Hashshanshin, or Nizari Ismailis as is their true name, assassins operating at that time. Why for the film they use this similar but made up name instead of what the real name was (or why not simply "assassin"?) may not be known. Best not to dwell on it.

Being comfortable with your body is key

There wasn't really any point during this film that I was actually excited. Take away the special effects and what you're left with is a story that doesn't have too many unique elements to it (and is told poorly, to boot), plot holes you can clear in a hang glider, uninspired and uninteresting characters and the shallowest of efforts by the production team. To say I didn't like Prince of Persia would be an understatement. Perhaps the story of the game doesn't translate well to a non-interactive medium like film, but that's fine by me. I'll just pop my copy into the PS2 and enjoy myself for a spell. I've got to get Jake's pecs out of my head, after all.