Time's Up

Sometimes a good hook is all a film really needs to capture its audience. When the majority of popular films out there are remakes or stories so derivative that they might as well be, anything that stands apart from the norm can, and more often than not will, excite and draw a real audience. That hook allows you to tell any story you wish, and if you do a good enough job, those people will turn to their friends afterward and tell them all about your movie, expanding your viewership at the next showing. That catchy, original idea is exactly the kind of film In Time aspires to be. When I first saw the trailer for this sci-fi thriller, it didn't matter that it starred two actors who don't do a lot for me (Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried). It didn't matter that the supporting cast sported a variety of not-quite-there names including Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde, Vincent Kartheiser and Johnny Galecki. It didn't matter that director Andrew Niccol's previous works interested me not one whit. What did matter was the concept; a society where time is currency and the rich live forever, while the poor constantly check their chronometers to see their last minutes ticking away. Sure it's an obvious analogy to the state of inequality in the world and especially the United States today, but that single element is what drove people to the theater this past weekend. All that was left was for the director to tell his story, and hope that it's good enough for repeat performances next time around.

The name's Salas. Will Salas. And I don't dance.

Will Salas (Timberlake) is a factory worker just trying to eke out a life in the ghettos of Dayton with his 50-year-old mother Rachel (Wilde). With his wages such that he is literally living a day at a time, Will finds himself faced with perhaps competing in illegal fights (think of them as arm wrestling matches to the death) to earn some time on the side. After he rescues 105-year-old socialite Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) from the wrong side of the tracks, Hamilton tells him that the system in place is there to keep the rich alive and force the little people into short lifespans, for purposes of population control. He also tells Will that he is tired of his empty existence and came to the ghetto because he wanted to die. After determining that Will would not "waste his time", Hamilton passes over a century of time to Will before killing himself. Now Will has enough time on his hands to mingle with the elite of New Greenwich, but Hamilton's death is tagged as suspicious by the Timekeepers, a police force led by Raymond Leon (Murphy). Leon launches a manhunt for Will, who eventually pairs up with a rich magnate's daughter (Seyfried) and the pair become a modern day (or would it be futuristic?) Robin Hood and Maid Marion, robbing Time Banks and redistributing all the time in the world to those who have none.

Silly concept, "stairs"...

While In Time certainly carries a strong message that likely appeals to the "99%", the story itself could have used a lot more work. The action is quick paced and natural, which is why it's so annoying that it takes so long to get to such a point where we are not overly-reliant on plot exposition and dialogue heavy with overtones just to get by. After a largely empty first act, the tale gets truly underway with the escaped couple doing everything they can to screw the man and eventually each other, though in different ways. Actually, the worst thing the film could have done was force a romance between Will and Seyfried's Sylvia, as the two actors have little in the way of chemistry to make such a coupling believable. It's a shame, as the things that Niccol does well as a director (action, a strong message) are almost ruined by his overemphasis on those strengths. The action is almost good to a fault, in which a few moments arise that are beyond his talent as a director and/or beyond the budget of the special effects department. And the message is so obvious that when the film's character's sit down and spell it out so that the audience without a shadow of a doubt "gets it", it's a simple yet exhaustive exercise in frustration to sit there and take it.

Hair has seen multiple technical advancements in the future

At least the silly dialogue and direction is delivered by something akin to a decent array of talent. Seyfried is the lone poor casting choice, as in my eyes she still hasn't done enough to prove that she deserves to be a leading lady. It's clear she has some talent, but so much of her dialogue is so thrown away and flat that you're not sure whether she's just raw or simply isn't trying. I certainly won't deny that she has the looks to be a star, but if she doesn't pick up the pace there are other pretty people would kill to be in her shoes. Timberlake meanwhile has a few dull moments but otherwise puts up one of the more impressive, stripped-down performances of his career. For once, as an actor he puts aside much of his natural charm and actually plays a role that is not a simply-adapted version of himself, and it works wonderfully. Cillian Murphy is as effective as his stone-faced demeanor can carry him, and considering the bluntness of his part that actually goes a long way. As a hard-nosed but honest cop, Murphy is one of the film's villains but not one you can hate, as he's just a working stiff doing his job to the best of his ability. There's almost something admirable about his character, and Murphy plays to that exceptionally well. More villainous but less featured are Mad Men's Vincent Kartheiser as Sylvia's wealthy entrepreneur father who doesn't care about the poor people who suffer under the system and Alex Pettyfer as the leader of a gang who kill people by stealing what time their victims have for themselves.Kartheiser is effective, but the almost seems out of place among all the far more attractive folk around him, ruining my "pretty people with problems" argument before it could even take off. Pettyfer's turn as a bad guy seems like an inspired move considering how poorly his last two films (I Am Number Four and Beastly) have fared with audiences. More likely it's a coincidence, but Pettyfer manages to be charming and snooty all at the same time, and comes off as a natural leader for others to follow. I'd love to see him headline another motion picture, but perhaps he needs more of these solid supporting roles to gain a following before he tries again. Olivia Wilde is wasted in yet another movie, her brief appearance at the film's opening quickly forgotten as the story continues on with her in absentia.

Not a face you want to see at a fancy soiree

Eventually the film comes to an end that is somehow both satisfying and disappointing as once again the glorious message of inequality makes itself known and characters meet their cliched stops. As least the ending itself wasn't predictable, as just enough was juggled to leave the true ending of the heroes in doubt until the film's final moments. Still, closing scenes of triumph hearkened back to earlier scenes of defeat, and the whole thing stunk of bleak writer's cramp stunting what could have been a good film. In Time is a good hook and a great IDEA, but as a story it never grasps what it needs to be most effective, instead relying on its actors to dredge it from the mire like some cheap Jedi mind trick. It almost works, but this film is definitely one that works better in theory than in practice. I enjoyed myself, but I'm not sure I'll be recommending it to my friends, and you can bet there will be others who feel the same. A perfectly okay film that will make for a nice rental or streaming download, but not something that needs to be seen on the big screen.

The Date Night sequel nobody wanted...

Good Morning Sunshine, The Earth Says Hello...

It's quite often that I miss films in the theater. I may be looking forward to a movie and it may simply pass without my knowledge or ability to get a chance to see it, or it may simply be too far down my list of titles to see that by the time I get around to it, it's out of theaters. This happens often, and usually the only way to rectify that situation is to nab a rental copy and hope your home setup is good enough to watch movies on. This happened three years ago for me with Sunshine, the 2007 sci-fi film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland about a group of astronauts and scientists sent on a mission to save the planet.

The problem is the sun, which by the year 2057 has diminished in it's brightness, leading to the Earth undergoing a new Ice Age. Icarus II is the second ship to attempt this dangerous mission, to deliver a "stellar bomb" to attempt to reignite the sun and return it to full brightness. The first Icarus failed it's mission seven years ago after losing contact with Earth, and if Icarus II fails there will be no further Icarus missions, as Icarus II has used up the Earth's supply of fusion materials. The team of eight includes physicist Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy), who is the only crew member who can properly operate the bomb; Kaneda (Hiroyuki Saneda), the ship's captain; hotheaded engineer Mace (Chris Evans); Harvey (Troy Garity), the ship's communications officer and second in command; biologist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), who maintains the ship's oxygen garden; Cassie (Rose Byrne), the pilot; Searle (Cliff Curtis), the doctor and psychological officer; and Trey (Benedict Wong), the navigator. They've been living together en route to their destination for about fifteen months, and are on the last leg of their journey. Nerves are starting to fray due to the insularity of the mission and solar radiation cutting off communication from home. However, the estimates of oxygen supply and food look good, and the people aboard are fairly confident that they have enough resources to return home once their mission is complete.

Then things begin to go horribly wrong.

And to think, in three years he's on Lost

One of the reasons I wanted to see this film was all the good names attached to it. Danny Boyle made one of my favorite zombie films 28 Days Later, and it would be just one more year until his triumphant Slumdog Millionaire made him a superstar. Alex Garland may have also penned the screenplay for The Beach, which is almost unforgivable, but he is a talented writer with interesting ideas, and I loved his books The Beach (for which the movie was based) and The Tesseract, and he also wrote the screenplay for 28 Days Later. Chris Evans, though I'd seen nothing by him at the time, was an up-and-coming star. Michelle Yeoh was a superstar both here and at home in Hong Kong. All you needed at this point was a believable (or at least theoretically possible) premise and scenarios to make the whole thing salable, and thankfully, that's what Boyle does in telling this story.

No, in this film she doesn't rounhouse kick anyone

The ensemble acting cast does a fantastic job of portraying the everyday lives of deep space astronauts, each with varied quirks and breaking points. Murphy, as the brainy scientist, plays up his relative social inexperience well, as he speaks on a more blunt and scientific level than most on the ship. Evans plays the more typical military type, and though that type of character has little imagination in fiction, Evans does good work with it. Yeoh and Saneda make good mentors, Saneda's captain willing to risk anything for the mission to succeed, and Yeoh cultivates a believable relationship with her work, the oxygen garden she builds almost like her own baby. Byrne and Wong are both good, though neither is given too terribly much to do. Wong's character does go through a believable mental breakdown (as do most of the characters, to some degree) but neither really steals the spotlight from the others. Garity makes a great transformation from strong second in command to mewling child when adversity hits, and Curtis is possibly the best performer of them, a psychologist who seems to have an unhealthy fascination with the brightness of the sun. With this well balanced cast, we really get attached to most of them and are upset when the bad things that eventually happen come to be.

Wow, just... wow.

The special effects here are also larger than life, as they would have to be in most outer space filmography. The design of Icarus II is intricately designed, and looks amazing against the setting of deep space. Sunlight and solar flares twinkle realistically, and explosions, decompression and scorching do a great job of showing the dangers inherent in space travel. That said, some of the best effects of the film are appreciably better on a small scale, as most of the scenes are set in the almost claustrophobic halls of the ship. Boyle was inspired by Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot in this way, and also has noted inspiration from other famous works, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and the original Solaris.

Unfortunately, that's where the good in Sunshine ends. The final act is an unbelievable and oddly mediocre change of pace for the film, like something out of Event Horizon instead of the film I thought Sunshine was. To say anything more would spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the film, but it seems lie the change might have been made to reach out to a wider audience. Also, so much derivative material means there's precious little that Doyle or Garland thought up on their own, making this film somewhat less special than it could have been. There are parts you will see coming a mile away, people you will know to be killed long before it happens, and only sterling acting and amazing effects prevent these parts from being such trite rubbish as they threaten to be.

Murphy literally plans to touch the sky here

Ultimately, I liked Sunshine. I do wish I'd seen the film in theaters, especially since it was a bomb and didn't make back it's $40 million price tag due mostly to nearly nonexistent marketing here in the States. Seeing it finally three years later however let me appreciate it for what it is, however, not what it was supposed to be then. In the end it's an interesting take on the "saving the world" tale, with a great ensemble cast and enough gritty storytelling to make the shoddy ending bearable. If you haven't seen it yet, I definitely recommend it.

Spoiler Alert!

It's about dreams.

Okay, it's actually a whole lot more than dreams, but to be completely honest, I'm not sure how much I can say about Christopher Nolan's latest piece of art, Inception, without giving away any of the plot devices, spoilers, twists, turns or character development that the trailers were quite careful not to give away (unusual for a big-budget Hollywood flick). It's quite the conundrum, wanting to write a thousand-word review without saying anything revealing..

And so I've come up with a compromise. See Inception. That's all I can say right now, all I SHOULD need to say right now. If I can't talk about the movie without giving it away to those of you who HAVEN'T seen it, and it it's an excellent enough movie that I don't want to spoil it for you, then I suggest you see the movie, come back, and we can continue with this conversation.

Enjoy!

Are you still there? Or have you come back? Well, then... (clears throat)

!!!SPOILERS WARNING!!!

(Just to make sure you were paying attention)

Anyone who knows me realizes that I have had, and still do have, problems with Leonardo DiCaprio. I know, he gets touted as Hollywood royalty, and no I haven't seen What's Eating Gilbert Grape which was supposed to be his early-days best film, but I never got into his movies. For years, I would justify these feelings with how bad his movies were (The Beach) or how he was constantly being overshadowed by his supporting actors when they simply out-acted him (Gangs of New York). And of course nobody talks about his performance in Titanic (except perhaps to ridicule it). So for years I remained unimpressed by this so-called wunderkind while others flocked to rightfully steal his thunder and shove themselves into spotlights which before might have been reserved for Leo.

Then came The Aviator.

The Howard Hughes biopic, while not a perfect film, was up to that point owner of the finest Dicaprio performance to date, with the actor almost flawlessly stepping ton Hughes' loafers, portraying the industry magnate with a fiery energy almost unseen in his career. Of course, one movie makes not a career, and only time would tell whether this had been a fluke or if he was truly beginning to "get it." The latter seems to be the case, since after The Aviator, Leo has starred in several notable films with nary a blotch inbetween. With The Departed, Revolutionary Road, and Shutter Island, DiCaprio finally seems to be living up to his potential as a performer (and, though the Academy didn't agree, actually deserved an Oscar nomination for his role in Revolutionary Road). It remains to be seen if he can keep it up but for now I don't have the dread feeling of impending failure when I see he's headlining a film these days.

And so I was actually excited to see Inception, the latest mind-fuck by Christopher Nolan (the man who made Batman cool again), but not just for Leo. Inception boasts a strong cast, with up-and-comers Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy and Ellen Page, and veteran performers Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Pete Postlethwaite flanking DiCaprio. It was like Nolan got his shopping list out and grabbed every great actor he wanted, no fuss no muss. As the writer, writer, and producer of the film, Nolan took what could have easily been a glorified Matrix rip-off and instead produced a fine piece of filmmaking, creating what might be one of the better films this decade, let alone this year.

You might think that last bit was a little bit of hyperbole, but I honestly think this film is too smart, too clever, too GOOD to end up on the wayside. I once thought Nolan would be remembered for reviving the Batman franchise, but I'm confident that he'll be to this movie what the Wachowski Brothers are to The Matrix. What makes Inception different from the superhero-like Matrix, however, is it's genre. It's a heist film, and a giddy heist film at that, but one that, unlike most such films, also has emotional stakes which drive the movie forward, in addition to the genre's standard practices. As Cobb, the group's leader, DiCaprio had to be that character who's doing what he can with what he knows to recover from his wife's death and be able to return home to his children. That, more than the dream scenarios or fantastic effects, are what drive the film forward, and Leo handles the role with a talent I honestly didn't know he had ten years ago. You see the pain in his eyes, the tiredness and wanting to go home, to somehow redeem himself for the guilt he feels he put on himself.

And let's not forget the rest of the cast, who put on something of a clinic themselves. Gordon-Levitt has gone from indie favorite to rock star in his role as DiCaprio's partner in crime Arthur, a man so bodily beaten in this film it's surprising he can still stand at the end. Whoever's running Ellen Page's career deserves major kudos as well, as the in-her-prime Canadian actress once again wows and dominates most of the scenes she's in. Those she doesn't steal are pretty much in the hands of Hardy, whose suave forger (who can imitate other characters in dreams) always has the perfect quip to suit the occasion. He also becomes one of the ones to root for in the film's closing moments, led only by Arthur. Cotillard may be the best, vacillating between the loving wife DiCaprio remembers and the scorned personification of his guilt as she foils his jobs. Not as much is seen of Watanabe or Murphy, but both put on the respectable performances they are known to be capable of. Rarely do you see this level of talent in an ensemble cast, and nobody mixes poorly with the others, proving Nolan cast this piece well.

One of Inception's best qualities is that Nolan does his best to eschew the idea of shoving CGI graphics into any part of the film that is difficult to shoot. While CGI was necessary to add to create some of the more outlandish sequences in the dream worlds (including the "folding earth" moment shown in the trailer) some of the movie's more famous scenes were done in real time, with multiple cameras catching the action simultaneousy. Some of these, like the infamous exploding Paris bistro scene with Dicaprio and Page, or the rotating hallway fight involving Gordon-Lovitt, were done without CGI in very tricky shots that any other director might have done entirely using computers. The only instance where this hurts is in the very beginning of the film, where Watanabe's old-man prosthetics look extremely fake and haggard, but that's a minor quibble. Thankfully, Nolan's old-school attitude made sure that no fake-looking CGI ruled the day, and his extraordinary directorial talents made sure the scenes looked fantastic.

(Okay, even if you didn't take it seriously before, SPOILER WARNING!!)

With a story that cuts deep and manages to surprise, Nolan has brought us a film that hopefully will be remembered years from now as a modern classic. But is is truly over? I've heard more than one viewer wondering aloud about the ending of the film, which keeps the idea open that Cobb may not have woken up and may be still in fact dreaming. My opinion is, whether yes or no, it doesn't matter. Cobb's journey was to accept the circumstances that led to his wife's death, nothing more. Whether he's really awake or stuck in a dream, his guilt is assuaged, and he can once again be happy. And that's what this last job has really been about. It was never about the idea of actually pulling off inception, but about redeeming himself, to himself, stopping his self-sabotage and being able to go home again one day.

And if you're happy, who are others to say whether it's real?