A Cure for Wellness (2017)

This is Gore Verbinski's new weird as fuck horror/thriller type movie about a crazy mental hospital and also eels. I went into this expecting something dark and creepy, and, uh, I got it.

There are SPOILERS ahead for the film. Be warned.

Director: Gore Verbinski

Starring: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth

IMDb

This thing starts off with Dane DeHaan playing Lockhart, an American businessman who does nothing but eat junk food, work 24/7 and be rude to people, like all Americans and all businessmen. His bosses catch him doing something wrong and are going to fire him if he doesn't go to this weird asylum hospital place in Europe and bring back this top official of theirs who seems to have lost his mind there.

"We are business people, and so we have no regard for human life or safety! We'll blackmail you forever!"

Naturally, the place is weird right off the bat, with nurses who look too long at you and speak solely in cryptically threatening messages for the movie's trailer. The head of the place is played by Jason Isaacs, who seems to have drunk heavily from the goblet of Evil Villain Movie Potion and comes out with creepy music following him, a sinister serpentine smile and everything he says comes off as threatening. Gee, I wonder if HE'S gonna be the bad guy?! I bet this guy even comes off as creepy to the employees at the bank or the grocery store.

“I'll check out now with this gallon of milk, these bananas and these eggs... mwa ha ha ha...” (evil music)

“Uh, sir, you're just at the grocery check out counter, calm down. Do you want your receipt or not?”

There's also the mysterious girl who Lockhart sees doing a balancing act on top of the castle – we learn later that this is Hannah, a girl who has lived there her whole life and who the director guy wants to keep safe. So I guess that's why he just lets her stand on thin ledges where she could easily fall to her death.

Then on the way back, the driver guy and Lockhart get into a horrible car crash when a deer runs onto the road and crashes into them, sending the car into a Nascar-style multiple flip into the woods that should have killed them both. But then Lockhart wakes up without a scratch on him anywhere except for one broken leg he is apparently well enough to start walking on crutches with immediately. I guess the crash just looked worse than it was...

No cars were harmed in the making of this movie. Probably.

Things just keep getting weirder and weirder as Lockhart begins to suspect there's something wrong – something he'll CONTINUE to suspect for the next hour and a half of the movie, yet stays there anyway just waiting for worse shit to happen. He finds some weird microbe thing in the water, continually sees odd visions and has characters just act plain strange and ominous – yet he remains DEDICATED to staying there until he can find Pembroke, the guy who his company sent him there to find. I guess it's a commentary on how much Americans are obsessed with work? Or maybe he is just a fucking moron.

Then he does talk to Pembroke, not very long into the film, even persuading him to come back home with him. But then the next day he's told Pembroke's “condition” has worsened, and so now he's not available anymore, and Lockhart is blamed for stressing him out! Lockhart, naturally, sees nothing too wrong with this, and just sticks around waiting for him to come back I guess. This would already be the point where I personally would just leave and tell my bosses things have gotten fucked up. But not for Lockhart – he just sticks around.

Then, the leader of the place tells Lockhart HE is sick and should stay around and receive the same treatment everyone else there has gotten. Bizarrely, with no real logic behind it, he agrees to this. In one bizarre sequence, he is submerged in a tank of water and told to remain there for 30 minutes to simulate birth – okay, well, whatever works for you, man. The guy watching him, however, is distracted when a nurse randomly enters the room and flashes him her boobs, and he just sits there and jacks off to that instead of paying attention.

Unfortunately, that is also precisely the time when the tank fills up with a bunch of eels that really freak Lockhart out. He nearly drowns and is saved by the two guards, which, I guess is good that they prioritize drowning over boobs. This is never mentioned again – you'd think an American businessman, as high strung as they are, would sue the fuck out of the place for this. But nope. Never mentioned again!

Instead it's just more of the movie's elongated storytelling – he never tries to leave or do anything but confront the leaders of this place, which is pointless, because they're the ones who have the power to lock him up and never tell him anything. Just go! Run! I don't get what the hell is so difficult about that. But he stays and just tries to keep discovering the weird shit there. He doesn't have enough evidence yet that this place is weird!

He goes underground and discovers a network full of famished-looking elderly people trapped in tanks full of science-y looking liquid... his course of action is to stay there and shout at the people running the place. Christ. I bet if he witnessed a murder, he would just stick around and try to reason with the murderer; figure out WHY he's doing the things he does. Just go!

"Woah, I better not actually take any drastic measures now that I found this. I'm sure just confronting the owners of the hospital angrily will be good enough! They probably have an explanation!"

He even has a chance to leave, as he and Hannah ride down to town to figure out what's going on. In a very bizarre scene, they stop at a bar and end up getting in a fight with a bunch of kids that look like a schizophrenic's interpretation of the 80s, all mohawks and black leather. Luckily, the hospital people show up and break up the fight, taking Hannah back with them. Lockhart, for some reason, goes too. We know there's a train in this area that could take him out of here - why the fuck he's still staying there is so utterly bizarre to me.

Then his tooth falls out and he's taken to this crazy dentist guy. Just a word of warning – if you go to a dentist and he has a giant jar full of human teeth on his desk, like the guy does in this movie, then leave that dentist and run far away. Lockhart, though, sticks around long enough for them to rip out one of his teeth for no other reason than punishment, and frankly I think he deserves it for being so dumb as to stick around this long.

What a good dentist he must be. Look at all those teeth!

In between all these scenes, there are more weird scenes with eels in them. Just eels. Lots and lots of eels. Why, I have no earthly clue. I think Hollywood just had a surplus of eels that weren't being used in any other movies, and Verbinski just went "I'll use all of them!"

This is the cover for the next issue of the niche fetish mag "Girls and Eels" coming out this month.

Eventually, he figures out that his leg isn't even really broken! You know, just an easy mistake to make. I assume this is to speed along the plot as we're already two hours in and we need him to run faster. He rips off his cast and then goes about finding out even more of this place's secrets – because the rest of the shit he's seen just hasn't really convinced him yet, I guess. He finds out that the guards take dead bodies into this cave area and feed them to a bunch of eels in the water. Because why not?

Then they manage to get him again and stick him in this full-body tank with only his head sticking out, where they put a tube in his mouth and then flush a bunch of water with eels into his body. Because, again, why not? If you can think of a weird thing to do, just do it! That's the motto of this place.

You'd think this – with Lockhart now being brainwashed and part of the place – would be the end. But nope! We have a bizarre final 20 minutes where it's revealed that all of this weird stuff has been going on to sustain the head doctor played by Isaacs, who is actually a 200 year old baron in disguise who wants to fuck Hannah, who is actually his daughter. I guess this makes as much sense as anything else, sure. Isaacs' real form looks like a Marvel Comics villain complete with scaly green skin and super strength. Sure! Why not!

So I guess Lockhart kills him and he and Hannah burn the hospital down and then escape. The end!

Honestly, I kind of enjoyed this whole thing. It's frustrating as hell the way Lockhart continually makes the worst choices just to elongate the movie and keep him in the hospital. And a lot of these plot twists have been done before. But the whole thing is just so brazenly crazy, not giving a fuck what anyone thinks of it, that it's almost impossible not to be entertained by it. It's a ridiculous film, totally ludicrous, but it takes itself just the right kind of seriously that it becomes a gloriously bizarre freak show ride of a movie.

In summary, I learned two things from this:

1. Americans work too hard and are stressed out, but that's still better than what goes on in weird healing therapy hospitals in the backwoods of Europe by far.

2. Eels are terrifying and should be feared in the way that evangelicals fear God.

I guess that's as good of a lesson as any. Review over.

Images copyright of their original owners, I own none of them.

REVIEW: Lord of Illusions (1995)

Am I dreaming? Is this movie part of some kind of freakish, nightmareish sub-reality in my mind brought on by some guy sticking his fingers in my head? Is Clive Barker stupid or actually so subtly gifted and talented that I can’t even perceive how great he truly is? Was the Kennedy assassination the work of a lone gunman, or was there something more at work? For the answers to all of these questions…don’t watch this movie, because it’ll just confuse the shit out of you and you’ll spend your time pondering the answers to those questions PLUS the myriad more brought on by the film’s insanity. Trust me. I know. I’m a survivor of Lord of Illusions.

Director: Clive Barker

Starring: Scott Bakula, Kevin J. O'Connor

IMDb

After watching this, you will be transformed! Transformed into someone who hates the art of cinema! Into someone who thinks the only way to make a good movie is lots of referential crap to dated stuff that nobody watches anymore, plus tons and tons of gore! Transformed into a mindless slave of the Clive Barker cult of nonsense!

The film begins with some people going in to stop this fat, balding guy who apparently has magical powers from using those powers to do something with a girl he kidnapped – it’s not entirely clear what his plan is. Except, of course, for being a fat, balding guy with no charisma, charm or acting skills…seriously, what is the draw to this guy? People are apparently worshiping him and lining up to join his magic cult thing, but this is the first really big hole. Who would follow this guy? He’s about as charming as a wooden fence post.

So yeah, I’m not kidding here, THIS is the leader of these mercenaries…rebels…whatever the hell they are:

What is that? The bastard child of Steve Buscemi and a weedwacker? Well, whatever, he goes in and tries to save the girl, telling her it will be OK but not actually saving her yet. Isn’t that the best kind of rescue? Also, why do they always gag people in movies where they can still talk? Doesn’t that go against the point of a gag?

She can clearly still talk through that, and as we'll see in a few scenes, she can still pick up and use a weapon even with her wrists tied like they are. So basically this is a failure of a hostage situation.

Then we see the best method of villainous plotting ever conceived – hanging out behind a rotating wall and then dramatically revealing yourself when you could have just stabbed your enemy from the start when he came into the room:

I guess the plot here is that this magician guy, Nix, is obsessed for some reason that is never fully made clear with that Steve Buscemi lookalike, whose name is Swann, and so he wants to “show him the truth of the flesh” or some inane bullshit; you know, the usual Clive Barker formula. Have a guy intone deeply and say cool sounding things that mean nothing, and then play some gory shots over it that also mean nothing. Maybe his philosophy is that two meaningless things, when put together, will create something of substance. But I think it’s fair to say it just annoys the living piss out of his audience and makes him look like a giant tool.

Then Nix gets shot in the back by the hostage girl he tied up. Gee. Maybe you shouldn’t have left her hands untied enough for her to use a gun. And maybe you shouldn’t have been so unobservant as to let her near that gun in the first place. You’re really not much in the brains department either, are you Nix? How the hell are people following this guy again?! They bury him underground and say he’ll never come back, but since the movie still has an hour and a half left, how much do you wanna bet he comes back?

They're putting down their bets right now...and hoping to win! The woman in the middle is putting all her rent money on the table even.

Oh, and this was all in less than the first ten minutes, by the way. Isn’t that a beauty? I’ve talked about so much already and the movie isn’t even close to starting its main plot yet. Ugh…

We then fast forward 13 years to New York City, where some private detective named Harry D’Amour gets a house call from his boss, generic frumpy white businessman. The conversation that follows is – I’m not gonna lie here – probably the most generic movie conversation ever made in the history of cinema. The guy in the suit says he has a job for D’Amour, who is skeptical about it while popping a bottle of beer. But we know he’s going to say yes and just go. Why wouldn’t he? When in the history of movies has the drunken, down-and-out detective ever said no to the One Final Job?

5 o'clock shadow? Rich 1%er boss with one last mission for him? Alcoholism problem? All checked off! You are officially the lead character in your very own terrible detective story...and seriously, how poorly acted is this character anyway? He blends into the background so much you almost forget he's even there most of this movie. I mean, he's only supposed to be our moral center of things. I guess that wasn't important.

So he ends up in Los Angeles chasing some guy who apparently is conning someone. He follows some guy to a fortune teller’s office where he finds a guy holding the fortune teller hostage, having already stabbed him several times in the chest. Then D’Amour is attacked by some bald bodyguard guy. How will D’Amour beat this guy? He slams the door in his face aaaaaaand that stops him cold!

Ugggghhhhhhh doors!!! I was trained for everything except fighting through them! Doors are my mortal enemies!

When the bodyguard FINALLY gets through the door several minutes later, D’Amour throws him out a window. Truly this guy was the best henchman ever. Then the other guy leaves as well, leaving D’Amour to tend to the wounded fortune teller, who dies. What are D’Amour’s chilling, poetic words to summarize witnessing such a painful death scene? None other than “Shit.” That’s all he says, and isn’t it just perfect? I think I’ve heard better eulogies from a five year old flushing her goldfish down the toilet.

So I guess the story behind this is that someone or something is killing off all the members of the squad who brought down that Nix character 13 years ago. Why did the killer take 13 years to get started with that brilliant plot? Because that fits the time this movie was released in the mid 90s. There literally is no other reason besides that. D’Amour gets hired by the wife of that Swann weirdo who is now a big time stage magician, who wants him to figure out what the hell is going on. Even though…he was already doing that anyway and didn’t need to be hired twice. Oh, wait! I know the reason!

"We have no reason to be attracted to one another besides the fact that I'm the main hero in a poorly written film noir detective story! Let's have sex!"

Literally without even saying anything, you know they’re going to have sex before the movie ends. It’s that friggin’ obvious. Why else even have this shit in the movie at all, if not for a cheap and poorly written romantic “plot”? This movie is as predictable as a weather forecast in the middle of a drought. I know it’s trying to be all homage-y to classic film noirs and detective stories, but god, would at least a little bit of energy and cleverness be too much to ask for?

Then D’Amour ends up going to one of Swann’s shows with the wife, whose name is Dorothea. The show is…well, it’s not really much of a magic show. It’s more like what would qualify at the video store as “special interest.”

Is that the Yogurt statue from Spaceballs?

Yeah, nice Power Rangers poses there you morons.

If you like seeing a bunch of mostly naked men wrapped up in metal wiring dancing around a statue of an ambiguously Indian-looking idol statue, well, then you would be in for a treat. I just imagine here all the people who brought their young children to see this, expecting a magic show. Wouldn’t this be just so strange to them?

Then Swann performs his ultimate trick – bloody, violent death!

Eh, I've seen better magic shows. 7/10.

And in the words of Harry D’Amour to describe the situation: “Shit.” That about sums it up.

Afterwards, D’Amour investigates some other magician guy and comes across the name Nix, which he figures is connected to the deaths of all these people, and when he asks Dorothea about it, she sends her butler to tell him to stop working and go home. So he finds out what she was looking for and she doesn’t like it? He DID HIS JOB, WHAT SHE ASKED HIM TO DO, and her response is telling him she doesn’t like it? What the hell? Is some kind of semblance of a logical sequence of events REALLY THAT HARD? Jesus Christ, Clive Barker! What’s wrong with you? Can’t you even just…try, for once, to write something that isn’t totally talentless hack work and just, maybe, I dunno, might be a crazy idea, TELL A REAL STORY? God!

So after that D’Amour ends up going over to Dorothea’s mansion where they have this conversation:

D’AMOUR: [Swann] thought Nix was coming back, didn’t he? Didn’t he?

[DOROTHEA slams her hands on the table and looks distressed.]

D’AMOUR: I can’t help you unless you talk to me.

DOROTHEA: Nobody can help me.

Normally dialogue like this wouldn’t be anything worth pointing out, except for what follows:

I mean really, REALLY?! "Oh, I just want to help you solve this crime" = making out with a stripper pole between your boobs? What universe is this?

Well, I called it, and it was totally predictable that they would end up having sex. But honestly, what the hell led to this? They were talking about the case and then, bam, they were making out, and one scene later they were in bed. Did Barker just miss a page of the script where they started flirting with one another? There was no build up to this at all! Usually there’s…something, at least, like a scene or two of them sort of being coy with one another, but here it’s literally just a totally unrelated conversation leading to them doing it! It’s like a parody of a film noir rather than a homage. But then again, expecting Clive Barker to start understanding anything about human interaction now would be an exercise in futility.

Then we see the worst special effects this side of Cube II: Hypercube as the ghost of Nix chases them around the palace and stuff:

If they were going for "childish red crayon scribble" then they got that one 100% correct!

After that, we find out that Swann is actually still alive, and faked his death so that the ghost of Nix would leave him and his loved ones alone. This is so stupid that even a dunce like D’Amour can point out the holes in it, like that Dorothea was the one who actually shot and killed Nix to begin with, so why wouldn’t he go after her anyway? It all just comes to point out how much of a goddamn pussy Swann is, and him being alive…really adds nothing to the rest of the movie, seeing as it’s almost over. So why add it? To pad out the running time, of course!

So apparently that one guy from earlier, who killed that fortune teller, is the main villain now as he kidnaps Dorothea and takes her to the site from the beginning of the movie, where they raise Nix from the grave as the incarnate of Frank from the first Hellraiser movie:

Can you tell this was made by the same guy yet? If the poorly written story and lack of serious atmosphere didn't give it away...

He almost kills Dorothea, but D’Amour saves her. Nix decides that he wants to explode Swann’s brain, so he does exactly that, rendering him a brainless vegetable. Then we see that he corrupts D’Amour by sticking his fingers in his head and making him see other people like this:

Well to be fair watching Clive Barker movies for too long makes me see people that way too.

…until Dorothea shoots Nix in the head and kills him!

Oh, did I say that kills him? I’m sorry. I meant he’s still alive after being shot! I always get those two confused…and seriously, can’t this shit JUST END ALREADY?! They push him down into a hole and kill him that way. What did we learn from this? That if you push people into holes and shoot them, they die? What the hell was the point of any of this garbage? I feel ill just thinking of the time wasted on this that I could have been using for something more productive, like watching paint dry, or reading my neighbors’ tax returns.

Lord of Illusions’ only real illusion is that it somehow got green lighted. You thought you were getting a good movie, movie studios? Well POOF! Bait and switch and you’re left with Lord of Illusions. God, what a mess. Did people ever really take this seriously? I mean Hellraiser is one thing; that at least had an iconic and memorable main villain. This? This has N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Sigh. It’s like Clive Barker has some kind of magical spell over his audiences blinding them to his talentlessness…some kind of strange pull over the minds of the weak…

…nah, people are just too easy to please and that’s all there is to it.

REVIEW: The Machinist (2004)

Director: Brad Anderson

Starring: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361862/

Christian Bale’s 2004 film is one most often noted for the actor’s choice to go so far into character, in order to make the movie the way the director envisioned, that he lost a ton of weight and looked like an anorexic ghoul for the whole thing. He really went all out, and I think that that’s worthy of respect. He’s devoted to his job. Everyone’s got what they’re good at, and all you have in life is the ability to do it and be respected for it by your peers – I think Bale is more than worthy of that respect.

But the film is notable for more than that, such as the directing of horror/thriller master Brad Anderson, who also directed the sublime Session 9 4 years prior. Anderson seems to be channeling Jacob’s Ladder with this, as there are a lot of similarities, but you know what? I welcome it. Jacob’s Ladder is an excellent film, and while at first The Machinist might look like a cheap knock-off, it uses the influences – psychological horror, the surreality, the fact that you never know what’s real – to comment on very real things and talk about an issue just like the original film did a decade prior. This is a film about a man racked with guilt. He cannot sleep and has been losing weight ever since his terrible ordeal (which I won’t spoil here). Far from a shallow brain exercise, this is an emotional and disturbing picture of a man on the edge of himself, starting to crumble.

It builds through discordant, jarring psychological twists even from the beginning, with Bale’s character Trevor immediately thrust into a host of mind bending situations. He meets a man named Ivan who claims to work for his company, but how come no one else has ever heard of him? He finds strange post-it notes on his refrigerator, on his walls. He forms relationships with two women, a prostitute (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and a waitress at an airport diner (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), both of which become entangled in the film’s morass of plot.

His personality becomes revealed to us through the subtle things. In the beginning of the film he costs a co-worker at his factory an arm when he becomes distracted and accidentally turns on a machine at the wrong time, and that’s the catalyst for the rest of the film’s decadent insanity. His physical and mental decay are linked together through his tragedy, his terrible mistake. Everything slowly starts to fall apart from his jobs to his relationships.

A lot of these kinds of movies turn out as shallow and vapid intellectual exercises with little real human depth, but Anderson’s directing lets the depth shine through all the macabre creepiness and seedy atmosphere. The Machinist is a movie about a long spiral of degradation and guilt, and it’s made relatable by the fact that this kind of thing happens in real life, if not quite to the same extreme extent. The human mind can only live with so much guilt until it breaks.

The power of the film lies in Bale’s performance and the unfurling but clear realization of exactly what happened to make him the way he is. We have to know, and although the film is obscure and odd from its onset, it takes no shame in clearing the clouds by the end, and yet without making the viewer feel stupid. Once we know, the film stops being a guessing game of ‘what’s real, what’s in his head’ and more of a statement on the human conscience and what we have to do to make things right, to achieve even the most base level of peace. Powerful, sad and unnerving, mostly for how long it took for Bale's character to do the right thing.

REVIEW: Inland Empire (2006)

Complete unedited thoughts I just scribbled down.

Director: Jeremy Irons

Starring: Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460829/

I really liked the other Lynch film I've seen, Mulholland Dr., but Inland Empire didn't really captivate me the same way. This is difficult to rate, and I'm sure I'll watch it again someday and think some very different things about it. Mostly this suffers from its 3 hour run-time, which is fine with me, except I thought the film stretched itself thin by quite a lot. There wasn't anything in Inland Empire I'd call really bad, and some moments, most notably in the first hour or so, are beautiful and captivating. Lynch's fondness for holding long close-ups on people's faces and on things they're looking at seems to have gone into complete overdrive here, as it happens all the time, and sometimes it frankly just gets boring; I'm sorry. Sometimes it works, but other times, and more and more as the movie goes on, it just feels like the cameraman had a stroke on set. The lighting is pretty crazy at times, and I confess I didn't get what it was going for exactly - definitely pretty freaky sometimes though, so there's that. Acting was as oddball and spastic as it was in Mulholland, except even moreso. Both movies seem to have this schizo balance between normal acting at some parts and then just completely off the wall, awkward, strange deliveries and facial expressions that come out of nowhere, and I like that. It adds a very off-kilter quality to everything, making any scene - even a few of the weaker ones in this movie - scary and surreal, and that's probably a big part of why I can't totally be mad at this movie.

The jarring and dramatic score and the building paranoia of the first hour made me think this was going to be another explosive thrill-ride a la Mulholland Drive, but this movie seemed to be going for something else entirely once I watched it progress. A sort of breakdown in a way, a degeneration of logic and sense - not an explosion or a big bang like Mullholland had, but rather a slow-burning decay of the film's sanity. Sort of like a very vivid, artsy depiction of senility. That sounds ridiculous even writing it but that's really what I got from this, I guess. Some parts of this movie were beautiful and vivid, other parts were downright horrifying, other parts still were more subtly tense, but a lot of the 3 hours of material here isn't really as good as all that. 3 hours is a long damn time for a movie to run and Inland Empire does tend to lose itself quite often. As intriguing and watchable as I found the best parts of the movie, there was always a scene or two after those that ran for too long and just broke the mood and vibe it was setting. The story is barely coherent, and while I can't really say that was a big factor in my mixed feelings for Inland Empire, it definitely didn't help. Ambiguity is cool - confusing the viewer can work, and for some bits the movie does it very well, but other times it just loses me, and I'm repeating myself now anyway.

I'd probably give this movie around a 3.5/5 rating if I absolutely was forced to assign one, but I don't think a rating can really do this justice, as in some ways I really liked this, found it beautiful and disturbing and horrific and artful and the whole array of terms you can use to describe various emotive pieces of art, but dually, somewhat paradoxically, I found it lacking in a lot of areas, and it could have been a lot stronger of a movie overall. Doesn't make sense to me either, but then, that is what Inland Empire evokes - these are the kind of conflicting feelings it brings out. Observing art on a purely sensual level, I found this rather stunning, but as a person who watches movies, it could have been improved majorly and lost nothing of its artfulness - so I come down in the middle. Go see it if you want. It's really interesting and will make you think about movies and about the plot. But, speaking as a person who's only seen this and Mulholland Dr. from Lynch...go see the latter first.

Review: The Tourist (2010) TH

Fanciful events for a whimsical vacation

This is another movie that uses a bait and switch with its trailer. It's made out to be an action/thriller with a constant, heart-racing traction, though the actual tone plays out as a somewhat light hearted mystery with an element of humor and some romance that comes across as lackadaisical, never knowing which angle to stick with, which makes the general mood an emotionally confusing and conflicting experience for a viewer. It's a film where the music acts as another character--sometimes distracting, sometimes getting the job done--to do the talking over panned shots that capture the rustic scenery of Italy that "The Tourist" primarily takes place in.

A woman named Elise (Jolie) is related to an investigation by the Financial Crimes Division of the Scotland Yard and in turn is being followed by agents wherever she goes in Europe. She receives a letter from a past lover named Alexander Pearce who she hasn't seen for over two years due to laying low after stealing billions of dollars (or millions of British pounds) from a gangster named Reginald Shaw who deals in businesses of vice such as casinos and brothels. Pearce, who reportedly had plastic surgery, tells her to find a man that looks similar in build, as others don't know what his new face looks like, to use as a distraction so Elise and him can finally meet up again and take off. While on a train destined for Venice, she picks a tourist that catches her eye. Apart from being bashful, Frank Tupelo (Depp) is a math teacher from Wisconsin despite his odd accent who reads spy novels and is more brain than suave. He lost his wife to a car crash three years earlier and is looking to rekindle a relationship, and what better way to do that than with a stunning woman who compliments himself, as he's honest and reserved, and she's sophisticated yet confident.

The Yard realized the ruse from a quick background check and let the dogs off of Frank, yet Shaw hears that Frank might actually be Alexander from a tipster going on old information and still places a bounty on him. Shaw surrounds himself with Russian henchmen and with his wealth pays off a few people to get ahold of Frank. This leads to a few chases--one involves a roof top and another a boat--but the amount of action scenes in this film can be counted on one hand. Even so, the tone feels up and down and has its moments of plodding along as it shoots inconsequential scenes and scenarios while the characters don't always feel like a solid part of the framework. The shots of the scenery and the bombastic score over top seem like they're more imposing than the human interaction at times.

Jolie isn't stretching very far outside of her range, as she acts more as a staggering presence who's seductive and elegant, not to mention secretive, while giving subtle looks and gestures to maintain the enigma. For the most part Depp surprisingly plays it normal and held back. The police and lower gangsters, despite some well-known names such as Paul Bettany and Timothy Dalton, feel like they play their parts evenly with nothing extra to remember them by. Steven Berkoff gets a chance to shine somewhat by bringing some distinguishable and compelling elements to the role of Shaw. The movie has a final twist, though the problem is prior to that it wasn't able to maintain a firm command even if the viewer gets a little reward for the wait.

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others)
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, Steven Berkoff
Website: IMDB

Review: Super 8 (2011) TH

Small town kids, the military and a train with puzzling cargo

"Super 8" is a popcorn blockbuster that acts as a light drama, mystery and thriller, though one that's all about shameless homage to past films and late '70s pop culture in which it takes place. It's a something's-on-the-loose film with the "something" hiding in the background and adolescent nostalgia out to play in the foreground. It racks up blatant nods, such as '50s giant monster films, George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead," and even Spielberg classics like "The Goonies" and "Jurassic Park." It's done purposely to bring out fun references for sentimental history buffs, as well as keeps cinemaphiles busy with trivia, who might otherwise be ready to call foul at the first retread.

A motley crew of early teen filmmakers have various talents that range from bossy director, special make-up effects wizard, lead actor, pretty actress to the over-charged demolitions expert. Apart from the recent accidental death of Joe's, the make-up effects kid, mother, they live in a normally quiet town and keep themselves busy filming make-believe zombies. While on location for their super 8 movie in the dead of night, they solely witness a massive train wreck involving a truck with a person they know. The hurt man gives them a grave warning to stay away. Shaken up, they keep to themselves but as soon as the Air Force troops show to clean up, some bizarre things occur and it's up to the temp Sheriff, after the current went missing, and our little friends to find out the truth and take matters into their own hands.

Due to items and people disappearing out of the blue, the town feels under siege and holds a meeting but things aren't making sense apart from thinking it's the Russkies. The stand-in Sheriff sees a conspiracy closer to home as our own military refuses to say exactly what's in the cargo of the trains. It took too long to actually unveil the big mystery and eventually begins to lose some of its grasp when it initially began with thrills due to blocking your view point to show abrupt disappearing acts of civilians and property during wee night hours. The constant question is: What does it all mean? Not to mention that it better be a heck of a hot item when it's fully unsheathed: one that awes and glimmers and is saved last for hopefully good reason.

Pushing aside the mayhem and conspiratorial overtones, Joe and Alice, the actress from their movie, form a forbidden love due to their dads having beef, as well as some light drama with regret over the mother's death and growing pains with adapting were injected to make it more personal and dramatic than continually pulse-pounding. To lighten the load even more, there are some relatable jokes and good times shown with being an adolescent during the summer. The young actors portraying the roles have chemistry and managed to be candid and entertaining without being naturally annoying. It hearkens back to that good ol' period when you didn't always see the big picture of adulthood enough not to worry about the future instead of the now--which at present is both just so scary and astonishing.

"Super 8" has thrilling orchestras mixed with contemporary tunes of the era. This has jarring sounds, finely-tuned CGI to show over-the-top action and big explosions to knock your hat off, except they're more spread out than in the previews. It hinted how much power and leeway Big Brother has over its citizens and visitors to the point of black-and-white, closed-minded villainy. They attempted a quick wrap up by throwing out some forced sympathy for the now revealed mysterious entity despite massive property damage and trauma, as the justification for what's happening isn't entirely its fault. Though it would be like only watching the endings of "King Kong" and "Frankenstein," which did a similar "made bad by society" mock up, where the rest of the film showed evolution and gradually built up to genuine sparks of feeling. "Super 8" tried to jam-pack the experience with it all--some concentrated on, some not--and it felt like important answers were swept under the rug, as the tone shifts back again to the town people being just so relieved that it's all finally over and that the event brought them closer together.

Director: J.J. Abrams (Lost, Mission: Impossible III, Star Trek 2009)
Starring: Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, Kyle Chandler
Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650062/