Cameron Crowe has never been the most prolific director, but the interval since making Elizabethtown in 2005 has been the longest of his career. After immediately establishing himself as an authentic talent, writing and directing some true classics, the last decade hasn’t been as kind to the filmmaker, as his films took a sharp decline in quality. Now Crowe has returned with We Bought A Zoo, but sadly it’s more of a faint cry than a bang.
Based on a true story, the film centers on Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon), a recently widowed father struggling to raise a teenage son, named Dylan (Colin Ford) and a young daughter named Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones). Following advice from his brother (Thomas Haden Church) about a fresh start, Benjamin begins to look for a new house, but when he finds the perfect new home he discovers that it has a catch: it’s actually a defunct zoo. Seeing how much his daughter loves the place, Benjamin decides to take a leap and invest in refurbishing the menagerie and works with the head zookeeper, Kelly (Scarlett Johansson), and her strange assorted crew to restore the park to its former glory.
The greatest success of We Bought A Zoo is its characters and the bonds between them, aided by terrific performances from the entire cast. While Benjamin's relationship with his children couldn't be more different – one is sweet and lighthearted while the other is caustic and harsh – Damon’s has a great, authentic rapport with each of the child actors and the script does a good job developing both. The best developed arc in the movie, however, is between Damon and Johansson, as Benjamin struggles to prove his commitment to the park to the skeptical Kelly, and their relationship successfully blooms into a romance without beating the audience over the head.
While the film as a whole earns its emotional impact, there are definite moments where Crowe is manipulating the audience a bit too much. This is done largely by doing countless close-ups of Maggie Elizabeth Jones, who almost succeeds in being too cute. These scenes don’t taint the story as a whole, but they’re off-putting because the movie is filled with so many authentic feelings that the artificial ones stick out. The audience can tell the difference between sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
The film falters with its muddled and clumsy story, letting the strong central relationships overshadow smaller characters and important plot points. Patrick Fugit, Angus MacFadden and Carlo Gallo play park employees helping Benjamin rebuild the park, the central part of the movie, and though that plot line gets a solid resolution, the talented actors aren't given enough to do. There’s also a romantic subplot involving Kelly’s niece, played by Elle Fanning, and Dylan, which is sweet, but doesn’t have nearly the impact that it should because there’s so much else going on. But even the main storyline isn’t free from problems. Following the aforementioned resolution in the third act, the film immediately introduces another major conflict that throttles the pacing and winds up hurting all of the film’s final scenes.
What ends up holding back We Bought A Zoo are the little things, like the badly underdeveloped bit players or the exposition-filled, misplaced narration that opens the film. It has a lot of these tiny problems, but relationships between the characters, the performances and the story overall are good enough to at least balance them out. The movie isn’t nearly as strong as Crowe’s best work, such as Say Anything…, Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire, but it’s a solid effort following his six year hiatus and definitely a step up from Elizabethtown.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
This Means War Review
With all due respect to General William Tecumseh Sherman, This Mean War isn’t hell. It just isn’t as fun as the various trailers and commercials make it out to be.
If you’ve seen the ads, you basically know all War has to offer. And if you haven’t, you’ll still be able to guess exactly where War is heading. Best friends Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are the finest agents the CIA has to offer. But when a series of coincidences – and some sloppy screenwriting shortcuts – have them both dating a pretty product tester named Lauren (Reese Witherspoon), the guys wage a “friendly” competition to see who can win the woman’s hand.
More silly than chauvinistic, This Means War can’t decide if it’s an action-thriller with a little romance mixed in, or a formulaic rom-com with one or two memorable action set pieces. Thanks to its constant wavering and lack of clear-cut direction, it whiffs completely on both potential premises.
Let’s take a moment and lament the loss of a noteworthy action comedy, because the pieces appear to be in play for a legitimate winner cut from the cloth of 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon or, at the very least, Tango & Cash. War director McG might be coming off of 2009’s somber, dour Terminator: Salvation, but he has two lightweight Charlie’s Angels adventures on his resume, and he’s certainly capable of cranking out a lightweight lark. A little bit of the frivolous helium he injected into the goofy Angels series might have helped lift War off the ground, because this humorless bird rarely takes flight over its near-two-hour run.
Hardy and Pine do have the combustible chemistry needed for a yin-yang buddy comedy. A smart studio executive would hand these two a Shane Black script, then sit back and count the money as it came rolling in. Pine continues to show off the loose charm and natural charisma that he used to carry J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot. It’s Hardy, though, who shows off a previously unseen sense of humor and easygoing personality. At the very least, I’m glad War drew out that side of the talented Warrior and Bronson star before Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises -- and the long, dark shadow of Bane – swallows up his future career options.
Too bad Tuck and FDR’s pursuit of a Russian baddie (Til Schweiger) – and their unmistakably flirtatious banter – has to be shelved every couple of minutes so screenwriters Timothy Dowling and Simon Kinberg can belabor the ludicrous love triangle that hangs around this picture’s neck like an anchor. There’s a solid concept at play here, with secret agents using the full resources of the CIA to investigate a girl they want to know a little better. But War doesn’t make Lauren anything more than a beautiful piece of meat who needs a crass sidekick (Chelsea Handler) to tell her how to think, act and feel. The women are an afterthought in War. Witherspoon poses adorably but can’t manage much else from her poorly developed part. And Handler hammers the same booze-soaked note she brings to virtually every project. The best screenplays have a way of snapping together, like small pieces of a large puzzle. When War reaches a narrative obstacle it can’t explain, it cuts its puzzle pieces in half, then glues them back together. Sloppily.
There is one thing that caught my eye, though, and it bears mentioning. Instead of coming up with at least one halfway-decent action sequence, McG pays attention to the movies that are playing in television screens in the background of scenes. I spotted Young Frankenstein, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and, in a lengthy scene, James Cameron’s Titanic. It might be the only time I can think of that the movies playing away from the action were infinitely better than the film in which they are being played.
If you’ve seen the ads, you basically know all War has to offer. And if you haven’t, you’ll still be able to guess exactly where War is heading. Best friends Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are the finest agents the CIA has to offer. But when a series of coincidences – and some sloppy screenwriting shortcuts – have them both dating a pretty product tester named Lauren (Reese Witherspoon), the guys wage a “friendly” competition to see who can win the woman’s hand.
More silly than chauvinistic, This Means War can’t decide if it’s an action-thriller with a little romance mixed in, or a formulaic rom-com with one or two memorable action set pieces. Thanks to its constant wavering and lack of clear-cut direction, it whiffs completely on both potential premises.
Let’s take a moment and lament the loss of a noteworthy action comedy, because the pieces appear to be in play for a legitimate winner cut from the cloth of 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon or, at the very least, Tango & Cash. War director McG might be coming off of 2009’s somber, dour Terminator: Salvation, but he has two lightweight Charlie’s Angels adventures on his resume, and he’s certainly capable of cranking out a lightweight lark. A little bit of the frivolous helium he injected into the goofy Angels series might have helped lift War off the ground, because this humorless bird rarely takes flight over its near-two-hour run.
Hardy and Pine do have the combustible chemistry needed for a yin-yang buddy comedy. A smart studio executive would hand these two a Shane Black script, then sit back and count the money as it came rolling in. Pine continues to show off the loose charm and natural charisma that he used to carry J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot. It’s Hardy, though, who shows off a previously unseen sense of humor and easygoing personality. At the very least, I’m glad War drew out that side of the talented Warrior and Bronson star before Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises -- and the long, dark shadow of Bane – swallows up his future career options.
Too bad Tuck and FDR’s pursuit of a Russian baddie (Til Schweiger) – and their unmistakably flirtatious banter – has to be shelved every couple of minutes so screenwriters Timothy Dowling and Simon Kinberg can belabor the ludicrous love triangle that hangs around this picture’s neck like an anchor. There’s a solid concept at play here, with secret agents using the full resources of the CIA to investigate a girl they want to know a little better. But War doesn’t make Lauren anything more than a beautiful piece of meat who needs a crass sidekick (Chelsea Handler) to tell her how to think, act and feel. The women are an afterthought in War. Witherspoon poses adorably but can’t manage much else from her poorly developed part. And Handler hammers the same booze-soaked note she brings to virtually every project. The best screenplays have a way of snapping together, like small pieces of a large puzzle. When War reaches a narrative obstacle it can’t explain, it cuts its puzzle pieces in half, then glues them back together. Sloppily.
There is one thing that caught my eye, though, and it bears mentioning. Instead of coming up with at least one halfway-decent action sequence, McG pays attention to the movies that are playing in television screens in the background of scenes. I spotted Young Frankenstein, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and, in a lengthy scene, James Cameron’s Titanic. It might be the only time I can think of that the movies playing away from the action were infinitely better than the film in which they are being played.
Declaration of War Review
The revelations are minor but forceful in Valerie Donzelli's exuberant melodrama Declaration of War, which casts the director as the mother of a two-year-old who is diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. The father of the child, the literal Romeo to her Juliette, is played by Jeremie Elkaim, Donzelli's co-scripter and the father of their son, Gabriel, whose struggles with terminal illness were the antecedent of the film's narrative core. The personal weight of the story is abundant but as the title infers, Donzelli's film is not an ode to anguished soul-searching in the face of that most blunt notice of mortality.
Faith and its more popular mandates are of little matter in Donzelli and Elkaim's script, as are fiscal worries while coasting through France's universal health care system. This allows Donzelli to investigate the effects of tragedy, and the strengths and stresses of community, family, and partnership under these conditions, with a consistently inventive and yet remarkably clear-eyed and sober stylistic eye. Family and concerned community are of equal weight, indeed almost inseparable, in Romeo and Juliette's life. Few films in recent memory have approached such communities, which includes Romeo's lesbian mother (Brigitte Sy) and her partner, without even a hint of condescension or dull moral scrutiny.
The most fascinating figures in this gathering are Romeo and Juliette themselves, who are not married (neither are Elkaim and Donzelli) and yet share an emotionally rich and well-detailed partnership as the film progresses through a litany of specialists, nurses, diagnosticians, social workers, and surgeons. Donzelli catches the central couple in moments of cathartic partying and self-exploration (or indulgence?) in between hospital visits rather than scenes of repetitive sentimentality that attest to wholly unearned, thrift-store pride and survival of spirit. Indeed, one of the more refreshing things witnessed in Declaration of War is Romeo and Juliette's wanton youth, which is constantly unleashed and consistently humbled by the humanist work being done by the hospital workers and doctors; never is Juliette's maternal instinct held up as somehow more wise or right than the opinions of educated professionals.
This tendency towards ambiguity in terms of social habits and sexual preferences puts focus on the inner life of Romeo and Juliette, expressed with audacious style by Donzelli - a musical interlude, a make-out party, a fast-paced dash through the corridors of the hospital, stately narration. Through rushes of house and dubstep, careful, active framing and uniformly strong performers, including Frederic Pierrot, Anne Le Ny, Michelle Moretti and Philippe Laudenbach, Donzelli creates a lively aesthetic environment in which Juliette and Romeo's unique relationship becomes a truly personal matter, as it often is, and not a matter necessarily swayed or distinguished by trauma, social stigmas, or psychological quirks. In fact, the most public issue that Romeo and Juliette are tied to is the health of their child which, in what might seem like a socialist dystopia to some, is here portrayed as an axiom of public good and civility.
Chronicle Review
When you hear that director Josh Trank and writer Max Landis (son of John) are out to reinvent the superhero origin story via Chronicle, their found footage sci-fi film effort, all kinds of warranted warning flags go up. After all, this is a genre that can't decide between making one anxious (via the whole 'you are there' narrative) or nauseous (thanks to all the shaky camera antics). Worse still, there's the nagging "why are you filming everything?" element that never seems to be addressed. Finally, many of these movies avoid big, lavish special effects in order to maintain a level of lo-fi "realism." Thankfully, Trank and Landis are prepared to address these concerns and then some. The result is one of the best uses of the filmmaking format since a trio of documentarians entered the Burkittsville Woods, looking for a certain witch.
Confirmed class outsider Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) has just bought himself a new video camera. Why? Well, his mother is dying and his drunken dad likes to take out his frustrations on the boy's face. Apparently, our lead needs something to record the abuse. Picked on at school, his only friend seems to be his cautious cousin Matt (Alex Russell). One night, at a party, they catch up with school sports icon Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan) and together, they discover a mysterious cave containing a bizarre alien artifact. A few weeks later, they each have become 'empowered' with certain abilities -- telekinesis, flight -- and are enjoying their newfound superhero skills. Then Andrew's rage at the world grows out of control and soon battle lines are drawn between the trio.
Chronicle is terrific. It argues for the effectiveness of the found footage gimmick while giving us the kind of comic book kick few films in the genre can even pretend to deliver. A lot like M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable in both tone and approach, it's as if Trank and Landis found a way to merge The Breakfast Club with the typical "birth of a hero/villain" plot to show what would really happen should adolescents, minds confused and hormones raging, become capable of almost anything. We get the fun of discovering the limits inherent in one's new abilities while never once going wholly overboard into raunchiness or ridiculousness. These guys don't try to destroy society or advance some personal perversion. Instead, they use their new gifts as a means of empowerment -- and in the case of Andrew, escape.
Indeed, this is Andrew's movie. He is the reason we get the camera footage, the reason the footage continues in a new and novel way (you have to love how Trank and Landis solve the inherent 'constant camera' complaint) and the organic way his path goes from halting to hurt to harmful. Like a flawless four frame epic, Andrew appears destined to be the damaged god who gives way to a supervillain, and who better to be his adversary than his reluctant champion cousin. All throughout Chronicle, we watch as things build to a head between the trio. Even better, the ending delivers the kind of rock 'em, sock 'em payoff the premise promises. Few films of this type even come close (we're looking at you, The Devil Inside).
But this is more than just a stunt well done. Chronicle will resonate with anyone who felt/feels high school is nothing more than a melting pot of socially mandated misery, where the populars pick on the nerds because...well, because it's somehow an acceptable part of the whole "growing up" ideal. In this case, however, Andrew and his friends learn that a little cosmic comeuppance can make homeroom a bit easier to handle -- until the pain becomes real. As entertaining as it is inventive, Chronicle is a minor masterwork.
Chronicle is terrific. It argues for the effectiveness of the found footage gimmick while giving us the kind of comic book kick few films in the genre can even pretend to deliver. A lot like M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable in both tone and approach, it's as if Trank and Landis found a way to merge The Breakfast Club with the typical "birth of a hero/villain" plot to show what would really happen should adolescents, minds confused and hormones raging, become capable of almost anything. We get the fun of discovering the limits inherent in one's new abilities while never once going wholly overboard into raunchiness or ridiculousness. These guys don't try to destroy society or advance some personal perversion. Instead, they use their new gifts as a means of empowerment -- and in the case of Andrew, escape.
Indeed, this is Andrew's movie. He is the reason we get the camera footage, the reason the footage continues in a new and novel way (you have to love how Trank and Landis solve the inherent 'constant camera' complaint) and the organic way his path goes from halting to hurt to harmful. Like a flawless four frame epic, Andrew appears destined to be the damaged god who gives way to a supervillain, and who better to be his adversary than his reluctant champion cousin. All throughout Chronicle, we watch as things build to a head between the trio. Even better, the ending delivers the kind of rock 'em, sock 'em payoff the premise promises. Few films of this type even come close (we're looking at you, The Devil Inside).
But this is more than just a stunt well done. Chronicle will resonate with anyone who felt/feels high school is nothing more than a melting pot of socially mandated misery, where the populars pick on the nerds because...well, because it's somehow an acceptable part of the whole "growing up" ideal. In this case, however, Andrew and his friends learn that a little cosmic comeuppance can make homeroom a bit easier to handle -- until the pain becomes real. As entertaining as it is inventive, Chronicle is a minor masterwork.
Safe House Review
Midway through Denzel Washington’s latest thriller, his character – rogue CIA operative Tobin Frost – is described as “the black Dorian Gray”. And it’s true: the 57-year-old really doesn’t look much different from when he got his first Oscar nod 25 years ago for playing Steve Biko in Cry Freedom.
Though set in South Africa, the 1987 film had to be shot elsewhere due to opposition from the country’s Apartheid regime.
This time, the double Oscar winner finally makes it to Cape Town, thanks to Swedish director Daniel Espinosa, a script by David Guggenheim plucked off the infamous “black list” of unproduced screenplays and the collapse of a shameful system DW can claim a small part in consigning to history.
Safe House’s arresting locales – vividly captured by Bourne lenser Oliver Wood – are enough to make Espinosa’s follow-up to his well-liked, if under-seen, Easy Money (aka Snabba Cash) seem striking and singular.
The irony is the city’s vivacity is largely lost on Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), a low-level CIA “housekeeper” at one of its many secure locations who spends most of his time alone, bored and staring at walls.
That all changes when Frost – on the lam from gun-toting bad guys pursuing intel he has obtained from MI6 spook Liam Cunningham – strolls into the local US consulate requesting asylum.
This brings him into Matt’s orbit, his safe house the natural place for the renegade spy to be interned, interrogated and gently tortured by Robert Patrick’s grizzled veteran.
Feel the noise
Or it would be, if it wasn’t promptly raided by Tobin’s pursuers in the first of numerous noisy set-pieces. (Espinosa loves the sound of heavy artillery in confined spaces.)
Several stiffs later and Safe House is where it needs to be: on the townships streets, with Reynolds forced to play reluctant nursemaid to Washington as he tries to work out who’s trying to kill them and whether he should ever tell French girlfriend Nora Arnezeder (Paris 36) what he really does for a living.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Washington required to play a seasoned mentor to a callow rookie (see also Training Day, Unstoppable and The Bone Collector) and, thanks to Man On Fire, Déjà Vu and a few other movies that weren’t directed by Tony Scott, he’s also had much experience in ass-kicking, pistol-packing and other staples of high-octane action cinema.
But if there is ever a sense here that he’s simply marking time until the next personal pet project or sold-out Broadway run, it’s more than made up for by the effortless self-confidence and commanding brio he brings to the material.
It’s nice, too, to see him flirting with villainy again, Frost being a thoroughly enigmatic customer whose motivations – beyond giving his minder the slip whenever the opportunity arises – are never made clear. With a tad more humour this could easily have been a Southern Hemisphere Midnight Run.
Strangely, though, Reynolds dials down his customary insouciance as the earnest novice, projecting a nervy, sweaty desperation throughout that makes us ponder why he ever thought espionage was a suitable career.
Given how much the film depends on the cat-and-mouse relationship between its leads and the grudging respect they come to have for each other, it’s a shame they couldn’t have been more evenly matched.
Yet the supporting actors help to make up the shortfall, Brendan Gleeson, Vera Farmiga and Sam Shepard popping up at various stages as Ryan’s CIA higher-ups and Rubén Blades turning in an affecting cameo as a forger friend of Washington’s who now puts family ahead of black ops.
Talk of the Town
Cape Town itself provides an unfamiliar setting that generously serves up a variety of arenas for mayhem.
An early car chase on its bustling thoroughfares is matched later by an electric stand-off at a packed Green Point stadium, while the corrugated roofs of the sprawling Langa shanty town prove ideal for jumping on and off during a frantic foot pursuit.
From the guttural Afrikaans Reynolds fleetingly adopts to the vuvuzela cacophony that accompanies the soccer stadium scenes, there’s a distinct aural texture that makes Safe House feel fresher than average.
All that’s missing is an indigenous castmember, Espinosa spurning the chance to bring a native talent to the fore, like District 9 did with Sharlto Copley.
“I like games!” grins Denzel at one point, which is handy given this basically amounts to an extended bout of hide-and-seek. Yet if we never feel that there’s much at stake, that doesn’t prevent Safe House being a solid property built on firm foundations that’s worth a visit if you’re in the area.
Though set in South Africa, the 1987 film had to be shot elsewhere due to opposition from the country’s Apartheid regime.
This time, the double Oscar winner finally makes it to Cape Town, thanks to Swedish director Daniel Espinosa, a script by David Guggenheim plucked off the infamous “black list” of unproduced screenplays and the collapse of a shameful system DW can claim a small part in consigning to history.
Safe House’s arresting locales – vividly captured by Bourne lenser Oliver Wood – are enough to make Espinosa’s follow-up to his well-liked, if under-seen, Easy Money (aka Snabba Cash) seem striking and singular.
The irony is the city’s vivacity is largely lost on Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), a low-level CIA “housekeeper” at one of its many secure locations who spends most of his time alone, bored and staring at walls.
That all changes when Frost – on the lam from gun-toting bad guys pursuing intel he has obtained from MI6 spook Liam Cunningham – strolls into the local US consulate requesting asylum.
This brings him into Matt’s orbit, his safe house the natural place for the renegade spy to be interned, interrogated and gently tortured by Robert Patrick’s grizzled veteran.
Feel the noise
Or it would be, if it wasn’t promptly raided by Tobin’s pursuers in the first of numerous noisy set-pieces. (Espinosa loves the sound of heavy artillery in confined spaces.)
Several stiffs later and Safe House is where it needs to be: on the townships streets, with Reynolds forced to play reluctant nursemaid to Washington as he tries to work out who’s trying to kill them and whether he should ever tell French girlfriend Nora Arnezeder (Paris 36) what he really does for a living.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Washington required to play a seasoned mentor to a callow rookie (see also Training Day, Unstoppable and The Bone Collector) and, thanks to Man On Fire, Déjà Vu and a few other movies that weren’t directed by Tony Scott, he’s also had much experience in ass-kicking, pistol-packing and other staples of high-octane action cinema.
But if there is ever a sense here that he’s simply marking time until the next personal pet project or sold-out Broadway run, it’s more than made up for by the effortless self-confidence and commanding brio he brings to the material.
It’s nice, too, to see him flirting with villainy again, Frost being a thoroughly enigmatic customer whose motivations – beyond giving his minder the slip whenever the opportunity arises – are never made clear. With a tad more humour this could easily have been a Southern Hemisphere Midnight Run.
Strangely, though, Reynolds dials down his customary insouciance as the earnest novice, projecting a nervy, sweaty desperation throughout that makes us ponder why he ever thought espionage was a suitable career.
Given how much the film depends on the cat-and-mouse relationship between its leads and the grudging respect they come to have for each other, it’s a shame they couldn’t have been more evenly matched.
Yet the supporting actors help to make up the shortfall, Brendan Gleeson, Vera Farmiga and Sam Shepard popping up at various stages as Ryan’s CIA higher-ups and Rubén Blades turning in an affecting cameo as a forger friend of Washington’s who now puts family ahead of black ops.
Talk of the Town
Cape Town itself provides an unfamiliar setting that generously serves up a variety of arenas for mayhem.
An early car chase on its bustling thoroughfares is matched later by an electric stand-off at a packed Green Point stadium, while the corrugated roofs of the sprawling Langa shanty town prove ideal for jumping on and off during a frantic foot pursuit.
From the guttural Afrikaans Reynolds fleetingly adopts to the vuvuzela cacophony that accompanies the soccer stadium scenes, there’s a distinct aural texture that makes Safe House feel fresher than average.
All that’s missing is an indigenous castmember, Espinosa spurning the chance to bring a native talent to the fore, like District 9 did with Sharlto Copley.
“I like games!” grins Denzel at one point, which is handy given this basically amounts to an extended bout of hide-and-seek. Yet if we never feel that there’s much at stake, that doesn’t prevent Safe House being a solid property built on firm foundations that’s worth a visit if you’re in the area.
Verdict:
Bring earplugs and you’ll enjoy an efficient vehicle for Denzel that makes good use of its South African scenery. Espinosa nimbly combines flash with Paul Greengrass-style flair.
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