Imitation, Mohandas Gandhi said, is the sincerest form of flattery. The ghost of Sam Peckinpah would be flattered by the new tricks that “Deterrence” writer & director Rod Lurie has taught the old “Straw Dogs” for contemporary audiences. Although it isn’t a carbon copy of the volatile 1971 melodrama, the new “Straw Dogs” (*** out of ****) replicates the original in many respects. Mind you, nobody could set aside Peckinpah’s gritty epic which still sparks controversy for its misogynistic sexual politics for feminists. Nevertheless, Lurie’s politically-correct remake polishes off the rough edges and makes everything objectionable in this frightening story palatable. In the process, he sacrifices some of the ambiguity that made Peckinpah’s messy masterpiece a more memorable movie. Naturally, the new “Straw Dogs” lacks the rabid ferocity of the Peckinpah picture. Nevertheless, the original and the remake both wound up with an R-rating for violence, sexuality, nudity, and profane language. Like the original, the remake features a vicious rape sequence, but Lurie depicts the assault with virtually no nudity. Specifically, the heroine’s private parts are not displayed. What may sicken some otherwise stout-hearted spectators more than the man versus man violence is the mysterious strangulation death of a white cat. Yes, the original had a similar scene where our protagonists found their pet cat dangling from their closet light cord. Otherwise, the new “Straw Dogs” boasts a gripping story, interesting characters, and some surprises that ought to keep audiences guessing throughout this unsavory saga. Along the way, Lurie has implemented some alterations. First, he shifted the setting to rural Mississippi and takes advantage of the tradition of southern violence. One of the few problems with the original was the lack of familiarity with the English setting. Hollywood has not made as many movies about sadistic English vigilantes as it has about xenophobic Mississippi racists. Second, the hero is a film scenarist rather than an astrophysicist. Third, the mentally handicapped supporting character is not as unsavory. Fourth, David and Amy have a stronger marriage. At the end of Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs,” the husband abandoned the wife because she had betrayed him during the home invasion.
Hollywood scenarist David Sumner (James Marsden of “X-Men”) and his gorgeous young wife Amy (Kate Bosworth of “Blue Crush”) return to her hometown of Blackwater, Mississippi. Sumner has to pen a screenplay about the landmark twentieth century battle of Stalingrad, one of the turning points of World War II, and he wants to write it in the bucolic backwoods of the south. David and Amy met during a television series that he wrote for her, but the show has been canceled. Unfortunately, the Harvard educated David isn’t prepared for the reception that he encounters. Essentially, David is a fish-out-of-water. Not only does he discover that his debit card is worthless, but he doesn’t share the same relish for fried pickles as a delicacy that Amy’s friends do. One of Amy’s friends, Charlie (Alexander Skarsgård of HBO’s “True Blood”), wants to resume their former relationship as lovers. She was a cheerleader, and Charlie was the star football quarterback under the guidance of old school coach Tom Heddon (James Woods of “Ghosts of Mississippi”) who made his players grovel. When he meets Charlie at the local watering hole, David makes the mistake of hiring Charlie and his redneck hillbilly pals to rebuild a garage on Amy’s property that Hurricane Katrina ravaged.
Charlie and his pals start work too early for David and things deteriorate from that point. One of Charlie’s crew, Bic (Drew Powell of “The Marine”), ambles into Amy’s house without an invitation and helps himself to a beer from the fridge. Amy thinks coming home is a vacation, but David is serious about his work. Amy aggravates matters when she jogs around the property without a bra. She reminds David that she dresses for him and he reminds her that he knows what she looks like without a bra. Meantime, Charlie interprets Amy’s behavior as solicitation, and he invites David—who knows little about firearms—to join them for a hunt. Charlie slips away and rapes Amy while David is occupied in the woods. Later, one of the town citizens, a mentally challenged man, Henry Niles (Dominic Purcell of “Prison Break”), accidentally kills Tom Heddon’s daughter. All chaos breaks loose. David shields Niles from a vengeful Heddon who demands that David relinquish him. Heddon persuades Charlie and his friends to help him storm the farmhouse and take Niles. Suffice to say; what ensues isn’t a picnic for anybody.
Lurie has done a splendid job of fleshing out the heroes and villains in a different locale. He lets the antagonism smolder, and then he orchestrates a savage finale where our hero takes no prisoners. One weapon that our hero wields was not available to the English yahoos who assaulted Dustin Hoffman. James Marsden wields an automatic nail gun with devastating results. Similarly, the English yahoos didn’t smash through the farmhouse with a pick-up truck. Comparatively, the Englishmen were armed with only one shotgun rather than an arsenal of high-powered hunting rifles. Marsden plays a different kind of nerd from the Hoffman hero. Lurie rewrote the Kate Bosworth damsel-in-distress role so that she possesses more maturity than Susan George’s petulant Lolita-like wife. Unlike the Hoffman-George marriage that strained credibility, everything about the Marsden-Bosworth union seems believable. As a couple, their characters seem far more compatible. We are told more about their back story than Peckinpah revealed about the Hoffman-George marriage. Meantime, Alexander Skarsgård and James Woods emerge as stronger villains than Peter Vaughn and Del Henney in the original. While the film relied on Gordon Williams’ novel “The Siege of Trencher’s Farm” for its source material, Lurie derived most of his inspiration from the David Zelag Goodman & Sam Peckinpah script. Lurie lifted several lines straight from the original, though he left out Hoffman’s memorable line: “I will not allow violence against this house!” For the record, although the action occurs in Mississippi, the filmmakers lensed the story in Shreveport, Louisiana. Nevertheless, as remakes rate, “Straw Dogs” qualifies as a breed apart.
CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
A FILM REVIEW OF "STRAW DOGS" (1971)
Controversial filmmaker Sam Peckinpah forsook his traditional Old West setting for his sixth film "Straw Dogs" (***1/2 out of ****) to show how the most harmless milquetoast in the twentieth century could metamorphose into a man of extreme violence. Basically, Peckinpah explores the theme of survival of the fittest. British author Gordon Williams' novel "The Siege at the Trencher's Farm" served as the literary source. According to Peckinpah biographer David Weddle," Peckinpah did not like the Williams title so he changed it to "Straw Dogs." The Peckinpah title came from a quote in Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu's "The Book of 5,0000 Characters." The passage that Peckinpah cited was: "Heaven and Earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs: the sage is ruthless and treated the people as straw dogs. ... Is not the space between Heaven and Earth like a bellows?" According to Marshal Fine and Garner Simmons in their respective Peckinpah biographies "Blood Sam" and "Peckinpah: A Portrait in Montage," actor Walter Kelly gave the director Tzu's quote. More than just the title changed as the filmmakers adapted the Williams novel. Initially, wrote Simmons, "Logan's Run" scenarist David Zelag Goodman penned two early drafts of the script. Goodman told Simmons about some of the differences between the novel and the film. Two of the minor changes concerned the protagonist; George Magruder was an English professor in the novel rather than an astrophysicist like David Sumner. The biggest change, however, was that no rape occurred in the novel. Furthermore, according to Simmons, Williams distanced himself from “Straw Dogs” because he hated Peckinpah's use of sex, not violence. Sex emerges as the stimulus for the conflict since two females in “Straw Dogs” are such nymphs that they are prepared to die for it.
Wimpy American mathematician David Sumner (a bespectacled Dustin Hoffman of "The Graduate") settles on a sabbatical in serene Cornwall, England, far away from the violence and unrest raging in America so he can work on a grant. When the villagers ask him if he has witnessed any of the turmoil in America, David replies that he only glimpsed the violence between the commercials on television. David's cryptic response and his subtle indictment of the media speaks volumes. The rustic British hamlet, where "Straw Dogs" takes place, was the hometown of David’s promiscuous wife Amy (Susan George of "Lola"), and their marriage appears to be deteriorating because his Lolita-type spouse wants him to pay more attention to her than the work with his equations on a blackboard in his study. Simmons quotes Hoffman who wasn't entirely sold on either the casting of Susan George as well as the notion that David would have wed such a selfish, shallow-minded dame. Indeed, the first time that we see Amy, she is traipsing through the village with no bra with an adolescent boy and girl following in her footsteps toting what appears to be huge steel-jawed animal trap. Apparently, Amy bought the trap as a birthday gift for her husband. Amy excites the locals with her no-bra-look. As it turns out, one of these locals is none other than her old boyfriend Charlie Venner (Del Henney of "Brannigan") who Amy hasn't seen in six years. Charlie helps David load the man-trap into their convertible Triumph coupe. Ironically, Charlie will later on have a close encounter with the unwieldy contraption before fade-out. Moreover, Charlie foreshadows the use that the bear-trap is put to when he observes that it was designed to catch poachers.
David hires Charlie to help Norman Scutt (Ken Hutchison of "Ladyhawke") complete the work on the roof of his garage on the basis that he knows Amy. What David has no way of knowing is that Amy and Charlie have a history as a couple. When Charlie makes a pass at Amy in the village, Amy deflects his advances, little knowing that David is watching them from the pub where he went to buy cigarettes. Meantime, these ruffians are more intent on watching Amy parade around bare-chested than perform their chores. At one point, Amy appears bare-chested so that they can see her and then she complains to David about how they practically licked her body. David's response is to acknowledge their good taste in women. Simultaneously, the locals are not sure about how to deal with David. They aren't too excited by David's preppy look, his white tennis shoes, and his glasses. Peckinpah makes a point of showing David's wardrobe from the perspective of one of the villagers. Of course, the local constable, Major John Scott (T.P. McKenna of "Red Scorpion"), and the Reverend Barney Hood (Colin Welland of "Villain"), treat David with kindness, but rough-hewn Tom Hedden (Peter Vaughan of "The Mackintosh Man") and his relatives reserve nothing but contempt for him. Eventually, Tom's evil relatives and their friends take David on a duck hunting trip. Basically, the hunt amounts to a snipe hunt, such as in the classic Robert Mitchum movie "Home from the Hill," and they abandon him in the wilderness. During this subterfuge, Charlie and his mate, ex-convict Norman rape Amy. Earlier, Chris Cawsey (Jim Norton of "Hidden Agenda") stole a pair of Amy's panties and flaunted them like a trophy in front of Norman. Norman observed that he had no use for her panties. Instead, he preferred to have what was in them. First, Charlie rapes Amy in a lovingly tender fashion. Second, Amy looks like she is enjoying the experience. This is the part of "Straw Dogs" that outraged feminists. Later, when Norman gets his hands on Amy, Norman shares none of Charlie's tender sentiments. A conflicted Charlie finds himself holding down Amy so Norman can sodomize Amy while she shrieks in agony. Amy doesn’t forget the humiliation of being raped and suffers through it flashbacks during the church party. Meantime, a simpleton, Henry Niles (David Warner of "The Omen") arouses trouble because he was not jailed for a sex crime. Charlie mentioned to Amy that they take care of their own, and Henry is allowed to roam the streets as long as he stays out of trouble. Nevertheless, Henry is seen playing with the children at different times during the action. Everything comes to a head during the church party when Tom's slutty daughter Janice Hedden (Sally Thomsett of "Baxter!") tries to take advantage of Henry after David wants nothing to do with her. Repeatedly, Tom has warned Henry's brother John Niles (Peter Arne of “The Pink Panther”) to keep an eye on his slow-witted brother. Says Tom, "Your brother; been hangin' around the girls again. You'd better keep a closer watch or we'll be puttin' him away!" This subplot is part of the narrative that Peckinpah and Goodman never provide much clarification about so that we know what Henry did that made him emerge as a threat to Tom.
The simple-minded Henry and Janice retire to a barn for their assignation. Clearly, poor Janice doesn’t realize that she is playing with fire. Henry kills her in a scene straight out of "Of Mice and Men" with a conspicuous lack of remorse. Later, on their way home from the church party, David collides with Henry because the road is shrouded in fog. Amy isn’t happy with David because he brings the injured Henry into their house. A drunken Tom and his mates show up at David's house and demand that he hand over Henry. David refuses and chaos ensues. When Major Scott tries to intervene, Tom kills him by accident and things degenerate into chaos. Amy wants David to hand over Henry to Tom and company, but our hero refuses. At the same time, he tries to maintain his nonviolence, but Tom and company sorely try him until he retaliates. David warns them in no uncertain terms. He says, "I will not allow violence against this house." By the time that the dust settles, Tom Hedden has blasted his own foot off with his shotgun. Charlie winds up killing Norman with Tom's shotgun, and Charlie stumbles into the man-trap as he is giving David a thorough thrashing. Indeed, everybody but David, Amy, and Henry survive this nightmarish fracas. Dustin Hoffman delivers a dynamic performance as a meek, mild-mannered man who achieves manhood during a baptism by fire. Peter Vaughn makes a nefarious villain. Vaughn's scene in the pub when David runs into him for the first time foreshadows Tom Hedden's sadism.
Several scenes stand out individually. First, Peter Vaughan's scene in the pub when he calls for another pint before the pub closes and then raises hell until he gets it sets him up as the chief thug. He doesn’t like David Sumner for the first moment that he sees him. The next interesting scene occurs when David careens in his Triumph between a truck and a bull dozer as the two approach each other. The villagers driving the truck flag David to pass them but then they accelerate so that he has to step on the gas to avoid hitting the bulldozer. Momentary though it is, this scene is exciting. Repeatedly, throughout the action, the villagers test David’s mettle. Peckinpah orchestrates the final quarter-hour for maximum suspense and tension. At this point, Peckinpah has established who the thugs are and their agenda. David has emerged as an individual who goes out of the way to avoid violence. When Tom and his mates launch their home invasion, David finds himself in a corner with his irritating wife goading him on to retaliate. The bloodiest that "Straw Dogs" gets is when a lout blows his foot to smithereens with his own double-barreled shotgun. Peckinpah foreshadows the use of a giant steel mantrap and his use of violence is still grisly but it seems toned-down but realistic compared with his classic western "The Wild Bunch." The ambiguous ending will prompt many interpretations. As David is driving the retarded Niles home, Niles says, "I don't know my way home." David replies, "That's okay, neither do I."
In some ways, "Straw Dogs" is reminiscent of those western movies where vigilantes storm a jail, abduct a prisoner from a lawman powerless to thwart them, and then lynch him. Watching Dustin Hoffman miraculously outsmart these five dastards makes this movie a sight to behold. Unfortunately, despite its lyricism, “Straw Dogs” was not a major Hollywood hit. Nevertheless, it showed that Peckinpah could make more than just westerns.
Wimpy American mathematician David Sumner (a bespectacled Dustin Hoffman of "The Graduate") settles on a sabbatical in serene Cornwall, England, far away from the violence and unrest raging in America so he can work on a grant. When the villagers ask him if he has witnessed any of the turmoil in America, David replies that he only glimpsed the violence between the commercials on television. David's cryptic response and his subtle indictment of the media speaks volumes. The rustic British hamlet, where "Straw Dogs" takes place, was the hometown of David’s promiscuous wife Amy (Susan George of "Lola"), and their marriage appears to be deteriorating because his Lolita-type spouse wants him to pay more attention to her than the work with his equations on a blackboard in his study. Simmons quotes Hoffman who wasn't entirely sold on either the casting of Susan George as well as the notion that David would have wed such a selfish, shallow-minded dame. Indeed, the first time that we see Amy, she is traipsing through the village with no bra with an adolescent boy and girl following in her footsteps toting what appears to be huge steel-jawed animal trap. Apparently, Amy bought the trap as a birthday gift for her husband. Amy excites the locals with her no-bra-look. As it turns out, one of these locals is none other than her old boyfriend Charlie Venner (Del Henney of "Brannigan") who Amy hasn't seen in six years. Charlie helps David load the man-trap into their convertible Triumph coupe. Ironically, Charlie will later on have a close encounter with the unwieldy contraption before fade-out. Moreover, Charlie foreshadows the use that the bear-trap is put to when he observes that it was designed to catch poachers.
David hires Charlie to help Norman Scutt (Ken Hutchison of "Ladyhawke") complete the work on the roof of his garage on the basis that he knows Amy. What David has no way of knowing is that Amy and Charlie have a history as a couple. When Charlie makes a pass at Amy in the village, Amy deflects his advances, little knowing that David is watching them from the pub where he went to buy cigarettes. Meantime, these ruffians are more intent on watching Amy parade around bare-chested than perform their chores. At one point, Amy appears bare-chested so that they can see her and then she complains to David about how they practically licked her body. David's response is to acknowledge their good taste in women. Simultaneously, the locals are not sure about how to deal with David. They aren't too excited by David's preppy look, his white tennis shoes, and his glasses. Peckinpah makes a point of showing David's wardrobe from the perspective of one of the villagers. Of course, the local constable, Major John Scott (T.P. McKenna of "Red Scorpion"), and the Reverend Barney Hood (Colin Welland of "Villain"), treat David with kindness, but rough-hewn Tom Hedden (Peter Vaughan of "The Mackintosh Man") and his relatives reserve nothing but contempt for him. Eventually, Tom's evil relatives and their friends take David on a duck hunting trip. Basically, the hunt amounts to a snipe hunt, such as in the classic Robert Mitchum movie "Home from the Hill," and they abandon him in the wilderness. During this subterfuge, Charlie and his mate, ex-convict Norman rape Amy. Earlier, Chris Cawsey (Jim Norton of "Hidden Agenda") stole a pair of Amy's panties and flaunted them like a trophy in front of Norman. Norman observed that he had no use for her panties. Instead, he preferred to have what was in them. First, Charlie rapes Amy in a lovingly tender fashion. Second, Amy looks like she is enjoying the experience. This is the part of "Straw Dogs" that outraged feminists. Later, when Norman gets his hands on Amy, Norman shares none of Charlie's tender sentiments. A conflicted Charlie finds himself holding down Amy so Norman can sodomize Amy while she shrieks in agony. Amy doesn’t forget the humiliation of being raped and suffers through it flashbacks during the church party. Meantime, a simpleton, Henry Niles (David Warner of "The Omen") arouses trouble because he was not jailed for a sex crime. Charlie mentioned to Amy that they take care of their own, and Henry is allowed to roam the streets as long as he stays out of trouble. Nevertheless, Henry is seen playing with the children at different times during the action. Everything comes to a head during the church party when Tom's slutty daughter Janice Hedden (Sally Thomsett of "Baxter!") tries to take advantage of Henry after David wants nothing to do with her. Repeatedly, Tom has warned Henry's brother John Niles (Peter Arne of “The Pink Panther”) to keep an eye on his slow-witted brother. Says Tom, "Your brother; been hangin' around the girls again. You'd better keep a closer watch or we'll be puttin' him away!" This subplot is part of the narrative that Peckinpah and Goodman never provide much clarification about so that we know what Henry did that made him emerge as a threat to Tom.
The simple-minded Henry and Janice retire to a barn for their assignation. Clearly, poor Janice doesn’t realize that she is playing with fire. Henry kills her in a scene straight out of "Of Mice and Men" with a conspicuous lack of remorse. Later, on their way home from the church party, David collides with Henry because the road is shrouded in fog. Amy isn’t happy with David because he brings the injured Henry into their house. A drunken Tom and his mates show up at David's house and demand that he hand over Henry. David refuses and chaos ensues. When Major Scott tries to intervene, Tom kills him by accident and things degenerate into chaos. Amy wants David to hand over Henry to Tom and company, but our hero refuses. At the same time, he tries to maintain his nonviolence, but Tom and company sorely try him until he retaliates. David warns them in no uncertain terms. He says, "I will not allow violence against this house." By the time that the dust settles, Tom Hedden has blasted his own foot off with his shotgun. Charlie winds up killing Norman with Tom's shotgun, and Charlie stumbles into the man-trap as he is giving David a thorough thrashing. Indeed, everybody but David, Amy, and Henry survive this nightmarish fracas. Dustin Hoffman delivers a dynamic performance as a meek, mild-mannered man who achieves manhood during a baptism by fire. Peter Vaughn makes a nefarious villain. Vaughn's scene in the pub when David runs into him for the first time foreshadows Tom Hedden's sadism.
Several scenes stand out individually. First, Peter Vaughan's scene in the pub when he calls for another pint before the pub closes and then raises hell until he gets it sets him up as the chief thug. He doesn’t like David Sumner for the first moment that he sees him. The next interesting scene occurs when David careens in his Triumph between a truck and a bull dozer as the two approach each other. The villagers driving the truck flag David to pass them but then they accelerate so that he has to step on the gas to avoid hitting the bulldozer. Momentary though it is, this scene is exciting. Repeatedly, throughout the action, the villagers test David’s mettle. Peckinpah orchestrates the final quarter-hour for maximum suspense and tension. At this point, Peckinpah has established who the thugs are and their agenda. David has emerged as an individual who goes out of the way to avoid violence. When Tom and his mates launch their home invasion, David finds himself in a corner with his irritating wife goading him on to retaliate. The bloodiest that "Straw Dogs" gets is when a lout blows his foot to smithereens with his own double-barreled shotgun. Peckinpah foreshadows the use of a giant steel mantrap and his use of violence is still grisly but it seems toned-down but realistic compared with his classic western "The Wild Bunch." The ambiguous ending will prompt many interpretations. As David is driving the retarded Niles home, Niles says, "I don't know my way home." David replies, "That's okay, neither do I."
In some ways, "Straw Dogs" is reminiscent of those western movies where vigilantes storm a jail, abduct a prisoner from a lawman powerless to thwart them, and then lynch him. Watching Dustin Hoffman miraculously outsmart these five dastards makes this movie a sight to behold. Unfortunately, despite its lyricism, “Straw Dogs” was not a major Hollywood hit. Nevertheless, it showed that Peckinpah could make more than just westerns.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
FILM REVIEW OF "CONTAGION" (2011)
Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Elliot Gould, Sanaa Lathan, and Jennifer Ehle all contend with a mysterious global virus in "Traffic" director Steven Soderbergh's nimble global disease thriller "Contagion" (*** out of ****) that Gwyneth Paltrow precipitates. Mind you, "Contagion" is nothing like director Wolfgang Petersen's germ warfare thriller "Outbreak"(1995) with Dustin Hoffman. Soderbergh and "Bourne Ultimatum" scribe Scott Z. Brown maintain an impersonal rather than a glamorous tone as this international medical procedural maps the spread of a pandemic which can kill an individual in three days. Researchers christen the virus, MEV-1, and stare in horror as the virus wraps its lethal tentacles around the globe, killing one in every four people and terrifying everybody else. Not long after the viral outbreak, people become leery of mingling in public. The policemen and hospital workers strike. Society and the rules which govern it collapse, and pandemonium engulfs everyone. Indeed, Soderbergh has assembled an impressive celebrity cast, but limits their presence throughout the matter-of-fact 105 minutes so nobody stands out like in his "Ocean's" franchise. The characters belong to one of three groups: first, the field agents who encounter the disease first hand; second, those behind the scenes who struggle to develop a vaccine; and the administrators who must control the hysteria. Unfortunately, despite his admiral efforts to give "Contagion” a documentary flavor like the classic 1965 "Battle of Algiers," Soderbergh sacrifices the usual Hollywood heroics which would make the action appear charismatic. Doctors and researchers disobey their superiors and take chances that they are ordered not to take. Predictably, mankind survives but the pandemic takes the world to the brink. Watching "Contagion" is like watching the anatomy of a disaster on Public Television. You will exit “Contagion” knowing that you touch your face 2-thousand times a day. When you aren’t touching your face, you are touching something else or somebody else who may be infected with germs. Inevitably, as liberal-minded as Soderbergh is, "Contagion" boils down to a cautionary yarn about tampering with Mother Nature. While the Asians play a major role in the virus, the virus come about as the result of an American corporation that destroys the wilderness with no thought about the consequences. You might not want to dine out at an Asian restaurant after you watch this atmospheric thriller.
“Contagion” opens during the second day that the pandemic has spread. Traveling business executive Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow of “Country Strong”) has attended a groundbreaking for a new factory in Hong Kong. Afterward, she celebrates with several colleagues at a casino in Macau. What poor Beth has no way of knowing is that she has become infected with a virus that came about as a result of the construction of a new factory. The company bulldozers drove huge bats out of their nesting area, and the bats relocated to a swine farm where they infect the pigs with their guano. Beth flies back to the U.S. and squeezes in enough time for an extra-marital fling in Chicago before she goes home to her dutiful husband Mitch (Matt Damon of “Hereafter”) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Meanwhile, other people that Beth came into contact with in Hong Kong are dropping like flies. A waiter collapses, and one of Beth’s colleagues dies aboard a commuter train in Japan. Initially, when Beth left the casino bar, she forgot her drink. A Ukrainian woman hands Beth her cell phone that Beth had forgotten. The woman is found dead in her motel room later by motel authorities. Eventually, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, investigate and suspect that Beth is patient zero for the epidemic. Meantime, things worsen for Mitch when his elementary school age son Clark (newcomer Griffin Kane) dies from the virus, too. Incredibly, Mitch learns that he is immune from the disease and he takes his daughter Joy (first-time actress Anna Jacoby-Heron) out of school and refuses to let her boyfriend visit her for fear that he may contaminate her.
In Atlanta, Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne of “The Matrix”) sends Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet of “Titanic”), an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to fly to Minneapolis to supervise the investigation. Meantime, the World Health Organization in Geneva dispatches its top epidemiologist Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard of “Inception”) to China to search for the origins of the disease. Not long afterward Mears comes down with the virus via infected motel workers. A brilliant civilian scientist, Professor Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould of “Ocean’s Eleven”), at Stanford becomes the first to create the virus in his laboratory, while one of Cheever’s own CDC staff physicians Dr. Ally Hextall (two-time Tony-winner Jennifer Ehle of “The Adjustment Bureau”), concocts a vaccine by experimenting on herself rather than waiting. Ironically, both Sussman and Hextall achieve their discoveries because they violate CDC policy. They discover that the disease contains genetic elements from bat and swine viruses. At this point, virtually everybody around the world is wearing a mask for safety’s sake. Cheever confides in his wife that she must leave Chicago and come to Washington. Thieves break into Cheever’s home and threaten his wife Aubrey Cheever (Sanaa Latham of “Love and Basketball”) while they ransack the premises vainly for the vaccine. The CDC establishes a lottery to determine who gets the first vaccine shots. Throughout this global crisis, a lone-wolf journalist, Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law of “Cold Mountain”) who believes in criminal conspiracies has been blogging about the disease. He claims that he came down with it and used another prescription drug to cure himself. Homeland Security officials eventually arrest him for spreading rumors.
Although Soderbergh and Burns do an exemplary job of covering all the points on the compass of the global pandemic, they end up giving their one-dimensional characters the short shrift, especially the WHO epidemiologist in China. We never get to know any of the characters beyond the glimpses that we are given. Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and Matt Damon fare better than Jude Law, Elliot Gould, and Marion Cotillard. Indeed, Soderbergh shows us the frightening logistics that complicate finding a cure for an unknown virus, but “Contagion” never generates any charisma.
“Contagion” opens during the second day that the pandemic has spread. Traveling business executive Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow of “Country Strong”) has attended a groundbreaking for a new factory in Hong Kong. Afterward, she celebrates with several colleagues at a casino in Macau. What poor Beth has no way of knowing is that she has become infected with a virus that came about as a result of the construction of a new factory. The company bulldozers drove huge bats out of their nesting area, and the bats relocated to a swine farm where they infect the pigs with their guano. Beth flies back to the U.S. and squeezes in enough time for an extra-marital fling in Chicago before she goes home to her dutiful husband Mitch (Matt Damon of “Hereafter”) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Meanwhile, other people that Beth came into contact with in Hong Kong are dropping like flies. A waiter collapses, and one of Beth’s colleagues dies aboard a commuter train in Japan. Initially, when Beth left the casino bar, she forgot her drink. A Ukrainian woman hands Beth her cell phone that Beth had forgotten. The woman is found dead in her motel room later by motel authorities. Eventually, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, investigate and suspect that Beth is patient zero for the epidemic. Meantime, things worsen for Mitch when his elementary school age son Clark (newcomer Griffin Kane) dies from the virus, too. Incredibly, Mitch learns that he is immune from the disease and he takes his daughter Joy (first-time actress Anna Jacoby-Heron) out of school and refuses to let her boyfriend visit her for fear that he may contaminate her.
In Atlanta, Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne of “The Matrix”) sends Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet of “Titanic”), an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to fly to Minneapolis to supervise the investigation. Meantime, the World Health Organization in Geneva dispatches its top epidemiologist Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard of “Inception”) to China to search for the origins of the disease. Not long afterward Mears comes down with the virus via infected motel workers. A brilliant civilian scientist, Professor Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould of “Ocean’s Eleven”), at Stanford becomes the first to create the virus in his laboratory, while one of Cheever’s own CDC staff physicians Dr. Ally Hextall (two-time Tony-winner Jennifer Ehle of “The Adjustment Bureau”), concocts a vaccine by experimenting on herself rather than waiting. Ironically, both Sussman and Hextall achieve their discoveries because they violate CDC policy. They discover that the disease contains genetic elements from bat and swine viruses. At this point, virtually everybody around the world is wearing a mask for safety’s sake. Cheever confides in his wife that she must leave Chicago and come to Washington. Thieves break into Cheever’s home and threaten his wife Aubrey Cheever (Sanaa Latham of “Love and Basketball”) while they ransack the premises vainly for the vaccine. The CDC establishes a lottery to determine who gets the first vaccine shots. Throughout this global crisis, a lone-wolf journalist, Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law of “Cold Mountain”) who believes in criminal conspiracies has been blogging about the disease. He claims that he came down with it and used another prescription drug to cure himself. Homeland Security officials eventually arrest him for spreading rumors.
Although Soderbergh and Burns do an exemplary job of covering all the points on the compass of the global pandemic, they end up giving their one-dimensional characters the short shrift, especially the WHO epidemiologist in China. We never get to know any of the characters beyond the glimpses that we are given. Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and Matt Damon fare better than Jude Law, Elliot Gould, and Marion Cotillard. Indeed, Soderbergh shows us the frightening logistics that complicate finding a cure for an unknown virus, but “Contagion” never generates any charisma.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
"SHARK NIGHT 3-D" (2011)
"Shark Night 3-D" (* out of ****) bites!
Unfortunately, "Snakes on a Plane" director David R. Ellis plays everything straight in "Shark Night 3-D." Meaning, you had better prepare yourself for clichés galore without a smirk in sight. This derivative, PG-13 rated, 91-minute, yarn concerns three stereotypical, mean-spirited rednecks who drool at the chance to feed stuck-up college kids to ravenous sharks of all sizes. Of course, most of the ocean's deadly predators prefer to prowl the briny blue, but these three rednecks own a stunning device that enables them to paralyze these predators, attach mini-cams to them, relocate them to a Louisiana salt-lake, and wait for them to start chomping. Furthermore, they plan to make big bucks by selling their shark snuff videos to die-hard “Shark Week” addicts after the real thing. Think of "Shark Night 3-D" as "Jaws" trying to meet “8MM." Everybody sports serious expressions because everything is serious. Nevertheless, everybody behaves like idiots, too. A one-armed college jock with a spear wades into a shark-infested lake with revenge in his heart. Hammerheads, threshers, cookie cutters and bull sharks assemble to make munch-meat of him. Sadly, not only are these sharks either digitally concocted or animatronic, but they also act like SyFy Channel sharks. These synthetic sharks swim with such speed that our heroes, when the latter have either a boat with an outboard motor or water bike at their disposal, cannot out leave them in their wake!
An academically challenged Tulane University athlete, Malik (Sinqa Walls of “Choose Connor”), makes a B+ on a test and no longer fears flunking out of college. Malik rewards his dutiful tutor, Nick (Dustin Milligan of “Final Destination 3”), along with Nick’s nerdy roommate Gordon (Joel David Moore of “Avatar”) to join his friends for a good time at a remote lakeside estate. The wealthy parents of Sara (Sara Paxton of “Superhero Movie”) own a beautiful cottage secluded on an island which a sprawling salt-water lake surrounds. Naturally, nobody with a cell phone can raise a signal at Lake Crosby. Furthermore, the nearest hospital lies about two hours away. Little do our recreationally minded heroes know the ill-fate which awaits them. Meantime, Malik tries to play Cupid and get Nick and Sara together. As Malik tells Nick, Sara has not been on a date in three years. Later we learn why. Anyway, Nick and Sara grow chummy and Nick winds up steering Sara’s launch. While Nick is playing admiral, he has show-off Malik at the end of a tether skiing around the lake on a board. Malik impresses everything with his incredible gymnastic feats. He loves to perform flips. Suddenly, Malik feels something ram his board, and he takes a tumble. A shark attacks Malik and tears off his right arm at the bicep. Our heroes bandage Malik and rush him to the hospital. Malik’s blood drips into the lake and another shark slams into the launch so that Malik’s soon-to-be wife, Maya (Alyssa Diaz of TV’s “Southland”), topples into the water and gets gobbled up. Later, Malik storms into the lake with a spear and accomplishes nothing, except dying. The two river rednecks, Sara's ex-boyfriend, Dennis (Chris Carmack of “Into the Blue 2: The Reef), and his sidekick, Red (Joshua Leonard of “Hatchet”), offer to help Sara and her friends. Beth is so sickened by the tragic turn of events that she wants to ride with Dennis and Red back to the mainland. Gordon refuses to let Beth travel alone with them. Before it is all over with heroic Nick has to tangle with Sara’s ex-boyfriend and a shark.
Basically, "Shark Night 3-D" amounts to a complicated but predictable revenge thriller with nothing to recommend it either as top-notch entertainment or so bad it’s good. Freshmen scenarists Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg neither do Ellis nor the audience any favors with their shallow screenplay that borrows extensively from other shark movies. Their dialogue is flat without any flair. The characters emerge as one-dimensional nitwits waiting for their moment to be eaten. Ellis deserves credit for keeping the action moving at a brisk pace. Nevertheless, he fails to generate any sympathy for our clueless heroes. The villains could be cousins of the rednecks in “Deliverance.” All of the ersatz shark attacks have been lensed before with greater realism in better movies. The 3-D delivers in only two scenes. The first involves an exploding boat flinging shrapnel, and the second shows a shark as its gory innards are blasted out of it. Considering the $28-million budget, you’d think they could have made more than one shark appear convincing. A bull shark does look supremely menacing in a scene straight out of the James Bond feature "License to Kill," but the rest look simulated and swim like torpedoes. Two sharks literally defy gravity by leaping out of the lake to chomp. A first girl caught alone in the lake is straight out of the original "Jaws" as well as the attack on a hapless skier is straight out of the "Jaws 2." If you want to watch a good shark thriller, and you cannot find "Jaws," then you might try "Deep Blue Sea" (1999), or the straight-to-video, outlandish "Shark Attack 3: Megalodon" (2002) and "Shark Swarm" (2008). The PG-13 rating rules out any chance of nudity, and the ability of sharks that can race through the water after speedboats eliminates any sense of credibility. Ellis generates a modicum of suspense when swimmers struggle to out-swim the sharks, but not enough to scare the daylights out of you.
"Shark Night 3-D" is munch-ado-about-gnaw-thing!
Unfortunately, "Snakes on a Plane" director David R. Ellis plays everything straight in "Shark Night 3-D." Meaning, you had better prepare yourself for clichés galore without a smirk in sight. This derivative, PG-13 rated, 91-minute, yarn concerns three stereotypical, mean-spirited rednecks who drool at the chance to feed stuck-up college kids to ravenous sharks of all sizes. Of course, most of the ocean's deadly predators prefer to prowl the briny blue, but these three rednecks own a stunning device that enables them to paralyze these predators, attach mini-cams to them, relocate them to a Louisiana salt-lake, and wait for them to start chomping. Furthermore, they plan to make big bucks by selling their shark snuff videos to die-hard “Shark Week” addicts after the real thing. Think of "Shark Night 3-D" as "Jaws" trying to meet “8MM." Everybody sports serious expressions because everything is serious. Nevertheless, everybody behaves like idiots, too. A one-armed college jock with a spear wades into a shark-infested lake with revenge in his heart. Hammerheads, threshers, cookie cutters and bull sharks assemble to make munch-meat of him. Sadly, not only are these sharks either digitally concocted or animatronic, but they also act like SyFy Channel sharks. These synthetic sharks swim with such speed that our heroes, when the latter have either a boat with an outboard motor or water bike at their disposal, cannot out leave them in their wake!
An academically challenged Tulane University athlete, Malik (Sinqa Walls of “Choose Connor”), makes a B+ on a test and no longer fears flunking out of college. Malik rewards his dutiful tutor, Nick (Dustin Milligan of “Final Destination 3”), along with Nick’s nerdy roommate Gordon (Joel David Moore of “Avatar”) to join his friends for a good time at a remote lakeside estate. The wealthy parents of Sara (Sara Paxton of “Superhero Movie”) own a beautiful cottage secluded on an island which a sprawling salt-water lake surrounds. Naturally, nobody with a cell phone can raise a signal at Lake Crosby. Furthermore, the nearest hospital lies about two hours away. Little do our recreationally minded heroes know the ill-fate which awaits them. Meantime, Malik tries to play Cupid and get Nick and Sara together. As Malik tells Nick, Sara has not been on a date in three years. Later we learn why. Anyway, Nick and Sara grow chummy and Nick winds up steering Sara’s launch. While Nick is playing admiral, he has show-off Malik at the end of a tether skiing around the lake on a board. Malik impresses everything with his incredible gymnastic feats. He loves to perform flips. Suddenly, Malik feels something ram his board, and he takes a tumble. A shark attacks Malik and tears off his right arm at the bicep. Our heroes bandage Malik and rush him to the hospital. Malik’s blood drips into the lake and another shark slams into the launch so that Malik’s soon-to-be wife, Maya (Alyssa Diaz of TV’s “Southland”), topples into the water and gets gobbled up. Later, Malik storms into the lake with a spear and accomplishes nothing, except dying. The two river rednecks, Sara's ex-boyfriend, Dennis (Chris Carmack of “Into the Blue 2: The Reef), and his sidekick, Red (Joshua Leonard of “Hatchet”), offer to help Sara and her friends. Beth is so sickened by the tragic turn of events that she wants to ride with Dennis and Red back to the mainland. Gordon refuses to let Beth travel alone with them. Before it is all over with heroic Nick has to tangle with Sara’s ex-boyfriend and a shark.
Basically, "Shark Night 3-D" amounts to a complicated but predictable revenge thriller with nothing to recommend it either as top-notch entertainment or so bad it’s good. Freshmen scenarists Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg neither do Ellis nor the audience any favors with their shallow screenplay that borrows extensively from other shark movies. Their dialogue is flat without any flair. The characters emerge as one-dimensional nitwits waiting for their moment to be eaten. Ellis deserves credit for keeping the action moving at a brisk pace. Nevertheless, he fails to generate any sympathy for our clueless heroes. The villains could be cousins of the rednecks in “Deliverance.” All of the ersatz shark attacks have been lensed before with greater realism in better movies. The 3-D delivers in only two scenes. The first involves an exploding boat flinging shrapnel, and the second shows a shark as its gory innards are blasted out of it. Considering the $28-million budget, you’d think they could have made more than one shark appear convincing. A bull shark does look supremely menacing in a scene straight out of the James Bond feature "License to Kill," but the rest look simulated and swim like torpedoes. Two sharks literally defy gravity by leaping out of the lake to chomp. A first girl caught alone in the lake is straight out of the original "Jaws" as well as the attack on a hapless skier is straight out of the "Jaws 2." If you want to watch a good shark thriller, and you cannot find "Jaws," then you might try "Deep Blue Sea" (1999), or the straight-to-video, outlandish "Shark Attack 3: Megalodon" (2002) and "Shark Swarm" (2008). The PG-13 rating rules out any chance of nudity, and the ability of sharks that can race through the water after speedboats eliminates any sense of credibility. Ellis generates a modicum of suspense when swimmers struggle to out-swim the sharks, but not enough to scare the daylights out of you.
"Shark Night 3-D" is munch-ado-about-gnaw-thing!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
FILM REVIEW OF ''COLOMBIANA" (2011)
French writer, producer, and director Luc Besson reinvented the killer chick flick genre back in 1990 with his stylist shoot’em up “La Femme Nikita.” Before “La Femme Nikita” illuminated screens, the best killer chick flicks came from a variety of directors, actresses, and genres. Low-budget, indie director Ted V. Mikels helmed “The Doll Squad” (1973) and “Ten Violent Women” (1982). African-American actress Pam Grier empowered women in such B-movie classics as “Big Doll House” (1971), “Coffy” (1973), “Foxy Brown” (1974), and “Friday Foster” (1975). In 1973, future Nancy Reagan astrologer Joyce Jillson starred in “Super Chick” as an airline attendant named Tara B. True who held a black belt in karate and thwarted a jet hijacking. Another African-American actress Tamara Dobson headlined “Cleopatra Jones” (1973) and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold” (1975). Most of these movies drew their inspiration from Asian actioneers where women wielded lethal weapons without a qualm, like “Female Demon Ohyaku” (1968), “Okatsu the Fugitive” (1969), “Quick-draw Okatsu” (1969), “Blind Woman's Curse” (1970) and “Lady Snowblood” (1971). At the same time, the Japanese produced the “Zero Woman” cycle of shoot’em ups in the Pinky Violence Collection featuring: “Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess” (1971) “Girl Boss Guerilla” (1972) , “Criminal Woman: Killing Melody” (1973), and "Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom" (1973). Before these Asian costume thrillers and the occasional American crime melodrama, like "The Violent Years," only denim-clad dames in horse opera such as “Johnny Guitar” (1954), “Two-Gun Lady” (1955), “Gunslinger” (1956), and “Forty Guns” (1957) were allowed to shoot and kill if the occasion required.
“La Femme Nikita” propelled the genre into the 1990s, but focused primarily on contemporary professional women armed to the hilt with modern firepower. Not-surprisingly, clones proliferated: “Tank Girl” (1995), “Cherry” (2000), “The Silencer” (2000), and “Thelma and Louise (1991). In “La Femme Nikita,” the eponymous anti-heroine was a convicted dame slated for execution who received a second chance at life if she performed executions for the government. Besson’s charismatic thriller starred newcomer Anne Parillaud and spawned a Hollywood remake, “Point of No Return” with Bridget Fonda as well as a Hong Kong version in director Stephen Shin's “Black Cat” (1991) and its sequel "Black Cat 2" (1997) with Jade Leung. Later, Besson made “The Professional” (1994) where an expert hit man, Jean Reno, taught a young girl, Natalie Portman, to how to kill the dastards who had murdered her parents. A cable television series “La Femme Nikita” with Peta Wilson followed; it aired from 1997 to 2001. In 2010, another version of “La Femme Nikita” hit the small screen with Maggie Q cast in “Nikita.”
Cleverly, Besson has recycled some of the best scenes from both “La Femme Nikita” and “The Professional” to make “Colombiana” (***1/2 out of ****), starring Zoe Saldana of "Avatar" as a sympathetic but indestructible female assassin. As one thug warns his companions, when Colombiana materializes, it is too late to take action and survive. Make no mistake; the filmmakers treat the theme of female empowerment in this seasoned but Spartan saga with few surprises but a surplus of sizzle. If you’ve seen either “La Femme Nikita” and/or “The Professional,” you can spot the inspiration for “Colombiana.” An early scene in “La Femme Nikita” depicts the heroine plunging a pencil into a policeman’s hand. Similarly, an early scene in “Colombiana” shows our young heroine stabbing a scumbag villain and pinning his hand to a table while she makes good her escape. No matter how derivative this suspenseful, high-octane, white-knuckled epic is, “Transporter 3” director Olivier Megaton compensates with picturesque staging, a cast with provocative faces, and atmospheric locales. "Colombiana" is grueling, gritty, with a lot of get-up-and-go.
Initially, “Colombiana” opens in Bogotá, Columbia, 1992. Ten-year old Cataleya Restrepo (newcomer Amanda Stenberg) watches as the henchmen of a Colombian crime cartel murder her mother and father. It seems that her father tries to retire from the syndicate. Treacherous Don Luis (Beto Benites of "Hermano") allows him to leave his heavily-guarded premises before he issues a contract. Luis’ right-hand man, Marco (Jordi Molla of “Blow”), tries to capture Cataleya because she possesses a microchip crammed with incriminating evidence that her father gave her as a bargaining chip for a passport. Cataleya's father tells her that the microchip is her passport to America. The agile girl leads the slimy Marco and his machine-gun toting mob on an adrenaline-laced foot chase through Bogotá. When she isn't scaling buildings, Cataleya crashes through flimsy roof-tops and recovers in the nick of time. Ultimately, she scrambles away from Marco and his army by diving into an underground sewer. The elusive Cataleya enters the United States, cuts a deal with the U.S. authorities, and hands them all the information on the Luis’ gang. Not long afterward, she escapes from U.S. authorities and catches a bus for Chicago, Illinois, to see her Uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis of “Training Day”) explore revenge as an option. When she meets Emilio, Cataleya confides in him that she once wanted to be a warrior princess like the TV heroine Xena. Now, she wants only to be a killer.
A criminal himself, Emilio lets the young girl sleep in his late son’s room. He trains her to be a contract assassin. In one great scene, Emilio explains that even contract assassins—if they plan to survive more than five years—must attend public school. Emilio assures her that he can make a top-notch assassin out of her, but she has got to have the intelligence level of a high school graduate. Besson and "Transporter" co-scripter Robert Mark Kamen fast-forward the plot 15 years later. Cataleya has become a svelte killing machine who loves to dress in skimpy clothing. She has discovered to her chagrin that the CIA has taken Don Luis into protective custody. Besson and Kamen make sure that nobody is too easy for their heroine. Nevertheless, the Central Intelligence Agency allows Luis to continue his business as usual. Neither the CIA nor the FBI, however, can thwart Cataleya when she goes into action against them.
This PG-13 rated, 108-minute epic boils down to a episodic narrative with Cataleya icing one individual at a time until she works her way down to Marco. After she kills a victim, our heroine uses lipstick to sketch a native South American orchid called 'cattleya' on the corpse's chest to remind Don Luis that he is her prime target. Actually, Cataleya was named after this flower. The elaborate hit that our heroine carries out in a high security jail resembles the kind of far-fetched antics that occur in Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible" franchise. The way that Cataleya lands behind bar to terminate her prey is blunt and to the point. When Cataleya isn’t dodging Don Luis’ trigger-happy henchmen, she must keep a step ahead of a tenacious FBI agent, Ross (Lennie James of “The Next Three Days”) who believes that a man is responsible for the murder rampage. Cataleya lets her romantic relationship with an artist, Danny (Michael Vartan of “Alias”), interfere with her plans. Danny has no clue about her line of work, until he exposes her quite by accident to the villains. The scene where the FBI and a SWAT team surround Cataleya’s safe house generates considerable tension.
“Colombiana” qualifies as an outlandish, audacious exercise in suspense and tension that benefits from Zoe Saldana’s gravity-defying performance and helmer Olivier Megaton’s slam-bang action scenes.
“La Femme Nikita” propelled the genre into the 1990s, but focused primarily on contemporary professional women armed to the hilt with modern firepower. Not-surprisingly, clones proliferated: “Tank Girl” (1995), “Cherry” (2000), “The Silencer” (2000), and “Thelma and Louise (1991). In “La Femme Nikita,” the eponymous anti-heroine was a convicted dame slated for execution who received a second chance at life if she performed executions for the government. Besson’s charismatic thriller starred newcomer Anne Parillaud and spawned a Hollywood remake, “Point of No Return” with Bridget Fonda as well as a Hong Kong version in director Stephen Shin's “Black Cat” (1991) and its sequel "Black Cat 2" (1997) with Jade Leung. Later, Besson made “The Professional” (1994) where an expert hit man, Jean Reno, taught a young girl, Natalie Portman, to how to kill the dastards who had murdered her parents. A cable television series “La Femme Nikita” with Peta Wilson followed; it aired from 1997 to 2001. In 2010, another version of “La Femme Nikita” hit the small screen with Maggie Q cast in “Nikita.”
Cleverly, Besson has recycled some of the best scenes from both “La Femme Nikita” and “The Professional” to make “Colombiana” (***1/2 out of ****), starring Zoe Saldana of "Avatar" as a sympathetic but indestructible female assassin. As one thug warns his companions, when Colombiana materializes, it is too late to take action and survive. Make no mistake; the filmmakers treat the theme of female empowerment in this seasoned but Spartan saga with few surprises but a surplus of sizzle. If you’ve seen either “La Femme Nikita” and/or “The Professional,” you can spot the inspiration for “Colombiana.” An early scene in “La Femme Nikita” depicts the heroine plunging a pencil into a policeman’s hand. Similarly, an early scene in “Colombiana” shows our young heroine stabbing a scumbag villain and pinning his hand to a table while she makes good her escape. No matter how derivative this suspenseful, high-octane, white-knuckled epic is, “Transporter 3” director Olivier Megaton compensates with picturesque staging, a cast with provocative faces, and atmospheric locales. "Colombiana" is grueling, gritty, with a lot of get-up-and-go.
Initially, “Colombiana” opens in Bogotá, Columbia, 1992. Ten-year old Cataleya Restrepo (newcomer Amanda Stenberg) watches as the henchmen of a Colombian crime cartel murder her mother and father. It seems that her father tries to retire from the syndicate. Treacherous Don Luis (Beto Benites of "Hermano") allows him to leave his heavily-guarded premises before he issues a contract. Luis’ right-hand man, Marco (Jordi Molla of “Blow”), tries to capture Cataleya because she possesses a microchip crammed with incriminating evidence that her father gave her as a bargaining chip for a passport. Cataleya's father tells her that the microchip is her passport to America. The agile girl leads the slimy Marco and his machine-gun toting mob on an adrenaline-laced foot chase through Bogotá. When she isn't scaling buildings, Cataleya crashes through flimsy roof-tops and recovers in the nick of time. Ultimately, she scrambles away from Marco and his army by diving into an underground sewer. The elusive Cataleya enters the United States, cuts a deal with the U.S. authorities, and hands them all the information on the Luis’ gang. Not long afterward, she escapes from U.S. authorities and catches a bus for Chicago, Illinois, to see her Uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis of “Training Day”) explore revenge as an option. When she meets Emilio, Cataleya confides in him that she once wanted to be a warrior princess like the TV heroine Xena. Now, she wants only to be a killer.
A criminal himself, Emilio lets the young girl sleep in his late son’s room. He trains her to be a contract assassin. In one great scene, Emilio explains that even contract assassins—if they plan to survive more than five years—must attend public school. Emilio assures her that he can make a top-notch assassin out of her, but she has got to have the intelligence level of a high school graduate. Besson and "Transporter" co-scripter Robert Mark Kamen fast-forward the plot 15 years later. Cataleya has become a svelte killing machine who loves to dress in skimpy clothing. She has discovered to her chagrin that the CIA has taken Don Luis into protective custody. Besson and Kamen make sure that nobody is too easy for their heroine. Nevertheless, the Central Intelligence Agency allows Luis to continue his business as usual. Neither the CIA nor the FBI, however, can thwart Cataleya when she goes into action against them.
This PG-13 rated, 108-minute epic boils down to a episodic narrative with Cataleya icing one individual at a time until she works her way down to Marco. After she kills a victim, our heroine uses lipstick to sketch a native South American orchid called 'cattleya' on the corpse's chest to remind Don Luis that he is her prime target. Actually, Cataleya was named after this flower. The elaborate hit that our heroine carries out in a high security jail resembles the kind of far-fetched antics that occur in Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible" franchise. The way that Cataleya lands behind bar to terminate her prey is blunt and to the point. When Cataleya isn’t dodging Don Luis’ trigger-happy henchmen, she must keep a step ahead of a tenacious FBI agent, Ross (Lennie James of “The Next Three Days”) who believes that a man is responsible for the murder rampage. Cataleya lets her romantic relationship with an artist, Danny (Michael Vartan of “Alias”), interfere with her plans. Danny has no clue about her line of work, until he exposes her quite by accident to the villains. The scene where the FBI and a SWAT team surround Cataleya’s safe house generates considerable tension.
“Colombiana” qualifies as an outlandish, audacious exercise in suspense and tension that benefits from Zoe Saldana’s gravity-defying performance and helmer Olivier Megaton’s slam-bang action scenes.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
FILM REVIEW OF ''FIGHT CLUB'' (1999)
"Fight Club" (**** out of ****) is a knock-out!
Brad Pitt and Edward Norton co-star and spar in this bizarre but insightful bare-knuckled, no-holds-barred, pugilistic parable. "Fight Club" takes some mighty savage but satirical swings at consumerism, anarchy, and male impotence. "Se7en" & Alien 3" director David Fincher delivers another of his kinetically super-charged, darkly lensed, adrenaline-laced epics about guys gelded by a gilded society who come to life when they stain their fists with blood. At one point, Brad Pitt tells Edward Norton: Penned by "Jumper" scenarist Jim Uhls from Chuck Palahniuk's first novel, "Fight Club" appears to glorify violence, promote fascism, and degrade women. Instead, "Fight Club" denigrates the first, shows contempt for the second, and give Helen Bonham Carter her juiciest role in years.
"Fight Club" spins a yarn every bit as audacious, manipulative and exhilarating as Fincher's earlier opus "The Game." Edward Norton of "Rounders" serves as our narrator for this 140-minute marathon that goes the distance. Caged in a dead-end job, Norton files reams of car accident statistics for a major automaker. Essentially, he must calculate when the best interests of the company are served by paying off car crash survivors rather than demanding a recall. As the narrator states: "A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one." Anyway, the narrator flies everywhere to inspect these wrecks and begins to suffer from more than occupational jet lag.
Inevitably, our anonymous narrator turns into a depressed white-collar insomniac. Lack of sleep drives him to the hospital. Incredibly, his doctor refuses to give him any drugs. He suggests instead that our narrator attend a support group for survivors of testicular cancer so that he can appreciate what constitutes real pain. Surprisingly, Norton discovers that he can purge himself emotionally without fear of humiliation. Afterward, his burden sloughed off, he goes home to his luxuriously appointed condo, hits the sack and sleeps like a baby. Franz Kafka couldn't have captured the malaise of modern society as crisply as Jim Uhls has in "Fight Club." Soon our unnamed narrator begins to gleefully orchestrate his life around these 12-step meetings and support groups for habits and diseases that he doesn't have. He is hooked and happy about until Marla Singer (Helen Bonham Carter of "Hamlet") spoils these gatherings. He knows that she is a fraud and fears she will expose him. They snarl at each other but call a truce and form an uneasy alliance. They will alternate nights at different groups so they won't collide with each other.
Marla poses few problems compared with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt of "The Score"), a mysterious maverick of a man encountered by our hero during a bumpy plane ride. Durden epitomizes cool; he has everything our narrator lacks. Self-assured, scruffily clad, with all the hypnotic charm of a snake, Durden lurks around the narrator. When they form Fight Club, Tyler lists the rules: "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club! Third rule of Fight Club: someone yells "stop!", goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: No shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight." Tyler attracts followers like a magnet. After an unknown arsonist destroys our narrator's condo, he hooks up with Tyler. They create "Fight Club," a form of underground tough man boxing.
Remember "Every Which Way But Loose," with Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson in "Hard Times?" They fight in dark, dank basements. Fincher pulls no punches when the combatants start swinging at each other. Quite simply, these fights are brutal, especially when a pretty boy (Jared Leto of "Urban Legend") is battered to a pulp until he resembles the elephant kid. Only the knuckle-headed will exit "Fight Club" looking for an excuse to scrap. The friendship between Tyler and our hero takes some wildly out-of-control turns. Tyler takes "Fight Club" to other cities, and then movies to the next level with "Project Mayhem," a demolitionist's fantasy that involves destroying credit card corporations. Our hero balks at Tyler's outlandish aims and the mindless, skin-headed idiots that he recruits for his cause. But it isn't until the third act, so to speak, when "Fight Club" decks you with a shocking revelation: Tyler Durden may not be who we think he is.
"Fight Club" will send some audiences reeling in disgust at its sicko shenanigans—like when Durden urinates in the soap at an expensive restaurant where he waits tables. Don't ask what he puts in the clam chowder. When Tyler works as a projectionist at a movie theatre, he splices frames of male genitalia into family movies! If you cannot handle a film poling fun at you, you probably won't appreciate some of the subversive humor. Twentieth Century Fox appears to have gone out of its way to sanitize "Fight Club," but Fincher is such a good director that his visuals contain more bite than his narrative. Like in "The Game," where Michael Douglas' snotty rich guy had to run a grueling gauntlet—a present of sorts for the man who has everything—"Fight Club" lowers the boom on hypocrisy. The Uhls script brims with several snappy and quotable one-liners.
"Fight Club" will strike some people as pretty strange, too. Any movie that never reveals its hero's name, especially when he provides the narration, is probably too pretentious for its own good. Nevertheless, the performances are flawless, particularly the two leads as well as Meatloaf as Robert 'Bob' Paulson. Meatloaf plays the most outlandish character and milks the role for everything that it is worth. As Marla Singer, Helena Bonham Carter is equally as funny and brilliant as both Pitt and Norton. "Fight Club" emerges as an abrasive movie, and Fincher digs his satirical claws in deep. We live in a media jungle, and "Fight Club" smirks at the notion that we would want to destroy it to return to lives of quiet destitution. With "Fight Club," Fincher matches anything that Stanley Kubrick helmed in his prime and shows Terry Gilliam a trick or two.
"Fight Club" ranks as the main event of the millennium.
Brad Pitt and Edward Norton co-star and spar in this bizarre but insightful bare-knuckled, no-holds-barred, pugilistic parable. "Fight Club" takes some mighty savage but satirical swings at consumerism, anarchy, and male impotence. "Se7en" & Alien 3" director David Fincher delivers another of his kinetically super-charged, darkly lensed, adrenaline-laced epics about guys gelded by a gilded society who come to life when they stain their fists with blood. At one point, Brad Pitt tells Edward Norton: Penned by "Jumper" scenarist Jim Uhls from Chuck Palahniuk's first novel, "Fight Club" appears to glorify violence, promote fascism, and degrade women. Instead, "Fight Club" denigrates the first, shows contempt for the second, and give Helen Bonham Carter her juiciest role in years.
"Fight Club" spins a yarn every bit as audacious, manipulative and exhilarating as Fincher's earlier opus "The Game." Edward Norton of "Rounders" serves as our narrator for this 140-minute marathon that goes the distance. Caged in a dead-end job, Norton files reams of car accident statistics for a major automaker. Essentially, he must calculate when the best interests of the company are served by paying off car crash survivors rather than demanding a recall. As the narrator states: "A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one." Anyway, the narrator flies everywhere to inspect these wrecks and begins to suffer from more than occupational jet lag.
Inevitably, our anonymous narrator turns into a depressed white-collar insomniac. Lack of sleep drives him to the hospital. Incredibly, his doctor refuses to give him any drugs. He suggests instead that our narrator attend a support group for survivors of testicular cancer so that he can appreciate what constitutes real pain. Surprisingly, Norton discovers that he can purge himself emotionally without fear of humiliation. Afterward, his burden sloughed off, he goes home to his luxuriously appointed condo, hits the sack and sleeps like a baby. Franz Kafka couldn't have captured the malaise of modern society as crisply as Jim Uhls has in "Fight Club." Soon our unnamed narrator begins to gleefully orchestrate his life around these 12-step meetings and support groups for habits and diseases that he doesn't have. He is hooked and happy about until Marla Singer (Helen Bonham Carter of "Hamlet") spoils these gatherings. He knows that she is a fraud and fears she will expose him. They snarl at each other but call a truce and form an uneasy alliance. They will alternate nights at different groups so they won't collide with each other.
Marla poses few problems compared with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt of "The Score"), a mysterious maverick of a man encountered by our hero during a bumpy plane ride. Durden epitomizes cool; he has everything our narrator lacks. Self-assured, scruffily clad, with all the hypnotic charm of a snake, Durden lurks around the narrator. When they form Fight Club, Tyler lists the rules: "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club! Third rule of Fight Club: someone yells "stop!", goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: No shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight." Tyler attracts followers like a magnet. After an unknown arsonist destroys our narrator's condo, he hooks up with Tyler. They create "Fight Club," a form of underground tough man boxing.
Remember "Every Which Way But Loose," with Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson in "Hard Times?" They fight in dark, dank basements. Fincher pulls no punches when the combatants start swinging at each other. Quite simply, these fights are brutal, especially when a pretty boy (Jared Leto of "Urban Legend") is battered to a pulp until he resembles the elephant kid. Only the knuckle-headed will exit "Fight Club" looking for an excuse to scrap. The friendship between Tyler and our hero takes some wildly out-of-control turns. Tyler takes "Fight Club" to other cities, and then movies to the next level with "Project Mayhem," a demolitionist's fantasy that involves destroying credit card corporations. Our hero balks at Tyler's outlandish aims and the mindless, skin-headed idiots that he recruits for his cause. But it isn't until the third act, so to speak, when "Fight Club" decks you with a shocking revelation: Tyler Durden may not be who we think he is.
"Fight Club" will send some audiences reeling in disgust at its sicko shenanigans—like when Durden urinates in the soap at an expensive restaurant where he waits tables. Don't ask what he puts in the clam chowder. When Tyler works as a projectionist at a movie theatre, he splices frames of male genitalia into family movies! If you cannot handle a film poling fun at you, you probably won't appreciate some of the subversive humor. Twentieth Century Fox appears to have gone out of its way to sanitize "Fight Club," but Fincher is such a good director that his visuals contain more bite than his narrative. Like in "The Game," where Michael Douglas' snotty rich guy had to run a grueling gauntlet—a present of sorts for the man who has everything—"Fight Club" lowers the boom on hypocrisy. The Uhls script brims with several snappy and quotable one-liners.
"Fight Club" will strike some people as pretty strange, too. Any movie that never reveals its hero's name, especially when he provides the narration, is probably too pretentious for its own good. Nevertheless, the performances are flawless, particularly the two leads as well as Meatloaf as Robert 'Bob' Paulson. Meatloaf plays the most outlandish character and milks the role for everything that it is worth. As Marla Singer, Helena Bonham Carter is equally as funny and brilliant as both Pitt and Norton. "Fight Club" emerges as an abrasive movie, and Fincher digs his satirical claws in deep. We live in a media jungle, and "Fight Club" smirks at the notion that we would want to destroy it to return to lives of quiet destitution. With "Fight Club," Fincher matches anything that Stanley Kubrick helmed in his prime and shows Terry Gilliam a trick or two.
"Fight Club" ranks as the main event of the millennium.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
FILM REVIEW OF ''CAPTAIN AMERICA" (2011)
“Rocketeer” director Joe Johnston’s “Captain America” (**** OUT OF ****) amounts to a timeless David versus Goliath tale set in the Marvel Comics’ universe where good always trumps evil. Unlike “Thor” and “Green Lantern,” “Captain America” ranks as a thoroughly spectacular but larger-than-life extravaganza with a genuinely charismatic hero struggling against a marvelously malignant villain. Chris Evans’ engaging performance as the ‘First Avenger’ is something else, too! If you recall, Evans had the time of his life several years ago playing egotistical Johnny Storm, aka ‘the Human Torch,’ in the two “Fantastic Four” flicks. Make no mistake; Evans is nothing like he was in those two super heroic sagas. Indeed, “Captain America” boasts some amazing special effects, but its best special effect is the sincerity that Evans brings to the role of Steve Rogers. Whether he plays Rogers as either a scrawny, 98-pound zero or a brawny, fleet-footed hero, Evans imparts heart to this $140-million thriller. During the first half of “Captain America,” Johnston gradually builds the momentum to let us grow accustomed to Evans as a scrappy little fellow who suffers the wrath of bullies. This pathetic weakling refuses to let anybody keep him down, and it’s fun because Evans makes it look so authentic despite the obvious CGI effects. Hugo Weaving registers as the ideal villain who holds the upper hand throughout most of the supercharged shenanigans. Tommy Lee Jones and Hayley Atwell co-star respectively as Captain America’s superior and his love interest.
“Captain America” opens in the present before it reverts to the past. Typically, movies with contemporary openings and endings sacrifice any sense of suspense. After all, you know if the characters thrive in the present that they must not have suffered in the past. Basically, this constitutes nothing more than a narrative cinematic convention. The chief difference here is that we’re only given a glimpse of Captain America’s legendary star-spangled shield instead of the eponymous protagonist himself. Anyway, the film unfolds in the frozen wasteland of the Arctic Circle as a Russian oil expedition stumbles onto something buried in the ice. They contact the Americans who slice into the ice with a laser, find a commodious craft of unknown origin, and uncover a circular red, white, and blue shield with a star. The scene shifts to March 1942 as despicable Nazi officer Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving of “The Matrix”) and his men storm into Tønsberg, Norway, and confiscate an enigmatic tesseract. Essentially, this is a magical cube boasting incalculable power. Supposedly, the tesseract was a fabulous jeweled artifact that belonged to the legendary Norse god Odin. Once anybody lays their eyes on it, they are no longer the same.
Meanwhile, in New York City, the U.S. military brands Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) unfit for duty owing to a myriad of health problems. The resilient Rogers tries to enlist again when his buddy James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes (Sebastian Stan of “Black Swan”) takes him to a showcase of futuristic technologies. Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci of “Easy A”) eavesdrops on Rogers' conversation with Barnes about his desperate need to get into combat. Suitably impressed by Rogers’ attitude, Erskine allows him to enlist. Moreover, Erskine recruits Rogers as part of a "super-soldier" experiment under the aegis of Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones of “Coal Miner's Daughter”) and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell of “The Duchess”). Phillips displays considerable skepticism about Erskine's contention that Rogers qualifies as the ideal candidate for the procedure. One day during a training exercise, Phillips lobs a grenade among the recruits. Everybody but Rogers scrambles for cover, while he smothers the grenade with his frail body. Predictably, the grenade is a dummy, but Rogers’ act of self-sacrificing bravery convinces the colonel that he is the appropriate choice.
No sooner has Rogers emerged from the procedure as an entirely new man with a buffed up body than a Nazi saboteur steps in and kills Erskine. As it turns out, Erskine keep no notes except those in his head. After Erskine dies, Rogers experiences his new-found strength and captures the saboteur. The saboteur lives long enough to warn Rogers that he has to face more of his kind before he crunches on a cyanide capsule and croaks. Roger wins fame and acclaim across the country, but he suffers a setback because he is the first and only of his kind. Colonel Phillips reassigns him and Roger ends up at War Bond rallies where he acts like a cheerleader surrounded by dancing girls. Eventually, when our hero learns that his best friend has been caught, he disobeys orders and leads an inspirational rescue behind enemy lines. Now that Rogers has proven himself, he must face the Red Skull. The Red Skull is Nazi officer Johann Schmidt and he is so ambitious that he not only wants to crush America but also Adolf Hitler. Talk about a villain to end all villains!
Anybody who has read the reprints of the World War 2 era “Captain America” comic book should be thrilled with the way that “The Chronicles of Narnia” scenarists Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have handled the original material by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Of course, Johnston and his scribes have ratcheted up the hardware for the big transformation scene that turns Steve Rodgers into Captain America. In the original comic, instead of being injected with several drugs and sprawling in a large contraption, Rogers was given a vial of chemicals that he drank before he turned into the eponymous hero. Altogether, “Captain America” is a predictable but entertaining comic book movie with sensational special effects and a sympathetic hero. If you are a Marvel Comic fan, you should stick around after the lengthy end credits for a glimpse of the forthcoming “Avengers” film due for release in May 2012.
“Captain America” opens in the present before it reverts to the past. Typically, movies with contemporary openings and endings sacrifice any sense of suspense. After all, you know if the characters thrive in the present that they must not have suffered in the past. Basically, this constitutes nothing more than a narrative cinematic convention. The chief difference here is that we’re only given a glimpse of Captain America’s legendary star-spangled shield instead of the eponymous protagonist himself. Anyway, the film unfolds in the frozen wasteland of the Arctic Circle as a Russian oil expedition stumbles onto something buried in the ice. They contact the Americans who slice into the ice with a laser, find a commodious craft of unknown origin, and uncover a circular red, white, and blue shield with a star. The scene shifts to March 1942 as despicable Nazi officer Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving of “The Matrix”) and his men storm into Tønsberg, Norway, and confiscate an enigmatic tesseract. Essentially, this is a magical cube boasting incalculable power. Supposedly, the tesseract was a fabulous jeweled artifact that belonged to the legendary Norse god Odin. Once anybody lays their eyes on it, they are no longer the same.
Meanwhile, in New York City, the U.S. military brands Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) unfit for duty owing to a myriad of health problems. The resilient Rogers tries to enlist again when his buddy James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes (Sebastian Stan of “Black Swan”) takes him to a showcase of futuristic technologies. Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci of “Easy A”) eavesdrops on Rogers' conversation with Barnes about his desperate need to get into combat. Suitably impressed by Rogers’ attitude, Erskine allows him to enlist. Moreover, Erskine recruits Rogers as part of a "super-soldier" experiment under the aegis of Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones of “Coal Miner's Daughter”) and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell of “The Duchess”). Phillips displays considerable skepticism about Erskine's contention that Rogers qualifies as the ideal candidate for the procedure. One day during a training exercise, Phillips lobs a grenade among the recruits. Everybody but Rogers scrambles for cover, while he smothers the grenade with his frail body. Predictably, the grenade is a dummy, but Rogers’ act of self-sacrificing bravery convinces the colonel that he is the appropriate choice.
No sooner has Rogers emerged from the procedure as an entirely new man with a buffed up body than a Nazi saboteur steps in and kills Erskine. As it turns out, Erskine keep no notes except those in his head. After Erskine dies, Rogers experiences his new-found strength and captures the saboteur. The saboteur lives long enough to warn Rogers that he has to face more of his kind before he crunches on a cyanide capsule and croaks. Roger wins fame and acclaim across the country, but he suffers a setback because he is the first and only of his kind. Colonel Phillips reassigns him and Roger ends up at War Bond rallies where he acts like a cheerleader surrounded by dancing girls. Eventually, when our hero learns that his best friend has been caught, he disobeys orders and leads an inspirational rescue behind enemy lines. Now that Rogers has proven himself, he must face the Red Skull. The Red Skull is Nazi officer Johann Schmidt and he is so ambitious that he not only wants to crush America but also Adolf Hitler. Talk about a villain to end all villains!
Anybody who has read the reprints of the World War 2 era “Captain America” comic book should be thrilled with the way that “The Chronicles of Narnia” scenarists Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have handled the original material by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Of course, Johnston and his scribes have ratcheted up the hardware for the big transformation scene that turns Steve Rodgers into Captain America. In the original comic, instead of being injected with several drugs and sprawling in a large contraption, Rogers was given a vial of chemicals that he drank before he turned into the eponymous hero. Altogether, “Captain America” is a predictable but entertaining comic book movie with sensational special effects and a sympathetic hero. If you are a Marvel Comic fan, you should stick around after the lengthy end credits for a glimpse of the forthcoming “Avengers” film due for release in May 2012.
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