2014 Movie Midterms, Part 2

Part 1 HERE.  

Part 2 here:

The Grand Budapest Hotel:  Yup, it’s Wes Anderson.  You pretty much know what you’re getting when you walk in.  But in this case that’s a good thing.  The guy really knows how to fill every inch of an impeccably-framed screen with his specific color palette aesthetic and fully nuanced, yet somehow caraciture-y, almost silent movie-esque characters, all of whom delight on every level.  That’s the word for Anderson’s films, actually- delightful.  Which, every once in a while, is a really nice escape from intelligent robots and angsty superheroes and slick laser weapons.  Especially when said delightful roles are fleshed out by the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Ed Norton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Harvey Keitel, Tom Wilkinson, F. Murray Abraham, and my current favorite scene-chewing nutjob, Tilda Swinton.

Anyway, yeah.  Wes Anderson, once again, does a fantastic job of gifting us a well-thought-out present, wrapped up in a neat bow, that we didn’t even know we wanted.  And it ain’t even Christmas.

Lord Of The Rings: The Old Testament Noah: A great director?  Yes.  The occasional beautiful visual and/or fantastic storytelling sequence?  Oh, sure.  Some good performances?  Er… maybe?  Bible spectacle without uncomfortable pandering to the Bible Nazis out there?  Yup.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because, ultimately.

This movie.

Is rrrrreally fucking stupid.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2:  “The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a bad movie.  An embarrassing movie.  But, above all else, a really, really boring movie.  Unless, you know, you’re really into a teenage boy crying a lot as he breaks up/makes up with his girlfriend a few times and/or misses his daddy.”  Click HERE for the full review.

Godzilla: “…having your actors apply minimalist performances to barely-nuanced roles so that the emphasis can be on giant monsters punching each other is a viable directing technique… provided you have enough of the latter.  Godzilla did not.”  Click HERE for the full review.

X-Men Days Of Futue Past: “…ultimately, I enjoyed myself.  Yeah, it’s reeeeeally easy to pick apart with snark, there are many plot-points that exist solely to cram as many familiar faces and/or now-hot actors into the thing as possible, and any time the screenplay seems like it’s writing itself into a corner, some kind of over-explained, yet really simplistic MacGuffin is thrown in to save the day, but it’s still fun.”  Click HERE for the full review.

Snowpiercer:  It’s like The Matrix sequels mashed up with Cube.  On a train.  Starring Captain America.  And it’s a tough one to really discuss.  At times it’s all style and no substance, at other times it’s a very specific, meticulous narrative.  Sometimes it’s a piece about societal philosophy, other times it’s like a hyperviolent music video.  It’s funny, sobering, creepy, and horrifying.  And every time my brain told me the logic was missing and I should just go ahead and dislike the thing, something cool and daring would happen and I was right back in it.

Sorry, that’s about all I have to say.  Well, besides the fact that Chris Evans is truly magnificent in it and Tilda Swinton has never been as awesomely scenery-chewy as she is here (and she’s got the chompers to prove it).  It came out on the same day in theaters and at home (iTunes, On Demand, Amazon Instant, and all that jazz), and is still, at the time of this writing, for sure available at the latter, so do yourself a favor and plunk down a digital seven bucks and check it out.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes:  Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was my favorite movie of 2011, so I went in to this one with seriously unfair expectations.  And, much to my delight, it didn’t meet with any of them.  It was so much better than I could have imagined.  And so very, very different.  Even as the thing unfolded before me I was kept surprised by the directions it took, both character- and plot-wise.  And it takes some serious balls to release a movie, smack in the middle of summer, where, in the first fifteen minutes, or so, the only spoken words come to us via apes occasionally punctuating their sign language with a grunted word or two.  It also takes balls to make a movie that really doesn’t have any clear bad guys.  Sure, there are both apes and humans that negatively affect the plot in order to drive it forward, but they are completely justified in their actions.  Gary Oldman’s Dreyfus character isn’t bad, he simply wants to keep the human race alive.  Bonobo chimp Koba isn’t bad, he simply mistrusts all humans on a basic, instinctual level after years of painful abuse and mutilation as a lab experiment.  In fact, the real bad guys all died either during the last movie or in the ten years that have passed since.  What we’re seeing is their awful legacy- one of acid-like ignorance, distrust, and flippancy surviving, virus-like, in both the human and ape societies in this tale of two “cities.”

But it ain’t all dour.  For every Dreyfus there’s a Malcolm (Jason Clarke)- a human just as driven to keep his people alive, but without the cancerous bias and paranoia.  For every Koba there’s a Caesar- an ape leader interested in the hopes of the mutual survival and possible collaboration between races.  But, as we see every day in our own society, it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the broth, or whatever.  And we get a sense as soon as the humans make their first appearance that this thing is going to spiral into a pretty bad place for everyone involved, tainting any scenes of hope with a twinge of hopelessness.  It’s masterful filmmaking on every level, especially an emotional one.

…and a performance one.  Most notably in the motion capture work.  Yes, Caesar is as dynamic a character as any live-action role out there, thanks to the mocap stalwart that is Andy Serkis, but who really blew me away in this movie was Toby Kebbell as Koba.  And it’s that scene that you’ve probably seen snippets of in the trailer that sells it- Koba approaches two gun-toting humans, pretending to be a regular old performance chimp in order to disarm them, both mentally and physically.  Then he’s got one of their semi-automatics in his hand.  Then, in an instant, a hateful intelligence washes over his face and it’s adios muchachos.  It’s probably the most frightening thirty seconds of any film you’ll see this year.

Is it perfect?  No.  The two (yes, only two) female roles are seriously underwritten (did Judy Greer’s mocap work as Cornelia get mostly excised for a specific reason?  Was Keri Russell supposed to just hang around looking worried all the time?), the pacing was occasionally an issue (to be fair, this is usually something I realize I’m wrong about upon a second viewing), and the big finale was straight out of the action movie handbook (two characters duke it out on top of a precariously unfinished, tall structure).  But these things are, ultimately, completely forgivable in that they are molehills compared to the sheer mountains of fantastic design, directorial, performance, and plain old stylistic choices on display.  I’m so happy these movies are being made.  Bring on the third one.

So, that’s what I got, so far.  I missed a few that I meant to see (Edge Of Tomorrow, How To Train Your Dragon 2, and that other Hercules movie (just for sharts & wiggles)), but I imagine they’ll be available at home by the end of the year, so it’ll happen.  And no, I’m not going to see Transformers 4.  Because I’ve already seen it three times.  Oh, and Guardians Of The Galaxy comes out tomorrow, and wild horses couldn’t drag me away.  Uh, from the theater.  When, like, I see it.  OK, wrong imagery, I suppose, but you get it.  Later!