No Good Deed - 2014

"No Good Deed" - 2014
Dir. by Sam Miller - 1 hr. 24 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

"No Good Deed" is the very definition of "product."  I'm not going to hold that against the film; if there's a choice between competent creative people doing work and getting paid for it, and them just sitting around doing nothing, I'm okay with those people staying busy and keeping their skills sharp.  The key, however, is that they're keeping those skills sharp for use on other projects.  A funny aside - I kept referring to this film as "Bad Luther," so much so that when I went to the theatre I had a hard time remembering the real title of the film.  That what happens when you have a generic, forgettable title!

Colin Evans (Idris Elba) is a bad man; he's presumed to be responsible for the deaths of five women, but since they couldn't prove any of those, he went to prison for killing a man in a bar fight for looking at his woman.  Five years deep, he has a shot at parole, which is shot down, so he escapes from his transport back to prison, and heads straight for his ex, Alexis (Kate del Castillo).  Turns out, she wasn't as true to Colin as Colin would have preferred, so Colin teaches her one final, fatal lesson.  He leaves the scene, but wrecks his car on a rainy night.  The nearest house (and it's a giant, awesome house) belongs to Terri (Taraji P. Henson) and her husband, and their two small children.  Colin charms his way into the house, under the guise of calling a tow truck, and tension hangs in the air!

Probably the best thing that I could say about "No Good Deed" is that, although the cast was predominantly black (I was going to say African-American, but Idris Elba is British, and I've already used up my weekly allotment of hyphens), the story didn't depend on that in any way.  Literally anyone could have been cast in these roles, from any background, and the casting decisions held up just fine.  I don't even know if that was the intent or if everyone got lucky with good performances; it feels like Idris Elba should be above that sort of themed casting.  He was Nelson Mandela, for crying out loud.  Then again, this is product, and you use whatever angles are available to sell unremarkable films.

But that's not really a strong endorsement for "No Good Deed."  What's better about the casting is that Idris Elba gets to hang out in his wheelhouse for an hour and a half; brood, be handsome, and project a dominant physical presence on screen.  This wasn't necessarily a challenging role for him, but if you're a big Elba fan, I think you'll get your money's worth from him.  Also, the target of Colin, Taraji P. Henson, holds her own, and is enjoyable to watch.  Unfortunately, all of this is in service to a plot that is literally Idris Elba away from being a Lifetime movie.  Aside from one clever turn near the end of the film, this is a paint-by-numbers experience.  You know the second the plot pieces start revealing themselves exactly how this is going to play out.  I don't want to spoil anything for you, but you'll figure it out for yourself about twenty minutes in how things must unfold in order not to be one of the most depressing films you'd ever see.

"Bad Luther" is a better title for "No Good Deed."  It's accurate, and you'd know what you were in for.  Here are reasons you should see "No Good Deed": someone gets whomped in the face with a shovel, Idris Elba is shirtless for a little bit, Taraji P. Henson is pretty cute (although I was sad when they straightened her hair out at the end - I liked the curls better) and likable, and that's about it.  I'm not going to get mad if you want to see this - I watch wrestling, so there is no available moral high ground.  So if you are a smart, empowered lady who likes those "bad guy tormenting women" kind of Lifetime fare, but wish it was Idris Elba in the film instead of some doofus who can barely deliver lines but looks great without a shirt (or some barely-employed '80s sitcom actor messing with all of your childhood television paternal memories), grab a bottle of wine, get some fantasy material churning, and knock yourself out.

1.5 / 5 - Theatre

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom - 2013

"Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" - 2013
Dir. by Justin Chadwick - 2 hrs. 21 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

It feels bad to not have really enjoyed this movie.  I was bummed out more by the fact that it wasn't enthralling and uplifting than by the things that Nelson Mandela himself had to endure and overcome during his life.  My ambivalence about this film was complicated by the fact that this was based on his autobiography (which I have not read), and there were some elements of "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" that I wasn't sure if I ought to chalk up to Mandela's version of events, or to the adaptation process of his book.  It's unfortunate; the failings of the film introduce doubt to Mandela himself, and I'd kind of like to know if those were his own, or were the result of parsing and editing.  Having said that, I'm not hugely likely to read his autobiography to find out (this is just a matter of time, it's unlikely I will get around to reading even a fraction of the books that I'd like to in my lifetime).

I also, in the course of light conversation with a cashier at a store, had to explain who Nelson Mandela was, after saying that I'd seen the movie.  Sigh.  So we'll keep this brief.  Nelson Mandela (Idris Elba) was a South African lawyer, then activist, then prisoner, then head of state.  He was a crucial figure in the anti-Apartheid movement, was imprisoned for twenty-seven years for some things he did, and was released partially to help quell race-related violence during 1990.  I mean, if you didn't know that much about him, take ten minutes and hit up his Wikipedia entry, he was kind of a big deal.

Good stuff first.  Idris Elba was a good choice to play the role, as was his co-star, Naomie Harris, who played Mandela's second (and most famous) wife, Winnie.  And the South African setting was a gorgeous backdrop, both it's rural settings and it's cities.  Mandela's life was eventful enough to make sure that there weren't any lulls, and I feel like the big things that needed to be covered were mostly covered.  For the most part, though, I didn't feel like the events were covered in the way that I wanted to see.  That's at least partly a matter of taste and storytelling style, but I'll dig in a little more to explain what I mean.

To my mind, "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" portrays Mandela as someone whom things happen to.  The quick narrative about his life backs this up; what people know about Mandela is that he was put in prison for twenty-seven years.  How this is explained depends heavily on one's politics, and it's often spun as being a political move that resulted in him having nearly a third of his life taken from him.  Mandela (and his ANC peers) pled guilty to what amounts to terrorist acts against a racist government, that had broken the largely non-violent tension by gunning down unarmed protesters.  Mandela left South Africa (which is glossed over in this film) to learn how to fight back, and did so, engaging in sabotage.  I'm not condemning Mandela's actions, even resorting to violent means to defend himself (and others) against violent, racially-motivated aggression.  This is more a case of not winning the fight (at least not immediately), and then being at the mercy of the victor.  But Mandela was not a man of inaction.

So there's some things that I would want to know out of a story about Mandela.  First, a good accounting of exactly how he "went rogue," and exactly what that meant.  This portion of his life is essentially told in montage - it's not even clear that he left South Africa at any point, and the consequences of the bombings of municipal buildings don't have clear consequences.  Once, they knock the power out for a city, and one of the ANC rebels doesn't make it out of one of the bombings alive.  But it's established earlier in the film that the law didn't really care that much about dead South African blacks, and that can't realistically be the motive behind the hunt for Mandela and his trial.  I'm left to assume that there were more casualties than were admitted to, or that Mandela was a very big deal and was up to more than mischief, which wasn't properly shown.  There are scenes of him addressing crowds, but there doesn't seem to be much organization behind what he's doing, which makes it seem weird that the South African government would be so wound up about a random rabble-rouser.

His time in prison is fairly well-accounted for, as it should be.  One of the most difficult things to do creatively is to convey emotions like tedium and boredom, because you can't provide a visceral experience of those emotions and expect your audience to stick around.  This film sidesteps that issue by concentrating on the things that Mandela missed out on, like deaths in the family, children growing up, the progression of his movement, his inability to help protect his wife from her own brushes with the law.  There was one exchange that ended up being baffling, though, where the warden seems to either not have his complete faculties, or is a habitual liar who can't remember what he has told people.  The third main thing that I'd want to know about is his relationship with Winnie, which is covered well, but ends up throwing her under the bus so badly that it feels like that can't possibly be what the source material had to say about her.  But maybe I'm wrong about that, their union did end in divorce, and those things are sometimes fairly acrimonious.  Also, curiously, they briefly cover Mandela's first marriage, but never admit that there was a third, after Winnie.

The last main thing that I would want covered is Mandela's path from prisoner to Head of State.  Events are shown, but with little explanation as to the logic behind them.  The biggest moment comes when Mandela is put on live TV (at least that's how it was portrayed), ostensibly to condemn retaliation after another massacre from the slightly less-racist government.  Mandela seizes the opportunity, basically declaring that he's right, everyone who is angry is wrong, and that he'll be running for President shortly.  It was a ballsy move.  Imagine if Kanye West had followed up his assertion that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by declaring he was running for President, and that you could donate to his campaign at yeezy.com once everyone was done donating to the Red Cross for hurricane relief, and then he won and actually was the first black President of the United States of America.  That's what we're talking about here.  Once you step back, Mandela's path is so insane and improbable that I feel that it requires some understanding of what was going on in his head, and throughout "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom," we rarely get any indication of that.

Maybe that's the biggest gripe I have with this film, that we never get inside of Nelson Mandela's head, even in a film made from his very own words.  The way things are presented, there's no other way that he could have reacted to them.  When he meets Winnie, he's smitten.  When one of his children dies, he cries.  When he's told that he's not worth anything, he rejects that.  Why not just tell us that after he eats dinner, he eventually poops, and when he takes a shower, he tends to get wet?  If the truth of the matter is that he didn't have much of a life or many interests outside of his activism, then this film falls into the trap of conveying boredom by being boring.  If that wasn't the case, this film misses any insight entirely.  "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" isn't a bad film, it's an underachieving one that doesn't leave me that much more well-informed about his life than I was when I went into it.  I almost never advocate films being longer, but if Mandela's life isn't worth three hours to tell, with proper context and insight into his personality, I don't know whose is.

2 / 5 - Theatre

Thor: The Dark World - 2013

"Thor: The Dark World" - 2013
Dir. by Alan Taylor - 1 hr. 52 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

It's not that I didn't enjoy watching "Thor: The Dark World," it's more of an issue that I'm becoming super-aware of the Marvel Comics movie formula; introduce where the characters are at, big battle number one, hero suffers, then big battle two.  Also, don't forget the post-credits scene.  By all means, don't fix what ain't broke, but after three Iron Mans, a Captain America, an Avengers, and now two Thors (and the very recent "The Wolverine"), what's on-screen had better be transcendent, or there's going to be a whiff of formula dragging things down.  If "T2" (as I'll be referring to this film for the duration of this review) had come out ten years ago, it would have been a game-changer.  As things stand, it's a good film.  Maybe not quite as good as the first "Thor," which I enjoyed far more than I figured I would, and better than almost all of the non-Avengers-related Marvel movies.  But if there's going to be another Thor, it damned well better have Beta-Ray Bill in it.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, a bad guy named Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) tries to end existence, using a red goo of a weapon called the aether, but is deterred, and the aether is hidden, too powerful to be in anyone's hands.  In modern day, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is in Asgard, being held responsible for his actions in "The Avengers."  Odin (Anthony Hopkins) dictates that he's to spend the rest of his life in a dungeon, without any contact with anyone else, until he dies, which is quite a long time indeed.  Thor (Chris Hemsworth), is out and about, quashing rebellions around the nine realms, which has left he and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) separated and without communication for two years.  Jane, and her intern Darcy (Kat Dennings), and her intern, Ian (Jonathan Howard) stumble across some weirdness in an abandoned warehouse in London, which draws the attention of Malekith.  And fights.

If you're dealing with superhero movies, the two big questions are whether the action is up to snuff (it is), and whether or not the visuals are top-notch (and they are).  You could also hammer on casting, but seeing as how this is a sequel, you're either on board or not by this point (although I really like the cast of Thor, in general).  The "Thor" films both have a spectacular cosmic look, and Asgard is still an incredible visual.  Beyond that, the pair of battles with Malekith are engaging, and hold up.  While these are definitely strong points in "T2," they kind of have to be.  Like I said before, ten years ago, this kind of movie would have dropped jaws.  At this point in time, you can't really give too much credit for spectacular fights and visuals, because they're expected, and to fail to deliver them would be a complete dereliction of duty on the part of the filmmakers.

So then you get to whether or not the story holds up.  A huge part of the charm of the first one was watching Natalie Portman get flustered by a Norse God, and their dynamic shifts a little this time around (although not in a bad way, and it's not as if her character is unrecognizable).  One of the things that the Avengers line of movies have done well is provide a sense of continuity; Loki's situation is because of his actions in previous installments, and whatever has developed between various characters isn't just thrown away out of convenience.  At the core of this story is Thor being torn between duty and love, but the main impetus that drives the story is the usual bad guy getting ahold of a big-time weapon plot.  There are a couple of twists (to be expected when one of the main characters' superpower is the ability to cast illusions), but the plot isn't particularly clever on this front.  It is visually appealing, and works in a way that involves many characters, but since it's reasonable to expect that Thor isn't going to eat it before an "Avengers" sequel gets made, the stakes are necessarily not that high (despite what the story tries to convince you of).

In the absence of a compelling story with high stakes, the question becomes whether or not "T2" is a fun ride or not.  And it is.  The various characters have a fun dynamic, and the Asgardians provide the drama.  It's paced well, and the action is fun enough to watch, and the things that need to look really cool look really cool.  It is a fun ride, but it's not an indispensable chapter in the Avengers saga.  The first film was, as introducing the character and his role in the Marvel universe probably wouldn't have been satisfactorily explored had it been a subplot in "The Avengers."  This time around, "T2" is product.  Yes, it's well-crafted product, but by the end of these two hours, the larger Avengers story hasn't been advanced meaningfully.  To me, this is the first film in the Avengers cycle that you could skip without really affecting your enjoyment of the larger story.  You'd miss a fun movie that has some pretty good moments (at least a couple of which are because of Kat Dennings) and some great visuals, but when you go to "The Avengers 2," you're not going to have to ask whomever you're seeing it with why something involving Thor is happening.


3 / 5 - Theatre (3D)

The Losers - 2010

"The Losers" - 2010
Dir. by Sylvain White - 1 hr. 37 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

While I might have questions about why "The Losers" exists in the first place (of all the comic books that DC Comics has created, why make a movie based on this one?), the finished product stands on it's own.  And what is "The Losers?"  A reasonably decent almost low-budget action movie that doesn't seek to re-invent the wheel, but instead tries to pull off standard material with a bit of extra flair and style.

Based on the comic book by Andy Diggle and Jock, the losers in question are a military unit who are under the direction of the C.I.A.  They're lead by Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and include Roque (Idris Elba), driver Pooch (Columbus Short), sniper Cougar (Oscar Jaenada), and Johnny Blaze...  I mean Captain America...  I mean communications expert Jensen (Chris Evans).  One of their missions goes awry, stranding them in Bolivia, cut off from government support.  A woman, Aisha (Zoe Saldana), stalks Clay until offering a way out of their predicament: get back to the U.S. and gain revenge on the man who double-crossed them, Max (Jason Patric).

I don't think that "paint-by-numbers" is the proper way to explain this movie, but a lot of the story is standard-issue.  If you've got a group of quirky soldiers (an easy way to tell them apart) united in a common cause, you know that the villain is going to probably be engaging in some highly profitable, highly duplicitous behavior, and that things are going to blow up.  And, also, that the good guys are probably going to have to face impossible odds, because an easy win is unsatisfying (especially if you're paying to see this story in a theatre).  Also, that the one woman in the story is going to get bedded, with the only real question being how much skin you're going to see ("The Losers" is rated PG-13, so probably not quite as much as you'd like).  These are the foundations that this genre of film is based upon, so unless the film-makers go the script-flipping route, that's what you're going to get.

So then, if a genre exercise hits all the necessary standard plot points, the film will rise or fall based on how these plot points are executed and by the performances of the cast.  Points awarded to the director, Sylvain White, who recognized the quality of the source material, and cribbed from it whenever possible.  There are shots taken directly from the comic books, not to mention incorporating series artist Jock's work into the actual movie.  I'm generally of two minds about this sort of thing - it usually doesn't do a film any favors to continually remind people of the source material, but I felt it was incorporated well here, and added to the general style of the direction.  As far as the crew, the Losers themselves generally did a good job.  I wanted to see them succeed, which is a victory.  Zoe Saldana was good, as well, but being pretty much the only woman in the whole film sets the bar for good acting at a different level than if the cast had been a little more balanced.  However, I didn't care for Jason Patric's Max at all (and not in the way you're not supposed to like a villain, in the way that I think it was generally ineffective), and I think that character not being what it needed to be really hampered the film.  I'm not sure whether to pin that on the script or the actor, but even though the film kept telling me that he was impossible to get hands upon, I never felt that was true.  And if you can't sell the main baddie as a real threat, a lot of the drama of the story falls limp.

So what's left here is a decent film that I enjoyed more than I figured I would have, but it's not essential viewing.  It's a reasonably good film adaptation of a pretty good comic book; it's not like the Fantastic Four films, in that it's not really a blown opportunity at adapting excellent source material, and it's not like "Jonah Hex," in that it's not a complete disaster in every conceivable way.  There's a ceiling for how good a film like "The Losers" can be (barring a genius take on the source material), and it got really close to that ceiling.  If you catch this on TV, you'll probably get through it without much trouble, and probably enjoy a couple of scenes more than you figured you might, but unless you're a huge fan of any of the actors or the comic books, there's no real reason to go out of your way to track this film down.

2.5 / 5 - TV

Prometheus - 2012

"Prometheus" - 2012
Dir. by Ridley Scott - 2 hrs. 4 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I think the bottom line with a film like "Prometheus" is whether or not it was a cool film.  And yeah, it was a cool film.  There are essentially two kinds of films: ones that are story-based and ones that are experience-based.  "Prometheus" is the latter, almost by default.  That's not to say that there isn't a story here, there certainly is.  But in a movie that devotes so much attention to its visuals, or to put it another way, sheer spectacle, parsing the film for plot points misses the point.  It's like this: sure, a spaceship lands on a foreign planet.  Is that the point?  No, the point is that the ship looks awesome, and the reveal of the alien planet isn't something that can just be conveyed by telling someone that there were mountains and stuff.  You need to experience the reveal itself in order to "get" what the filmmakers want you to get.

So, what exactly is "Prometheus" about?  I'll sketch that in broad strokes.  A pair of archaeologists, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), discover a set of 35,000 year old cave painting in Scotland, which happen to depict something that has also been depicted by other primitive cultures, ones that couldn't have had any contact with one another.  They take that as an invitation to the stars, and ten years later, they head a commercial space expedition shrouded in mystery, with a Weyland Corporation representative (Meredith Vickers, played by Charlize Theron) in ultimate charge.  And then a bunch of other things happen.

I'm not sure to what degree it's a spoiler to mention that this is an antecedent of the "Alien" franchise.  "Prometheus" stands on it's own, and honestly, there's only the most minor of connections made explicit.  As far as to whether or not it ties directly into the other films, that falls into the "I don't know/I don't care" category.  It's been a number of years since I've watched any of the other films, and I'm not watching four films in preparation to maybe glint another line or two out of "Prometheus."  One thing I can tell you is that the visual design sense of H.R. Giger (the artist who's work was the basis of the franchise) is present (and still spooky).

Breaking down the plot or analyzing the acting wouldn't do much good here.  The story hits all the points it needs to in order to get out of the way and let visually interesting or harrowing events to be shown.  If a film is not going to be able to manage to break new ground in terms of story, that's about the best alternative.  What is important is that the story is told with a maximum of visual flair.  Two scenes among many stand out: the initial scene set at a waterfall is spectacular, and there's a computer-generated scene of what appears to be the creation of the universe that is equally breathtaking.  Those aren't the only winners, but without spoiling things (and part of the joy of this film is one visual marvel after another), let me use that word "cool" to let you know that your eyes are going to be very, very happy while watching "Prometheus."

I liked this film a lot.  It's tense, visually interesting, and the run time flew by.  The "Alien" franchise isn't one of my personal favorites, so that wasn't really a factor in my enjoyment.  And I don't think that it would be fair to view "Prometheus" as an "Alien" prequel, as you don't really need to know anything about those film in order to appreciate this one.  If you're going to see "Prometheus," be sure to find the biggest screen in your area that you can.

3.5 / 5 - Theatre

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - 2012

"Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" - 2012
Dir. by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor - 1 hr. 35 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

First off, if you're in any way annoyed/offended by Marvel Comics' treatment of Ghost Rider co-creator Gary Friedrich, feel free to direct your attention/dollars to this benefit t-shirt.  I intend to, myself.

Onto the movie, which isn't very good.  You could probably tell that from the trailer, but let me reinforce that point.  There are concrete reasons for why this isn't a good movie, some of which are entirely unrelated to the source material.  But, since I brought it up, let's address the source material.  One thing has been proven in regards to comic book adaptations: if there isn't already a definitive story to refer to, Hollywood is largely unable to create one.  It's the dividing line that ought to be used when determining whether or not to make a movie based on any given character.  The biggies (and the most creatively successful franchises) like Batman, Spider-Man, or the X-Men all have numerous famous stories that you could pick up and use as the foundation for a movie.  The unsuccessful ones (and I'm counting the ones that have multiple attempts), like the Incredible Hulk, Punisher, or Ghost Rider movies, for the most part don't have any stories that you'd hand to someone as an ideal representation of those characters.  Good stories, sure, but Batman has at least half a dozen stories that you'd need to read before you had a good grasp of the character.  Speaking as someone who's read more than a few Ghost Rider comics, the essential Ghost Rider story either doesn't yet exist, or there just isn't one.

And over these multiple attempts that just never click with characters like Ghost Rider, the vacuum that exists where a definitive story ought to live has never been filled in adequately by any Hollywood screenwriter.  Ghost Rider, as a character, is pretty much a cool visual and spooky Devil nonsense.  When you hand this half-formed mess to filmmakers like Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, whose resume includes directing the "Crank" films and "Gamer," as well as writing the hot garbage of "Jonah Hex," it's highly unlikely that they're going to build anything meaningful on such unstable ground.  Yes, there's fire and explosions everywhere, but they also take Johnny Blaze from a teetotaler in the previous movie (remember his infamous martini glass of jelly beans) to an alcoholic pill-popper in an effort to lend some PG-13 grittiness to the proceedings.

I feel like I've adequately expressed why and how this movie isn't very good, and I don't think there's any reason to keep beating that dead horse.  Instead, I'll take a gleeful turn, and let you know that pretty much every bit of joy that there is to be had in this film is due to Nicolas Cage's fantastic over-acting.  Most people would be demoralized to have to produce such an awful film (and really, if there's anything about this film that I've overlooked that would suggest that the goal was anything other than producing a hot turd in a vain attempt to turn a quick buck, I beg you to let me know what it is), but it seems to energize Cage instead.  I respect his commitment to go down enjoying himself, and I honestly wish that I was capable of mustering that much energy in a lost cause.  There are a couple of line-readings that are absolutely fantastic when they have no business being anything more than drek (particularly his, "Yeah.  Black, French, alcoholic priest, kind of a dick.  Why, do you know him?" when asked about another character, which rivals some of Julianne Moore's best stylized dialogue deliveries in "The Big Lebowski").  If you're going to see this movie, Cage is the sole reason to do so.

There's not much reason to delve into the plot (typical "save the kid from the evil religious boogeyman" nonsense), or much of anything else.  When things weren't getting shot or blown up, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" was boring.  Boring as Hell, you might even say.  That was at least half of the film, and even at it's modest run time, there was still way too much of the trademark Neveldine/Taylor video-game inspired "reach the checkpoint" storytelling going on, and not nearly enough actual character development.  I mean, if you're going to make a whole movie about a biker with a flaming head having to save some kid from the Devil, at least try to make me care about any of the characters.  Start with one, and work from there.  If a filmmaker can't manage that, at least blow some more shit up.

1.5 / 5 - Theatre