Man of Steel (2013)

USA, Canada, UK; 143min

Drama, Romance

Director: Zack Snyder

Writers: David S. Goyer, Christopher Nolan 
Stars: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon

After reboots of almost every commonly known superhero movie we didn’t had to wait long for a new Superman although the last one was only 7 years ago. Creative minds behind Man of Steel were the same that gave us The Dark Knight trilogy, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, while Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) got to visualize it.

Approach was very similar as the one in The Dark Knight trilogy so it’s hard not to occasionally compare two of them. Main idea is to show what Superman would be in real world just like it was with latest Batman. That, of course, implies much darker, both story and visualization of Superman than before.

Nolan and Goyer gave us new perspectives on few things, such as how he came by his costume and what the S on it means, he’s relationship with Lois and we get completely new, action packed, look at the Jor-El presented by Russell Crowe.

 In movie’s prologue we see happenings at Krypton just before its demise. We are for the first time introduced with Krypton's politics, military and history in an action packed sequence in witch General Zod (Michael Shannon), Krypton's military ruler, tries to overthrow the government which led the planet to its inevitable destruction while Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is trying to save his newborn son by sending him away from decaying planet.

After the prologue movie continues with 33 years old Clark Kent who wanders around the Earth and occasionally saves people until he finds old Kryptonian space ship who’s activation attracts General Zod and his men while the Clark’s youth is shown in flashbacks which are somewhat connected with happenings in real time.

Screenwriting is far from being special in any way but it’s a solid origin story of a 75 years old comic book. There’s a big impression that Goyer’s motto was: If you’re stuck just do it like in Batman, what isn’t all bad, we all liked Batman but we don’t want the same thing over and over again. It’s not only Batman, there’s even a little bit of Avatar and Transformers in this. To be short, it looks like mishmash of everything that was successful recently.

The great thing in this Superman story is that Superman isn’t all nice guy, while Zod isn’t embodiment of evil. Superman actually kills people here, both indirectly and directly and he just watches some of them die while Zod just does his job. Both Henry Cavill as Superman and Michael Shannon as General Zod earned their paycheck. Shannon’s Zod is definitely best one on screen ever while there will be a big number of fans that will think the same for Cavill’s Superman.

Amy Adams as Lois Lane is a very good. This was the third time that she tried to embody her and she made sure that she will be Lois for at least one more time which was very hard since Lois was terribly written. It looks like whole movie was written without her and at the end somebody said: We have to have Lois Lane in this!, so Goyer just inserted her randomly in the scenes. There is so much boredom, coincidence and stupidity and so little logic and sense in scenes that include Lois that the one has to ask did they really forgot about her and inserted her later or does Goyer and Nolan hate her so much. But that’s still nothing compared to the tornado scene which makes almost every man watching it to feel ashamed on behalf of writers.

Although there is only one group of Supermen’s nemesis there are few big battles with another few minor conflicts which are all nicely done but it made movie unnecessarily long which will cause polarization between viewers since the part of them who will not like the movie will hate it more because of endless action while the other part will enjoy in it.

Nolan and Goyer should have spent more time in developing deeper story and characters instead of playing with easter eggs. There’s even a short scene dedicated to producer Jon Peters which will be one of the best parts of movie for all those familiar with his ideas for never filmed Superman reboot with Nicholas Cage.

 

On the other hand Zack Snyder did his job almost flawless. Main battle sequence is pornography for action lovers. Visual effects are top of the class, just like complete scenery and music by, one and only, Hans Zimmer. I was kind of happily expecting random slow motions scenes from Snyder but I guess it wasn’t compatible with realistic approach that Nolan and Goyer imagined.

There is a great amount of CGI but the good thing is that they tried to film everything they could without it, on real sets, so it didn’t end like 300 as some were afraid.

Man of steel is very good origin reboot, nice start of potentially great trilogy and, despite bad acceptance among critics, hit among the fans. Screenwriting could have been much better and I expect great improvement in sequel while it’s hard to make visually better one I’ll be modest and expect the same level on that.

Although the movie has deeper context, even the religious one, it’s in the first place for superhero and action lovers or as we’re used to say, it’s blockbuster and in that genre it scores pretty high.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

Australia, USA; 142min

Drama, Romance

Director: Baz Luhrmanm

Writers: Baz Luhrmann, Craig Pearce, F. Scott Fitzgerald (novel) 
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire

The Great Gatsby is based on a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald with the same name which is is widely considered to be a literary classic. The book wasn't a success until the World War II and it became a part of high school curriculum in the following decades. The book has remained popular since, leading to numerous stage and film adaptations.

Latest adaptation was done by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce who worked together on Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge. Who is familiar with Luhrmann's work won't be surprised with his vision of this great story but others could be, which fortunately doesn't need to end badly.

The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), a Yale graduate from the Midwest who gets a job in New York as a bond salesman. He rents a small house on Long Island next door to the lavish mansion of Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), a mysterious millionaire who holds extravagant parties. On the other side of the bay is a home of his cousin, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), and her husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), a college acquaintance of Nick's. Soon Nick gets invited to one of Gatsby's parties (later he learns that he was the only one, ever, to receive an invitation). There he meets the mysterious Gatsby and slowly learns that he knows and is in love with Nick's cousin Daisy from across the bay. As Nick helps him to meet with her he starts discovering more about Gatsby and his life and soon becomes the only one who cared about him and not only about his money. The two of them created a real friendship which ended with Nick writing a story about it in an asylum.

Although movie fallows the novel pretty well it didn't manage to show main points. Fitzgerald wanted to present the Jazz Age, when jazz music and dance became popular and wider cultural changes during that period. You just don't present the Jazz age with Jay-Z and dubstep (which completely destroyed the big party scene), two second shots and CGI which often looks like cartoon or at least very similar to the one from Sin City. Also, the novel provides a critical social history of America during the Roaring Twenties, era known for unprecedented economic prosperity, the evolution of jazz, flapper culture and organized crime while the movie is almost completely concentrated on the love story which is only one of the ways Fitzgerald tried to criticized that historical period. But we won't take those facts as major disadvantages of the story since we have to look at this movie primary as independent work.

What we will take as disadvantage is fast paced editing which sometimes can literally cause a seizure. There probably aren't any no-CGI shots longer than 3 seconds and sometimes is hard to notice anything around characters which is tragedy since the scenery is wonderful and those who weren't enjoying in story could enjoy in visual impression. Luhrmann's approach to this story was fairy-tale-like which sometimes looked strange but at the end it left good impression and it could be called great move. Shots of old New York are great and CGI in them is wonderful. Well, visually The Great Gatsby is one of strongest movies lately and all that kitsch in it fits well. Only negative critic on visual part are car driving scenes which look like the ones from  Frank Miller's Sin City, only more colorful. They look great but that way of shooting it just don't fit to the atmosphere of the movie.

The story itself is very good, primary because almost everybody will find something interesting that they will follow. If you aren't the lover of romance (which is pretty solid here) you'll maybe be interested in Nick's entering into the New York's high class, or maybe in mystery around Gatsby or in way of life almost one hundred years ago. There's something for almost anybody in here.

Characters leave great impression. It's hard to forget Gatsby, Nick, Daisy and Tom and the credit for that goes to both writing and acting. Performance is top class but we expect nothing less from A-list actors although there was a lot of skepticism around Maguire being Nick but it ended as a positive surprise (not great though). There was some talking about Gatsby being DiCaprio's first bad role in 15 years. That's nonsense. His Gatsby is great, although a little bit different from the original one but he's a pretty complicated character, one of those iconic ones because he can be interpreted in so many ways: a hopeless romantic, a completely obsessed wacko or a dangerous gangster clinging to wealth with one very irritating habit, the phrase old sport. That phrase is said 55 times during the movie; all but four of those times are delivered by Gatsby which means that he delivered it in average every 2,7 minutes!

All in all The Great Gatsby is a solid adaptation of Fitzgerald work. It missed some of main points of the novel but it is made for modern viewers so it's probably on purpose. It's visually strong, with way too paced editing, good multilayer story, terrible soundtrack in the first half and great performance. Definitely worth of seeing.

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

USA; 132min
Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Directors: J.J. Abrams

Writers:  Roberto Orci, Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, Gene Roddenberry (original Star Trek)

Stars: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch 

Who would thought that after very good Star Trek reboot in 2009 we’ll get this as it’s sequel. J.J. Abrams and his writers tried to play it safe with villain that almost every Trakkie loves, they really tried to preserve the flavor of original series (although in parallel universe, where they can do anything, they decided not to write anything new), to make funny dialogues and J.J. went in extra trouble to make us remember every inch of every actor’s face with so many closeups that Indian soap operas looks like Battle of the Pelennor Fields compared to this view. He tried so much to give us as little as possible.

Even the special effects are way under the today’s blockbusters level. For almost 200 millions dollars we expect way better visual impression than few shots of Enterprise and future London, although the beginning was very promising in that field. In other hand, beginning was promising in many fields, pretty much all of them. But at the end of the movie there was very little of upsides.

Let’s see the plot. At beginning we get standard fast sequel characterization primary for those who haven’t see prequel. So we once again meet modern captain Kirk, who looks and acts like all-American high school quarterback who doesn’t respect any rules but he is extremely moral and brave. We also meet his logical Vulcan friend and first officer, Spock, who in every appearance on screen, logically, remind us that he’s logical and unemotional but he makes more illogical and emotional decisions and acts then otherwise. We also meet all those other characters who more or less serve just as humor relief what actually isn’t all bad but it is a degradation of those, once interesting, characters. Not to forget, there’s even one character whose only purpose is to do a lingerie scene. It's female, of course. 

That dynamic, interesting, funny and visually impressive beginning with a little dose of philosophy is also this movie’s peak. Then we get very fast intro into movie’s main plot which is spinning around an evil terrorist who makes a big mess in The Godfather style and then runs away. Guess who’s going after that evil man!?

Whole idea for plot is solid, but it’s way from being original. Every segment in which this writers tried to be original, even in slightest possible way, ended as catastrophe with plot holes, a lot of questions (not philosophical or theoretical, just practical ones), useless characters and constant big and important battles with some new laws of physics which felt like infinity. Approximately one third of a movie went on Spock’s and Kirk’s bromance and those cheesy and pathetic dialogues and closeup stares between them. Another third was spent on explosions, bad visual effects and Kirk acting like an superhero (aren’t all those Marvel screenings enough?). But in one third of a movie we actually saw something good. It was Benedict Cumberbatch as main villain. 

Although acting was in high level in general, Cumberbatch stole the show. He had help in a view of very good characterization of his character and pathetic one of good guys, so it isn’t strange that big part of audience actually cheered for him. Both Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock gave us top performance so it’s fair to say that acting performance is the biggest (possibly the only) upside of latest J.J. Abram’s Star Trek.

Star Trek: Into Darkness ended up as an confirmation of J.J. Abrams’s directing and Damon Lindelof’s writing incapability. Every one of projects that two of them touched in these roles ended up as a disappointment. But the worst thing is that they have good ideas but realization of those ideas is terrible. We can only hope that they will get better in time and that new Star Wars will not end as an Indian soap opera.

 

Short reviews - Set 5 (Smoke, The Royal Tenenbaums, Another Earth)

Smoke (1995)
Germany, USA, Japan; 112min
Comedy, Drama
Director: Wayne Wang
Writer: Paul Auster
Stars: Harvey Keitel, William Hurt, Harold Perrineau 

Easy going story about few Brooklyn residents which lives gets closely connected at one point. Auggie is a smoke shop owner, Paul Benjamin is a Auggie’s loyal customer, writer and some kind of a short term guardian to Rashid who is in a search of his father, while Ruby is Auggie's ex who wants Auggie to help their pregnant daughter.
Nicely directed with great acting and well-written characters but although it is a comedy don’t expect laugh out loud moments. Basically, don’t expect anything. It all works fine but at the end you get the question in your head: That’s it!? It’s one of that about life movies and it has it’s moments and definitely it has a point but there’s a feeling that it just isn’t enough. 


The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) 
USA; 110min
Comedy, Drama
Director: Wes Anderson
Writer: Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson
Stars: Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow

 

A story about unusual family told on unusual way from the eyes of Wes Anderson.
Royal Tenenbaum left his family long ago and after he faced bankruptcy he comes back to make things right with his family. The crew is full of big names like Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alec Baldwin and of course Anderson's regulars Bill Murray and Wilson's brothers. Names didn’t stay only on names so the acting is as good as it gets with Stiller’s surprisingly good performance.
The Royal Tenenbaums doesn’t deviate much from other Anderson’s movies. Directing is almost the same with similar type of characters and narration. Since it’s probably most normal of his movies I would recommend to those not familiar with Anderson’s work to start from The Royal Tenenbaums.
It’s good family drama with many elements of comedy with strange and memorable characters directed in a wonderful, fairytale like, way.
I recommend this to everybody, if for nothing else than just to enjoy great directing.


Another Earth (2011)
USA; 92min
Drama, Sci-Fi
Director: Mike Cahill
Writers: Mike Cahill, Brit Marling
Stars: William Mapother, Brit Marling, Matthew-Lee Erlbach 

Simple story about a mistake, tragedy, ruined lives and redemption with metaphorical Sci-Fi elements which only purpose is to highlight hope for different flow of life.
It’s a type of story seen many times before, even with that Sci-fi context but it always leaves hard impact on viewer like the true drama should do. Just don’t expect standard Sci-fi, or even any, because there’s less of it than Melancholia.
For a directorial debut Mike Cahill did a solid job but I hope that his next project, ‘I Origins’, will be on higher ground and that he won’t use that heavily overused documentary approach. Although widely unknown actors were few levels above Cahill and it’s hard to have any complaints on their job.
All in all, Another Earth is very good drama and probably is enjoyable only to lovers of that genre and although it is kind of Sci-fi it definitely isn’t for typical Sci-fi fan.

Short reviews - Set 4 (The Thin Red Line, Police Academy, Welcome to the Sticks)

The Thin Red Line (1998) 
USA, 170min
Drama, War
Director: Terrence Malick
Writers: James Jones (novel), Terrence Malick
Stars: Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte

One of the strongest anti-war movies ever. Concentration isn’t on battle at Guadalcanal itself but on the consequences that bloody conflicts like that leave on people involved.
Directing is phenomenal, Malick did a great job. This is one of best directed movies. An average shot length of 8 seconds speaks for itself. Visual impression and atmosphere are at the top of the genre, a little behind Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket.
Cast is full of well known names like Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Adrien Brody, Woody Harrelson, Jared Leto, John Travolta, George Clooney and Jim Caviezel who is the only one who underperformed i.e. he was bad as he usually is.
The Thin Red Line is tiring and sometimes hard to watch but that's the point and it's definitely must see of the war genre. 



Police Academy (1984)
USA, 96min
Comedy, Crime
Director: Hugh Wilson
Writers: Neal Israel, Pat Proft
Stars: Steve Guttenberg, G.W. Bailey, Kim Cattrall

Police Academy is one of the guilty pleasures. We all know it's bad but we all have seen it, had a few laughs and when we see it on TV we watch at least a bit of it. Some of us even tried to watch the sequels but that’s complete different category of guilty pleasures.
The best part of movie is main music theme. It stays in your mind forever and always brings good feelings. Everything else is just bad. So bad that it became hilarious and at the end Police Academy became cult movie and a queen of trash comedies.
Police Academy is a bunch of stereotypes, exaggerations and caricature characters in situations and dialogs that have no sense at all. But that's the charm of it.




Welcome to the Sticks (2008)
Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (2008) 
France, 106min
Comedy
Director: Dany Boon
Writers: Dany Boon, Alexandre Charlot
Stars: Kad Merad, Dany Boon, Zoé Félix 

We all have our prejudices, especially about other regions and its people. Turning that prejudices into comedy isn’t too hard but it has great potential. Welcome to the Sticks used that potential as much as it was possible and the result is great comedy.
After Philippe lost his transfer because he lied about being handicapped his bosses decided to punish him. Not by suspension or demission but with transfer to the north of France. Philippe was sure that he’s going into the hell on Earth and the point is that every man from the South thinks the same.
Great comedy, great drama, great story, great screenplay and great acting. There aren’t many things in this movie that aren’t great, except maybe, totally forced and unneeded love story but it didn't made too big problem. This type of humor based on regional prejudices maybe isn’t for everyone but the ones that have similar situation in their country or region will definitely love it.

Short reviews - Set 3 (The Skin I Live In, Headhunters, Zelig)

The Skin I Live In (2011)
Le piel que habito (2011)

Spain, 120min
Drama, Thriller
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Writers: Almodóvar, Thierry Jonquet (novel Tarantula)
Stars: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Jan Cornet

 

There’s really no point in talking about a plot of this movie since there’s just no way in which one could describe what happened to another. I believe this is the most morbid movie I have ever seen and definitely no other left so unpleasant feeling. There’s no gore, no common horror scenes, just events and characters which make sure that you don’t forget them soon.
Almodóvar is great filmmaker and he proved that once again. Banderas is way better than usual and we can only hope that he’s going to refresh his career in Spain and become more than the guy who was El Mariachi almost 20 years ago.
The Skin I Live In is more for horror fans than for thriller lovers but who ever is going to watch it will walk for some time with this story on mind.

Headhunters (2011)
Hodejegerne (2011)

Norway, Germany, 100min
Crime, Thriller
Director: Morten Tyldum
Writers: Lars Gudmestad, Jo Nesbø (novel)
Stars: Aksel Hennie, Synnøve Macody Lund, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

 

 

Finally Jo Nesbø found a way to a film. Headhunters is the story about business headhunter who occasionally work as a art thief. One day he run onto ex-military headhunter with a $100 million worth painting which, of course, he couldn’t resist. Soon he realized that his target isn’t target anymore, but he is.
Very interesting and dynamic but with few major goofs. Works like a pure thriller with a lot of suspense what, although very unrealistic at first sight, look natural and possible at the end. There are also some comedy elements, a little bit of drama and romance and nice amount of action in typically dark and anxious Scandinavian atmosphere.
It’s far from being a must see and Nesbø definitely deserves better but it’s above average crime-thriller and good entertainment. 



Zelig (1983)
USA; 79min
Comedy, Fantasy
Director: Woody Allen
Writer: Woody Allen
Stars: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Patrick Horgan 

Very interesting Woody Allen's mockumentary about Leonard Zelig, a man who changes his physical appearance in order to fit in.
It’s great idea presented in best possible way. It's interesting and funny but also a great caricature review of a modern man and his uncontrollable need to fit in. Too bad that most Woody Allen’s films are average romantic dramas/comedies because film like this are really necessary to the modern cinematography and Woody is obviously capable to make the.

Short reviews - Set 2 (Chronicle, Cinema Paradiso, Troy)

In the lack of free time necessary for complete reviews we'll post short reviews of some random, usually just seen, movies.

Chronicle (2012)
USA, 84min
Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Director: Josh Trank
Writers: Max Landis, Josh Trank
Stars: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan

 Found footage movie about three teenagers who managed to gain telekinetic abilities from some strange object in a strange hole in the ground. That doesn’t sound too good, doesn’t it? But surprisingly it is.
Character development is very good, especially for this genre, although it’s far from being original. Visual impression is great and problem of bad camera job in found footage films is easily removed duo to telekinetic ability of character who records his daily routine.
Chronicle won’t leave good impression on everybody but it definitely will on young Sci-Fi lovers.



Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Italy, France; 155min
Drama
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Writers: Giuseppe Tornatore, Vanna Paoli
Stars: Philippe Noiret, Enzo Cannavale, Antonella Attili

Very emotional movie about growing up, love and Italian south, about movies and return to personal history and birthplace and a lot of other things. Old filmmaker remembers his youth on Italian south were he became great friend with local theater's projectionist.
Beautiful and relaxing but with domination of sadness. Italian acting/yelling is usually 'special' and hard to digest for non-Italian viewers and here that’s even harder due to few really bad acting performances but overall feeling stays intact. Cinema Paradiso is a must see for every film lover.



Troy (2004)
USA, Malta, UK; 163min
Adventure, Drama, History
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Writers: Homer (poem), David Benioff
Stars: Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom

It's far from being perfect but it's definitely most realistic approach to Homer's poem. There's no gods, no myths, no supernatural, just one historical event that probably happened on similar way.
Fighting scenes are weakest point. If we put aside that almost every single soldier has iron armor, what probably never happened in any battle, that whole battlefield stops to look at two men fight and that Greek army, which is famous for their use of battle formations, fight like Germanic tribes, battles still look far from being well made.
But everything else works nice. Acting and directing are the top class, dialogues and characterization are very well written, in brief, I have no major complaints.
Lovers of history and epic movies will probably like it while others shouldn’t rush into seeing it.