Tag Archives: novel

‘Girl on the Train’ Wastes Cast on Sluggish Melodrama

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The_Girl_on_The_Train“Girl on the Train?” More like, “Girl, That Was Lame,” amiright?!

“The Girl on the Train” is based on the 2015 New York Times best-selling novel of the same name and follows an alcoholic woman (Emily Blunt) who gets involved with a missing person investigation. Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux and Luke Evans also star as Tate Taylor directs.

When I saw the trailer for this I, like many people, made an instant connection to “Gone Girl” due to the feel of the film and the whole “missing wife” plot. Upon seeing the film, it has a few similarities to that film, including non-linear timelines and unreliable narrators, but doesn’t share anything else that made “Gone Girl” so good.

Emily Blunt has really come onto the scene and into her own in the previous few years. After starring in romantic comedies like “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” she headlined the action-thrillers “Looper,” “Edge of Tomorrow” and “Sicario.” So it makes sense that Blunt is the best part of this mystery, but the performances of her and her fellow actors aren’t enough to save the film.

Blunt plays Rachel, a divorcee whose life is spiraling out of control thanks in large part to her alcoholism. Blunt makes the character sympathetic, but at the same time there is an uncomfortable sense about her; when she tries to interact with another person we in the audience almost cringe because of how unnatural and awkward it feels. Justin Theroux (always welcome in my book) plays Rachel’s ex-husband, who remarried and now has a kid, and although he seems like the nicest guy in the world and is admittedly a victim to Rachel’s drinking, there is a tense sense whenever he is in the room.

That is the one thing the film does well, it establishes tones and feels, sometimes multiple at once based on what character is speaking, and being set in New York City during the autumn gives everything a brisk, dark orange glow.

However the performances get drowned out by a screenplay that is so intent on keeping everything in the shadows that is reveals nothing about the plot until the very end. While “Gone Girl” (or most any successful mystery) drops subtle hints throughout about the true nature of its tale, “Girl on the Train” keeps everything spinning and murky until it hits you over the head with the “twist” ending. Except it really can’t be called a twist because it wasn’t truly alluding to one outcome and suddenly flipped the script; it just spins you in circles until you barely know or care what is going on before jerking you to a stop and expecting you to just appreciate that you finally got some answers.

The dialogue doesn’t pop and the direction never is sure-handed enough to take any real chances. It plays out pretty much exactly how you would expect the guy who directed “Get on Up” and “The Help” helming a “Gone Girl” wannabe.

“The Girl on the Train” isn’t *bad* but there is no reason you should ever see it. There aren’t enough thrills to keep you engaged or enough mystery to make you think, and isn’t even so-bad-it’s-good; it’s just so-meh-it’s-boring.

Critics Rating: 4/10

Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures

‘The Martian’ is Overlong, Underwhelming

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The_Martian_film_posterWell, at least this is better than “Exodus: Gods and Kings;” whatever that’s worth.

“The Martian” is based on the bestselling novel and stars Matt Damon as Mark Watney, an astronaut who is left behind on Mars after his team must perform an emergency evacuation. He must then both find a way to grow food and contact Earth before it is too late. Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, and Chiwetel Ejiofor highlight an all-star cast as Ripley Scott directs.

It seems to be a trend in the past few years to release a movie about surviving in space during the autumn season. 2013 gave us “Gravity,” and last year we had “Interstellar,” two very good movies that tinkered on great. Unfortunately “The Martian” does not continue that trend, as it a movie that is just OK, featuring flashes of what it could have been.

Like I said in the opening line, this is better than “Exodus,” and in fact may be Ripley Scott’s best film since 2003’s “Matchstick Men” (quick plug: see that if you haven’t). But the bar isn’t set very high for Scott, and many of the same problems that plagued his recent films like “Exodus” and “Prometheus,” like overstuffed plots and poor pacing, are front stage here.

“Martian” is 2 hours 20 minutes and you feel most every moment of that. I checked my phone one time expecting the film to be approaching the climax, and it was only 90 minutes in. Much of the film plays out in a rinse and repeat pattern: Damon needs to solve a problem, he solves it rather quickly, and a new problem then arises. Meanwhile the suits back at NASA argue on how to go about performing the rescue mission, which normally ends without much conflict.

The most interesting points of the film aren’t even featuring Damon trying to survive on the distant planet, it’s back on Earth where space experts Donald Glover, Ejiofor and Sean Bean all try and figure out problems and debate the best solutions. These moments are the most engaging but often end too quickly, instead sending us back to Damon who is eating potatoes for the 300th straight day.

What the film does do well, however, is establish the characters. We don’t really know about Watney before the accident (he gets left behind in the first 10 minutes of the film), so Damon’s video logs give us a feel for the character. He is a calm, down-to-earth (well, figuratively, not literally) guy who even though he just awoke 140 million miles from home with a needle plunged into his chest, still manages to crack a joke. The film itself is pretty funny, which makes sense when you have career comedians Glover, Daniels and Kristen Wiig as part of your cast.

I really wanted to like “The Martian” more than I did, but for every gorgeous shot of Mars’ desert terrain or each scene of Damon making a breakthrough, there are two or three slow scenes that add nothing but exposition to the already hefty plot. It is far from a bad film, but it is certainly one of the bigger disappointments of 2015, and kicks the Oscar movie season off with a whimper.

Critics Rating: 5/10

Variety

Variety

‘The Gunman’ Low On Guns, High on Snoozes

The_Gunman_Official_Theatrical_PosterA message to Sean Penn: Liam Neeson you are not.

“The Gunman” stars Sean Penn as an ex-gun-for-hire who carried out a foreign assassination and finds his past catching up to him eight years later. Idris Elba, Ray Winstone and Javier Bardem also star as Pierre Morel (director of the first “Taken” film) directs.

On paper, this movie should have worked. Sure, the “retired gunman comes out for one last job” is a rehashed genre (heck, I just reviewed “Run All Night” the other day), but “Gunman” has an A-list cast, a director who showed he can direct a 50-year-old in an action film, and a fun-looking trailer. What’s the end result? A bunch of A-list cameos, shoddily executed action scenes, and a trailer that clearly knew it had to lie about the true content of its product.

For a movie entitled “The Gunman” there sure is a scarcity of guns in this film. Like seriously, I think there are three shootouts in this, and most of them consist of Sean Penn ducking in-and-out of cover, spraying his gun at what he hopes are enemies.

The film takes a few minutes to get up and running, giving us what I assume they intended to be character development (it’s just boring forced narrative). When the first shot is finally taken, you think you’re in for a solid action film. LOL, nope. The rest of the first act is an awkward and unbelievable soap opera drama between Penn, Bardem and Penn’s ex-girlfriend, who is now Bardem’s wife and Bardem is threatened by Penn, but he’s not, and…I don’t know what to tell you, the film is a mess.

Let’s get to the characters. No one in this film acts like a real person. Bardem is a clowny cartoon, who says things that made me cringe and scratch my head. In his limited screen time he is just a laughing, bumbling goofball, paranoid that Penn is simply there to steal his wife. Idris Elba shows up for five minutes simply to put his name on the poster, and Ray Winstone does his grumbling Ray Winstone thing. Any big name actor on the poster not named Sean Penn is in this movie for no more than 15 minutes, I kid you not.

I really don’t know if there’s anything good I can say about “The Gunman”. The more I write about it, the more I’m growing to dislike it, and I walked out disliking it a pretty fair amount as was. Even the set pieces of the Congo, London and Rome are so bland they don’t add any visual candy to the experience.

Sean Penn clearly wanted to make this movie (he also produced and co-wrote it), but this passion project was a struggle to sit through. The film is so agonizingly paced, clichédly written and boring in its narrative that when the gun battles we were promised in the trailer finally arrive, we just don’t care.

“The Gunman” has all the looks and feel of a mid-day soap opera, but all the razor-sharp excitement of a mid-day soap opera. The only reason this mundane “action” film won’t derail Sean Penn’s career is because the only people who will hopefully ever be forced to sit through it are in an interrogation room in Guantanamo Bay.

Critics Rating: 3/10

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Variety

There Are 100 Things Wrong with ’50 Shades of Grey’

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Fifty-Gray-posterWell…let’s get this thing over with, shall we?

“Fifty Shades of Grey” is based off the best-selling novel of the same name by E. L. James (maybe you’ve heard of it?). The film stars Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele, a recent college grad who falls for a young billionaire named Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan, who has very specific tastes, to keep things PG. Sam Taylor-Johnson directs.

I really had no idea what to expect as I walked into this film. I knew that the novel was controversial (I also heard it was one of the worst books ever written), but that’s about it. Even the trailers of the film didn’t do much to suggest a plot summary. Walking out I now know why the trailers didn’t show much: it’s because this movie isn’t about anything and is just downright awful.

I could probably write a thesis paper on what is wrong with this movie, but let’s start with the two leads, Johnson and Dornan. By themselves they’re both serviceable, but together they have almost an awkward amount of lacking chemistry, and are given some of the worst dialogue in the history of cinema to recite.

Seriously, within the first 10 minutes of the film I was cringing at some of the writing, and my friend even leaned over to me and said that the dialogue was awful. I can’t even repeat most of the lines because they’re hilariously intentionally vulgar, but I’ll give you an example of a scene that had me shaking my head.

After having met Christian Grey on two occasions combining for probably about 25 minutes of together time, Anastasia Steele drunk-calls him while out celebrating having just finished college. He gets all upset and mad at her, a 25-year-old woman, for being at a bar, and then somehow (never explained how) he finds her and brings her home. And then the next morning she’s all impressed and they begin their relationship. Like, no. I know Grey is supposed to be a control freak, but no one is that uptight about people they just met.

The pacing in this movie is also an atrocity; I saw people checking their phones every 10 minutes. Every scene consists of essentially the same arc. Christian and Anastasia do their “Fifty Shades of Grey” thing, Anastasia wants Christian to open up to her, he yells and says he can’t, she cries, rinse, repeat. It’s so mundane and repetitive that it makes this two hour runtime feel like an eternity.

It’s also worth noting that there are three scene transitions that burned my eyes. It goes from inside a dark room at night to a bright Seattle skyline instantly, and everyone in the audience exclaimed at once.

Let’s get to the positives. …I mean… director Sam Taylor-Johnson used to be an artist, so the film looks nice. Some of the scenery and tonal colors work well together…that’s actually all I can think of.

I was bored out of my skull watching “Fifty Shades of Grey”, and it isn’t even like the graphic and racy parts live up to the hype (I’ve seen way worse in movies). The whole movie is about Christian Grey tying up and torturing Anastasia, yet I felt like the only one trapped and abused. This isn’t a “so-bad-it’s-good” movie. This is a “so-awful-I-actually-feel-dumber” movie. The actors have no chemistry, the writing is cringe-worthy and the plot is pointless.

There’s a part in the film when Christian is talking about a disclosure contract he makes Anastasia sign, and he says, “forget the contract, it’s getting redundant”. I just rolled my eyes and thought, “this movie is getting redundant…”

Critics Rating: 2/10

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Variety

‘Gone Girl’ Powerfully Acted, Capably Executed Thriller

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Gone_Girl_Poster                Do you smell that? It’s the smell of Oscar Season returning to grace us with its presence, and it is brought upon by director David Fincher’s newest film, “Gone Girl”.

On the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick (Ben Affleck) arrives home to find his house in shambles and his wife (Rosamund Pike) missing. When the media begins to put the spotlight on him, the police and American public start to wonder if Nick is an innocent victim, or a killer? Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry also star.

It is hard to say why “Gone Girl” is a good film without spoiling anything. In fact it is hard to really talk at all about this film without giving away one of its many twists. But it’s my job, so here we go.

The always reliable David Fincher, who directed films ranging cult classics “Fight Club” and “Se7en” to the fantastic “Social Network” and American version of “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”, directs “Gone Girl” in such a stepped-back, impartial way that at times you forget you are watching a movie. It is almost like you are simply watching events unfold, and you do not know who to trust.

Gillian Flynn, who wrote the novel on which the film is based, as well as penned the screenplay for the movie, has such a way with words that she is able to work in moments of dark humor that just feel natural. Sometimes in movies characters are deadly serious all the time and it almost takes you out of the film, but never with “Gone Girl”. It makes sure to have a little strategically placed bits of humor or lightheartedness just when a moment may be getting too serious or stale.

If you hear anything about the film, it will likely be one of two things: Rosamund Pike’s performance, or the twists. This film has more twists than a pastry from Cinnabon. At first they are small things, like the police finding a clue, but as the film goes on, they get more and more elaborate and hit harder and harder, until the ultimate punch to the stomach in the film’s final moments.

As for Pike, there is so much that could be said but I’ll keep it brief. As she narrates the film via her diary passages and flashbacks, we see at first the fairytale marriage that she and Affleck have, but then how they begin to become more and more distant, until finally she begins to fear her own husband. It is a multi-layered performance that is sure to earn her award talk.

Now as much as the film wants to front itself as a brilliant Oscar contender, there are some glaring flaws. The first act of the film, when police are collecting initial clues and samples and Affleck is doing interviews, can drag a little, as we aren’t really learning anything new or earth shattering, but still are sitting through it all. It is a little like watching a behind-the-scenes, paperwork-only edition of “Law and Order”, just with more awkward pacing. The film may also leave some viewers, including myself, craving a better delivery of the climax.

“Gone Girl” is a perfectly cast, capably directed film that just suffers from some narrative and pacing issues, as well as a possible weak finale. That being said, it is an engrossing, dark and intelligent, and may leave your brain hurting when the credits start to roll. Is “Gone Girl” as entertaining or memorable as it wants to be? No. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come close.

Critics Rating: 7/10

‘Tombstones’ a Cliche, Slightly Engaging Thriller

A_Walk_Among_the_Tombstones_poster           When Liam Neeson isn’t playing Zeus, training Batman or killing European men to save his daughter, he works as a private investigator in 1999 New York City.

In “A Walk Among the Tombstones”, Neeson plays Matthew Scudder, a retired New York City cop who now finds employment as a PI. When a drug kingpin contacts Scudder about finding the men who killed his wife, Scudder finds himself in a race to catch the men before they strike again. Dan Stevens and Boyd Holbrook also star, as Scott Frank writes and directs the film, which is based on a Lawrence Block novel.

Liam Neeson has had quite a diverse 2014. After starting the year voicing a Raccoon and a Lego cop, he saved a hijacked airplane (oops, spoiler. But I mean…if you haven’t seen “Non-Stop” at this point then I doubt you really want to) and he also played an American cowboy with an Irish accent (because, sure). Now Neeson takes a step back and takes on a much more serious and reality-grounded film with “Tombstones”. And how is it? …I mean, it’s alright.

The setup in this film is very solid. We get a little bit of Scunner’s backstory as to why he became a PI and quit the NYPD, but just enough to wet our appetite; we get bits and pieces throughout that complete the puzzle. We are then introduced to the kingpin, played by Dan Stevens. The guy seems like he has a few demons he himself is dealing with, and he is drug dealer, so we are not sure if we can trust him. However when he shows Scunner what the men who kidnapped his wife did to her, we quickly learn that they are not human, and that they need to be stopped.

“Tombstones” isn’t really a mystery, as we know 15 minutes in who the bad guys are, and what their motivation is. The movie even shows several scenes from their perspective. But it continues to treat itself like it is a mystery, as if every time Neeson himself finds a clue we are supposed to act all surprised and begin racking our own brains. This is one of the film’s largest flaws.

As interesting the characters and despicable the villains, we are never really met with many moments of tension or suspense. Sure, sometimes you feel like Neeson is being followed, or that a character knows more than they’re leading on, however the matter is quickly resolved, before you can really absorb the situation.

The ending also could leave more to be desired. Obviously I won’t spoil anything, but the ending seems like it is going to get interesting, but then takes a cliché route before cutting off and rolling credits entirely. You wish for all the set up the film had (or at least tried to have), it would give the audience more of a payoff.

Neeson and the rest of the cast do fine work, and Frank’s direction and screenplay are both nice and neat. The production value is also impressive, considering the film is set in New York on the eve of the Y2K crisis (because why not?). There just aren’t enough new things in “A Walk Among the Tombstones” to make it memorable.

I was never bored while watching, and Neeson does get to flash his BA badge a few times, however I just couldn’t help but think as I sat there and watch that all I really wanted was for Neeson to answer a cellphone and yell “give me back my daughter!” and before hopping on a plane to France.

Critics Rating: 6/10

‘November Man’ a Fun, By-the-Numbers Spy Thriller

The_November_Man_poster            It’s hard to watch Pierce Brosnan run around in “The November Man” without imagining him from his glory 007 days, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Brosnan steps into his spy shoes once again, only this time instead of being a Brit he is an ex-CIA agent who is called out of retirement for one last job (if it sounds cliché, that’s because it is). After the rescue mission goes wrong, Brosnan is on a path for revenge; a path that will pit him against his old protégé (Luke Bracey) and right in the middle of a government conspiracy (if that sounds cliché, it’s because it is. See the pattern yet?). Roger Donaldson directs.

“The November Man” really is an interesting film. It uses every spy thriller cliché in the book, from student vs teacher to an agent being told “don’t start a family” and then promptly starting a family. However, despite all these clichés, the film still manages to implement some interesting twists, and a lot of fun, engaging action, to make it worth your time.

First things first, despite being 61 years old, Pierce Brosnan shows that he still has some fight left in him, and he can still kick some serious butt. Even though his attempt at an American accent is awkward, and completely abandoned when he yells (which is more often than you may think), he never hams up his performance, like you may see an aging action star do in “The Expendables”.

The movie’s action is top of the notch, if not at times a bit ridiculous. There are plenty of CAR CHASES! EXPLOSIONS! SHOVELS TO THE HEAD! but there are also numerous well-staged shootouts in the film. Most every one of these shootouts is built up by several minutes of cat-and-mouse tension. You don’t know when the spark is going to hit the powder keg, but when it does it results in well-shot, exciting and downright easily enjoyable fun.

What keeps “November Man” from being a better-than-average spy thriller, aside from the genre clichés, is the plot. There a few fun twists, however by the end of the film, it felt like they were trying to fit in as many “gotcha!” moments as they could. Some of the twists are more plausible than others, while one will make you groan because of how unnecessary it is.

There is also a 20 minute segment where not a bullet is fired, because the film tries to make you care about the characters (or something like that). It gets almost so dry that you just want to grab Brosnan and shout “would you shoot someone already?!”

What you expect out of “The November Man” will determine how much fun you have with it. If you want a new, fresh spy thriller with a hot young gun stealing the show, you’ll be disappointed. If you want to see well-shot action and some fun spy dialogue, like I did, then you’ve come to the right place. And if you wanted an over-the-top action film with a stupid plot and even worse script, go watch “Die Hard 5”.

Critics Rating: 6/10

‘The Giver’ an Interesting Adaption

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The_Giver_posterAll too often when a movie is adapted from a novel, especially one that is as popular and well-known as Lois Lowry’s “The Giver”, the resulting film is a letdown, both as a film as well as to the source material. But “The Giver”, based on Lowry’s book, does a better job than most when it comes to bringing pages to the big screen.

Set in the year 2048, the world has been divided into “communities”, perfect living arrangements devoid of color, emotions or other social aspects. When a young boy named Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is taught to see and feel all the memories lost by a man known as The Giver (Jeff Bridges), the perfect community is threatened. Meryl Streep and Katies Holmes costar as Phillip Noyce directs.

Jeff Bridges spent nearly two decades trying to get Lowry’s novel made into a film, and originally envisioned his own father, Lloyd, playing the titular character. More than 20 years and 10 million copies sold, “The Giver” is finally a major Hollywood film, and the result is a mixed bag, however an interesting one.

The concept of a “perfect society” isn’t new, and technically this film is even less original because it is based off a book. However “The Giver” still manages to keep our interest by hinting at what used to be. Unlike “The Hunger Games”, these communities, also forged because of a great war, have no recollection of the old world, and know not that the government, led by Streep, is controlling and manipulating them. This makes us root for Jonas to overthrow the system even more.

Noyce directs the film beautifully, transitioning from black-and-white to small amounts of color as Jonas becomes more and more intelligent. He infuses The Giver’s memories with lively and colorful images that make us realize how gorgeous the world we live really is, and how awful it would be to lose it.

There are some tonal and pacing issues with the film, and they are certainly its biggest flaw. Towards the film’s climax, when the energy should be racing and our hearts pumping, it is actually the driest and slowest part of the film. There is no real suspense; any suspense that should be present is replaced with walking. A lot of walking.

Not every performance is also up-to-par, however that is not entirely the actors’ fault. Because this is a world with no emotion or true expression, many characters, especially Katie Holmes’s mother character, feel more like robots than human beings, and it is at times distracting from the film, whether loyal to the book or not.

If you loved Lowry’s novel, then “The Giver” won’t disappoint. It embodies everything that has made the book so popular, even if it does shy away from some of its deeper, thought-provoking ideas. From a standalone film perspective, the film is gorgeously shot and features a few interesting aspects, almost acting as modern social commentaries. I found myself generally entertained for a majority of the film, and that is more than I can say for most non-Harry Potter adaptions.

Critics Rating: 7/10

Hoffman Great, ‘Most Wanted Man’ Not

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A_Most_Wanted_Man_Poster            Sometimes a performance in a film is so good that it actually takes away from the film itself, and makes you realize how average the movie surrounding the performance is. It happened with Denzel Washington in “Flight” and it happens with Philip Seymour Hoffman in “A Most Wanted Man”.

Directed by Anton Corbijn and starring Hoffman in his last non-Hunger Games role, “A Most Wanted Man” is a thriller based off a John le Carré novel. When German intelligence receives word of a possible terrorist hiding in the city of Hamburg, Günter Bachmann (Hoffman) and his team must act quickly in order to stop a possible threat, as well as bring down a terrorist funding operation. Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe and Robin Wright all co-star.

In my 20 years on this earth, I have found there are two kinds of espionage thrillers:  ones that are non-stop, pulse pounders, and others that are slow-burning and dry. There really is no in between. Unfortunately, “A Most Wanted Man” falls into the latter category, despite yet another immensely dedicated performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Hoffman plays a German in the film, accent and all, but he is never campy. Despite having seen him in over a dozen films, and having personally graduated from the same American high school he once attended, I never doubted Hoffman as a German. He smokes, drinks and growls his way through the film, portraying a man who sticks to his guns, even when every other person around him is doubting the flimsy evidence. When Hoffman is on screen you cannot take your eyes off of him, and when he is not there you instantly notice his lack of presence.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is not as engaging. The film wants to have you constantly guessing whether Hoffman’s target is actually a terrorist or simply just a misunderstood refugee, yet it only really feeds one side of the argument. You never really feel conflicted or question whether or not Hoffman’s team is making a mistake. You know exactly how to feel about the suspect and that takes away from some of the suspense.

The film also takes a while to get going to where it wants to get going to. Early on it makes it out to seem like the whole film will be a manhunt for a character, but then they quickly absolve that situation and then linger for about thirty minutes before finally realizing the big fish they really want to go after has been there the whole time.

There are worse espionage thrillers out there (just look at “Paranoia”, for example), but “A Most Wanted Man” is nothing special or memorable in its own right, either. The real enjoyment from the film comes from watching Hoffman on screen for one of the last times, and with every scene that passes we are reminded that we truly lost a legend. It is just a shame that everything surrounding Hoffman is nowhere near as interesting as his character. The narrative is just too bogged down and most characters outside Hoffman’s are just too underdeveloped.

There is a part in the film where Robin Wright’s CIA agent asks Hoffman, “What is it you want to achieve here?” I wanted to ask the film the same question.

Critics Rating: 5/10