20160718: Action Review--The Man from UNCLE

Embrace the Suck, review #1: The Man from U. N. C. L. E. (2015)
Pre-emptive considerations:

1. Henry Cavill.  After watching a segment of Man of Steel (2013) with Cavill and Kevin Costner, I took a mighty oath never to watch another movie with Cavill in the cast.  I still like Costner, but Cavill was just horrible, and he's a Brit to boot, playing Superman.  A thousand times, no.


2. Armie Hammer.  Part of the reason I was never a strong fan of The Social Network (2010) was the portrayal of the Winklevoss twins by Mr Hammer.  When the mega-flop The Lone Ranger (2013) was circling the bowl, I took the criticisms of Mr Hammer to heart, and skipped it.


3. Counter-balancing the nausea caused by the choice of lead actors was the presence of Guy Ritchie as the director.  Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000) are two favourites of mine.  The humour, action, and sleek editing style were excellent.

So why did I watch it?  I had DVR'd it on a lark. I liked the source material from 1964-68, after all. The wife and I were looking for some funny material recently, and we both remembered the Guy Ritchie films listed above.

------Return to normal review mode.------

Name: The Man from UNCLE (2015)
IMDb: link to The Man from UNCLE page

image courtesy of TMDb

Genres: Action, Comedy, Drama   Country of origin: USA, UK

Cast:
Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo, Armie Hammer as Illya Kuryakin, Alicia Vikander as Gaby Teller, Hugh Grant as Alexander Waverly, Elizabeth Debicki as Victoria Vinciguerra, Luca Calvani as Alexander, Sylvester Groth as Uncle Rudy, Jared Harris as Sanders (CIA contact), Misha Kuznetzov as Oleg (KGB contact).

Directed by: Guy Ritchie.  Written by: Guy Ritchie, Lionel Wigram.

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
In the early 1960s, on behalf of the CIA, reformed master thief Napoleon Solo crosses into East Germany to extract Gaby Teller so as to find (and get leverage over) her scientist father.  Russian KGB agent Illya Kuryakin has a similar mission.

Delineation of conflicts:
Solo and Kuryakin compete throughout the film, partly from international and interagency competition, partly from testosterone poisoning.  Victoria Vinciguerra and her rich family have cornered Dr Teller into constructing nuclear devices that are somehow more dangerous than the usual kinds, as in 'end of the world' dangerous.  Victoria wants to use the devices for leverage.  The CIA, KGB, and MI5 would like to stop that.  The goals of these agencies are not always in sync with each other.

Resolution: The dialectic of conflicts ends late in the film.  Stay tuned.

One line summary: Origin story of UNCLE (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement).

Statistics:

Cinematography: 8/10 Nicely done.

Sound: 10/10 The dialog was in English, German, Russian, and Italian, so I relied on sub-titles.  I know enough German to tell that the sub-titles were usually on target, so I trusted the sub-titles for the spoken Russian and Italian.  Guy Ritchie is a huge fan of music, and the choices made for this film were delightful.

Acting: 6/10 Guy Ritchie is clearly a talented director.  The three lead actors are walking disasters, but he managed to neutralise that factor.  His choices of seasoned actors for the side characters were sound.  I liked Jared Harris, Hugh Grant, and Sylvester Groth quite well.

Screenplay: 8/10 I watched this to have fun, and collected a number of good laughs.  The combination of humour and action was good.  The film was 117 minutes long, but I did not feel that it dragged anywhere.

Final Rating: 8/10

20160211: Thriller Review--The Hunter 2011

Name: The Hunter (2011)
IMDb: link to The Hunter page

Genres: Drama   Country of origin: Australia.

Cast: Willem Dafoe as Martin David, Frances O'Connor as Lucy, Sam Neill as Jack Mindy, Marc Watson-Paul as Jarrah Armstrong, Finn Woodlock as Bike (Jamie), Morgana Davies as daughter Sass.

Directed by: Daniel Netheim  Written by: Alice Addison.

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
Martin contracts indirectly with Red Leaf, a biotech firm that is looking for some rare DNA.  Unfortunately, the only source of these items is the last remaining Tasmanian tiger. There is restricted intelligence (which will leak) that there have been two confirmed sightings of the rare and elusive beast.

The probable site for the hunt is in central Tasmania.  Martin has to deal with lack of electricity, decidedly unfriendly locals, children of the owner of the house he stays at, and foul tap water.  Jack Mindy gives him some guide services that he did not ask for.

Delineation of conflicts:
Martin wants to get paid and stay out of jail.  Red Leaf wants the organic samples so as to make lots of money.

The locals in Tasmania have logging as a main source of income.  Other locals (and outsiders) are involved in a campaign to save the trees.  The early take on Martin is that as an outsider, he's a tree hugger, a 'greenie', and should be dealt with harshly.

Jack Mindy has his own agenda which does not seem to be aligned with Martin's.  Martin is by no means alone when he is out hunting in the middle of nowhere.

To make matters worse, the tree huggers score a moratorium on logging so that the government can find the Tasmanian tiger.  That means no logging and no pay.

Resolution: It's a dark tale with a dark ending.  Several of the lies get exposed.  Will Red Leaf be patient if Martin takes too long?

One line summary: Capturing the last of a species.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 8/10 Bright and sharp.  The Tasmanian countryside chosen for the film was impressive.

Sound: 7/10 The music is often foreboding, which is a nice touch for this sort of property.  I could have done without the Springsteen, but it was a part of the story.  The actors were well-miked.

Acting: 7/10 Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill were fine.  Morgana Davies was entertaining.  The actors playing Tasmanian anti-tree huggers locals were effective as thugs.

Screenplay: 8/10 The story hangs together well.  The exposition of motivations was good.  Some might find it a bit slow.  On the other hand, hunting is often slow.

Final rating: 7/10 

20140710: Action Review--SAGA: Curse of the Shadow

SAGA: Curse of the Shadow (Curse of the Dragon Slayer)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated , 105 minutes, action, adventure, fantasy.
2. IMDB: 4.9/10.0 from 1768 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet...' and 34% liked it from 81 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.0/5.0 from 134,953 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: John Lyde
6. Starring: Danielle Chuchran as Nemyt Akaia, Richard McWilliams as Keltus the Wanderer, Paul D. Hunt as Kullimon the Black, Adam Abram as Fangtor Bloodmoon, James C. Morris as Gyramuck/Maggut Gulbrow, Eve Mauro as Tarsa, Danny James as General Drennon, Kyle Paul as Mulgrut, James Gaisford as Kethku, Bailee Mykell Cowperthwaite as Prophetess (body), Stephanie Breinholt as Prophetess (voice), Michelle Aiden as Delorus the Mermaid, Clare Niederpruem as Mulva the Mermaid, Christel Edwards Anthony as Gipple the Mermaid.


2. Setup and Plot

1. Filmed in Utah, with lots of sand, caves, and huge rock formations.


2. Prehistory: the Gods, on some planet, at some time, have put down civilization for some reason, and killed a big portion of humanity.  The Order, led by the Prophets, tries to restore civilization, while the Shadow rises and awaits the awakening of the God of Death.  So, we have a familiar environment for swords, sorcery, battles, revenge, and conflicts on a dying world.


3. We open the narrative with a fight between the female elf bounty hunter Nemyt and the male orc thief Fangtor Bloodmoon.  Nemyt kills Fangtor, but Fangtor curses her body as she delivers the fatal blow with her sword.  The fight scenes here were absolutely terribly done.  Meanwhile, Keltus interrogates a dwarf to discover the motives of the Shadow in the current conflict.  The dwarf tells him of Kullimon's Raiders, who will deliver some artifact ('the Vessel') to the representatives of the God of Death.  Among the orcs, Mulgrut and Kullimon have a bit of a disagreement.  Kullimon loses, and Mulgrut takes leadership of the 'Horde' of ten orcs.  Oi, totally disappointing.


4. When Nemyt goes to collect her bounty reward, she is imprisoned by the local magistrate because of the Mark that Fangtor cursed her with.  Keltus, the Ambassador of the Prophetess, releases her in the hopes that she will aid him find the Bone Vessel.  On the way, they meet up with Kullimon, who has been tied up, bleeding, and left for dead by his erstwhile allies.  The absurd trio advance to get the Vessel, so that the God of Death (Goth Azul) is not awakened.


5. As they advance, they encounter difficulties, and best them, but usually with stiff prices.  When Nemyt meets Mulgrut as representative of the Shadow, things get very dicey, very fast.  The real representative of the Shadow appears, and the hopes of Goth Azul being kept contained slip away.


6. Will the trio reverse the disaster at hand?


3. Conclusions
1. Blood on the camera lens: nonsense.  The fight choreography could have been better.
2. One line summary: Middling good, nicely shot, low-budget fantasy adventure tale.
3. Seven of ten.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Rather good for this sort of tale.  The costumes were a bit better than I expected, at least here and there.


2. Sound: 10/10 Amazingly good.  I seldom experience fantasy films with such excellent musical accompaniment.


3. Acting: 6/10 The actors who play the three protagonists hit their marks and speak their lines.  However, the orc Horde was about as convincing as the Keystone Kops.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 A story was told, and the plot moves along, but the dialog is stilted past the point of believability.   Orcs taking the higher moral stances?  An orc leader singing like he was on Wagon Train?  An orc sounding like Yoda?

20131108: Animation Review--Arjun Warrior Prince

Arjun the Warrior Prince

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Indian animated feature length film, 2012, NR, 94 minutes, animation, adventure.  Spoken language is Hindi, subtitles in English.
2. IMDB: 6.7/10.0 from 781 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 57% on the meter; 68% liked it from 1,772 from audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.5/5.0 from 38,894 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Arnad Chaudhuri.
6. Starring: Yuddvir Bakoliya as Arjun, Ila Arun as Kunti, Anjun Srivastav as Lord Shiva, Sachin Khedekar as Lord Krishna, Vishnu Sharma as Bheeshma.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Arjun is a young noble in training to be a warrior.


2. Opportunities arise to show that the training took.


3. About half way into the film, the consistent message is "he is not ready."


4. Then through his inaction, his family's enemies burn down their compound.


5. Through a contest, followed by a lot of hard work, their fortunes are restored.


6. Then he is a king dispensing justice.  I do not believe that.


7. Then he plays a crooked game of chance and loses everything, including his princess.  Brilliant.  He bets again, with banishment for 12 years being his wager.  Great. The city that he and his family built is lost.  Amazing incompetence.  His bride tries to galvanize him.  He travels to the region of the gods to gain something or another. An old decrepit man beats the living daylights out of him.  That was pleasant.  We later find that old man to be Shiva in disguise.


8. By the time he was attacked by the army of demons from all sides, I was rooting for the demons to kill this useless waste of skin.  Unfortunately, he lives and is rewarded with a fine bow by the Gods themselves.


9. He and his few friends plot to rid themselves of the scum who cheated them out of so much.  Their plans are overheard, even though the wily Krishna was supposedly helping them.


10. The film jump-shifts to the enemies of Arjun feinting to draw most of his allies away, then attacking the heart of the stronghold where he lives.  Just finding them will bring down 12 more years of banishment.  Again, just incredibly clever.  There are 3 men to defend.


11. Arjun, dressed as a woman, comes out with the local prince, Yuvraj, perhaps 12 years of age.  They find Arjun's real weapons, and the one-against-an-army fight begins.  Even in this, Arjun demonstrates his incompetence.  He should have been slain three times or so.


12. The invitation to a sequel is made at the end.  May it not be so.


3. Conclusions
1. I saw The Mahabharata (1989 live action film by Peter Brook), which I thoroughly enjoyed.  This bad animation is nonsense in comparison.
2. One line summary: What should have been a stellar film is a technical and writing disaster.
3. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Art/Animation: 2/10 The visuals do catch the eye, but not always in a good way.  Too much of the action looks like the characters are on one layer, and the backgrounds on another.  More than anything else, it looks like the 'flattening' of the layers for presentation was poorly thought out in terms of 3d light sources.  The characters look disassociated for that reason.  The backgrounds look great as backgrounds, while the character images look (barely) competent; the flattened final product, on the other hand, looks fake. The characters are often simplistic, rigid, and moving in odd ways as well as being ill-lit. This was a huge let down, an ongoing irritation that just never goes away.  Clearly a great deal of effort was expended on the backgrounds.  It is too bad that similar effort was not spent on making sure the final rendering did not throw that all away.


2. Sound: 8/10 OK.  Loved the singing in the closing credits.


3. Screenplay: 2/10 The narration seems jumpy, and short on exposition.  The Arjun character, the centre of the story, is just not believable as a hero, not believable as a king, not believable as an inspirational warrior capable of turning the tide of war.  The camaraderie between Arjun and Krishna I was expecting seemed almost absent.  The scene where Arjun shoots the golden fish is anti-climactic because there is less than zero motivation for it.  He is portrayed repeatedly as a foul-up, a child, someone incapable of protecting his own.  Then he does this mighty deed requiring great skill and huge strength?  Are we viewers all supposed to be idiots who accept anything? The centre of the action remains re-enforcing the strongly etched image of Arjun's worthlessness up to about 70 minutes into the film.  The last 24 minutes did not change that image.

20131020: Horror Review--Higanjima

Higanjima

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Japanese live action feature length film, 2009, NR, 122 minutes, horror, action-adventure.  Spoken word is Japanese; English subtitles.
2. IMDB: 5.5./10.0 from 443 users.  Aspect 2.35
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 82% liked it from 101 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.1/5.0 from 15,489 user ratings.
5. Directed by: Tae-gyun Kim.
6. Starring: Hideo Ishiguro as Akira, Dai Watanabe as Atsushi, Terry Doty as Ryoko, Asami Mizukawa as Rei, Mirori Takemoto as Yuki, Koji Yamamoto as Miyabi.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The opening sequence shows a lone vampire killer successfully plying his hobby.  This is on some island where there are many vampires.  The VK does in several, then talks to a man who is in the process of turning to a vampire.  Before they meet, the defenseless man spoke of a woman who 'tricked' him into coming to the island.


2. Next sequence is at a high school.  Akira the tall and confident talks to his friend Pon who can't defend himself against his brother.  Akira gets challenged by some local bully (and his gang of eight or so) whose sister claims Akira ditched her.  Great.  High school nonsense that has brutal consequences.  Akira wisely runs for it, and manages to get off campus.


3. Rei saves him from the chase, and offers him a challenge of sorts.  Also, Rei assures Akira that his brother is alive and well.


4. Akira's parents tell him that the family fortunes are not going well.  Akira volunteers to work instead of save for college.  They ignore him, wishing only that the older brother Atsushi had not gone missing, wailing and moaning.


5. Akira and his friends try to find Rei.  They find vampires instead, and do not do well against them.  His older friend Ken gets changed, Yuki gets roughed up, and Akira takes one huge sequence of beatings.  Rei appears and turns the tide.  She starts explaining Higanjima Island and the vampires there.


6. Akira decides to go to the island; the others are not in favor of it.  There are some changes of heart overnight.  So a team of gawky teens goes to fight a horde of vampires on an island.


7. They find a village, which seems deserted.  The lights come on, soon they are surrounded by vampires, and Rei has vanished on them.  This is reminiscent of the opening sequence.  Rei has an earnest discussion with Master Miyabi, the leader of the vampires.  He is not particularly happy with her, but she is his plaything, and he wants to taste the hate and fear in her blood.  The vampires outside start to eat the teenaged group.  The first is Ken, who will be lab rat.  The teens get free after one of the vampires drops a key.


8. Yuki, Ken, and Akira find Atsushi, who is not that pleased to see them.  Soon they meet up with two other escapees; Pon is not with them.  The larger group goes to a safe place to sleep that Atsushi shows them.  He does recon; they sleep, mostly.  Pon finds them, and starts venting.  He has plenty to vent as an omega male.  Plus, now he's a vampire.  More vampires show up; Atsushi leads them away.


9. Hm, the teens did not find the weapons that they brought, and have not re-equipped themselves.  Fighting and fleeing goes on. One of the flying vampires abducts Yuki.  Akira handles that stupidly, but Atsushi comes up with a plan for rescuing her.  First though, there is a long flashback to where Atsushi first came to the island (pre-vampires); he and his fiancee Ryoko implore her family to bless their union.  At a local shrine, Atsushi unwittingly releases Miyabi, who proceeds to kill Ryoko.  After that, the small group meets with the local resistance fighters.  Meanwhile, Miyabi is concentrating on creating the 'perfect being,' whatever that might be.


10. Nice, we have the setup for a more major battle to come.  Atsushi, then Akira, set off alone to rescue Yuki.  Rei joins them after a while.  The odd vampire 'creations' get dispatched.


11. Most of our heroes go home, but is it really over?  (Sequel alert.)


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Teen helps brother overthrow vampires on isolated Japanese island.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 The camera work here reminds me of how stunningly beautiful visuals can be. The aspect is 2.35, which I like a lot, and the quality of the filming is high to go along with this.  During rapid motion sequences, jerky camera movements are common.  There was a high proportion of dark, low contrast footage toward the last third of the film.


2. Sound: 9/10 On Netflix, this film comes in either Japanese or dubbed in English. One can switch back and forth on the fly.  The Japanese sounds a lot better to my ear; the young men sound like young men.  In the English dub, they sound like screeching chimps.  Also the English dub is fairly poor for lip sync.  The incidental music is incredibly loud; have your finger near the volume adjustment.  Much of the incidental music is is lush and fine, even if loud.  The sounds of the rain are nicely captured.


3. Acting: 6/10 An adventure movie starring teenagers.  Oi.  The resistance group just seemed to be extras standing around for the most part.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 Which vampire rules were in place?  The vampires seemed to go about in sunlight with some impunity, and what it took to kill one (destroy one?) seemed unclear.  Rei's character was puzzling.  It seemed that Miyabi, the teenagers, and the resistance all had sufficient reason to kill her on sight, yet that did not seem to be the case.  Interesting juggling, there.


5. SFX: 7/10 The winged vampires were very nicely done.  Some of the later appearing monstrous creations were not nearly as impressive.

20131008: Action Review--Special Forces

Special Forces

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. French live action feature length film, 2011, rated R, 108 minutes, action-adventure, thriller.  Spoken language is French; English subtitles.
2. IMDB: 6.1/10.0 from 10, 144 users; estimated budget, 10 million euros.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 15% on the meter; 52% liked it from 1,852 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.9/5.0 from 405,184 ratings.
5. Directed by: Stephane Rybojad.
6. Starring: Diane Kruger as Elsa Cassanova, Djimon Hounsou as Kovax, Tcheky Karyo as Admiral Guezennec, Benoit Magimel as Tic Tac, Denis Menochet as Lucas, Raphael Personnaz as Elias, Alain Figlarz as Victor, Alain Alivon as Marius, Mehdi Nebbou as Amen, Raz Degan as Ahmed Zaief, Morjana Alaoui as Maina


2. Setup and Plot
1. Maina gives Elsa an interview.  She reveals her face, and the fact that her family sold her as a child to Zaief.  This sets the stage for all the difficulties that follow.


2. Emily is kidnapped, French special forces gather to rescue her with the backing of the highest reaches of the French government.


3. Zaief has an interview with a high-ranking religious figure; he does not quite get the blessing he had hoped for.  Maina and some of her supporters are murdered, firing squad style.  The Special Forces group does not intervene, since their orders are for reconnaissance only.


4. They find Elsa and Amen early on, and start the long and winding escort to freedom.


5. Forty minutes in, their expected evacuation by helicopter fails due to lack of radio contact.  This seemed a bit implausible, but allowed the rest of the screenplay to proceed.


6. They continue with the odds against them.  Sacrifices are made, and the mission is eventually successful in a technical sense.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: French against-all-odds rescue mission in Pakistan; far better than recent Stallone efforts.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Top notch; magnificent visuals.


2. Sound: 10/10 Great sound.


3. Acting: 8/10 I thought the actors performed well versus the script.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 Dragged a bit in the middle.  A small number of the fighting tactics looked amateurishly stupid.  Compared to a number of recent American action films, this is intelligent, well plotted, and engaging.

20131006: Action Review--OSS 117: Cairo

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies

1. Fundamentals and reception:
1. French live action feature length film, 99 minutes, NR, 2006, action-adventure, comedy.  Spoken language is French; subtitles in English.
2. IMDB: 6.9/10.0 from 9,739 users; estimated budget, 14 million euros.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 76% on the meter, 73% liked it from 6,955 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.4/5.0 from 110,171 user ratings.
5. Directed by: Michel Hazanavicius; screenplay, Jean-Francoise Halin.
6. Starring: Jean Dujardin as OSS-117, Berenice Bejo as Larmina El Akmar Betouche, Aure Atika as La princesse Al Tarouk, Francios Damiens as Raymond Pelletier.


2. Setup and Plot
1. We meet OSS-117 and his friend Jack (OSS-283) in an opening sequence from World War II.  We meet the Princess also.


2. Years later, Jack is dead, supposedly, and OSS-117 gets drawn into Cairo to see how Jack met his end.


3. Larmina is assigned as his local guide and contact.  The Princess is involved this time around as well.


4. The gag about code sentences goes on and on and on.  The dual conducted with thrown chickens was worth a chuckle.


5. When he finds the object of his investigations, it's...the Nazis the film started with, plus some locals, of course.


6. How will the hero resolve this?  Surprises await.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: Instead of the French James Bond, one gets a rude, effete Maxwell Smart.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Quite good for the most part.


2. Sound: 8/10 I liked the incidental music very much.


3. Acting: 8/10 Played as straight drama, not very good.  Played as parody, reasonably funny.  Definitely a lot of tongue in cheek acting in this film.  Jean Dujardin is quite convincing as the culturally ignorant blowhard OSS-117.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 Dragged.  Much as I liked the three principal actors, it dragged.


5. Editing, continuity: 5/10 Driving in an open convertible, the lead actors don't have their hair mussed, and cigarette smoke rises slowly and vertically?  The late 1950s to 1960's look was fairly good.  In the opening sequence, the propeller plane came across as hokey, rather than authentic.  

20131005: Action Review--Erased

Erased

1. Fundamentals, reception
1. Belgian live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 100 minutes, thriller.
2. IMDB:  6.0/10.0 from 12,449 users.  Estimated budget: 12 million euros.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 27% on the meter; 36% liked it from 8,256 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.7/10.0 from 569,743 user ratings.
5. Directed by: Philippe Stoelzl.  Screenplay by: Arash Amel.
6. Starring: Aaron Eckhart as Ben Logan, Liana Liberato as Amy Logan, Olga Kurylenko as Anna Brandt, Garrick Hagon as James Halgate, Eric Godon as Maitland.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Ben Logan has a steady job doing security analysis for the Halgate Security Systems in Belgium.  After narrowly missing his daughter Amy's awards ceremony, he gives her a dessert gift which unfortunately contains peanuts.  Ben and Amy spend the night at a local hospital to deal with her allergic reaction.


2. The next day, Ben takes Amy to work, but all the employees are gone, the work machines are gone, all the business paperwork is gone.  The place is scrubbed.  Ben's bank account is gutted.  Ben's phone goes blank.  He and Amy go to the Halgate headquarters, and everyone claims not to know him.  He finds his co-workers at a local morgue.  Assassins are soon following them.


3. Amy finds some local help from her friends, which allows them time and safety to regroup.  The CIA starts putting the pieces together, and send Ben's old handler Anna to Belgium to close up the case.


4. The Halgate company was a fake, and used pieces of the CIA that it had bought to try to cover up the fact.  This included wiping out Ben's former security company.


5. Anna catches up with Ben, who has found incriminating evidence in the affair.  He had been in a kill squad, and had questioned his orders.  Anna had stood up for him, to find a way for the company not to sanction him, including the gig at the security company.


6. Amy demands a lot more truth from Ben, and gets it.  She takes off, which does not help things at all.  She's captured by an assassin.  Ben does some research, and finds out why so many people are angry at Halgate.


7. The tension rises as Ben arranges to meet the head of Halgate, Anna agrees to neutralize the situation, and Amy tries to escape.  Does Ben get his name cleared?  Do the people that Halgate did wrong get any justice?  Does Halgate get its evidence back?


8. The film was worth watching to the end.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: Intrigue and assassins follow a disgraced former CIA and his daughter.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 A bit dark, sometimes grainy.


2. Sound: 8/10 Sometimes dips too low.


3. Acting: 9/10 Good performances.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 Moves right along, one of the requirements of a thriller; most questions are eventually answered.

20131005: Action Review--The Touch

The Touch

1. Fundamentals and reception
1. Chinese live action feature length film, 2002, rated PG-13, 103 minutes, action-adventure, romance.  Spoken language is English.
2. IMDB: 4.6/10.0 from 1,302 users; estimated budget, 20 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' on the meter; 33% liked it from 1,370 audience ratings.
4. Netflix:  3.5/5.0 from 60,171 users.
5. Directed by: Peter Pau.
6. Starring: Michelle Yeoh as Pak Yin Fay, Ben Chaplin as Eric, Richard Roxburgh as Karl, Brandon Chang as Pak Yeuk Tong, Margaret Wang as Lily.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Collector Karl employs thief Eric to steal the box containing the Heart of Dun Huang, an artifact of some power, carved by Tibetan monks in 1242.  The Heart, supposedly, will lead Karl's people to the sharira, the crystallized essence of the holy monk Shen Zhong from the 13th century.  This plays out while Yin Fay is performing her circus act in public with her troupe.


2. Tong takes the Heart to the place Dun Huang; Yin and Eric follow.  Karl catches up and gets filled in by his forward spy, who had been tailing Tong.  Tong and his girl friend Lily find a possible source of knowledge, just as Karl catches them.  Eric and Yin make their way to Dun Huang about the same time.


3. Yin and Eric find the next piece of the puzzle: an urn filled with fluid.  Karl steals it from them and heads for the final hiding place.  He uses the Heart and the contents of the urn to open the place up. 


4. So many traps, so little time.  The circus/acrobat training turns out to be essential, of course.  After securing the sharira, Eric, Yin, and Tong travel to Lhasa to give the sharira and the surrounding gold monkeys to some Buddhist officials.


5. The ending is a bit mysterious and a possible sequel is setup.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Pleasant, engaging action-romance film set in China involving the search for Buddhist artifacts.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Some of the acrobatics footage was bad enough that I wish they had dropped it.  Other than that, the production values were rather high, and the film looked quite good.


2. Sound: 8/10 Quite good, except for the over the top foley thrown in for the hits during fighting.  Some of the incidental music was really good.


3. Acting: 8/10 Liked the principal actors.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 The script balanced fighting and questing well enough.

20131005: Action Review--Wing Chun

Wing Chun

1. Fundamentals
1. Hong Kong live action feature length film, 1994, NR, 95 minutes, action-adventure. Spoken language is Cantonese; subtitles in English.
2. IMDB: 6.9/10.0 from 2,100 users;
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 72% from 2,623 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.7/5.0 from 113,958 users.
5. Directed by: Yuen Wo Ping; screenplay by Elsa Tang and Anthony Wong.
6. Starring: Michelle Yeoh as Yim Wing Chun, Donnie Yen as Leung Pok To, King-tan Yuen as Abacus (Aunty) Fong, Catherine Hung as Charmy Mang, Chui Siu Keung as Flying Chimpanzee, Lee Chi Hung as Wong Hok Chow.


2. Setup and Plot
1. I saw Michelle Yeoh first in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), next in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), then in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) before I saw her in the film under review, Wing Chun (1994).


2. In the first three films, hers was a strong, polished presence, showing an accomplished actor capable of nuance as well as swift direct action.  The 1997 and 2000 films showed her physical prowess as well, but by the 2005 film, her acting alone was impressive.


3. Wing Chun was a bit of a pleasant surprise.  The screenplay, the direction, and the production values clearly did not make full use Yeoh's abilities.  On the other hand, it was funny, sweet, and moved along to a pleasant conclusion.  The screenplay and the other actors were just good enough to carry the film to the next part where Yeoh was present.


4. Wing Chun the character was a woman who had moved away from her early home to study kung fu in seclusion.  Later in life, she was fine with helping protect from bandits the town where Aunty Fong did business.  She expected to live out her life with her dignity, but not have a husband.


5. Life changed for her when her childhood sweetheart Pok To rolled into town; she recognized him, but he did not recognize her, which started a sequence of misadventures.


6. The leader of the bandits (Flying Chimpanzee) gets discouraged with being thwarted by Wing Chun, and decided to make a cause of her.  This involved lots of choreographed kung fu fighting, fighting with weapons, fighting on horseback, and so on.


7. The fighting and the romantic entanglements resolve in ways that were happy for almost everyone.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Action-adventure film also works well as romantic comedy.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 9/10 Very good in most of the film.


2. Sound: 8/10 Fine, except for the over the top foley for the fighting sequences.


3. Acting: 8/10 The main players were fine, but many of the supporting cast not as much.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 This is the best comedy I've seen in many years.

20131004: Action Review--The Way Back

The Way Back

1. Fundamentals
1. American/UAE/Polish live action feature film, released 2010, NR, 133 minutes, action-adventure.  Spoken word is in English, Russian, Polish; subtitles in English.


2. IMDB: 7.3/10.0 from 77,292 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 75% on the meter; 72% from 32,700 audience ratings.
4. Netflix:  3.9/5.0 from 1,260,322 users.


5. Directed by: Peter Weir.  Screenplay: Kenneth R. Clark.
6. Starring: Colin Farrell as Valka, Ed Harris as Mr. Smith,  Mark Strong as Khabarov, Jim Sturgess as Janusz, Saoirse Ronan as Irena, Gustav Skarsgard as Voss, Dragos Bacur as Zoran, Alexandru Potocean as Tomacz.


7. From Box Office Mojo: production budget, 30 million USD.
8. Domestic revenue, 2.7 million USD (13.3%); overseas revenue, 17.6 million (86.7%); total, 20.3 million USD.
9. For awards activity, see IMDb summary


2. Setup and Plot
1. In September 1939, Nazi Germany and Communist USSR partitioned Poland.  Many who were in Soviet Poland were imprisoned in Siberia for being politically incorrect.  That includes being foreign, being an actor, having advocated freedoms in the past, and other things.


2. A group escapes from a gulag during World War II, and journey on foot 4000 miles from Siberia across Tibet to freedom in India.  The Soviets have offered bounties to any of the locals who capture prisoners.


3. A party of seven starts the journey and gets away.  They face a lot of problems: blinding snow, the ever-present cold, lack of food, hallucinations, each other.  They head for Lake Baikal.  They soon lose a member who has night blindness, which was sad since he was 50 feet from the rest and their fire when he froze to death.  Later, it becomes clear that they got lost on the way.  Their best scout sets out to find the lake, and comes back in terrible shape.  Fortunately, he did find it.


4. Irena joins them near the lake.  When they encounter the first lake-side town, Valka goes looking for food, and finds some, and steals some vodka.  As they move south, there are more people and more mosquitoes.  A lucky encounter with locals tells them how to make mosquito repellent necklaces.  Irena increased communications among the group.


5. Further south, near the Mongolian border, they start seeing Soviet military again.  Valka decides to stay in Siberia.  At the Mongolian border, they discover (how would they have known?) that Mongolia had fallen to the Communist imperialist expansion.  So their hopes for freedom are dashed.  The shots of the burned out Buddhist temple were heart-breaking.  They decide to walk to Tibet, to the Himalayas, to India and British influence.


6. The desert areas are hard on them.  Irena's health fails, and they leave her corpse behind; the party is now down to five. Kazik dies a few days later.  The four survivors admire his sketches which he had kept from the gulag on.  When they catch sight of the mountains, Smith decides not to go on, and they leave him behind.  Later he revives and catches up with them.


7. They find plenty of water at the base of the Himalayas.  Then they have to face the climb, the ice, the snow.  They find the Tibetan border.  A local points them to Lhasa.  They recover for a while in a local village.  Zoran, Janusz, and Voss continue to India.  Smith continues to Lhasa, where he is sure he can find a way back to the States.


8. Janusz meets his wife again, years later in 1989, after the Communists are gone.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: The film depicts a long, heroic trek to freedom across Siberia, Mongolia, Tibet, the Himalayas to India.
2. Five stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10  Beautiful.


2. Sound: 10/10 Well done.


3. Acting: 10/10 Ed Harris was great, Colin Farrell did a good job, Jim Sturgess is fine as Janusz.  Saoirse Ronan as Irena was better than I expected.


4. Screenplay: 9/10 The story moves forward well, and kept my attention.  The last stage, getting to India from Tibet, might have been more detailed.

20131003: Action Review--The Expendables 2

The Expendables 2

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, released 2012, 102 minutes, rated R, action-adventure.
2. IMDB: 6.7/10.0 from 157,313 users; estimated budget, 92 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 65% on the meter; 61% from 309,375 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.9/5.0 from 1,482,945 ratings.
5. Directed by: Simon West.  Screenplay: Richard Wenk, Sylvester Stallone.
6. Starring: Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross, Jason Statham as Lee Christmas, Jet Li as Yin Yang, Dolph Lundgren as Gunnar Jensen, Chuck Norris as Booker, Bruce Willis as Church, Jean-Claude Van Damme as 'Vilain', Liam Hemsworth as Billy the Kid, Nan Yu as Maggie.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The opening job is an extravaganza of bullets and explosions.  It's successful.


2. After they come back, Church (CIA contact) gives Barney an ultimatum: do a job or clear up that 5 million USD misunderstanding or go to jail.  Maggie comes along as per Church's orders, and they retrieve an object from a safe, only to be hijacked by Vilain.  Vilain kills Billy to get respect.  Right.  The team decides to track down Vilain, who runs a mercenary for hire crew that tends to be on the opposite side of what Barney does.


3. The lost object contains the location of a mine where the Russians store plutonium.  The Bulgarian locations looked like a picture from 50 years ago. They meet up with Booker, who helps them in a fire fight.


4. They encounter a group called the Sangs, who kidnap the men and teen boys to work in the mines.  They set about to do in the Sangs, and recover the plutonium.  When things look bad, Booker, Church, and Trench drop by with extra resources.  There was a huge amount of shooting and dying.


5. The movie more or less ends with the climactic fight between Van Damme and Stallone.


6. In the end, Barney is all even with the CIA, the bad guys are defeated, and the plutonium is in safer hands.  Even more, the sequel is setup.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: Needed a better screenplay, better lighting, more involved acting.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 I expected better from a 92 million dollar budget.


2. Sound: 7/10 Conversations often dip a bit low for my taste.


3. Acting: 6/10  Big plus to Jet Li, for skill.  Otherwise, some of the performances could have been phoned in.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 There were too many incidences of "we're in trouble, now someone will drop by to bail us out" for my taste.

20131003: Action Review--The Core

The Core

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, 2003, rated PG-13, 132 minutes, action-adventure.
2. IMDB: 5.3/10.0 from 60,668 users. Estimated budget 60 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 41% on the meter; 40% from 99,703 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.3/5.0 from 1,812,332 user ratings.
5. Directed by: Jon Amiel.  Screenplay by: Looper Layne, Jon Rogers.
6. Starring: Aaron Eckhart as Dr. Josh Keyes, Hilary Swank as Major Rebecca Childs, Stanley Tucci as Dr. Conrad Zimsky, Richard Jenkins as General Thomas Purcell, Delroy Lindo as Dr. Ed 'Braz' Brazzleton, DJ Qualls as Theodore Donald 'Rat' Finch, Tcheky Karyo as Serge, Bruce Greenwood as Commander Robert Iverson.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The hot, flowing liquid core of the Earth is slowing down more than a bit.  It needs to be fixed or we will lose the EM field that protects us from Solar radiation.  Dr. Brazzleton came up with two huge inventions allowing a ship to penetrate the crust and survive to go down to fix the liquid flowing part.  Those would be a laser boring tool, and a hull material that becomes stronger with greater pressure.  The US recruits Rat to help with information control: they ask him to hack the Internet, which he gleefully attempts with next to unlimited concentration.


2. The Destiny project led by Dr Zimsky may have been the cause of this.  This gets a passing mention early on.


3. There's a great pressure to finish the probe in three months.  The overt signs around the world get worse.  The Marianas trench is chosen as the insertion point.  The probe, which Braz named Virgil, makes a successful entry.


4. It travels in 700 miles, then gets jammed in an unexpected open space in the mantle material.  This is a giant geode full of huge crystals.  They start the repair, only to find that the geode's shell has been breached.  They get the jam cleared, but Bob dies from a red hot shard penetrating his helmet.  They rev up and proceed.


5. On day 2, they approach the mantle to core boundary.  They encounter huge (multi-ton) diamonds, and one of them breaches the hull.  They lose Serge, who sacrifices himself to save the mission (getting the nukes out of the afflicted compartment).


6. As they get further in, they start going much faster (140 mph instead of 60 mph).  This means that the nuclear charges they brought are insufficient to fix the problem.  At this time the Destiny project (Deep Earth Seismic Trigger Initiative; DEST-INI, Destiny) is revealed a bit.  Supposedly the 'other side' made one of these, so we made a better one.  The entire problem was caused by our testing of Destiny.


7. The rest of the film is about the team re-designing the original plan with the nukes and getting it done before Destiny is used again to try to fix things.  The heroic efforts step up.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: Modern heroism is portrayed against a flawed script; good acting and visuals.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 10/10 The principal actors were quite good, the supporting actors more than adequate.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 We just don't have this technology, or anything like it: the lasers, the hull, the communications system with the surface, or the ability to circumvent the whole Internet.  This film should have been set in 2070 or 2110 or other year when such technology might be possible.  So the film becomes a fantasy; that is, certainly contrary to fact.  Also, the driver for the plot was Mutually Assured Destruction, which does not quite have the currency one might have seen in 1975.  The US government being the culprit has more resonance today, perhaps, after the Snowden disclosures.


5. SFX: 8/10 Still looks good in 2013, which is not bad for a 2003 effort.

20131003: Action Review--Ghost Protocol

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

1. Fundamentals and reception
1. American live action feature length film, released 2011, rated PG-13, 132 minutes, action-adventure, thriller.
2. IMDB: 7.3/10.0 from 238,513 users.  Estimated budget: 145 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes:  93% on the meter; 76% liked it from 462,345 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 4.0/5.0 from 2,512,860 users.
5. Directed by: Brad Bird.  Screenplay by: Josh Applebaum, Andre Nemec.
6. Starring: Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, Jeremy Renner as William Brandt, Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, Paula Patton as Jane Carter, Michael Nyquist as Kurt Hendricks, Vladimir Mashkov as Anatoly Sidirov, Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell, Josh Holloway as Trevor Hanaway, Lea Seydoux as Sabine Moreau, Samuli Edelman as Wistrom, Ivan Shvedoff as Leonid Lisenker, Anil Kapoor as Brij Nath.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Budapest.  IMF agent Hanaway is betrayed and killed by Moreau, who takes the intelligence he had intercepted.


2. Moscow.  Jane and Benji break Ethan out of a jail to re-take the lost information.  Ethan changes plans to take along a new ally from the prison. This rather complicates things for a bit.  The Secretary re-tasks Ethan, Benji, and Jane to get vital information (nuclear codes) from inside the Kremlin.  That starts out fairly well, but Cobalt (Hendricks) gets the codes first, and blames them for it.  Ethan is captured, and narrowly escapes.  He learns from the Secretary that the IMF has been disavowed.  The Secretary himself gets killed, but not before telling Ethan what he wants done off the record.  The team is cut off from direct support from American channels.  Cobalt is out to kill him.  The Russian police (Sidirov) are after them on criminal charges.  Brandt joins the team.


3. Dubai.  Cobalt sends Wistrom to buy the launch codes from Moreau.  The team sets up a double meet, so that Leonid and Wistrom meet Jane, and Moreau meets Ethan and William, but they both think they are meeting each other.  What could possibly go wrong?  There were some great stunts in this segment, including the chase in the sandstorm.


4. Mumbai.  Cobalt has the launch codes and the satellite uplink.  So he needs a 'tactical satellite' as the last piece.  That is, a satellite that has Russian military protocols still in it.  One is available in Mumbai.  Jane goes after Brij Nath, the man who has access to the satellite.  Benji and William go after the man's computer security system.  Cobalt again interrupts them.  After Cobalt takes control of the satellite, Ethan and Jane rush to make a last minute stop.  Cobalt gets a Russian missile launched.  Jane, William, and Benji race to re-enable the uplink, while Ethan rushes to acquire the case with the command codes.


5. Seattle.  Nice conclusion.


3. Conclusions
1. This is a big update of my mini-review of 20130525.
2. One sentence summary: A fast, smart, exciting ride, start to finish.
3. Five stars of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems


3. Acting: 9/10  The leads were all fine, as were Michael Nyquest and Vladimir Mashkov.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 Fast paced action coupled with cerebral interludes for planning.  Throw in a dash of humor or twenty, and you've got a very nice script.

20131002: Action Review--The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, 136 minutes, PG13, 2012, action-adventure.
2. IMDB: 7.2/10.0 from 391,567 users;  estimated budget, 78 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes:  84% on the meter; 80% liked it from 840,362 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 4.2/5.0 from 5,793,742 user ratings.
5. Directed by: Gary Ross.  Screenplay, Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins.
6. Starring: Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark, Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, Wes Bentley as Seneca Crane, Donald Sutherland as President Snow.


2. Setup and Plot
1. In a sad dystopian future in the nation of Panem, the autocratic rulers celebrate the putting down of a past rebellion by an annual bloodletting.  Two volunteers are chosen from each of 12 formerly rebellious districts.  The twenty-four lucky contestants get to kill each other until only one survives.


2. The training segment before the games was hugely improbable.  The contestants are depicted as having terrible low-protein diets.  How do they grow to any height, or have upright posture, or have impressive muscle tone?  Absurd.


3. Thirteen go down in the first eight hours.  An alliance of five forms, and Peeta seems to be in it, rendering help in finding Katniss.  She takes the strategy of going as far away as possible from the others.  The game runners burn down the forest selectively to move her toward the other contestants.  Her pursuers tree her, but decide to wait her out rather than take her down.  Her sponsors send her a useful care package for her wounded leg via guided balloon.


4. After the wasp incident, Katniss is in real trouble with hallucinations and indecision.  On the other hand, she does get rid of some opponents.


5. Katniss avoids, then defuses, a major trap back at the games entry point.


6. She loses an ally (Rue) from district 11 and eliminates an enemy.  Afterward, she flashes a sign to the district 11 observers.  They go into rebellion mode.  The motivation for this linkage was absent.  Katniss' district 12 mentor Haymitch suggests to the powers that be an alternative involving two survivors.


7. She takes a huge chance to get medical supplies for Peeta, and gets into a nasty knife fight for it.  Saving Rue ended up saving Katniss, and one more competitor is eliminated.


8. After Peeta's and Katniss' last human competitor is dead (or so they thought), they have to contend with an engineered, quite nasty pack of dogs, plus one wounded competitor re-surfaces.  Peeta and Katniss prevail.  Then the game runners revoke the two-survivor exception.  Nice.


3. Conclusions
1. Strongly derivative of the Japanese book and film, Battle Royale, 2000.
2. One sentence summary: The film is mostly well-crafted, but highly overrated and derivative.
3. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Fine except for the sections of hellishly amateurish jerky camera movements and the ever so poor framing.


2. Sound: 8/10  Mostly fine.


3. Acting: 7/10 Sutherland, Tucci, Lawrence, Harrelson, and Hutcherson were fine, given the screenplay.  Many of the supporting actors were not that good.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Yikes.  The logical failures here are endless. The two-tiered society consists of many entitled high-tech parasitic consumers and few no tech impoverished producers.  There is no way for the advanced materials used by the parasites to be produced, replaced, or upgraded. Where does the food and drink come from?  Either there is a huge non-depicted segment of Panem society (doubtful) or the whole setup is just what it looks like: impossible, unmitigated nonsense.  The opening remarks by President Snow were odious beyond belief, and would be sufficient to engender new rebellions, except for the abject poverty and lack of means of the downtrodden.

20130904: Action Review--DNA 1997

Name: DNA (1997)
IMDb: link to DNA page

Genres: Action, SciFi  Country of origin: USA.

Cast: Mark Dacascos as Dr. Ash Mattley; Jurgen Prochnow as Dr. Carl Wessinger; Robin McKee as CIA operative Clair Summers;  as Roger Aaron Brown as Loren Azenfel.

Directed by: William R. Mesa.   Written by: Nick Davis.

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
Carl excavates bones in northern Borneo, and discovers how to extract DNA from the bones.  He's short an enzyme or two to complete the process of regenerating an animal from the DNA.  He turns to Ash, who runs an underfunded clinic in Sarawak, Malaysia.  Ash had been in mainstream medical researcher, but was run out when he could not complete his discoveries about immune-boosting enzymes.  Carl supplies the missing link in Ash's work, and suggests an expedition into the jungles to get enough rare beetles to make enough enzymes to prove the discovery, and make a lot of money from the medical/pharmaceutical industry.

Delineation of conflicts:
The expedition goes well for Carl, but not so much for Ash.

Two years later, Clair comes to Ash to help identify the cause of death of several mutilated bodies.  The answer is the presence of the Balakai, the creature Carl had wanted to revive. The second expedition with Clair is much less well-prepared, and looks doomed from the start. They find the monster soon enough, and what is left of Carl's party.

Not much after that, the film goes through a shift.  Carl describes the monster as an alien.  When met in the outdoors, the monster is a skilled alien hunter (style of Predator) capable of invisibility on command.  Its appearance is a bit like the alien in Alien.  Ash does some rituals with locals, then goes after the alien.

Resolution: The ending is rather flat, given all the 'borrowings' from other films.
 
One line summary: Fools resurrect alien monster in a derivative film.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 7/10 Usually OK, but suffers from darkness and graininess.

Sound: 8/10 The incidental music is a bit florid, but the recording is well done.

Acting: 3/10 Mark Dacascos and Robin McKee were just plain bad.  Both are miscast, which makes matters worse. Veteran actors Jurgen Prochnow and Roger Aaron Brown were better, but had to deal with the mediocre script.

Screenplay: 5/10  Supposedly set in Malaysia, but some of the 'natives' use language one might find in the Philippines, where the filming was done.  The expedition early on in the film had a Raiders of the Lost Ark feel to it, with a dash of King Solomon's Mines during the meetings with the locals.  Perhaps the worst motivational piece was Carl asserting that many countries would pay large amounts of money for this bio-weapon.  Please!  They could not control it in the least, just as nothing could control the alien killers in Alien or its sequels.  There is no military application here, so no source of money. If they had kept with the idea of immunity-enhancing enzymes, the film would have been more coherent.

Special Effects: 5/10 The monster, at least outside, was clearly a not-so-good man in a rubber suit.  The helicopter crashes and explosions were between so-so and poor.

Final Rating: Three of ten.  Too many holes in the plot, even for a creature feature.

20130824: Action Review--Iron Sky

Iron Sky

1. Feature length film, 92 minutes, rated R, 2012, Action, Comedy, SciFi.
2. IMDB: 6.0/10.0 from 58,185 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 36% but 'no consensus yet'; 38% liked it from 8,225 audience inputs.
4. Directed by Timo Vuorensola, screenplay by Michael Kalesniko.
5. Starring Julia Dietze as Renate Richter, Christopher Kirby as the male model James Washington, Udo Kier as Wolfgang Kortzfleisch, Peta Sergent as Vivian Wagner, Götz Otto as Klaus Adler, Stephanie Paul as the president of the USA.
6. Bumbling American astronauts discover extensive Nazi settlements and fabrication on the dark side of the Moon.  That is quite a beginning.  Mentioned in passing was the search for Helium-3.
7. The year is 2018.  The woman American president has sent a crew to the Moon as a publicity stunt to shore up her flagging re-election hopes.  The black 'astronaut' James Washington was a central part of the stunt, meant to increase the president's PC ratings.
8. The Nazis decide it's time to return to the Earth for reconnaissance, then to invade and conquer.  Loved the Nazis using flying saucers coming from the Moon.
9. There are clever moments showing the Nazi recon party interacting with American pot growers, street gangs, marketing executives, and the representatives of the president.
10. The marketing director even gets the president to adopt a Nazi campaign.  Listening to the president talking about 'one truth' and the New World Order (Nazi style) did not seem all that far-fetched.
11. Soon enough, the Nazis on the Moon are ready to invade.  The American president takes this as an opportunity to become a 'wartime president' so that she will be re-elected.
12. The space war was quite impressive from the special effects side, though I thought the massive space battleship Götterdämmerung might have done more damage before it was destroyed (from having an iPad ripped out of its control network).
13. After the Nazis are defeated, the American president makes a grab for the Helium-3 reserves on the Moon found by the Nazis.  (Why? asks the president.  Reply from Secretary of Defence: Because we'd be energy independent for a thousand years.)  The space battle resumes then, with the powers from the Earth destroying each other, and the UN representatives beating the nonsense out of each other.
14. Four stars of five.

Cinematography: 10/10 The film is just beautiful.

Sound: 9/10 Fine, start to finish. There was too much sound in space, though.

Acting: 10/10 Actors followed direction and the screenplay as far as I could see.  Udo Kier was fine as the aging Nazi leader; so was Christopher Kirby whose character accomplishes so much more than anyone expected from him.  I liked Peta Sergent's portrayal of the marketing executive who serves as one of the president's chief advisers, and does a fair 'woman scorned' segment.  Götz Otto does a fine turn as the slimy bastard who delivers a coup against the Führer and directs the failed attack on Earth.

Screenplay: 8/10   This is billed as a comedy, but I did not laugh once.  Otherwise, I loved it for what it had to say about America and the world powers.

Special Effects: 10/10 Quite good, especially compared to most SciFi films of the last ten or twenty years.  I'm not talking about District 9 or Elysium or Oblivion, but the run-of-the-mill SciFi film, which looks horrible.  The art and effects on this film are first rate, from the World War II/steam punk Nazi technology to the complex space-going warships of the modern Earth fleets.  In terms of total visual effect, this is one of the best looking films I've ever seen.

Considering the budget estimate I saw (7.5 million euros), the effects were even more impressive.  Hollywood just cannot do anything nearly as good as this for that amount of money.

Fire in space?  Well, no.  Still, the bad visuals are about 20 seconds, versus most of the film, which looks fine.

20130817: Action Review--Norwegian Ninja

Name: Norwegian Ninja (2010)  Original title, Kommandør Treholt & Ninjatroppen. 
IMDb: link to Norwegian Ninja

Genres: Historical fiction, Action, Comedy.     Country of origin: Norway.

Cast: Mads Ousdal as Kommander Arne Treholt, Jon Oigarden as Otto Meyer, Trond-Viggo Torgersen as Kong Olav V, Linn Stokke as Ragnhild Umbraco, Amund Maarud as Humle (Bumble Bee).

Written and directed by: Thomas Cappelen Malling.

In 'real' life, Arne Treholt was a Norwegian diplomat accused of treason in 1984, convicted, and served eight years in prison.  In 'reel' life, we have something entirely different.
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Interlude: white stars versus black holes: 

I usually give reviews, comments, and ratings based on one model of appraisal.  Let's call it the whitestar system: camera work is clear, focused, well-framed, well lit, reasonably filtered.  Sound is clear, actors are well-miked; music, if present, is supportive of the screenplay.  Acting is somewhere between competent and excellent.  The screenplay is intelligible, plot lines converge at least eventually, and one is glad to have seen the film.

So when I use the WS model, five stars of five means good things happen in all areas.  One star of five means there are serious deficits, usually in all areas mentioned above.

For this film, and a number of others, I'll post the rating in terms of a different model of appraisal: the blackhole system.  In BH, the cinematography may suck.  That is, poor framing, bad focus, little or no depth of field, jerky movements, stupid filter choices, not enough light, or way too much light.  The sound may be blaring, or too quiet to distinguish the words of the actors.  The music may be overbearing or obnoxious or too loud.  Acting might be done by amateurs or drunks or someone in some other kind of stupor.  The screenplay might make no sense at all.  The special effects might be done by the director's ten-year-old who has ten thumbs, or use models from someone's science project, or show suspension wires or just look beyond belief stupid.

When I use the BH system, five blackholes of five means that there were massive failures in all areas.  One might even need some liquid courage to finish the piece.  One blackhole of five just means that there were some failures that a competent director and film crew would have caught in the dailies and fixed before too much footage was shot.  (Before the underwriters caught wind, in other words.)

End interlude
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This particular film bifurcated early on from the reality principle, was filmed by some refugee from the seventies exploitation films, had special effects with obvious errors, and used models that the so-so camera work quickly showed to be insultingly bad.

This film's cumulative whitestar score might be zero, or negative one.  These are usually out-of-range values, so I'm using the blackhole system of appraisal. 
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The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
It's 1983 in Norway.  The Cold War is still on, and Norway fields threats from both the USSR and the USA.  Arne Treholt and his ninja team are dedicated to stopping these.

Delineation of conflicts:
Elements of NATO are threatening Norway.  Russian submarines travel where they should not.  The team needs to counter these threats, whether under the sea, or in the air, or on land.  Humle needs to train in ninja ways to help the team achieve its goals.  Will he be ready in time?

Resolution: 
In its own inimitable way, the film came to a climactic conclusion.

One line summary:  Norwegian send up of Cold War 1983.

There is a website at ninjatroppen. 

Statistics (black hole system): 

Cinematography: 9/10 Poor focus throughout.  Use of yellow and orange filters for no apparent reason.  Frequent camera jerks.  CCTV footage with ultra-slow CRT refresh errors; very annoying. Frequent switches from main camera to CCTV was disconcerting.  Special effects that were made ten times worse because of the camera work.  On the other hand, I could often distinguish one actor from another, as in Arne was not Bumblebee.

Editing: 10/10 There were many continuity errors.  Bumblebee was bleeding to death from a neck wound; the half a minute later he has no blood on him.  A bit before this, he took maybe five sub-machine gun rounds.  He slowed for a moment, then went about his business without bleeding.

Sound:  8/10 Odd drum machine music as background.  The synthesizer music with the final credits was amazingly bad.  Arne's discussion on the street with the KGB officers was not well-miked, but I had the impression that the sub-titles were off.  When viewing a film where the spoken word is in a language I do not know, sub-titles can make or break the experience.

Acting: 8/10 Who needed to act?  The script takes a few shots at the Russians, and a few more shots at the Americans, and the actors delivered that.

Screenplay: 9/10 The movie has a signed and registered divorce from the reality principle.  The King of Norway participating in this farce?  I think not.  Vanishing in a puff of smoke?  Nope.  Motivations are often opaque. The special effects were strongly anti-convincing.  Arne carrying enough current through his body to shock Bumblebee's heart back into beating?  Perhaps not.

Special Effects: 10/10 Stupid model of the island where the ninjas hang out.   Bad looking flame effects on that model.  Perhaps the stupidest special effect for an incoming missile I've seen in ages.  Seventies style graphics for military engagement telemetry.  Laughable mountain hideout model.  The 'glow from within' when the ninjas made some sort of breakthrough in consciousness just looked hokey.  The explosion at the oil rig was really poor. Cigarettes leaping into Arne's mouth.  Appearing and disappearing with a puff of smoke.  I got some laughs out of the VTOL (vertical Take-Off and Landing) craft, and at the visible wires holding up the model of a prop plane.

Final Rating: 0/10 in the WS system; 9/10 in the BH system for its five black holes.

20130812: Action Review--Avalon

(hulu+) Avalon

1. This is a substantial update to the mini-review from 20130629.
2. The movie is largely live action.  For the game sequences, live action with effects.  It is 106 minutes in length, released in 2001, from Mamoru Oshii, who directed the animated series Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor 2.
3. IMDB:  6.5/10 from 9,486 users.
4. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...' and 70% approval from 8,598 audience members.
5. Shot in Poland with Polish actors and Polish sets: streetcars, flats, bistros, large church, abandoned buildings and world war 2 weapons for the game sequences, and so on.
6. 'Avalon' is a VRMMORPG (virtual reality, massively multi-player, online role-playing game) gone wrong.  This sounds like a number of other films.  On the anime side, the .hack//sign and its many sequels, as well as GITS.  On the live action side, Tron and the Matrix series come to mind.
7. In retrospect, GITS seems positively open, clear, and transparent compared to this work.
8. Dissipation, pointlessness, inaction, game-induced permanent illnesses, lack of direction, out-of-focus closeups of low-tech food preparation, such as potatoe-cabbage-rice stew.  People with eastern European accents checking out old books written in Japanese.  Who could ask for more?  I could.  Was there a point to all of this?
9. The female protagonist, Ash, is one of the top players in this somewhat illegal game.  She attempts to find out why the game is having bad consequences for real-life players.  She follows this through with dogged determination and finds a conclusion of sorts in real life.
10. The ending was just absurd.  At 80 minutes in, we switched from the sepia-river-of-mud visual style to full light, good focus, and beautiful scenery.  Around 90 minutes in, Ash is at a large church where a lavish musical production is going on.  The final, climactic confrontation occurs on these grounds.  Ash debates what reality is with the ultimate nemesis.  The dialog is as stupid as the rest of the film.  The welcome, and long overdue, visual beauty does not improve that.
11. One star of five.  20130927: two blackholes for cinematography and screenplay.
12. As a side note, one of the thoughtful audience reviews I read claimed that the Miramax version (in English) was a disaster in terms of meaning.  The semantic content of the English version was clearly at odds (and much smaller) than the Polish version.  That would explain the lack of sense of the version I saw.

Art/cinematography: 2/10 Poor depth of field, many features obscured by shadows, dismal, murky, out of focus, lots of sepia shots and visual flattening.  Hulu+ claimed it was streaming in HD, but I saw no evidence of that in the visual quality.  This was ugly beyond belief.  The last twenty five or so minutes were nice to look at, but hardly made up for the first 80.

Sound: 4/10 The music was a bit too florid and symphonic for my tastes, but OK in terms of quality.  The dubbing into English was uneven but often badly done: the sound was hollow and lower in volume than the music.  In contrast, the many sounds of terribly sloppy eating were crisp and higher in volume than the spoken word.  For that matter, much of the foley (typewriters, footsteps, game sounds) is louder than speech.

Acting: 4/10 Light on motivation.  Let's blame the screenplay for that.

Screenplay:  1/10 The film was not engaging, mostly because the twists and turns of the plot always seemed one step closer to nothing.  I came away thinking I knew less about the movie after watching it than I did before I started watching.