theworstseats Reviews

Legion (2010)

Needs divine intervention

[3/10 · 22 February 2010]

Since Al Gore told everyone that the world was going to end very soon there has been a noted lack of guidance about what to do when the inevitable actually happens. Hollywood, as always, has stepped into the breach, presenting a series of likely disaster scenarios and how to survive them. The most recent of these is Legion, a step by step guide on evading a vengeful god.

In Legion, God (Christian, white) has decided that enough is enough and humanity should be punished for all its warring, raping, pillaging and general good times by being extinguishing it. Archangel Michael, heaven's equivalent of General MacArthur, couldn't disagree more and decides to stop his old boss by travelling to earth, robbing an armoury and shooting anything that looks evil (apparently God also has demons). It's not just a straight out fight though, every fantasy story also needs a macguffin and Legion's is a mystical baby that Michael must protect for humanity to survive. It's a little bit like Terminator 2, but with a less believable antagonist, and based at a truckstop in the desert.

Theoretically, an action film with a massive special effects budget and a plot that revolves around gods and guns shouldn't be too difficult to make. Unfortunately, when you combine the two and get the guy who normally does the effects to also write the screenplay it is doomed to failure. Scott Stewart, the writer and director of Legion has done exactly that, managing to make a film that feels like he's just strung a series of his favourite special effects together and then wrapped it in any old hackneyed plot.

Despite the below par narrative, Legion has a reasonable cast. Paul Bettany is convincing as the tortured ex-angel Michael, while Lucas Black puts in a competent performance as Jeep Hanson, the mystical baby's slightly dim step-father. It's sad to see Dennis Quaid being given so little in such a mediocre role, but as the saying goes, you can't polish a turd, and he, like the rest of the cast, does the best with what he's given.

Legion is a difficult film to watch, building up tension before letting it slowly wind down in lengthy character development dialogues, which then usually culminates in a totally unrelated special effect. A more specific and focused plot it could have made it a reasonable film, but as it stands it seems more like a made-for-TV late night special than a Hollywood blockbuster.

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The Wolfman (2010)

Hopkins struggles in dopey werewolf flick

[3/10 · 17 February 2010]

Universal has a policy that all its main actors should be clean shaven. Unfortunately for Universal, Sir Antony Hopkins, having a keen eye for nature and knowing that wolves have a lot of hair, refused to cut his beard for his part in The Wolfman. Unfortunately for Sir Anthony the resulting film was so bad it didn't make the slightest bit of difference.

Wolfman is a typical b-movie; predictable plot, hammy acting, buckets of gore and a great looking female lead. What makes it slightly different from others in its genre is the size of the budget, allegedly around $85 million. What this means is that it has Sir Antony Hopkins, Benicio Del Toro and Emily Blunt in the lead roles as opposed to ex-porn stars, the blood is painstakingly added by a supercomputer instead of a bucket and it's set in the picturesque English countryside rather than a disused warehouse.

The plot is fairly standard. Benicio Del Toro plays Lawrence Talbot, an actor who returns home to his family mansion after the death of his brother, where he meets Gwen Conliffe, his brother's widower played by Blunt, and his father Sir John Talbot played by Hopkins. Lawrence investigates the murder, is attacked by a werewolf, gets turned into a werewolf, gets tortured by doctors who try to cure him from what they think is insanity (it's probably Lupus), escapes, goes on a rampage and then solves the carefully signposted mystery. All very fresh and imaginative.

There is no tension in Wolfman, few surprises and apart from a several graphic disembowelments, very little even to shock. At worst it verges on boring. Blunt and Del Toro are passable in their roles, but it is Hopkins who carries the film almost singlehandedly, although even he is not up to his usual standard.

With a little more character development instead of a heavy reliance on extravagant sets, props and costumes Wolfman could have been a lot better. As it stands, the fight scenes are entertaining enough to stop it being a total disaster, and combined with Hopkins' presence the film regains some credibility, but not very much.

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Everybody's Fine (2009)

Everybody's looking at De Niro

[6/10 · 10 February 2010]

Al Pacino for some reason decided to have plastic surgery. Aside from making him look permanently shocked, it ridiculous that a character actor would want to mess around with his main source of income, in the same way that a physicist wouldn't drink White Ace.

On the other hand, Pacino's contemporary and regular collaborator De Niro hasn't touched his mug, leaving him free to clean up in the lucrative grandfather and retired policemen market. In Everybody's Fine he plays the former, an old man who becomes increasingly lonely following his wife's death, and so goes in search of his four children, hoping to reconnect with them.

De Niro is Frank Goode, a telephone cable maker who spent his entire life working to provide for his family, whilst pushing his children as hard as he could to succeed. As a result, they are all a bit resentful and cagey towards him. Everybody's fine is about his attempts to get to know them, a process made almost impossible as they try to hide their problems from him, not wanting him to judge them failures.

It's not a fast paced film and much of its impact relies on what the characters don't say rather than what they do. De Niro does a superb job with Goode, portraying him as a tired old man whose need to see his children comes into direct conflict with his natural desire to try and direct their lives.

Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore and Kate Beckinsale all perform well as Frank's children, although their roles themselves are exceptionally basic, requiring almost nothing from the actors, which makes it fairly surprising that they signed up, all testament to De Niro's still exceptionally powerful allure as an actor.

Kirk Jones' screenplay requires very little from anyone except for De Niro, and even then not an enormous amount. The story is not a complex one and by telling you so little about the characters he lets you read pretty much anything into them you want, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on whether you think Drew Barrymore's character in ET would have grown up to be a lesbian dancer.

Jones does a reasonable job as a director, but again, it is mostly De Niro's performance that keeps you watching to the sad but predictable end.

All About Steve (2009)

Complete Bullocks

[1/10 · 2 February 2010]

After receiving an Oscar nomination for her role in Blind Side (Oscar nominated itself), you would have thought Sandra Bullock was finally trying to settle down into more serious roles, avoiding being typecast as a socially inept rom-com love interest. All about Steve says otherwise.

Bullock plays Mary Horowitz, an awkward crossword writer who fall in love with a guy, Steve, after she meets him on a blind date. Steve, played by Bradley Cooper, is a cameraman with a local news station, attractive but otherwise nothing special. The plot then revolves around Mary's pursuit of Steve as he travels around the country trying to cover the news.

All about Steve is a complete waste of everybody's time. Thomas Haden Church is the funniest thing in it because he has a wide mouth that makes him look like a frog, but not froggy enough to stop the indeterminable drudgery of rom-com clichés the film relies on for its gags.

As well as failing completely at its genre, AoS also fails on basic plot. Mary is supposed to be a bit strange, which could have provided a backbone for the film's thinly veiled message on tolerance, if it wasn't for the fact that she actually has something approaching autism, she's not just 'kooky'.

Actual film aside, the actors are all fairly attractive, and Sandra Bullock always looks nice in a skirt. Which is why it doesn't get zero stars.

A Prophet (2009)

Brutal prison drama

[7/10 · 30 January 2010]

In film, prison creates opposites. If you're nice when you go in you'll come out as a psychotic killer, If you're a brutal murderer you'll turn out as saccharine as a game show host. The amount of time spent inside is irrelevant. There are a few exceptions, and they all abide by The 1st law of Andy Dufresne, which is that you only remain the same if you escape.

Director Jacques Audiard's Un prophete (which after studious translation turns out to be 'A prophet' in English) deals with the French penal system and its affects on a supposedly innocent young man, Malik El Djebena, played by Tahar Rahim. Malik is a half-Arab half-Corsican boy of 19 who has been in and out of various detention facilties since he was very young. However, he's far from a hardened criminal and his introduction to the prison where the film is set is a real shock to the system.

As the film progresses he becomes wise about life inside, becoming the assistant to mafioso César Luciani, played by Niels Arestrup, who protects him in return for 'favours'. Malik's mixed lineage causes him a lot of trouble in prison and neither of the main gangs, the muslims or Corsicans, truly accept him. So he decides he's going to become the big boss.

Almost three hours later and you'll feel like you've been in there doing time with him. It is vicious and violent in the extreme, although not in the traditional pressups-in-solitary kind of way, lending it a twisted credibility. Having said that A prophet could have been an hour shorter and a lot less introspective on Malik's part, especially with respect to some of the unrelated dream sequences he has every few minutes. Of course it doesn't help that if you don't speak french and you're having to reading it as subtitles it loses a lot, especially with so much riding on Malik's character to develop the film.

While it may have been hailed as a masterpiece by many, and it certainly is a visually brilliant, Audiard tries to cover too much ground, involving too many different plot points, and as a result ends up exhausting the audience. Still, it is definitely a welcome break from a lot of the hypermacho Hollywood takes on the same genre.

The Book of Eli (2010)

God survives the apocalypse

[8/10 · 25 January 2010]

Post apocalyptic films exist to show you what really matters. Water, giant knives, cults, rape, cannibalism, bald henchmen and incest are all crucial. Luckily for timid Denzel fans, the Hughes brothers (From Hell, Menace II Society) decided to focus less on rape and more on religion for their newest film The Book of Eli.

With a plot rotating around the central tenet that a world without any religion is a savage, hopeless one, The Book of Eli has Denzel Washington cast as a lone wanderer named Eli whose only purpose is to deliver an unknown book to an unknown location 'In the west'.

Adding mystery to intrigue and wrapping it around a knife the size of a skateboard are Eli's phenomenal, yet unexplained combat abilities, as well as the fact he has apparently been looking for this place for 30 years so far. As you can imagine the long trek has made him very tetchy, and he uses his knife/sword/skateboard to maim and slay anyone attempting to stop him, even popping a few that only looked like they might. He's that serious.

Alongside Washington as the futuristic crusader, The Book of Eli has veteran bad guy Gary Oldman in a superb turn as Carnegie, Eli's nemesis, and a man who will go to any lengths to get the book for himself. On the other hand, Mila Kunis pretty much phones in her role as Eli's intensely irritating sidekick Solara, although she certainly isn't helped by mental images of Family Guy's Meg popping up every time she speaks.

The biggest problem with The Book of Eli is without a doubt its deeply Christian undertones. At times it feels like the audience are being preached to rather than entertained and it is only Washington's on- screen charisma that keeps his character from becoming genuinely abrasive at times. Of course, if you don't have a problem with intense religious dogma, this film is unremittingly wonderful.

Aside from the religious self-righteousness, and couple of heavily signposted twists (around 2 out of 10 Shyamalans), The Book of Eli is a joy to watch. Action set-pieces are done in a stark comic-book style, perfectly suited to the apocalyptic setting, while the Hughes brothers' use of a washed out palette of browns and blacks in their set creation conjures up an atmosphere more akin to a spaghetti western than a barren grey desert like that of recent fun-fest The Road.

Veronika Decides to Die (2009)

Enjoyable, but not brilliant

[6/10 · 20 January 2010]

2008's emotional bladder infection Twilight was created as a direct result of TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sarah Michelle Gellar was punished for her part in this with lead roles in both The Grudge and Scooby-Doo franchises. Now, freshly repentant and having reconciled with the film industry, she has returned to grace with an admirable performance in Emily Young's Veronika Decides to Die.

Based on the Paulo Coelho novel of the same name (in English anyway) Veronika Decides to Die is the story of a successful young woman, Veronika (played by Gellar) who tries to kill herself after deciding she is on a path towards a future she doesn't want. Unfortunately for her she fails and falls into a coma for several weeks, before being shipped to a mental institution where she is told damage incurred during the suicide bid will kill her within weeks.

Coelho's book focused on Veronika's freedom from constriction and her voyage of self-discovery as she came to terms with her imminent death and the freedom from responsibility that brought about. Young's film takes a more simplistic view and concentrates heavily on her love affair with Edward (Jonathan Tucker), a handsome young inmate who was struck silent after being involved a car accident. He is brooding and has pale skin. You don't see him outside during the day very much. He likes standing in the corner of darkened rooms. He's a wonderful artist.

Aside from similarities to her previous work, Gellar puts in a very strong performance as Veronika, although a confident supporting cast headed by Tucker as Edward and David Thewlis as the institution head Dr Blake help pull the film together during some of the duller moments.

As a serious exploration of anomie and the lack of control felt by many modern city-dwellers over their own lives, or a look at how removing the fear of death from our daily thoughts frees us, Veronika falls flat on its face. As a quirky little tale of love in a mental institution, it excels.