Finding Pirates
Movies from seen in spring 2003
Originally written: October 2003
Finding Nemo
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Italian Job
Down With Love
Hollywood Homicide
Japanese Story
Legally Blond II
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
"Infantalisation of taste" is the term that certain snotty critics of genre and popular fiction have tried to apply in the wake of the success of the Harry Potter books and films, of the Tolkien films (and earlier the tri-continental success of tLotR in popular surveys of the 'book of the twentieth century' - and it was interesting to note that tLotR wasn't even in the top 100 of the list compiled by a survey of literary critics and authors), and of the rise to success of a wave of interesting animation that appeals as much to adults as to kids. The sort of critics who get off on the wordy crap that is the stuff of the Booker Prize, and those who subscribe to the trendy post-modernist modes of criticism, really seem to be upset by the continuing popularity of narrative fiction. My preference in literature (and, to some extent, film) has always been towards primarily entertaining, narrative-driven stuff, so I expect that my taste is more or less permanently infantalised by the measure of these wankers. (In fact I'd like to assist the unfortunate with an outreach program/meta-reality TV show called Sci Fi for the Po-Mo Guy.) Which is interesting in wake of the fact that two of the best movies of the year so far have emerged and both are ones which would seem to support the infantalised theory insofar as they are narrative oriented, adventure movies aimed equally at kids and adults, and have been among the most successful money-makers of the year.
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Finding Nemo continues the Pixar tradition - and the recent success of seemingly kiddie-oriented animation. Lastish I talked about the popularity (as judged by the voters on imdb.com) of Pixar's output, and this movie is no different from the Toy Story films and A Bug's Life. It has a strong narrative drive, an appealing set of leading and supporting characters and excellent voice characterisation. While seemingly a kid's movie, concentrating on the clownfish Marlin's search for his missing son, Nemo, taken on the Barrier Reef by a Sydney-based dentist, and on Nemo's attempts to escape from his fish-tank captivity, the film is something more. The dialog, especially in the mouths of the supporting characters, an amalgam of sharks, turtles, pelicans, starfish and featured piscine bit players, is inspired. The kids'll miss the underlying meanings but be happy with the action; adults will find the nuances of Marlin's neuroses, the sharks' neo-veganism, the Extreme Sport-oriented turtles and the fish-tank inhabitants Great Escape moments rewarding. The character actors chosen are particularly apposite, including Albert Brooks' Marlin, Ellen DeGeneres as his memory-challenged helpmeet Dory, Geoffrey Rush's pelican Nigel and the trio of Aussie sharks, voiced by Barry Humphries, Eric Bana and Bruce Spence. The fishtankers include Willem Dafoe and some televisual favorites like Alison Janney and Brad Garrett. Like other Pixar animations, Finding Nemo is a winner in the reality of its look and feel. The computer wranglers capture the underwater world in remarkable clarity and reality. There are a few glitches in the scenes in Sydney, apparent to anyone who lives or has lived here, but overall it is incredibly true, despite the fact that the animators and directors did not visit Australia to check things out. Perhaps they have the East Australian current which travels south at about 3-4 knots (according to the chart I've been using as I learn coastal navigation) moving a little too swiftly but it would be a quibble to say so. To make up for that, the writers have transformed forever my view of seagulls. Their cartoon birds are scavengers, like their flesh-and-blood cousins, but have but one word in their vocabulary: "Mine". Anyone who's seen seagulls surrounding seaside diners waiting for scraps will recognise the essential truthfulness of this portrayal. It is one highlight among many for those with permanently infantalised tastes.
Depp lifts pirate curse
Movie pirates have generally followed one of two traditions: the Newtonian pirates are inspired by Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver in Treasure Island - all wooden legs, parrots and "Aaaaargh, Jim lad" - and the Fairbanksian pirates - lithe and balletic swordsmen (in every sense). Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster and Tyrone Power inherited the mantle of Douglas Fairbanks but it has laid dormant for some decades. Since The Crimson Pirate, there hasn't been a decent pirate flick despite many attempts, of which Yellowbeard, a Pythonesque satire, got closest. The drought is broken with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Geoffrey Rush is incredibly Newtonian as Captain Barbossa and Orlando Bloom, the ingenu, is Fairbanks in training. But the highlight of this film is Johnny Depp's completely original Captain Jack Sparrow. This is a new pirate: an adventurer who has been to all the world's ports and experimented with the available modes of drink and drugs in every one. With braided beard, mascaraed eyes, mincing walk and bland self-assurance, he can still swash his buckle with the best but prefers a more sedate approach to achieving his objective: retaking the Black Pearl from Barbossa and his crew of mutinous sea-dogs. The twist here is that the Pearl's crew are cursed, the walking dead who cannot experience any sensual pleasure (or pain) until the curse is lifted. That's the McGuffin and it involves the young lovers, Bloom and Keira Knightley (fresh from Bend It Like Beckham), in the machinations of Rush and Depp. This film is perhaps 15-20 minutes too long but it works. Depp and Rush in particular give great performances while the youngsters are good enough. They are supported by a pair of comic relief rude mechanicals in each camp: two marines who are the butt of Depp's various plots, and commentators on the Imperial efforts to capture and hang the pirates, and two pirates who do a complementary Mutt-and-Jeff amoing the buccaneers. The ships and the swordfights and the gun battles and all that jazz are fine as well. For those whose tastes were infantalised at about the same time as mine, who remember with pleasure Captain Blood and The Crimson Pirate and the movies in between, will have a great time. For the rest, you might catch the spirit.
Mini Coopers steal film
In an era of remakes and sequels and prequels comes a new sort of copy-cat movie: the re-imagining. This sort of movie takes the essence of a movie (or of a genre) and restyles it for contemporary audiences. The original Italian Job took a party of Pommy crooks (led by Michael Caine, funded by Noel Coward and featuring, of all people, Benny Hill as the computer nerd) to Milan to rip off the Fiat payroll and escape through the traffic jam they created by going into underground passages, over buildings and upstairs and down in Mini Coopers. While the new version has the same name, the plot is different. The eponymous job is over within the first half hour and Donald Sutherland, the mentor/safe-cracker of the troupe, is dead. The rest of the gang then needs to find the gold, exact revenge and escape in the new versions of Mini Coopers, this time in LA. While the name remains, the movie is essentially different in look and feel, but still a classic heist plot. Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Mos Def and Seth Green are the new gang. Green (Scott Evil in the Austin Powers movies) is the computer genius, Statham is the token Cockney and Def is the explosives guy. They are all great and Theron as Sutherland's safe-cracking daughter is also very good. Wahlberg is OK although his turn as the planner is a bit of a stretch. The two heists that book end the movie - in Venice and LA - are well-staged and save the movie. Good enough.
Ewans rocks; Renee daze
Another re-imagining is in the new romantic comedy, Down with Love, which is an homage to the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies. Renee Zellwegger is Doris, Ewan McGregor is Rock, David Hyde Pierce is Tony Randall and Sarah Paulson is Thelma Ritter/Eve Arden. The McGuffin is that Renee has written the eponymous best-seller and Ewan's sexist womanising journalist is going to seduce and expose her. He's good as are the support casts but Renee doesn't work despite (or maybe because of) the plethora of early sixties outfits into which she flits from scene to scene. Hyde Pierce is excellent in the male support role, relishing the sly lines he's given. The movie begs the question: what relevance does the Day-Hudson type of film have for contemporary society? A good try but it misses.
Police procedural moves house
Hollywood Homicide is the latest Harrison Ford vehicle. He's a cop - a detective old and tired, now as interested in trying to flog real estate to keep his finances together as in solving crimes. He is partnered with Josh Harnett as the young Turk, into yoga and a plethora of women, and aiming at an acting career. They are faced with a particularly nasty murder of a hip-hop band and with an Internal Affairs investigation led by Ford's nemesis, played with slimy relish by Bruce Greenwood. Also featured are Martin Landau as a music mogul with a house for sale; Lolita Davidovich as a Madam; and particularly the lovely Lena Olin (who's been so good in the current series of Alias) as Ford's love interest. There is also a plethora of bit players and rap stars in cameo roles, many uncredited. The film is co-written and directed by Ron Shelton (whose Bull Durham is the definitive film about minor league baseball). This is not quite the definitive cop/real estate movie and it features an over-long chase sequence but Ford and Harnett are good together and Olin is great. It entertains for most of its length.
Lotsa space; no people
The antithesis of the infantalised movie is the new Australian romance, Japanese Story. This is basically a two-hander, with Toni Colette as a 'feisty' Australian geologist assigned to drive a Japanese companyman, Gotaro Tsunashima, around north-west Western Australia. She thinks she's selling him her company's software; he sees her only as his driver. The film explores their mutual dislike which metamorphoses as a result of a stranding in the desert. Further plot developments occur which the film-makers ask the audience to 'refrain from disclosing ... so as not to spoil the film for others'. Suffice to say that the film delves deeply into character but somehow seems to forget the necessity to have at least some concept of plot and narrative. The pacing is deliberate (Cath though that Australian filmmakers had finally discovered the 'Swedish movie' mode) and gets more deliberate in the last half hour but the acting by the two leads is fine. Colette, best known for the archetypal Australian larrikin sheila in Muriel's Wedding (although subsequent performances in The Sixth Sense and About a Boy, inter alia, have shown that she has something more than that character in her repertoire), here adds another Australian archetype, the put-upon and under-appreciated working woman. And in this role she is a revelation. The film allows her plenty of time and lots of room to explore the nuances of her character and the impact that her foreign companion has on it. Great performance. Pity that the movie is one that will appeal mainly to those who think that movies needs to be meaningful more than they need to be entertaining.
Fish out of depth
The first Legally Blonde was a surprise hit. Its sequel, simply titled Legally Blonde II in Australia, is unsurprisingly not very good. Partly it's because they ignore Joe Bob Briggs, whose theory of sequels is that they are best when the film-makers simply make the same movie again. In the first, there was a script, a story arc and a winning lead character - with Reese Witherspoon as the fish-out-of-water cheerleader at Harvard law school. This time she's immersed in the realpolitik of contemporary Washington and there are few laughs to be found as she tries to initiate legislation to outlaw the testing of cosmetics on animals. The original was directed by Robert Luketic, a young Australian, but he is conspicuous by his absence here. The film wastes its audience's goodwill, is illogical, unfunny and makes no sense within the confines of legislative imperatives. It is climaxed by just about the worse, and most banal, pseudo-nationalistic peroration in film history. Avoid.
Graphic but not novel
The best thing one can say about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is that it is not a sequel. However, every aspect of it is ripped off - from the public domain, i.e. from the material no longer copyright. Thus, we have charatcers created by H Rider Haggard, HG Wells, RL Stevenson, Jules Verne, Bram Stoker, Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde forming the new league of super heroes to take on the supervillain (who turns out to be the creation of another Victorian writer) bent on world domination. With betrayal by a team-mate, chases over land, sea and ice, fights galore, and all the other cliches of the genre, this is comic book graphic novel movie-making at its most banal. But worse, most of it makes no sense. The plot, as revealed, is ridiculous even by the debased standards of Sfx movies. The creators play fast and loose with the characters: Tom Sawyer, from the pre-Civil War Mississippi, is a northerner in his twenties in 1899; Mr Hyde, who in the novella is able to be an active participant in London society, is transformed into a pseudo-Hulk; Nemo becomes an Indian grandee; and Dorian Wilde some sort of immortal. Even many of the effects are rubbish: particularly the scenes of the great-looking Nautilus which ignore scale and reality and of the CGI Hyde, made to look like the Hunchback of Notting Hill. There is not even a leavening of humor (deliberate or accidental) to relieve the dull monotony of the movie and the only actor who emerges with any credit at all is Peta Wilson, whose acting is restrained and under-played. This takes the cake as the most ridiculous movie foisted on us since Reign of Fire.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]