The X Factor
Movies from seen in autumn 2003
Originally written: June 2003
X2: X-Men United
Whale Rider
Punch-Drunk Love
Bringing Down the House
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Johnny English
We are coming into the American summer of the sequel. As imagination and originality runs low in Hollywood and there is a lessened desire to experiment with the new and the interesting, we are served up a collection of sequels, prequels, remakes and follow-ups. Not to mention reheated versions of classic tropes. In the Australian winter of discontent we can look forward to (or have already welcomed) Tomb Raider 2, Terminator 3, Charlie's Angels again, a second Ripley, sequels to The Matrix, The Pokemon Movie, Fast and Furious and X Men, a prequel to Dumb and Dumber and remakes of Four Feathers, The Italian Job and a generic Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie. In the last few weeks there has been first the second X Men and now the second of the Matrices. We've seen the former but, being uninterested in pseudo-philosophical/pseudo-religious double talk interspersed with mindless violence, put together on a completely unbelievable plot device (the machines need humans as batteries to power their uber-machine - pur-leeeese) which validates every paranoids worst fantasies and performed with barely believable acting (Keanu somnambulant and Hugo in hissy snit), that is assuming The Matrix Reloaded will be another version of The Matrix, I'll give it a miss.
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With the plethora of comic-inspired cinema at the moment, it's not surprising that every so often one of the films works. What's surprising is when the sequel works even better. The first X-Men worked quite well but large chunks of it were spent in plot dump and back-story of the mutants and their situation. X2: X-Men United improves by having a stronger plot (the mutants need to unite to combat a military threat to their existence), a greater variety of super-powers on show (new or increased roles given to Nightcrawler, Iceman, Pyro and Lady Deathstrike, as well as Dr Jean Grey, who must be livid that she doesn't have a neat nickname), a series of good set pieces for Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Mystique and another strong performance from Hugh Jackman as the Wolverine. Bryan Singer is again the director (although he has no part in the script on this occasion) and it shows how a good director with a strong script can turn even this sort of reasonably simple story-telling into an effective movie. The movie of course is a barely disguised call for tolerance in contemporary society but it doesn't ram the message down your throat. Instead it combines a fast-moving story with interesting characters, a genuine threat, and some real humor and a little pathos. And, of course, it sets the scene for further sequels, although it is unlikely they'll be directed by Singer or feature Jackman.
Voyage Home
I enjoyed Whale Rider, the new film from New Zealand, but with a number of reservations. This is one of those well-meaning and endearing small movies about family relations, this time among a Maori community on the east coast of New Zealand. The advanced publicity was all about the 'People's Choice' awards won at various film festivals around the world - and that is how the movie struck me: it is a film festival film, not a megaplex film. The two main problems are that the central narrative is not strong enough to sustain the movie over its two-hour length and, in any case, the central narrative is too predictable and the denouement obvious almost from the get go. The community is ruled by its hereditary leader, Koro, whose son has abandoned the community after the death in childbirth of his wife and son. What remains from that tragedy is Koro's grand-daughter, named Paikea, after the whale rider who is community's traditional (male) founder. Koro cannot accept that a girl can inherit the spiritual leadership of the community and, when she is eleven, and in the continued absence of his son, Koro seeks to find a male heir, by educating a number of the community children in the traditional ways, and excluding Paikea from the lessons. This is all fair enough and well enough developed but nothing else really happens until the third act, when a pod of southern right whales (the community's totem) washes up on their beach. The acting is uniformly good, especially the three leads: young Keisha Castle-Hughes (Pai), Rawiri Paratene (the tunnel-visioned patriarch) and Vicky Haughton (his long-suffering but loyal wife). The movie is incredibly well-intentioned and reeking of all the correct soft-left values, about tolerance, equality and hope. But it just misses the brass ring. Mostly because it is just too slow and deliberate in its pacing.
Anger mismanagement
I am at a bit of a loss to explain why, in the face of all the positive reviews it has received, I could just not enjoy Punch-Drunk Love. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and giving Adam Sandler a serious role for once, the film never worked for me. Barry Egan (Sandler) is the only boy in a family with seven sisters and, as a result, is screwed up, alienated and given to uncontrolled rages. (It is ironic that his next movie is called Anger Management in which his character is placed under control of a psychologist to cure a non-existent anger, whereas Barry Egan really needs such a therapist.) The two-tiered story has Barry's dealing with a nasty phone-sex operation which is seeking to exploit him after he has made a tentative call to it and, concurrently, with a developing relationship with Lena (Emily Watson) who works with one of his sisters. A major sub-plot involves a food coupon promotion which Barry seeks to exploit. Barry sees Lena as a way out of all his troubles and she seems sympathetic to him, despite his rages and off behavior. The film resolves his difficulties with the sex operation far too easily, although this aspect of the movie provides Philip Seymour Hoffman with a good cameo. And the chemistry between Barry and Lena needs to be taken on trust because it's not demonstrated in the film. For me this is not Adam Sandler's Truman Show, I don't think he works at all well in the part.
Run of the millstones
The new Steve Martin movie, Bringing Down the House, demonstrates that Queen Latifah is a genuine talent. The script, however, is all in her favor: her character, the colourful ex-con, is well written, while Martin's screwed-up lawyer is a caricature. He is reduced to schtick at many points in the movie. The story is about how they need to clear her name, while he comes out of his shell and discovers himself. There are some good moments but it's run-of-the-mill comedy with one really over-the-top bad taste scene when Latifah's character has a cat-fight with Martin's sister-in-law (Missy Pyle, who was so good in Galaxy Quest and is wasted here in an incredibly cliched role).
Another run-of-the-mill romantic comedy is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Here there's a modern guy and a modern girl who Meet Cute: each is motivated by false motives in entering the relationship. She needs to write an article on dumping a guy by behaving badly; he needs to make he love him. Both have 10 days. What a coincidence! There are a few funny moments along the way and Kate Hudson demonstrates she has some talent for comedy but the script is sorely deficient. Where you would expect her to be clingy or attack him in the commitment-phobia, her character behaves like a loony, enough to send any sensible man running into the night. There is a poorly constructed confrontation when each learns of the other's insincerity and, thence, the predictable ending. Wait for the video.
OK, Old Bean
Rowan Atkinson can be very funny, particularly when he has the benefit of a good Ben Elton or Richard Curtis script. In Johnny English, his second feature-film-leading (and eponymous) role, he has neither writing for him. The results, a reasonably weak Bond pastiche, which has a number of good scenes but not sufficient to carry the film. It is weakened particularly by John Malkovich's over-the-top French villain and not helped much by Natalie Imbruglia's role as an Interpol agent who joins Johnny on the villain's trail. Atkinson cannot help being funny, as most of the Blackadder shows demonstrate. But he has only been successful, in my view, in small doses (ie as a supporting player in films or as a lead in half-hour TV comedies). Here he has to carry the film and it proves a little heavy for him at times. Still it provides more than a few laughs.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]