“[W]orking with Peter Jackson is like working with a family. So they’ll have a great time. Saoirse’s family will go too, everyone is very close and very loving on those sorts of jobs.” Saoirse Ronan, late of Adaptation and The Lovely Bones and soon of Hanna, is apparently heading to Middle Earth as part of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. (Get well soon, PJ.) Hmm…an elf, perhaps? She has the look.
Category: Fanboy
Beauty and the Beast.
“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Anne Hathaway, who will be a fantastic addition to our ensemble as we complete our story…I am [also] delighted to be working with Tom again and excited to watch him bring to life our new interpretation of one of Batman’s most formidable enemies.“
So, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (still a bad name) has announced its villains: Anne Hathaway as Catwoman and Tom Hardy as Bane. (Not Hugo Strange, as it turns out — wires must’ve gotten crossed somewhere with Arkham City.)
Hathaway and Hardy…that’s not bad. I still might’ve preferred Marion Cotillard or Olivia Wilde for Selina Kyle, but I’ll give Hathaway the benefit of the doubt. And, while I’m not much excited about Bane as a villain, I’ll concede that I haven’t read the definitive take on the character (which is, apparently, Knightfall), and that he might actually be less of a one-note, musclebound oaf than he’s seemed in Batman and Robin and other venues.
Zoot Shoot Riots.
“Zoot Shooters run through a course they call a ‘caper,’ which is often based on a scene from a famous gangster movie, like ‘The Godfather’ or ‘Miller’s Crossing.’ The winner is the person who shoots with the most accuracy in the shortest time. Penalties are tacked on for hitting the ‘good guys.’“
Also by way of a friend, the WSJ looks into “Zoot Shooters,” or what happens when fanboys and gun enthusiasts cross-pollinate. “There are two schools of thought,’ says Steve Fowler, a longtime cowboy shooter going by the name Bat Masterson, a famous Old West gunfighter. He recently took up Zoot Shooting, under the alias G-Man. ‘One is that [Zoot Shooting] is another costuming game and it’s a lot of fun…The other is, if it ain’t cowboy, it ain’t nothing.‘”
The Warriors Three (and a Team of X.)
Lots of action on the Marvel movie front this past week. The powers-that-be have granted us our first looks at Chris Evans as Captain America, and Andrew Garfield as the new Peter Parker, along with another shot of Chris Hemsworth as the Mighty Thor. Hmm…three-for-three, I’d say, although I still have a bad, straight-to-video-y feeling about the god of thunder.
Update: Just as I finished posting this, a promo image leaks from Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men First Class. From left to right: “Michael Fassbinder as Magneto, Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert, January Jones as Emma Frost, Jason Flemyng as Azazel, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Lucas Till as Havoc, Zoe Kravitz as Angel Salvadore, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, and James MacAvoy as Charles Xavier.” Looks…crowded.
Silent Knight.
Cheer up, Bruce, it’s Christmas! Happy holidays to you and yours, from Berk, Bats, and GitM.
Festival of Lights.
I know, I know: After just feeling lukewarm about a universally praised movie like The King’s Speech, and now saying nice things about this so-so-reviewed film, I may be heading deep into Armond White territory for the past weekend. And, inasmuch as you can evaluate them empirically, Speech is probably a better film. Still, despite its often dopey plotting and the exposition bomb that derails the movie in its middle third, I had a grand time at Tron: Legacy. The film has definite problems, sure, but it looks and sounds great. (Daft Punk are easily the MVPs of this enterprise.) And, basically, it’s as good a movie as we had any right to expect for a sequel to a 28-year-old Disney film involving neon frisbee fights.
The thing about the original Tron, and I’ll probably catch flak in some circles for saying this, is that while it’s an interesting, even ground-breaking movie in its time in both story (it’s The Matrix before the internet) and FX (early, rudimentary CGI), it’s still not a particularly good film. I bought the DVD several years ago and was dismayed to discover that, David Warner’s villainous Dillinger notwithstanding, Tron didn’t really hold up to the warm glow of nostalgia I had suffused it with — The ideas work a lot better than the execution. (When I uncorked it again earlier this week and watched the first half-hour or so, I had basically the same reaction.)
With that in mind, I basically went into Tron: Legacy expecting not much more than a fetching, futuristic two-hour Daft Punk video. And, y’know, that’s basically what I got. Particularly in the first hour or so, when our hero Sam Flynn (Garret Hedlund, bland but passable) finds himself immersed in the 2.0 versions of the original movie’s gladiator games — the discs, lightcycles, and whatnot — Tron: Legacy delivers exactly the neon-lit, 200 bpm, raver-kid spectacle I was looking for from this flick. True, the story is all over the place, even early on. But watching Jeff Bridges goofily channel his inner Obi-Wan, or seeing Rinzler — the Big Bad’s acrobatic, twin-disced #2 — steal every trick out of the Darth Maul-Boba Fett “cool henchman” playbook is a thrill all its own. Sure it’s blatant pandering to the fanboy crowd, but it gets the job done.
This is not to say Tron: Legacy doesn’t have problems. Right about the time Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde first show up, this once-propulsive movie pulls into an expository gas station and stops dead for a good twenty minutes, while Kosinski et al try desperately to prime the story with deeper meaning: Bridges’ Flynn is the Creator of this realm. His first and most important creation, Clu (CGI-Jeff Bridges), has now turned against him. His Son — Son of Flynn! — has just shown up…I think you see where this is going. (The edgiest thing Tron: Legacy does here is to make the new lifeforms in the Tron-world — “Iso’s” — spontaneously generated, a.k.a. an accident of “biochemical jazz.” When you extend the metaphor, that makes humankind also a happy accident rather than divinely inspired…not that anyone but fan-folk are going to dissect the theological implications of this movie anyway.)
So, these are all intriguing ideas, but — as in the original film — they are somewhat hamhandedly introduced, and they all basically boil down to establishing the Maguffins that will get us through the rest of the picture. (“We need to get to the Portal!” “Don’t let Clu get the Disk!”) By the time Michael Sheen shows up soon thereafter as an egregiously over-the-top (apparently by design) nightclub owner, the movie’s recently-coined mythology is already severely confused, and the plot is barely even trying to hang together anymore. Why did Sam need “Zuse” to hop on a solar sail? What powers does Flynn possess in this world again? (To be fair, they were ill-defined in the first film also.) What is Castor on, exactly, and where can I get me some of that? The movie is getting to be a mess at this point, but…hey, look, it’s Daft Punk! And some Matrix-y ass-kicking to a electroglitch bounce!
By the third act, you’ll either have to allow Tron: Legacy its increasing plot absurdities or check out of the ride completely: Why can’t Clu and his Leni Riefenstahl army just jump through the Portal without this all-important Disk? Is that army really big enough to take over the world anyway? (It reminded me of Douglas Adams’ G’Gugvunntt battle fleet, who due to “a terrible miscalculation of scale” ended up getting eaten by a small dog.) And what got into ole Rinzler there? That seemed terribly convenient.
I can’t really defend the movie here — It’s loud and flashy and more than a little derivative of various moments in Star Wars (cf. Lando, the TIE fighter attack, the aforementioned Obi-Wan and Fett.) But, for whatever reason, I was perfectly happy to bask in the production design and score — and Jeff Bridges clearly having fun as a Zen Sensei –and just let the more ridiculous elements of the movie slide.
Did the world really need a sequel to Tron? No, probably not. But this film does decent justice to its goofier-than-remembered progenitor. And even if it doesn’t reach the level of its ambitions, it’s a perfectly entertaining event film that at least gets its 3D-thrill-ride aspects right. So I’d be up for another outing in the Tron-verse, particularly if they find more to do with Bruce Boxleitner and bring back Daft Punk (and, for that matter, the MCP. There has to be some reason Cillian Murphy was waiting in the wings…)
Hammer and Prongs.
Metallica roadie or Norse God of Thunder? Chris “Papa Kirk” Hemsworth finds himself stuck inside of Midgard with the Asgard blues again in the teaser for Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, also with Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Ray Stevenson, Clark Gregg, Kat Dennings, Colm Feore, Rene Russo, Jaimie Alexander, Stellan Skarsgard, and Idris Elba. Hmmm. Like the forthcoming Green Lantern over on the DC side, this looks rather cheesy…but maybe Loki will be fun.
Meanwhile, a more promising upcoming comic creation announces its main villain — one who’s also potentially featured in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises — in this impressive trailer for Batman: Arkham City, due out next fall. Looks great, and Arkham Asylum is both very fun and a totally immersive Batman experience. But, while I get that they’re riffing on Call of Duty: Black Ops here (and take that, Sam Fisher), I’m already way over the recent trend towards interrogation scenes in my gaming.
Cackling into the Night.
“‘The idea is to use these fragments of cut scenes and use CGI to have The Joker appear one last time,’ a source explained. ‘Chris wants some continuity between movies and for the franchise to pay tribute to Heath and his portrayal of the Joker.‘”
Take for what it worth, but a New Zealand paper is reporting that Chris Nolan will give Heath Ledger’s Joker one final bow at some point in The Dark Knight Rises. “‘It would only be a fleeting moment in the movie and would only be included with the full consent of Heath’s family,’ the source added.” Perhaps an after-the-final-credits flourish? Update: Or not. “‘That’s all wrong,’ said the writer-director.“
The Clown and the Ringmaster.
“‘I am serious,’ Nielsen replies. ‘And don’t call me Shirley.’ The line was probably his most famous — and a perfect distillation of his career.” First dramatic, then comic actor Leslie Nielsen, 1926-2010. (See also Matt Zoller Seitz’s appreciation.)
“I’d say he was probably the most successful versatile director in Hollywood. He could do just about anything really well, from science fiction to cult thrillers to domestic dramas to westerns to romantic comedies.” To, of course, Star Wars films. Director Irvin Kershner, 1923-2010. (The great Kershner pic above via Quint at AICN.)
Nowhere is Safe.
When reading the seventh and final Harry Potter tome in 2007, my sense was it felt more like a scriptment than a novel, and, tho’ often clunky as a book, it would probably work better as a movie a few years down the road. And, hey, I was right! (At least so far.) Even though it’s only half the story, and the leisurely camping half at that, David Yates’ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Part I is easily one of the best films in the series — perhaps the best, if you prefer your Potter relentlessly dark. (I know Cuaron’s Azkhaban has a following, but for me the real competition is Mike Newell’s Goblet of Fire.)
A hardy veteran of Dumbledore’s army at this point — this is his third Potter film in a row after Order of the Phoenix and the Half-Blood Prince — Yates has taken the often-unwieldy wanderings of the first half of Hallows and fashioned a lean, tense, and gripping fugitive story out of them. Better yet, he’s brought a much more palpable sense of danger and darkness to the proceedings. When I read the book, I missed Hogwarts most of the time and wondered why our heroes had to spend so much time camping. Here, the lack of Hogwarts goes unnoticed, and it’s abundantly clear why Harry, Ron, and Hermione spend so much time on the lam — They’re totally under the gun…er, wand.
That may be the part that rankles some of the youngest viewers out there, or their parents — From the creepier-than-usual Warner Brothers card on, the gloom here is unrelenting, and almost sadistic. Hallows begins with a Great Eye — that of the Minster of Magic (Bill Nighy), who’s making a Churchillian attempt to rally the wizarding world against the encroaching forces of Voldemort. (Good luck with that.) The Dark Lord (Ralph Fiennes), meanwhile, is entertaining his Death Eater shock-troops with a banquet at the Malfoys — one punctuated by the torture and eventual murder of Hogwarts’ Professor of Muggle Studies. She dies pleading for clemency from her former colleague, Severus Snape. (Clearly, she was new to academe.)
The Big Three are no happier. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is packing up and hiding the Dursleys somewhere safe from harm — It’s gotten so bad that he’s even nostalgic about his old room under the stairs. Hermione (Emma Watson) has resorted to wiping her Muggle parents’ minds of her existence. And Ron (Rupert Grint)…well, ok, like his older brothers, Ron is still a bit of a goof (at least until his arm almost gets ripped off in a freak disapparating accident later on.) And this, Ron’s injury notwithstanding, is all before Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson) shows up at 4 Privet Drive with an army of returning cast members — or, as anyone who’s read the book knows, cannon fodder.
Granted, these supporting characters aren’t exactly Redshirts — we know most of them from the first six movies. Still, here is one of the situations where, to my mind, the movie rubs up against the limitations of the source material. There’s a line in Red Letter Media’s worthy evisceration of The Phantom Menace where the narrator makes the very valid point: “Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi should have been combined into one character named…Obi-Wan Kenobi.” The same goes for the Potterverse.
By here in Book 7, several thousand pages into the tale of young Mr. Potter, the story is now totally crufted over with narrative stuff. Dozens of characters are running around already, and yet Hallows seems to pile on more every time our heroes get in a jam. (For example, Harry gets a tip from an old journalist friend of Dumbledores, whom we’ve never met, to go visit an old historian friend of Dumbledore’s, whom we’ve never met. Couldn’t one of these just have been Jim Broadbent’s Slughorn, from Book Six?)
We’re equally overstuffed here with magical Maguffins — Seven horcruxes and three hallows, not to mention three gifts from Dumbledore and various other wonderful toys, like Harry’s watchful mirror, Hermione’s infinite knapsack, and a steady supply of Polyjuice Potion. With so many magical items in play, the ground rules get fuzzy, and the sense of danger takes a hit. (Then again, they’re fuzzy anyway — Where can and can’t House elfs go again? And why aren’t our team using that highly convenient Room of Requirement from Book 5 to solve all of their problems?)
Still, one definite bright side of having so many populating the Potterverse is that the series continues to be a welcome full-employment program for British thespians. Bill Nighy and Rhys Ifans (as Xenophilius Lovegood, Luna’s dad) are the most prominent additions to the cast, but there are other fun faces joining the party this time, including David O’Hara (Braveheart) as Harry’s face in the Ministry, Guy Henry (Extras, Rome‘s Cassius) as Voldemort’s puppet minister, and Peter Mullan (Children of Men, Red Riding) as the Death Eater head of security.
On this front, the series is now an embarrassment of riches. When the likes of John Hurt and Miranda Richardson have all of fifteen seconds of screen time, and even the House elves are voiced by names like Simon McBurney (The Last King of Scotland, The Ghost Writer,) and Toby Jones (as Kreacher and Dobby respectively), you know you’ve got a heck of a cast on your ends. And the three kids have grown up to be no slouches in this department either. I can’t tell if they’re great actors, but they’re definitely very good at being Harry, Ron, and Hermione at this point.
So, in the end and despite its narrative over-packing, Deathly Hallows is an entertaining and scary ride with some very memorable setpieces. There’s an animated sequence late in the film that’s as beautiful and entrancing as anything we’ve seen in all seven movies thus far. And I was also fond of Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s assault on the Ministry, packed as it was sly allusions to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. (Note the big statue, the gaggle of hangers-on breezing by, and Mullan being a man consumed with paperwork.) There’s still a lot of camping here, sure, but at least this time it feels less like aimless meandering and more like an urgent necessity. Let’s hope Yates and co. can land this magical bird in as fun a fashion next July.
