The year was 1994 and American crime movies were having sort of a resurgence. Young men with movie cameras were reading the Psalms of John Woo and rediscovering the joys of onscreen bullet discharge. It was the year of KILLING ZOE, THE LAST SEDUCTION, FRESH, the Alec Baldwin version of THE GETAWAY and of course DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH.

Oh yeah, and PULP FICTION. Tarantino also had his script turned into NATURAL BORN KILLERS that year, and TRUE ROMANCE the year before. Most of the attention justifiably went to him, and he took any chance he could get to wax on about his influences in Hong Kong cinema and the French New Wave and whatever else he was talking up back then. But coming along on this same cultural wave was Frenchman Besson, who had his own type of international sensibilites (which is how over the years he ended up producing English language movies for French directors starring Jet Li or Jason Statham or even Bruce Willis, having his finger in importing Tony Jaa, exporting parkour. Bringing the different parts of the world closer together.

(Hey, this is weird – Besson was a producer on THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA and I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS. I did not know that.)

So LEON is I think his version of an American action/crime movie. It even opens with a camera flying over the water toward New York, as if saying “Follow me, countrymen, to a magical land where the mafia does battle.” It zeroes in in on New York, into LIttle Italy, into this specific building where Danny Aiello is meeting with the elite hitman Leon (Jean Reno).

Leon accepts the job of assassinating a crime boss who’s been fucking up. We don’t see Leon clearly yet, he’s a mysterious presence, but he doesn’t mind giving his prey forewarning by letting the doorman call upstairs to them. Now they know he’s out there, they’re looking for him, waiting for him to arrive. They watch the lights on the elevator the way the Colonial Marines in ALIENS watch their meters as the aliens get closer.

I think Besson is sometimes considered schlocky now, but this is not the work of a schlocky director. This is the work of a guy who loves storytelling. He gives his guy a great entrance, he makes him mythic, he develops suspense, and alot of this he does through visual style, moving the camera around methodically to tell you this guy is over here, this guy is down here, soon they will meet and bullets will fly.

On the job Leon works like Batman, appearing and disappearing from shadows, hanging upside down from the ceiling, making his enemies quiver in fear. His Batman even has a Joker, but he looks like Commissioner Gordon. Gary Oldman plays Stansfield, the maniacal, pill-popping thug who leads a crew in gunning down an entire family and then (SPOILER) turns out to be a cop. It’s a classic piece of mega-acting. I hadn’t seen this in years and remembered him being over-the-top alot more than he actually is, but the character has a few scenes where he goes into such overload that there oughta be sparks popping off his brain out his nostrils. His eyes turn Nic Cage, he screams, he plays air piano. My favorite Gary Oldman moment is the overhead shot of him cracking his neck and shoulders as he enjoys his pills. It seems like he’s making a transformation into a bizarre lizardman or something.

But back to Leon. With his sunglasses on he obviously means business. He terrifies hardened criminals into compliance. But on his own he’s a goofball. He watches Gene Kelly movies with a look of little boy joy on his face. He doesn’t like swearing or smoking, and usually doesn’t drink alcohol, but always a glass of milk. He owns an oven mitt made to look like a pig. But that’s not his badass juxtaposition – I think that would be the potted plant that he carries with him every time he has to move to another hotel. It’s like it’s his pet.

Leon lives in the same apartment building as Mathilda, played by 12 year old rookie and now Academy Award winner Natalie Portman (R-Naboo). She’s a tiny little girl with a hip hair do (similar to Uma Thurman in PULP FICTION) who smokes cigarettes, talks tough and happens to be out buying milk when Stansfield guns down the aforementioned family – hers. She knocks on Leon’s door and he lets her in, saving her life. When she finds out his line of work she wants to hire him to avenge the death of her little brother (not the rest of the family, who she doesn’t give a shit about). She can’t afford him though so instead she starts working for him, like how you wash the dishes to pay for the food you couldn’t afford.

So it’s a sweet story about a hitman teaching a little orphan girl how to murder people. Okay, now that I’m typing it out I realize it’s kind of creepy. Try not to think about the DC sniper while you watch it.

Now days a little girl with a gun would be used for easy laughs (see KICK-ASS) but it’s got kind of a tragic feel here. Yes, we root for her to get violent revenge, yes, it’s kind of cute that little Natalie (who does not appear to have grown up on the streets or anything) smokes and tries to talk tough. But she’s obviously kind of broken. It’s upsetting.

I saw this movie many years ago and I remember liking it, but I didn’t remember how childlike this Leon is. Watching it this time I had to wonder is he supposed to be mildly retarded? Or maybe autistic? He’s obviously very good at what he does. But it seems to me like Danny Aiello found him, figured out that he was a great killer, but also that he’s not quite there, and he took advantage of that. The way he talks to him it’s like they’re very close and he’s helping him out but I don’t think he’s really helping him out. He’s “keeping his money” supposedly but I think he’s kind of turned this poor slow fellow into an indentured servant without him knowing it.

So it’s a sad movie, but it also has a dark sense of humor, especially in the characterization of the bad guys. I like the white guy with dreadlocks who’s impressed to find a Burning Spear record in Mathilda’s apartment, and who un-self consciously uses the word “bumbaclot.”

Besson draws you into the odd world of Leon and Mathilda and puts you squarely on their side. Yeah, they’re doing bad shit, but they’re doing it to scumbags. They’re good people, it seems like. So when shit comes to a head you’re very invested in their safety.

The gun battles are great, full of artful property damage and illustrated clearly, with the occasional show-offy camera shot that serves to emphasize the action instead of obscure it like they do now. There’s a great shot from the POV of a small rocket. Stylistically it kind of reminds me of the Wachowski brothers in BOUND. Maybe it was an influence on them. They tried to get Reno to play Agent Smith in THE MATRIX but the poor sucker chose to do GODZILLA instead. That might have been a mistake, in my opinion.

You wanna hear some more Jean Reno trivia? Check this shit out. At one of his weddings his best men were Johnny Hallyday from VENGEANCE and then-French-Interior-Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. I bet they met in the green room of some talk show.

I like some of the Besson productions but they’re usually lacking in some area or another. This one delivers in all departments, from acting to characters to carnage, and it’s all orchestrated just right. I really like this movie. I wondered if it would hold up and actually I think it was a little better than I remembered.

But I really can’t write about LEON without addressing the elephant in the room with the words “What’s the deal, France?” painted on the side in circus font (see diagram). When I saw this a decade ago it was the 14 minutes shorter American cut called THE PROFESSIONAL, and I remember it creeped me out that this little girl is in love with this adult she lives with in hotels, and he doesn’t seem to mind.

I mean I know it’s innocent. He doesn’t do anything, and I think of him as a guardian, a better father figure than the real one that beat her all the time (and who knows – maybe molested her considering some of these ideas she has). But the problem is Leon never tells her “No, I’m an adult. Don’t talk to me like that.” He just brushes her off and gets embarrassed. When she wants to kiss him in the restaurant, for example, he says that people are watching. As if it might be okay if they weren’t.

And that was the version that was cut because they knew Americans wouldn’t go for that shit. This time I watched the longer version, which includes a scene where Mathilda comes in with a dress and makeup and tries to get Leon to be her first. It’s kind of funny the way she has these big ideas about adult things she doesn’t understand. She’s had to grow up fast, getting beat, seeing her family massacred, becoming a murderer herself, but she really is just a little girl. She just doesn’t know it.

So I still like the movie alot, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t nag at me. It’s just too convenient as a pedophile fantasy where he’s honorable and doesn’t do anything but this girl throws herself at him. And he might be tempted, we don’t know. The 10 year reunion DVD/blu-ray extra doesn’t help any. There’s a woman who’s apparently in the movie who explains that she met Luc Besson when she was 12 and dated him when she was 15 and she says “this is my story.” And the producer says it’s okay just because Besson directed Jean Reno to think of his character as being 14 years old.

Plus Natalie Portman mentions some of the things her parents had them cut out of the script, including a scene where he accidentally comes in when she’s in the shower and she exposes herself to him. I mean, that would’ve been in there if it was up to Besson.

So all that’s kinda troubling. On the other hand, you have grown up Portman interviewed on there and unlike so many child stars she has clearly grown into this intelligent, thoughtful adult, and she sounds so heartfelt and eloquent talking about her love for the story, the characters, the experience of making it, and everybody involved from Besson to Reno to the costume designer to her parents. So it’s harder to think of the movie as sleazy when the 12 year old girl in the middle of it all clearly turned out fine. And has an Oscar.

So it was pretty brilliant to cast him as a lone samurai walking through a post-apocalyptic wasteland on a mission of faith. The Denzel persona is much more endearing when he doesn’t just give verbal beatdowns, but full-on swordsman massacres. Actually he’s a little different in this one too – quiet and kind of crazy from being alone.

The movie is by the Hughes Brothers, who I really like even though they haven’t made a movie in 9 years, and that was FROM HELL. Good for them getting Mr. Drama to do something like this. I guess he does those Tony Scott thrillers and stuff, but that’s about as loose as you’d expect these days. It’s been a long time since RICOCHET, that’s for sure.

I read somewhere that Denzel was one of the first choices to play Blade. I’m glad his MO’ BETTER BLUES bandmate took it instead, but it’s funny – I always thought the idea of Denzel as the Daywalker was ridiculous. Now here he is 12, 13 years later doing what he referred to in Entertainment Weekly as “Blade stuff,” and convincingly. His fighting is mostly of the “you come up to me and threaten me, but then I do a couple quick moves that leave you whimpering on the ground” variety – so old, but so enjoyable. But there are a couple full-on multiple attackers fight scenes, and those are fun too.

The fights are by Jeff Imada (BOURNE movies, BLADE, John Carpenter movies), and Denzel was trained by Dan Inosanto (Bruce Lee’s #1 student, “the Professor” in REDBELT, “Sticks” in OUT FOR JUSTICE). There’s been alot of hype that the Hughes’s had them do the fights in long takes, no disorienting cuts or closeups like you and I hate. Despite what you may have read it’s only the first fight that’s in one take, and I’m not sure it’s true that Denzel did all the fighting, because that one’s all in silhouette. But the action is all good, from barfights to bandit encounters to a ridiculously escalating gunfight. This is one of the only movies this year with a battle involving Academy Award winner Denzel Washington, sitcom star Mila Kunis, Punisher Ray Stevenson, Gary Oldman, a gatling gun, and HARRY POTTER’s Michael Gambon as a friendly grenade-tossing cannibal. I mean, that’s not an ensemble, that’s a motley crew.

Denzel’s mission is to carry his Bible west, because a voice told him to. Manifest destiny. But he goes through a small town (like one in a western, except with the headquarters in an old movie theater) where Gary Oldman happens to be a leader desperately seeking a Bible so he can use its words to rope in “the weak and the vulnerable.” He’s a pretty one-dimensional bad guy, more of a symbol than a character, but Oldman plays him kind of real instead of playing him PROFESSIONALly.

They try to get this Eli to hand over his Bible, but he refuses and walks out of town, so Oldman’s goons go after him. Most interesting is Stevenson, who I didn’t recognize without his skull t-shirt. He continues his streak of strangely sympathetic and eloquent murderers. Man, give that guy some more roles. He’s great.

The details of the world are there – how they get water, how they barter, who to be afraid of, how to hunt a cat. I think the best scenes are little moments of happiness for Eli – when he finds some good shoes and struts around in them; when he listens to Al Green on his iPod and cleans himself off with KFC moist towelettes. There’s talk of how in the old days people threw away what people would kill for now, and you see the value of little things. FOr example Oldman shampoos Jennifer Beals’s hair – it’s like a luxury vacation in a travel-size bottle. Even the most powerful guy around can’t get shampoo very often. I mean, it’s a little bottle like you get free in a hotel, and to them it’s like they found a diamond or something.

So it’s a good character, good performance, good setting, but to tell you the truth the story is not quite there. I think it gets bogged down in Bible talk in the second half. It’s not too preachy (just a simple guys-who-believe are better than guys-who-exploit theme) but it gets distracted from the asskicking, and then doesn’t have a climax big enough to recover. It does have an interesting surprise that makes you want to watch the movie again to see if it makes sense, but I’m not sure the significance of that twist, if any. It’s cool, but is it empty? I think it might be. I’m not sure.

The obvious comparison is THE ROAD, and I thought this might end up being the post-apocalyptic action movie that the Weinsteins wanted you to believe THE ROAD was when they made all those horrible trailers. In THE ROAD they’re travelling east and in ELI he’s traveling west, but they’re not complete opposites. ELI is more fun and mainstream, but I think it’s also trying to be more thoughtful than it can handle. It can’t really compete with THE ROAD for raw emotion and hope in the face of devastation, so honestly it could stand a little more popcorn. And maybe a little more color – I’m kind of sick of every movie being washed out to almost look black and white. But they probly didn’t know what THE ROAD was gonna look like when they made this.

A better comparison might be TERMINATOR: SALVATION. Both have action scenes and settings better constructed than their stories. And, sorry to say this ELI, but SALVATION looks better and the action is more exciting. It has more money to spend, so the desecrated landscapes look like a real place as opposed to the fakey Photoshopped landscapes of ELI. But ELI doesn’t get as dumb as SALVATION, it doesn’t have the same legacy to live up to, and the story is at least more focused. So it wins overall.

All of the recent post-apocalypse movies have been enjoyable in different ways. But all of them make me want to call the hospital and ask for Dr. George Miller.

Despite all this, it’s pretty fuckin great to see Denzel playing a post-nuclear samurai. So I definitely recommend this. And I hope the Hughes Brothers don’t take another 9 years for their next one.

[ratings]

On the other hand, I kind of love POLAR EXPRESS and BEOWULF and paid to see both of them twice in the theater. Never on DVD, but I’d gladly go back to see either if they were re-released in 3-D again. I love the strong atmosphere of these worlds that Zemeckis creates, and the way he moves the camera around them. I guess here he’s God and the only way He knows to show us things is through His perspective, so we can float through every crack or groove on a wall or hover high into the sky looking down on the settings and characters like they’re ants in our ant farm.

In the case of POLAR EXPRESS some of its flaws actually added to my enjoyment – it’s got kind of a spooky WILLY WONKA vibe anyway so I got an unintended haunted house kick out of the creepy, glass-eyed look of some of the characters. That doesn’t make up for the cameo by the Steven Tyler elf or the horrible song the kids sing on the back of the train, but still. I gotta admit I enjoyed the movie. And BEOWULF, I realized the second time watching it, actually has a real smart script to take us through its bloody, morally ambiguous tale of rollicking 3-D monster-fighting, demon-fucking adventure. Plus I have a strong personal belief that any 3-D movie where the hero bursts through a man-sized sea serpent eyeball while puffing out his chest and shouting his own name is a worthwhile artistic endeavor. That more than makes up for his hair looking like a doll’s and some of his friends not seeming to know how to make eye contact.

So now I find myself in a weird place because I’m seeing reviews of A CHRISTMAS CAROL and wondering what these people are talking about – it seems like they never noticed the flaws of the motion capture before, just now figured it out and are trying to throw all the sins of those previous movies onto this new, improved one. I guess it’s just me and good old positive Roger Ebert here, but without reservations I would say this is a genuinely good movie. It has what I liked so much about those other two while mostly wiping out the problems. Zemeckis finally found a balance with his characters – they look more detailed than, say, Pixar’s elegant designs, but they exaggerate reality instead of trying to mimic it. Scrooge, for example, has an impossibly long nose and chin like a caricature, and a hunched back that tapers into an unhealthily slim waist. Then if you look closely you can also see the blemishes on his skin and the peach fuzz on his nose (with one hair a little longer than the rest). It’s fitting that this was released by Disney, because what these characters look like is animatronics at Disneyland. I don’t see you pricks going after the Pirates of the Caribbean calling them lifeless zombies (and if you do I better not catch you).

Jim Carrey plays Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man who hates Christmas. After the death of his long-time business partner Jacob Marley, Scrooge becomes nah I’m just fuckin with you obviously you know what this movie is about. There have been over ten thousand previous versions of this story on film, and a bunch of them are good. SCROOGE starring Alastair Sim is probly the best I’ve seen, although I think Bill Murray’s version in SCROOGED might have the most convincing transformation at the end (SPOILER). What makes Zemeckis’s version unique is that this weird ass mo-cap medium actually does bring you into the story in a way that hasn’t ever been done before – it embraces the satirical exaggeration of the story in a visual sense, but also makes it feel like a real place, like you’re really there.

Scrooge is such an icon that, like Mickey Mouse we get so used to him we forget to look at him sometimes. But when it comes down to it he’s not supposed to seem like a real guy you would know, he’s completely absurd (think of the scene where the guys come asking for donations for the poor and he talks about his love of prisons). So to exaggerate him visually is in a way more appropriate than a real guy.

But these cartoonified people are grounded in a reality. The way Zemeckis uses 3-D doesn’t so much shoot things out of the screen at you as pull you into the room with the characters. In the scene where Cratchit shivers at his desk trying to warm himself from a single candle I almost expected to see my cold breath in the air.

At the same time, I think A CHRISTMAS CAROL makes a stronger argument for this “performance capture” notion than the other two did. I got a laugh from BEOWULF’s Anthony Hopkins character, who just looked like an unnatural Anthony Hopkins. Why not just use live action for that? And with POLAR EXPRESS I don’t see why it couldn’t have been animated by animators. But in this case it’s a movie that follows the tradition of letting different actors (George C. Scott, Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine, Mr. Magoo) perform their interpretation of the character, but with an actor who wouldn’t be able to do it when limited to the powers of his own flesh and bones. Carrey is real good as Scrooge, but I don’t think I’d buy him doing it under a bunch of makeup. And Gary Oldman’s Bob Cratchit is much shorter than he is in real life (is Tiny Tim’s problem genetic?) but not as short as he was in TIPPY TOES. The magic of mo-cap!

I’ve read some complaints that some of the scenes in the movie remind people of a theme park ride. I don’t get that one. To me that’s part of what makes the movie fun and unique and worth paying the two extra bucks for the 3-D glasses. The story involves ghosts flying Scrooge around to show him things, you’re telling me Zemeckis shouldn’t make those scenes thrilling and cool? I gotta disagree. And I can’t afford to go to Disneyland every year, I’m not gonna complain if they bring it to me. Some of the ghosts reminded me of The Haunted Mansion, and that’s a compliment.

I mean it’s not like this is SYRIANA or something. It’s a traditional Christmas Eve ghost story, it makes sense to be swooping around. Just because we’re used to versions based around the limitations of the stage doesn’t mean it’s wrong to present it a little differently to take advantage of a different medium.

Other than the medium, though, it’s a fairly traditional adaptation of the story. The ghosts are a little spookier than in some versions, especially Jacob Marley, whose jaw comes unhinged during the conversation (an embarrassing thing to happen to a ghost). It’s fair to say that they don’t have enough scenes with Tiny Tim to fully develop that part of the story, but I didn’t have a big problem with that since we already know what his deal is.

While some people criticize it for telling the story slightly different from usual, others are down on even telling the story at all, saying we don’t need another version of A Christmas Carol. Well, we don’t need to eat sweet potatoes either, but I’m still gonna do it. This reminds me of our recent discussion of the PSYCHO remake and the debate about re-telling stories. I think A Christmas Carol is an example of a story so good that I like to see it told in different ways by different people every year. In my opinion it holds up. I guess it’s different from a remake because it started as a story on paper, so we can pick and choose which actors and images to associate with it and which tellings of the story are our favorites. Personally, I think this is a good one to add to the library. I might start thinking of some of these images when I think of the story, other people might not, and the story will live on.

See also:

FINAL FANTASY

THE POLAR EXPRESS

BEOWULF

[ratings]

Hey, how about a PG-13 possession movie from Michael Bay’s remake outfit Platinum Dunes? What better way to show he means business? Hooray!

Actually, despite all indications, this isn’t that bad. I think it has moments of greatness and that it has more thrills and imagination than most modern horror movies. As a director Goyer’s much improved. He’s got atmosphere and suspense and organically works in some really inventive digital (and sometimes rubber) monstrosities. I think he must’ve been working real hard on the directing though and didn’t get a chance to read over the script after he got to the end.

The idea’s not bad. It’s a Jewish version of THE EXORCIST. The lead (who looks too much like a model, but does fine anyway) has a weird experience with a goofy looking 4-year old she’s babysitting. He tells her “Jumby’s ready to be born” and hits her. After much hallucination and medical, paranormal and historical research she unravels a convoluted backstory involving her unborn twin, her secret grandma’s unborn twin, The Holocaust, and demonic possession. The script relies way too much on the grandma doing spooky narration to explain all the history and rules of the demonic business, and the more she gets into the story the more laughable it gets. It’s just too corny and convenient for her to explain everything, and I challenge you to still be taking it seriously by the time she gets to the part about Nazis doing experiments to turn brown eyes blue. It’s just too much and it’s not like DRAG ME TO HELL where it has a straight face but won’t mind if you laugh. This one invokes Auschwitz. It’s serious.

Plus, she learns that her parents never told her she was a twin, and that they would’ve named her unborn brother Jumby. And she doesn’t ask what the hell kind of name “Jumby” is other than a name out of some kid’s campfire ghost story. Who names their kid that? And then her is name is Casey. You know, the Beldon twins. Casey and Jumby Beldon. The poor kid goes to school, everybody’s saying “Mecca lecca hi mecca hiney ho,” asking him to grant their wishes.

(I talked to someone else who saw the movie and he said that Jumby was not their name for the kid but their nickname for the fetus. I can’t figure that one out either if that’s true.)

Okay, the more I think about it the more I think most people will hate this, and I can’t blame you. But let me just say this in its favor: it satisfies in the Crazy Fucked Up Shit department, a department ignored by many of today’s bland horror movies. I watched the unrated DVD cut but if it’s anything like most unrated cuts it’s probaly not too much more extreme than what they showed in theaters. If I’m right about that it shows that they’re really finding ways to work around the PG-13 rating, same way they work around any form of organized censorship. They’re not gonna get away with saying fuck two times or showing any pubic hair, but they can give your kids night terrors until they’re old enough to vote. They’ve really pushed the PG-13 rating in THE DARK KNIGHT, DRAG ME TO HELL, and I think WAR OF THE WORLDS might be the one that started this, that was pretty god damn harsh for your thirteen year olds. That’s kinda funny too because they created the PG-13 rating because they thought Spielberg was going too far with PG. Maybe they’re gonna have to create PG-15 for him and David Goyer.

Anyway, THE UNBORN starts with a great dream sequence: she’s out for a jog or walk or something, and she sees a kid’s glove abandoned on the concrete. Then she notices a ghoulish kid standing in the street, missing a glove. She looks at him, creeped out, afraid to say anything. Next thing you know he’s not a kid, he’s a dog standing there wearing a mask of a kid. (maybe she wasn’t looking closely enough at first.) She follows the dog into some woods, finds the mask abandoned in some wet leaves, so naturally she starts digging a hole with her bare hands and finds a monstrous dead-looking fetus. And then its eyes open.

It’s a great scene, like something out of the first NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, when the dreams were still surreal and not gimmicks. And the dog reminded me of that human-faced dog from part 2 that I forgot about until last time I watched it. My favorite part. We see other things throughout the movie, sometimes hallucinations, sometimes real: swarms of bugs, bugs crawling out of eggs (ooh, birth symbolism), a pitbull with an upside down head, an old man who contorts his body into a weird bug shape, a face that’s mostly teeth. Lots of new ideas for disturbing imagery, not just the old standbys. They got Gary Oldman and Idris Elba to play exorcists for credibility, but it’s these weird images that actually do the trick.

I’m not saying it’s a good movie, because I don’t think it is. But for the Platinum Dunes crime syndicate it represents a small step toward clean living. As far as I know it is not only their first non-remake but also for the first time employing the use of the human imagination. You (and especially they) could do worse than THE UNBORN.

[ratings]

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STORY #1 starring Batman

You know how RAMBO 2 tried to help our nation get over Vietnam? Well this one is trying to help us get over Joel Schumacher. The idea of BATMAN BEGINS is to pretend none of that other shit ever happened and start over. And they do a good job taking a 98.9% different approach.

One thing they figured out, if you want a good comic strip type movie you gotta hire a great maniac to play the super hero. Take for example Eric Bana, who gave one of the best performances of whichever decade that was in CHOPPER. Absolutely brilliant as a lovable psychotic murderer who cuts his own ears off, so they cast him as (The [Incredible]) Hulk. Same thing with Christian Bale here, many of us are most familiar with him as a sadistic yuppie with perfect abs running around naked with a chain saw, biting women on the ass, etc. So he’s perfect for Batman.

This one’s pretty different from AMERICAN PSYCHO. His character (name’s Bruce Wayne I believe) is another rich guy but he wants to make the world a better place and that kind of crap. Not shoot women with nail guns. But at first we don’t know that, we first meet him as an american con in a hellish Chinese prison. He’s a bad motherfucker we know because 1. he’s probaly gonna turn out to be Batman I bet and 2. he purposely goes to Chinese prison to practice on criminals. Good stuff. (spoiler note: unfortunately we do not get to see some sort of badass escape from Chinese prison, a forgivable offense but also the first sign that this is not a perfect movie sent down from the Heavens like the internet would have you believe. Let’s have realistic hopes here, fellas.)

This is a smart idea to start out weird like this because everybody, even me, knows that Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed by a mugger or the Joker or Green Goblin or somebody like that, and that’s why he decided to dress up as a bat and get good at climbing ropes. So it’s nice to start out with something unusual before rehashing that material again. This does tell that old yarn again but what they do is they make it more in depth, more grounded in a halfway real world (not entirely real, let’s not exaggerate). They make you really like Bruce’s dad and get sad when he (spoiler) gets killed. And they show how and why Bruce Wayne builds the whole Batman operation from the ground up: how he learned to fight, how he got a cool cave, where his equipment comes from, how he avoids arousing suspicion when ordering strange items from overseas, who helps him cover his tracks, even why he has those little spikes on his gloves. And why he decides hey, you know what would be cool, I should go with a bat motif.

Like in the other movies, Batman wears an asinine armored scuba outfit with point ears, but they use a couple good tricks to make it forgivable. Number one, they don’t show it as often. There’s one part where he’s in silhouette and he looks really cool. It’s kind of like remember that movie ALI, I thought Will Smith really looked alot like Mohammed Ali when you either squinted enough or when they showed him from the back. This is the same way, he almost looks cool when they’re not showing him.

Number two, they show him building the suit, so you can understand why it looks so stupid. Just the body part alone cost $300,000 dollars. What’s he gonna do, start over because it doesn’t make him look cool? Bruce Wayne isn’t that petty. If they’re real friends they’ll judge him on who he is, not on his clothes. And think about this Batman, you look EXTREMELY fucking cool compared to Daredevil. (That little pep talk works on all super hero movies except Daredevil.)

And the third trick about the costume is, alot of the movie isn’t about wearing the costume, it’s about leading up to the costume. Travelling around the world training, fighting crime without a costume, pretending to be a drunk playboy. They make Bruce Wayne into more of a character, more of a methodical guy instead of just the weirdo who stares out the window and/or makes speeches about duality.

Not that there aren’t speeches. I liked how much the movie focused on story and character instead of the usual “comic book movie” stuff, but there’s a section there where it gets a little bogged down by too much dialogue of characters exchanging their views about justice. I wanted to say, “Hey, David S. Goyer who wrote this script, you know one of the reasons your character Blade is so cool? Because he knows when to shut the fuck up, which is most of the time.” David S. Goyer wasn’t there though and anyway before I got a chance to say it the movie really kicked in.

One thing I liked is how much they try to make it seem real. They shoot it more like a crime drama, not some gothic fairy tale. And most of the gadgets seem like semi-plausible experimental military type technology. Even the grappling hooks he uses they make seem sort of real, because they sound like equipment you kids use for your rock climbing or Road Rules. Also Gotham seems like a real city some of the time. Later on though, especially when the action gets big and out of control, they end up with some of the cheesy soundstage feel. Also the crime ridden areas of Gotham remind you of those ’80s New-York-is-hell movies like THE WARRIORS or CHAINS or a couple of the Michael Jackson videos. At least they don’t have dudes with mowhawks pulling switchblades on people.

The cast is great, especially Bale (SHAFT), Liam Neeson (DARKMAN) and Michael Caine (ON DEADLY GROUND). Katie Holmes is pretty good except she can’t pull off a couple chunks of exposition they gave her and they made her lecture Bruce Wayne enough that you wonder why he bothers with her. Nothing too bad though. As for the villains, the emphasis is much more on Batman getting things in place than on villains, but they’re good ones without much of a trace of that histrionic post-Jack-Nicholson-as-the-Joker comic book movie villainy we’ve seen from Tommy Lee Jones in that one movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger in that other movie, Colin Farrel in a different movie where his super power is flicking deadly peanuts and paper clips at people, or the other guys like that in the other movies.

A warning for action movie fans though: the action is this movie’s one major weakness. Its KRYPTONITE if you will. (little comic book reference for you guys, I bet some of you hardcores will get that one. [if not it's from superman I believe, don't quote me on that it might be spiderman but I think superman though]). In a movie that pretty much starts out with a dude going up to Shaolin Temple and asking to be trained, you want to see some good fights. To be fair, I just watched 8 DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER so my standards are temporarily high. But most of the action here is shot in a very Bruckheimery/GLADIATOR style where the camera is too close and shaky for anybody to really have any idea what is going on, except that it involves Batman in some way I believe, and possibly that guy who he is fighting. This is frustrating because Goyer definitely sets up what could’ve been some great fights, including more than one where our guy has to take on multiple ninjas with swords.

Hint to Christopher Nolan: in a ninja fight, there should be some shots that show their arms and legs. So you can see what they are doing. In my opinion. I’ll send you some ninja movies if you don’t understand what I’m talking about. Like I always say, think Bruce Lee in ENTER THE DRAGON, not John Saxon.

Honestly though, unlike hugely popular best picture winner that I didn’t like GLADIATOR, the badly shot action scenes didn’t ruin the movie for me. Because I really liked the story and characters, and never was waiting for another fight. I was thinking you know, I’m really enjoying this movie, I’m surprised how seriously it’s treating the story, how it expects you to care about character drama instead of guys in colorful costumes climbing around on giant statues and crap like that. Which means of course that most people will hate it and say it’s boring, like (The [Incredible]) Hulk. That’s what I was guessing but when the movie ended there was a huge, enthusiastic applause and people walking out with big smiles like they’d been smoking weed all day, which they hadn’t, because they were waiting in line for this screening. I’m not a psychic as far as I know, I have never touched an object associated with a crime and gotten visions to help solve the mystery. But my impression was that this was an honest to Christ applause, they really were excited about this movie. As far as I saw Batman was not in the audience so they weren’t just being polite. So hopefully alot of you will like it.

If not, there’s always life.

STORY #2 starring me

Okay, so BATMAN BEGINS was story #1 today, story #2 has no connection or similarity to story #1 at all except that it also concerns a Great American Icon. In this case, me. I don’t want to sound like I’m full of hot air, I know most of you won’t give a rat’s tail end about this, but for anybody that does it’s time to go public with the information that some young Hollywood hipster from Canada is trying to make a movie out of my web sight, life’s journey, etc. The script writer is named Skander Halim, and when he first approached me for this “option” business a couple years ago he told me he was a story editor for a TV show but “don’t watch it, it’s about a farting alien.” I felt sorry for the kid so I played along. I got ten bucks and a pack of Newports so it was a pretty good deal. Also his people sent me a script of his called PRETTY PERSUASION. Pretty good script I thought although yes, Skander, I saw HEATHERS too. Let’s move on with our lives now.

I’m still sure a movie about me is only a little more likely to happen than CATWOMAN RELOADED. But the twist I never saw coming is that his PRETTY PERVERSION script was turned into an actual movie, and a genuinely good one in my opinion. I saw it at the Seattle International type Film Festival last week. I’m not gonna review it obviously because I have a commitment to excellence so I watch out for the ol’ conflicts of interest there. But this sleazy and perverted, er I mean bold and uncompromising black comedy actually turned out great. It has a few elements I seen in WILD THINGS and yes, HEATHERS but it puts them together in a really smart, original and confident way. I laughed alot and only squirmed when I was supposed to. Like the part where James Woods gets caught jerkin off on the couch. Seeing triumphant scenes like this on the screen I realized it was a whole lot smarter than I caught on when I read the thing. I’m slow I guess.

My solemn vow not to review the movie almost seemed unneccessary because watching it I knew I genuinely liked it, not in a “that’s pretty good for some guy who actually reads my crappy web sight” kind of way. In my opinion. So if you can confirm that it is good from some objective third party or parties, please fly to New York or LA on August 12th to enjoy it in its limited release before it spreads like wildfire and becomes this generation’s DIE HARD. Or at least SPEED. Sorry there is no nudity but there is some cunnilingus so Harry will like it.

The movie Mr. Halim wrote about me is of course called VERN TELL’S IT LIKE IT IS and it is sort of a phoney baloney hollywood version of how I came to be and the great impact I had on the world through reviewing films on my TV show. (Don’t ask me, I didn’t write it.) He told me it was like a hard-R version of Pee Wee’s Baadasssss Song or whatever that first Pee Wee Herman picture was called. To be frankly honest it is not the sort of gritty and philosophical masterpiece that I would have written if I for some reason wanted to make a movie about myself. But I didn’t and his script made me laugh so I hope they will make it and share my laughter with the world. Also because I would get paid.

According to some rag called the Hollywood Reporter, Halim is about to direct a ghost movie he wrote. But if he is an honorable man of his word like you or I, he’s also working hard trying to get the story of yours truly into the right hands. Personally I think it’s his life long dream project, like GANGS OF NEW YORK, only with more prison, uh, scuffles. (I should mention by the way there are many unpleasant incidents in this script that are 100% fabrications. I don’t do shit like that anymore don’t believe the hype people.) It’s alot of lewd humor but also satire about internet film critics, high vs. low culture, and who knows what else, I only read it once. But I remember there was alot of stuff in there for people who really love the films of Cinema. Remember when you first started posting about how much such and such movie sucked, you did it because you mostly LOVED movies. That’s who this movie is for in my opinion, the old you. Also for ladies.

My role in the movie is to write lots of harsh notes to Halim which he will probaly ignore. I am trying to get him to change the title to BOILED HARD which promises all the action of HARD BOILED but with all the explosions of DIE HARD. Even if he doesn’t listen to me though I got some of me in there because the script faithfully adapts some stories from my columns and quotes some of my reviews. The other horse shit in there hopefully I’ll clear up in the novelization.

I’m hoping this will be the first movie in Hollywood history adapted from a geocities web sight. Then maybe those fucks’ll give me some more data transfer without making me pay $4.95 a month or whatever. And before you say anything, yes, Hulk Hogan should play Vern. Actually Roddy Piper would be better in my opinion. I sent this guy a list that started with Nick Nolte and ended with DMX. I’m just praying I don’t get Leslie Nielsen.

Anyway sorry for the self indulgence, but now it is off my chest and I am a free man. I don’t have enough money to fight crime though so don’t give me any shit about what I do with my life. I’m talking to you, Katie Holmes.

Originally published at Aint-It-Cool-News: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=20410

[ratings]

Gary Oldman plays Jack Romeo (well they didn’t call him that in the movie but I’ve decided Romeo is his last name, you got a problem with that asshole? I didn’t think so) a police sergeant who, even if he wasn’t a police sergeant, would have almost no redeeming qualities. Now I think Gary Oldman is a great actor judging from what I’ve seen of him in the fifth element and the true romance. But I mean jesus. This is a guy who can play characters with no soul, no heart, pure evil. He is a great villain. But he is not a good anti-hero or everyman who you want to follow into the dark side. And we’re not going to feel sorry for him. If this movie was going to work it would have needed someone who could invest the character with some type of infectious charisma that would make you want to side with a fucking dirty pig asswipe like Jack Romeo.

Sgt. Romeo is in bed with the mob, they pay him $65,000 to tell him where a key witness is going to be so they can off him or her. Things go sour when the feds move one of the witnesses, a female Badass named Markovich or something like that, before her mob rivals get to her. Now Romeo is in trouble, they’re going to kill his wife and his niece/girlfriend and the rest of his toes if he doesn’t go kill this Markovich lady by noon Wednesday.

But Markovich shows him her thighs and pays him five times the $65,000 to help her fake her death. And that is one of the problems here. This guy is called Romeo and by the end of the picture it is clear that there is supposed to be a romantic element to this. He is supposed to really love his wife, and it is supposed to be tragic that the idiot thinks with his dick. I mean he’s fucking her niece, he’s fucking a Badass mob boss even late in the picture when she has only one arm, eventually you find out he’s fucking plenty of other gals. But we never see him spend any quality time with his wife, he doesn’t share his money with her or tell her what he’s doing, he even puts on a front complaining about how little he gets paid. And we’re not sure why either of them like each other, especially why she likes him. I mean jesus give us something to work with here or don’t pretend it’s romantic. You gotta give them some kind of good side to their relationship if it’s gonna mean shit to the audience.

But what’s almost worse than that is the god damned non-stop narration. It is supposed to be a surprise that it is Gary Oldman. But I mean jesus. He’s obviously not using his real accent and he sounds like a fucking jackass, doing this cheeseball accent to overemphasize lines like “It’s tough to dig a grave when the corpse is standing right there staring at you.” And he’s talking over this sleazy vibes and saxophone jazz. It’s supposed to give it a film noir feel but the whole thing feels more like one of those soft porn movies on Showtime about some private eye that starts fucking some femme fatale, most often played by Shannon Tweed.

This is also one of those movies where the cops all wear suits, sunglasses and mustaches and talk macho but you’re supposed to be impressed by it. Nice try. The funniest part is when a cop played by Will Patton says, “She turned around and she pointed my own gun at me Jack, you know like some kind of an animal!” Well for fuck’s sake I hope this line was re-dubbed for the cable version I saw because what a moronic thing to say. When was the last time you went up to a monkey or an elephant, stole his gun and turned it on him? Speaking for me only it’s been quite a while. This is like how people say something like, “You have no right to do this, to beat me like a dog!” Like it’s okay to beat a dog. What kind of a pussy beats up on a damn pooch?

There is only one truly memorable scene in this movie, and the filmmakers obviously knew this because they flashforward to it at the beginning so that you won’t give up on the movie until it happens. Romeo shoots Markovich, handcuffs her, throws her in the back of her car and drives off. But she’s not dead. From the backseat, she wraps her legs around his head and forces him to crash the car. Then she rolls over the seat and without hesitation, even though she’s wearing a skirt and pumps, savagely kicks through the windshield. Then she hooks the satchel of money with one foot, grabs some crucial papers in her mouth, rolls over the hood of the car and takes off down the street. Bravo. Now if only the rest of the movie could have been half that interesting we would have had something here.

[ratings]

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