Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffallo, Anthony Hopkins, Bennedict Cumberbatch

Within the Marvel movies, there are the huge hits that everyone loves like Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and The Avengers (2012) and then there are those films that people liked but don’t go bananas over, like the Thor movies. The first film was directed by Kenneth Branagh and I was really pumped for it because he’s known for doing Shakespeare adaptations and so I was like, cool, he’s going to bring that Shakespearian quality to the Thor universe, which he did. That first film was all serious and tragic in true Shakespearian fashion. It was followed by a less then spectacular sequel which really didn’t do much for me. Which is probably why the Thor franchise has never been the one to light the Box Office on fire, well, at least not as spectacularly as the rest of the Marvel Universe. Thor movies made money, but didn’t make as much as the rest. Which meant something had to be reworked, something had to be fixed, because people weren’t reacting as favorably to the Thor franchise as Disney hoped they would. So what’s a studio to do? Well, Disney did what they had to do, they tried something new for this third film to ensure its success. They made it funny. Did it work?

This time around Thor faces the takeover of Asgard by his evil sister Hella. Unfortunately, he accidentally ends up stranded on a distant planet where people are obsessed with Gladiator fights featuring The Incredible Hulk as the star of the show. Oh, and Thor’s also without his magical Hammer Mjolnir. Can he get back home to fix things in Asgard before his sister begins her reign of terror? Will he ever get Mjolnir back? And can he win in a fight against the Hulk?

With the success of films like Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Deadpool (2016), suddenly offbeat movies that didn’t take themselves so seriously were the big money makers. And so, this new Thor movie is a thrill a minute, fast paced, joke fest. It’s lighthearted and crazy and I love it and so has the rest of the world; Thor Ragnarok has turned into one of the biggest money makers in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. A huge part of the successful formula for this enjoyable film is the guy behind the camera, Taika Waititi. Who the hell is Taika Waititi you might ask. Well, he might not be a household name yet, but Waititi has been making movies for a while now. In all honesty, he’s a rather gifted storyteller. If you want to see what he is capable of, I recommend you check out a movie he made called Boy (2010), a touching and beautiful film about a boy who misses his father. Waititi acts, writes and directs his own films, yes my friends, Waititi is a creative force to be reckoned with and I have a feeling we’ve yet to discover what he can really do. I mean, if this is him working with a studios ideas, imagine when he does a project thats purely his. I predict good things from Waititi. You might remember him best for his performance in a faux Documentary What We Do in The Shadows (2014), a super funny film that follows a group of vampires who are all house mates in a flat in London. Just hilarious, highly recommend checking that film out. After seeing Waititi’s repertoire, you’ll understand perfectly well why Thor: Ragnarok is so hilarious. So remember, if you enjoy the funny in Ragnarok, Waititi is the guy you have to thank.  

What Waititi does with some of his films is he turns things around, he puts a tired idea in a new unexpected situation. I mean, there’s no more tired genre than the vampire genre and Waititi made it work. He made us see vampires in a way we hadn’t seen them before. I mean, did you ever think you’d see vampires squabbling over who should do the dishes? “Fuck that! Vampires don’t do dishes!” Did you ever think you’d see Thor being traumatized after seeing Hulk naked? Well, in this movie he does, and that’s what I’m talking about, he puts the characters we know and love in funny, unthought of situations. Situations you’d never imagine seeing them in. Situations that most movies would avoid. Not only is the film funny, but it shatters the foundations of the Thor universe to their very core. Thor goes through a life changing journey, more so than any previous films. Ragnarok shakes things up good. Nothing is sacred. All while spewing one liners. You wont feel danger or peril, but you’ll have one hell of a good time. You’ll bust a gut with the banter between Thor and The Hulk.

Speaking of the films look, well, it’s very bright and colorful. It’s very much in tune with the look and feel of two very important comic book artists who helped shape the character of Thor in the 60’s. I speak of  Jacky Kirby and Walter Simonson. Kirby and Simonson did some of the more seminal runs on Thor, they helped shape and define what Thor eventually became, the way he would look. Waititi and crew paid homage to these classic artists by giving the film a very classic look with regards to set designs and the wardrobe of some of the characters. Thor himself has a more contemporary feel, getting away from the long hair, the capes and the hammer, making him less of a Viking. So the film is a bit of the old and the new.  Speaking of the old and the retro, If you love the 80’s then you’ll love the soundtrack which is pure 80’s synth stuff. It has a John Carpenter/Stranger Things vibe going for it. Thor: Ragnarok is a film that is showing us just how important it is to put the right person behind the camera, because without Waititi, this would be a very different film. This film shows movie studios can realize when something didnt work and that they shouldn’t be afraid to go in an entirely different direction to try something new and freshen things up. Who knows, it just might work. This is a lesson the DC Universe could learn from.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Freejack (1992)

Title: Freejack (1992)

Director: Geoff Murphy

Cast: Emilio Estevez, Rene Russo, Mick Jagger, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Banks, David Johansen, Amanda Plummer, Esai Morales

Freejack has an interesting idea behind it: rich people from the future steal bodies from the past seconds before they are about to die so that they can use these bodies to transfer their own consciousness into them and get a second chance at life, in a new body. So I guess we could say that in the future, rich people have discovered the secret to immortality. But what happens when one of these bodies resists being lobotomized and is fully aware of what’s being done to them? This is the premise for Freejack, a film based on the novel Immortality Inc. by Robert Sheckley. So yeah, interesting premise for a film, did the filmmakers pull it off well? Or is this another botched adaptation?

I haven’t read the novel, so I couldn’t tell you how well it translates from book to film, but I will say that the film has some interesting ideas behind it while still delivering some action. This is essentially a chase film, the kind of film in which characters are always running, jumping and escaping certain death. In that sense, Freejack is never a boring film. The film attempts also to infuse the proceedings with a hint of comedy, by this I don’t mean that it is ‘hardy har har funny’ but it certainly does have its fare share of one liners. Emilio Estevez plays Alex Furlong, the man on the run. While watching this film I couldn’t help and compare it a bit to Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1989), which in my opinion is the film that Freejack is trying to imitate, at least in tone. The problem is that nobody could imitate Paul Verhoeven’s acidic sense of humor and so Freejack just comes off as goofy, primarily because its leading man doesn’t seem to be taking things too seriously, he seems to be having a good old time with all these people chasing him and cars exploding around him. The film has this uneven tone to it, is it funny? Is it serious? I guess the only guy to blame for this would be Geoff Murphy, the films director.

I don’t know whose idea it was to put Emilio Estevez in the starring role, but in my book he just doesn’t pull of a convincing leading man, he looks like somebody who’s just goofing around the set rather than somebody who is running for his life. I guess the only reason Emilio Estevez is on this movie is because he’d worked before with Geoff Murphy on Young Guns II (1990). But I could definitely see somebody else on the title role, somebody with a little more ‘gravitas’, cause Estevez just doesn’t have them. In terms of supporting actors the film is solid; we get Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo and we even get Mick Jagger as a lackey and New York Dolls front man David Johansen in a small role. But with such a solid cast, where Freejack failed was in choosing Estevez as the leading man. He seems more suited for a silly comedy like Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) than a science fiction film like this one.

The good thing about Freejack is that it has plenty of action sequences, the only problem is that it suffers from what a lot of action films from the 80’s suffered from: the chase sequences feel like a check list of every car stunt known to man. So you're like 'oh they're doing the car flipping over and exploding trick', they definetly have a been there done that feel to them at times. Now imagine that with Emilio Estevez pulling a one liner every time a car explodes and you get the jist of the kind of action sequences you can expect from Freejack. Still, some of the car stunts are pretty cool, however unbelievable.

On the cyberpunk side of things we get the dilapidated society, with rich people living in luxury and the poor living extreme poverty. We get the element of transferring human consciousness into a computer and then using modern technology to transfer a consciousness into a new human body. So there’s that common element seen in many Cyberpunk films of the ‘ghost in the machine’, an idea that was recently seen in Transcendence (2014) and also in Johnny Mnemonic (1994). Cool part about this whole ghost in the machine business is that it lends itself for some cool computer graphics and compositions which might feel a bit dated, but I’ll be honest, still look pretty cool by today’s standards. We also get that idea that big corporations have taken over the world, which is a staple of cyberpunk cinema, the big company is the big bad guy.

Another fault the film has is that cars that are supposed to look ‘futuristic’ , don’t. This is something that so many low to medium budget sci-fi films suffer from, the cheap or clunky looking cars. Last time I remember seeing it was on Equilibrium (2002). The problem is that they convert existing cars by adding a couple of panels and a coat of paint. Then voila!, they call them futuristic, but god, on this one it’s so blatantly obvious that they are not. Not to the director: painting a military vehicle red does not make it futuristic! So yeah, you get these clunky looking cars, which are not cool. These are the times when I miss Syd Mead or Jean Giraud doing the conceptual designs. Conceptual designs are so important in a science fiction film, if you don’t pay attention to conceptual design, where the artist designs elements from the film to make them look functional and cool at the same time, well, you get the clunkiness. I mean, look at the cars in freaking Blade Runner! The freaking Spinners are so awesome! I wanted a Spinner! But I do not want any of the cars in Freejack. In the end, Freejack is a fun, fast paced films that has a couple of hiccups along the way but is still a fun watch in my book. I like those scenes with Emilio Estevez and Anthony Hopkins battling for their respective minds! Just don’t expect a masterpiece and you’ll be fine, this one is a glorified b-movie all the way!

Rating: 3 out of 5 

Noah (2014)

Title: Noah (2014)

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins, Logan Lerman

Just so you guys know where I’m coming from with this review, I’m not a Christian, but I’ll watch movies like Noah because I love movies and I love how they attempt to wow us, how they comment on humanity and how they try to entertain us. Biblical movies are an interesting bunch because if done wrong, they will always end up pissing somebody off, probably a Christian. But to me, biblical movies are as entertaining as any other fantasy film, what matters to me when I watch any film is if it’s entertaining or moving somehow, if it has something to say. I went to see The Passion of the Christ (2005) to see what the big deal was all about and to my surprise I ended up being genuinely moved by some moments in the film. Any habitual film goer and book worm finds it interesting to see a book they’ve read come to life in some way, so that's the mentality I go with when I go see movies like this one.  So my status as ‘unbeliever’ does not stop me from enjoying films that deal with Christian themes. In fact, since I am a former Christian; I can enjoy them on a whole other level because I know the source material. I read the bible a couple of times back in my church going days, so I know the text and I know when a film is stretching the limits of their ‘artistic liberties’, case in point Aronofsky’s Noah and its myriad ways of telling a different story then the one depicted in the bible. On this review I pinpoint the specific elements that aren’t related to Noah’s tale, so if you don’t want certain elements spoiled for you, you’ve been warned!

For those of you who haven’t read the tale of Noah, this is the story of a man who is contacted by God himself. God tells him that he is going to be destroying every human on the planet because man had become evil, corrupt and violent. In other words, God wants to reboot humanity. Yet Noah and his family are lucky; In Gods eyes they are the only good people left in the whole entire planet. The bible says that Noah was “righteous” and “blameless” amongst the people of his time, so when god’s wrath comes down on the earth through a massive planet wide flood, Noah and his family will get a free ticket to survival. But before the rain starts to fall, God tells Noah to build an ark and put two of all the animals in the world in it so they will survive the flood. That’s the gist of it. And that's essentially what you'll get in this film, the problem is that along with it, you'll get a bunch of other elements that have nothing to do with the bible, in fact, they are so alien to the story of Noah that they just might completely take you out of the film. 

When it comes to biblical movies, as a filmmaker, you have to be very careful. You don’t won’t to deviate too far away from the source material because then you’ll have Christian’s boycotting your film and you don’t want that because it could mean the death of your film. You don’t want to anger your target audience, which is basically what this movie undoubtedly does. It has so many elements that are not in the bible! What elements am I talking about? Well, for example, in the film Anthony Hopkins plays Methuselah, who according to the bible was one of the oldest humans to ever exist, so okay, we’re good till there…but then Aronofsky gives Methuselah magical powers? Now I don’t find that all that weird because the bible actually acknowledges magic as being something real. The problem is that in Noah’s story, Methuselah is not a practitioner of magic! Now the bible talks about magicians and sorcerers, but it doesn’t say that Methuselah was one of them. The artistic liberties don’t stop there.

Then we have the most controversial element of the film, the giant rock creatures. I know right? Now strange creatures aren’t all that controversial to me when it comes to the bible because the bible talks about dragons, unicorns, creatures with ten heads, four faces and a whole cornucopia of strange beings, but the thing with the rock creatures that aid Noah in constructing the ark is that they are not in the bible, at all, and so right here is where Christians will put a screeching halt on this movie and say its heresy. I’ve yet to understand why Aronofsky chose to use these creatures as part of the story. I mean, did he do it on purpose to piss of Christians and get them to go to the movies? Was it to get everyone talking about it? Some sort of publicity stunt to get people talking furiously about the film? In either case, it’s a risky move because this could go either way. It could get  Christians to boycott the film and call Aronofksy the Antichrist, or it could make people want to see the film more. Now knowing how Christians react to films like this, I think it will make them see the movie in droves; just to see what the big deal was all about. But there’s no way of denying that Aronofsky took a huge risk here. 

To top things off, Aronofsky depicts Noah all wrong. You see, in this film Noah thinks that God is bringing the flood because he wants to completely eradicate humans from the face of the earth, when in reality, it’s the complete opposite. Allow me to explain. True; God does feel disappointed with humanity and wants to wipe them out, but in the bible, God clearly states to Noah that he wants for humanity and animals to continue living; I mean that’s the whole point behind saving the animals, so that after the flood is through they can roam the land once again and propagate, it goes without saying that God wants to save Noah and his family for the exact same reason. For all intents and purposes, God wants humanity to continue. But for some reason, Aronofsky’s Noah thinks he and his family are meant to be the last humans on the planet and that they are not to have babies? So when one of Noah’s family members becomes pregnant he thinks he has to kill the babies? That whole thing? So not in the bible! This course of action makes Noah look evil and crazy somehow. Now killing your children in the name of God is not something unheard of in the bible (just ask Abraham!) but again, this does not happen to Noah in the bible.

Now if you’re keen on reading between the lines and enjoy extrapolating on ideas and possible interpretations of what we see in films, then you might infer, as I have, that Aronofsky is actually trying to point at some particularly hard to swallow elements in the bible. Through Methuselah and his use of magic, Aronofsky points at the fact that in the bible, magic is real, and condemned, which is a preposterous idea in my book, hell even sorcerers are real in the bible. Through the now infamous rock creatures, Aronofsky seems to be saying we shouldn’t find them so strange, after all, the bible talks about talking snakes, giants roaming the earth and even dragons! By depicting Noah as a man who thinks he has to kill babies in the name of God, well, Abraham was going to do that at some point, which if you ask me is the craziest part of the bible, and one that I am completely against. Honestly, if God told me to kill my child I’d scream from the top of my lungs “HELL NO!”; yet I’ve personally met Christians who say they would kill their child if God asked them to. And to me that’s just crazy. So through his depiction of Noah, Aronofsky addresses issues of blind fanatism in religion.   

Aronofsky is one of my favorite filmmakers, he’s made some truly amazing films and the question remains, is Noah one of them? I’m not gonna say it’s a terrible film or badly acted or written, because it’s quite the opposite. The cast is amazing, the visual effects work astounding, the only real problem is that it’s not the story you might expect. Arnofsky takes incredible liberties with the text in order to say what he wants to say. There’s no doubt in my mind that these elements will irk some people out there. I’m just saying, if you’re going to see Noah, don’t expect to see the biblical story represented faithfully, Noah was just Aronofksy playing around with biblical themes and ultimately, if you ask me, pointing a finger at the more difficult to accept elements from the bible. Discuss!

Rating: 4 out of 5  

     

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Title: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Gary Oldman, Wynona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Sadie Frost, Tom Waits, Keanu Reeves, Cary Elwes, Billy Campbell

Dracula has been brought to cinematic life on more occasions than any other character. I mean sure there’s tons of James Bond movies, Frankenstein movies and Godzilla has its fare share of films (going on 28 as I write this)…but even more films have used the character of Dracula in one form or another. So it truly is one of the most iconic characters in cinematic history, period. So naturally, the question inevitably arises: which of these adaptations is the best one? You ask me, my favorite, bar none is Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the character. It’s just so epic, so classy, so operatic, such a well rounded production. But once upon a time, producers and critics thought the film would end up being a major flop. They even went as far as calling it “Vampire of the Vanities” in allusion to that other major box office flop Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), some deemed it too weird and violent for mass audiences. Test screenings led to Coppola editing about 25 minutes of gory bits; of course Coppola must have been shaking in his boots, I mean, another flop? Even worse is the fact that Coppola was hoping that this film would save American Zoetrope, his film studio, which was in bankruptcy. Was Bram Stoker’s Dracula destined to become yet another flop in Francis Ford Coppola’s career?

"I...am...Dracula. I bid you welcome"

All the negative pre-release buzz for Bram Stoker’s Dracula was not without merits. True, Francis Ford Coppola is one of the greatest American directors who ever walked the face of the earth, but Coppola is also no stranger to box office disasters. For example, One from the Heart (1982) lost a lot of money as did Tetro (2009) and these are not the only turkeys in his resume. Thing is that even though some of Coppola’s films don’t exactly ignite the box office, you can’t deny their artistic merits. I mean, I look at films like Tetro and Youth Without Youth (2007) and I am mesmerized by them, I love every second of both of these films, but I also realize they are not for everyone. I recognize how incredibly ‘artsy fartsy’ they are and how they can in no way be considered “commercially viable” films, but damn, aren’t they beautiful films when you really look at them? Same goes for many of Coppola’s films, and that’s probably what producers and critics feared would happen with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, they feared it would be another expensive, beautiful and artful flop. At the end of the day, awesomeness prevailed and so the film went on to make a hefty profit worldwide, saving Coppola and his studio in the process. I guess you can’t really compete with quality. A good film is a good film, and audiences recognized that in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

Amongst the ever increasing amount of Dracula films, Coppola’s take on the character still stands at #1 for me for various reasons. The first reason is that it’s such a great production, I mean; here we have the cream of the crop in every single department. It’s not surprising that the resulting film is such an artistic tour de force; Coppola gathered amazing talent to bring his vision to life. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was such an exquisite film that it marked one of the very few occassions in which a horror film actually got some recognition by the Academy, the only other one I can remember was Silence of the Lambs (1991). Bram Stoker’s Dracula ended up winning three academy awards in the areas in which it excels the most: costume design, sound editing and make- up effects; but  If you ask me I would have also given them the Oscar for art direction, because it excels on this as well, the sets are wow, beautiful, epic, like the old Universal Horror Films where everything was huge! One look at this film and you can tell it was done with great care and interest in making something that we’d never been seen before. Coppola managed to evoke a feeling of other worldliness, there’s always something not right, just a little off, as if the natural rules of physics did not apply. Coppola wanted the film to be bathed in a strange, surreal vibe  every time a vampire appears. This is why, when we are in Dracula’s castle, characters walk on walls, shadows seem to have a life of their own and water drops fall upwards instead of down.  

And the cast, well, for me it’s beyond amazing save for the one weak link known as Keanu Reeves. On his behalf I will say that Keanu was worn down when he made Bram Stoker’s Dracula, he’d just made three films in a row! Those films were Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991), My Own Private Idaho (1991) and Point Break (1991)! Nowadays Keanu recognizes his fault and excuses himself for his poor performance in Bram Stoker’s Dracula; he admitted “I just didn’t have anything left to give”. But getting past that whole Keanu Reeves thing, the rest of the cast does an amazing job in my book. Gary Oldman is fantastic as Count Dracula. Some people don’t seem to enjoy his performance for whatever the reason; probably because the film is a bit on the theatrical side. Some of the performances might feel a bit over the top or overtly melodramatic to some viewers, but to be honest, it’s what I like about this version of Dracula. Characters seem to feel more intensely, love without control, and in my book, this makes all the perfect sense in the world because when we really look at it, this is a passionate love story. This is a movie that speaks of the kind of passion that will blind us and make us go crazy with lust and desire, so lines like “take me away from all this DEATH!” and “The blood is the life!” are spoken with the appropriate amount of intensity in my book. Mina and Dracula really feel for each other, their love is not an ordinary love; this is a love that transcends both time and death! The rest of the cast is astoundingly good, of special note is Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, who plays the character diametrically opposed to Oldman’s Dracula. This Van Helsing loves food, life, singing, dancing! He is full of life, as opposed to Dracula who represents death and decay.

I love how the film serves as an allegory for the sexual politics between male and female. For example, Mina and Lucy are characters that are in the prime of their youth; looking forward to getting married and exploring their sexuality by reading the Kamasutra. Both young girls are curious about sex and its many possibilities, there’s even a hint of bisexuality in them when they share a secret kiss. So when an experienced dog like Dracula comes along and shows them how it’s done, they experience this sexual awakening and suddenly it’s a whole new world for both Mina and Lucy. Dracula has always been a character that’s representative of mans sexual impulses and this film is no exception. On this film Dracula satisfies his purely physical desires with Lucy, but it’s with Mina that he finds true love. So the film points this out to us, the difference between a physical relationship, based solely on sexual pleasure and a relationship that has its foundations on love. 

One of the things I love the most about this film is how Coppola approached the production, the whole mentality behind making it. Coppola wanted to hearken back to the old days of filmmaking, actually, Coppola originally wanted to make this film with impressionistic sets, using a lot of lights and shadows, similar to what had been done in German Expressionistic cinema with films like Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), of course the studio denied it, but he still went about making this film in the same way movies where made back in the old days, when cinema was just getting started. He wanted to use modern special effects techniques as little as possible. 

Coppola was given a special effects team which he ended up firing after they didn’t agree with his approach. He ended up using his son, Roman Coppola for the visual effects of the film which consisted in the usage of miniatures, matte paintings, forced perspective, mirrors…techniques as old as filmmaking itself. To be honest, the film looks way better than any of the CGI we see so often in today’s films. The miniature work is incredibly well done, so much so you probably won’t even realize when they are being used. On the makeup effects department, well, I have to give Kudos to the ones responsible; the makeup effects work is superb here as well! Same as in most Dracula films, the Count takes various forms, but my favorite has always been this giant vampire bat; the way this creature looks in the film always knocks my socks off, it’s one of my favorite cinematic monsters ever, top that amazing makeup effects work with Oldman’s performance and great sound effects and you’ve got yourself one amazing scene. But then again, the film is filled with many show stopping moments that I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say that Coppola’s Dracula is an amazing feat of filmmaking. It takes Dracula out of the campiness of the old Hammer movies and puts him right in the middle of a class-a big budget production, and I savored every last bit of this bloody good time. This is a highly regarded film in my book, perfect for a night of old fashion, passionate horror.  

Rating:  5 out of 5

The Rite (2011)

Title: The Rite (2011)

Director: Mikael Hafstrom

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Rutger Hauer, Alice Braga, Colin O’Donoghue

Review:

The Rite is a film that wants to remind you that faith is important, and that you should never loose it. It wants to let you know that “not believing in the devil does not protect you from him”. Barf; whatever! Spread that fear why don’t you! In yet another attempt at addressing the issue of exorcisms, once again, they’ve gone and made this film that, though well made, feels like an onslaught of clichés seen in other exorcism films. And speaking of films about exorcisms, there’s been a lot of them! Though most of them are hardly convincing, yet they keep getting made. And they keep hitting us with cliché after cliché. For example: is it just me or is every single priest on these films always loosing his faith? Is it me or is the ‘possesed’ person always bed ridden? And does the final exorcism in the film always take place with the possessed tied to a bed or something? Like I said, clichés. So here comes yet another entry into the exorcism films sub-genre, how was it?

It wasn’t all that bad. First off, the film is very well shot and directed, technically speaking, it’s a solid film. Its tone is a deadly serious one, it doesn’t come off as goofy or anything like some exorcism films do. On this one we meet young Michael Kovak the son of a mortician, who by the way is played by Rutger Hauer. A bit underused if you ask me, but hey it's always a pleasure to see Mr. Hauer on screen! Will somebody give Hauer more roles that are worth a damn? Pretty please with vanilla on top? So anyways, on this family you are either a mortician or a priest, and so young Michael Kovak has decided to become a priest. Though to be honest, he really doesn’t seem to be the priest type. You see, Michael Kovak is a young man with very little to no faith at all. But he goes to priest school none the less and becomes a priest. Weird thing is that just as he is about to send an e-mail saying he doesn’t want to be a priest and that he is giving up on the whole thing, a priest decides to send Michael to Rome to train himself in the ways of  exorcism. Michael accepts the offer, willingly giving the whole faith thing one more try. Will Michael see anything that will convince him of the existence of the supernatural? Will Michael’s faith ever return?

The Rite is very similar to The Last Exorcism (2010) because it is also about a faithless priest who doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He thinks that possessed people are very disturbed people whose perception of things have been altered by all their religious beliefs. I enjoyed that about the film, how the character Michael Kovak serves as a means to voice the plea of the Unbeliever, same as the priest character in The Last Exorcism. For most of the film you’ll find Michael Kovak saying things like “It gets complicated when proof of the devil is no proof of the devil” Right on brother! He hit the nail on the head as far as faith goes; at the root of the matter is believing in things that you cant proof or see.  

My take on these kinds of films is that they are no longer scary, audiences just don’t get as spooked as they used to by these films. It could be the ever growing number of non-believers out there; it could be that people know too much about how films are made and nothing amazes them anymore, so the illusion and magic behind the whole thing is no longer there. We got dvd special features to thank for that. The Last Exorcism for example was a successful film, but only because it cost about 2 million dollars to make. Had it cost more, it might have flopped. Case in point: The Rite which cost 37 million dollars but only made 33 million in the U.S. It came and it went from theaters without much of a fuzz. To the world, it was just another horror movie. No big deal. In comparison, when The Exorcist (1973) was first released, people passed out while watching the movie, people walked out of theaters because they couldn’t take what they were seeing. It was an experience to watch; an event. This latest exorcism movie  (The Rite)  failed to capture the attention and imaginations of the audience. This was not a ‘shit in your pants’ scary film, but did it work on any level?

Well, I did enjoy the fact that the film didn’t come off as hokey, the way a lot of these films do turn out. It seems to me that for The Rite they were trying to do a film that wasn’t exactly a horror film. They were apparently trying to do a realistic depiction in the life of an exorcist, so goofy it aint. This is the kind of film that the catholic church would be proud of.  A good example of a goofy exorcism film is Lost Souls (2000) with Wynona Ryder and even goofier was The Unborn (2009), if you want to see a laugh inducing exorcism sequence check that one out. The Rite made an effort to make things a bit more credible and authentic. A lot of that could have something to do with the fact that the film is based on a book called The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio. In preparation to write his book, Mr. Baglio actually went to the Vatican for a seminar on exorcism. There he met Father Gary Thomas, the actual person on which the character of Michael Kovak is based on. In addition to that,  director Mikael Hafstrom actually went to a couple of ‘real life exorcisms’, a couple of which he heard from afar because they wouldn’t allow him to see them. So there is a level of authenticity to the film.

But when it comes right down to it, no matter how ‘authentic’ the film is, there’s no such thing as the supernatural. No one has ever seen the things that happen on these exorcism  films in real life. All these priests have seen in their ‘exorcisms’ is people screaming, and twisting and cursing profusely, but supernatural events? Real life supernatural activities that we could see with our own eyes or document with a video camera? Nope; never happened. Don’t you think if these supernatural events ever really happened a priest would have already caught something on tape? Or on their cell phones? Yet no actual evidence of the supernatural exists outside of a couple of hoax pictures that somebody altered on Photoshop in their home computers. Still, films that are ‘based on real life’ try and make us believe that events such as these actually occured. To that I say ‘phooey!’  Of course, if ask the catholic church they’ll tell  you that they loved the movie. And loved it they did, the catholic church gave this one glowing reviews. They loved it as much as they loved The Exorcist. Why? Because these films spread their fantasies around, and after all that’s all the church really wants, to dig themselves deeper into peoples consciousness.

What we got here ladies and gents is a decent exorcism picture. It is well photographed and acted, the locations are beautiful looking (most of it was shot in Hungaria) and the visual effects are decent. It plays everything deadly serious, not a smile to be seen. These characters seem to really believe that they are dealing demons, or perhaps even Satan himself? Oooh spooky! Everything is augmented by Anthony Hopkins performance, and may I send kudos his way for throwing himself so completely into this physically demanding role. This film is one big catholic fantasy brought to life in the only way that in can be brought to life, through the wonderful alternate universe of movies. And as such, it works. I thought it needed a few more creeps and scares, but the ending is really what it’s all about with this movie. Stick all the way to the end, for the big exorcism scene, it’s worth it.    

Rating: 3 1/2

THOR (2011)

Title: Thor (2011)

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Cast: Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Chris Hemsworth, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Rene Russo

Review:

Thor is the second big summer movie of 2011 (first one was Fast Five) and honestly it’s one of the ones I was most looking forward to seeing. I’ve been a life long comic book fan and I love all things related to the wonderful world of sequential art, I love comics as an art form almost as much as I love movies. When we get down to it, comics and films are extremely similar in many ways. In Thor’s case, I was curious to see how they would translate all the cosmic grandness of the city of Asgard and the Gods that inhabit it. The previews gave me a good sign, I liked what I saw, and the fact that Keneth Branagh was directing the film gave me good vibes since Branagh is a director that has made films that can be considered some of the best films based on Shakespeare’s most important works like Hamlet (1996) and Henry V (1989) among others. So the film was in the hands of a guy who understood drama and stories about family feuds between royalty. The cast was shaping up to be nothing short of impressive, Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins? Awesome! Plus this Chris Hemsworth guy really looked the part! Still, the question remained: how would all this translate to the world of films? Would the transition be a smooth one? Would it work?

Thor and his brother Loki

Story wise, Thor sticks pretty close to the kind of stories we could find in Marvel’s comic books, mainly, the eternal fight between Thor and his brother Loki. On this film we first meet Thor when he is about to be crowned King of Asgard by his father, King Odin, played by Anthony Hopkins. Problem comes when the Frost Giants of Jutenheim decided to crash the party and steal the Casket of Ancient Winters, an ancient relic that is the source of the Frost Giants chilling powers. Thankfully, the Frost Giants are stopped before they manage to steal the trinket. The event ignites an anger in Thor who from that point on wants to do nothing more then go to Jutenheim and kick the Frost Giants collective asses! Odin advices against it, because he being the wise King that he is, would rather preserve the truce between both kingdoms instead of starting another war. Thor doesn’t agree with that course of action and so he convinces some of his warrior friends to go to Jutenheim anyways to stir up some trouble. When Odin hears of Thor’s disobedience, the Mighty Odin’s anger is stirred and so he ends up not naming Thor King of Asgard after all! Instead, he rids Thor of his god like powers, takes away his magic hammer (called Mjolnir) and banishes Thor to earth. Odin hopes that this banishment will teach Thor a lesson or two on humility and what makes a good king. Will Thor learn his lesson? And what evil scheme does his envious brother Loki have in mind?

So finally I got to see Thor, sadly, it was not all I hoped it would be. Mind you, I didn’t think it was an awful movie, I just thought it was kind of a disjointed tale. Not all together, kind of a mish mash of ideas not well strung together. Maybe what this movie suffered from was having too much story to tell in too little time. The story is epic in scale, yet at times you feel that things are happening way too fast, as if the movie was going through some beats to simply keep things going at a brisk pace, so the kiddies won’t get bored with lots of babbling. I have to admit, I didn’t like how fast the movie was going. I mean, the film had everything it needs to be epic, the story deals with Gods! Unfortunately, the film doesn’t give us any breathing room and because things happen so fast, events just don’t come off as believable. To me this was meant to be the Gone with the Wind of superhero movies, you know, a grand old tale taking its time to hit those beats, but with some character development, some depth. Instead, things happen briskly and fast, you don’t have time to absorb it all. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the first Marvel movie suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder! Movie goes something like this: Thor’s going to be King! Boom! Bad guys crash the party! Boom! Thor is banished! Boom! Thor learns humility! Boom! Thor gets his powers back! Boom! He goes back to Asgard to kick ass! Boom! Movie is over! Boom! Boom! Boom! We go from one beat to the next in a very unbelievable pace. I mean, yeah most films cut a few corners here and there to go through their story, but this one was ridiculous.

Yet, in spite of this the movie has many positive things going for it. First up, Chris Hemsworth as Thor was the best choice they could have made, I mean the guy IS Thor! He’s plays the role with the right level of arrogance, but at the same time, he’s got a likability to him. A lot of what makes the character work is the wardrobe which is excellent, they really nailed the look for Thor. He looks like he could have leapt off the comic book page and on to the screen, literally. Same goes for the wardrobe of the Gods, impressive stuff! Cool looking helmets, awesome capes, armor with muscles…I mean these guys look powerful, and at times, the design of their armor reminded me of something Jack Kirby (comic artist legend) could have cooked up himself. Actually, he did cook these characters up back in the 60’s when the first issue of Thor was printed. He worked alongside Stan Lee in creating these stories based on the Norse God of Thunder. By the way, Stan Lee has a hilarious ‘blink or you’ll miss it’ cameo in the film.

In terms of art direction, the film excels as well. I mean, I loved the way Odin’s throne room looked! In fact all of Asgard looks appropriately gargantuan. A city filled with huge glistening statues and steps upon steps upon steps! Loved how everything is so spacious and gigantic, pretty impressive film in terms of art direction. Same goes for the visual effects which were pretty astounding. In fact, in spite of the films flaws, I think I will be seeing it again simply to enjoy its visual flair. Aactually, the films art direction and all those scenes with Thor fighting other Gods reminded me of those scenes from Master of the Universe (1987) that took place in Eternia, that was a film that also had Gods fighting each other over ultimate power.

These Marvel films have all enjoyed a connectivity to them. They all end up connecting with each other somehow, like one big cinematic comic book! This one is no different. On this one they mention Tony Stark and Bruce Banner a.k.a. The Hulk. We get to see the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to make sense of Thor and his Hammer, plus, as in most of these Marvel movies, Samuel L. Jackson shows up as Nick Fury. We even get to very quickly meet Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner) a character we will no doubt be seeing a lot more of in the upcoming The Avengers film which is being filmed as I type this. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you guys to stay after the credits role for that extra tacked on ending that connects us to The Avengers, which should be premiering summer 2012 if the world doesn’t end first! That was a joke by the way. But seriously folks, that Avengers movie better be something awesome, they’ve been hyping it in every single one of these Marvel movies!

Natalie Portman plays Jane Foster, an astrophysicist who discovers Thor when he first falls from Asgard. This isn’t the performance of her life, but I’m sure you guys weren’t expecting that either. I wish they would have given her a meatier role on this film, something more intense, something that involved her a bit more in the proceedings. She deserved something more dramatic and intense. Unfortunately, she gets lost in the shuffle between Asgard and Earth and all the Gods. Same can be said for Kat Dennings. She’s cute as hell, but her character is only in the film to make facebook and IPod “jokes”. Honestly, she’s one of the most worthless characters in the whole film.

Kenneth Branagh directs a scene

My final word on Thor is that it was a good superhero movie that could have been better had it not been shy with its running time. Sadly, many of these summer movies gotta play by that rule of making the film short enough to squeeze as many showings as possible in a day. The studios gotta squeeze these films for all the can and a short running time assures them that a film will make as much money as it can in theaters. In the end, that’s the only problem I had with this flick which is kind of weird because Thor is a film that comes to us from a director who knows a thing or two about character development in films. If only he hadn’t succumbed to the pressures of making fast paced film to please the studio! Still, its worth the price of admission for the spectacle it offers. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Wolfman (2010)

Title: The Wolfman (2010)

Director: Joe Johnston

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Geraldine Chaplin, Hugo Weaving, Emily Blunt

Review:

Every once in a while Universal Studios will want to update one of their classics and usually when they do, they make sure that their classics are handled in the proper fashion they deserve. After all, they are classics. This careful remaking of their classics has led to some truly great films in the hands of some great directors like Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stokers Dracula (1992) and Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994). Two great “classy” remakes for two of Universal Studios most iconic monsters. Then came Stephen Sommers The Mummy (1999) which enjoyed huge box office success as well. But what of  The Wolfman? Why was it not remade during that wave of remakes that occurred during the 90’s? Truth is most movie studios are afraid of werewolf movies. With the rare exception (like An American Werewolf in London) werewolf movies aren’t that big at the box office. Still, somebody in Universal Studios decided the time was nigh for a remake of  The Wolfman, the classic horror film that was released in 1941 with Lon Chaney Jr. as the titular character. So, how did it turn out?

On this one, Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) is a renowned theater actor that returns home due to his brothers death at the hands of a wild animal. He wants to further investigate what happened to his brother, because as it stands, it’s not quite clear exactly how he died. So, Lawrence decides to visit the area where his brother’s body was found and starts asking questions. Too bad for him that a werewolf is on the prowl and savagely attacks him that night! Now he is infected with the curse and will soon turn into a werewolf himself! Will he be able to contain the beast within? Will the town’s people allow him to continue living?

So that’s the basic premise of the film. If you saw the original, then you should know how this one goes, but I will tell you this; this remake has some interesting twists and turns that I was not expecting. It’s a remake alright, but like any good remake, it goes in a different direction so as to not show us the same exact film we already saw before and that’s what I loved about this one! It complicates things even further. It’s not just a story about a guy who gets bitten by a werewolf and starts killing people. There’s drama here! There’s conflict that doesn’t just come from the battle between man and his animal side there is more to this film then that. I won’t go into it though because I don’t want to spoil the fun, but this movie is far more complex then its 1941 counterpart. What we have here is quite possibly one of the best werewolf movies ever made! I am not exxagerating when i say this, The Wolfman is at the top of the list as far as werewolf movies go in my book. It covers everything that a good werewolf movie should have, the story of a common man who is suddenly confronted with the prospect of turning into a savage killing machine when the full moon comes out. We see the mans struggle with his inner beast and we see him struggle with the consequences of his actions. It has the right ambiance and atmosphere, it has the perfect tone. As a werewolf movie, it left this horror fan extremely satasfied!

Since this is one of Universal Studio’s most important horror films (along with Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy) this film was obviously treated with extra special care. By that I mean that you can see the money on the screen. You can see those 85 million dollars they spent on art direction and special effects. This isn’t one of those movies where the film is said to have cost more then 100 million to make and you don’t see them on the screen. This film had lavish production values and sets. It makes the film that much more believable and that much more enjoyable to watch. The mansion in which Lawrence and his father live in is one spooky joint! Gigantic stairways, huge windows, dark lonely hallways, lots of taxidermy on the walls, animal horns, the place was extremely spooky looking. There are a couple of scenes that take place inside of an insane asylum, great set there as well! I really enjoyed the fact that this film is the quintessential classic horror film with all the elements required to make it classic. The atmosphere for example (much like its 1941 counterpart) is non stop! The fog doesn’t seem to stop rolling, the dead woods, the wolf howls, the full moons, the clouds, the spooky mansion, it’s all here! Then there is the muisc done by non other then the great Danny Elfman! I cant believe they actually had a problem with his score at one point. The guys music on this movie was pitch perfect. And its constant. In that way, this movie reminded me of horror films of old where music seems to dominate the whole film. They really made sure that this film felt like a horror film.

Aside from being influenced by Universal’s own 1941 version of  The Wolfman, I picked up influences from various other werewolf movies like for example John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London (1981). There’s this chaotic scene in which the werewolf is set loose on the city streets, which was similar in tone and pace to that same chaotic sequence in An American Werewolf in London in wich the werewolf goes on a killing spree on the streets of London. There was another scene in which Lawrence Talbot walks into a Tavern and all the towns people begin to talk about the werewolf, which was similar to the same scene in An American Werewolf in London when the two American kids walk into the “Slaughtered Lamb” and the locals fill them in on the whole werewolf myth. But then again, that same scene stems from older horror films, like the Hammer films. In a Hammer film, the good guys always walk into a tavern in which everyone is scared of the monster. Similar scenes on this new version of  The Wolfman reminded me of that.

The Werewolf transformations do not dissapoint!

And what about the werewolf transformations? The transformations were something that I’m sure a lot of horror fans are worried about. They are always a key sequence in any good werewolf film and should always blow the audience away. A lot of us keep thinking of how awful the marriage of CGI and werewolf transformations can be (scenes of Wes Craven’s Cursed (2005) come to mind) so with this new movie there was always that question of “will they get it right?” Well, I’m happy to inform you guys that yes, they did get it right. They successfully used the blend of CGI animation and actual make up effects work to convincingly bring the wolfman to life. Make up effects legend Rick Baker was the man involved in doing the make up effects work. As some of you may know, he handled the legendary werewolf transformations in An American Werewolf in London. Before this remake, there was no film that ever topped that transformation sequence. It’s always held the top spot as one of the best transformation sequences ever on any film. Well, I just saw The Wolfman, and I think that transformation sequence might just have found a contender! The transformation sequence are fantastic! The detail on these transformations is astounding, you can see the bones stretching, the skin stretching, the teeth emerging from the gums; astounding stuff! Beautiful marriage of computer effects and make up work. The film does not disappoint on this aspect, in fact, to be honest, this movie didn’t disappoint on any aspect as far as I’m concerned.

Joe Johnston is not one of those directors which has a distinctive style. His films are not instantly recognizable. Usually, Johnston’s films are fun, lighthearted and fall into the PG or PG-13 category; examples of this are Johnston’s Honey! I Shrunk the Kids (1989) and The Rocketeer (1991). To me Johnston is the go to guy for making a Hollywood film that plays by the rules, plays it safe. No artsy fartsy risky business here. He is the kind of director who will direct a film, tell the story, and follow the rules set by the studio. He is not what I would call a trouble maker of a director. This guy plays ball with the studio execs and makes the movie they want to see. And for The Wolfman, which is a film Universal Studios obviously cares much about, Joe Johnston was a good choice. At first I didn’t think it was a good choice at all, I thought someone edgier would have been more appropriate. But this movie proved me wrong! Plus, when we consider that Brett Ratner could have ended up directing this film, well, we should just start counting our blessing shouldnt we? Johnston’s visual effects background was perfect for this kind of fx heavy film. That, plus this wolfman movie has its werewolf balls firmly in place! Or nards as “Horace” from the Monster Squad would say.

This movie does not disappoint when it comes to graphic depictions of gore and violence! Thankfully, this film is a hard “R” which means it doesn’t pussy out on the gore. And it’s true, the film does not hold out on us in this aspect. When the wolfman appears, heads do role! And so do arms and limbs and anything else you can imagine. The wolfman on this movie is very violent, very much the murderous killing machine he is supposed to be. Thanks to the advancement on visual effects, we are able to follow the wolfman as he jumps from rooftop to rooftop, we follow him on his bloody killing spree. And it does get incredibly bloody! So be ready for that! Johnston does show some style in a choice nightmare sequence that I loved, be on the look out for that. So Johnston as a director handled his chores well, giving us a film that gives us the classic Universal horror film we and the studio were expecting but with just enough of an edge to keep things interesting.

As a final note, the cast was superb. As is expected of an important Universal production like this one, the cast is filled with 'class A' oscar nominated actors. Benicio del Toro has always been solid for me (21 Grams anyone?) and on this one he exceeds. He isn’t your typical good looking Hollywood model. His got this roughness to him, which of course was perfect for this role. Anthony Hopkins excels. He is the actor that studios go to when they want to give their films a bit of class, and this film is definitely a classy horror film. His character is one of the most interesting ones in the film playing the role of the guy who knows all about “the curse”. Kind of like the Van Helsing character in the Dracula movies, but with a twist. Hugo Weaving plays a smart and direct cop; his performance was one of the most enjoyable ones in the film as well. And finally, Emily Blunt has her moment to shine somewhere around the films last frames. Everyone did a commendable job, no complaints here.

In conclusion, this film does not disappoint in the least! In fact, the film excelled my expectations! The pacing is perfect, there is not a dull moment in sight, something exciting is happening all the time. The film has that classy horror film vibe to it, it’s got excellent make up effects, performances, and Joe Johnston did a great job directing it. It is a film that I’m sure will not disappoint horror fans in any sense of the word. It treats the classic film with respect, while taking things on a completely different route! Without a doubt in my mind, an excellent remake, and one of the best werewolf films I have seen.

Rating: 5 out of 5