Iron Man 3

Could Christopher Nolan's influence have also been felt in the Marvel universe? With Iron Man 3, we come to Phase 2 of Marvel/Disney collaboration that will arc over four movies excluding Avengers 2. Yet, this third installment of the Iron Man franchise bears more resemblance to The Dark Knight Rises than previous Iron Man movies. This is a movie that started dark and strived to be darker, and that may not be in its favour.

Some time after the events of The Avengers, Tony Stark is back, but perhaps not back in action. He's busying himself in his Malibu mansion, modifying and improving the Iron Man technology. Indications suggests that his playboy days are over since he started dating Pepper Potts, but more so, he's battling more urgent and deep anxieties. The emergence of a terrorist leader, The Mandarin, who perpetrated a series of bombings outside and within the US finally brings Tony Stark back into the fray and he dons his Iron Man suit to avenge the mortal wounding of his friends.

That pretty much summarises two of the film's five-act structure, unusual for a superhero film or Hollywood films in general. This contributed to a sense of disjuncture early on in the proceedings. It started with the tone; unlike Jon Favreau's lighthearted approach to the first two films, this one, helmed by Shane Black, is, well, bleak. For a PG-13 movie, this pushed the edge much more than any mainstream superhero movies thus far: more violent and lewd. It's also not a whole lot of fun. Which is fine, but those who came expecting a breezy summer fare might take a while to realise this is not that movie.

The movie is also uneven in itself. The first half of the movie was plodding and awkward. I felt shots were framed too tight. There were little to no use of establishing shots, and scene to scene was cluttered with colours, mise-en-scene, and CG effects in medium shots, and then actors in closeups. The editing was choppy, which slowed down the pacing through set ups and uninspired banters. This was a shame because I was expecting sparkling dialogue from Shane Black, but instead they were often tepid and plodding, mechanical, and generally unfunny.

There is genuinely good comedy here, but instances that worked were darker in nature, often involving unfortunate accidents to major characters. Tony Stark's alcoholism was suggested but ultimately abandoned (we don't want kids asking parents for Budweisers do we?). The pacing and directing got better in the second half of the film, but not devoid of awkward tonal shifts. Some scenes had better been left out (those with Ben Kingsley), and others felt too short (those with Rebecca Hall). Above all, we got very little of the Tony Stark and James Rhodes camaraderie - after all, Shane Black wrote Lethan Weapon!

Then came the last act, which was pure entertainment and did everything so well I almost forgave all. This was kick-ass entertainment, and it pushed the envelope in terms of Iron Man film tropes and the Iron Man mythology in the Marvel/Disney film universe. They finally managed to be able to plot out effective warfare involving Iron Man suits, and an exciting mano-a-mano with a villain which gives Tony Stark a run for his money (neither of the previous movies managed this well, and this was better than good).

Overall, I disliked this movie more than I liked it. It was ambitious in its scale and grasp, both to lay the groundwork for the Avengers 2 and also attempted to be weighty in its own right. But perhaps it tried too hard to be special and significant as to be a tad lugubrious. I walked out of the cinema pleased, but I didn't enjoy the overall experience of the movie.  

The Amazing Spiderman (2012)

It's hard to imagine, for a person of 25 years, that it was 10 years ago that I saw the first installment of Sam Raimi's Spiderman (2002) - that was, like, half-my-life ago. The original Spiderman also came at a very distinct period in my life, and I still hold my experience around the movie dearly (though not necessarily the movie itself, which I thought was so-so). Still, when I heard of Marc Webb's The Amazing Spiderman reboot, I thought, "Okay, let's see." Perhaps this was because Christopher Nolan's Batman success.

In any case, I saw The Amazing Spiderman with an open mind, and came out with a singular annoyance that the movie itself was strikingly uneven. This was exactly the way I felt when I saw Quantum of Solace (2008). I was constantly asking, "Why did he do that? How did he get here? Why do I felt like I can't get in with this movie?"

It was a peculiar way to dislike a movie as it wasn't at all bad or stupid, but then it (the movie/the filmmakers/the movie characters) continually, repeatedly made bad and stupid decisions. I wonder if they filmed with a finished script. The dialog certainly left much to be desired. This is the kind of movie where jokes were cringingly unfunny and out-of-character; and there were quite a lot of science-talk which were cursed with being both laborious and nonsensical.

Was this then a trial ground of an untested director? Marc Webb's only feature was 2009's "500 Days of Summer", an indie. This could account for the unevenness of the picture: half the movie is meticulously inspired, the other half tedious humdrum. Peter and Gwen as Romeo and Juliet a la John Hughes (good); Peter being suddenly petulant (not). Spiderman finding the limits to his web-prowess (good); Spiderman going around sewers with neither reason nor resolution (not). Getting Martin Sheen and Sally Fields as Uncle Ben and Aunt May (Great), killing off uncle Ben without any follow through (not really).

And that's a big one. Honestly, I was NOT expecting them to kill off Uncle Ben. I thought that this was an opportunity to have a fresh take on the subject matter: how cool would it be if Uncle Ben lives to see Spiderman's early days, and then perhaps kill him off in a sequel as an important plot milestone. Or else don't have Uncle Ben at all. But why kill off your most interesting supporting character, and your best chance to differentiate this series from its predecessor?

Andrew Garfield, I thought, makes a more-than-acceptable Peter Parker, lanky and boyish enough as a teenager, and he does have the physical make-up of a human insect. Emma Stone was given a few moments to shine. Consider the scene where she learnt that Peter was Spiderman - a million thoughts registered on her face and in body language. Rhys Ifans was okay... I suppose; his character was undeveloped and he didn't overcome it.

The Amazing Spiderman is far from amazing. But there are moments that shine so bright in telling us (enticing us) of hope of the future of this franchise (Sony has declared this to be a new trilogy). A few genuinely thrilling moments don't quite make up for lost opportunities and poor judgment. 

Mission Impossible (1996)

A-

When it was released a decade and a half ago, the first Mission Impossible film made a decent box-office performance, but received lukewarm critical appreciation, deemed a stylish throwback to the TV series, but with a plot too convoluted for its own good. Viewing it in 2011, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie, and not only that, I found much to admire of this entertaining fare which is also as much an exercise in three different genres: Cold War spy movie, heist flick, and an adventure thriller that is kind of North by North West meets From Russia With Love.

The movie opens in Prague, where an IMF team led by Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) is commanded into a mission straight out of a John Le Carre manual, to do with apprehending a mole in the midst of the diplomatic corps. Things don't quite go according to plan, leaving an agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) being accused of espionage, disavowed, and hunted. The second part of the movie follows Ethan Hunt and an eclectic crew of rogue agents (Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, and Emmanuelle Beart) to steal information from the vault of the CIA at Langley. This included a prolonged and now infamous sequence with Tom Cruise hanging on wires in a temperature and sound controlled room, hovering over pressure sensitive floors. The last act of the movie occured on the TGV from London to Paris with a showdown between Ethan and the real mole, known as Job.

There is a macguffin in Mission Impossible that has something to do with a NOC list of undercover IMF agents that is in the demand of a certain arms dealer. This macguffin does its role efficiently - getting the plot moving without getting tangled in a series of contrivances. Plus, admirably, it all does make sense. I wonder if this is because the script, written by Hollywood heavy-weights Steve Zaillian and David Koepp, was ahead of its time in depiction of internet and/or wireless connections, but whatever the reason, the plot here is probably more comprehensible, and feels more intelligent, than the likes of the Bourne movies, or Salt, or the latest James Bond films.

Also acquiring much more refinement with age is the movie's sense of style. The photography of this film is thrilling without being over-the-top. A great deal of suspense is generated through framing and cinematography, and a very dedicated and intelligent respect to the integrity of space. Consider another famous sequence where Ethan Hunt throws an explosive/chewing gum onto a fish tank, which eventually detonated, with water and fish bursting out. There was strict adherence to the sense of symmetry and perpendicular lines of sight, and at the climax of the scene, the editing remained steady as the scene was - yes you're reading this right - reduced to slow motion! Such is beauty in the looks and attention to detail that director Brian de Palma (reassembling his team from another beautifully stylish film The Untouchables) imbued onto this film.

Following De Palma's Mission Impossible, the franchise was later helmed by John Woo and J.J. Abrams respectively (with Brad Bird helming the upcoming 4th film). None of them have really achieved a sense of narrative cohesion and bravura one would expect from a truly Mission Impossible film, but the first one comes close. It's not perfect by any means, for instance, its plots couldn't quite gel together to escape a sense of tedium. However, in a series in which all the films are easy to like, this one I find most worthwhile to admire.

Thor

I make it a rule not to catch a movie without at least having checked the critical consensus. I make exceptions for must-see movies - like most Steven Spielberg movies or next year's The Dark Knight Rises - but in general, I don't like movies to disappoint me; I care about them too much. Then Thor opened here in Sydney, Australia, last Wednesday in time for Easter holidays, a full two weeks earlier than everywhere else. I weighed my chances, and I decided to brave the odds and catch it without having read a single review on it.

Come to think of it, this was to be my first time in a cinema in close to a year. The last time I was a movie in a darkened cinema was last July (the movie was Inception). So today, I was a little surprised that the Events Cinema on George St didn't have a regular 2-D screening for Thor. And then I was shocked to find that a student ticket for a 3-D screening costs $19 (which would make an adult ticket now costing $22 plus a $3 surcharge for the 3-D). Since when are movies so fucking expensive?

While walking to the theatre, a pedestrian started coughing with his mouth wide open, spittle spraying in the night air. It was strange. In the theater, a patron sitting nearby saw it fit to take his/her shoes off, releasing a dank waft emanating around the sardine-tin theatre seats. It was insane. Then the previews started... and just wouldn't end. An 8:30pm screening didn't really start until 8:50. What's the world coming to?

To end the suspense, Thor the movie wasn't bad. I'd give it a solid B. The 3-D sucked. I never really appreciated 3-D movies. I only half-liked them in Avatar, which by far is the only honourable attempt to use 3-D so far, where 3-D graphics were well-used to show depth in panoramas and establishing shots, but not when showing quick actions in the foreground. Not much has changed since 2009, only that with Thor (as with every movie between now and 2012's The Amazing Spiderman), the 3-D was grafted in post-production, which meant it could only get worse. It did. 3-D here was forced into scenes shot with human actors by separating the depth-of-field into different layers within the frame. So instead of seeing a character's body or facial contours being enhanced through depth, they remain flat, but they are juxtaposed against another character's flat body or face which has been pushed back against our field of vision. So what we tended to have was 3 layers of flat images, one behind the other. To an average movie-goer, that would undoubtedly be distracting. I was downright annoyed.

But the movie itself wasn't bad. It's not as great or fresh as the original Iron Man movie, but better than Iron Man 2. I'd say it's more or less on par with 2009's The Incredible Hulk.
Thor was directed by Kenneth Branagh, who have had ample experience with handling Shakespearean tragedies and pathos, and is certainly an interesting (if not inspired) choice to helm this movie about Norse Gods and Men, albeit with a comic book twist. As far as plot goes, though, Thor is very thin. It's half a comic-book action movie, and half a fish-out-of-water movie, and in between you have short, occasionally awkward, occasionally pointless, occasionally funny expositions. But that's fine. Say all you want, but if it underachieved in story and characters, it more than made up for it in its lush set designs, cinematography and art direction. I especially liked the scenes in Asgard, where set designs and costumes were nothing short of breathtaking, imbuing the production with a sense of grandeur and class that lingered. This is one well-imagined, well-shot movie.

Thank Godness for Anthony Hopkins whose presence gave the movie half its weight in terms of acting. Chris Hemsworth, the latest of Australian exports to Hollywood, is physically impressive but nothing more - not his fault really, the script didn't give him a chance. Natalie Portman, though I like her a lot, is awful as Jane Foster. Ms Portman's scientific work (she graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology) might have been befitting the awful subtitles on her character poster "The Woman of Science", but we look for a character's soul first and her research credentials second - her Jane Foster had neither. Tom Hiddleston has somewhat better effect as Loki, Thor's brother, though Branagh seemed to have no idea how to present this character. Other supporting characters really have no other reason in being there than to act as set-pieces for action or comedy - they come and go at the behest of the editor. For cameos, we had Rene Russo, Jeremy Renner, Idris Elba, and Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still.

All in all, did I enjoy Thor? Yes. I laughed heartily at some of the jokes. I admired the look of the film a lot. Branagh doesn't have a flair for shooting action sequences, but that's not a big impediment in this case because a hammer-wielding hero with God-like powers does not submit himself to prolonged battle sequences. I'll definitely see the movie again in DVD which would spare me the 3-D distraction, irritating previews, and rude patrons. On an unrelated note, after this movie, I wondered if Anthony Hopkins was ever offered the role for Dumbledore in Harry Potter. I would have loved to see that. And Kat Dennings. Someone give Kat Dennings a real role in a real movie. Please.

Vertigo

Vertigo (1958) was my first Hitchcock film. I was 15 years old or so, and I chose Vertigo because of its title. 'Vertigo' - what a thrilling name of a movie. I had expected it to be an action thriller, perhaps a murder mystery with some roof-top chases. I was primed for Hercule Poirot meets The Towering Inferno. Poor me, imagine my shock to find that the movie isn't actually that at all. Over the years, I've come to sample other celebrated Hitchcock films such as Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960), both of which I adored. I recently rented Vertigo again to see if my own age and wisdom would reveal to me new facets about the movie. Alas, I was only even more befuddled how and why this off-beat, poorly paced film come to be held in such high regard.

There are two distinct acts to Vertigo. The first act introduces us to Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart), an ex-cop who has recently developed a case of acrophobia - fear of heights - and is hired by an old friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), for a private investigator job. Elster believes that his wife, Madeline (Kim Novak), is being possessed by the spirit of her great-grandmother who committed suicide when she was of Madeline's age. Scottie's job is to keep an eye on her and to keep her safe, but he soon starts to develop feelings towards her, and after somehow getting acquainted with each other, Madeline reciprocates his love. Unfortunately, Madeline dies by falling from a church tower, while Scottie was helpless to save her because of his acrophobia. The second act starts about two-third of the way into this 2-hour film, where Scottie spots Judy (also played by Kim Novak) on the streets who bears a striking resemblance to Madeline, and we soon learn a sinister twist that the down-to-earth Judy and the elegant Madeline are the same person, and the story about the grand-grandmother was a charade to allow Elster to kill his real wife. This is not known to Scottie though, and his guilt and obsession with Madeline's death led him to groom Judy to be Madeline and reenacting his romance with her. While the first movie in Vertigo is sort of like a mystery, the second is a romance and a psychological drama.

From that description, it may seem like the two elements of Vertigo are immiscible, and this is arguably the case. I was drawn to the mysterious question whether Madeline is genuinely possessed by a supernatural power, or if she suffered from some psychological disorder. But this first act was presented in a somewhat confused, cryptic, maddeningly disjointed manner. There is a scene when Scottie takes Madeline to a forest and Madeline falls into one of her psychic episodes, and Scottie's attempt at psychoanalysis is so over-the-top and false. This went on through the bulk of Vertigo's running length; and I felt like it was just going nowhere. Then the plot twist is revealed which demands that we reassess Madeline's situation and basically throw out the supernatural mystery element altogether, rendering hollow much of what has transpired. Upon a second viewing, I reviewed the first half to see if it could work as a romance instead of a mystery. It couldn't. I don't buy how Scottie could have fallen for Madeline so; I feel this was something that was pounded on the audience as a necessary premise for the second act, but I never genuinely bought into it. The question then is why not just throw away the first half altogether or at least treat it as an extended prologue instead of hyping up what amounted to a red-herring.

If Vertigo is a cinematic masterpiece, it is so based on its technical achievements. This is an exceedingly well-made movie. The cinematography by Robert Burks with its sweeping displays of San Francisco, from the breath-taking to the lurid, is nothing short of impressive. The hypnotic score by Bernard Hermann serves a crucial function to set the mood of individual scenes, highlighting the diverse elements at play, while just stopping short of calling too much attention to itself. Then there are the compositions, colours, and inventive camera angles which clearly show Hitchcock as a director at the pinnacle of his powers. Admirers have pointed that the images in Vertigo not only show Scottie's state of mind, but also induces it in the audience. This is quite true. I especially admire one off-kilter aerial shot of a church tower after the climatic point in the movie, showing the building and its people at an odd, twisted angle, like that of an expressionist painting, which utterly reflects Scottie's confused, warped mind at the time.

But these are reasons for me to admire the movie, and I feel that Vertigo is much more a movie to be admired than to be liked. In my opinion, there lies a big problem in the way it's edited to tell its main story. The first half of the film tested my patience considerably. Character interactions here ring false all around, and often times we are not sure what's happening or what anyone is trying to do. It's almost the plot runs on a logic which the audience hasn't been clued in on. I must also mention that, upon a third viewing, Bernard Hermann's score at some points are so sweeping and sanguine that it was almost sleep-inducing. But then as the 'twist' is revealed, we realise that the cryptic, languid weirdness we endured doesn't really matter at all. By the time the second act starts, the shift in focus is so overdue that I felt a little cheated for having invested so much to figuring out what is essentially a macguffin. It must be noted that Hitchcock engineered a similar film structure again two years later for Psycho to much greater effect exactly because he did not allow himself to be so self-indulgent.

Apparently my sentiment towards Vertigo echoes those of the critics when it first opened in 1958. I still feel that in many ways, Vertigo is much more esteemed today because of its technical proficiencies. The camera work to generate the 'Vertigo effect' have been much replicated in the decades since, and it is no wonder that that sort of inventiveness and mastery inspires awe. Also, the real core of the story and its characters, which transpires in the second act is superb. The somewhat psychologically twisted romance between Scottie and Judy is ingeniously crafted both in its script and its images. Had Vertigo been all about this - that is, take out all the thriller elements and tell the story fully as a human drama - the audience might have been surprised to find 'Vertigo' not as thrilling as its title suggests, but it would still be an engrossing film. But then that may be better than what we have now: an drama frustratingly masquerading as a thriller, which actually - really - still isn't.

Everlasting Moments

B

The film Everlasting Moments is a very human drama. It is about a particular Swedish family, the Larssons, and follows their travails over the first two decades of the 20th century. While Europe at that time was observing the spread of Socialism, and later on the spread of the Great War, director Jan Troell, focused his lens in particular at Maria Larsson, whose daughter provided the details that became the vocal narrative for the movie. It is a solid piece of cinema, a gorgeously photographed period piece that possesses enough genuine drama to make it worth the price of admission. One would be forgiven to wonder, though, if the story's limited scope is really worth the telling, especially since we've seen much of these before, both on the big screen and small.

Jan Troell frames and delivers this movie as a tribute to Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen), the mother of the Larsson's 7 children, as she goes through her husband's (Mikael Persbrandt) up-and-down journey with the bottle and later infidelity and abuse. As refuge from the realities of life, she indulged in photography, a past time introduced to her by the kindly photo-printing shop owner Sebastian Pedersen (Jesper Christensen). The movie allows us to follow the blossoming of something akin to a friendship between Maria and Sebastian, while her children grow and marriage falters.

In telling such a localized drama, individual performances are imperative. Maria Heiskanen channels fortitude and stoutness as Mrs Larsson. Jesper Christensen effectively portrays Pedersen as the gentle soul who provides her comfort and emotional protection. Mikael Persbrandt is the only one of the three main actors who isn't a Jan Troell regular, yet he is perfectly cast as the brutish yet sympathisable Sigfrid Larsson.

Anything to be said about Everlasting Moments have been said before about many other, some of them vastly better, movies. Nothing in this movie is hard-hitting or complex, but its strength lies in its nuances and balance. It never veers too far into sappy family-drama territory (despite its premise), nor would Troell allow the story to become too dark (despite implications of such), but rather it remains steady and stout, much like the person it pays tribute to.
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Lady Chatterley (2007)

C-

Pascale Ferran's French cinematic adaptation tries to capture the posture of D.H. Lawrence's daringly sensual classic novel, but fails to grasp its soul. Yes, in place of explicit sex on text, we get explicit sex on film. However, sex, which was once exuberantly taboo, is now mundane; and aside from this, Lady Chatterley seems to have little else to fall back on.

The film revolves around Constance (Marina Hands), the wife of wealthy but wheelchair-bound Clifford Chatterley (Hippolyte Girardot). Sexually frustrated, and further sinking into debilitating depression, she entertains romantic notions with the quiet, "uncouth" gamekeeper of the estate, Parkin (Jean-Louis Coulloc'h). Eventually, they began a passionate affair, through which they both slowly uncovered the nature of the attraction between them.

What started out as a promising, if not intriguing, period piece (mostly attributable to Marina Hands' arresting performance, slowly turned into an episodic collage of not-so-interesting moments, occasionally interrupted by narrative texts on screen or voice-overs to fill chronological gaps. By the two hour mark, whatever charm the movie possessed had disappeared; even Hands' performance outlived its welcome. The movie eventually ended past the two-and-half hour mark, though it was not an "ending" as much as an abrupt roll of the end-credits, though by that time everyone was, more than anything else, thankful.

Lady Chatterley is a talky movie, even by French standards, because there isn't many things going on. It is filled with caricature characters in lackluster events which are all but repetitive. Constance's affair with Parkin shows a little too much skin and too little heat; their relationship is passionless, and the characters did not seem to have much chemistry to begin with. And this, in essence, is Lady Chatterley's most revealing and fundamental flaw. One would think that a movie adapted from such a classic source would at least have substance in place of style - this one did not really have either.
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