Film: Wanted
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Screenwriters: Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Chris Morgan
Primary Cast: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie
Tag Line: Choose your destiny.

Review Summary: If you leave your brain in the glove box, then you might just enjoy this one!

Just to make sure we all start out on the same page, Wanted is absolutely, positively, beyond any shadow of a doubt, not a good movie. The characters are cardboard cutouts, the story both socially and morally reprehensible, and the screenplay itself so full of holes that it was likely used as the target during McAvoy’s firearm training sessions (before he had a chance to read it). All that said, Timur Bekmambetov directs the action scenes with enthusiasm (to say the least), and they are what bring any kind of redeeming cinematic value to the film and make this an enjoyable summer “check-your-brain-at-the-door” kind of flick.

Bekmambetov, a Russian filmmaker whom I was previously unfamiliar with, shows great promise as far as the Hollywood action genre goes. He seems to know exactly what the formulaic studio execs want: big names, big boobs, and big explosions. And while his delivery of the big boobs quotient is more Wanting than Wanted, the other two items he delivers in spades. More importantly, I think, is that his work on Wanted shows quite clearly where his primary influences lie. In particular, while the opening sequences go echo the Wachowski brothers’ Matrix saga, the action scenes in general reflect a more direct influence of the master of the modern action film, John Woo. Bekmambetov took a tremendously weak script and salvaged it the best way he knew how. He gave the summer blockbuster audience exactly what they expected… blood, bullets, and just enough story to keep the audience in their seats for the full 110 minutes.

But Bekmambetov was not the only one hampered by the script. Considering how many times the writing called for the actors to go against their own characters, it’s remarkable that the stereotypical characters were somehow classic enough that they each managed to pull off a respectable performance. Perhaps the single largest character travesty belonged to Morgan Freeman, who went from a member of the intelligentsia to a common gangbanger in a single sentence. Much of this could potentially be laid at the feet of Bekmambetov’s, as there was little evidence that he is what is called “an actor’s director,” but given how poor the script truly is, that would be tremendously unfair. Suffice it to say that while Wanted isn’t the vehicle that any of these actors likely hoped for, neither need they be embarrassed by the performances they turned in.

And thus I come to the script itself. There will undoubtedly be some spoilers below, so let me sum up my impressions for those of you who don’t want to read them. Wanted is perhaps the most ineffective screenplay of the summer. The script itself is worse than that of The Happening, and you all know how I felt about that film. The only thing that saves it from utter mockery is Bekmambetov’s direction of the action sequences.

Now, on to the spoilage so I can really pick apart where the major issues are.

First and foremost, the script is built upon a rock-solid and proven three act structure:

Act 1: Unlikely hero is discovered and recruited.
Act 2: Unlikely hero is trained to be a badass.
Act 3: Unlikely hero opens up a can of whoop-ass on assorted badguys.

That should sound pretty familiar. From Star Wars to The Matrix we saw, and for the most part loved, action movies that relied on this particular framework. Where Wanted fails, and fails mightily, is in the details of this structure. Lucas saw the problems in the details and expanded his saga to three films. As far as I know, the Wachowski brothers started at three films. By trying to cram that kind of structure into 110 minutes, Brandt, Haas and Morgan created a convoluted nightmare for themselves where, in the end, nothing made even the least bit of sense. They asked the audience to take such leaps of faith with their storyline that it was never a matter of “willing suspension of disbelief,” but rather “required suspension of disbelief.” So much was left undeveloped that there was simply nothing solid for the audience to hang on to.

Let’s start with, as I call it, the Loom of Doom. In and of itself, this is a really interesting idea. It has elements of the supernatural and mysticism and even some loose religious symbolism. It harkens to the fantasy stories of Robert Jordan, Ursula K. Le Guin, and so many others. But it goes nowhere! It is given only the most cursory of explanations and the viewer is left thinking… huh? A Binary Loom of Doom that spits out the names of people who need to die? Huh?! How?! Why?! This is a major element of the story, and no explanation is given about… well… anything! If it is indeed a 2000 year old device, how did it get to Chicago? And were those computer monitors it was hooked up to? Why? And how the hell did people read binary 2000 years ago. Nothing about the Loom of Doom makes any sense at all.

Next up would be characters assassinating themselves. The best example is Sloan when all of a sudden he abandons the speech patterns of a romantic academician (”Within the fabric of this world, every life hangs by a thread. We are that thread - a fraternity of assassins with the weapons of fate”) and adopts the patter of a stereotypical gang-banger (”kill this mutha-fucka right here!”). It is a break in character so out of place that it elicits laughter from the audience in a scene where the protagonist’s life hangs in the balance. It’s a scene that should be filled with tension, but the dialogue is completely inappropriate for the characters.

The third issue is the love interest. There isn’t one. Never mind the fact that Angelna Jolie is in the film (why would you not put a love interest in your story?). Neo had Trinity. Luke, and then Han, had Leia. Why wouldn’t you have at the very least the potential of a Wesley-Fox hookup? There were moments when it seemed like it was supposed to be there but got lost in the editing. Regardless though, without that love interest, the overall effect of Fox’s death at the end of the film is almost completely benign. It has no effect on Wesley’s decision making process, and no effect on Wesley emotionally at all; therefore it has no effect on the audience.

Lastly, any time a single question can disrupt your entire plotline, there is a pretty substantial problem. For example…

Question: Why does Wesley give a rat’s ass about a father who walked out on him when he was seven days old?

That’s the big one. The entire scripts is built around that single question, and yet never are we given any kind of indication that Wesley even misses his father, or believes things would have turned out differently had his father been around. We never learn anything substantial about his parentage at all, in fact, not even from pictures in his cubicle or apartment. Even his mother is left a mystery. His parents have little to no presence in his daily life, yet for some reason he is hell-bent on avenging the murder of a man that a complete and utter stranger says is his father. The premise of the film is shaky from the outset, and that brings into doubt each and every element that addresses the premise even indirectly.

And one last question: When did Wesley have time to attach a bajillion tiny bombs to a bajillion tiny rats?

Sounds funny, but really, when did he have the time? That’s not an overnight project he undertook. It was so involved, in fact, that his father… you know, the one who (walked out on him) came up with the plan, never bothered to implement it in order to save his son (and, as it turns out, his own neck). It doesn’t even matter that it is the most ridiculous scene in recent memory. It is just so “out there” that the only possible reaction to it is one of laughter. This “plan” was something that should have been in a Mel Brooks film, not an action film that begged to be taken seriously.

Wanted is a film of omission. It wants to more than it is, and overall the film suffers more from what isn’t there than what is there. What is there is solid, summer entertainment. It’s a no-holds-barred action thrill ride that lasts a bit too long for it’s own good, but doesn’t leave an overtly bad taste in your mouth when you leave the theatre. What isn’t there is what would have made this a great film. Character development, plot details, and a little more common sense would have made Wanted a film to be remembered longer than a few days. As it is, when it comes on TNT in a year, I’ll likely end up tuning in because I won’t remember ever having seen it in the theatre.

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Film: The Happening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Screenwriter: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo
Tag Line: We’ve sensed it. We’ve seen the signs. Now… It’s happening.
Review Summary: Move over, Uwe Boll… there’s a new sheriff in town.

The biggest mystery behind The Happening isn’t actually what’s happening… it’s why exactly I stayed in the theatre for the full 91 minutes. On the broadest of scales, the premise is fairly strong: An unknown substance is infecting the population of the Northeastern US and making them commit suicide. There’s a lot of potential there, I think. But when you boil it down to what Shyamalan actually put on the screen, it falls past weak and right down to laughable. And laugh I did, which I am guessing was not the reaction Shyamalan was hoping for.

To be fair, though, it’s quite a difficult conflict he is broaching. It’s beyond just Man versus Nature, as the nature of Nature has changed (ok… that was fairly fun to say). The rules don’t apply anymore, and no one knows what the new rules are all about. As such, this is (or should be), at it’s core, an adventure movie. The unknown needs to be discovered. Where the thriller part comes in is that if the unknown isn’t discovered, it will kill everyone. What makes this setup fail so spectacularly is that the unknown stays unknown and, because of this, never really achieves the status of “villain” the way it desperately needs to. Things are left in doubt for far too long for any kind of twist ending to be effective. If no one knows what’s going on, characters and audience included, the ending isn’t a twist,  it’s a revelation.

More importantly, the story of the Happening simply uninspired filmmaking. The opening is easily the strongest scene in the film, but then it quickly degenerates into little better than a late-night drive-in slasher flick that sucks the life out of actor and audience alike. Mark Wahlberg plays Eliot, a high school science teacher who doesn’t know why his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) has become increasingly distant. When a deadly neurotoxin is somehow released throughout the NE United States, they run off and try to escape the strange events surrounding those who become infected.

The major plotline is, of course, the neurotoxin that is infecting everyone and where it comes from, what’s causing it, and why it makes people kill themselves in the most gruesome way possible. From the man who runs over his own head with a lawn-mower to the fellow who feeds himself piece by piece to a lion, the suicides show exactly how little imagination Shyamalan actually has. The were necessary, though, as without them there would have been nothing to distract the audience from the gaping holes in the storyline.

The secondary story is that of the relationship between Elliot and Alma and is horribly underdeveloped. Once the source of tension is revealed, the entire sub-plot becomes laughable in its utter foolishness. Not only is it wholly unbelievable that these two people actually like each other let alone love each other, it’s difficult to fathom that the frivolous nature of their “issues” results in the kind of emotional trauma Alma is suffering. The result is that neither Elliot nor Alma are particularly likeable characters, which, considering they are running for their lives, kind of sinks the film before it even has a chance to float.

It also doesn’t help matters any that Wahlberg gives what could be the worst performance of his career. It must be noted, however, that it is not entirely his fault, as he is horribly miscast as a sensitive, intelligent teacher. When he sticks to his wheelhouse roles of bad boy or tough guy types, a la Four Brothers, he is in his element and can pull off a solid and entertaining performance. In this case, however, he just doesn’t have the chops to venture so far out of his comfort zone. This is painfully obvious in his very first scene in the movie where he is teaching his high school science class, and sets the tone for each and ever scene thereafter. Although it must be said that his ludicrous attept to carry on a conversation with a plastic ficus gave me a much needed laugh.

As for Deschanel, she is largely dead from the neck up for the majority of the film, and her response to every emotional crises is to stare blankly off into the distance. A mannequin would have been a wiser casting choice, as then at least Elliot would have been forced to interact with Alma in a meaningful manner.

On the whole, The Happening is easily the worst film I have seen in the last ten years. Take a tip from Hitchcock, Shy… a thriller takes me up the stairs and shows me the door. Schlock-horror throws me head first through the door into an empty room. The empty room is a disappointment and now my head hurts.

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(originally posted 20 September 2004)

Hero (aka Ying xiong)
Cast: Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Ziyi Zhang, Daoming Chen, Donnie Yen

Director: Yimou Zhang

Writers: Feng Li, Bin Wang, Yimou Zhang

Other than a couple of raving reviews, I hadn’t heard much of Hero when I went to go see it. After watching it, however, I dug around and read about a dozen or so more reviews, all of which were similar to the first 2. The reviewers raved and raved, gave it the highest possible score, and generally equated this movie to the coming of the messiah. Me, I just don’t get what all the fuss is about.

Hero is the story of Nameless (Jet Li) and his quest to assassinate the most powerful warlord (Daoming Chen) in pre-unified China. Told in flashbacks, the storyline itself was simple enough, made complex by the way in which it was told. An interesting approach, but in the end it fell far short of it’s mark. My general rule of thumb… if your story spends more time talking about the past than it does moving in the present, you are telling the wrong story. It’s a rare film that can successfully get away from this rule, and this film isn’t among the gems that succeed.

While I thought that both the cinemagraphic and digital imagery was gorgeous, I felt like I was being bludgeoned with it. Other than create interesting visuals in a mode not unlike still photography, the vast majority of images did nothing to further or enhance the story and, for me, came off as a director (Yimou Zhang) stroking his own artistic ego. In the end, I felt as if I had been beaten with the imagery stick about the head and shoulders for 2 hours… an altogether unpleasant experience.

The actors had a rough go of it in Hero. Due to the structure of the film, there was very little hope for any of them (aside from Jet Li) to really experience any kind of “journey” or growth. While their performances were all rock solid, I felt that they all came off rather flat and 2 dimensional, ultimately hampered by Zhang’s direction and story structure. Jet Li took a huge risk in accepting this role, as it is nothing like what he has done in the past. Li fans expecting his typical martial arts style film will be sorely disappointed in Hero. I do think, however, that it will open the door for Li to more complex character films in the future, as he does an admirable job as the only character to really develop over the course of the story.

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