Review: "Money Monster"

Just a few thoughts, as our newest talent, Aly Caviness, is handling the main review over at The Film Yap. Make sure to head there to read in its entirety.

"Money Monster" is a well-executed cinematic effort with tightly bookended ambitions. Unlike "The Big Short," it's not trying -- or, if it is, not trying very hard -- to be an all-encompassing indictment of Wall Street and the corruption of modern digitized market trading. It aims for small observations and dramatic tension.

It gives lip service to The System and how bad it is, but then leans on a narrative that makes clear it's a rotten apple or two who are actually mucking things up.

George Clooney plays Lee Gates, the host of the titular television show in which the smart, smarmy personality gives stock tips and ass-kisses the financial masters of the universe, in between embarrassing hip-hop dance moves and weirdo costumes. It's a slight exaggeration of Jim Cramer and his ilk, but only slight.

It's a hostage story in which some dumb mook off the street took Lee's stock advice and lost his entire inheritance from his mother, and now wants revenge, an explanation or an apology.

Directed by Jodie Foster from a screenplay by Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore and Jim Kouf, "Monster" provides a couple of terrific moments that I appreciated.

The first is when Lee, after first having got over the shock of having his show interrupted by a gunman who straps him into a bomb vest, finally gets around to engaging the guy, a truck driver named Kyle (Jack O'Connell). He's a talker, so he figures he'll talk to the young man. That's when he learns how much Kyle lost: $60,000.

Sixty grand? Lee asks, shocked. You're gonna kill me, maybe die yourself, over chump change like that?

Lee is a man who brags about sharing dinner at an expensive restaurant with at least one other person every night since the 1990s. He's got his millions, three ex-wives, thousand-dollar suits, etc. He's lived at the top so long, he can't even conceive of a working schmoe having to slave away at $14/hour, taking a year to save up the money he'll spend on a weekend getaway.

The second moment is when, trying to verify something allegedly said on his show a few weeks ago, Lee is forced to watch tape of himself played back on the screen. All this is happening, I should mention, on live TV, with Julia Roberts as Patty Fenn, the director in the control booth trying to keep things calm.

Lee watches the playback of himself in some ridiculous outfit, doing a dance a man of his years should not be attempting, saying stuff because it makes for good TV and not because it adds up to an ounce of fiscal sense. Clooney, who shines playing flawed men, gives a little dip of the head, his gaze faltering downward, and we bathe in his confrontation with his own meager worth.

He's a clown who revels at playing the clown, until he's forced to breathe dip the smell of the face paint, and is sickened.

Alas, the rest of the movie falls into predictable patterns. The cops come to take out Kyle, a negotiator is brought in, the action eventually leaves the studio, a weird sort of alliance forms between Lee and his captor, etc. Patty is the level-headed island of calm trying to keep all these vying forces in balance. Roberts is solid, but it's the kind of role any number of actresses could do just as well.

There is a good surprise or two. My favorite is when someone close to Kyle is located and brought in to talk him down, something we've seen many times before, and events do not transpire in any way we expected. For a brief moment, the movie pushes us out on a limb. We're delighted by the feeling of an abyss yawning; but then our steps are nudged back to the safe and dull path.

Dominic West plays the CEO of IBIS, the big corporation whose stock tanked despite Lee's reassurances to his viewers; Caitriona Balfe is the PR chief who goes rogue for reasons unexplored; Giancarlo Esposito is the head of the police force, uttering urgent things we can safely ignore; Lenny Venito is the podunk cameraman who keeps on shooting despite the danger to himself; and Christopher Denham is Lee's flunky producer tasked with anything the boss wants, including trying out an erectile claim before it goes on the market.

"Money Monster" plays out in live time, and Foster is adroit at balancing the tension and danger, stirring the pot when needed and backing off the heat when the audience needs to absorb information or take a breath. The movie also has a pleasing streak of dark humor to it, much of it deriving from Lee's feckless charm.

All the stuff about trading algorithms and international hackers being brought in to help is distracting or strains credulity. But this is the sort of movie where you have to just go along with the ride. It's a day trade of a film, serving its purpose but soon left behind.

Video review: "300: Rise of an Empire"

Like its 2007 predecessor, “300: Rise of an Empire” is lusty parade of six-pack abs and copious bloodlettings, set against a historical backdrop that’s been washed through the spin cycle of modern fantasy tropes.

It has all the violence of the last movie, though no equally compelling figure like Gerard Butler’s commanding Leonidas, and certainly none of the verve and wit. If the last movie was dumb-but-glorious, the sequel is the same, minus the glory.

Set soon after the Battle of Thermopylae, “Rise of an Empire” depicts the sea battle between the forces of Persian god/king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and the Greek armies, led by Athenian general Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton). Artemisia (Eva Green) is his primary nemesis, a ferocious military leader with a mysterious and tragic background.

The blood and guts fly prodigiously, and new director Noam Murro copies predecessor Zack Snyder’s penchant for speeding up and slowing down the action so we can gaze at the beautiful ribbons of crimson arcing across the screen. This movie has few of the mythological beasties of the last one, so it’s essentially man-on-man carving of flesh.

There are a lot of silly moments here, but probably the goofiest is when Themistocles and Artemisia hold a parley prior to the battle, which soon devolves into much grabbling of flesh. It’s supposed to be sexy; instead it’s laugh-out-loud awful.

Even if you’re a teenager or still one in heart, “300: Rise of an Empire” quickly grows tiresome, then pathetic.

The video comes with a decent-enough array of extra features, including a making-of documentary titled “The 300 Effect.” There are also featurettes on “Real Leaders & Legends,” “Women Warriors,” “Savage Warships” and “Becoming a Warrior.”

Extras are the same for Blu-ray and DVD versions.

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "300: Rise of an Empire"

Audiences were torn asunder over "300," the 2007 over-the-top bloodletting set against the (largely fictionalized) backdrop of the Battle of Thermopylae -- including me. The sober critic found it a transcendently silly movie, but my inner 15-year-old thought it cool beyond reasoning.

The entirely unnecessary sequel picks things up where they left off ... well, to be more accurate, it picks up 10 year prior to Spartan King Leonidas' brave, doomed stand with 300 men against the entire Persian army, then it flips to slightly before, and then slightly after, that battle. Part of the new film's fatal downfall is we're never quite sure how what we're seeing relates to the greater conflict.

Set largely at sea, "300: Rise of an Empire" features much of the stylized action of its predecessor, with men cutting each other apart in slow-mo, beautiful ribbons of crimson blood arcing toward the camera.
(For extra exposure to the spurting and squirting, see it in 3-D. Or don't.)

But it lacks any of the visceral punch of the original, and certainly has no figure to match with Gerard Butler's commanding Leonidas. The dastardly 8-foot-tall god/king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is back, briefly, but following a pithy origin story he exists mostly in the backdrop while his pet general, Artemisia (Eva Green), takes the fight to the Greeks with her armada of 1,000 ships.

Sullivan Stapleton is our stalwart stand-in as Themistocles, an Athenian general who (according to the prologue) slew Xerxes' father in an old battle, and now must unite the fractious city-states of Greece into a free nation and face down the invading horde.

Of course, it soon becomes personal between the opposing leaders, with the slithery Artemisia supplied a frightening backstory about an epic wrong committed against her by Greek soldiers. Themistocles is more mysterious, a charismatic but solitary leader -- and apparently a chaste one, too, preparing monk-like his entire life for this great battle.

In keeping with the franchise's signature mix of goofiness and self-seriousness, the pair enjoy a bedding before their inevitable showdown that's somehow even more violent than when they're playing with swords.

Previous director Zack Snyder, who seemed harmonically in tune with Frank Miller's lusty graphic novel, returns here as producer and co-screenwriter (with Kurt Johnstad). New director Noam Murro, whose only other feature film credit is the comedy "Smart People," lacks Snyder's primeval feel for the material, so that even the many beheadings and eviscerations are curiously flat and emotionless. It's like watching a butcher cleave lifeless flesh.

The first "300" also had a more fantastical element, with a pantheon of supernatural creatures filling out Xerxes' horde. Here, it's pretty much workaday guys trading spears and arrows from the decks of their ships, then switching to swords after they ram and grapple. Though once again, somehow every single Greek soldier boasts washboard abs. (The ancients were into cutting carbs and stomach crunches, don'cha know.)

"300: Rise of an Empire" kept the silliness of the original film but lost all its glorious verve. The combatants carve each other up prodigiously, but the mayhem carries no sting. It's got all the blood, but none of the guts.