Most people and critics regarded “Dark Phoenix” as a bad stumble to end the X-Men franchise -- at least for the time being, as it may be rebooted under anew banner. While the film has its failings, I think it stands up to most others in the superhero game.
I remember years ago interviewing Famke Janssen, who played Jean Grey in the original films, and hearing her disappointment that her group didn’t get around to depicting the Dark Phoenix Saga. Comic book fans speak reverentially about the DPS as one of the greatest storylines told, in which pure-hearted telepath/telekinetic Jean turns into one of the most malevolent forces of evil ever seen.
Sophie Turner takes over the role, and while I can’t help thinking Janssen would’ve been better, I think Turner acquits herself just fine. The important thing is that the relatively meek Jean discovers a taste for power she never knew she had.
It seems that her mentor, Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), has hidden some aspects of her past from her, which sets off a chain of events that will see her square off with her fellow X-Men, including Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and even nemesis/occasional ally Magneto (Michael Fassbender).
This is a lean, mean superhero story without much preamble or contemplative downtime. With so many overwrought, overlong flicks these days -- yeah, I’m lookin’ at YOU, “IT: Chapter Two” -- it’s nice to experience one that prefers the straight-ahead approach.
Bonus features are good, anchored by a feature-length video commentary by wrier/director Simon Kinberg and producer Hutch Parker. There is also an expansive five-part making-of documentary, “Rise of the Phoenix: The Making of Dark Phoenix,” five deleted scenes and the following featurettes:
I still think the first iteration of the X-Men would’ve done a great job with the Dark Phoenix Saga, one of the most storied arcs in comic book history. That cast of the superhero outcast mutants -- Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart -- felt the most emotionally true of any super-franchise.
You could feel their sense of alienation and conflict about whether they should serve the humans who hated their kind, or dominate them.
But I’m pleased to say the “new” X-Men still pull it off with plenty of emotional and action oomph. “Dark Phoenix” will reportedly be the final film in the series produced by 20th Century Fox, though my guess is eventually it’ll be merged with the Marvel Comics Universe (MCU) the way Spider-Man was, and we’ll see more X-films with yet another cast.
The Dark Phoenix story is well-known to even casual comic book fans. Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), a telepath/telekinetic and protégé to Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), is irradiated with alien energy during a rescue mission. She seemingly dies but is resurrected with fantastically heightened powers, dubbed Phoenix like the mythical bird that rises from its ashes.
But great power brings great temptation, and Phoenix begins to use her abilities for less-than-benevolent purposes. Eventually her own team of X-Men turns on her, seeing her as a threat to their hard-fought peace with humans.
This film time-jumps to 1992, seven years after “X-Men: Apocalypse.” The X-Men have become accepted by mainstream society and hailed as heroes. Professor X has gotten bit drunk on his status, both figuratively and literally, swilling from omnipresent tumblers and enjoying a direct phone line to the President.
“The way the women keep saving the men around here, you might consider changing the name to X-Women,” one veteran needles him.
After the accident, Jean goes searching for clues to her long-buried past, and the terrible accident that killed her parents and brought her into Professor X’s charge at his school for mutant children. She gets angry when she learns the truth, things escalate, and collateral damage soon becomes an existential threat that brings multiple power centers to bear.
Writer/director Simon Kinberg, a veteran producer and screenwriter directing his first feature (after Bryan Singer exited the franchise in a cloud of controversy), has a good eye for action scenes, though some of the talkie scenes are rather clanky.
(He also knows how to shoot Turner to beneficial effect in a way her myriad “Game of Thrones” directors never seemed to grasp, aka chin down.)
Michael Fassbender turns up again as Magneto, conflicted former villain now maintaining an uneasy peace with humans. Other familiar faces are Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, who shoots energy beams from his eyes and is Jean’s beau; Alexandra Shipp as weather-controlling Storm; and Evan Peters as max-speed Quicksilver.
And then, of course there’s the “blue trio”: Jennifer Lawrence as shape-shifting Mystique; Kodi Smit-McPhee as teleportation devil Nightcrawler; and Nicholas Hoult as the Jekyll/Hyde scientist/monster, Beast. It’s weird that it never struck me before they all share the exact same shade of midnight sapphire.
Jessica Chastain is the chief villain as Vuk, the icy blonde leader of a mysterious alien race known as the D’Bari that has a nefarious interest in Phoenix and her dark power.
There’s not a lot of subtext, humor or wasted energy in “Dark Phoenix,” just a straight-ahead thrill-seeker about a woman everyone had dismissed as timid who finds she enjoys the taste of power too much. I admit that if I had that kind of cosmic control in my hands, I’d be inclined to command some more X-Men movies.
I was finally able to catch up with "Mother!", Darren Aronofsky's ambitious new meditation on... something that has sharply divided critics and largely estranged audiences. Just a few thoughts.
All this is VERY spoiler-y. So desist if you desire to experience the film's surprises on your own.
First off, unlike many others I don't think giving a complete analysis of the movie necessarily gives everything away. It has not so much plot twists as a labyrinthine pit of meaning that grows more intense and more amorphous the deeper you go. Once you know it's a descent, it's just a matter of pondering where you're going to end up and what meanings you're going to take away from the journey.
And I think they are multitudinous. People have come forth with all sorts of interpretation of what the film "means," and I believe they're all right. Star Jennifer Lawrence herself has posited that her character is Mother Earth and her husband, called simply Him and played by Javier Bardem, is God. But it's clear this is Lawrence's opinion, not Aronofsky's.
I don't think the writer/director actually intended any single vision of "Mother!". It is literally all things to all people... and nothing to some, who will find it overly mysterious and arty. It's less a portrait or a parable than an impression, and we put as much of ourselves into the vision as the artist did.
Certainly there are plenty of religious themes. The interlopers barging in their secluded mansion, played by Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer, never named but credited as Man and Woman, are representations of Adam and Eve. Him is tickled with their presence, especially Adam, while Mother is irked at any intrusion. Aren't I enough for you? she asks Him repeatedly. He responds with protestations of love, but there's always a "but."
Man and Woman's sons, who show up and immediately get into a fight that results in one's death, are obviously Cain and Abel in this telling. The crowds of people who show up after are the rest of mankind -- messy, violent, worshipful of Him's poetry. The outcome of Mother's pregnancy follows pretty obvious Christ parables.
But I think there are also a lot of themes about parenthood, and the chasm between male and female gender roles. These take place on a simple humanistic level, where the characters cease on some level being allegorical and are simply who they appear to be.
I also believe the film has a lot to say about the role of the artist in society, and their relationship to their fans/followers. These types of movies can quickly become tiresome, particularly in the prism of Hollywood -- 'Oh please, tell me more about your struggles with fame, adoration and all those millions of burdensome dollars.'
But Aronofsky lays out his tale without a lot of obvious egotism, showing how the creative process starts as a singular act and the work ends up becoming something that is shared and dissected and stolen. The artist gives and gives, and takes and takes. Like Charlie Kaufman's "Adaptation," "Mother!" is a Gordian knot that inextricably ties up the story being told and the role of the storyteller.
In a lot of ways, the movie is really about itself.
“Passengers” is a lot cleverer and more contemplative than I took it for.
The trailers make it look like a dopey romance-in-space story starring the ridiculously cute couple of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. They’re two passengers on a massive colonization ship from Earth who get woken up from hyper-sleep 90 years too early, and have to face the prospect of their own mortality while falling head-over-heels in love -- quite literally, in zero gravity suits.
Talk about the ultimate Meet Cute: “They found love along the way to a galaxy far, far away.”
Instead, director Morten Tyldum (“The Imitation Game”) and screenwriter Jon Spaights (“Doctor Strange”) give us something more ambitious and much darker. The syrupy love story is still there, but it’s leavened with moral quandaries and existential threats. The last act is pretty typical we-must-save-the-world action sequences, but what comes before sets it up convincingly.
Their ship is headed to a lush green planet across the cosmos. The Homestead II looks a lot like the ship in “Wall•E” -- a luxury ocean liner in space, with robots to cater to their every need. Except the 5,000 passengers and 258 crew are only supposed to wake up when they’re four months out from their destination.
Something goes wrong with the hyper-sleep pods, and as it happens, the two most attractive people onboard wake up. Aurora Lane is a journalist who found her life on Earth constraining and hungered for adventure. Her idea was to travel to the colony, spend a year living there and write a book about it, then travel back again in hyper-sleep, so she’d end up 250 years into the future.
Jim Preston is a much more down-to-earth guy. A mechanic living on a planet where it’s cheaper to buy new things than fix old ones -- sound familiar? -- he yearns for a place where his skillset is valuable. He dreams of building his own house on a distant planetside.
Their only other real companion is Arthur, a legless bartender android played by Michael Sheen. All the other robots are mechanized automatons, but Arthur’s been programmed to listen and react to psychological issues. He’s even smart enough to recognize his limitations.
“These are not robot questions,” he cautions at one point.
After an appropriate amount of sorta-courtship, Jim and Aurora eventually abandon hopes of saving themselves and dive deep into their “accidental happiness.”
Now, something happens in this movie that I can’t really tell you about. I kind of want to, because it’s critical to our discussion of why “Passengers” is a superior sci-fi film. Although the plot development has apparently been alluded to and/or outright discussed in articles about the movie, I can’t assume you’ve read them. The trailers certainly don’t spell it out. So I’m bound by my oath as a respectable critic not to say anymore.
…
OK, stuff that. I’ll talk about it, but not before uncorking one standard-issue Spoiler Warning®. Please, skip down so as not to ruin your experience.
Ready? Alright, the deal is that Jim’s hyper-sleep pod really does go kerflooey, but after spending a good chunk of time alone trying all sorts things to save himself, including getting back to sleep, he deliberately wakes up Aurora on his own -- after studying her profile and becoming smitten. Also, she looks like Jennifer Lawrence.
Now, it may sound creepy that a guy would do this, effectively condemning another person to death long before they reach their destination, just so he won’t be alone. And it may sound even creepier that he chooses the hottest girl on the ship to satisfy his primordial male urges.
The reason this sounds creepy is because it’s incredibly creepy and gross. Hiding-cameras-in-the-toilet creepy and gross. But because Pratt projects such an innate decency, and because the filmmakers take pains to explore the depth of his despair, we at least understand his choice without condoning it.
(Personally, I’d have woken up the person whose profile said they were a scientist who knows a lot about hyper-sleep pods, but that’s me.)
…
End Spoiler Warning®. I’d have used bigger ones but hey, these things aren’t cheap!
For those just rejoining us, suffice it to say that “Passengers” is much more than it seems on the surface. It’s a smart and sexy movie that also has some deep thoughts beyond the pretty façade. It’s less Star Wars and more Philip K. Dick.
“X-Men: Apocalypse” continues the saga of the mutant super-heroes in their brave new retconned world, in which the course of history has been altered and new, younger actors have taken over (nearly) all of the roles.
(Comic book heroes may be able to bench-press buildings or regrow their own flesh. But their Hollywood counterparts are still batting .000 in the long war against their arch-nemesis, Father Time.)
It plays out a lot like “Captain America: Civil War” – a messy but vigorous smackdown between super-powered beings. The mayhem definitely overpowers the characterization here, as we jump from one action set piece to another, with little pauses for talkie scenes that tend to drag.
The story here is that an ancient Egyptian evil has been unleashed in the form of Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), who has the ability to absorb the powers of other mutants. He quickly forms himself his own team of henchmen, including Storm, Angel and others. Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is also recruited after a personal tragedy while trying to live a normal life.
The good guys are less organized, led by Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), who’s taken on the mantle of the outlaw voice of reason in the mutant community. Sophie Turner takes over the role of Jean Grey, while Tye Sheridan and Nicholas Hoult are Cyclops and Beast, respectively.
The movie is overlong at nearly 2½ hours, though it’s more a matter of emphasizing stuff that didn’t deserve so much screen time to the detriment of things that did. Still, I’d call it the best of the lot of a weak field of 2016 superhero movies.
Bonus features are quite robust. Director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg do a feature-length audio commentary track. Singer also introduces a handful of deleted and extended scenes. It also comes with a gag reel, an hour-long making-of documentary, concept art and photo gallery plus a wrap party video.
So here is the other other big Marvel Comics film franchise, though don’t expect any crossover between mutants and Avengers anytime soon.
“X-Men: Apocalypse” is a big, rousing, sprawling and often messy epic, the sixth in the series and the fourth directed by Bryan Singer. (Not including the “Wolverine” spinoffs.) Still, it hits its themes of alienation and xenophobia solidly, brings in an effective new villain to threaten humanity and gives us some entertaining super-vs.-super scraps.
I liked it about as much as I did “Captain America: Civil War,” which plumbed similar subject matter. What’s different here is that with the previous film, “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” the entire franchise has been retconned, i.e. reimagined with an entirely different flow of history and events.
Essentially, they hit the “Restart” button on the X-Men. This is their first adventure in a new universe.
Part of this was simple logistics: the actors playing Storm, Jean Grey, Beast, Cyclops, etc. were getting a mite long in the tooth to play characters who are supposed to be stuck in that comic book realm of perpetual late 20s to early 30s. (Let’s face it, watching Kelsey Grammer trying to hump around in a blue suit was getting downright embarrassing.)
So now the cast is led by Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult as Mystique, Professor Xavier and Beast, respectively. We also introduce a bunch of new actors to take over other roles: Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, who has uncontrollable killer beams projecting from his eyes; Kodi Smit-McPhee as transporting shadowman Nightcrawler; and Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, a telekinetic/telepath with untapped power.
The story is set in 1983, 10 years after the last movie. Humanity has begrudgingly come to accept the existence of super-powered folk. Though, as one character notes, “Just because there’s not a war doesn’t mean there’s peace.” Mystique, previously a villain, is actually held up as a role model by many young mutants, such as Storm (Alexandra Shipp), here a fledgling thief in Cairo.
Meanwhile, Magneto (Michael Fassbender) has moved on from his vengeful ways, working as a humble steelworker in Poland, and even has a wife and young daughter. But, as always with him, dark urges beckon.
Events are brought to a head with the resurrection of Apocalypse, though he does not call himself that, an ancient being who regards himself as the father of mutants. Over the centuries he has transferred his consciousness into new mutant bodies, acquiring their abilities. Played by Oscar Isaac in impressive purple/black armor and makeup, he’s determined to cleanse the world of weakness and rule those he deems strong enough to live.
The story (screenplay by Simon Kinberg) is all go-go-go. We jump from one threat to the next, one confrontation to another. Along the way there will be many deaths and wholesale destruction, including Xavier’s entire School for Gifted Youngsters.
Quicksilver, who made such an impression in a brief spot in the last movie, gets a bigger role here, again played by Evan Peters. He can move so quickly that to him it seems the rest of the world is moving in slow motion – even bullets and explosions. If you thought his hyperactive exploits were impressive last time, wait till you see how he lends a hand now.
“X-Men: Apocalypse” is a big, big movie -- 2½ hours long, dozens of characters. I haven’t even mentioned who makes up the Four Horsemen. If you’re like me, you may lose track of the names and faces. Plus there are brief cameos, including a certain bestial fellow with a harsh point to make. From a pure entertainment perspective, it gets the job done.
Prepare to be shocked: I actually read all of the “Hunger Games” novels by Suzanne Collins, most of them prior to their movie version coming out.
Prepare to be even more shocked -- shockeder? -- I actually enjoyed them.
So when I pile on these films, it’s not out of dismissive distaste for young adult fiction in general or this series in particular. It’s out of… well, not love exactly. But at least like, which is genuine if not overly exuberant.
The biggest problem with “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 2” is the “Part 2.”
This series, like other science fiction and fantasy genres (Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Twilight) takes the artistically craven idea of splitting up the last book into two different movies. It’s a transparent -- and successful -- attempt to wrangle twice the ticket sales from the same amount of story. Having come along already for two, three or more movies, fans are unlikely to bail. So it’s “print your own money” time.
This is the sort of decision made by accountants rather than storytellers.
While decently engaging, there simply isn’t enough narrative in Collins’ “Mockingjay” to justify nearly five hours’ worth of movie. The result is an overlong bore with surprisingly few action scenes or emotional thrills.
As the story opens, heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is leading a small team of rebels into the heart of the Capitol District to overthrow the nefarious President Snow (Donald Sutherland), who kept the outlying districts in line by making their youngsters fight in gladiator-style games lapped up by the jaded television viewing masses.
The city has been laden with high-tech traps -- mutants, fireballs, snares, etc. -- so they’re essentially traversing through another iteration of the Hunger Games.
Complicating things is the presence of Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), a fellow contestant from Katniss’ home district who was kidnapped and brainwashed by Snow. They faked a romance, and even a pregnancy, to earn the adulation of fans and become the first-ever couple to jointly win the Games. But now Peeta lives in a state of induced paranoia, and thinks Katniss is the cause of all his pain.
It’s hard to lead an assassination effort when a member of the team is trying to kill you, too.
Fold in the shifting schemes of the insurgent leader (Julianne Moore) and the mysterious machinations of the chief Gamemaker (the late and sorely missed Philip Seymour Hoffman), and you’ve got a confusing mishmash of loyalties and threats.
While “Mockingjay” the book built up to a serviceable crescendo in both plot and character development, the second half of the movie adaptation is surprisingly dull. Not enough action happens to keep us engaged, and the talkie scenes in between feel like labored filler.
Big budget, multi-part film franchises should continually raise the stakes and suck us ever further into the story. “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 2” limps to a drawn-out ending.
Whatever you want to say about the quality of these films, they’ve consistently been released on video with top-drawer bonus features. This time is no exception.
There is a full commentary track with director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson; an eight-part, feature-length documentary touching on virtually every aspect of the production, from special effects to casting; a photographic look at the behind-the-scenes journey; costume sketches; an exhibition from past fictional Panem Games, and more.
You can also buy “The Hunger Games Complete 4-Film Collection,” which includes 14 hours of bonus content from all the movies, including 139 featurettes and dozens of deleted scenes, many of them never seen before.
The "Hunger Games" saga ends not with a bang but a yawn. I haven't been a fan of this overstuffed film franchise based on the popular YA novels, but the final entry is easily the most tedious and least entertaining of the bunch.
Like other recent sci-fi/fantasy series, it takes the now-familiar and thoroughly discredited route of dividing the last novel into two movies. It's a transparent attempt to sell twice as many tickets for the same amount of story. With the Harry Potter books and the Hobbit, there was at least enough narrative to give the final movie momentum.
Suzanne Collins' engaging but thinly plotted book simply doesn't.
If you'll remember where we left off, the rebellious uprising against the Capitol District was starting to stick it to the villainous President Snow (Donald Sutherland, in full twinkly smirk mode) with the help of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) acting as the Mockingjay, the face of the insurgents.
But really, she has been more or less in thrall to the District 13 chief, Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), head creator of the nefarious Hunger Games, in which children killed each other for sport. Meanwhile, former ersatz lover Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) -- a relationship concocted for the benefit of the Games audience -- has been brainwashed by Snow into a maniacal urge to kill Katniss. And Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Katniss' stoic and grim actual love interest, labors hard at becoming grimmer and even more stoic.
Have I got all those names and faces straight? Good. A few other formerly important figures are in the mix, such as mentor Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and Katniss' kid sister, but they only show up to service the plot and then leave.
(Harrelson seems to have been given most of the expositive lines left over from Hoffman, who died during production.)
Basically, it's end times for Snow and the other leaders of Panem. Katniss and an ever-shrinking team of soldiers is infiltrating the Capitol on a quest (unauthorized) to take him out and end the war. But the outlying portion of the city has been evacuated and filled with pod snares, mutant mutts and other nasty challenges, essentially making it another giant booby-trapped iteration of the Hunger Games.
Peeta is unwisely inserted into the group as a PR move, and is distrusted by all, particularly Katniss. But his kind nature slowly reasserts itself over the mental "hijacking" he underwent, and she begins to remember the altruistic boy who has sacrificed so much for her.
There are surprisingly few action scenes. It's mostly running and hiding as the group makes its way toward Snow, are picked off by pods, share a few standoffs, etc. Only an attack in the sewers by mutated human "mutts" contains anything like a genuine thrill.
You wouldn't think that what is essentially one long chase would add up to a 2¼-hour movie... and it doesn't. "Mockingjay Part 2" is filled with pregnant pauses and dead spots. Despite some talented actors, the material is too goofy to ever take seriously. Snow dismisses Katniss as an easily manipulated puppet who's only good at shooting a bow, and for once the bad guy has it right.
So once again, a big fantasy/science fiction book-to-film franchise is coming to a close, and has decided to split up the last novel into two movies. We’ve seen it a bunch of times now, from “Twilight” to “Harry Potter,” and invariably the penultimate movie winds up being rather a bore, stuffed with exposition that will only pay off in the final flick.
“The Hunter Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” – now there’s a mouthful – is no exception.
Mercifully shorter than its predecessors, “Mockingjay” nonetheless has a much lower thrills-to-doldrums ratio, with really only one major action sequence to carry the momentum. The rest of the time, it’s Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) adjusting to her new life in the underground fortress of the militaristic District 13, epicenter of the rebellion against the evil Capitol and President Snow.
As the story opens, Katniss has been rescued from the gladiator-style Hunger Games, in which comely teenagers battle to the death as entertainment and as a way to subjugate the Districts. But her partner and ersatz lover Peta (Josh Hutcherson) remains in the hands of Snow. This section of the story covers the rising battle of propaganda between the two sides, with Katniss enlisted as the symbol of the revolt.
She’s not fully accepted by the District 13 folks, particularly the cunning president, Alma Coin (Julianne Moore). Luckily there are a few familiar faces, including Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to offer counsel and prodding.
What’s made Katniss a compelling character in the other movies is that she’s a doer who takes a stand and then acts upon it – sometimes impulsively and disastrously, but always with genuine resolve. Here, she’s relegated to reacting and talking, and it makes for one dull parade.
Whatever I might think of the movie, it’s being released on video with a handsome set of bonus features.
These include a feature-length commentary track; nine deleted scenes; a tribute to Hoffman; music video and featurette; and “The Mockingjay Lives: The Making of Mockingjay – Part 1,” an eight-part feature-length documentary on the making of the film. All told, extras run to five hours of material.
I haven't been a big fan of "The Hunger Games" series in general, and now it's fallen into the trap of so many fantasy/supernatural franchises based on books -- splitting up a novel into two movies. It's been done by Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Twilight and I'm sure the Divergent folks are gearing up to follow suit.
Nearly always, this is done for business rather than artistic reasons -- why sell one ticket to the series' slavering YA fans when you can sell two?
What usually ends up happening is that the penultimate movie is a bunch of boring exposition and build-up, and you have to wait for the follow-up for the real catharsis.
It should be noted that "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 1" is 20-25 minutes shorter than the previous two films, and the lack of a substantive narrative is glaring. It essentially plays out as Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), having escaped the tortures of the gladiator-like televised games organized by the oppressive nation of Panem, spending most of the movie wandering around looking haunted and google-eyed.
The thing we liked about Katniss is that she's tough, resourceful and fiercely independent. She made things happen and shook things up. Here, relegated to a more passive, reactionary role, she comes across as a whiny teen thrust onto a stage she hasn't earned.
The action scenes are still engaging, what few of them there are, and Donald Sutherland still has a twinkly, loathsome presence as President Snow, the thoroughly evil dictator brutally putting down a rebellion inspired by Katniss, aka the Mockingjay.
Long stretches, though, are just plain dull.
If you'll recall from the last movie: Katniss and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), having jointly won their Hunger Games by faking a romance for the benefit of the audience, were recalled by Snow to participate in another games featuring past champions. It turns out the rebellion, aided by Games Master Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), had rigged the games to break out Katniss and several other of the champions as a way to stoke the rebellion in the various Districts.
Katniss, brilliant scientist Betee (Jeffrey Wright) and pretty boy Finnick (Sam Claflin) were rescued, but Peeta and the others were captured by the forces of the Capital. Katniss finds herself in the hands of District 13, the stark underground home base of the rebellion, which is led by enigmatic president Coin (Julianne Moore).
She finds some familiar faces who survived the bombing of her own district, including her mother, sister and Gale (Liam Hemsworth), her childhood friend and would-be lover. Katniss is tasked with appearing in a bunch of propaganda videos, or propos, decked out in a cool black Mockingjay uniform. But she turns out to be a terrible actress, so they decide to put her into actual combat, which yields some better footage. The war plays out mostly offscreen, with reports of various insurrections and retaliations filtering in.
The big surprise is when Peeta starts showing up in Capital broadcasts as the counterpoint to Katniss, urging peace and responsibility. He's denounced as a traitor by the rebels, and Katniss has to deal with her complicated feelings for him. She doesn't fully return the romantic ardor Peeta had for her, but there is love on some level. The pair, formerly faux lovers, are pushed by their respective backers into positions of antagonism.
Director Francis Lawrence, a holdover from the last movie, is joined by two new screenwriters, Danny Strong and Peter Craig, in adapting Suzanne Collins' novel. I've actually read all three of the Hunger Games books -- don't judge; it was research! -- and have been surprised by how faithfully the films have followed them.
Fans may appreciate this ultimate fidelity, but it can actually be a problem when adapting a book to the movies. The rhythms of the page and the screen are completely different, and I think that's why so many sections of this movie feel like we're treading water, story-wise.
I mean, at this point what purpose do Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and Effie (Elizabeth Banks) serve in the movie, other than recalling some friendly faces? Their tiny bit of expositional dialogue could easily be passed off to other characters. Kill 'em off, I say.
They key challenge in adapting a book to film is finding ways to condense and distill the tale down to its essence. There's no such attempt at cinematic alchemy here.
Once storytelling franchises have been around while -- especially ones involving science fiction and/or super-heroes -- it can be hard for filmmakers to find enough creative real estate to let their imaginations sprawl. After all, histories have been set, great and terrible deeds done, characters evolved or killed off, and it's a bad notion to retread over familiar territory.
So what to do? More and more, these movies are going retcon.
Retconning is when a new set of creators essentially reboots everything we know about a mythos, blanking the slate so they can start over from a zero point of their own choosing. "Star Trek" did this recently, and now the X-Men comic book heroes have, too.
This bold new film, the best super-hero flick since "The Avengers," looks at a post-apocalyptic world where nearly all mutants have been destroyed by the menacing robotic Sentinels. Clawed, nearly unkillable warrior Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is sent 50 years into the past to occupy the mind of his younger self, and must convince the Professor X of that era (James McAvoy), who is wallowing in a pit of self-pity, to take action to prevent the terrible tide.
That means diverting power-mad frenemy Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and shape-shifting skulduggerer Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from their mission to make mutants the master of regular humans rather than the object of their hatred. Needless to say, they're not happy to go along.
There's one scene that may just be the most entertaining action sequence of the summer, and it involves a new mutant named Quicksilver who is so fast he practically lives in his own dimension of time.
A satisfying mix of action, convincing characterizations and plot twists, "X-Men: Days of Future Past" delivers one for the ages.
Video extras are quite hefty, and include deleted scenes with audio commentary by director Bryan Singer, a gag reel, gallery and several making-of featurettes.
I am the guy who has been known to complain about superhero movies being too somber and serious. But I don't think it's a contradiction to celebrate that same quality in the new X-Men film.
In other comic books and movies, superheroes were usually regular folks who acquired powers through happenstance. Even if they might struggle with controlling them or the implications of their newfound responsibilities, these stories rode an underlying fantasy about becoming special.
The X-Men were always different. They were mutants, born the way they were, and their powers were not a source of joy but an instrument for prejudice and even hatred. And the stakes were always higher: X-Men comics were the only ones I read as a boy where people died on a pretty regular basis.
"X-Men: Days of Future Past" is based on the concept of a 1981 storyline in which a future was envisioned where mutants had lost the war against their kind, with most of our favorite characters having been killed by monstrous Sentinel robots. It also attempts -- quite successfully in my estimation -- to combine the original X-Men trilogy from the last decade with the 2011 "First Class" movie that depicted the nascent days of the mutant movement in the 1960s.
Pop culture aficionados will recognize this as "retconning," in which storytellers retroactively alter the mythology of a franchise to fit their new schemes. (They recently did this with the "Star Trek" flicks.) But this is the mother of all retconning, in which both the present and future of the X-Men, as established in the previous films, are cleverly made to go kerbloowie.
In tackling this ambitious new project, they brought back original director Bryan Singer, who along with screenwriter Simon Kinberg manage to make a movie that is at once entertaining and sobering.
There's a darkness and a grandiosity to "X-Men: Days of Future Past" that has been missing from these movies.
Initially set in the near future, we witness a world where telepath Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his few surviving students fight against the Sentinels, which can adapt to and even copy the powers of mutants. Losing seems inevitable, so they hatch a plan to send the consciousness of animalistic warrior Logan (Hugh Jackman) 50 years into the past, inhabiting his younger self in 1973.
There, he must convince a distraught Xavier (now played by James McAvoy) to join with his friend-turned-arch-enemy Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to prevent the assassination of a power-mad scientist named Trask (a terrific Peter Dinklage) that sets off the war against mutants.
At the center of the mission is heading off Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), a shape-shifting assassin whose loyalties lie somewhere between the just-get-along sentiments of Xavier and the them-or-us creed of Magneto.
What makes this movie work is that even as we bounce through all these intrigues about robots and time travel and telepathy, the filmmakers never forget to focus on the characters. So the emnity between Xavier and Magneto feels personal, and Logan's battle between his berserker side and his better instincts has a tragic note.
Not that they forgot to include some terrific action scenes. Some of the best involve Quicksilver (Evan Peters), a super-fast teen who lives in a world that's almost another dimension, since he can do dozens of things in the blink of an eye. One scene where the team is breaking Magneto out of an impregnable prison is an utter delight.
Where do the X-Men go from here? Wait until after the credits for a (vague) glimpse. All I know is this movie blows up the franchise while also delivering the best film we've seen in the series.
The problem with many fantasy book franchises that get turned into a series of movies is the individual films often seem much like one another. I enjoyed the first couple of “Harry Potter” flicks, but by the time the third one rolled around I felt like I’d already paid enough for the same dance.
“The Hunger Games” only needs two films to arrive at dreary repetition. “Catching Fire,” the sequel to 2012’s mega-hit, unrolls in very much the same fashion, culminating with gladiator-like games where young champions vie to kill each other off while an agitated populace is forced to watch on TV.
The only real difference is that Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is no longer an unknown novice from a remote district, but the reigning champion along with her childhood friend Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she carries on a faux romance for the benefit of the cameras.
She’s recruited (aka forced) to participate in a new set of games featuring former champions by the evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland), who fears Katniss has become the lynchpin of a brewing rebellion. He’s even hired a new Games Master, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), to devise insanely diabolical challenges for the competitors.
Katniss and Peeta quickly find themselves in an unlikely alliance with other players, but at times it seems like the very environment is out to get them.
“Catching Fire” isn’t bad, but it takes a long time to get going, and even when it does we’ve already seen all there is to see.
Video extras are decent enough. The DVD version comes with a feature-length commentary track by director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson and deleted scenes.
Go for the Blu-ray combo pack, and you add a nine-part feature-length documentary about the making of the film, “Surviving the Game: Making Catching Fire.”
(Note: “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” will be released on video Friday, March 7.)
In one of his final reviews, the incomparable Roger Ebert declared a film “fabulously well-acted and crafted, but when I reach for it, my hand closes on air.” I felt much the same way about “American Hustle,” which boasts an entire crowd of Academy Award-winning and -nominated thespians, one of Hollywood’s most lauded writer/directors, a buzzy historical subject, and a crushing identity crisis.
What the heck is this movie about? Ostensibly, it’s a fictionalized version of the Abscam scandal of 30-odd years ago that led to the conviction of a bunch of Congressmen and other government officials on corruption charges. But in the sprawling, unwieldy adaptation, it seems like merely an excuse for a bunch of actors to dress up in horrid ‘70s fashions and exchange frenetic volleys of dialogue that often make not a lick of sense.
Eric Singer’s screenplay exploring some little-known peculiarities of the imbroglio had languished around Hollywood for years, turning up on lists of the best non-produced scripts. Director David O. Russell did his own rewrite to intentionally turn the real-life characters into caricatures, and make the shenanigans even crazier than they actually were.
(Fittingly, Singer’s original title was “American Bullpucky,” though he used a different word.)
The cast is led by Christian Bale as Irving Rosenfeld, a brilliant but complex con man. Outwardly the role is showy, with Bale putting on weight to gain a big belly, and wearing an elaborate comb-over hairdo, tinted glasses and cheesy facial hair. But Irving lives mostly inside his own head, and sometimes has difficulty putting his schemes into action.
Bale never quite breaks through the wall between an actor’s creation and the audience, and Irving largely remains a sphinx to us.
Irving’s muse and partner in crime is Sydney Prosser, played by Amy Adams, who adopted the persona and lilt of a refined British woman so long ago, it’s taken over her identity. She cares deeply for Irving, for reasons that are unclear to her, and us. Adams gets her own makeover with a poodle perm and necklines that perpetually plunge down to her navel.
The third, and unsteadiest leg of the triad of leading characters is Richie DiMaso, played by Bradley Cooper, who is the FBI agent who busts Sydney and Irving and forces them to become his operatives.
They entrap politicians (including a sharp Jeremy Renner as a New Jersey mayor) with promises of a massive casino financed by a mysterious Arab sheikh. Richie lets the power go to his head, and convinces himself he and Sydney are soul mates.
If you thought this was yet another story about a love triangle, then you’d be wrong, because it’s actually a quadrangle.
Jennifer Lawrence turns up as Irving’s wife, Rosalyn, a walking electric ball of neuroses. Feeling abandoned by her husband’s criminal antics and his attentions for Sydney, Rosalyn inserts herself into the mix by sheer force of will, which proves troublesome when their business dealings wander into the purview of the mafia.
Narratively, Rosalyn doesn’t really serve much purpose in the story, other than to gum up the works and generate chaos. Lawrence is so crackling good, though, that the film goes into a torpor whenever she walks off-screen.
Rounding out the cast is Louis C.K. as Richie’s put-upon boss and Michael Peña as a Mexican-American fed who gets tapped to portray the sheikh. Robert De Niro also makes an uncredited appearance in a familiar role.
The experience of seeing “American Hustle” is like being at a wild party where you don’t know anybody, and find yourself shoved into a corner watching the mayhem happening all around. You never really understand the whats and the whys of it all, and you stroll out the door unchanged from how you were when you walked in, mostly trying to remember who sent the invitation and why you accepted it.
"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" isn't any worse than the smash hit from last year, but that isn't really saying very much. This overly faithful adaption of the super-popular young adult novels by Suzanne Collins returns brave heroine Katniss Everdeen for another go-around that plays in large part like a broken record.
The tearful selection to the Games, in which champions from a dystopian America's 12 districts must fight gladiator-style for all the world to watch? It's here. The blunt tutoring by burnt-out former victor Haymitch (Woody Harrelson)? Ditto. Costumed pageantry and a gleeful skewering of our celebrity-obsessed media? Loved ones in peril? Sneering resentment by other, pampered, champions? Here, here, here.
And of course, the actual games themselves, which take up the latter half of the film. Once the action starts things pick up well, but it's a long, long slog until the arrows start flying.
The only real difference here is that the stirrings of rebellion against evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland) have blossomed after Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and her district partner, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), managed to defy all expectations and win the last Games together. Snow believes she's the face of the rebellion, and would snuff her out if he didn't fear that would stoke unrest even more.
He recruits a new Games Master, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), to come up with a devilishly sadistic scenario for the 75th annual games centered around bringing back past victors. It's all just an excuse to put Katniss in peril.
We get the familiar scenes of the champions at practice, making threats and showing off their killer muscle definition. There's a pair of Aryan siblings, some older scientist types, a gal who files her teeth to jagged points, a mentally unhinged chick with an axe, an anonymous big bald dude, and a scattering of others who are quickly forgotten or killed off.
Chief among the new arrivals is Finnick (Sam Claflin), a golden boy who seems to absolutely smack his lips at the prospect of going up against Katniss and Peeta.
The love triangle from the last film continues, again without much resolution. Katniss loves Gale (Liam Hemsworth), a stolid miner from back home, while Peeta is hopelessly smitten by her. They continue their supposed romance for the benefit of the cameras, even concocting up a planned wedding. It's taken its toll on Peeta, though, who wants to sacrifice himself to save his unrequited lady love.
New director Francis Lawrence has a good eye for the action scenes, but anytime the characters have to just stand there and talk to each other, it's pure death. It's a turgid, curiously emotionless affair -- something you'd think would be difficult, given all the death and ardor being flung around.
"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" will likely please its molten core of fans, mostly teen girls. But I found it to be a fantasy-adventure soap opera, where clothes and media gossip get just as much play as the battles to the death.
“Silver Linings Playbook” pulled off something that hadn’t been done in more than three decades: Academy Award nominations for best picture, screenplay, director and all four acting categories. This heartwarming but sobering drama from writer/director David O. Russell (“The Fighter”) showcases his ability to pull maximum effort from his cast.
Much like professional athletes will refer to their leader as a players’ coach, Russell is an actors’ director. Consider: his last two films have garnered seven Oscar acting nominations, with three wins.
The movie itself doesn’t live up to the strength of its performances, but it’s still an ambitious and largely successful picture. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence play Pat and Tiffany, two young people struggling with serious mental health issues. Pat has just been released from an institution, while Tiffany lives in the garage behind her parents’ house.
They’re also both single – he through divorce, she a widow – and set about on a tentative, combative romance. Pat is still obsessed with his ex-wife, and Tiffany comes up with the off-kilter idea of entering a dance contest to help them bond.
Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver have strong, authentic roles as Pat’s long-suffering parents, while Chris Tucker shines as his best friend and fellow ex-patient. One of the film’s strengths is that it doesn’t ignore the impact of the main characters’ craziness on those around them.
Funny, touching and wry, “Silver Linings Playbook” is a cracked-mirror reflection of the classic love story.
Video extras are pretty good, though lacking a commentary track. The DVD comes with deleted scenes and a making-of documentary, plus featurettes on rehearsing the couple’s big dance scene and “Going Steadicam With Bradley Cooper.”
Upgrade to the Blu-ray/DVD combo, and you had a Q&A with the cast and another feature, “Learn To Dance Like Pat & Tiffany.”
“Silver Lining Playbook” is about two mentally unstable people who fall in love. If that sounds like a setup for an exploitative comedy, then you won’t be surprised to learn that this film from writer/director David O. Russell (“The Fighter”) does contain many moments of levity. But it’s also a serious exploration of a couple of lost souls flailing to get through the everyday existence that seems so mundane to the rest of us.
Movie depictions of mental illness tend to fall into one of two categories: somber, dramatic portraits or giddy exaggerations. “Playbook” breaks away from the herd by showing its two main characters as authentic souls who recognize their problems even as they try to distance themselves from these issues and pass as “normal.” It goes a step further by compassionately depicting the family and friends around them, who strive to cope with their behavior and attending complications.
A great cast is headlined by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, with Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver and Chris Tucker in key supporting roles. All should get consideration from Oscar voters.
Cooper plays Pat, a high school substitute teacher who’s just been released (against doctor’s orders) from a mental institution after eight months. Apparently he walked in on his wife Nikki with another man and beat the guy to a pulp, and since then his entire world has become unglued.
Pat is convinced the alpha and omega of regaining is sanity is getting back together with Nikki. That’s a challenge because she sold their house and moved away, and has a restraining order against him to boot.
Cooper, known for smarmy comedic roles, is convincing as the motor-mouthed Pat. He’s the sort of guy who can’t help himself from obsessive behavior, but is smart and caring enough to immediately apologize for it afterward. At different points he tears up his therapist’s waiting room and accidentally elbows his mother in the face, but we sense there’s no belligerence in him.
De Niro and Weaver play his parents, long-suffering but still patient and kind to Pat, if a little frustrated. Pat Sr. is obsessed with his beloved Philadelphia Eagles, and wants his son to sit and watch the games with him, both for luck and for some father/son bonding. Dolores is the family’s center and glue, tough as nails in a passive sort of way.
Tiffany (Lawrence) pops up as the sister-in-law of Pat’s best friend Ronnie (John Ortiz). Her husband died recently and she just lost her job. Tiffany lives in a converted garage out behind her parents’ house, and shares Pat’s sense of being both embraced and ostracized by her loved ones.
At dinner, Tiffany and Pat exchange laughs about the debilitating effects of various psychotropic drugs – which is sort of the crazy person version of a Meet Cute. She immediately offers to sleep with him, but Pat refuses, committed to the notion of resuming his non-existent relationship with Nikki.
It’s a wonderful, charged, loopy cinematic pairing. Each thinks the other person is the more messed up one, which sets up a weird power dynamic. Tiffany is generally the aggressor, even going so far as to insist he practice with her for a big dance contest. Soon they’re spending all their time together, and their respective families fret about their troubles colliding and compounding.
Tucker plays Danny, a friend of Pat’s from the hospital who keeps getting released and unreleased, but hangs around long enough to offer some dance advice and help cheer Pat up. Anupam Kher plays Dr. Patel, Pat’s therapist; Julia Stiles plays Ronnie’s hectoring wife, Tiffany’s sister; and Shea Whigham is Pat’s older brother Jake, who nurtures a sense of superiority.
I appreciated the skill with which Russell and his cast adapted the novel by Matthew Quick. “Silver Linings Playbook” is a film of subtlety, wit and empathy for its characters. I did find myself having trouble completely embracing them and their plight, feeling like I was sitting back and watching them perform rather than becoming absorbed in their story.
Still, this is worthy, ambitious filmmaking – an oddball ray of sunlight peeking through the clouds.
Just a quick review. Joe Shearer is handling the main review over at The Film Yap, so head over there to check it out.
I am not a fan of the PG-13 horror film. Yes, a couple have been decent -- notably "The Others" and "The Ring." But by and large, the experience is like going to a steakhouse and ordering a salad. If you enjoy the things that make scary movies scary, then dialing back on them so the studio can hook in the under-17 crowd automatically turns it into some kind of Horror Lite.
"House at the End of the Street" is not awful, but it's not outstanding, either. The only thing that makes it stand out from the other dreck being flushed into theaters during these dark days of September is that it stars Jennifer Lawrence, an Oscar nominee from a couple years back.
She's solid enough in it, but is restricted by the parameters of the story that require her character to do amazingly stupid things. It's the time-honored tradition of horror flicks to entice the audience to yell, "Don't go in there!" and similar warnings. It often seems like the people populating scary movies are collectively about 50 I.Q. points lower than those watching them.
The story has familiar themes: a teen girl and her single mom move from Chicago into an idyllic rustic town where everything's Not Quite As Perfect As It Seems. The cute neighborhood boy that all the grown-ups love turns out to be a jerk with date rape inclinations, and mom (Elisabeth Shue) is a doctor who's working all the time and sloshing down wine when she isn't.
The big mystery in town is the house next door, where a girl horrifically butchered her parents four years ago. The body was never found, so...
Property values have plummeted as a result, which is why poor Elissa and her mother can afford to rent such a huge, fabulous house in the woods -- because we all know how criminally underpaid physicians are. It's a wonder they could afford gas for the trip!
Turns out the son of the murdered family is still living there quietly, ostracized from the community. Ryan (Max Thieriot) turns out to be dreamy in an awkward, shy sort of way, so it's not too long before Elissa and he are hooking up.
I'm not going to bother hiding the fact that Ryan's sister, Carrie Anne, turns out to be still alive and living in a secret room under the house. The movie reveals this about 20 minutes in. The true mystery is in revealing the relationship between her and Ryan, why she murdered their parents, why he's determined to protect and hide her, and why he keeps leaving her door unlocked or the key in an easily accessible place so she can keep escaping and causing havoc.
Director Mark Tonderai and screenwriter David Loucka occasionally get a few flashes of inspiration. But mostly they feel like they're going through the paces, relying on a whole heap of boo-gotcha moments to generate momentary scares rather than carefully crafting a pervading sense of dread.
"House at the End of the Street" is the sort of movie a young actress stars in when she's just starting out, hoping to land meatier roles and develop some real acting chops. Lawrence, an Academy Award nominee at 20, has already been down that path. This role feels like a step backward for her artistically and career-wise.
I guess we shouldn't blame her too much. Unfortunately, there just aren't a lot of great parts out there for ingenues. Next week, another Oscar nominee, Anna Kendrick, is starring in a "Glee" knockoff called "Pitch Perfect." Ah, the cinematic ides of September...
My suspicion is that "Like Crazy" will drive some audience members batty. It certainly happened at the preview screening I attended, where a number of people seemed to be expecting some sort of bubblegum romantic comedy, and (loudly) expressed their dissatisfaction with what they got.
This indie drama from director/co-writer Drake Doremus is closer in mood and tone to last year's "Blue Valentine" than the latest boy-meets-girl confection. It's a tender love story, but weighted with a sense of tragedy and longing. Even during the headiest moments of whirlwind romance, the expectation of rocky waters ahead never fades.
Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones star as Jacob and Anna, two lovers separated by an ocean of circumstance. He's American, she's British, both about to graduate from a California university. She's a budding journalist, while he wants to design and build his own furniture. The biggest gasp moment of their story comes not at some huge moment of emotional outpouring, but when he gives Anna a chair he hand-made for her.
Doremus and co-screenwriter Ben York Jones (who also plays a small part) are less interested in stepping in the footprints of previous films about relationships, but mapping out the terrain of modern love among Millenials. The result is a movie filled with pregnant pauses and long silences, where a furtive expression or gesture provides a window into this self-conscious pair's inner lives.
What is left unsaid often speaks louder than their stammering, halting exchanges of dialogue.
Anna is supposed to leave the States when her student visa expires, but decides to overstay for the summer so the relationship can take root. Alas, when she travels back to London for a family wedding, she finds herself unable to return because of her violation. She and Jacob spend weeks, then months apart, trying to keep their affection alive through late-night phone calls and emails.
It makes for an interesting set-up for a long-distance relationship, though the depiction of U.S. immigration laws -- which more resemble a leaky sieve than a tight net -- is fanciful.
During their long separations, both Anna and Jacob find temptation on their respective shores. For her, it's a kind neighbor who's always dropping by (Charlie Bewley). In Jacob's case, he tumbles into Sam (Jennifer Lawrence), an assistant at his workshop who seems willing to accept whatever scraps of Jacob's affections are available when his devotion to Anna has waned.
"Like Crazy" has heft and authenticity, a telling portrait of modern relationships as they really are rather than how we would like them to be. It's a slow, often sad tale that unfolds at its own pace, so the audience (at least those with patience) feel like they're experiencing reality transpire, rather than being embraced by a movie.
"The Beaver" is an imperfect movie with an imperfect star, Mel Gibson. But the film rises above its shortcomings to become a genuinely compelling journey of one man's descent into mental instability, and how he rises out of it with the unlikely help of a ratty old hand puppet shaped like a beaver.
Gibson plays Walter Black, CEO of a toy company whose life has come off its rails. He can't even speak to his wife and kids, and mostly dodges work to lay about in bed. But he finds his voice again -- figuratively and literally -- when he starts using the Beaver to speak for him.
Others aren't accepting at first, but when he reveals that it's a prescribed therapeutic tool, people soon accept the reinvigorated Walter, even if he comes with a sidekick straight of bad cable access television.
What I liked most about "The Beaver" -- which combines elements of both tragedy and comedy -- is that it takes real risks. Director (and co-star) Jodie Foster and screenwriter Kyle Killen are working outside of familiar Hollywood tropes, refusing to put the story and characters into neat little boxes.
For example, just Walter seems to have emerged from his swirling vortex of self-hatred, his psyche becomes unhinged again. He does something so extreme, it's likely half the audience will be turned off.
But for those willing to stick it out, "The Beaver" is a redemptive story told with off-kilter charm.
Video extras are a bit on the underwhelming side. The goodies are the same for the DVD and Blu-ray editions.
There's a feature-length commentary by Foster -- which would've been so much more interesting if she could've been paired with Gibson -- a making-of documentary and a handful of deleted scenes.
