Category Archives: fantasy

The Last Mimzy

Posted on February 24, 2008

A family movie trying to cross the appeal of Harry Potter and ET and succeeding somewhat, judging by the writing and directing credits this 2007 movie was the pet project of some Hollywood studio execs who decided the time was right for them to get creative.

In the The Last Mimzy young brother and sister Noah (Chris O’Neill) and Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) Wilder uncover a trove of toy treasures at their vacation home on the beach of one of the many small islands off the Seattle coast. Right away, though, we see that despite appearances these treasures are far more than toys; instead they’re tools sent back from future humans desperate to save themselves from a pollution-caused extinction.

Jo (Joely Richardson) and David (Timothy Hutton) Wilder get concerned over the changes the toys cause in their kids and have some high-end diagnostic testing done, which produce nothing conclusive. Noah’s teacher (Rainn Wilson) and his fiance, both knowledgeable in Eastern religions, get involved when the boy starts drawing amazingly obscure, complex and accurate mandalas.

The real action starts when one of the devices draws enough power from the electricity grid to knock most of Seattle into darkness. Post-9/11, that draws the notice of the regional Homeland Security crew, lead by Nathaniel Broadman (an appropriate name for the large and determined Michael Duncan Clarke). Even though the offending device was never plugged in or otherwise directly connected, Broadman traces the cause to the Wilders’ home and comes calling. Hard, with geared and gunned up troops since, of course, they were expecting terrorists and not a mild mannered family of four.

Time is running out for the future and Broadman refuses to understand the situation. Fortunately those toys have a few tricks up their sleeves…

Based on a classic science fiction story Lewis Padgett (a nom de plume of husband/wife team CL Moore and Henry Kuttner), the script was done by Bruce Joel Rubin, who wrote a number of human side of sci-fi movies like Deep Impact, Jacob’s Ladder and Ghost, and Toby Emmerich, an executive with New Line Cinema whose only previous writing credit was the 2000 oddity Frequency. Robert Shaye, Emmerich’s boss at the studio, directed Last Mimzy, the first time he’s sat in that chair since 1990 romantic fantasy Book of Love which, coincidentally, was written by William Kotzwinkle, who wrote the novel for ET many years ago.

Despite being on the business side of things for so many years, I think Shaye, Rubin and Emmerich did a good job with this film. The plot didn’t strain credulity or come across as dumbed down for eight year olds, the soft and colorful visual provided a warm level of comfort to counterbalance the dramatic tension and Shaye got quality performances from the two young leads.

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The Golden Compass

Posted on December 24, 2007

This big budget fantasy caused a bit of controversy over it’s perceived anti-Church message, albeit apparently much toned down from the original novel by Philip Pullman, but honestly if I had read about the protests and complaints I’d have never noticed it, nor did TS1.

We both enjoyed The Golden Compass. The first of a trilogy, this movie introduces us to 12 year old heroine Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) and launches her on an adventure to, well, save free will across all the Earths in the many parallel universes in existence. The controversy is that she’s saving it from the Magisterium, essentially a worldwide church that also is the secular political power. Lyra’s uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig, in his second big post-Bond debut role) is the scientist who figured out how to travel between Earths and the Magisterium plans to crush him and use his innovation to extend their grubby grasp.

Lyra isn’t about to let that just happen so its a good thing she’s no ordinary 12 year old orphan girl. Not only is she smart and courageous, Lyra also has (and understands how to use, a rare skill) the last Alethiometer, a special compass-like device that shows her the true answer to any question she poses to it.

The big adventure begins when Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) shows up at the university where her uncle has left her in the care of his fellow researchers. Coulter knows that Lyra is special and probably the child named in an unspecified prophecy and she’s also plugged in right to the top of the Magisterium so when she asks that Lyra accompany her on a trip to the frigid north (no child labor laws on this Earth) no one has the nerve to say no.

We also get good performances from Sam Elliot, in all his gray-haired, Texas drawl glory as an airship pilot he joins Lyra’s quest, Eva Green (Craig’s Casino Royale love interest) as the queen of the good witches, Ian McKellen as the voice of a princely bear (this world’s bears are sentient but do not have souls as humans do) who also joins with Lyra, Christopher Lee and Derek Jacobi as two of the Magisterium’s high councilors, veteran Brit character actor Jim Carter as head of the rebellious Gyptians (who also join with Lyra, for a little girl she gets lots of adults to sign up without as much as a fluttering of her eyelashes) and Ben Walker as Lyra’s best mate Roger.

I thought Chris Weitz did a good job with the screenplay and direction of The Golden Compass. Its a very different kind of movie from his previous work, none of which were fantasies or even big budget actioners: The American Pie farces and About a Boy. As a science fiction fan I’m probably more disposed to accept the fantastical elements than most but Weitz did well to avoid lapses of logic that be really annoying to viewers like me, and he avoided the trap of trying to explain every little detail (e.g., the odd gyroscopicish devices that seemed to power airships and ground vehicles).

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The Princess Bride

Posted on November 7, 2007

Though some consider this 1987 historical comedy a classic, I’d never seen the attraction. My mistake, director Rob Reiner (just off the very different Stand By Me) and writer William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Stepford Wives, All the President’s Men) did a really good job with a very small budget; Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest and Wallace Shawn star.

The Princess Bride is a semi-fantasy tale of love interrupted. Elwes is a farmboy named Westley on a farm where Buttercup (Wright) lives and they fall in love as they grow up. Westley leaves to make money for them to get married on, only to be captured by the dread pirate Roberts and with Buttercup and everyone else assuming he’s dead since the pirate never leaves anyone alive.

Five years pass and Buttercup has captured the heart of Prince Humperdinck (Sarandon). Just weeks before their nuptials, she’s kidnapped by three men (Shawn, Patinkin and Andre) who plan to kill her at the border of the prince’s rival kingdom. Westley has returned just as they take her away and races to save his true love, disguised as the dread pirate Roberts.

Honestly I expected more of a fantasy but with one small magical exception and a few pseudo-anachronisms this is just sort of medieval. For much of the movie no one (except the viewer) knows that Roberts is Westley but he’s smooth, daring and near enough gallant to win Buttercup’s affection anyway. Sarandon’s Price is obtuse and obnoxious, which is just what the movie needs; Shawn’s Vizzini, who features more early on, is the same character but smaller.

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Aeon Flux

Posted on September 3, 2007

Less than a decade from now, a lab-created virus is unleashed and decimates the human population; only a few million of us survive, all of whom live in a single city governed by the sons of Dr. Goodchild, the scientist who found the cure for the virus. After 400 years, though, not all the citizens are satisfied with the state of things and the most disaffected have formed an underground rebel group called the Mohicans. The group’s leadership have decided that direct action is required to make a change in the status quo and dispatch an assassin.

Based loosely on the MTV animated series from the mid 1990s, 2005′s Aeon Flux stars Charlize Theron as the titular character, the Mohican assassin, Martin Csokas as Trevor Goodchild, the current governor, and Jonny Lee Miller as Trevor’s younger brother Oren. Frances McDormand and Pete Postlethwaite have supporting roles as Aeon’s Mohican handler and the ancient Keeper of genetic records.

The script by Phil Hay and Matt Manfreddi (the pair also collaborated on Jacky Chan’s The Tuxedo and Crazy/Beautiful) has to account for the practical differences between live action and animation, and between a continuing series and a 90 minute movie as well, though I think most fans of the original were disappointed in this film. I’ve not seen the old series except for bits and pieces so the comparison wasn’t too important for me yet I felt the writers could’ve done better in keeping all the various aspects more consistent with each other.

This is the movie Karyn Kusama chose as the followup to her critically acclaimed 2000 indie drama Girlfight. I can understand the attraction for her, the chance to develop a similar theme on a much broader canvas, but have to wonder how constrained Kusama was by the studio production execs. They were probably a lot more interested in having as many cool fight scenes and big action sequences as could be stuffed in, and far less emphasis on Flux’s inner turmoil and the philosophical conflict between the Goodchild brothers.

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The Prestige

Posted on August 20, 2007

In one of those strange Hollywood coincidences that looked like a game of chicken both sides were determined to not to lose and so both went over the cliff still in the car, two movies about magicians and their loves came out within weeks of each other last fall. One was The Illusionist, which I wrote up a month ago, starring Edward Norton and Joaquin Phoenix fighting over Jessica Biel.

In The Prestige Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) fight each other over their magic, not their women (Piper Perabo and Rebecca Hall), but the women get involved in their unfriendly competition nonetheless. Michael Caine has the lead supporting role as a man who creates tricks for magicians and is somewhat of a confidant to Angier and Borden who, early on, meet while working under the tutelage of the same star.

David Bowie is delightful as Nikola Tesla, a real person who was Thomas Edison’s employee, vitcim and primary competitor in the commercial development of electricity. The Prestige is set later in Tesla’s life, after Edison has won the corporate battle; though we never see the Wizard of Menlo Park onscreen, his agents are shown hounding Tesla, forcing him to be constantly on the defensive and on the move, though willing to assist Angier when he travels to wintry Colorado Springs in quest of a copy of a device he believes Tesla built for Borden.

Director Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Insomnia, Memento), who co-wrote the snappy, intelligent script with his brother Jonathan from Christopher Priest’s novel, points out right at the beginning that in the world of magic nothing is ever what it seems to be, that the show must be watched carefully and that the performers will go to great lengths to create illusions. This is very useful advice, so I pass it along to you.

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Posted on August 1, 2007

This fifth movie in the Boy Wizard series is enjoyable but suffers from a lack of a clear objective, most likely because this is actually the first of a three part finale while each previous story had a well-defined milestone. JK Rowling’s novel handled this by dropping hints and bits about the prophecy regarding Harry and his dark counterpart but the script by Michael Goldenberg made no mention of it until just before the Ministry of Magic confrontation that climaxes this movie.

No knocks against Goldenberg (the 2003 Peter Pan and Jodie Foster’s Contact) but Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is also the first script not written by Steve Kloves and I’m happy to see that Kloves is doing the script for Half-Blood Prince, due to arrive on your local cinema screen in 16 months. David Yates took over the director’s chair and will also return for HBP.

Harry, Hermione and (less so, but that’s his part) Ron have learned from the harsh lessons of their previous four terms at Hogwarts but, as we see right from go, Voldemort is only getting started: two dementors attack Harry and his muggle cousin Dudley in the first scene, with Harry barely able to drive them off with his Patronus and his use of magic leads straight to a trumped up trial in front of the entire Wizangamot.

Not everyone, you see, believes our boy that Voldemort has returned and that he killed Cedric Diggory at the end of the Tri-Wizards Cup in the previous book. The Death Eaters do as do Harry’s friends in the Order of the Phoenix but, denial not being just a river in Egypt, key members of the magical community like Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge and his top staff refuse to admit it. So Potter’s use of magic in front of Dudley can’t be justified and therefore deserves expulsion but Dumbledore arrives in time to convince the Wizangamot to acquit.

Most of the movie, unfortunately, focuses on the antics of Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), Fudge’s assistant who comes to Hogwarts to restore order and stamp out absurd notions of appropriate student behavior. These bits are good for quite a few laughs and getting Harry to step up as a leader among his peers but were, correctly in the novel just a sideline. This volume wasn’t titled Harry Potter and the Annoyingly Nasty Woman, after all.

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My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Posted on July 16, 2007

Ivan Reitman has directed many funny movies, including Stripes, both Ghostbusters, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Junior and Dave and writer Don Payne comes out of the Simpsons camp (and also co-wrote this summer’s F4: Rise of the Silver Surfer) so the creative pedigree is certainly strong. Actors Luke Wilson, Eddie Izzard and even Anna Faris have made their share of decent comedies.

In which case you shouldn’t be surprised that My Super Ex-Girlfriend is pretty darn funny. Mashing up the superhero/supervillain conflict with a romantic comedy and today’s computer F/X returns a potent combination that Reitman, whose Ghostbusters flicks flirted with similar territory, and Payne deliver fully.

Matt Saunders (Wilson) has a history of falling for slightly crazy chicks and when he meets Jennifer (Uma Thurman), the Clark Kent front identity of superhero G-Girl, he gets crazy on a. Whole. ‘Nother. Level. Jennifer falls for him quick and hard after Matt chases a purse snatcher for several Manhattan blocks but this is her first crush since the day back in high school when she and her friend Barry were in the woods making out and a strange meteor crashed near their car. Touching the rock transformed Jennifer into a superpower (and a superhottie) via otherwise unexplained radiation, and she left Barry in the dirt. Not at all happy about that, Barry becomes her arch-nemesis Bedlam.

G-Girl reveals her true self to Matt but this lady has a case of jealousy that matches her powers and he breaks up with her. Bad move. But Matt really loves his co-worker Hannah (Faris) and while comforting her after she catches her model boyfriend in bed with two or three women he finally tells her. So they hook up, which superstalker G-Girl sees an, er, terminates by tossing a live shark into Faris’s bedroom, many floors up in a high-rise.

Bedlam uses this behavior to convince Matt the only answer is tricking Jennifer into touching the meteor again, which experiments show will return the radiation to it. Matt pretends a reconciliation and at dinner gets her to touch the rock. Bedlam, of course not so nice as he pretended, is about to kill them both when Faris turns up, a catfight ensues and the women both touch the meteor before Bedlam can (again).

This is really funny. Thurman is not really that good at broad humor but does very well as the straightman to Wilson and Faris. Also helping out is Rainn Wilson as Matt’s superhorny best friend, though his advice seems as often calculated for his amusement as actually helping Matt.

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The Illusionist

Posted on July 8, 2007

Last fall two seemingly similar movies came out around the same time and this fine film was overshadowed by the other, The Prestige, but since I haven’t seen that one yet I won’t opine on whether the reaction was justified. Certainly The Illusionist is a good, enjoyable entertainment, a creative success for writer/director Neil Burger in his first major studio production.

Edward (Edward Norton) and Sophie (Jessica Biel) are childhood friends and then sweethearts in fin de siecle Austria but since she’s a grand duchess and he the cabinetmaker’s son their elders force them apart. He takes off for parts unknown, travelling the world and learning magic, and she grows up to be the fiancee of Crown Prince Leopold, heir to the Austrian Empire’s throne, played by Rufus Sewell. Edward, having adopted the stagename Eisenheim the Illusionist, returns to Vienna and draws the cream of society to his performances.

Including the Crown Prince, who volunteers his fiancee when Eisenheim requests one from the audience. Unimpressed with the magic Leopold has the entertainer come to the palace so he can be shown up as a simple trickster. If the illusions could be so easily debunked the movie would immediately fall apart, so they can’t. Further, Eisenheim has recognized Sophie and still loves her; though she doesn’t recognize him he arranges to tell her. Letting us know Sophie’s passion also still burns, she has always worn a small charm he made for her as a teen.

Berger’s script reaches the ending one more or less expects, especially from a big budget studio movie, but the path is not at all direct and the illusions he conjures for Eisenheim to perform are outstanding. Further the magician’s travels seem to have taught him that no man has a right to command another simply because of birth, a sentiment not as widely held in the first years of the last century as now, and therefore he won’t restrain his affections just because his rival is a prince.

Enjoyable, intense, creative.

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Bubba Ho-tep

Posted on June 16, 2007

Some circles in which I usually find myself are very high on this Bruce Campbell/Ossie Davis 2002 flick but in this instance I’m on the outside looking in. Karina Montgomery captured my feelings well when she wrote “If you tilt your head just right, it looks like a beautifully shot student film with a bunch of community theatre actors having a great time.”

Campbell, who seems to play the same lovable rogue in every movie and TV show but does it really well, is the still-living Elvis Presley and Davis claims to be a transformed John Fitzgerald Kennedy with an all-over tattoo to change his skin color and a “bag of sand” where his brain was. Elvis says it wasn’t him who died in 1977 but a really skillful impersonator with whom he traded places shortly beforehand because he got tired of his life.

The title character is a revived mummy from ancient dynastic Egypt and the source of the intended horror in the film, as he stays alive only by sucking the life force from living people. He preys on the elderly–this is set in an old age home–because while their life force is weak, meaning he must feed frequently, they’re weak enough for him to handle. And to add to the horror, he often sucks a soul out through the anus. There are also oversized scarab beetles involved.

Elvis and JFK team up to defeat the mummy before he can get them. The former president is confined to a wheelchair so he’s the bait, carrying a tank of vile, flammable liquid. Elvis, feeling alive (with his first erection in eight years to show for it), plans to spring out and finish the job.

This was the second time I watched Bubba Ho-tep; the first I couldn’t get past 15 minutes and this week I only watched to the end because there wasn’t anything else on, plus I was mainly working on the computer. It never really got me laughing nor frightened and director Don Coscarelli never got the pace moving at a decent speed.

not recommended

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V for Vendetta

Posted on June 11, 2007

Yet another, er, graphic novel adaptation but much darker and more serious than others I’ve seen or noticed. Written and produced by the Wachowski brothers and directed by their longtime assistant James McTeigue, V for Vendetta is the story of a near future Britain that falls under the control of a fascist politician riding a wave of terrorist episodes and global unrest. One man, known only as V, has found the means to fight back and he uses the failed revolutionary Guy Fawkes as a stalking horse to rally support.

V (Hugo Weaving, in yet another high profile science fiction role) is never seen out of costume, centuries old clothing and a hard ceramic mask. Even when making breakfast for his unwilling house guest, Evey (Natalie Portman, in her early 20s, her appearance a very appropriate blend of child and woman). V saved her from some nasty extracurricular police activity one night but soon after realized the only way he could truly protect the girl was to keep her in his lair. Despite what you’re probably thinking there’s no intimate contact, how could there be when he never removes that mask?

Meanwhile V’s high profile guerilla actions are driving High Chancellor Adam Sutler (John Hurt) a bit batty, and the politician has already got a good start on that. One by one his minions are falling to V or Sutler’s discontent with the exception of top policeman Finch (Stephen Rea), a cop bent on doing his job and keeping the politics as far out of it as possible.

McTeigue keeps the visuals dark, lots of deep reds, greys and scenes shot at night, underground or with rain falling if day time, and a big building on fire some years beforehand which we see in pieces throughout. There’s a minimum of exposition and flashbacks used instead of talking for most of the explanatory material. The philosophical backdrop is clearly of a piece with the Wachowski brothers’ most famous work, the Matrix trilogy, decidedly individualistic and wary of corporate machinery.

(As an aside, I’m quite amused that their next project is the film version of ’60s cartoon series Speed Racer. Another project in which an underdog takes on The Man and another cartoon adaptation.)

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