Now In Theatres: Volume 1

Sometimes I get really backed up due to work and whatnot and a whole whack load of film reviews fall by the wayside. Here is my attempt to play catch up with some brief capsule reviews of films playing in and around the Toronto area and one that I have seen that has yet to darken local multiplexes (if it does at all).

The Adjustment Bureau - Matt Damon stars as a US senate hopeful who uncovers a shadowy organization that controls the free will of all human beings after a chance encounter with an enchanting young woman (Emily Blunt, in what might be her best performance yet). While Adjustment Bureau might have the most misleading ad campaign in recent memory (do not under any circumstances expect a thriller), I can see how this film would be a tough sell for standard audiences. However, for most of it's running time, the film is so strange that I have a hard time believing it is an American produced studio film. Instead of the thriller audiences would expect from the ad campaign, Adjustment Bureau plays more like a Terry Gilliam-light style romantic comedy. The leads show incredible chemistry and ground the unreality of the film around them with a sense of genuine emotion and affection. Thoroughly satisfying, but an incredibly abrupt and weak conclusion almost sink the film in it's last few moments.

Rating (out of 4 stars): ***

Beastly: There are films that are high camp, and then there are films like Beastly. Films like Beastly are made very earnestly to cash in on something popular (in this case updating Beauty and the Beast for a Twilight addled demographic) that end up feeling strangely dated by the time they are released. The leads are vapid and empty (Alex Pettyfer is the titular beastly one, looking like a cross between Powder and one of the Sons of Anarchy for most of the film and Vanessa Hudgens is the young lady who will eventually show him how to love again) and the supporting cast is full of nameless faces defined by character quirks instead of actual characterization. Still, there is some unintentional fun to be had at Beastly's expense, but only if you find unironic line readings about "fatties" to be chuckle inducing. If you don't find such poor writing funny, you have zero reasons to check out Beastly. Wait. There is one reason. A truly WTF performance from Mary-Kate Olsen.

Rating: *

Biutiful: Javier Bardem was probably robbed of an Oscar in hindsight. His performance as a dying father in Alejandro Inarritu's stellar and sprawling study of lower class life in Barcelona was undoubtedly a much harder and more emotional role to play than an admittedly good impression of a historical figure. While some decry Biutiful as being an indulgent mess of a film, it really plays more like a snapshot of the physical and spiritual world around us. It is, by Inarritu standards a linear film that shows that even the most standard plotting can create a sense of confusion when updated to a modern, everyday setting. Bardem deserves most of the credit here for creating a character that is universally identifiable in scope. His Uxbal is far from a saint, but he is overwhelmingly sympathetic when viewed through Inarritu's lens and the world surrounding them.

Rating: ****

Curling: This is a film that pretty much defies a capsule review. To talk about it would probably turn most people off from seeing it and I doubt you can really talk about the film until you have actually seen it. Denis Cote's film about a father and his daughter living their lives in an isolated northern Quebecois community under newly hightened circumstances might be one of the best existential films of the past 20 years. Having said that, I think that past sentence will either sell the film for you or make you stay away at all costs. Not a film for everyone, but for those looking for something thought provoking, this is easily your best bet this week.

Rating: ***1/2

Drive Angry: Nicolas Cage loses his shit yet again as an undead grandfather out for revenge against the Satanic cult leader (Billy Burke) who killed his daughter and kidnapped his granddaughter to use as a human sacrifice. Drive Angry delivers exactly what you would expect from such a film (Crazy Cage, memorable villains, great car stunts, well done 3D effects, wall to wall gore, and Amber Heard as a strong female sidekick) and never lets the audience down. If you are in the mood for mindless fun, this and nothing else out in theatres at the moment will satisfy that craving more than Drive Angry will. William Fichtner steals the show and then, to use a pun, drives it like he stole it as one of Satan's emissaries taxed with bringing Cage back to hell where he belongs. Quite simply this is the film the dreadfully overrated Death Proof should have been.

Rating: ***1/2

The Eagle: I don't like medieval quest films. I never really have and The Eagle does nothing to break that trend. Next to films that take place on submarines, I can't think of a type of film I would want to watch less because of how predictable at pat they feel. Channing Tatum is an appropriate blank slate as a Roman meathead looking to avenge his family's dishonour by retrieving the titular relic with the help of a Scot who probably should not be trusted (Jamie Bell, who literally seems to be sleepwalking through the film). Things play out exactly as they are supposed to. Some friends become enemies. Some enemies become friends. I really couldn't care less. What a huge step down for Kevin McDonald who previously made the wonderful Last King of Scotland. The last 15 minutes of the film save this one from being a total write-off.

Rating: **

Funkytown: I am not quite sure if calling a film a Canadian cross between Boogie Nights and 54 is necessarily a good thing. Daniel Roby's time capsule view of Montreal during the disco era has the overstuffing of P.T. Anderson's Los Angeles film without a lot of the more graphic elements and plenty of 54's silliness without ever lapsing into full on parody. An uneven, albeit well made attempt that succeeds more than it fails thanks to some great performances from Patrick Huard as the enigmatic man at the centre of the Montreal disco scene and Justin Chatwin as a sexually conflicted young dancer. If you are going to make a confusing, over plotted period piece, you have to at least convey a real sense of time and place and on that level, Funkytown hits the mark perfectly.

Rating: ***

Gnomeo and Juliet: A perfectly serviceable and entertainingly loose adaptation of the Shakespearian classic told with garden gnomes. Filled with some genuinely funny bits and some clever sight gags, Gnomeo coasts along and is more than capable of keeping the adults and the kiddies entertained. The Elton John soundtrack, however, is both a help and a hindrance seeing that many songs are used repeatedly and quite often for no reason or simply because the producers seem to really want to get their money's worth out of their licensing agreement.

Rating: ***

The Green Hornet: Ever wanted to see a superhero flick where the hero was an annoying man child with no concept of how to be a hero other than having a bad attitude? Yeah, neither did I. Seth Rogen's take on the classic radio drama hero is so aggressively annoying and hastily put together that it almost makes me want to give Elektra a second chance (almost). After a promising opening 20 minutes, the film very quickly squanders any good will it achieved (mostly from villain Christoph Waltz and a very well delivered cameo) by settling into inept buddy cop style territory and giving the audience little to no action until the final reel. Director Michel Gondry gives it the old college try, but his style combined with an unfunny script from Rogen and co-writer Evan Goldberg and what had to be high studio expectations, make his attempts to make something new and inventive all for naught.

Rating: **

Hall Pass: Congrats of a most dubious kind are in order for the Farrely Brothers who have managed to create a film even more witless and wrong headed than No Strings Attatched. Owen Wilson seems as uninterested as Jason Sudekis seems unfunny in this incredibly implausible "comedy" about two married men given a week off from marriage by their over-qualified wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate who should have known better) to go out and have sex with anyone they want. What could have acted as an implausible farce about the growing up of the Spike TV generation, instead decides to revel in tired gross out gags and one liners that seem to just hang in the air and die a silent death. I have seen better writing on bathroom stalls written in the shit that this film so lovingly revels in.

Rating: *

I Am Number Four: This is the kind of mindless Sci-Fi brain candy that I would have thought was totally bitchin' if I was still 12. On one hand, I am no longer 12 and this film about a young man (Alex Pettyfer, faring much better here than in Beastly) who is actually an alien protector of Earth running for his life holds only a passing interest. On the other, I know this is a film made squarely for 12 year olds and it is so technically well done that I can't begrudge it in the slightest. Director D.J. Caruso doesn't outdo his work on Disturbia, but he makes a much better film than his last outing (the ludicrously stupid Eagle Eye). Also, Timothy Olyphant is in this giving it an extra half star.

Rating: **1/2

I Love You Phillip Morris: I still find it hard to believe that I saw this movie almost three years ago and that it is only now getting a perfunctory release in one single rep cinema in the city. This is a film that, despite being somewhat poorly paced, deserves much better than that. Jim Carrey delivers the best performance of his career as con artist Stephen Russell who falls in love with a fellow prison inmate (Ewan McGregor) who he can't bear to be apart from. As a result Russell is always finding new ways of escaping prison and settling into a new con in hopes that he can finally live a normal romantic life with his lover. At turns daring and quite funny, this film is still actually closer to "classic" Jim Carrey than I think most audience members might realize. What makes it even more impressive is that it is based on a true story and the film follows it quite faithfully since this is a pretty hard story to make up. Even for a con like Stephen Russell.

Rating: ***1/2

Take Me Home Tonight: Speaking of films that sat around on a studio shelf for years that I saw ages ago (4 years on the shelf, watched over a year ago at a test screening) this Topher Grace comedy recently escaped from the vaults from which it came in the US, but not yet in Canada, and managed to not even crack the top ten. It could have very well stayed in the vaults as this tale of a smart, nerdy young man (Grace, who also co-wrote and produced) stuck working in a video store gig he is overqualified for trying to get with his high school crush at a raging party in circa 1988 Chicago. What tries to be a nostalgic blast from the past ends up simply being a string of pop culture references that would make the Family Guy writing team roll their eyes. It has laughs, but the characters are all pretty unlikable and the film never works harder than it absolutely has to. Pretty empty and unsatisfying.

Rating: **