Showing posts with label Joss Whedon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joss Whedon. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Summer Movie Checkin
I realize that I had a long-winded tirade regarding Jurassic World, however, I wanted to write a quick review for the movies I have seen so far this summer with some reasoning.
Inside/Out
This movie plus Up proves that Pete Docter is the most talented director at Pixar. Docter has shown that he is okay over and over again to evoke real emotions, good ones and sad ones to propel his story with a depth that rivals some of the darker more adult 80's kids films. His movies never feel like fluff and in Inside/Out he does it again and provides a reason why he does so by validating the need to be sad. The fun and imagination on display in this film is fantastic. While Joy's journey isn't the most interesting to me, the over all care and craft of the film places this in the upper echelon of Pixar films and as a rival to Up. Every kid should see this film and I'm sure tons of therapists will use this film as a way to help struggling kids to understand their own feelings. 5 out of 5.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Joss Whedon is very intelligent and one of my favorite dialogue writers. His banter is fantastic. I loved his run on Astonishing X-Men. The first Avengers film is well crafted and fun. However, for round 2 things feel a bit more by numbers and more bland. I approve of the death of the character I will not mention. I wish there were more. I also agree that this movie shines when it slows down such as at Hawkeye's house. While the characters and actors are here doing their thing and Black Widow is still awesome with a little back story. However, the constant action propels the audience over the more glaring poor decisions and plot holes. The new guys (Vision, Piotr, Scarlet Witch, Ultron) are all adequately represented. Piotr is great. Scarlet Witch is ok. Vision is also fantastic. However, the best and worst parts of the film revolve around Ultron. You hire James Spader to voice Ultron and then you have Ultron primarily do a bunch of monologueing. I mean Spader is Spader. He is a creepy guy and he could sleepwalk through that. But excessive monologueing? I know Whedon knows better. Also, the whole Thor cave of visions things feels hacked in half, like we aren't getting everything. Actually, many characters never get a good moment to shine. Thankfully Black Widow and Hawkeye do since they don't have their own films. Unfortunately this means that as a cast it doesn't feel as balanced. It doesn't have to be if the film focuses on one or two characters, but then there is all that A-list actor ego and demands that would fight that because they want to be seen as equal to so and so. I read an interview where Joss discusses his issues on this one with the studio, and I don't hold him responsible for the mediocreness of this. I just feel there were one or two places where he could have strengthened it if he hadn't been so burned out. Now go make Dr. Horrible 2 already. I need more songs to sing. Three out of Five
Spy
Melissa McCarthy and Paul Feig are quickly becoming synonymous in my mind. I am not a fan of McCarthy as I tend to find her a little to in your face with her brashness. However, her better movies all seem to stem from this director. Thankfully, Spy is a movie that hits on all cylinders. The story is well done. I love the actors and the chemistry in the film. Melissa McCarthy is a big personality but they manage to find ways to help her make the lines more character driven and fit in this ridiculous movie. A spy spoof? Love it! From a feminist angle? About time! While most of the great lines go to McCarthy, she does have some stiff and hilarious competition from Rose Byrne and Jason Statham. I now need a sequel so that I can see more Statham in a comedy. Funny scenarios, hilarious lines, and the crazy random swedish bodyguard all make me love this movie. It has raised my skeptical hopes for Feig's next movie, Ghostbusters. Four and half out of 5
San Andreas
Brad Peyton. Ok who? Dwayne Johnson. The Rock? Yes, The Rock. What you need to know. This is stereotypical world will end type stuff with a family angle and random just met you romance thrown in. The only thing that makes this movie special, is it has the Rock and the inventiveness of how California will be destroyed is very insightful and thought through in a fun cinematic way. If you like The Rock, you will like this movie. He even acts. Although he does seem to meet his limit at one point when he is unable to avail himself of tears. Me, I love fun blockbusters like these and The Rock has always been dynamic. Paul Giamatti delivers a perfectly fine performance for a script to which his whole role is to be the guy who says California is about to be destroyed and lets us get an idea of how bad the next quake will be. Level 2? Level 6? Try eleven! Thanks Hollywood for that cheese. While the script is nothing to write home about and I feel bad for Giamatti, the time taken in planning and shooting the epic quality of the film and The Rock as a lead actor places this film right below a good end of days Roland Emmerich film, but probably above Michael Bay which is praise for Mr. Peyton since I do love me some nonsensical spinning explodey carnage.
3.5 out of 5
Pitch Perfect 2
Elizabeth Banks takes over as director for the first time with this film. Interestingly, her debut might go unnoticed as she fails to bring her own real stamp to the process. It feels how a sequel should feel and it is a relatively low risk as a debut given the success of the first on the characters. The script for this feels a little forced but the jokes are still great, it progresses while maintaining much of the charm of the original, even though it is a mission film. I say that as in movies like Dirty Dozen where the team all gel and have to accomplish some big goal for the group which takes up the entire focus of the movie. While that can work, part of the greatness of the first was the balance between the main group story and Anna Kendrick's story. Don't get me wrong, if you like the first, then you will like the second, but the jokes are a litte less funny, the chemistry feels a little less heartfelt, and the best music belongs to the Germans. Good for a popcorn experience, but easily forgettable. Here's hoping when they make the 3rd, they try to get back to the heart and good music of the original while having better group jokes and less Fat Amy "I'm fat and gross" style jokes. 3 out of 5
Mad Max Fury Road
Best action movie I have seen in a long time. Never really watched the Mad Max Trilogy. Just watched the first one the other day. I enjoy Mel Gibson and I like Tom Hardy so this seemed like it could be good. However, I was scared after a lot of ok reboots in the last few years of taking older series and trying to bring them back. Terminator, Tron, etc. However, Mad Max knows what it is and gives its fans a taste of something new, feminism. Everything critics have said about the film is true. It changes the landscape of action movies in several ways by having a legitimate badass in Theron's character and by going oldschool with lives stunts. I heard they went and did 300 live action stunt shoots in the desert and no one was seriously injured. That is amazing even by the old standards when live action stunts were the norm. The thing that impressed me the most besides the absolute bonkers imagining of road warfare (seriously cool and well thought out, reminded me of old time naval battles) was the reserved approach of George Miller to the material. The movie reeks of adrenaline, action, gruesome deaths, but there is very little on screen gore. Miller consciously chooses to keep more of the gruesome stuff off the screen, right beyond the lens, where you can feel the impact, but not have to see it. Multiple times throughout the movie he gives this approach and it helps by keeping us focused on the action or what is happening instead of trying to wonder how they were able to show someone's face being ripped off. I also approach that Miller reserves his exploitation of women which makes it feel like more of a conscious decision to focus on the equality of women. Most of the movie has several hot models in white flowy sheets. It would have been really easy for many directors or producers to just be like, in this scene you run under a waterfall while escaping and get soaked. But Miller never attempts to manipulate the characters into showing more than they should. The only time a woman is truly naked is when she is using her body as a trap to catch travelers, and even then it is hard to get a glimpse of her naked body due to how it is cut and edited. While Miller's choices are very easy to spot while watching, the overall package and message of the film is fantastic and left me feeling like a madman driving all the way home. 5 out of 5
Friday, February 23, 2007
Serenity
'Serenity Now!'
If you don't know Joss Whedon, I can at least guarantee you've probably heard of his work. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and you might have even heard of a little show a while back called Firefly. Well, in 2005, Whedon released his first blockbuster type film based off of his small television show Firefly called Serenity. When it came out the movie was critically lauded as an excellent action film, one of the best of that year supposedly. So, to say I have been looking forward to this film is no joke. And here is how it breaks down. First the history.
For those of you that don't know, Firefly was a space opera, in other words an epic space show that combined a lot elements of classic westerns into itself. The show was well-recieved critically, but overlooked by most audiences. It was canceled after 1 season due to the network not being able to understand or see how to market the show. Fans of the show, like Buffy and Angel before it, are intense and whole sites of fan-fiction exists. There is even a site dedicated to writing fan scripts to create the next few seasons called stillflying.net. It turns out that Joss was a big fan of the show too and somehow got Universal to bank on the idea of a Firefly movie. Before the movie came out to the delight of browncoats(fans) everywhere, Whedon released a small miniseries of comics that helped to prepare audiences for the differences between the series and the film called Those Left Behind. Then the film came out with all of the original cast intact and good word of mouth and critical praise, but the box office was not as good as to be expected, preventing Joss from being able to follow up on doing the sequels he had hoped for. The last possibility is really seeing how well the show does on DVD. But my question is, is it worth it? As someone who has read the miniseries and seen all of the episodes with director's commentary and then seen the movie, I will be approaching this review from the point of view of a fan and I will try and talk about what it would be like to not be familiar with the history of the series.
Honestly, my answer for if the film is worth it is pretty close to no. It's a decent action film for sure and a lot of the acting is well done, but Whedon makes many mistakes, especially in how he tries to take something that is a cult hit and expand that feel to a mainstream audience. It simply doesn't work right and in the process he makes a less decent film than I feel the series deserves. From the fans point of view, the film's focus on action leads to some great scenes for Summer Glau, Nathan Fillion, and the villain; but this detracts from what made the television show so great and what made the show so endearing. Joss talks about the fact that when making a film you have to bow to the God Momentum and make everything bigger and more action-oriented. Well...in doing so he sacrifices relationships and character moments. I understand that an action film, especially now a days, has to be really fast and furious but every great film has slow moments. I think that if Joss had stuck to his guns and added in some more character relationship moments and slowed things down a little at times, he could have created a truly memorable movie. As it is, I would be surprised if someone not familiar with the show knew that Kaylee and Simon liked each ther before the huge showdown scene near the end. The investment in the characters by non-fans of the series is so minimal that it forces Joss to kill off two of the main characters from the show, when he only needed to kill one of them if he had included more relationship scenes. As much as I hated to see Wash go, I agree with Whedon in the commentary that Wash had to die to make it believable that the others could die too. But Shepherd Book had no reason to die. I'm sure there was idea of making the bad guy look badder, which works a little when you think about how badass the shepherd was at fighting in the television series, but honestly I think Whedon killed him off because he never knew how to write him. Even during the television series Book never sounded like a holy man. He always came across as someone playing at being a holy man to hide from his militant past or something like that. Its an interesting back-story, one that is never explained and makes me even more agitated that he killed him, but there are moments in the television show where you see Book truly doubting and wondering about his path showing that he does care about being a holy man. The problem is that you never see him doing anything holy besides reading a book and occasionally trying to tell someone something and having them spit it back at them. I think Joss wasn't sure of how to write the character because he has stated before that he desn't believe in God or anything and this fact would keep him from being able to understand and sympathize with a character who is compassionate about God. The one transitional thing he did well was to cut out a lot of the cheese. Whedon is an admitted fan of cheesey one-liners and things as evident from the show. On the small screen, these well done cheese lines are funny and not too annoying. In a film dealing with such dark and interesting material, it detracts and really takes the audience out of the experience, which creates some problems since the main leader, played by Nathan Fillian was concieved as a Han Solo'ish type whom of course made good use of the one-liners in the Star Wars films. Since the cheese is natural to the show and necessary, Joss does a good job by including it only scantily in the movie and instead letting the movie follow the more serious path to mimic the darkness of the plot. It's also nice in the end when Simon and Kaylee finally get to make out like mad. Whedon, who also scripted the movie, performs perhaps the biggest and most unforgivable flaw though in the script.
I have to say, this factor right here would be what would turn me off the most as a fan and as a non-fan. The story essentially involves three people. Now, if you have seen the show then you know that the cast is much bigger than that and that they are all in the film, which is exactly the problem. The other characters tend to serve as merely background spectators and events to the three main storyplots. The main storyplot revolves around River and Simon Tam and their relationship and the fact that they are being hunted down so that River can be recaptured/killed. Which makes little to no sense because in the series it was always they were after her to re-capture and bring back for more experiments. Anyhow, it focuses on illuminating more of their story and on what the experiments did to River. The other main point is in showing captain Mal's slow ascent from the dark drudgery to which he had descended back to being a hero for what is right. All the other characters serve to merely make the action scenes cooler. Some aren't even able to do that. Honestly, Adam Baldwin's character would never have followed Mal out past the Reavers and on a suicide mission. He would have tried to kill everyone and take over first because he might be dumb but all he wants is to live, kill things, be funny, and get paid. It took a lot for him to do the right thing in one episode called Jaynestown. But in the movie, he puts up a little verbal tiff and its over. Wash and Zoe's love is briefly touched upon just like all of the other romances and we rarely hear from either of them. I hold that Gina Torres is possibly the only woman who has looked truly deadly in a fight scene. Kaylee is the mechanic who runs around fixing things. And then there is Inara. Inara and Mal's relationship is such a strong point of the television series that its a shame it gets almost no mention in this film. In fact, the film feels like it brings everyone back together simply to have them together, which is not worth ever doing in a film. Inara has one story point that could have been easily rewritten to not include her and their are moments where you catch a glimpse of her in the film and wonder what she is still doing there. She is essentially useless in the story and is the only character whom we don't see injured in the final showdown for whatever reason. She is essentially a ghost who just randomly appears at times creating no discernable care for her character. Instead of fulfilling the role of the Leiah to Solo role as she starts off to do in her introduction into the movie, Joss just kind of drops her character and she never becomes anything more than that girl Mal visited and saved. Nothing about her interesting past and history as a companion is ever shown or revealed and there is one deleted scene on the DVD that I am sad Joss decided to cut since it would have made Inara much more interesting and fleshed out.
Conclusion:
The television series is great, the stories are always interesting, but Joss's decision to make the movie more action oriented and to cut out a lot of the relationship scenes creates two-dimensional characters and drowns out a lot of the magic of the original television series. Also, by creating a storyline focusing on only three of the main characters, the rest of the cast becomes potential fodder and leads to him killing off two great characters instead of one if he had designed it more so that each character was NECESSARY to the plot. A lot of the things in the series that gave Firefly and the cast its charm was the universe and backgrounds of the characters and how they all overlapped, most of which is lost in the movie in favor of action scenes. The good news is that despite these problems of the script, their are some truly well done artistic directorial choices involving camerawork and lighting on Whedon's part. Also, he transfers just enough to of the fun of the series in the cheese factor over to make the crew recognizable as the same Firefly crew and to imbue the film with funny moments. I'm sad that the film so far hasn't made enough money to make sequels but I don't know if I want sequels if Whedon isn't going to make all of the cast necessary. If you get the chance, buy the television series and then if you decide you like it more than that, consider buying the film. I want more of the idea and cast and Whedon banter, but the television show is much better.
2.75 out of 5
Wannabe
If you don't know Joss Whedon, I can at least guarantee you've probably heard of his work. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and you might have even heard of a little show a while back called Firefly. Well, in 2005, Whedon released his first blockbuster type film based off of his small television show Firefly called Serenity. When it came out the movie was critically lauded as an excellent action film, one of the best of that year supposedly. So, to say I have been looking forward to this film is no joke. And here is how it breaks down. First the history.
For those of you that don't know, Firefly was a space opera, in other words an epic space show that combined a lot elements of classic westerns into itself. The show was well-recieved critically, but overlooked by most audiences. It was canceled after 1 season due to the network not being able to understand or see how to market the show. Fans of the show, like Buffy and Angel before it, are intense and whole sites of fan-fiction exists. There is even a site dedicated to writing fan scripts to create the next few seasons called stillflying.net. It turns out that Joss was a big fan of the show too and somehow got Universal to bank on the idea of a Firefly movie. Before the movie came out to the delight of browncoats(fans) everywhere, Whedon released a small miniseries of comics that helped to prepare audiences for the differences between the series and the film called Those Left Behind. Then the film came out with all of the original cast intact and good word of mouth and critical praise, but the box office was not as good as to be expected, preventing Joss from being able to follow up on doing the sequels he had hoped for. The last possibility is really seeing how well the show does on DVD. But my question is, is it worth it? As someone who has read the miniseries and seen all of the episodes with director's commentary and then seen the movie, I will be approaching this review from the point of view of a fan and I will try and talk about what it would be like to not be familiar with the history of the series.
Honestly, my answer for if the film is worth it is pretty close to no. It's a decent action film for sure and a lot of the acting is well done, but Whedon makes many mistakes, especially in how he tries to take something that is a cult hit and expand that feel to a mainstream audience. It simply doesn't work right and in the process he makes a less decent film than I feel the series deserves. From the fans point of view, the film's focus on action leads to some great scenes for Summer Glau, Nathan Fillion, and the villain; but this detracts from what made the television show so great and what made the show so endearing. Joss talks about the fact that when making a film you have to bow to the God Momentum and make everything bigger and more action-oriented. Well...in doing so he sacrifices relationships and character moments. I understand that an action film, especially now a days, has to be really fast and furious but every great film has slow moments. I think that if Joss had stuck to his guns and added in some more character relationship moments and slowed things down a little at times, he could have created a truly memorable movie. As it is, I would be surprised if someone not familiar with the show knew that Kaylee and Simon liked each ther before the huge showdown scene near the end. The investment in the characters by non-fans of the series is so minimal that it forces Joss to kill off two of the main characters from the show, when he only needed to kill one of them if he had included more relationship scenes. As much as I hated to see Wash go, I agree with Whedon in the commentary that Wash had to die to make it believable that the others could die too. But Shepherd Book had no reason to die. I'm sure there was idea of making the bad guy look badder, which works a little when you think about how badass the shepherd was at fighting in the television series, but honestly I think Whedon killed him off because he never knew how to write him. Even during the television series Book never sounded like a holy man. He always came across as someone playing at being a holy man to hide from his militant past or something like that. Its an interesting back-story, one that is never explained and makes me even more agitated that he killed him, but there are moments in the television show where you see Book truly doubting and wondering about his path showing that he does care about being a holy man. The problem is that you never see him doing anything holy besides reading a book and occasionally trying to tell someone something and having them spit it back at them. I think Joss wasn't sure of how to write the character because he has stated before that he desn't believe in God or anything and this fact would keep him from being able to understand and sympathize with a character who is compassionate about God. The one transitional thing he did well was to cut out a lot of the cheese. Whedon is an admitted fan of cheesey one-liners and things as evident from the show. On the small screen, these well done cheese lines are funny and not too annoying. In a film dealing with such dark and interesting material, it detracts and really takes the audience out of the experience, which creates some problems since the main leader, played by Nathan Fillian was concieved as a Han Solo'ish type whom of course made good use of the one-liners in the Star Wars films. Since the cheese is natural to the show and necessary, Joss does a good job by including it only scantily in the movie and instead letting the movie follow the more serious path to mimic the darkness of the plot. It's also nice in the end when Simon and Kaylee finally get to make out like mad. Whedon, who also scripted the movie, performs perhaps the biggest and most unforgivable flaw though in the script.
I have to say, this factor right here would be what would turn me off the most as a fan and as a non-fan. The story essentially involves three people. Now, if you have seen the show then you know that the cast is much bigger than that and that they are all in the film, which is exactly the problem. The other characters tend to serve as merely background spectators and events to the three main storyplots. The main storyplot revolves around River and Simon Tam and their relationship and the fact that they are being hunted down so that River can be recaptured/killed. Which makes little to no sense because in the series it was always they were after her to re-capture and bring back for more experiments. Anyhow, it focuses on illuminating more of their story and on what the experiments did to River. The other main point is in showing captain Mal's slow ascent from the dark drudgery to which he had descended back to being a hero for what is right. All the other characters serve to merely make the action scenes cooler. Some aren't even able to do that. Honestly, Adam Baldwin's character would never have followed Mal out past the Reavers and on a suicide mission. He would have tried to kill everyone and take over first because he might be dumb but all he wants is to live, kill things, be funny, and get paid. It took a lot for him to do the right thing in one episode called Jaynestown. But in the movie, he puts up a little verbal tiff and its over. Wash and Zoe's love is briefly touched upon just like all of the other romances and we rarely hear from either of them. I hold that Gina Torres is possibly the only woman who has looked truly deadly in a fight scene. Kaylee is the mechanic who runs around fixing things. And then there is Inara. Inara and Mal's relationship is such a strong point of the television series that its a shame it gets almost no mention in this film. In fact, the film feels like it brings everyone back together simply to have them together, which is not worth ever doing in a film. Inara has one story point that could have been easily rewritten to not include her and their are moments where you catch a glimpse of her in the film and wonder what she is still doing there. She is essentially useless in the story and is the only character whom we don't see injured in the final showdown for whatever reason. She is essentially a ghost who just randomly appears at times creating no discernable care for her character. Instead of fulfilling the role of the Leiah to Solo role as she starts off to do in her introduction into the movie, Joss just kind of drops her character and she never becomes anything more than that girl Mal visited and saved. Nothing about her interesting past and history as a companion is ever shown or revealed and there is one deleted scene on the DVD that I am sad Joss decided to cut since it would have made Inara much more interesting and fleshed out.
Conclusion:
The television series is great, the stories are always interesting, but Joss's decision to make the movie more action oriented and to cut out a lot of the relationship scenes creates two-dimensional characters and drowns out a lot of the magic of the original television series. Also, by creating a storyline focusing on only three of the main characters, the rest of the cast becomes potential fodder and leads to him killing off two great characters instead of one if he had designed it more so that each character was NECESSARY to the plot. A lot of the things in the series that gave Firefly and the cast its charm was the universe and backgrounds of the characters and how they all overlapped, most of which is lost in the movie in favor of action scenes. The good news is that despite these problems of the script, their are some truly well done artistic directorial choices involving camerawork and lighting on Whedon's part. Also, he transfers just enough to of the fun of the series in the cheese factor over to make the crew recognizable as the same Firefly crew and to imbue the film with funny moments. I'm sad that the film so far hasn't made enough money to make sequels but I don't know if I want sequels if Whedon isn't going to make all of the cast necessary. If you get the chance, buy the television series and then if you decide you like it more than that, consider buying the film. I want more of the idea and cast and Whedon banter, but the television show is much better.
2.75 out of 5
Wannabe
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