Trollhunter 2010

Trollhunter 2010

So this zany Norwegian film came to me through a review done by Movie Bob over at the online e-zine/website The Escapist.  Movie Bob and his webshow Escape to the Movies are great and I highly recommend it.  I respect his reviews and agree with his points even when I totally disagree with his verdict.  The most important note about Movie Bob is that he is a great movie reviewer that usually manages to be funny as well as informing.  Now that I did a plug for his review of Trollhunter I can skip the rest of this and go back and watch it again...

OK it is totally worth watching two or more times, but I should do my own work.  So Bob summed up the best parts for me and turned me on to this Norwegian gem, but it warrants a bit more of a write up!  Trollhunter is yet another example of fantastic Scandinavian cinema.  There have been a glut of Swedish films becoming popular in the last few years (most notable are Let the Right One In [2008], The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo [2009] and its sequels) and I have had been salivating to get my hands on a copy of the awesome Christmas comedy horror film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (check out the trailer here) from Finland, but Norway has largely been overlooked by this film addict (though Dead Snow [2009] the Nazi zombie flick is on my to watch list).  A recent article on the Hollywood Reporter website claims that Norwegian and other Scandinavian films are being sold left and right this year at the Cannes Film Festival so perhaps there will be even more oddball wonders to enjoy in the coming year!

Back to Trollhunter, the film is the, fictional, story of a government troll hunter in Norway.  It takes a page our two out of the Blair Witch Project's playbook and is shot using "found" footage from a "missing" group of student journalists.  It is shot using hand cams and reinforces the amateur feel with various scenes of the crew setting up mics and cables.  The crew are a set of students who are trying to get an interview with a man they believe is a bear hunter, but in reality is a government sponsored troll hunter.  This relationship of interviewer and subject plays out perfectly with the skeptical film crew asking all the right question allowing the troll hunter to fill in the myths, legend, and story.  The story is pretty basic and doesn't need much explaining, but the basic premise is that the troll hunter character is fundamentally an animal control officer who answers to a mysterious bureaucrat.  He leads the film crew on an expedition over northern Norway to find out why the trolls have begun to leave their native territories.

As stated above the story and writing are fairly straightforward, yet done exceptionally well.  A few times it is obvious that writing and camera work were done in ways to minimize the expensive CG work, but it didn't really detract from the narrative.  The writer/director on the project was Andre Ovredal.  Orvredal did a fantastic job of maximizing his budget and using natural settings to create a great atmosphere.  The film was shot by Hallvard Braein who does some great work shooting mostly at night with limited light sources.  A few of the scenes using the camera's "night vision" setting didn't work that well though.  The special effects and CG studios involved were Gimpville and Storm Studios who both did a fantastic job creating great trolls, both in terms of sound and visuals, with a limited budget.  The overall film budget was between $3 and $3.5 million USD, which is great considering the amount of visual effects required.  The trolls are have that CG glossy sheen at times, but are diverse, interesting, and well made.  The soundtrack was oddly hilarious at times which fit with this oddly comic mock-umentary, but this could just be an issue due to cultural differences as most of the movie is played dead straight despite its humorous nature.

The acting by the film crew is good, but not exceptional and most won't recognize the actors.  The troll hunter is played by Otto Jespersen.  Jespersen is the real standout performance in the film.  His character is intentionally flat and emotionless playing up that he is a worn-out government functionary perfectly.  The troll hunter's shabby trailer, beat up Range Rover, and costumes blend towards making the story seem feasible.

In conclusion Troll Hunter is a great foreign film.  It is a wonderful comedic look at the legend of trolls and is shot in a fake documentary style that makes it into a wild ride.  The film has the usual short comings of monster movies and foreign movies, but these roll together to give it a great campy charm.  I would recommend this movie to fans of Scandinavian movies and those that just love foreign monster flicks.

Four Lions 2010

Four Lions 2010

Four Lions is one of those foreign films that could never be produced in the United States.  It is the story of a smell cell of incompetent jihadists.  The group desperately wants to be Al Qeada suicide bombers, but the group only includes an idiot, a white man, a social incompetent, a rapper straight out of school, and a family man.  This dark comedy is the story of their struggle to bomb an important symbol of British Imperialism.  They fail in every way imaginable and that is where this movie becomes a fun satire laughing at jihadists. 

The creator, Chris Morris, considers himself a satirist, but the subject matter is a bit raw.  He collated years of funny stories and anecdotes of failed bombers to create many of the gags used in the film, but most are absurdly over the top.  For instance the character Faisal, played by Adeel Akhtar, tries to train crows to carry bombs and fly into buildings.  At the end of the film, the group strap bombs under costumes that include a ninja turtle and a kid's cereal mascot.  The pure absurdity of the characters allows for this controversial film to come off as a dark comedy that seems to condemn suicide bombers while simultaneously seeking to understand them. 

The acting is really good throughout the film with sentimental moments mixed in with the truly idiotic. The main character Omar, Riz Ahmed, is a family man who's wife and son seem to be happy that he is going to kill himself.  He has tender moments with his wife and uses the characters from The Lion King to explain his mistakes at the training camp in Pakistan.  He is the brains behind the operation, but is constantly at odds with the more than a little insane Barry, played by Nigel Lindsay.  Barry is almost a caricature as the overly zealous convert to Islam, but is easy the funniest character in the film.  The rest of the cast fill out a roster of misfits that can even make mass murder funny.  These characters could only work with the stellar writing and directing of Morris.

The film is good technically and uses some tricks I have seen before, but plays them in new light.  The most notable is that it mixes in security camera and cell phone footage.  With the shots that appear to be taken by night surveillance on the characters these shots are used to break up the more hilarious parts of the film into a regular series of chuckles.  The pyrotechnics are pretty low key, but it adds to the homemade feel of the bombs.  I can't go into much more detail without ruining a clever plot point or a great visual gag, but the other technical aspects, like the music, fit into the film flawlessly.

This film is not for everyone and makes multiple offensive statements about the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks as well as frequent antisemitic remarks.  In the context of a satire I never found myself being shocked by what was said, but other might not feel the same.  This is a great dark comedy and political satire, but without subtitles people who don't understand the thick British accents may be lost by the fast flying insults.  I would recommend this film to fans of British comedies and those that love political satire such as Lewis Black.

The Experiment 2010

The Experiment 2010

Two fantastic actors together in one small underground movie? With a supporting cast that includes Maggie Grace of Lost and the bad actor, pretty boy Cam Gigandet (Never Back Down)?  How could such a project not be good?  The rest is all bad news.  It was bad.  So bad that this review will be very short.  The Director was Paul Scheuring who worked on like 80 episodes of Prison Break and A Man Apart.  I can't fault the entire movie on him.  Technically it was an adequate, even if low budget, film.

Mostly the movie falls apart on the acting of Forest Whitaker.  Which is sad since I really loved him before this movie and the new Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior.  His role in Platoon (1986) or possibly one of the best examples of modern acting in his portrayal of Ida Amin in The Last King of Scotland in 2006.  He was totally abysmal as a nice, quiet man corrupted by power in the 'experiment' about prisons.  His side kicks are equally bad, most notable being Cam Gigandet.  He was truly awful.  Adrien Brody (Splice, The Brothers Bloom, and The Pianist) does a good job portraying a character that seems designed to be totally moronic, but even the wonderfully talented Brody can't overcome the rest of the cast.

I rarely dislike movies as utterly as I did The Experiment.  This is not my usual rant about a few points on an otherwise good film.  I am totally surprised by how bad it was.  I would not recommend this film to anyone but a die-hard Adrien Brody fan.  Now that is a quick review!

Gamer 2009

Gamer 2009

Well, I have some interesting news for my friends. Well over a year ago when Gamer came out my friends all got together without me and watched it. Afterwords they told me about how much they liked it. I said that I wasn't sure I wanted to watch it after seeing the previews because the plot was entirely too obvious and it really seemed to offend them.  The mixed news is that I was wrong, and that I was also entirely right. It is a fun movie worth seeing if you like to shut your brain off and see some fast paced action making it much more entertaining than I predicted, but I did nail the plot almost exactly. The action comes at you non-stop throughout the film and the tricks used in the editing room that give this movie a choppy feel makes even the tender moments seem like they are flashing by at a high frame rate. This keeps the audience too drawn in to this thrill ride to see the glaring holes in the plot and the one dimensional caricatures that the majority of the cast portrays.

I also got into it with one of friends over Gerard Butler's acting talent. I still am not sold he is a good actor (The Bounty Hunter counts as serious evidence against his talents), but he did do well with the absolute pile of mule sized dookey that was the storyline and writing for Gamer. This is a story that has been done before in various ways from Death Race and its ilk to the 1994 flick No Escape (a popcorn show I always liked despite it having similar plot holes). It clearly draws a lot of storyline and ideas from the classic 1987 Arnie Sci-Fi action piece The Running Man. Just from the one preview I witnessed, many basic plot devices from The Running Man are clear and obvious. The grueling TV show and the modern arena where convicts fight for their freedom. The obviously 'good' protagonist being wrongly convicted and only joining the games because someone he cares about needs him. The inevitable escape and retribution against the creator of the games. The overblown social commentary. The only thing I got really wrong is that the 'player', Logan Lerman, that controls Butler's character Kable is not part of Kable's wholly foreseeable revenge pattern. In the only twist I didn't see, the smug teenage player turns out to be neither a particularly important part of the story nor an antagonist. 

Butler and Lerman were the only actors that got roles with real depth and they both created believable characters within a movie that actively tried to undermine their efforts. The campy, mono-dimensional characters played by the rest of the troop created a fun atmosphere that almost got me laughing at multiple parts, but the light hearted play (at one point a dance scene with Michael C. Hall and his 'puppets') runs contradictory to the jarring violence and moral weight of the scenes with Butler. The lack of seriousness throughout the supporting characters also made the dark atmosphere of a disturbing dystopian future into an oversimplified world similar to Idiocracy.  The cheesy cameo-fest includes some of the best current TV actors like Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer), Alison Lohman (Pasadena), Maggie Lawson and James Roday (Psych), and Sam Witwer (Being Human US Version). A few great supporting actors show up also such as John Leguizamo (Empire, Ice Age) and Terry Crews (Expendables, Idiocracy) plays a villain.  Also the film drags in Ludacris to fill the rapper cameo quota. They were all fun to watch and picking out the duo from Psych got a genuine chuckle out of me, but the cameos seemed forced. I would guess that they were all told to ham it up by the director so I can't really fault the actors, but generally it was bad sitcom TV level acting.

Which brings me around to the directing. It was directed and written by the duo Neveldine and Taylor who worked together as writer-directors on the two Crank movies and wrote the script for the doomed graphic novel film Jonah Hex. Like both Crank films, they capture a lot of great action in short fight scenes and keep a thrilling pace going from the opening to the credits. There are great music choices that keep the excitement upbeat and rarely does the audience have wait between action scenes. They are good action directors, but outside the action shot the film falls short. Since much of the film takes place in an altered reality state they chose to have frequent glitches or frame drops which look good, but feels totally out of place in a technologically advanced future. It is much closer to glitchy internet games from five or more years ago than a cool technical trick from the near future. The purpose of these graphical twitches is to make the altered reality scenes obvious, but they remind me of The Ring (2002) more than Halo. Much of the gore in the film is so over the top it takes on a Romero-esque quality. The story and characters were poorly written and without Butler or a similar ultra-popular action star this movie would be relegated to a cheesy B action/Sci-Fi movie that would seem more at home in the early 1990s with Johnny Mnemonic (1995). With Butler the action scenes and crazy fun pace cover up most of the bad points listed above, but the film still came off too light-hearted for the subject matter.

This film does take on some serious social commentary buried within the 90 some odd minutes of heart pumping action. It is set in a future where a recluse billionaire can buy out the prison system to create a computer game with human avatars. In the world people also play a Second Life style simulation game to act out their fantasies. Neveldine and Taylor decide to cast gamers in a very unfavorable light. The gamers shown in the film are creepy looking old men, a morbidly obese man on a powerscooter, and a rich white teenager all obsessed with sex and violence. I suppose stereotypes do frequently have a kernel of truth, but the directors seem to have actively tried to alienate and insult gamers despite the film blatantly ripping off gamer culture. It also had a great advertising campaign targeting gamers before its launch. Did they intend to alienate and offend their target audience? That would be like making a children's movie where all you show is kids from the special education room blowing snot bubbles and billing it as a movie about genius children made for genius children by a pair of genius children. If Hollywood's concept of gamers is overweight losers they must really dislike one of their core demographics. As a gamer myself I try to disprove these stereotypes by being social and hygienic and it offends me to see these stereotypes reinforced for the sake of a few chuckles. Those chuckles also undermine the films credibility for the social commentary it is obviously desperate to make.

This is violent gory entertainment that is a warning about how the stupid public loves violent gory television which, like its portrayal of gamers, condescends to its own audience. While I find large portions of the core concepts, stereotypes and ideas to be completely offensive, the execution of this fast paced dystopian action flick did entertain. I enjoyed my time watching it and think that anyone who liked Crank, The Running Man, or movies like The Fast and the Furious will get a great kick out of the non-stop action just like I did. While I doubt I could highly recommend this film to anyone, I would recommend it to people looking for some fast paced fun on a Friday night, just remember to check your brain at the door.

P.S.  - I think I just pissed off half of my friends with this reviews... To again placate them I was entertained! *Giant Sad Panda Face*  

P.P.S - After ranting to my roommate about the plot holes in the film, I feel I must also add "Sweet, kind, odorous butt stench" to my list of ways to insult things.

Battle: Los Angeles 2011

Battle: Los Angeles 2011

I have to apologize about taking a few weeks off between reviews.  I went to visit my brother down in Arizona and despite watching movies before I left and while I was down there I never got around to writing.  So I have a couple of movies to review so the next few reviews should come quick, but they will probably be shorter.

The one I want to get to first is the biggest blockbuster hit, Battle: Los Angeles.  This movie had everything that gets me excited about Science Fiction.  It had the big budget special effects, a cast that isn't super famous (I find big named stars often distract in Sci-Fi and Fantasy films), was set in the near future, and had a gritty war movie feel.  Frequently this movie reminded me more of Black Hawk Down (2001) than Well's War of the Worlds with its up close look at a group of soldiers in an extreme situation.  The aliens were a great mix of unknowable yet familiar.  Their small squad tactics mimicked the tactics being used by the marines, but their armaments and bodies remained utterly foreign. The great antagonists combined with the gritty style made me forget at times that I was essentially watching special effects eye candy disguised as Apocalypse Now (1971).

Now to dig into a review before I get too long winded again.  The aliens were great, but so were the protagonists.  The main squad of soldiers were great despite some horrible dialogue writing.  Notables include everyone's favorite tough chick Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, Resident Evil) doing her usual hard-ass hottie and the reliable Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight, Thank You For Smoking) overcoming some horrible writing to deliver a tough leader as Sergeant Nantz.  One actress could have phoned it in she was so bad.  This could also be a writing problem, but Bridget Moynahan was forgettable at best.

The technical aspects of the film shined really bright despite the B movie scripting and dialogue.  Overall the story was good, but not great and the dialogue was cheesier than another Mel Gibson war epic.  The special effects were spectacular despite the drama surrounding the films effects house Hydraulx (were sued because they made Skyline at the same time which is very similar film).  Music and foley were top notch. The director, of course with the backers and producers, really turned a B movie Sci-Fi script into a high budget war movie.  The camera work was good, but went for a deliberate hand held or documentary style that isn't original enough to stand out after movies like Cloverfield (2008).

Battle: Los Angeles has been a fairly successful movie, but critics tore it up.  It also wasn't the super box office smash that some early press expected when comparing it to other gritty Sci-Fi films like District 9.  The film doesn't really hold water to great war movies like Black Hawk Down or The Thin Red Line (1998) and isn't nearly as good as recent Science Fiction masterpieces like District 9 and Avatar, but it is a great popcorn action flick.  Overall the bad writing and deliberate camp detract from what is otherwise a serious action movie, but the fast paced action did keep me watching with enthusiasm.  I would recommend this movie only for Sci-Fi fans and those wanting a fun action movie with all the campy nature of an 80s film.

Black Death 2010

Black Death 2010

This British film slipped by me.  I didn't know about its production, release, buzz, reviews, or critiques.  I love it when someone (in this case a friend known as Baron Von Awesome... freaking awesome handle) brings a film to my attention that catches me completely unaware.  It means that when I get around to watching it I have read only a few articles and maybe a review or two.  This one I couldn't even find a good review that didn't have spoiler warnings.  I went in only knowing the basic premise and that Sean Bean starred in it.  Bean is a great actor who is famous among nerds for his work in the Lord of the Rings series and his upcoming role as Eddard Stark in the HBO adaptation of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones.  Bean's high nerd cred is really what sold me on this obscure British medieval horror.

First of all it turns out Bean isn't even really in the real protagonist role.  He is merely the biggest name in the production, but the main character is Osmund played by Eddie Redmayne is fantastic so I don't mind that Bean got all the poster and box art time despite Redmayne playing the protagonist.  This is not to say that Bean plays a minor role, but Redmayne is the lead and John Lynch as Wolfstan seems to get the most lines.  Bean plays Ulric a knight working for an unnamed bishop somewhere in England sent to hunt down witches and a necromancer in a remote village in a foggy swamp.  Bean does an excellent job of being violent and devout at the same time.  He brings out the troubled nature in his character using his notable eyes to display fanaticism or insanity while keeping a calm, cool guise.  Along the way he picks up Redmayne's character Osmund as a guide. Osmund is a young monk who is straying from his vows due to the love of a beautiful young blond.  Along with them is a great group of actors playing the Christian warriors.  Of real note are Lynch as Wolfstan and Johnny Harris as the gruff, violent Mold.  They travel to a village that may or may not be anti-Christian or Pagan.  The village seems to be led by the beautiful Carice van Houten (Valkyrie 2008).  She also does a great job, but it is almost jarring as she is the only person in the cast who seems to be both clean and beautiful.  The makeup crew got a bit heavy with the mud makeup to say the least.

Speaking of makeup, lets talk about the technical side of the film.  The makeup overall was solid especially the boils and sores from the people dieing of the black plague.  There was a sharp contrast though between most of the world being presented as dirty with people smeared with mud and the village in the middle of the marsh where much of the clothing seems too pristine.  I think this was a purposeful decision to add yet more contrast between the Christian world and the supposedly evil village, but it brought me out of the world as I started wondering how the heck they got homespun shirts to look so nice.  So costuming overall was great other than what I just mentioned.  The armors for the most part looked used and worn and the clothes, furnishings, and building all looked genuine to a non-historian like myself. 

The rest of the technical aspects were just as solid.  The Director Christopher Smith, who most won't know unless they saw the comic horror Severance from 2006, really put together a great movie.  It got a bit heavy handed with the narration by Lynch at the end, but he really built a world where a battle between Christianity and a necromancer seems plausible.  You feel the superstitions of the age creeping in constantly while Smith also seems to regularly re-root the film firmly back to reality.  The writer Dario Poloni deserves some of the credit for that as he wrote this thrilling tale, but I feel the dialogue occasionally was too modern.  The Cinematographer Sebastian Edschmid did some great scenes even if the movie wasn't perfect.  One notable scene has the camera locked onto the face of a character as he is dragged and then crucified.  As in much of the film clever cuts don't show all the violence but being jerked around along with the character as he is tortured really was a good, dark touch.    The music and sound by (I believe) Christian Henson is good and plays with the absence of sound like I haven't seen since the last religious action movie I watched, Book of Eli

(2010).  It ratchets up the tension in those scenes like no music could.

So all in all I have to say I really like this thriller period piece.  Even after watching it I can't firmly identify if the movie was pro or anti Christianity, but it does seem to say it is against hunting witches... maybe?  I personally love when the message in a movie becomes a bit muddled, but some may dislike this.  It also deals with medieval Christianity and its sponsored savagery so some religious folk may feel like skipping it.  This movie will draw you into a world where questions aren't answered, the supernatural may be real, and violence or thrills lie in every dark forest.  I would recommend this movie to horror fans who want something deeper than Saw-like gore-porn and people interested in medieval history.

Paul 2011

Paul 2011

Paul was a movie I had been looking forward to for some time.  It stars the awesome comedy duo Nick Frost and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead 2004, Hot Fuzz 2007, and the Britcom about slackers Spaced).  They are a comedy set that has turned out cult classic comedies based on a tried recipe of geek humor and pop culture references.  I read a few interviews with the pair leading up to the release of Paul and I had the impression they were attempting a less referential style with a more mainstream appeal.  The inclusion of American mainstream comedy actor Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express 2008, Knocked Up 2007, The 40 Year Old Virgin 2005) as the voice of Paul reinforced that idea.  I wondered how a movie that starts with two British blokes going to Comic-Con would have mass appeal, but geek culture has been becoming the dominant sub-40-year-old culture for years. Because I had this bias going into Paul, I got a great surprise.  Pegg and Frost continued using their famous recipe of referencing geek culture, alien/UFO lore, and occasionally obscure references.  In order to make a movie with broader appeal they added more popular culture references and allowed the humor to dwell mostly on more famous sci-fi using multiple references to the Star Wars series and the classic UFO film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).  This should allow the movie to be accessible to a larger audience, but may sacrifice the cult following of Pegg and Frost's earlier works.

The comedy duo of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg really forms the core of this movie and their fans should feel right at home.  The pair brings in their usual chemistry and fall into their usual roles with Pegg going after a girl and Frost having a bordering on obsession friendship with Pegg.  The chemistry works great, but is not exceptional. Rogen plays the voice of the alien Paul.  He turns in a good performance and delivers his lines with good comedic timing, but somehow the big stoner voice of Rogen never really jived with the tiny surfer style CGI alien on screen.  I think this was more of a casting problem, but it never really detracts from this mostly silly adventure.

In this film the love interest is played by cute and funny Kristen Wiig (best known from SNL, but recently did well in the deliberately bad MacGruber in 2010).  Her character starts as a religious person and this is used to set up multiple gags on evolution/creationism and hardcore hillbilly Christianity.  Her character's main role is to set up a romantic appeal for the movie, but she delivers the best performance of the reality shattering truth that aliens exist and are talking to you.  Despite fainting gags the rest of the cast seem to mostly take Paul in stride, but Wiig's character genuinely struggles with the truth that her religion is false and everything she knows is being shaken up including her morality and relationship to her crazy hillbilly dad.  Wiig's character and her story should upset many religious people and I suggest keeping your more religious friends and family away from this film or you might end up getting an earful.  Her acting is the most notable in the film, but this is a fun comedy and the cast's acting is pretty bad throughout.

Pegg and Frost's previous greats were all with Director Edgar Wright who worked with them on Spaced, Shaun, and Hot Fuzz.  I was worried about Wright not being the director on Paul, but Director Greg Mottola does nearly as well.  The effects, music, and shots from this film don't stand out and lack some of crazy ideas from earlier Pegg and Frost films, but they all work in the film and have good comedic elements.

I have to say that I did not enjoy this film as much as Shaun of the Dead, but it was close to on par with Hot Fuzz.  Paul worked a lot better for me than Pegg's work without partner Frost such as Run, Fatboy, Run (2007).  Overall I think the movie was a great sci-fi comedy and contained such great pop culture references and cameos that most people should find a good laugh.  I would recommend this movie to fans of Frost and Pegg or people who like geek reference comedies like Fanboys (2008).

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