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Based on the Robert A. Heinlein novel of the same name, Starship
Troopers
details mankind's future war with giant bugs from outer space. Why have
these alien arthropods decided to pick a fight with Earthlings? We never
find out, not that it matters. The wild and woolly battles with the CGI
bugs find the Dutch Verhoeven, who made his name in America with the
superlative sci-fi actioners RoboCop and Total Recall, back
in top form.
No other action director can make mass impalings, decapitations, and
dismemberment so sadistically--and gleefully--over-the-top. More prudish
viewers may find the bloody action repugnant, but the gruesome, almost
cartoonish, nature of the violence is exactly what makes Verhoeven
adventures so much fun.
Unfortunately, aside from a brief snippet of opening bug action, there is
an often laughable first hour of exposition and uninspired soap opera
subplots, during which we meet our focal slate of stock characters: Johnny
Rico (Casper Van Dien), hotshot soldier; his demure girlfriend, Carmen
Ibanez (Denise Richards), a military pilot; brash Dizzy Flores (Dina
Meyer), who carries a torch for the oblivious Johnny; pilot Zander Barcalow
(Patrick Muldoon), Johnny's rival for Carmen's affections; and Carl Jenkins
(Neil Patrick Harris), an intelligence officer whose psychic abilities only
extend to animals. Every film needs its expository time, and this section
of the film is an obvious timekiller before the war heats up, but Verhoeven
and screenwriter Ed Neumeier put forth very little effort, if any, to make
these characters and their situations halfway interesting. More energy and
thought is expended in the acidly satiric news bites and fascistic military
recruitment propaganda that pepper this first half. How do the filmmakers
expect the viewers to care about the characters if they obviously do not?
If anything could have saved this first hour and more "dramatic" moments
that come later in the film, it would be the acting, but, as so painfully
exemplified in Showgirls,
Verhoeven does not have much of an eye for young
talent. Van Dien, whom I remember not-so-fondly from his stints on ABC
Daytime's One Life to Live and the deliciously cheesy but little-seen
1990
syndicated women-in-prison soap Dangerous Women, can bark out "Kill 'em
all!" with the best of them, but he has little acting skill to offer beside
his square jaw. It also does not help that he, Richards, and Meyer make
the WASPiest Argentines since... well, Jonathan Pryce in Evita; and that
they, Harris, and Muldoon look much too old to be the high schoolers their
characters are supposed to be at the film's opening. The only cast member
displaying some signs of life--aside from Michael Ironside, who is usual
stern, effective self as teacher/commanding officer Jean Rasczak--is Meyer,
who infuses Dizzy with moxie and spunk.
And while Verhoeven is miles away from Joe Eszterhas (thankfully so), some
post-Showgirls fallout is still in
evidence, most blatantly in a
ridiculously gratuitous co-ed shower scene, and more subtly so in its
anti-feminism. I usually do not like to include spoilers in my reviews,
but I cannot address this point without giving something away, so skip the
next paragraph if you wish not to have some details spoiled...
When a male character is able to destroy a humongous tanker bug, he is
celebrated as a hero; when a female character does the same--which no other
person save that one male is able to do--she receives no credit. A female
soldier mortally wounded in combat bravely accepts her impending death, but
not because she did her part in saving the human race. In the end, her
passing is worth it to her because... she had the chance to sleep with a
studly conquest. A female character supplies a critical coup de grace
against the aliens, but who is carried on everyone's shoulders like a hero
at the end? A male who did not do much of anything.
Its problems aside, Starship Troopers does deliver what the audience
comes
for, which is two-plus hours of no-brainer entertainment, filled with the
graphic ultraviolence that has become associated with the name Paul
Verhoeven. But as fun as much of the movie is, its superficiality is quite
dismaying coming from Verhoeven, who once upon a time melded electrifying
action with plot and character in RoboCop and Total Recall.
Starship
Troopers is not the return to form for Verhoeven many have called it--in
the end, it is just a step in the right direction, albeit a fairly
entertaining one.
Washington Square centers on the romance between gawky, naive
Catherine
Sloper (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the daughter of the wealthy Dr. Austin
Sloper (Albert Finney), and dashing but penniless Morris Townsend (Ben
Chaplin). Naturally, their relationship does not sit well with Austin, who
suspects Morris's true motives--after all, how could a poor young man
honestly be enamored by the meek and woefully unrefined Catherine?--and
does all within his power to keep his daughter and the suspected golddigger
apart.
Agnieszka Holland's film is a joy to look at, yet for a film that focuses
on a grand passion, the final product is strangely cold and distant. But
that shortcoming is made up for by the work of the cast. Leigh may sound
like a peculiar casting choice for a costume drama, but her trademark
mannerisms and mumbly elocution are a perfect fit for the insecure, awkward
Catherine. She has a nice rapport with the charming Chaplin, who sports a
convincing Yank accent. Finney's Austin makes a despicable, yet archly
funny, villain, and Maggie Smith provides some delightful comic relief as
Catherine's hopelessly romantic Aunt Lavinia.
A more involving James adaptation is Iain Softley's swifter-moving and
more understated The Wings of the Dove, which takes a more complex
slant on
the rich girl-poor boy romance. The woman of wealth here is Kate Croy
(Helena Bonham Carter), who has a forbidden affair with common journalist
Merton Densher (Linus Roache). Kate and Merton long to marry, but Kate
refuses to give up her lofty position in society and the luxuries her
snobby aunt (Charlotte Rampling) provides her. When wealthy, ailing
American Milly Theale (Alison Elliott) arrives in London, Kate and a
reluctant Merton engage in a cruel scheme that could ultimately enable them
to marry without sacrificing Kate's riches.
What makes Wings soar above the fairly black-and-white
Washington are the
richly shaded characters and relationships, brought to vivid life by the
central trio of actors. Despite her character's evil plot, Bonham Carter
never allows
the audience to lose the feeling that Kate truly does care about
Milly--it's just that she cares about herself even more. Predictably,
Merton develops feelings for Milly as well, but Softley and Roache wisely
do not spell out whom he loves more, which creates genuine dramatic
tension. Milly is weak in body, but deceptively so; inside she is strong
in spirit and quite clear of mind. The sparkling Elliott, who was just
about the only redeeming quality of last year's dreadfully overwrought
Sundance sensation The Spitfire Grill, delivers a quiet performance
that is
astonishing in its power, most notably during a climactic tête-à-tête
between Milly and Merton.
Whether or not Washington Square and The Wings of the Dove,
which have
both received favorable notices from critics, garner the hoped-for Oscar
nominations remains to be seen; there is no question, however, that they
are both quality pieces of filmmaking, with Wings being the worthier
contender.
In Brief
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I have never seen more than two minutes of a Mr. Bean episode while
channel surfing, and thus the appeal of Rowan Atkinson's goofy yet wildly
popular British TV character had always escaped me. But after watching Mel
Smith's hilariously silly big screen Bean, the reason why this film has
already amassed a surprisingly robust box office take of $125 million
before opening in America could not be clearer--the considerable comic
talents of Atkinson.
The screenplay by Four Weddings and a Funeral scripter Richard
Curtis (who
"devised" the Mr. Bean character with Atkinson) and Robin Driscoll does not
offer much in the way of plot; the film hangs upon a very basic premise
(inept, clumsy London National Art Gallery employee Bean is sent to a Los
Angeles gallery as an art expert). Also, Smith's direction quickly settles
into a predictable set-up-and-follow rhythm (Bean is left alone; Bean gets
himself into all sorts of screwball trouble; people react). But the gags
are hilarious, thanks in large part to Atkinson, who is a truly gifted
silent comedian. Mr. Bean hardly speaks at all, and Atkinson is able to
hit the comic jackpot through grunts, gestures, body movements, and, most
of all, facial expressions. But this is not to say things are not funny on
the rare occasion he does utter a word; some of the biggest laughs come
during a climactic speech he is forced to deliver. Providing a terrific
foil to Atkinson's slapstick antics is Peter MacNicol as the curator of the
Los Angeles gallery; his harried and neurotic straight man makes a perfect
Cousin Larry to Atkinson's twisted and demented (to the extreme) Balki.
Note to those planning to see the film: sit through the end
credits.
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John Travolta plays Sam Baily, a laid-off museum security guard in
Madeline, California who, in a fit of rage, takes his boss (Blythe Danner)
and a class of young children hostage at gunpoint, inadvertently wounding a
former co-worker (Bill Nunn). Trapped in the museum with the hostages is
Max Brackett (Dustin Hoffman), an unscrupulous television news reporter who
advises the naive Sam in his crime, exploiting the situation to benefit his
floundering career.
Director Costa-Gavras and screenwriter Tom Matthews tackle a provocative
issue--the nature of the news media in today's society--which is a lot more
than one can say about a lot of Hollywood product these days. But the film
has nothing new to say about it; "the media are vultures" is the prevailing
point here, and it is not expressed in the most original or interesting of
ways. In addition to the central Max/Sam story, "the most trusted newsman
in America," network anchor Kevin Hollander (Alan Alda) is just as dirty
and sensationalistic, if not more, than his bottom-feeding contemporaries;
and innocent local news intern Laurie Callahan (Mia Kirshner) is corrupted
when she becomes a network reporter overnight--literally.
Keeping the proceedings watchable and somewhat involving is the byplay
between Hoffman and Travolta. Hoffman is terrific, very convincing as a
sleaze while believably developing some seeds of a conscience as the film
progresses. Travolta fares less well on individual terms; his overly
mannered performance pales in comparison to most of his recent work. But
his innate likability cannot help but endear the audience to Sam and his
plight, even if its ultimate resolution is--quite
literally--overblown.
A Life Less Ordinary (R) BUY on Amazon:Poster!
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While the extremely peculiar A Life Less Ordinary does live up to its title, a
more appropriate moniker would be A Movie More Misguided, for this
confused, confusing attempt at romantic comedy is a most disarming disaster from the
talented Trainspotting
team of director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, and screenwriter John
Hodge.
At the core of this strange film is a fairly basic--and, yes, ordinary--premise. After
Robert (Boyle regular Ewan McGregor), an aspiring writer of trashy novels, is fired from
his janitorial job at the Naville Corporation, he kidnaps Naville's (Ian Holm) spoiled
daughter Celine (Cameron Diaz) and holds her for ransom. The joke here is that Celine is
a willing victim--her father threatened to cut her off financially, so she wants revenge--and
that she soon becomes not only an accomplice but the brains behind the scheme, teaching
the inept Robert a thing or two about kidnapping... and, ultimately (didn't we see this one
coming?), love.
So far, so mediocre. But mediocre is better than dreadful, which this film is, thanks in no
small part to the Hodge's contextual frame for the romance. It turns out that God is
displeased with the divorce and romantic breakup rate on earth, so the chief of Heaven's
police, Gabriel (Dan Hedaya) dispatches two angels, O'Reilly (Holly Hunter) and Jackson
(Delroy Lindo), to earth to hook up Celine and Robert--or lose their angel status. This
conceit might have worked if the angel dimension played an integral role in theentire
picture. But it could have easily been cut without any clear loss to the film; as it stands, it
is simply a waste of time that distracts from the romance at hand.
Not that there is much of a romance to begin with. Try as Diaz and McGregor may,
Celine and Robert are too one-note to become very endearing characters. Celine is rich
bitch; Robert is a dullard. As such, it is quite hard for the audience to really connect with
these two--then again, they never seem to really connect with each other. When Celine
and Robert start to overtly act on their "feelings," it comes off more like something
scripted than anything natural.
But I am not exactly sure if Boyle and company's point was romance; honestly, I am not
exactly sure what they were trying to accomplish. Boyle juices up the visuals with his
characteristic razzmatazz, but it remains just that--energy, not energy in service of a story
or even acting. The cast seems lost, especially Hunter, whose performance is so adrift as
to be baffling. And then there are the many eccentricities splattered onto the film: some
violent confrontations involving the angels, who are not exactly angelic--in fact, they end
up staging their own ransom scheme; some mystical hokum in the climax; and a cutesy
Claymation epilogue. Watching much of A Life Less Ordinary is like being
trapped in indie hipster hell, stockpiling quirks in the name of cool. Instead, the film just
gives quirky a bad name.
My best guess as to what the filmmakers wanted to accomplish is an atmosphere of
warped womantic (yes, misspelling intended) whimsy, which comes through in only one
scene: an extended musical number where Celine and Robert sing "Beyond the Sea" at a
karaoke bar. After a verse or two, the couple are magically dolled up in snazzy outfits
and hairdos, and engage in a spirited dance routine on the counter. The scene works not
only because of its relative simplicity but also because it does not try too hard, just relying
on the innate charm of the leads, allowing them to build a romantic rapport. Alas, not
nearly enough is built, for this moment comes to an abrupt end.
I applaud any attempt to bring something fresh and unique to movie houses, but
sometimes even cleverness can reach overkill. A Life Less Ordinary certainly
delivers something "different," but by the time the film was over, I was clamoring for A
Life More Ordinary.
In Brief
The Ice Storm (R) BUY on Amazon:Poster!
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Just when you thought subtlety was dying in movies comes Ang Lee's Oscar-worthy
adaptation of Rick Moody's novel, a funny, moving slice of life in New Canaan,
Connecticut, circa 1973, where married couples swap spouses at "key parties" and
adolescents routinely dabble in sex, drugs, and alcohol. The focus lies on two neighboring
families, the Hoods and the Carvers. Ben Hood (Kevin Kline), unhappily married to the
sweet-natured Elena (Joan Allen), is having an affair with the sultry, bored Janey Carver
(Sigourney Weaver). Ben and Elena's acerbic 14-year-old daughter, Wendy (Christina
Ricci) constantly rebels against her youth, sexually experimenting with Janey and husband
Jim's (Jamey Sheridan) eldest son, Mikey (Elijah Wood), while shamelessly teasing his
younger brother, Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd). Our narrator through these stormy
proceedings is Wendy's older brother, prep school student Paul (Tobey Maguire), who is
saddled with an uninteresting storyline involving a wealthy crush named Libbits
Casey (Katie Holmes).
The Ice Storm is a film whose poignancy sneaks up onto you; based on the above
synopsis, the film seems like a trashy soap, and for its often comic first half, it plays as
such. During this time, however, Lee, scripter James Schamus, and the uniformly
excellent ensemble quietly develop and shade the various characters and relationships in
preparation for the more serious second half, when the titular meteorological event hits.
But even during this more dramatically charged second hour, Lee's touch remains
restrained and subtle (save for overtly metaphorical shots of ice cubes and ice cube
trays), eschewing melodramatic confrontations, ever-so-subtly building to the moving
finale, which is exquisite in its deceptive simplicity: in just one singular action, Lee deftly
ties up the film's themes of family and belonging. Nothing could better sum up this
beautifully nuanced, passionately performed, and terrifically realized piece of
work.
Those looking for a more effects-laden science fiction film will be
disappointed by Gattaca, which centers more on drama than on pricey
pyrotechnics. Set in "the not-too distant future," the film is set in a
society where one's station in life is determined solely by genetics.
Advances in genetic engineering have made natural breeding obsolete; to
ensure a promising future for their children, prospective parents turn to
geneticists to create their babies in a lab, where they take the most
desirable genetic traits of the parents--and weed out their most
undesirable--to create a "perfect" child. This genetic elite, called
"Valid," are given all the golden opportunities in life--jobs,
wealth--while the "In-valids," those created from natural breeding, make up
the poor lower class.
One of these "faith children," as they are called, is Vincent Freeman
(Ethan Hawke), a precocious young man who dreams of flying to the stars.
Even though his genetic makeup makes it impossible for him to realize his
dream, he does so anyway--by dealing with a black market DNA broker (Tony
Shalhoub), who arranges Vincent to swap places with Jerome Morrow (played
with scene-stealing gusto by Jude Law), a valid whose genes are of no use
after being paralyzed from the waist down. As Jerome, Vincent builds a
successful career at the aeronautics corporation Gattaca and is all set to
fly on a mission to Titan, one of Saturn's moons. But after the director
of Gattaca is murdered, and an In-valid eyelash is found in the ensuing
investigation, it seems like only a matter of time before "Jerome" is exposed.
Much of this material harkens back to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, but
I must give credit to Niccol, who paints a vivid, funny, yet disturbing
portrait of this future society. The best moments come from the little
details in the script. For example, when Vincent is born, the doctors can
immediately determine his lifespan and what illnesses he is likely to
suffer from; In-valids are sometimes referred to by the slur
"de-gene-erate"; and some rather curious dating rituals: when Vincent
expresses interest in Valid but slightly imperfect colleague Irene (a
strangely uninteresting Uma Thurman, in a thankless role), she offers him a
strand of her hair for a DNA check and says, "Let me know if you're still
interested." Niccol's fascinating vision also extends to the striking
cinematography, production and costume design by Slawomir Idziak, Jan
Roelfs, and Colleen Atwood, respectively. They obviously did not have a
substantially large budget to work with, but they succeed in creating an
otherworldly look through minimalism. Buildings are shiny and smooth;
people dress up in nice suits; and color is all but absent--everything
seems constantly bathed in some shade of grey or silver, perfectly
conveying the sense of coldness and lack of passion that dominates this
glacial society.
Niccol's attention to detail does not extend, however, to Gattaca's basic
plot mechanics, which are rather contrived. The murder mystery plot turns
out to be little more than a device to put Vincent in danger of being
discovered and does not reach a satisfying conclusion on its own. A
supposed plot twist involving one of the murder's investigators (Loren
Dean) is predictable and uninspired, and a sibling rivalry subplot explored
early in the film between Vincent and his genetically engineered younger
brother is revisited later to very little effect; it just serves as an
extraneous, redundant underscoring of the point that genetics are not
everything. The one relationship that is supposed to lend some warmth to
the proceedings, the romance between Vincent and Irene, fails to ignite;
Hawke and Thurman may have generated sparks off camera, but very little, if
any, of that rapport is displayed onscreen.
When I first saw the trailer for Gattaca, I and a few other people
snickered at the terribly banal tagline "There is no gene for the human
spirit." As cornball as it is, that simple statement quite effectively
sums up the true nature of the film. For all of its big Hollywood sci-fi
trappings, Gattaca is essentially an intimate human story, and an
unexpectedly moving and inspiring one at that. By the time it is over, one
may just find oneself with (somewhat) renewed faith in the human race.
Keanu Reeves plays Kevin Lomax, a hotshot Florida attorney who is not
above anything to win a case, even (gasp) coming up with convincing
defenses for clients he knows are guilty. This, of course, means he his
headed for the big-time, and the golden opportunity comes when he is
invited to join a lofty New York firm headed by the brash John Milton (Al
Pacino).
As the poster's tagline goes, "The newest attorney at the world's most
powerful law firm has never lost a case. But he's about to lose his soul."
Known to every moviegoer going in, Milton is not only a bad guy, he is
the bad guy--the Devil himself. But it takes a while for Kevin to
realize this--and for director Hackford to explicitly suggest that he is.
As such, The Devil's Advocate comes in at a bloated two-hour,
twenty-plus-minute running time. However, the film's setup is much more
interesting than the overblown payoff offered by Hackford and screenwriters
Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy. Up until the climax, the obligatory
visual effects are fairly subtle, convincingly conveying the story's
fanciful elements while not undercutting its anchor in reality. But the
Hollywood mentality of "more is more" takes hold in the final reel, and
Hackford employs an extravagant and extremely extraneous array of effects
for the final showdown. Similarly Hollywood are a couple of contrivances
that cap the picture. The Devil's Advocate takes a pair of wild twists in
its conclusion, the last of which is a definite crowd-pleaser, but it also
makes no logical sense. I will not give it away, but it reeks of blatant
audience pandering (and, perhaps, test screening tinkering), offering a
quick fix of enjoyment while simultaneously going against just about
everything that immediately preceded it.
Reeves-bashing has become so commonplace that it can be seen as a critic's
easy way out, but, forgive me, I cannot resist here. One of Reeves's worst
characteristics is his flat voice, and while punching it up with an accent
would seem like a harmless way of giving it a jolt, for Reeves it is
ruinous. His Southern drawl is horrendous, not to mention inconsistent,
yet mercifully so--he is much easier to take when it disappears. Another
common problem with Reeves is his inexpressiveness, which was perfect for
the action hero in the original Speed but is a huge hindrance in something
halfway-dramatic as this. When some sign of emotion is called for, his
face appears to be under great strain, painfully contorting to shape an
expression of some affect. Most of all, however, his natural blankness
makes Kevin's spiritual change from mostly good to bad barely noticeable;
the only difference I could make out between the "before" Kevin and the
"after" Kevin is that the "after" Kevin smokes.
It comes as no shock, of course, that the lightweight Reeves can barely
hold his own with Pacino, who deserves billing over Reeves for the sheer
entertainment value of his performance if not his more illustrious career
and box office track record. At first it is slightly disappointing to see
Pacino retreat to the broad theatrics of most of his recent work after the
beautiful subtleties of Donnie Brasco, but his shameless showboating is not
only called for here (after all, the Devil cannot exactly be restrained),
but a lot of fun. The sole pleasure of the overdone climax is the sight of
Pacino throwing all caution to the wind and cutting completely loose: he
not only gets to act angry, sad, happy, and all points in between, he also
gets to do a song and dance. Pacino has a blast, and it is hard for you
not to, either. His sparkling presence really holds the picture together.
More surprising, though, is Reeves's poor showing against up-and-comer
Charlize Theron, who plays Kevin's wife Mary Ann. Theron has the largest
dramatic burden to bear--throughout the course of the picture, she has to
change from a naive, bleached-blond-and-permed bumpkin to a dark-haired,
severely distressed woman driven to the brink of insanity--and she carries
it with very little, if any, trouble. She has a critical emotional gravity
that Reeves lacks during their more serious scenes, which belies her fairly
limited experience in film (and acting, for that matter). It is amazing
that over the course of only four films in the past two years--2 days in
the Valley, That Thing You Do!, Trial and Error, and this--Theron has
displayed a greater depth and range than vet Reeves has in his entire career.
Theron is great, Pacino is, too, and the film has a delicious, if
improbable, hook, but in the end The Devil's Advocate is a fable with a
fairly simpleminded moral--do the right, honorable thing. It is a lesson
we have all been told before one way or another, and in a number of more
satisfying cinematic ways.
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Buena Vista's press synopsis for Playing God labels the film "an intense
thriller," and never have publicity notes been more helpful: after watching
this aimless oddity, I could not get a handle what exactly the film is,
and, based on the mess onscreen, the filmmakers themselves did not seem to
have a clue, either.
Playing God starts out like a thriller, with our hero, aimless junkie
Eugene Sands (David Duchovny), performing some nifty impromptu surgery on a
shooting victim in a seedy L.A. nightclub. That grisly scene is followed
by a more straight dramatic one, when we are offered a glimpse into
Eugene's troubled past: he was once a surgeon, but he was stripped of his
medical license after doing some fatal work on a patient while under the
influence of amphetamines. Things then shift into a more comedic gear with
the entrance of counterfeiter Raymond Blossom (Timothy Hutton), who,
impressed with Eugene's spontaneous and skillful show of surgical savvy,
takes a reluctant Eugene under his wing as a highly-paid on-call doctor who
illegally "fixes" his criminal associates after they get themselves into
bloody mishaps. And whenever Eugene's surgical gigs take center stage, the
film takes a more blackly comic route.
When thriller-like double-crosses by Eugene, Raymond's girlfriend Claire
(Angelina Jolie), and an FBI agent (Michael Massee) come into the picture,
it becomes quite clear that no one involved in Playing God, much less
director Andy Wilson or writer Mark Haskell Smith, has a real grasp on what
exactly the film is all about. Not only is the film's mood and flow of
events all over the map, but without any focused direction, all of the
players attack the material from wildly different angles. Duchovny
maintains a Fox Mulder-type balance of deadpan sarcasm and seriousness
throughout; the pouty Jolie is stiffly earnest; and Massee and especially
Hutton seemed to have wandered in from the broad comedy next door. I
suppose the original intent of Playing God was to be a neo-noir with a
gloss of postmodern hipness, something hinted at by Eugene's coolly
detached and "ironic," if pointless, voiceover narration. But any
discernable intentions are lost in the swirl of clashing ideas and
sensibilities.
"A game with no rules" reads the tagline for Playing God, which can best
be described as "a film with no rules": a peculiar star vehicle for X-Files
sensation Duchovny that meanders within the territory of comedy, drama,
thriller, and just about anything under the cinematic sun with very little
rhyme and no apparent reason at all.
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