Home » Movies

Movies

Killers
By Kimberly Gadette

Not the best title for a film, does Killers kill? Or, does this film cry out for a hit man of its own, someone kind enough to take it out of its misery?

It seems that the studios are attempting to build a better mousetrap. Given the current, decided taint of the rom-com, there's a new genre in town targeting both sexes: romance for her, action for him. Sounds like a perfect match-dot-com: "Curvy hot babe looking for a LTR with a hunk who's packing heat." A hookup between Cupid's arrows and flying bullets? Whew, that's got to make for some substantial sparks.

It's not that "romaction" hasn't been around for awhile: earlier films falling under this category include Charade, Romancing the Stone, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But with the releases of Date Night, Killers and the upcoming Knight and Day, this subgenre is suddenly leaping into the spotlight.

That said, does Killers blow us away? How's the romance? How's the action? What about the fact that the studio refused to hold any screenings for critics prior to the film's release? And is it possible that this paragraph may generate more excitement than the film itself?
Ouch. Talk about more fizzle than sizzle.

When lovelorn yet beautiful Jen (Katherine Heigl) meets up with single yet hunky Spencer (Ashton Kutcher) on the French Riviera, the scenario is as pretty as a picture postcard. She lies about being on vacation with her folks (Tom Selleck's Mr. Kornfeldt, Catherine O'Hara's Mrs. Kornfeldt). He lies about being a hired assassin. So what's the problem? Doesn't everyone misrepresent themselves a bit at the start of a courtship? After a few more scenes, we flash forward three years, with Jen and Spencer happily married and ensconced in an upscale suburban neighborhood. Until the day of Spencer's 30th birthday, when it seems as if everyone in town is looking to give him a very special present. With either a sharp point or a silencer. Simply put ... this is not the gift that keeps on giving.

Keeping to the title's theme, we most decidedly have murder in mind - for the filmmakers. The script is idiotic. The leads display little chemistry. The action is ho-hum and repetitious, with deathly struggles (knife fights, car chases, gunplay) going on so long that we pray that both sides will die of boredom before we do.

While the filmmakers were obviously going for humor about murderous mayhem in suburbia, it's a terrific muddle. Neighbors of three years who throw block parties suddenly turn berserk. Jen's overprotective parents treat her like a developmentally handicapped child, fearing for her life on an airplane, sitting on either side of her as they insist she point out the emergency exits. Jen and Spencer think nothing of arguing about his issues with her parents, even though he has mere seconds to flee before the next round of bullets come whizzing at his head. There is an unexplained joke that weaves throughout with Catherine O'Hara's character downing buckets of alcohol at every opportunity. (Perhaps it's because O'Hara knew exactly why there were no pre-release screenings held for the critics.)

Heigl should be a pro by now with this, her fourth romantically-tinged comedy in so many years (Knocked Up, 27 Dresses, The Ugly Truth). But as time goes by, it seems as if the actress' enthusiasm for these comedies is waning. Here, Heigl's character is either berating or shrieking. Constantly. Her early scenes with her parents are colorless. The only opportunity she gets to remind us of her comedic abilities happens when she first encounters Kutcher in an elevator as she's crunching on Maalox tablets. Her attempt to suppress the chewing is very funny - even though, thanks to director Robert Luketic, the scene also goes on much too long.

As for Heigl's co-lead, Kutcher is severely in need of a decent project. He has obvious charm, but his acting choices to date have hampered him to the point that he may ultimately make his sole on-camera mark as a commercial pitchman for Nikon cameras. Hopefully he'll soon find a project that will allow him to shine ... because no one deserves to have their career slaughtered by a substandard film called Killers.

And no one deserves to have 100 movie minutes wasted by the same.

'SPLICE'
THE GENETICS LAB BABY
By Sean Chavel

Splice is a horror film and a class act, and it is reassuring to report that Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley brought the best of their talents to this project. Just when horror film was dissolving into bottom of the barrel entertainment, it has somehow shot back. "Paranormal Activity" was a smart and inventive quasi-documentary that used grain and shaky cam to its benefit. "Splice" is a smart and cleverly re-tooled classic style horror that uses rhythm, anticipation and a controlled visual style.

The big players like Quentin Tarantino ("Inglorious Basterds") and Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air") are directors who understand what a rigorous visual style can bring to a picture. More and more these days, directors are losing sense of what rhythm and control are. Look at "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" to see how haphazard the shooting and cutting style are, with disjointed images of running, jumping, swinging all randomly jumbled in the editing room, not to mention a camera that whooshes along without coherent navigation or purpose.

But here we return to the fundamental joys of moviemaking. The director of "Splice" is the talented but relatively unknown Vincenzo Natali who thirteen years ago made the claustrophobic horror "Cube" which was so good at what it's trying to do that its effects were divisive among audiences that were elated and nerve-rattled and others who were just unnerved. Natali uses chilly blue filters for the lab technician scenes and slow zooms to heightening effect, he fixes the camera down and lets grotesque things drop into frame. What Natali fervently does is create a self-contained mood for the entire film, something that is a bit 1930's "Frankenstein" and a body mutation David Cronenberg picture.

Brody ("King Kong") and Polley ("Dawn of the Dead") are the genius genetics scientists, romantically linked, who use their pharmaceutical company resources to raise a gigantic worm. But no, that's not all folks. In order to produce higher levels of genetically-enhanced proteins for mass consumerism, they hybrid various animals, the worm, and human genetics into a hybrid creature that ages exponentially eventually is named Dren (the portrayal is by actress Delphine Chaneac). "What could possibly go wrong?" Polley asks, and as the experiment stays secret, the problems stack up.

Like all mindful horror films do, the medical duo attempts to create a relationship with the creature that has conditioning and associating learning capacity (less mindful horror films have no relationships). You're always aware, gleefully, that Brody and Polley are too close to their experiment. We see before they do that Dren is a creature with problems tempering its own rage. While the early scenes are the true terrifying ones, the horror evolves into comedy. But creature features have always been funny in their Darwinistic free for alls. "Splice" is a comedic battle of the minds, between doctor and creature, and the doctors who have varying degrees of sympathy for this… thing.

If "Splice" falls short of being a masterpiece of its genre then it is because the engineered foreshadowing is too obvious and the final climactic showdown is a re-boot of countless other thrillers. Scariest film ever, no (but your mom might think so), but it has the kick of a quality amusement park ride. "Splice" is an irresistible breed of both brains and style, with a contagious stir of laughs and screams.

Get Him to the Greek
By Rick Kisonak

The funniest line in the trailer and TV spots for Get Him to the Greek is nowhere to be found in the film itself. In the promos, a barf-streaked Jonah Hill escorts the fallen rock star played by Russell Brand to a live interview with Meredith Vieira and obliviously slurs, "Is there a bathroom here at the Today Show'?"

It's a deliriously absurd moment that encapsulates everything appealing about writer-director Nicholas Stoller's sequel of sorts to 2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshall. So why omit it? The movie is almost two hours long, and vast stretches cry out for the cutting-room floor, so it's not as though the filmmaker was the least bit concerned with delivering a trimmed-to-the bone final cut.

That is just one of several questions raised by this picture. Another one is: Why isn't it a better time? The ingredients for a major-league laughathon would appear to be in place. Judd Apatow is in the producer's chair. Brand reprises his breakout role as British rock god Aldous Snow. He's even fallen off the wagon and is casually setting Guinness records for celebrity excess.

For his part, Hill would seem to be the perfect choice to play Aaron Green, a desperate-to-please record-company underling. He's charged with dragging the debauched has-been from London to New York (for that truncated "Today" show sequence) and then on to the titular L.A. venue for a comeback concert - all within 72 hours. Hill's character is Brand's opposite in every way. How could knee-slapping hijinks not ensue?

Don't ask me. For the most part, they simply don't. The movie is long on premise and surprisingly short on, well, surprises. Do we not expect Snow to mess with the fawning shlub sent to put an end to his 24-hour partying? Did we not come to see Hill's dweeby character sucked into the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, a world where he proves preposterously out of place? Do we really have the slightest doubt as to whether he'll get the preening egomaniac to the show on time?

And, this being an Apatow production, are we not guaranteed a combination of raunch and heart-tugging tenderness? While hardly envelope pushing (Stoller's idea of cutting-edge crudeness is having characters say the word "vagina" whenever possible), the movie's raunch quotient does yield its meager bounty of merry moments. For example, on a plane, Green tries to stifle a sneeze after hiding a balloon of heroin up his bum at Snow's insistence. He's terrified that, if he lets it rip, his bowels will evacuate. The result is perhaps cinematic history's most comical sneeze - a sound that suggests someone sitting on a gerbil.

But we do not buy tickets to a Judd Apatow production for the silly sounds, now, do we? What we have here is a great idea for a comedy and a script that's at least a dozen rewrites away from greatness. There isn't a single laugh-out-loud scene in Get Him to the Greek, and the closest thing to a shock is Sean Combs' show-stealing turn as Hill's boss, a gonzo record-company owner. Of course, the only viewers it will take by surprise are those not aware of the musician's well-reviewed work a while back on Broadway.

The final act abandons all pretense of outrageousness in favor of warm and fuzzy bonding between Snow and his handler. But do not expect to be overcome with emotion. Well before the rock star hits the stage, my guess is you'll be ready to hit the nearest exit.

'THE A-TEAM'
Get’s A “D”
By Sean Chavel

There are a hundred questions to be had, within the opening ten minutes alone, along the lines of how did the good guys end up tied up, who are the bad guys and where did they come from, who is representing who, how and why did two of the heroes just happen to convene in the desert, and how did these reckless guys manage to last 80 missions together, and so forth with The A-Team. Some questions are more relevant than others but the mind scans feverishly when there is nothing else to do.

Of all the TV show adaptations, this one seems particularly like a good idea to blow up to the big screen since the action possibilities of a Special Forces team gone rogue after being framed by high up government conspirators seem limitless, with built-in colorful characters. Efforts are immediately deterred when "The A-Team" is edited like a two hour coming attractions trailer.

Bradley Cooper is pre-occupied acting sexy, reprising the same kind of overgrown fraternity boy he was in "The Hangover" but is laborious here while playing Templeton "Face" Peck. Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, a UFC light heavyweight, is B.A, Baracus but is no match for Mr. T. Sharlto Copley, the star of last year's "District 9," is pilot and navigation expert Howlin' Mad Murdock, and also a loon but too much of a loon.

Beyond all these calculations it is humbling to report that Liam Neeson ("Taken") gives a full-bodied performance as Hannibal Smith, the chief of the outfit. Even Neeson's haircut seems like serious divide and conquer business. Neeson not only builds rapport with his co-stars and believable seething ridicule with his adversaries, he looks like he can take on some of his own stunts. However, there are few actual human stunts in the movie.

"The A-Team" will be attended by millions worldwide, many of them will be in a cheering mood for action and excess (mostly just excess). But as a critic I am bewildered as to why so many moviegoers are impressed with computerized stunts anymore. I can still get wowed by action, but it is much more impressionable if there is human probability.

When a tank flies in the movie by way of discharging artillery and somehow hovering the vehicle in mid-air (uh-huh), my eyes are not impressed. Certainly there are other moviegoers like me interested in what the human body is capable of doing and not what Hollywood computers are capable of doing. There is a reason why East Asia action pictures are currently more exciting.

I was finally entertained, and nudged upright in my seat, by the distraction-diversion-division finale - a gigantically staged showdown at a cargo dock - but the rest of the action in Joe Carnahan's (he directed "Smokin' Aces") movie is incoherent or impossible. There is one love story in the movie involving Jessica Biel ("The Illusionist") as a Captain Charissa Sosa and Cooper's character Templeton. She is high level enough to order her military team to shoot down and blow-up Cooper and his buddies at one point (no arrest or detain, just shoot down), and yet somehow, he forgives her and waits for her kiss at the end of the movie. Uh huh. With so much excess and flash, the movie couldn't care less about changing its mind about its characters five minutes later. The cinematography is flashy, too, with lots of flash-pans and crooked angles, which is a shame, too, to the discerning moviegoer.

'THE KARATE KID'
TRANSPORT TO BEIJING
By Sean Chavel

You can forget about a relocation from New Jersey to Los Angeles because in this new update of The Karate Kid you get a relocation from Detroit to China. Jaden Smith is the 12-year old kid barely starting puberty and Jackie Chan is the martial arts trainer. The 1984 crowd-pleaser, back when crowd-pleasers were an honorable craft, featured Ralph Macchio as a 17-year old high school senior who gets roughed up too many times by rich kid snobs so he falls under the guiding hand of Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi.

They don't play the original often enough on cable. But they will still be playing it on cable in twenty years. The new one might not find the same accord. Although it doesn't have my endorsement, it is not rotten, either. Our young actor Jaden, son of uber-famous Will Smith, has pluck and presence as Dre, and looks skilled and nimble during the martial arts action. Chan is doing one of his aging man morose acts as Mr. Han, the kind he's been doing since he lost his stunt abilities, but he has a caring aura around him and so we buy that he has a bond with the kid.

Besides Mr. Han, Dre has two friends the entire movie: a white kid we meet at the beginning and never see again and a gifted young violinist Meiying (Han Wenwen) who has bashful eyes for him. Dre's mom is played by that feisty actress Taraji P. Hensen (she was nominated for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"), and in screenplay neglect, we never get an idea of what kind of job she got that forced her to move with her young son to China! She hardly comes off as a supermom with international communication skills, but hey, it may be set in China but it's still the land of Hollywood corn.

If there is one big unintentional laugh it takes place within minutes after their arrival, it is observed that Dre is to start school the next day. Haha, so the movie is saying that when mom's move their sons to foreign soil they don't get there early to settle in and observe local sights for the first few days, no, they start work and school right away, as in next day. Another lack of subtlety: Dre gets in a fight with the local bully (Wang Zhenwei) who will become his adversary for the rest of the movie.

There is some Chinese flavor and even some dialect (with English subtitles) throughout the movie, and visits to a kung fu palace is actually the kind of awesome sequence that mightily supersedes expectations. For a moment, Dre even gets into the yin and yang spirit of advanced martial arts and we see through his eyes that he understands the interior of his opponent.

At the big tournament, Dre has to get in the ring with a number of bullies who are trained under the Fighting Dragon School which is coached by the unforgiving Master Li (Yu Rongguang Yu). It is through this character that we see the movie look at the Chinese as cruelly exotic: Master Li punches a student who is a tad on the merciful side. Once again, mercy is for the weak. Yet throughout the entire film, it's odd, in an off-putting way, to see 12-year olds beat each other and somehow more accessible to have seen 17-year olds with developed bodies compete in the original film. The training sequences are the coolest part, but substituting the wax on / wax off is jacket on / jacket off, yet when Dre demonstrates his moves for the first time - well, it makes you want to join a karate class.

Depending on who you are, you might or might not have a problem with 12-year olds engaging in hand to hand combat. And so you want to know, how is the action in the final tournament? Is it cool? The honest answer is its half good, half bad. Half the time the action is photographed with finesse shots that are held steady and comprehensible, but the other half it is done in jarring close-ups and indistinguishable cutaways. Smith is a movie star in the making though - if he keeps his dreadlocks he can play Predator one day. But sincerely, it would be a just choice if Spike Lee or John Singleton cast him in something one day.

back to top