Category: Genre

UNCHARTED

By Marc S. Sanders

None of what is said in the film Uncharted matters.  The film opens in the middle of a death defying, albeit CGI, action scene with heartthrob Tom Holland dangling from a cargo net that’s hanging outside of a plane thirty thousand feet above the ground.  He apologizes as he kicks a couple of faceless thugs out into the great wide open, and he rolls his eyes at an oncoming sportscar driving off the plane’s ramp in his direction.   But it’s not like he’s worried that the car will mow him down and kill him before the fall would even do so.  That’s because even here he’s just charming Tom Holland who’s never afraid to die.  I guess that was my problem with this escapist film, based on a popular video game.  No one was ever afraid they’d die.  So, why should I be?  Excuse me while I refill my popcorn.  You don’t have to tell me what I miss.  I’m sure I’ll catch on.

Holland portrays treasure seeking adventurer Nathan Drake.  Early on, it is established that his brother is being held captive somewhere.  Nathan is receiving postcards from him, with statements written on them that seem more like riddles.  Hmmm!  Is his brother sending him clues, do you think?  One of their last conversations while they were living in an adoption house was something about gold hidden by Magellan.  The conversation went on longer than I cared, honestly.  I gave up on the details.  These scholars weren’t going to tell me anything intriguing.  That’s the best way to approach Uncharted.  Just watch for the CGI stunts, Holland’s agility on bannisters and bar counters, and see how all the secret doorways open. 

Soon after the exposition, Nathan is accompanied by a slightly older adventurer named Victor Sullivan, or Sully (Mark Wahlberg).  Holland and Wahlberg toss some smart alec zingers at one another.  See they’re only supposed to get along so much. 

The guys attend a black-tie auction where I knew Nathan was gonna be dangling from those hanging ceiling lamps somehow, and then they are on their way to Barcelona.  Oh yeah.  A diary helps them out as well with some clues that turn up only when they have to conveniently turn up.  A map will help them too, only when it’s conveniently there.  I’m not interested though in watching Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg trace their fingers across a map.  There’s also the beautiful adventurous girl, Chloe (Sophia Ali), who we are supposed to trust or maybe not trust.  The bad guys are Antonio Banderas, who’s really given nothing to do except have his name listed in the credits.  Look at that!  PlayStation Studios actually contracted Antonio Banderas to be in their movie!!!!!!  I did say bad guys, right?  Sorry.  The other one is an Asian woman named Braddock (Tati Gabrielle), who’s only interesting trait is the blade she carries is in the shape of a scythe.  It’s only held and hardly gets used.

Are you starting to recognize that all I’m describing is surface material here?  There’s no depth to anyone.  Uncharted is so afraid to swim in the deep end, that it doesn’t even connect our hero Nathan with his long-lost brother.  Like ever!!!!  The film acts like a video game and thinks like a video game.  So why not just leave it as a video game?  If you want to make a movie, then the filmmakers should have gone a lot deeper.

It’s easy to compare this modern update on the adventure film to Romancing The Stone or any of the Indiana Jones pictures.  What continues to set those forty-year-old movies ahead of this fare, is that we actually feared for the characters.  Kathleen Turner’s apprehensive motive for going from New York City to the rain swept jungles of Cartagena was to rescue her kidnapped sister while trying to uncover a priceless treasure along the way. Her sister could be fed to the alligators at any given moment, or worse Turner could be brutalized by vicious Columbians on her tail.  When the famed archeologist, Indiana Jones, gets trapped in an underground room full of snakes or is left dangling over a bottomless pit, he looks terrified.  He has no rope to hang from and there really is no way out, and he knows it.  This could be the end. 

Nathan Drake, however, knows it’s never the end for Nathan Drake, and that’s…well…that’s boring. 

What can I say?  I’ve always gotten bored quickly with video games.  I know.  I know.  You’re gonna debate with me that this is BASED ON A VIDEO GAME.  Fine.  I agree.  Yet, I paid for a movie.  At times Uncharted moves like a video game character that walks in place when confronted with a wall.  Your joystick can’t figure out how to turn the guy around so he can trot in another direction away from the edge of your flatscreen TV.  It just doesn’t go anywhere until, how do you like that, Sully and Nathan turn to the right page in the diary or read the right post card from the long-lost brother that we never get to see.  Wait!  Let’s look at the map!

I really like Tom Holland.  He’s charming and handsome and athletic.  Spider-Man has demonstrated that he’s a good actor too, beyond the comic book action.  He’s definitely cut out for a tongue and cheek action picture.  Mark Wahlberg is ready to be the mentor.  He’s fine as well.  He’s just done it better in a film like The Italian Job.  They look like a great pair of partners.  Unfortunately, they are given nothing to demonstrate how good a pair they really could be.  Put a little fear in these guys.  Make believe they’ll actually drown or fall to their death from a helicopter.  Put them at the wrong end of a gun or a sword.  Heck, when you give them a sword, allow me to believe they aren’t so proficient with it.  I mean Holland is only 25 or 26 here.  How much could he have learned already.  Let them get shot in the arm, and still carry on.  Give them a limp.  Cut their lip or bruise their temple.  Uncharted doesn’t do any of that.  It only jumps to the next level, and as soon as you dispose of a baddie, they fade away out of the scene…like in a video game.

It’s not terribly bad.  Uncharted is like going over to your friend’s house, though.  He shows off his PlayStation by popping in the game and he promises he’ll let you have a turn to play.  Only your turn never comes, and while you sit there gazing at the posters and trophies in his room, your friend thinks he’s entertaining you for hours as his game goes on and on and on.  So, uh…when’s it my turn to use the controller??????

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

By Marc S. Sanders

Claus Von Bülow was not a well liked man. In the 1980s he was put on trial for the attempted murder of his wife Sunny Von Bülow and was found guilty in a courtroom within the state of Rhode Island. However, even guilty men need a lawyer. Alan Dershowitz accepted Claus’ invitation to be his appellate attorney and successfully won the case with the assistance of the best students to come out of his law school classes. Reversal Of Fortune directed by Barbet Schroeder documents the month and a half that Dershowitz had to make a case for overturning Claus’ conviction. The film is based on Dershowitz’ book Reversal Of Fortune: Inside The Von Bülow Case.

Jeremy Irons won the 1990 Best Actor Oscar for portraying the cold and cavalier Claus. He plays the part as if he looks so completely guilty that it’d be foolish to actually think he committed any sort of crime. It’s too obvious to seriously jump to that conclusion.

Glenn Close is Sunny, Claus’ wife. She serves as a narrator from her permanent, seemingly brain dead comatose state. She also appears in flashback moments that account for either her perspective, or Claus’, or the suppositions of Dershowitz (played very effectively by Ron Silver) and his young legal team. Sunny’s voiceover asks the viewer early on “What do you think?”

Sunny was hooked on various pills, chain smoked, ate an abundance of sweets and drank very heavily. She preferred to stay in bed for most of her days. One instance seems to show her in a comatose state lying next to an unalarmed Claus. The maid is disturbed by the nonchalance of the aristocratic husband. A doctor or the police have yet to be phoned. Sunny comes out of that episode but a year later falls into another comatose state. Flashbacks hint at the theory that perhaps Claus was poisoning Sunny to obtain her fortune and keep up with his extra marital affairs. Following her second coma, Sunny’s children hire a private investigator to obtain evidence that was eventually used against Claus in his trial. As an honorable servant of the law, this infuriated Alan Dershowitz who believed this private investigation was biased from the start. Schroeder uses a debate scene with a student (a young Felicity Huffman) for the lawyer to justify his choice to fight for such a hateful man’s appeal. Why were private investigators permitted in the trial? Where’s the public investigation? It also helps that Claus agrees to a large fee to help Dershowitz fund the defense of two brothers on death row for a crime they did not commit.

Schroeder’s film does not make its own claim on the case or the circumstances that accompany it. Rather, he shows you a process. Dershowitz knows that Claus Von Bülow is a “very strange man.” Claus responds to him by saying “You have no idea.” Yet, that doesn’t add up to guilt. A victim can be a victim by means of numerous possibilities and a court of law is fallible. Dershowitz wants to be sure.

Jeremy Irons’ performance is that of a gentleman of an aristocratic and well dressed nature. He finds the humor in being considered the villain. Irons plays the role with determined vagueness. Vague does not account for guilt.

Glenn Close is very good too. Her intoxicated episodes are so delirious that it seems to work in favor of Claus’ innocence. Yet her voiceover narration is sober and clear, but not necessarily accusatory. So it’s hard to know what to believe.

Ron Silver as Alan Dershowitz only focuses on the law and commanding a team of the best legal minds he ever taught. He turns his two story home into a headquarters where his students are compartmentalized into different aspects of the case from the drugs that Sunny took to the background of the Von Bulow’s turbulent marriage. As a means to keep them alert, the departments have basketball tournaments in his driveway. Dribbling the ball and slam dunking while still weighing evidence and legal precedents. Dershowitz is only interested in seeing if there is a case that shows Claus could have been innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. The case swept the nation and in the court of public opinion this creep was found guilty. Ironically, the one who is closest to him now is the one who does not see guilt, despite disturbances in his client.

Reversal Of Fortune is a different kind of mystery caught up in possible outcomes and nothing else. Barbet Schroeder with the help of Dershowitz’ case notes, book and public records made certain to offer all avenues for what really led to Sunny Von Bülow’s vegetative state.

The only concrete fact that this film does offer is that Claus Von Bülow was an untrustworthy creep draped in elegance and formality. There’s no crime in that. Is there?

SPEED

By Marc S. Sanders

Jan de Bont’s Speed is one of the best action thrillers ever made. It moves at a breakneck pace with huge suspense, big laughs and never-ending excitement. It’s also really smart with its crazy storyline.

A mad bomber (Dennis Hopper) manages to terrorize the city of Los Angeles by rigging a high-rise elevator with a bomb. Thirteen hostages need to be rescued and for an opening scene of a movie it does not get better than this. The heights and cramped space of the elevator and shaft are tightly claustrophobic, leaving you biting your nails. Small explosions come unexpectedly. This is what Hitchcock is always talking about. Putting a bomb under a table is suspense. The moment you detonate the bomb, the fear is over. De Bont blows up some bombs, but he leaves you hanging for when he’s going to set off the biggest bomb of all – the one that’ll put a hole in the world.

Later, the bomber does the same to a city wide transit bus traveling the freeway routes of rush hour traffic in the city. If the bus’ speed drops below 50 MPH, it’ll explode. Imagine pulling two tricks of Hitchcock all in one film. Imagine trying to never slow down a bus. This bad guy is destroying the city without even setting the big bomb off yet. This is great writing from Graham Yost. The whole scenario is tension at a maximum level.

The cop trying to stop the bomber is Jack Traven (at the time of release, an unlikely Keanu Reeves). Reeves is a perfect hero in this film. He allows the film to stand apart from being just another Die Hard rip-off by avoiding the Bruce Willis smart aleck stance. He’s a smart guy who keeps focus on just the situation at hand. He’ll get the bad guy later.

Sandra Bullock plays an adorable character named Annie who consequently has to drive the bus. This was Bullock’s breakthrough performance and I truly think it still holds as one her best. She’s funny, but she has some good dramatic moments as the tensions build up where Hopper’s crazed bomber makes things more difficult for Jack and the passengers. Bullock is good at crying on film, but she also knows how to deliver a line too.

De Bont does a great job at poking fun at the mundane trappings of traffic and intercity daily activity. As the bus careens through the city, pedestrian crossings are at risk, tow truck cars are problematic, cop cars are bashed up, and Annie is mindful enough to turn her blinker on as she careens around the corners. That last gag kills me every time. De Bont does what I always insist works in most films. He makes the setting of his film the character as well. This bomb rigged bus is stressing out the city of Los Angeles, for sure.

Seeing Speed holds a special memory for me. I saw it on its opening Friday night with some college buddies. Two days later, I insisted on taking dad to see it. Dad could not stop laughing through the absurdity of it all as street signs crash down, cars get totaled, and the fast editing blended with Annie’s laughable panic. Most especially, he loved a hapless driver (a scene stealing cameo from Glenn Plummer) in his gorgeous Jaguar convertible known as “Tuneman” by his license plate. Jack desperately hijacks his car as a means to catch up to the bus. As Tuneman’s car gets more and more wrecked, Dad could not get over it. He was in stitches. This is why movies can be so vital in our lives. I’ll never forget Dad’s nonstop laughing. I carry it with me forever, and I heard it again last night as I caught up with Speed. He’s gone now, but these are the moments I miss most about Dad.

A third act of the film is just as thrilling. Let’s see. We’ve done an elevator and a bus. How about a subway train? It’s a briefer sequence for the climax of the film, but it keeps the thrills ongoing.

Speed works on so many levels with a brilliant cast of B actors (at the time of 1994) that also include Joe Morton, Alan Ruck and a great Jeff Daniels as Jack’s partner with bomb experience. The action sequences cannot be complimented enough, and the Oscar nominated editing from John Wright with De Bont’s direction pair perfectly in timing.

Speed is an absolute thrill ride and a rocking great time at the movies.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

By Marc S. Sanders

I remember film critic Gene Siskel once said that to take issue with the length of a film is not entirely fair. After all, you are getting more movie for your buck. Would Siskel have felt that way about The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King? Peter Jackson closes out the film adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s sweeping fantasy with an epic that allows you to marvel at everything you see, but does that mean we want to feel as overly exhausted as its main protagonist, Frodo Baggins, feels? Trust me. Poor Frodo looks wiped.

More battles are enacted in the third film. Jackson just changes the dynamics up a little bit. Now armies don elephants with a number of enormous, curved tusks. Another army has a different looking giant troll. Haven’t seen elephants before. Haven’t seen that kind of troll yet either. As well, there is another King who is apprehensive to cooperate in the fight against Sauran and his Orc minions. There’s also a green glowing ghost army. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin) continue their journey to Mount Doom where the almighty Ring must be destroyed. Gollum (Andy Serkis) remains as their untrustworthy guide.

Jackson seemingly covers every page written by Tolkien. I’m talking about depicting every dream each character has or line they utter or slow motion expression they offer, or walk that they take. Peter Jackson is a completist.

The Return Of The King won Best Picture along with a bevy of other Oscars. Seemingly it should have won anyway. The first two films were recognized with Best Picture nominations as well. For the third film to win was to honor the entire trilogy and its achievements in filmmaking. The Lord Of The Rings trilogy reinvented movie making as a whole. The bar was set so much higher following its release and huge reception of these films.

That being said, it takes endurance to stay with the picture. Most especially with The Return Of The King as the film has multiple endings. Just when you think it’s over, it’s not, and it’s tedious and a little frustrating. Jackson seemed to have too hard a time saying farewell to his digital Middle Earth with its endearing characters.

The length is a problem I have with the film, but none of it seems wasteful either. Every caption and scene carry an importance to it. At least that’s how Jackson wants you to feel. The question is, if a number of momentary scenes had not been woven into the final edit, would I miss it, and my answer would be likely not.

MOONSTRUCK

By Marc S. Sanders

Moonstruck has to be one of the most delightful romantic comedies of all time thanks to an outstanding cast, an intuitive director (Norman Jewison) and a script full of brilliant dialogue and set ups from John Patrick Shanley.

Loretta Castorini (Cher in her Oscar winning role) is a 37 year old widow. Her husband of two years got hit by a bus. So, naturally when her father, Cosmo (the hilarious Vincent Gardenia), hears the news that Loretta got engaged to the boring schlub Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), he knows this is a bad omen and she should not get married again. Sure, her husband got hit by a bus, but that can only mean that marriage is no good for Loretta. When they wake up Rose (Olympia Dukakis in her well-deserved Oscar winning role), Loretta’s mother, to share the news, she just opens her eyes and asks, “Who died?” This is an adorable Italian family living in Brooklyn and somehow an Irishman wrote the script which was then directed by a Jewish mensch, and everyone is working on all Italian cylinders.

Two minutes into the film and I’m laughing. I’m laughing at Johnny’s wimpy proposal in the local Italian restaurant. I’m laughing at Rose and Cosmo who’ve seen enough of life to know that you don’t get married for love anymore. Rose is for Loretta getting married though. Cosmo doesn’t wanna spend the money.

Just after Johnny proposes, he flies off to Sicily to be by his dying mother’s bedside. He requests that Loretta invite his brother Ronny (Nicholas Cage), who he hasn’t spoken to in five years, to the wedding. Ronny is upset with Johnny. Ronny got his hand chopped off in the bread slicer at his bakery when Johnny was talking with him and Ronny looked the other way.

When Loretta approaches Ronny, before you know it, they are sleeping with each other. Ronny then invites Loretta to see La Boheme at the Met that night. Loretta knows it’s wrong and can’t keep this up. It’s a sin. She goes to confession, but then she also goes to buy a new dress and dye the greys out of her hair.

As well, Cosmo is stepping outside of his marriage, only Rose is not so stupid. She knows what’s going on. When Rose is dining alone, a college professor who strikes out with one attractive student after another joins her table. Rose isn’t gonna do anything. Instead, she asks the question on everyone’s mind “Why do men chase women?” Then she answers it. “Because if they don’t, they think they’ll die.” But they’re gonna die anyway. Right?

It sure looks like my column is just summarizing the film but my breakdown of Moonstruck simply celebrates all that’s good about it. Here’s a film that doesn’t stereotype a New York Italian family. Instead, it shows how they regard one another as well as the people within the neighborhood from the eager to please waiter in the restaurant to the mortician that Loretta works for. The mortician spills butter on his tie. Loretta takes the tie off of him and says she’ll get it cleaned.

Life in the home of Castorini family is shown beautifully with natural humor to display its atmosphere. Cosmo’s quiet elderly father with five yappy dogs on leashes is only a part of every passing day. Like I’ve made claim on other films, the best movies offer smart characters. Everyone has a way of carrying themselves in Moonstruck, and they’re not dumb. They might be cheap like Cosmo or wimpy like Johnny or a little dim like Ronny, not dumb, but they’re all wise to how they handle themselves.

This might seem like a relatively easy, untechnical little New York comedy. Norman Jewison, however, uses a great approach that makes each setting feel like you’re watching the most alive stage play you’ve ever encountered. I’m actually surprised this film has yet to be adapted for the stage. Maybe, just maybe, Moonstruck hasn’t made it to live theatre yet because it’d be damned near impossible to recapture the harmony of this magical cast.

I love Moonstruck.

A QUIET PLACE

By Marc S. Sanders

M Night Shamylan is kicking himself right now for not thinking of this story.  All it took for director/co-writer John Krasinski was very, very minimal dialogue, some well skilled young actors and his brilliantly, talented wife Emily Blunt to pull off one of the best pictures of 2018.

Another desolate, post-apocalyptic future has occurred and thankfully this story does not feature tired zombies or vampires.  Krasinski uses old fashioned techniques to hide or mistakenly reveal his characters to the boogie men with no other agenda except to shut out all of the noise. A silo, a basement, a waterfall, fire, a nail, a hearing-impaired character, bare feet, a toy space shuttle, sand, lights and fireworks. I accepted every plot device used in the film, and each element is a miniature story in and of itself.  As well, when there are moments that allow the four main characters to actually talk, there stands to be good reason for it and I bought all of it.

Emily Blunt is an incredible actress full of hard concentration and Krasinski does not let up on long running close ups to heighten her tension of isolation surrounded by the most terrifying threats, all while enduring a physical emergency.  She stares without a blink.  She effortlessly shakes with paranoia, and she evokes pain of the worst kind; all without uttering a sound or saying a word.  This is the same actress who played a snobby diva in The Devil Wears Prada, and later went on to portray the most popular nanny of all time, Mary Poppins.  This performance should not be overlooked.  It’s incredible.  You don’t need monsters in your face to be afraid.  All you need is Emily Blunt to carry you along.  

Krasinski springboards his terror off the best horror films from Jaws to The Shining to Alien to The Blair Witch Project and the original Paranormal Activity.  Yet, he does manage to pioneer his craft with A Quiet Place.  This is not something you have seen before. Hiding in silent fear has been done to death.  The girl always hides in the closet from the killer.  Here, you can hide, but staying out of sight won’t necessarily save you or do you any favors.  These creatures just might be prepared for that.  So, now you have something new to wrestle with.  Can you keep quiet?  This script does not make that easy. If ever a movie was to justify the need for Oscar categories like Sound and Sound Effects Editing, then this is the film to turn to.  These tools give reason for the storyline more overtly than any other that I can imagine.  You do not take the sound for granted, and you do not take the lack of sound for granted either.

Miguel Rodriguez and I originally saw this picture in a Dolby theatre.  It’s a telling film that gives reason for a Dolby theatre in the first place.  A film like this is worthy of the upgraded ticket price. (By the way, Mig, you still owe me $11.00.)

Put John Krasinski up as a top-notch director.  I believe this film was granted a very small budget, but like the best directors to come before him, he has managed to put up big screams and the best in dramatic storytelling with little expense. He even manages to tug at your heartstrings if you allow it. The ending was a huge pay off for me personally.  John Krasinski gives you a horror film, but he’ll make sure you have something to think about while you’re watching it, and long after you have left the theatre.

THE ENFORCER

By Marc S. Sanders

It’s no surprise that Harry Callahan is a chavaunistic son of a bitch. He has never been one to be shy about his prejudices, after all. In 1976, viewers found it endearing in an ironic way. Today, the character would never be produced into a studio film.

The third entry in the popular Dirty Harry series called The Enforcer is good but does not hold up as well as I remember. By the end, Harry must upgrade from blowing the bad guy away with a bazooka. He can no longer settle for his trusty .44 Magnum. It makes sense. Make everything your protagonist normally does do the same thing he’s always done, only make it bigger, and more actiony!!!! Not much interest in the on-screen chemistry that Clint Eastwood will have with said bazooka though.

Fortunately, there’s a better angle here and that is through actor Tyne Daly, as Harry’s new partner. Daly is terrific as one of San Francisco’s first female Police Inspectors who has to live up to the muster of a violent city as she accompanies a violent cop. It’s a great character that draws out feelings in Harry. She gives him pause to care and think beyond himself. Eastwood and Daly are where the chemistry is really at.

Everything else is kind of a waste really. Callahan never goes toe to toe with the main bad guy, a leader of a militant group terrorizing the city. This villain is nothing great or exciting.

Still, beyond Daly there are some great action scenes such deescalating a liquor store hold up by plowing a squad car through its front door. Makes sense, right?

IRON MAN 3

By Marc S. Sanders

The third chapter of the armored superhero, Iron Man, is an improvement on the second installment. Still, that’s not much of a compliment.

Action director Shane Black takes the reins from Jon Faverau, and gives himself a writing credit as well. I’ve always liked Shane Black’s writing style. Like this film, a lot of his works take place during Christmas. Lethal Weapon is a well-balanced picture that over thirty years later shows a nice offering of character background and action. When the action occurs, you are already invested in the characters. So, suspense is capable of holding some weight to an action movie. I only wish I saw some more of that here with Iron Man 3. Oh well!

First, let’s get the most obvious problem out of the way. Once again, Gwyneth Paltrow is there to wear sharp looking ladies suits, carry a brief in her hand and yell “TONY” a lot. You could make up a drinking game around that bit. Just when the Marvel films got it right with Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter in Captain America: The First Avenger, they revert back to their old ways yet again. If you are going to have female characters in your films, give them something weighty to work with that is evenly matched with the guys.

Robert Downey Jr is another problem, I’m afraid. He is so cherished in the role of Tony Stark by now. The first Iron Man really offers a great performance by him with a good arc. The prior film in the MCU, The Avengers gives him some great play with the other titanic superheroes. However, the writing is not thoughtful in Iron Man 2 or Iron Man 3. The first installment left you feeling that Tony was open to accepting care and tenderness from other people. His cockiness became subdued following a traumatic capture and escape.

Then the cocky monster within seemed to resurface in #2 and #3. Did Downey (who improvises a lot of his material) and the writers forget where they left off? Black literally has Tony Stark give away his address on live television to the bad guys, headed by a mysterious terrorist known as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). How stupid is this? Batman doesn’t give away where his Bat Cave is. Why would Iron Man do that?

From that point, we are treated to an attack on Tony’s ocean view, cliff side home from helicopters. Reader, Shane Black wrote a sequence like this twice before, in Lethal Weapon and Lethal Weapon 2. It’s been done before. The filming appears clunky in this centerpiece scene with camera shakes and uneven sound editing and lots of ceiling and wall dust. It’s a little hard to follow.

I’ll give credit to Black for throwing in a twist that comes out of nowhere. To my knowledge, this moment has left viewers very divisive. For me, I admire the effort but the development comes off wimpy. It involves Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin who promises to be a real threat to the film. Yet, the character’s motive turns out to be something else entirely. It’s odd, but it kept me engaged during the film. When the film ended, I was left wishing it was something else altogether. For the first two thirds of the film, Kingsley is very good with a hard, edged, roughly intimidating voice as he shares disturbing newscasts of threats to the President and the world. He was a different kind of villain that we hadn’t seen before, much like Heath Ledger’s Joker. Then the rug is pulled out on that attraction.

One really bright spot comes from Ty Simkins, as a kid named Harley that winds up assisting Tony when everything is against him. He is a fun, spunky kid who has some good exchanges with Downey’s well recognized, zippy delivery. He’s more fun to watch than Gwenyth Paltrow. That’s for sure.

Guy Pearce is another adversary who leads a team of baddies. Their bodies heat up to extremely hot and orange looking temperatures. (Forgive my poor English! That’s what comes to mind. Oh well!) Amazingly enough, their clothes don’t burn off while they easily can singe any Iron Man suit they come in contact with. Should I be focusing on that inconsistency? That’s one main problem with the film. It’s too apparent. I know this is all sci fi, but don’t make the fiction of the fiction so obvious, please. Pearce is fine in the role but he’s overshadowed by what his super villain powers are capable of. So, basically cast iron metal burns, but clothing fabrics do not. Got it! Check!

I’m not sure if Iron Man 3 is really worth a watch. Probably not, actually. Maybe so, if you want to marathon through all the Marvel films like I do. Yet, it really offers nothing significant to the films yet to come and shows nothing new to carry forward from the prior films. Much like Iron Man 2, it’s a pretty meaningless.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS

By Marc S. Sanders

Peter Jackson’s second installment film adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is The Two Towers. The captivating fantasy themes that audiences discovered in the first film continues.

Battle scenes with Orc armies are well edited and staged perfectly in digital settings. The film’s ending with a long, drawn-out battle located at the stone castle Helms Deep is stunning, full of heroic actions executed by favorite characters like Legolas the Elf (Orlando Bloom), Gimli the Dwarf (John Rhys-Davis) and especially Aragorn, destined to be King (Viggo Mortensen).

The Two Towers is almost marvelous with the exception of an overstayed welcome of the Ents – life size talking trees. Treebeard is the main Ent character, where the Hobbits Merry and Pippin take shelter by sitting on his branches. The effects of the Ents work. When the film returns to this storyline however, the narrative drags and the audience suffers. Treebeard converses in his own speak with the other Ents, the Hobbits ask “well?” and it’s supposed to be amusing that all they said was good morning. It’s not amusing. It’s boring.

The big centerpiece of the film belongs to Andy Serkis doing his full body animated effect to bring the untrustworthy, dual personality Gollum/Sméagol to life. Serkis should have received an Oscar nomination as he piggy backs on the continuous journey that Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) takes with the ring bearer Frodo (Elijah Wood). Gollum can’t resist what he once owned for himself-the “precious” Ring. Frodo’s good instincts insist upon not harming Gollum or Sméagol while Sam has strong reservations.

Jackson’s second film offers up a heightened urgency on all fronts. He’s good at showing the weight of the ring upon the psyche of Frodo and Gollum and he leaves time for other stories where Saruman’s (Christopher Lee) army conquers more lands-allegorical to the period of time when Tolkien wrote his novels following Nazi occupation within Europe.

Jackson is a completist and no stone is left unturned. A large portion of the film is appreciated even when you consider that you can take a bathroom break anytime Treebeard shows up.

FATAL ATTRACTION

By Marc S. Sanders

When Adrian Lyne’s Oscar nominated film hit theatres in 1987, apparently men thought twice about having an extra marital affair. It wasn’t enough that a man could violate the marital bond of commitment. No. Now he could get his loving wife and child killed.

Fatal Attraction works as a great psychological study for its first three quarters of film. Then it slogs its way into a slasher/horror fest of burned bunnies and gutting kitchen knife hysteria. The ending was an insult to the intelligence of everything we had seen before.

An unstable woman who knows she’s destroying a man’s happy home life is doing even worse by destroying herself. Mentally she cannot control what she commits and what she obsesses over. She is ill. This unstable woman is played by Glenn Close, and it is evident that she has done her research in psychopaths. Close is great at simply changing the inflection in her voice. In the beginning of the film, she has a relaxed whisper about herself as she exudes seductiveness.

Later, her tone is sharp, accusatory, patronizing, and intimidating. By the end, a new whisper of a psychotic personality threatens. The role is played by Close as if she is changing from one number to the next on a musical instrument.

The man in this scenario is worse. He gets his rocks off and tries to move on unaware of the collateral damage he leaves the woman with, and beyond presumption of how his break in trust will wreak havoc on his loving wife and young child. His moral crimes are nowhere near as apparent as the obsessed woman’s. At least she has evidence of a psychological symptom. He’s just an ignorant jerk when it comes down to it. Michael Douglas was just right for this role of a very successful lawyer with good looks and brash silliness with his friends and wife, while also being an attentive father. Yet, he’s also good at letting his guard down, foolishly assuming he can put it back up again once his weekend fling is over.

The film really is a duel in the aftermath of adultery. Disturbing phone calls, the demand for contact to stop, the nagging need for ongoing affection. It’s all orchestrated very well. Then, comes the crazy person who boils a bunny to generate a frightful scream from its audience followed by knives and blood and the last minute (SPOILER ALERT) “she’s not really dead” shocker. The delicate nature of a common and sensitive scenario is exploited for sudden jumps and terror.

James Dearden’s screenplay is so well thought out until it is executed desperately for box office returns in its last five minutes. Granted, Dearden had a different ending in mind, more appropriate to earlier references to Madame Butterfly. Hollywood decided to nix that plan and go with a more satisfying comeuppance for the villain, or rather one of the villains. What a shame.

Personal note: I’d seen Fatal Attraction before, but this is the first time I’m watching it in well over 11 years. I could never get myself to watch a late scene in the film where Close’s character takes Douglas’ daughter for a day of fun on a roller coaster. It was too real. Too disturbing. It was too easily done, and as a father it was too nightmarish for me.