Are You A Good Witch Or A Bad Witch?: Beautiful Creatures Review

Just as Glinda asks Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”, the main conflict in Beautiful Creatures also questions good vs. evil. Based on the first book of the fairly popular Young Adult book series Caster Chronicles, Beautiful Creatures is the studios’ latest attempt to fill the Twilight-sized hole left in Hollywood. Unfortunately, the film’s all-star supporting cast could not save it from itself, a poorly written script that at times verges on boring and at other times on campy melodrama. Try as I may, not even my love for cheesy teen-romances could make me enjoy this film. 

Beautiful Creatures centers around the sleepy small town of Gatlin, South Carolina and its extremely religious inhabitants. Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) is a popular high-school junior who is eager to leave the conservative town he refers to as his prison. He applies to every college he can, hoping distance from Gatlin will bring him a more fulfilled life far, far away. Before Ethan can leave town, however, he is captivated by Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert), the new Goth-esque girl in school. Whereas Ethan is desperate to leave his stable, dull life, Lena is desperate for stability and peace; she has had to move constantly due to the magical secret she is hiding. Sparks fly between the two teenagers, and a new movie franchise is born. 

 
Everyone in Gatlin believes Lena and her family, especially her uncle Mason Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons), are Satanists. In reality, however, they are casters (a more politically correct term for witches). On Lena’s sixteenth birthday, she must participate in a ceremony called “The Claiming”, which will determine whether she will become a caster for the light (good) or dark (evil). With a history of dark casters in her immediate family, Lena is afraid of what she will become. In addition to The Claiming, Lena and Ethan must also discover how to break the curse on Lena’s family that prevents casters from being with mortals.

Warner Bros. February 14 release date is hoping to capture the Valentine’s Day crowds looking for a romantic movie date night. Regrettably, the romance in the film falls short due to the lack of chemistry between the two lead actors; Edward and Bella... or Ron and Hermione they are not. To be honest, I was more interested in the relationship between Lena’s dark caster cousin Ridley (played fantastically by Emmy Rossum) and Ethan’s best friend Link (Thomas Mann) than the two main characters. Rossum shines as a wicked siren, making men swoon with a single glance. Hopefully if there is a sequel, it will focus more on her. 

 
It was surprising that such an amazing supporting cast (Viola Davis, Emma Thompson, and Jeremy Irons) would choose a movie like this. Davis’ role was expendable; her character could have been played by anyone. I wonder why she chose this role after such success with The Help. Besides Rossum’s Ridley, the only other saving grace in the film was the fantastic Emma Thompson. Thompson’s role as a religious zealot with a dark secret was the most well-written, interesting character in the entire movie. 

Beautiful Creatures is definitely not the type of movie you should rush to the theaters, or even RedBox to see; its 124 minute runtime does not go by quickly. For a good witch....errr caster... film check out Practical Magic instead. (it's available for free if you're a member of Amazon Prime)

My review: C-/D+

Beautiful Creatures Trailer

Identity Thief: Thievery of a Movie Night

When it comes to comedies, I’m always scared that the studio put many of the funniest scenes in the trailer. Unfortunately, that is what happened with Identity Thief. Identity Thief is a slapstick comedy with disjointed jokes and outlandish plot points.  By the middle of the second act, I was already wondering how much time was left in the film. With such fantastic comedic leads as Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) and Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), it’s unfortunate that screenwriter Craig Mazin’s (Hangover II) script couldn’t rise to their level of talent.

Sandy Bigelow Patterson (Bateman… and at some points McCarthy) is a caring family man stuck in a low-paying dead-end job with a horrible boss (Jon Favreau). He has just enough money to support his wife (Amanda Peet) and two kids, but they can’t afford any luxuries; that is, until he and his coworkers quit their jobs and go out on their own. At his new job, Sandy is a Vice President with a great salary. Cue Diana (McCarthy). After stealing Sandy’s identity through a phone scam, Diana takes it upon herself to run up his credit cards and drain his bank account. This poses a problem for Sandy when clients from his new firm run a background check and find he is in financial ruin. In order to save his job, Sandy promises to bring the identity thief to Colorado to confess her crimes and clear his name. 

After Sandy finds Diana in Florida, a dull road trip comedy emerges, full of corny, obvious jokes and a pointless B story involving a bounty hunter, assassins and snakes (Oh my!). Eric Stonestreet’s (Modern Family) cameo doesn’t work well in the story and is a bit more disturbing than it is funny. Another disappointing aspect of the film was that a lot of its humor was at McCarthy’s expense. There were many unnecessary jokes about her size and appearance that ended up being more heartbreaking than funny. 

Although this is billed as a comedy, I left the theater feeling more depressed than happy. Not just because the movie was bad but because the dramatic elements of this comedy were what really resonated with me; perhaps this should have been a drama instead of a comedy. Diana’s motivation for stealing identities stems from the fact she is extremely lonely and has to constantly deal with people laughing at her appearance; she wants other people to feel the same hurt she feels (while admittedly also feeding her shopping addiction). McCarthy has proven herself to be one of the funniest comediennes in Hollywood. She is a fantastic, scene-stealing actress who completely throws herself into her roles, losing all semblances of herself amidst her character. It was refreshing to see she has dramatic acting chops as well.

The one thing Identity Thief does well is prove that Melissa McCarthy can carry her own movie; she no longer has to be the best friend, or in the case of Bridesmaids a sister-in-law. She and Bateman did the best they could with a bad plot. Hopefully McCarthy’s next comedy, The Heat, with Sandra Bullock, will match her talent instead of bringing it down.  

My Grade: C-/D+ 

                    

Beauty and the Zombie: My Review of Warm Bodies

Based on a novel of the same name, Hollywood’s newest zom-com, Warm Bodies, gives audiences a zombie story that breaks from type. In most Zombiepocalypse horror movies and T.V. shows, zombies are mindless killing machines, hell-bent on eating the main characters; usually, they don’t even have a name. However, writer/director Jonathan Levine (50/50) wasn’t afraid to turn the rules of the genre on its head by making a zombie the film’s protagonist instead of its villain. The audience sees the world through the zombie’s eyes and is privy to his thoughts thanks to a hilarious tongue-in-cheek inner-monologue that explains the difficulties of zombie life: constant slouching, grunts instead of words, brain eating… you know, normal problems.

Warm Bodies begins eight years after an unidentified plague turned most of mankind into zombies. The film centers around “R” (Nicholas Hoult), a lonely zombie who actually feels conflicted about killing humans for food. When he is not moping around in an abandoned airplane listening to old love songs like John Waite’s “Missing You”, R inhabits an airport full of other zombies and “bonies”, skeleton creatures that viciously attack anything with a heartbeat; all zombies eventually turn into bonies after losing their humanity. None of the zombies can really speak to each other, except for random words here and there. They instead stumble around, grunt, and look for humans to eat.

But hope seeps into this dreary world, and the zombies begin to change for the better when R meets and falls in love with Julie (Teresa Palmer), a human. Along with many other apocalypse survivors, Julie lives in a heavily fortified colony, led by her zombie-hating father (John Malkovich). When she and her group of friends leave the colony in search of medicine and other supplies, they are attacked by a horde of zombies. R saves Julie’s life and brings her back to his abandoned airplane for “safety”. With Julie’s help, R begins to turn his grunts into actual words and the two realize that humans may not be so different from zombies after all. It is up to them to bridge the gap between both of their worlds, all while avoiding the true bad guys, the bonies. While some may see this film as a nod to Romeo and Juliet, I think it is actually a modern-day re-telling of Beauty and the Beast; only in this version, the Beast is a zombie and instead of Belle being impressed with the Beast’s library of books, she instead enjoys his “library” of vinyl records.

The best part of this film is that it never takes itself too seriously; even the few cheesy scenes didn’t take away from the overall sentiment of the film. R’s hilarious inner-dialogue constantly picks on the traditional zombie archetype and the love story between R and Julie really gives the story depth and heart. Hoult is able to give R semblances of humanity, and as a result, his “zombie” isn’t too outlandish or scary. Hoult and Palmer also have great chemistry, thought at times it was hard for me to focus on anything other than the fact that Palmer looks exactly like Kristen Stewart. Rob Corddry, who plays R’s “best friend” M, shows that a talented actor-comedian doesn’t need a lot of dialogue to make a scene-stealing impression.

Warm Bodies proves that you don’t need horror and gore in order to create a great zombie film. Though I will admit, for all of the zombie traditionalists, you may want to wait for Brad Pitt’s World War Z coming out this summer.

Hansel and Gretel Review

The good news: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters has awesome music thanks to Hans Zimmer, imaginative set-design, and the makeup on the witches is top-notch. The bad news: everything else. While it is based on a fairytale, this R-rated film is definitely not the kind of movie you should take young children to see.  The witches are scary (at times even on par with Angelica Houston in The Witches, and that’s saying a lot for me) and there is a lot of gore. It was surprising that the filmmakers didn’t reach for a PG-13 rating (a la Van Helsing), since that would appeal more to the target demographic.

What the movie overwhelms with in gore, it lacks in plot. The story centers around world-famous witch hunters, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton), two siblings who have made it their life’s mission to eradicate all witches after they were almost killed by one as children. When eleven children go missing in the village of Augsburg, Hansel and Gretel are called in to find the witch that is responsible. As it turns out, ultra-powerful witch Muriel (Famke Janssen) took the children in order to sacrifice them during a “blood moon” ritual that would make witches immune to fire. It is up to Hansel and Gretel to save the children and stop the witches. Major plot hole alert: While one would think that fire must be the only way to kill witches, since they are so concerned about it, the only evil witch that died by fire in the film was the one Hansel and Gretel fought as children. All of the others died of gunshot wounds, decapitation, etc… Perhaps the witches should have instead invested in a Kevlar spell.

Not only was the plot stale and underwhelming, the characters of Hansel and Gretel left little to be desired as well. Renner’s Hansel was boring and brought nothing remotely interesting to the storyline, well except for the silly plot point that he has to get insulin injections multiple times a day to combat the effects of eating the witch’s candy as a child. Additionally, the central brother-sister relationship in the film was missing heart; only in a few scenes did the siblings even seem to care about each other. Muriel (Janssen) was the only character I found mildly entertaining. Her makeup was fantastic and she actually did create a decent villain; if only her material were better.

By the end of the film, I found myself wondering, “Did the actors even read this script before signing on? No wonder the release date was delayed for so long.” For a movie that only lasts an hour and twenty-eight minutes, it felt like I was in the theater for a lot longer; that’s never a good sign. If you are looking for a horror/thriller movie this weekend, I would suggest going to see Mama instead.

Broken City Review- Thriller Without The Thrills

Sometimes you need to see bad movies in order to appreciate the good ones. This is the mantra I tell myself whenever I see bad movies like Broken City. Broken City is a political thriller that explores sleaziness and corruption in big-city mayoral politics. While this type of plot should be rife with intrigue and exciting twists, the audience is instead left with a scattered storyline and undeveloped characters.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Billy Taggart, an ex-police detective turned private investigator, who is having a hard time making ends meet. That is, until he gets a call from an “old friend”, Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe), the mayor of New York City. Hostetler asks Billy to follow his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and bring him photographic evidence showing she is having an affair. The Mayor explains that he is in a close race for reelection and does not want the people of New York to hear about this indiscretion and think him weak. After Billy seemingly completes the job, he realizes that this was not all it seemed; Hostetler has ulterior motives and needs to be stopped before his re-election.

It’s unfortunate that undeveloped characters and a drawn-out, disorganized storyline take away from Broken City’s interesting premise. The extremely one-dimensional characters are not written to evoke any kind of emotion from the audience and never feel like actual people. In fact, throughout most of the movie even the “good guys” are detached and unlikeable. With such big names as Russell Crowe, Mark Wahlberg and Catherine Zeta-Jones, it’s unfortunate that their talents were wasted. If the screenwriter had spent a little more time developing the characters, this might have been a better film.

The storyline is unnecessarily convoluted; at times it is hard to keep up with what is going on and who is double-crossing whom. Additionally, the “twist” isn’t that shocking or interesting and there are many plot points that serve no purpose, such as the relationship between Billy and his actress girlfriend. Amidst the moments of forced conflict, it was difficult to feel invested in what would happen next. Broken City does have funny dialogue, mostly between Billy and his assistant (Alona Tal). Unfortunately, the other laughs came unintentionally during serious scenes, like when a box with incriminating information against Hostetler happens to be discarded right when Billy is looking through the trash. Due to the dull plot twist and lack of character development, the film ended up being a thriller without the thrills. 

Broken City is not the type of movie you will remember a month from now. The storyline was uninteresting and the characters were forgettable. If you’re dying to see it, I would suggest waiting for its T.V. release. On the bright side, at least in this film Russell Crowe didn’t sing.

Gangster Squad Review

Ruben Fleischer’s (Zombieland) newest film, Gangster Squad, opens on 1940s Los Angeles with the “Hollywoodland” sign looming high on the Hollywood hills. We quickly realize, however, that this is not the glamorous old Hollywood we think of today. Organized crime, led by mafia kingpin Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), has taken over. In fact, the opening scene of the movie shows just how horrible things can be when you cross Cohen’s mob; picture the baseball bat scene from The Untouchables, except worse. Through drug deals, prostitution, and gambling, Cohen is not only able to buy himself power, he is also able to pay many members of the corrupt government and LAPD to turn a blind eye to his crimes.  That is, until white knight police sergeant John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) is tapped to create a clandestine squad of four like-minded police officers who make it their goal to take Cohen down and clean up the streets of LA.

The main conflict in the film is best described by police officer Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), who is at first reluctant to join the squad,  “The whole town is underwater and you are reaching for a bucket when you should be reaching for a bathing suit.” Throughout the film, members of the Gangster Squad struggle with what means more to them, money now (in the form of mob payoffs) or security for the future. Should they “put on their bathing suits” like many of their police brethren and let the city fall further into darkness or should they stick to their guns (literally) and stop the violence from spreading? As the characters dive deeper and deeper into the criminal world, we find they have made their decision; they would rather have a safer city for their kids to grow up in than any mob money. After all, at least three of the members of the Gangster Squad were WWII veterans who believed their fight for a safer America was over. It turns out there was still a lot of fighting left.

If you have seen the trailer, you have seen Penn play Mickey Cohen as a caricature of the stereotypical Hollywood gangster. This, however, is what actually made him entertaining. It was almost as if he was cartoonish and over the top on purpose. Cohen’s idiosyncrasies are what gave the film a lot of its humor. From freaking out over the appearance of his tie (when he should have been worried about getting out of LA alive) to marveling over how good peacocks taste, Penn’s Mickey Cohen was just as amusing as he was terrifying.  Josh Brolin was also good as the gruff leader of the Gangster Squad, willing to go to the ends of the Earth to take down Cohen. However he was regularly upstaged, by Ryan Gosling. Gosling was in his element, playing a charming (typical), tender-hearted police officer who finally decides to join the squad after Cohen’s mob kills someone he cares about.  Besides Robert Patrick, who got laughs in basically every scene he was in, the rest of the Gangster Squad was pretty expendable.

Hands down, the best part of the movie was its noir style, particularly in the set design and costumes. It was impressive how much attention was paid to making the audience feel they were in Los Angeles in 1949. Another great aspect of the film was the action scenes. Especially entertaining was the car chase scene involving the Gangster Squad and dynamite. Of course, like in many films, at times the shoot-outs were cliché. For instance, in order to serve Mickey Cohen a warrant for his arrest, the members of the Gangster Squad must infiltrate a hotel that is described as Cohen’s fortress. It is said over and over how dangerous it will be and that this is a suicide mission. Of course, in true Hollywood-fashion it isn’t really that dangerous since the members of Cohen’s mob are terrible shots while it’s hard for the Gangster Squad to miss.  

My main complaint with the film was in the underdeveloped subplot involving the relationship between Grace (Emma Stone) and Jerry (Gosling). Grace is Cohen’s girlfriend, but she actually wants to be with Jerry. As shown in Crazy, Stupid, Love, Gosling and Stone have incredible chemistry.  While they were still great together in this film, the actual “love story” between the two just felt like filler between the different action scenes; there was never much tension over whether the two would get caught. It was frustrating that so much storyline potential was left on the table. 

While Gangster Squad felt clichéd and cartoonish at times, due to the all-star cast, noir tone, and great action sequences, the film starts 2013 with a literal bang. While this was no L.A. Confidential or The Untouchables, it was still a good popcorn flick.

"The Impossible" Review

You know you have seen a fantastic movie when you can't stop thinking about it hours after you leave the theater. This is how I feel even days after experiencing J.A. Bayona's (The Orphanage) masterpiece, The Impossible. I have seen many movies this year, but this one has taken the lead as my favorite.

The Impossible is the true, harrowing account of a family, Maria (Naomi Watts), Henry (Ewan McGregor), and their three sons, who were on vacation in Thailand when they were swept-up and separated by one of the most horrific natural disasters in history, the 2004 Indonesian tsunami. The family’s will to survive and find each other amongst the tsunami’s horrific destruction creates an extremely gut-wrenching tale, one that has more heart and depth than any film yet this year. It is amazing that most of the drama in the film did not have to be escalated to make the story more entertaining, the truth is entertaining enough.

The ensemble cast was magnificent, with Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor at the helm and Tom Holland (the couple’s oldest son Lucas) showing he is also a force to be reckoned with; it is remarkable that this is his first movie. While McGregor was fantastic, the standout performance was Watts, who gave the performance of her career. I related to her more than any character I have seen on film in a long time; I felt pain every time she felt pain, I felt anxious when she was anxious. Her raw stead-fast courage demonstrated the lengths a mother will go to save her child. Watts’ spectacular performance would not have been possible, however, without the support of Holland. The amount of emotion in every glance, every utterance of dialogue in the unbreakable connection between mother and son was extremely moving.

Not only is the film extremely well-written and cast, but the cinematography and sound mixing were also incredible. This is the type of movie that you should certainly see in the theater. The way Bayona films each scene, both with the claustrophobic visuals and incredibly realistic sound editing, makes the audience feel it is experiencing the tsunami too. I have not felt so immersed in a film since Titanic. In many scenes, I was gasping for breath while Watts was trapped underwater, or covering my eyes for fear I was going to be hit by the debris rushing by the actors. My stress level hasn't been that high in a movie in a long time. While sitting in the theater watching the film, I kept asking myself, "How did they film these scenes?? Where was the set?? What is CGI and what is real?" This film was not a tent-pole summer blockbuster with a Titanic-sized budget. How in the world did they film these scenes? I cannot wait for the DVD to be released so I can hopefully get some insight into how mastermind director J.A. Bayona made everything seem so realistic.

One of the best parts of Bayona’s film was his steady focus on humanity; he showed compassion can still exist even when times are tough. In a society where we are constantly shown how heartless people can be, Bayona made it a point to focus on moments of kindness. From Maria and Lucas risking their lives to save a helpless toddler, to the many Thai people who jumped in to help the survivors even after losing everything themselves, The Impossible became more a story about a community coming together than destruction.

I cannot believe this film has flown so under the radar this season. In fact, most of the only praise I have heard about The Impossible was regarding Watts' performance, and rightfully so. My only hope is that if the film does not get the turnout it deserves in theaters, many people will find it when it comes to DVD.  While over the years I have seen many pictures and videos of the tsunami’s destruction, it wasn’t until I saw this film that I began to understand the magnitude of its devastation. This was not an attempt for Hollywood to exploit the disaster, which claimed over 230,000 lives, but was instead an opportunity to immerse the audience in a situation that we will never be able to fully comprehend, an event I will be thinking about for a long time to come.