January Movie Reviews

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN
While Steven Spielberg stays in close touch with his inner child, I’ll admit to being too old for The Adventures of Tintin. I would have loved it back when I was devouring the Hardy Boys books and can recommend it for pre-adolescent boys today, but there’s not much for most grown-ups here. Tintin looks about 15 but functions as an adult, supposedly working as a reporter although that's just an excuse to get him into adventures. Based on Belgian comic books by Hergé that are hugely popular in Europe, the movie sends Tintin (Jamie Bell), his dog Snowy and Capt. Haddock (Andy Serkis) in search of “one of the greatest sunken treasures in all history,” which went down with the Unicorn, commanded by Haddock’s ancestor, centuries ago. Also on the trail is the villainous Sakharine (Daniel Craig), whose motives also involve family history. Nick Frost and Simon Pegg provide comic relief (a little more would be welcome) as the police detective duo Thomson and Thompson. Unfortunately, considering the target audience, Haddock’s alcoholism is also sometimes played for laughs. They might have called the movie International Treasure for American audiences, because it has the same kind of silly plot and non-stop action (but a little more intelligence) as the National Treasure series. I’m not a fan of motion capture animation, which seems neither fish nor fowl. One day a great film will convert me, but this isn’t it. *** 1/2 - Steve Warren

THE ARTIST
Being done in the style of a black-and-white silent film from the 1920s makes The Artist not old school but pre-school. Imperfect but perfectly delightful, it has received attention for its novelty value, but it can be enjoyed by a much wider spectrum than just those who are willing to take a chance on something different. The plot, about a starlet (Bérénice Bejo as Peppy Miller) whose career soars as an older actor’s (Jean Dujardin as George Valentin) crashes and burns, is straight out of A Star Is Born; but Clint Eastwood’s supposed to be remaking that, possibly with Beyoncé, so there’s life left in it. The other major reference is “Singin’ in the Rain,” which likewise dealt with the birth of talkies signaling the death of silent films, and there’s a nod to Citizen Kane’s breakfast montage. On the plus side, The Artist has Uggie, a Jack Russell terrier that may be the best movie dog ever. On the minus side, too much of the film’s midsection deals with George’s decline and gets downright depressing; and the musical score by Ludovic Bource is charmingly retro until, for the climactic sequence, he draws from Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo score instead of composing something original. Hopefully the success of The Artist will lead Americans to discover writer-director Michel Hazanavicius’ earlier films, the two hysterically funny OSS-117 spy spoofs, also starring Dujardin. **** - Steve Warren

THE DARKEST HOUR
Don’t you hate it when your vacation is interrupted by an alien attack?  For many Americans the worst thing about traveling abroad is having to deal with foreigners, so imagine how bummed Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) are on their first night in Moscow, when they’ve just met Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) and her English friend Anne (Rachael Taylor), and these wispy puffs of light start floating down from the sky, vaporizing everyone in sight.  (Nothing is left of the first victim but his shoes, but no one else even leaves shoes behind.)  Fortunately our four friends get out of sight in time, along with Swedish a-hole Skyler (Joel Kinnaman), who just stole Sean and Ben’s software idea for a worldwide party app.  From then on it’s the usual fight to survive and hook up with the few other remaining survivors on Earth.  Electricity has everything to do with how the aliens function and nothing to do with the movie’s impact on its audience.  There are some good visual effects and a few suspenseful scenes, but that’s just director Chris Gorak’s way of polishing a turd of a script.  *** - Steve Warren

THE DESCENDANTS
“Nothing just happens,” Matt King (George Clooney) says to Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard), who was the lover of Matt’s dying wife.  “Everything just happens,” Brian responds.  They’re both right about the brilliant screenplay director Alexander Payne and two others adapted from a novel.  It’s so carefully plotted and tightly written that nothing just happens without being part of a plan, yet it never becomes melodramatic because everything just happens organically and believably.  Once upon a time in Hawai’i a party girl met and married a man who’s all business, yet in a laidback way.  Now she’s in a coma from a boating accident and he has to take care of everything, including their daughters, 10 and 17, after years of being “the back-up parent, the understudy.”  At the same time Matt, a distant descendant of King Kamehameha, and his cousins are being forced to dispose of 25,000 acres of unspoiled ancestral land on Kaua’i, knowing developers will destroy it.  This is when older daughter Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) drops the bomb about her mother’s affair, of which Matt was typically unaware.  There’s a surprising amount of humor, considering The Descendants is basically a “death watch” movie.  Clooney slips into his role like an old suit, inhabiting the character so naturally he doesn’t appear to be acting.  Matt’s like an ineffectual sitcom dad who can’t seem to do anything right, yet does everything right in the end.  Director Payne does everything right all the way through.  **** - Steve Warren

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Remade for subtitle-phobic Americans, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was pretty near perfect in its original Swedish incarnation. Does making it bigger, louder and longer make it better? No, but it makes it bigger, louder and longer, and thus certain to sell more tickets. It’s surprising that director David Fincher has left the story set in Sweden, forcing his mostly American and British actors to learn accents (which they’ve done well) and lessening the rationalization for a remake. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, the disgraced journalist hired by industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the 1966 disappearance of his 16-year-old niece, who he believes was murdered. Vanger has Blomkvist vetted by computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), who later becomes his assistant and more. The family members on Vanger’s private island, “the most detestable people you will ever meet,” are all suspects, whether they’re helpful or hostile to the investigation, which leads to a serial “killer of women.” Mara earns Salander’s title billing, being consistently more interesting than Craig, whose character is less colorful. What’s amazing is that Fincher’s remake is as good as the original, which means there’s a good chance the American sequels will be better than the Swedish ones, especially if he directs them. **** - Steve Warren

LE HAVRE
A police inspector and a pineapple walk into a bar... The humor in some of Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki’s work is so droll it may fly completely under your radar, but you’ll still have a satisfying experience. Such is the case with Le Havre, which can restore your faith in humanity. It’s the most compassionate film about immigration since A Better Life but because of its mix of cultures it has more in common with The Visitor. In the eponymous French port, Marcel Marx (André Wilms) is a poor shoeshine man who owes money to everyone yet is still charitable when he encounters Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), an African boy who landed there accidentally while being smuggled to London. Marcel’s wife Arletty (Kati Outinen) goes to the hospital but shields her husband from the seriousness of her condition. Inspector Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) leads the hunt for Idrissa and somehow intuits that Marcel is hiding him. Kaurismäki calls the film a fairy tale so he doesn’t have to explain anything, including the tacit understanding that informs the instant rapport between the man and the boy. Just for fun there’s a charity concert by septuagenarian rockabilly artist Little Bob to raise cash to send Idrissa on his way. Sadly, this is Kaurismäki’s first film in nearly a decade to get much of an American release. Could we trade Michael Bay for him, please? **** 1/2 - Steve Warren

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE GHOST PROTOCOL
When you leave the cinema after seeing Ghost Protocol, you won’t have to ask your companions if they liked it. Tom Cruise, over-the-top set pieces, a whip-smart director (The Incredibles’ Brad Bird, in his first live-action project) and wicked gadgets—c’mon, of course, they liked it. The question you’ll end up asking is what part left you salivating most. Excluding the moment where new team member, Jane (played by the stunning Paula Patton), prances around in a peekaboo dress, three thrilling scenes stand out: Cruise’s Spiderman audition on the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest manmade structure; an incredible foot and car chase through an unrelenting Dubai dust storm; a which-way-do-I-look fight to the death in a parking deck. Either instance would have been the highlight of a typical summer movie, but for them to come packaged in one pulse-pounding, easy-to-follow holiday actioner speaks volumes about Bird, Cruise, the super supporting cast (who knew Simon Pegg could pull off the geeky hero?) and the prospect of future Missions. ***1/2 –DeMarco Williams

NEW YEAR’S EVE
MGM used to boast of having “more stars than there are in heaven” under contract, but the New Year’s Eve cast puts them to shame – in quantity if not quality. The script seems to be trying to set a Guinness record for the number of plots, which fortunately write themselves because there isn’t time for anyone else to. Hilary Swank is in charge of the Times Square ball drop. Katherine Heigl’s planning a charity event, with Sofia Vergara as her sous chef. Jon Bon Jovi is singing at both, backed up by Lea Michelle, if she can get out of the elevator she’s stuck in with Ashton Kutcher. Abigail Breslin wants to go to Times Square but her mother (Sarah Jessica Parker) is overprotective. Michelle Pfeiffer hires Zac Efron to help her start a new life. Robert De Niro is dying in the hospital, attended by Halle Berry, while babies are being born to Jessica Biel and Sarah Paulson, whose husbands (Seth Meyers, Til Schweiger) are competing for the $25,000 prize for the year’s first baby. Then in the second reel... This could easily have been a six-hour miniseries so we should be grateful to director Garry Marshall for getting it over quickly, if not painlessly. *** - Steve Warren

PARIAH
Pariah began as a seven-minute short back in 2007. But director Dee Rees’ semi-autobiographical work about Alike, a sharp young lady coming to peace with her lesbianism, was too much for a short. It deserved the full-length treatment. So, Rees stretched out the script, reconnected with the award-winning short’s lead, Adepero Oduye, and surrounded her with costars (led by Kim Wayans as the insensitive mother) who channeled the original’s tone and authenticity. And if there’s one thing that sparkles here –well, beyond Oduye’s effortless likeability and vulnerability- it’s the movie’s feel. Everything from the wardrobe to the dialogue (“I’ll pray for you,” the mom says during one of her colder moments with Alike) bites with realism. Some have wrongly pegged this as another depress-fest ala Precious. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Pariah pops with color, occasional laughs and Oduye’s smile. Don’t get us wrong. Your heart will ache as Alike’s family and so-called friends pull her in different directions. But when it ends, you too will smile and thank Ms. Rees for sharing her story for longer than seven minutes. ***1/2 -DeMarco Williams

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS
Dr. Watson (Jude Law) has a wedding day fast approaching. Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.), Watson’s longtime caper companion, is certainly smart enough to know the big event would come, but when Watson brings it up, Holmes acts as if he’s forgotten. As a wedding gift, the great detective presents Watson with one last murder mystery. The good doctor accepts. Terrible idea. The bachelor party is a fisticuffs-filled mess. The honeymoon train ride is even more of a disaster. Still, Watson shows unwavering patience for Sherlock’s shenanigans. This is much more than I can say for you. As a moviegoer, you’re frustrated that Sherlock’s cool, stop-motion action sequences and breathtaking cinematography get lost in a story that’s convoluted. Too many times you’re left wondering what the crime stoppers are doing or where they’re going. The first Holmes was fun, smart and slightly suspenseful. This one is bigger, broader and, honestly, a little too bulky. But hey, guess that’s what happens when you decide to slow down and get married. **1/2 –DeMarco Williams

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
John le Carre wrote some of the best spy novels of the 20th century, but it’s time to come in from the Cold War. TTSS became an acclaimed miniseries in 1979, starring Sir Alec Guinness. Gary Oldman channels him in this bigscreen version, and while it may get Oldman his first Oscar nomination, it’s no match for his work in Sid and Nancy or a number of other films. Unlike Mission: Impossible, which has kept up with the times and combines crowd-pleasing action with serviceable plots, TTSS is stubbornly cerebral yet tells its story confusingly – four characters who turn out to be important are given no distinguishing characteristics and flashes of flashbacks are more disorienting than enlightening. As le Carre’s frequent protagonist George Smiley, Oldman is forced into retirement from MI6 with his boss (John Hurt) when a 1973 mission in Hungary goes awry, but is secretly brought back (Ghost Protocol?) a year later to try to determine the identity of a mole in the upper echelon. Though impeccably filmed and acted, this story of British Intelligence is a challenge for those of ordinary American intelligence, and Smiley’s game of whack-a-mole isn’t worth the effort it takes to follow it. *** - Steve Warren

WAR HORSE
It’s still the same old story: Boy meets horse. Boy loves horse. Boy loses horse. Boy gets horse in the end. The twist is that it’s World War One that separates Albert (Jeremy Irvine) the biped from Joey the quadruped. The horse is my favorite animal so I’m predisposed to like anything that centers on one, unless it’s on the Food Channel. I’m also a sucker for Steven Spielberg’s brand of sentimentality, and War Horse is E.T. with an older Elliott, a horse in place of an alien and German soldiers instead of the feds. Finally, as an old peacenik, I loved the scene where a British soldier and a German soldier work together to free Joey when he’s trapped in No Man’s Land. If you like war, prefer dogs or cats to horses and think Spielberg’s corny, this isn’t the movie for you. Even I got tired of the goose used for comic relief and thought they could have done a better job with the hairpiece representing Joey’s markings on the 14 horses that play him, but if you’ve ever complained that they don’t make movies like they used to, this story of a brown beauty proves that someone still does. **** - Steve Warren

WE BOUGHT A ZOO
This movie is going to make one helluva film school project one day. Zoo is a perfect example of how everything can line up wonderfully in pre-production- great star (Matt Damon), good director (Cameron Crowe) and gorgeous supporter (Scarlett Johansson)- but crumble the moment Action! is yelled. Classes will break the movie down every scene, trying to explain why people didn’t flock to the theater for the real-life story of the Mees, a family that starts life over after the mother dies by restoring a house with a small zoo in the backyard. A student will ask, “But was it even a family movie?” The professor will be dumbfounded, as the film’s pacing does prove too slow for kids. And even with tigers and cute peacocks abound, there’s nary a funny, memorable line. Another student will say, “Was it a romantic romp?” Damon and Johansson touch just a handful of times so that can’t be it either. Finally, someone will yell, “Maybe it doesn’t even know what it is.” The teacher will smile, raise the room lights and give that young scholar an A.  ** -DeMarco Williams
 
YOUNG ADULT
Charlize Theron is so much better than Diablo Cody’s screenplay deserves, I kept thinking as I watched how terrible Young Adult would have been if they’d cast, say, Jennifer Aniston or Katherine Heigl in it. Theron plays Mavis, a ghost writer of young adult novels who’s on an emotional par with her readers. She returns to her Minnesota hometown with the goal of reclaiming her old boyfriend, Buddy (Patrick Wilson), even though he has a wife (Elizabeth Reaser) and new baby. For some reason Matt (Patton Oswalt), who was invisible to Mavis in high school, becomes her best friend and confidant. He remains crippled from an attack 20 years before by some guys who thought he was gay (he wasn’t), so Mavis remembers him as “The Hate Crime Guy.” Most actresses would try to make you feel some sympathy for Mavis but Theron is happy to let you agree with the person who calls her a “psychotic prom queen bitch.” She’s clearly delusional for thinking she can walk back into Buddy’s life and walk out with him, but you believe her, even if you don’t want her to succeed. The character she most resembles is Billy Bob Thornton’s Bad Santa, but this movie isn’t as good. *** 1/2 - Steve Warren

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