Category: 2003

The Recruit (2003, Roger Donaldson)

There’s a very interesting throwaway line in The Recruit. During the traitor’s confession, there’s an implication the betrayal occurred following the CIA ignoring information they could have used to prevent 9/11. Like everything related to 9/11, it’s all implied (this one is less obvious than the others), but it’s definitely there. Given the film seems like a fairytale “young CIA” movie–the “Beverly Hills 90210” approach to it–it implies there was once a more mature film here (are CIA training procedures a matter of public record? I’m pretty sure not).

The top billed Al Pacino is doing one of his standard wizened older (not old) man roles here. He yells a little. His eyes occasionally gleam, reminding of better roles. What’s bothersome about Pacino’s paycheck roles (which he mostly does now, just like De Niro), is he’s still likable (something De Niro never had). I resent myself for enjoying his performance.

Colin Farrell is doing a leading man role–at times it’s impossible not to think of Tom Cruise in The Firm–and he’s solid. Sometimes his job is just to stare intently, other times he does actually act. He and Pacino work well together but, even the Recruit is her best performance I’ve seen, Farrell doesn’t really get anything to work with from Bridget Moynahan. But at least her performance wasn’t making me nauseous like usual.

When the movie’s decent, it fits Donaldson would be making it. When it’s not, he’s way too good for it.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Roger Donaldson; written by Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer and Mitch Glazer; director of photography, Stuart Dryburgh; edited by David Rosenbloom; music by Klaus Badelt; production designer, Andrew McAlpine; produced by Roger Birnbaum, Jeff Apple and Gary Barber; released by Touchstone Pictures.

Starring Al Pacino (Walter Burke), Colin Farrell (James Douglas Clayton), Bridget Moynahan (Layla Moore), Gabriel Macht (Zack), Kenneth Mitchell (Alan) and Mike Realba (Ronnie Gibson).

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The Italian Job (2003, F. Gary Gray)

So Edward Norton hated making The Italian Job? I’m shocked. (According to the Internet gossip, it was to fulfill a Paramount contract–they even gave him a car… I don’t remember if it was a Mini Cooper). It’s the lamest role Norton’s ever played. As an actor without a persona, he doesn’t belong in the Italian Job at all, since almost everyone is just playing his assumed screen role.

Mos Def is a funny black guy, Jason Statham is the cool British guy, Seth Green is the dorky guy. Only Mark Wahlberg (it would have been amazing if the ad campaign had been “meet the new funky bunch”) doesn’t have a persona. His performance is so bland if he didn’t smile ever three minutes, he’d disappear.

Charlize Theron does a little better than Norton and Wahlberg–though persona free, her character is also absent any presumed personality.

From the first few minutes of the film, it’s impossible to imagine it existing without Ocean’s Eleven. But it’s the studio version of Ocean’s Eleven (it doesn’t even take place in Italy, which disappointed me quite a bit).

Gray is a perfectly adequate director in terms of composition, even in Panavision; the film’s visually engaging if not interesting. His direction of actors is terrible here, but I doubt he really even bothered.

One very nice surprise is John Powell’s score, which is playful and “inventive” enough, it carries whole sequences.

The heists aren’t interesting, but it’s affable enough they don’t need to be.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by F. Gary Gray; written by Donna Powers and Wayne Powers, based on the film written by Troy Kennedy-Martin; director of photography, Wally Pfister; edited by Richard Francis-Bruce and Christopher Rouse; music by John Powell; production designer, Charles Wood; produced by Donald De Line; released by Paramount Pictures.

Starring Mark Wahlberg (Charlie Croker), Charlize Theron (Stella Bridger), Donald Sutherland (John Bridger), Jason Statham (Handsome Rob), Seth Green (Lyle), Mos Def (Left Ear) and Edward Norton (Steve).

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The Ultimates (2002) #12

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And Millar brings it around… relatively. It’s a big huge fight scene with the fate of the solar system in the balance so maybe he gets some easy melodramatic points (he sure doesn’t score anything with the Captain America versus Nazi Skrull punch-out, not until the whole “A for America” thing, which doesn’t really sit well figuring Captain America’s from the 1940s and not a Neo-Con, but whatever… no one ever said Millar thought before he wrote).

The best moments of the comic–when the soldiers mock Iron Man’s sacrifice, for example–are sometimes quiet, sometimes loud. Thor, again, has the best lines in the comic. Millar never doing an Ultimate Thor series is his undoing, creatively speaking. For whatever reason, he writes him leagues better than anyone else.

I’m having some trouble with Captain America as a brilliant strategist too… shouldn’t have he won WWII earlier then?

The Ultimates (2002) #11

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Oh, good grief….

Have you seen Independence Day? Or any of the millions of Body Snatchers type movies?

Millar has.

I know I’m reading way too much into The Ultimates, but come on… Millar’s got thirteen issues and he doesn’t do anything with this one. Seriously, I don’t think Marvel can say anything bad about Jim Shooter, because Millar’s not much different (I do absolutely love how they’re Skrulls though, which means all Bendis did was recycle Ultimates for Secret Invasion). There’s nary an honest moment to be seen in this issue.

The end, the rallying speech from Captain America, is about as well written as Bill Pullman’s Independence Day rallying speech.

I think some of my… hostility comes from Ultimates being a decent concept–at least as far as an Ultimate Universe team book goes–and Millar faking “real world” with soap opera histrionics and mean-spiritedness.

Two left.

The Ultimates (2002) #10

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Sigh. An all-action issue. Not even an action-packed all-action issue. It’s a non-action-packed all-action double cross issue.

The Wasp’s twenty-six? Really? She’d have been nine when St. Elmo’s Fire came out, which makes it an awkward pop culture reference. It’s funny, but it doesn’t hold up to any thought whatsoever. Oh, wait, I just summed up the series.

The big shocker at the end of the issue is the Nazi villain Captain America used to fight is back. It’s weird how Millar doesn’t really give Captain America a character here, he just lets him be defined by his actions, never really having any thoughts.

Lots of vehicles for Hitch to draw this time. I think he digs drawing vehicles. It’s a decent scene, the sky full of S.H.I.E.L.D. ships. I don’t know… I can’t get excited at this point.

Nice Thor moments though.

The Ultimates (2002) #9

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When did the Soviet Union fall?

Let’s check wikipedia. Ah, 1991.

So Hawkeye has been in S.H.I.E.L.D. for over eleven years, putting him in his thirties somewhere, I assume. Shame Hitch draws him in his mid-twenties.

Actually, if it hadn’t been for that last line about the Soviet Union, I was going to open with how unpleasant it is to read Hawkeye in Ultimates, since (I think) he just ends up getting tortured and killed anyway.

I don’t know what happens this issue. They get ready to go attack the aliens, Captain America strikes out with Janet. Oh, the fight. Captain America versus Giant Man. Once it becomes clear Captain America’s going to kick ass, the fight’s over. Boring.

Millar’s playful approach to Tony’s alcoholism is cute. It’s funny how that problem’s a joke, but spousal abuse isn’t (if Millar was really thinking, he’d have Janet beat up Hank).

Frank Miller’s Robocop (2003) #4

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You know what, this issue isn’t terrible. I mean, it’s bad, but not in comparison to the rest of the series. Robocop is in it, more than usual, and as comic relief instead of the protagonist, but whatever, at least he’s in the comic book. And some of the ideas–presumably Miller’s–are actually somewhat entertaining here. Ryp’s sexpot female after sexpot female is annoying, but, again, whatever. It moves faster than the previous issues and is less painful.

Some of it might–might–have to do with Grant finishing the issue with Lewis. Even though she’s barely been in the comic book (and I love how this Amazon War thing is such a great key phrase for everything, nothing like introducing all sorts of nonsense complicated world events for the reader to keep up with), she’s the closest thing it has to an empathetic character.

So, terrible, but fine.

Frank Miller’s Robocop (2003) #3

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Here’s where the comic sort of jumps off the deep end. I do want to point out how poorly Grant uses the commercial breaks, which are funny, in this issue. He doesn’t do them with any related news program, so there’s just story, commercial, story. He certainly hasn’t set up a comic book where he can makes moves like that one.

As for the drowning Robocop narrative, I find it hard to believe Grant, who doesn’t just write comics, but writes about them, thought this was a solid idea. It’s a complete, unmitigated disaster of a narrative. Grant gives pages to OCP goons, action scenes Lewis couldn’t survive and maybe a page and a half to Robocop this issue.

Ryp’s a bad match for a Frank Miller adaptation. Spared down artwork might have made it more tolerable, but this intestine-filled mess is just getting tiresome and ugly.

It’s crap.

Frank Miller’s Robocop (2003) #2

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And here Robocop is even less of a character. Grant (or Miller?) has found a character he wants to follow, a voluptuous female version of Dr. Phil who can guide the story.

The supporting cast here is really thin; since Ryp doesn’t exactly do likenesses (at all), the familiar movie cast is identifiable only by their traits. The sergeant at the police station is black, check; Lewis blows bubbles, check. The comic’s major problem is with the yawn-inducing corporate bad guys taking center stage.

The issue ends on a lame cliffhanger, but it’s only appropriate, since it opened on a really lame cliffhanger resolution. Frank Miller’s Robocop came relatively early in the unproduced scripts to comics genre and it’s unclear how Avatar thought anyone might confuse this book for one Miller actually wrote himself.

It’s too much of a misfire to even be interesting enough to be a disaster.

Frank Miller’s Robocop (2003) #1

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There’s technically twenty-two pages of story here, but so much of it is wasted–five pages alone, at the front, go to showing clips of television shows of the future (Grant adds, presumably, the material about TV being safe for all kids, since when Miller wrote his Robocop 2 script it was 1988 or whatever)–it doesn’t even feel like half an issue.

The big problem is the lack of characters–Robocop isn’t a character here and maybe he just doesn’t work with comic books. He doesn’t have an alter ego to humanize him, so maybe you need to actor with the voice, need the acting.

Ryp’s art has its moments and his Robocop certainly does look worn down and “realistic,” but it’s a little too much. The comic relies on his detail over writing or plotting. He also can’t figure out how to make Robo-Vision look good.