Category: 2003

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003, Stephen Norrington)

There’s no doubt Stephen Norrington’s a lousy director but he’s not atrocious enough someone should retire from acting because he or she had to work with him–and Sean Connery didn’t even get the worst scenes in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It’s a stunt casting of Connery and, when compared to the source material–it’s no surprise, but he’s really against good character work. He refused to let them write the character as anything other than an aged Indiana Jones.

The scenes with him and Shane West–West isn’t bad, but he’s not charismatic enough for the role; he’s sturdy and unexciting–play like a May-September bromance. In fact, when West shows romantic interest in Peta Wilson, it’s almost strange, because his character is so asexual.

Besides the two of them, Tony Curran and Jason Flemyng, the acting’s pretty atrocious in the film. Wilson’s awful, Stuart Townsend seems to be doing a (really bad) Johnny Depp impression, Naseeruddin Shah–and it’s not clear if it’s intentional–totally lacks personality.

The special effects range from bad video game quality–the car chase through Venice is awful and almost comical, it must have looked hilarious on a big screen–to tolerable. For whatever reason, the film has more success with Flemyng’s Dr. Hyde than, say, Ang Lee’s Hulk had with its CG creation.

And while Norrington is British, it feels like he doesn’t really get the possibilities of the concept. Worst, I suppose, are James Robinson’s one liners. They bomb.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003, The Wachowskis)

I think The Matrix! Part Trois has to be better than the second one, if only because it’s not as terribly boring in its action sequences. The second one had that highway battle and it was bad and the Keanu Reeves versus a million Hugo Weavings and it was bad. Here, Keanu Reeves fights one Hugo Weaving (in an atrocious performance, it’s a shame how the sequels degraded the fine work he did in the first film) in front of a bunch of non-participating Hugo Weavings. It’s better. And it’s a huge, CG-aided flying fight scene–it’s the Superman versus Zod scene no one ever got to see.

Reeves is okay. It’s amazing how little his eyes effect his emoting when he acts. Jada Pinkett Smith is awful and as much as I appreciate the Wachowskis’ minorities inheriting the earth thing (none of the surviving principles are white), I’m pretty sure the character they have her play is just the equivalent of Will Smith’s heroic, but definitely not revolutionary or intimidating, black guy for white audiences.

Harry Lennix is bad in this one. Maybe he was bad in the second one too. I can’t remember. He’s usually good. But he’s an idiot in this one, even though he’s supposed to be smart.

I think the script probably read well. As a movie, it’s a bit of a disaster; I’ll bet the script read well.

Except for the Wizard of Oz cameo at the end, it wasn’t completely awful.

Paycheck (2003, John Woo)

Didn’t John Woo used to have a style? I mean, I know he had birds and he had the guns pointed at each other, but didn’t he have some style? He’s got no style in Paycheck, which ends up being one of the best movies John Badham never made.

It’s a complete time waster, the kind of thing people used to grow up on seeing on TV, fueled by competent direction (without style, Woo’s inoffensive most of the time and only stupid–the birds–once or twice) and a fine leading man performance from Ben Affleck. While he’s never going to be believable as super genius (the idea of Uma Thurman as a PhD is as hilarious as Will Smith as one), he’s sturdy as an engineer.

Most of the supporting cast–Paul Giamatti, Colm Feore, Joe Morton–is solid. Aaron Eckhart’s not doing anything special here but he isn’t being terrible either. The script isn’t deep enough to let him. Michael C. Hall and Kathryn Morris are both pretty bad, but neither are in it too much. Peter Friedman appears to be wearing a lot of make-up. He’s not good, but the make-up distracts.

The script’s problematic–the concept isn’t cool as a near future movie and would have worked much better firmed up in reality–but serviceable. John Powell’s music is rather effective.

The whole movie hinges on Affleck being a movie star and Affleck is a movie star and it works.

It’s a fine diversion.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003, The Wachowskis)

The Wachowskis get to do whatever they want with The Matrix Reloaded so they do this bombastic, pseudo-intellectual sequel and they’re totally bored with it. It’s very obviously not what they want to be doing with their time.

They got about as much mileage out of the Matrix as they could in the first one and putting a dream sequence into the second one doesn’t do them any favors.

This film has Harold Perrineau giving a bad performance. I didn’t even know it was possible for him to give a bad performance. He’s just terrible–he’s this useless, throwaway character.

Speaking of bad performances–Jada Pinkett Smith. I’ve seen her in something else and I was waiting for she to give one of the worst performances in film history and she certainly delivers.

The fight scenes are the boring and cartoonish. They’re not exciting. They look like a video game.

The film almost turns around at the end when it mocks the audience–the entire movie is invalidated in the last act, in a self-congratulatory way–not a fun way, but a wink wink. If the viewer is paying attention, he or she just realized the movie was a waste of time and money. But the cliffhanger ruins it. It’s cheap instead of cruel. Cruel is interesting. Cheap is predictable.

At least George Lucas is making a fortune off the toys. He cares about something. The Wachowskis don’t have a motive, artistic or commercial, for making this mess.

X2 (2003, Bryan Singer)

X-Men 2–sorry, X2–is one of the worst movies I’ve ever sat through, if not the worst.

Singer does a lousy job on X2. It looks like it was filmed in Canada on a restricted budget; it looks goofy and cheap. The story is idiotic and the script is terrible. There’s no good split between the characters in terms of screen time. Patrick Stewart disappears for a while, so does James Marsden.

There’s one scene with promise–when Hugh Jackman is talking with Shawn Ashmore and it’s an awkward moment. It doesn’t really fulfill any of that promise, but it’s not as bad as most of the film.

There aren’t any good performances, which is disappointing if not surprising. Ashmore gives one of the better performances. Bruce Davison’s all right. As opposed to the first one, Jackman’s not good in this one. Patrick Stewart’s bad. Halle Berry’s bad. Famke Janssen’s less bad than those two, but still bad. Ian McKellan’s not as bad as he was in the first one, but he’s still lousy. Anna Paquin’s no good. Brian Cox is awful. Alan Cumming is awful. Cotter Smith plays the President–he exudes a Canadian production.

There is the one amazing scene where Wolverine kills all the army guys–the U.S. Army is the bad guy in X2. They’re child killers. This movie’s from 2003, demonizing the U.S. Army, which is kind of ballsy. It’s a gratuitous scene and its presence in a huge Hollywood blockbuster is startling. It’s great.

Taxi 3 (2003, Gérard Krawczyk)

Taxi 3 starts with a superior set-up, a James Bond-esque chase scene through Marseilles, the good guy on a bicycle, running from the bad guys (on rollerblades). It’s goofy and funny–the best part being the bad guy running into a plexiglass (being carried on the street, a riff on the standard glass) and bouncing off it. It’s nothing spectacular, but it seems to show Taxi 3 is at least going to keep with the rest of the series in terms of diverting attention. Then the good guy reveals himself–and it’s Sylvester Stallone and Taxi 3 all of a sudden skyrockets in potential. After the intro’s done, there’s a beautiful Bond opening title riff. It seems like it’s going to be superior.

And then it all comes crashing down. Given the series always seems like Luc Besson writes the scripts on napkins at breakfast–a ninety minute diversion, some laughs and impressive driving, solid performances–it’d be hard for it to be a complete failure. But with such a strong opening, Taxi 3 sets itself up for a fall.

The script is at fault. The dialogue’s fine, but the plot’s lame. Besson’s greatest influence for these movies seems to be Beverly Hills Cop II (the emphasis on the villains elaborate and illogical heists) and this one’s no different. Klutzy cop Frédéric Diefenthal is after a gang who dresses up like Santa Claus–the story’s set at Christmas, which initially seemed like it would provide some good material, but it doesn’t. He’s so obsessed with the case–in the film’s weakest joke–he can’t tell girlfriend Emma Wiklund is eight months pregnant. Besson’s reasonably adept at finding comic moments for these characters, but that revelation scene is painfully unfunny. Samy Naceri finds out girlfriend Marion Cotillard is similarly with child (though she’s only just found out herself). Besson handles that situation far better, with an amusing driving scene where Naceri can’t pay attention to the road in order to monitor Cotillard’s condition.

It seems like Besson needed to accommodate Wiklund’s actual pregnancy and just figured setting up Cotillard would give him something for Diefenthal and Naceri to talk about in their handful of scenes together. They meet up around the halfway point, when Diefenthal drags Naceri into the plot. It’s forced and awkward, like it’s impossible to imagine the two hanging out when there isn’t a movie going on.

Besson uses Bai Ling as the main villain, which is stupid and predictable. She’s not bad, but she’s annoying.

Bernard Farcy is funny as Diefenthal’s moronic boss. Edouard Montoute is a solid police sidekick to Diefenthal and gets some of the edgier material. Apparently, black cops in Marseilles get run over all the time….

Krawczyk’s direction is decent, certainly suggestive of greater potential than Taxi sequels.

At the end, it picks up a little, since there is a twenty minute chase sequence (earlier, there’s a long and boring one, played for laughs, which definitely hurts the film). It’s a mildly diverting ninety minutes… which is the point. But the opening certainly suggests it could have been more.

Maybe I’m just upset Stallone never showed up again.

Oldboy (2003, Park Chan-wook)

Thanks to Joint Security Area, I was leery of Oldboy going in. While Park Chan-wook has a large fan base, all JSA did was convince me they weren’t seeing the same movie. Finally, after Oldboy, I can understand why he has the fan base… and it’s unfortunate.

Park had his big revelation ending to Joint Security Area and it felt inorganic. Oldboy‘s big end reveal sequence does feel organic, but it also feels incredibly manipulative. It’s sensationalist–evidenced by the intentional lack of resolution to it. It’s an either way ending–maybe from the source manga–but also maybe to appeal to that now popular sentiment of an ending like Oldboy‘s being cool because it’s ambiguous. What Park does in Oldboy is deceive the viewer for the film’s entirety, then pat himself on the back at the end. It’s a safe, immature ending. There’s an analog to a John Sayles film–I can’t reveal which one because it’d give away Oldboy‘s conclusion–but the two are world’s apart. Sayles works through the sensationalism to the human reality of the situation and tries to reconcile. Park just tries to be cool. Guess who’s a more popular filmmaker (and guess who’s a better one)?

But what’s strange about Oldboy–I checked with a friend, who said it was in the three to four range… and it was until the Seven slash Unbreakable ending–is Park’s great direction. With the early exception of a very standard umbrellas from above (another Seven reference), Park’s Panavision direction is fantastic. There’s a long fight scene, panning across it, and it’s a wonderful use of the frame. Park’s panning, actually–there’s a lot of it–is maybe the best panning I’ve seen. He does it for tone, he does it for effect, he does it for action. Even at the end, as the film’s crumbling, he’s got this great digital composite shot. It’s a little too clean looking; still excellent.

The music–by Jo Yeong-wook–is an essential component. More than any of the other technical aspects (the editing is good, but the cinematography, while competent, lacks any personality), the music makes Oldboy. The music has a lot to do–combined, it and Choi Min-sik’s voiceover narration (present tense, which is a little odd, but given the film’s manga roots, not surprising), make up the majority of Oldboy‘s exposition. It works–a little awkwardly, a little painfully hip at times–but it does work.

So, in reality, not many of the film’s actors have a lot of acting to do. Choi gives a fantastic physical performance, but it’s physical to the point of a Buster Keaton performance… without the close-ups. He gets to define his character through the voiceovers. Kang Hye-jeong’s character’s allegiances and motivations are in constant question, so she never gets to flesh out her role. She does a fine enough job, but Park doesn’t really ask her to do anything except be sweet and vulnerable. The real stellar performance is from Yu Ji-tae, who gets to run off with the film after a certain point. Park visibly realizes Choi’s character is ruined–in terms of giving Choi anything interesting to do–after the big reveal, whereas Yu gets to become the best Bond villain ever.

While the film does appeal in its shock value trendiness to American audiences, Oldboy is definitely a reaction to the Korean film. Much of it feels like an intentional comment on the Korean romantic drama, only distorted and cynically packaged. As for the originality… again, I’m afraid a glib comparison would reveal the ending… it’s impossible, for me, right now, to know what Park took from the manga and left.

Oldboy‘s very much about watching Choi’s quest. But his quest is very much a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, in the original sense, and it’s a fairy tale without a reward at the end, which always seems to be the thing filmmakers don’t want to acknowledge the form, by definition, requires.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Park Chan-wook; written by Hwang Jo-yun, Lim Joon-hyung and Park, based on a story by Tsuchiya Garon and the manga by Minegishi Nobuaki; director of photography, Jeong Jgeong-hun; edited by Kim Sang-beom; music by Jo Yeong-wook; production designer, Ryu Seong-hie; produced by Kim Dong-ju; released by Show East.

Starring Choi Min-sik (Oh Dae-su), Yu Ji-tae (Lee Woo-jin), Kang Hye-jeong (Mi-do), Ji Dae-han (No Joo-hwan), Oh Dal-su (Park Cheol-woong), Kim Byeong-ok (Mr. Han), Lee Seung-Shin (Yoo Hyung-ja) and Yun Jin-seo (Lee Soo-ah).

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A Good Lawyer’s Wife (2003, Im Sang-soo)

A Good Lawyer’s Wife is beautifully directed. Im shot it Super 35 (full frame, then cropping it down to 2.35:1) and he uses a lot of steadicam, creating these fragile, exquisite compositions. Usually when I kick off with a description of the excellent technical filmmaking, it isn’t a particularly good sign. This one is no different. For all the beauty of Im’s direction, his excellent cinematographer and composer, his script is something of a fiasco. It’s supposed to be either a family drama or an unhappy wife drama and at least fails at the former, without really qualifying for the latter. Moon So-ri is an discontent married young woman, who loves her son (there’s a whole time waster about him being adopted, which isn’t important except as another time waster from Im, who loves them), has an unfaithful husband, an unfaithful mother-in-law (look, another time waster) and an ailing (and great) father-in-law. Eventually, she starts a inappropriate friendship with the teenage boy next door (who’s been spying on her). Playing the teenage boy, Bong Tae-gyu is playing a character six years younger than he is and, really, when they fix Moon up, they look about the same age. The discrepancy cuts into the shock value quite a bit.

Im uses all the infidelity to fill time, further trying to mask the melodrama’s weak plot with explicitness. He tries to inflate a big show and, until the whole thing falls apart in the third act, his technical ability does keep it aloft. As the husband, Hwang Jeong-min is great… but he doesn’t have a character. Im gives him some character in the middle of the second act (and a wonderful excuse, he’s a jerk because his mother’s a shrill, awful woman–though Im then goes on to try to redeem her a little), but since he’s the only interesting character in the film, it’s way too little, way too late. When Im breaks the movie, hitting the tree with the melodrama stick until an ending drops from the branch, he makes his open invalid. A Good Lawyer’s Wife has no backstory, the viewer gets almost nothing of the ground situation. For instance, why Hwang is unfaithful is never explained, nor is it even hinted at. Why he and Moon married in the first place, since she doesn’t like him. The list goes on and on, not really mattering because Im’s storytelling is rather lyrical. Kind of boring, quite cheap, but nice to look at, and well-acted. Until he flips the movie over (in a wonderfully unexpected turn of events, not going off the melodramatic orange sunset wash of the inciting scene). Then the end doesn’t work without a real beginning (because nothing’s happened in between).

Im tacks a dumb, but slightly saving, epilogue on the movie, then proceeds to screw it up even more, letting the music get out of hand. Lots of A Good Lawyer’s Wife plays like a comedy (the beauty of Korean cinema is its general freedom from genre) and Im goes back for it at the end, but it’s exceptionally inappropriate… and maybe even makes the husband more sympathetic than the wife. But it looks wonderful.

The Uninvited (2003, Lee Soo-youn)

The Uninvited is a technically a horror movie, I suppose. There are ghosts and all. With the exception of the protagonist finding a kindred spirit–and her seeing ghosts too–the whole thing could work as a drama about trauma. In fact, as a drama, it would work well. During the movie, when the inevitable dumb horror movie ending is far, far away, it’s quite good. It’s a quiet drama about wounded people who don’t necessarily get better from finding other wounded people or finding out what wounded them in the first place. It’s a boring, cheerless drama. And it does run long–over two hours–which explains why there’s time to introduce the second main character, the psychic, played by Jun Ji-hyun, after a lot of establishing of the protagonist.

There’s a lot of good acting in the movie–Yu Seon as the confused fiancée (that Uninvited cheats her of being a real character is one of the biggest red flags) is particularly good. The problem with the leads are the constant backstory surprises. Park Shin-yang, playing the main character, experiences a traumatic event during the main titles and suffers from aftereffects. Through contrivance, Jun comes into his life and, because her backstory is so much more interesting, the movie loses all interest in Park’s trauma. It even gives him a deeper, more historical trauma, just so it can involve Jun. At this point, Yu sort of disappears, popping back in every once in a while to remind the viewer Park was, at one point, an important character in the movie. The big traumas at the end, which lead to the “surprise” horror movie ending (surprise is in quotations because it’s really just a standard, stupid horror movie ending), don’t make much sense and aren’t insurmountably traumatic.

One of the interesting things about The Uninvited–the direction is okay, but there’s rarely anything spectacular or compelling–is the place of Christianity in the characters’ lives. Yu’s got a great monologue about praying and a fantastic observation about people leaving church. And the movie certainly suggests religion is going to play a part in the resolution… but it does not. Not at all. The movie even misplaces a baby, it gets so wrapped up in itself.

Park’s got a few good scenes, particularly at the beginning when he’s the focus. Then there’s the twenty minutes the film plays like a mystery and he’s investigating. Those scenes work too. But at the end, when he’s a wreck, Park’s lost… the character’s actions make no sense and Park’s not a good enough actor to make them palatable. Jun’s character’s even worse, a grieving mother abandoned by the script. Lee’s more interested in giving the viewer a surprise than a considered look at grief, which is too bad. Jun, as an actress, is suited for the latter and doesn’t do at all well with the former (as evidenced by the long-shots towards the end).

For so much of the two plus hours, The Uninvited is a good, genre-busting drama. Only at the end does it become a bad horror film. There’s five or six minutes, in the third act, when the movie’s racing downhill I had a chance to get upset about… but the ending’s so dumb, I’m not even upset writer-director Lee ruined the good parts.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Written and directed by Lee Soo-youn; director of photography, Jo Yeong-guy; edited by Kyeong Min-ho; music by Jang Yeong-gyu; produced by Oh Jang-wang and Jung Hoon-tak; released by CJ Entertainment.

Starring Park Shin-yang (Jeong-won), Jun Ji-hyun (Yeon), Yu Seon (Hee-eun), Jeong Ok , Lee Ju-shil and Kim Yeo-jin.

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Hulk (2003, Ang Lee)

Hulk had a huge box office drop-off after its opening weekend–wow, almost seventy percent. It’s actually somewhat lucky, because I’d have thought people would have gotten up and walked out of the theater. The Hulk doesn’t show up until about an hour into the movie and doesn’t do anything interesting for another half hour after the first appearance. There’s a lot of angst in the first couple Hulk appearances, before it finally gets to him fighting tanks and such. The tank fights and the helicopter fights and the Hulk jumping all over the place–those scenes Ang Lee does all right with. The Hulk doesn’t look “real” in any of the close-ups, but given how unbelievable the acting is from the principals… ILM’s Hulk by far gives the film’s best performance.

The worst performance is–just because it’s so absurdly easy–Josh Lucas. I don’t remember him from anything else, but his big business scientist seems to be an homage to… Himmler, maybe. The actor is bad, nothing else. For all the pseudo-angst Lee and James Schamus drown Hulk in, they don’t mind one of their principal characters being shallower than a piece of newsprint. I think they even gave Lucas extra blue eyes, though I’m not sure why… It’s a horrific performance, but the terrible writing contributes.

The other two–primary–terrible performances are Jennifer Connelly and Eric Bana. Bana hurts the most, since he’s the ostensible lead (it’s really Nick Nolte). Either Bana was on tranquilizers the whole time or mastering getting rid of his Australian accent also removed all animation. Connelly–for the first half–acts with her hair. Once they change the style, though, look out. She’s incapable of doing anything realistically. A big problem with Hulk seems to be casting actors who think the project is crap. Both Bana and Connelly are abjectly disinterested in their performances.

Sam Elliot’s also bad, but that one’s not particularly surprising.

Once again, Nick Nolte shows off just what he can do with a wacky, crazed role and turns in the film’s most sympathetic character.

Lee’s stylistic choices are car wreck interesting. For example, what were the producers thinking trusting Lee with a $140 million budget (glib answer, they weren’t). Lee can’t handle the money, but the other choices he makes–the split screens meant to imitate comic book panels (doesn’t work) or using comic sans as the movie’s font (that one should get one ejected from the DGA, if not incarcerated). But at the beginning, when Lee’s zooming in on all sorts of molecules and lab animals and doing all sorts of dumb fades, Hulk actually works as a super-budget b-movie from the 1950s (the dangers of nuclear power and all). It’s interesting to look at, interesting to experience. Of course, once the Hulk shows up, Lee flushes all that stylization (but sticks to his multi-screen thing, which seems more inspired by security cameras than comic books).

Hulk is a disaster, as the lack of a definite article should suggest, but it’s a disaster caused by incompetence. How hard is it to mess up a big green guy breaking stuff? Very easy, apparently.