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Crank (2006, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor)
I don’t usually see films released by Lionsgate. I wouldn’t say I boycotted them, but I don’t take them seriously enough to bother. I started watching Crank because the trailer looked amusing and I do like Jason Statham, whose career goal is apparently never to be in a film funded by a major film company. Statham’s a reasonable enough actor and he’s a good action star. Except Crank is actually the worst made film I can remember seeing. It beats everything in terms of incompetence. But I guess it really isn’t incompetence, because if the filmmakers intended to make a video game into a movie (something David Fincher once said he was trying to do, I think about Fight Club), they’ve sort of succeeded. It’s just an incomprehensible video game.
Crank opens with the title in old video game–arcade days–font, then moves into Statham’s point of view for a few minutes while it establishes its story. This film uses Google Maps (with the Google Maps tag onscreen) as a story-telling device. It has multiple frames on screen at once, but then attaches these frames as textures to walls in other frames. It’s incoherent and stupid. Every third word is a expletive, not for any good reason, but because the writing is so laughable.
Also, it’s not exciting. Jason Statham drives around a lot and yells at people on his cell phone (which gets really good reception). I know the guy’s inevitably going to die–it’s part of the agreement for watching the film–but if you want him to die, well, it doesn’t quite work… shock of shocks.
Unfortunately, Crank didn’t totally tank at the box office and it’s doing well on video (which signals the end days more than a nuclear holocaust would), so it’s possible the morons who made it will make some more films. But they’ve really achieved something with Crank–it’s probably the most worthless action movie I can think of.
ⓏⒺⓇⓄCREDITS
Written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor; director of photography, Adam Biddle; edited by Brian Berdan; music by Paul Haslinger; production designer, Jerry Fleming; produced by Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Richard S. Wright, Skip Williamson and Michael Davis; released by Lionsgate.
Starring Jason Statham (Chev Chelios), Amy Smart (Eve), Jose Pablo Cantillo (Verona), Efren Ramirez (Kaylo), Dwight Yoakam (Doc Miles), Carlos Sanz (Carlito), Jay Xcala (Alex) and Keone Young (Don Kim).
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George of the Jungle (1997, Sam Weisman)
For what it is, George of the Jungle is a rather successful film. It has to appeal to kids (since it’s a Disney movie), teenage girls (who I presume liked Brendan Fraser and might buy the soundtrack–from Disney Records, of course), and even “George of the Jungle” fans. Viewers of the show would be parents of the kids seeing the film, but there’s a real attention to minutiae and it works–George of the Jungle is a pleasant diversion. It immediately establishes itself as absurd, then proceeds to amuse the audience. When the film either shifts focus (from slapstick comedy to romantic comedy, for example) or, in particular, leaves the jungle sets, chafing occurs. In some ways, mostly because of Leslie Mann’s excellent performance as the love interest, George of the Jungle is an effective romance. It’s in a syrupy way, but a pleasing one. While Brendan Fraser is better playing a general buffoon than acting, he earns enough credit to glide over those scenes where he has trouble. But that success is an overall one–there are scenes throughout, this long dance scene, where I couldn’t figure out why they were filming it… then I remembered the Disney Records soundtrack.
The effects problems are different and complex. Since it’s a goofy comedy, the obvious CG isn’t a problem, neither is the obvious composite shots and jungle sets. The Creature Shop’s animatronics, however, are fantastic. But it’s the transition from set to location shooting where George of the Jungle starts to feel wrong–it isn’t supposed to be real and introducing elements, even simple visual cues, rips the viewer from the experience. When George ends up in San Francisco, I kept looking at the clock, waiting for him to go do something else. At those moments, the film felt the most like a romantic comedy (I imagine it’s where romantic comedy writer Audrey Wells did the majority of her work). Maybe it if had all been done on sets or something… but it just didn’t fit, visually or tonally, with the rest of the film. Holland Taylor plays Leslie Mann’s evil mother, who prefers fiancé Thomas Haden Church (who’s hilarious, though he’s just playing an evil, rich version of Lowell from “Wings” for most of it) to the Jungle King. Taylor, who’s usually good, has played this role maybe nine times before and it’s visible from her performance. It’s hard to be engaged when the actor is bored.
Besides her, however, the cast is fine. John Cleese voices the ape named Ape and it’s an excellent fit. For some reason, I agree with that character regarding the Tookie Bird. It’s damn annoying.
Also, the film’s one of those rare ones where the last couple minutes pulls the whole thing up a notch, just because it gets goofy again.
★★½CREDITS
Directed by Sam Weisman; written by Dana Olsen and Audrey Wells, based on a story by Olsen and a cartoon by Jay Ward; director of photography, Thomas Ackerman; edited by Stuart Pappe and Roger Bondelli; music by Marc Shaiman; production designer, Stephen Marsh; produced by David Hoberman, Jordan Kerner and Jon Avnet; released by Walt Disney Pictures.
Starring Brendan Fraser (George), Leslie Mann (Ursula Stanhope), Thomas Haden Church (Lyle Van de Groot), Richard Roundtree (Kwame), Holland Taylor (Beatrice Stanhope), Abraham Benrubi (Thor) and John Cleese (An Ape Named “Ape”).
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Girl with a Suitcase (1961, Valerio Zurlini)
Girl with a Suitcase plays a little like The Nights of Cabiria. Watching Suitcase, one can’t help but feel like the filmmakers were quite familiar with Cabiria. Cabiria, of course, is from a certain period of Fellini and Suitcase feels a little like that Fellini, only the diet version. The film does have a lot of nice things about it–Valerio Zurlini is a fantastic director and he has wonderful composition in this film. Also, for a film with lots of loud music, it’s really quiet. Zurlini lets his actors act and doesn’t help them much in the technical department, which means the actors have to be really good… and, for the most part, they are. Claudia Cardinale is fine, but her character is something of an intentional enigma, so she’s really not the best standard for the film–she’s also not the protagonist. The protagonist is the sixteen year old boy who’s got the crush on her, which is where Girl with a Suitcase differs from other depressing Italian films (it’s like Nights of Cabiria with kids, maybe).
The problem with this story–the boy-about-to-be-a-man and the older woman with secrets he loves–is the lack of a successful conclusion to the story. There are probably films with this story made twice a year from every country in the world (at least one with a good-sized film industry). Girl with a Suitcase goes a different route for most of the film though, not giving the kid anything to do but spend time with Cardinale. Oh sure, he’s got the absent family, but it’s not an issue for a couple reasons. First, because he’s too busy with Cardinale. Second, because the damn thing switches protagonists for the third act, concentrating on her. Those diet Cabiria moments come about because of the switch, but they also serve to make Cardinale a sympathetic character. Only to crap on her in a boring way.
Somehow, the film’s two hours and boring but really not long enough. It stops without ending. The kid, played Jacques Perrin, is okay. Sometimes he does good, sometimes he doesn’t. It’s like Zurlini wasn’t giving him enough direction in some scenes. Another problem with the inevitable conclusion is the age difference. While Perrin is supposed to be sixteen, he was actually twenty and Cardinale was twenty-three. They look close in age and it really affects the reading of certain scenes.
I’ve only seen one other Zurlini film, The Desert of the Tartars, and I was expecting a lot more from Suitcase. The first hour is pretty good though and, overall, it’s not wasted two hours (especially given the amazing sound design).
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The Host (2006, Bong Joon-ho)
If the original Godzilla (the Japanese version, before Raymond Burr) was about the United States as a nuclear power, The Host is a metaphor for the United States as a terrorist state. Or maybe it’s not a metaphor. It’s just about a situation involving Americans and they act with complete disregard for the safety of people and then go and terrorize them for no reason… Yeah, a metaphor suggests it’s coy. The Host is very straightforward in its portrayal of the United States and its foreign policy, which makes the film’s upcoming U.S. release a mystery to me. It’s a release for critics mostly, some way to get knowledge of Korean films out there. I don’t know. I can’t figure it out.
But the politics aren’t the center of The Host, they’re just reality. People who’d seen it at festivals touted it online as the superior giant monster movie, but that blurb is a bit of a misnomer. While the film does feature a giant (well, not too giant, about the size of a bus) monster, it’s not really a giant monster movie because it doesn’t follow the rules. With the exception of that original Godzilla, these films tend to fetishize the monster, because it’s the special effects feat. This fetishization goes back to the 1925 Lost World, because the monster was the deal. The films are about seeing what the monster will do. Deviations from this norm are usually considered failures (and sometimes, to be fair, are failures). The Host isn’t about what the monster’s going to do–seeing that exciting special effect–but about the effect of the monster. The Host is one of the most sensitive films I’ve seen–probably the most sensitive Korean film I’ve seen. It’s almost indescribably affecting. From maybe thirty minutes in, there’s one thing going on and the film drags you through it.
I’ve seen director Bong’s other big film, Memories of Murder, and while it’s a good film, The Host is far beyond my expectations. As a director, Bong is quiet and direct. He’s delicate, actually. The Host is a delicate film, not because it might break, but because it might break you. At times it’s a father-son film, a brother film, a father-daughter film, a comedy, an action film, but it mixes all these elements without detriment, because they’re the traditional terms for things like what is going on in The Host. It’s its own film, so I’m sort of handicapped by the terminology. Korean films tend to defy easy genre assignment (my favorite new genre from Korean films, however, will always be the sexual harassment comedy) and, while The Host is no different in that respect, it takes it to a new level. It is, as I said before, indescribable (in a very, very good way).
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Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Guillermo del Toro)
Pan’s Labyrinth is a pretty film. Gorgeous cinematography, great locations, intricate make-up (bad CG, but it’s only really noticeable once). Guillermo del Toro does a decent job directing the film but has these really annoying transitions–the back of someone’s head frequently becomes a tree in the forest in unending pans. His script is competent and, well, heartless. I was trying to work up some suspense, but since del Toro ruins Pan’s Labyrinth‘s suspense in the opening shot, maybe it’s appropriate. Pan’s Labyrinth could have been a really good war movie, but instead del Toro mucks around in fantasy. Bad fantasy.
I was hoping Pan’s Labyrinth would either use the fantasy elements as a metaphor (it does not) or would be a descendent of Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast. Unfortunately, it’s neither. Instead, like I said before, it’s heartless. Only one of the characters is at all human and she’s just human by default. The rest are unbelievable, except maybe the bad guy (until the end, anyway). The lead character, the precocious girl, goes from being wise beyond her years to being inconceivably stupid. Del Toro never spends any time figuring the character out in any real sense, so there’s not even a surprise (by the time she got stupid, I’d already given up). There’s also absolutely no suspense in the film, thanks a) to del Toro giving everything away at the beginning and b) just some lame plotting.
The performances are fine, but not worth enumerating. Something does need to be said for the graphic violence, however. Instead of attaching any real emotion to Pan’s Labyrinth, del Toro makes it frequently bloody to get the audience interested (Paul Verhoeven talked about this method in regards to Robocop–if you haven’t gotten the audience to care with actual character development, blood and guts can do it).
Pan’s Labyrinth is so artificial it’s hard to be particularly disappointed. While it’s boring and empty, the war aspect is so full of potential, you can just sit and imagine the fantasy thing being gone and the movie being good. Maybe it’s because del Toro doesn’t have any M. Night Shyamalan moments… well, until the end, but who cares by then? It’s almost over.
★½CREDITS
Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro; director of photography, Guillermo Navarro; edited by Bernat Vilaplana; music by Javier Navarrete; production designer, Eugenio Caballero; produced by Bertha Navarro, Alfonso Cuarón, Frida Torresblanco and Álvaro Augustin; released by Picturehouse.
Starring Sergi López (Vidal), Maribel Verdú (Mercedes), Ivana Baquero (Ofelia), Ariadna Gil (Carmen), Alex Angulo (Doctor) and Doug Jones (Pale Man).
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