Tag: Ice Cube

The Book of Life (2014, Jorge R. Gutiérrez)

The Book of Life has a very nice style once the story starts. Everything looks like it’s a miniature, like Life is a CG Rankin/Bass “Animagic.” Not quite as good, but there’s a charm to it. To the style. Not to the movie. Life’s oddly and relentlessly charmless.

It begins with the first bookend device: a group of behavior disorder kids arrive late for the school trip to the museum. They bully the first tour guide, but then a smoking hot lady tour guide winks at them the right way, and they’re all entranced. Life’s not going to get better about objectification of women. It’s the plot, actually.

Christina Applegate voices the tour guide. Why? No reason. She’s not good. She doesn’t have any personality. There’s not a deep “Married With Children” cut involving her character. There is a deep Labyrinth cut, so maybe someone else dropped out or turned them down. Doesn’t matter. The bookending device is just so the behavior disorder kids can mouth off. They range in age from toddler to tween, and their character design ranges from seventies theatrical Charlie Brown doofus villains to Baby Huey in drag. Also, they’re a drag.

Then Applegate starts reading to them from the Book of Life, mentioning far more interesting stories than the one we’ll watch. I foolishly thought it would be an anthology of Mexican folk tales. Instead, it’s all about how Zoe Saldana needs to marry Diego Luna or Channing Tatum so Ron Perlman can get a job transfer.

Perlman’s Xibalba, lord of the Land of the Forgotten. His lady love is La Muerte, the lord of the Land of the Remembered. Kate del Castillo voices her. Del Castillo de facto gives the second-best performance in the film. Luna’s a great lead. When he’s talking, you forget what you’re watching and think it might actually be all right. Then Saldana shows up, and that all right gets qualified. Then Tatum shows up, and that all right becomes impossible. Tatum isn’t even particularly bad—Saldana’s worse—but he’s charmless. His character is the town hero; he’s only the town hero because he has a magic tchotchke. It makes him invincible. When it looks like Saldana is going to marry Luna because of true love and all that jazz, Tatum says he’ll abandon the town and stop protecting it unless she marries him.

Luna’s the hero of the movie, but Tatum’s a good guy. Everyone trading Saldana is a good guy. She may spout off about her independence, but she’ll always immediately relinquish it. Director Gutiérrez and co-writer Doug Langdale don’t write a character capable of withstanding a gentle breeze. They’re all so thin.

Life’s got some original songs. Luna’s okay at them, but not any good. Then again, the songs aren’t good; some are better than others. All of them, much like the film itself, are tedious.

Gutiérrez’s direction peaks at middling. There are some rather poorly directed sequences; Gutiérrez’s always in a hurry like he’s convinced there’s nothing worth seeing anywhere in the film, which is funny because the production design is far more compelling than the story. Ahren Shaw’s editing doesn’t help things.

Book of Life seems like Luna’s charm will somehow carry it, but then it doesn’t. By the third act, Luna can’t hold it up anymore, not with everyone else pounding down on it.

Life’s a long ninety-five minutes.

Ghosts of Mars (2001, John Carpenter)

Ghost of Mars has a lot of earnestness going for it. Director Carpenter needs quite a bit his cast and he supports them even when they’re clearly not able to succeed–especially lead Natasha Henstridge. He takes the project seriously, his cast takes it seriously. Sure, it doesn’t exactly work out, but it’s not from lack of effort.

Some of the problem is the editing. Carpenter and editor Paul C. Warschilka do these crossfades, which might be an attempt to obfuscate the low budget. And Carpenter pushes with the crossfades at the start. Then he drops them once the action gets going. They’re only for the lead-up to the action, when Ghosts is more horror than action. At least in terms of strange creatures lurking in the night and Carpenter trying to disturb the viewer instead of enthrall them. In a strange turn, instead of tasking cinematographer Gary B. Kibbe with hiding the low budget and instilling mood, Carpenter relies on Warschilka.

It actually might be for the best, given the acting.

So Henstridge. While she’s not good and she’s sometimes bad, she tries hard at playing her part. She’s a badass future cop on Mars who has to save the day, teaming up with Ice Cube’s outlaw. Cube’s all right. He maybe gives the best lead performance, but he doesn’t have much competition. Jason Statham isn’t any good, though he eventually becomes likable. Clea DuVall is in a similar situation. She’s not good–her part is even worse than Statham’s–but she’s immediately likable. Thanks to the editing. Joanna Cassidy’s probably the best performance and she’s very supporting. Pam Grier sort of troopers through it. She knows how to do the material, she knows how to direct attention.

But then there’s the narrative construction. Carpenter doesn’t waste time establishing the characters as sympathetic, instead he uses a framing device to interest the viewer in the story. Again, it’s somewhat effective just because it covers Henstridge’s acting failings. It also shakes up the narrative a bit. Carpenter’s not as interested in being interesting as encouraging interest. Not just in terms of the rising action, but in the ground situation. Ghosts of Mars goes out of its way to be unique, even when it doesn’t help the narrative or the character development. The setup for the Mars society is all unnecessary filler. It distracts and just gives the actors problems.

Overall, Ghosts of Mars isn’t a success, but it’s a decent enough diversion. Carpenter and the cast put enough into it to get over the many bumps in the production. It’s more of an accomplishment, given its constraints, than anything else.

Three Kings (1999, David O. Russell)

Three Kings ought to appeal to every one of my liberal affections–director Russell very seriously wants to look at the Gulf War and how it failed the people it should have been protecting. Over and over, Russell goes out of his way to make the American soldiers take responsibility. Not for the war itself, but for their personal involvement with it and the Iraqis. Not just Iraqi civilians, but the army too. It’s very deliberate and precisely executed. It’s just not enough to drive the entire film; nothing in Three Kings is compelling enough overall.

Political statement aside, there’s a lot of other distinct elements to the film. There’s the writing–Russell’s script is quite funny–lots of inane and mundane details. But it’s also rather responsible, at least while Russell’s establishing the ground situation. Russell sets up an excellent tone and structure to the characters and their relationships. Even though some of the film takes place on an army base, it always feels very small. Maybe because Russell has title overlays identifying the main characters. With amusing commentary, of course.

Then there’s the style. Three Kings is very stylized; high contrast Newton Thomas Sigel photography, very quick cuts, some very slow cuts, some slow motion. Russell directs his actors for this exaggerated style, but with only marginal success. Ice Cube and George Clooney, for instance, have nothing parts. Russell gives all the character material to Mark Wahlberg and Spike Jonze. Neither of them is bad, though Jonze can’t handle the transition between being an uneducated racist redneck to a soulful world traveller. He doesn’t really need to do much after that change because Russell’s moved on to focusing on Wahlberg. Wahlberg’s all right for the first act, but has this big subplot to himself and he can’t hack it. So Jonze and Wahlberg getting the most outlandish direction makes sense. They need the most cover.

By the third act, however, Russell has given in to the comedy a little much. He has Nora Dunn and Jamie Kennedy for the comic relief but he takes it even further. It starts to get absurd, which–were Three Kings more successful–should raise some issues about Russell’s political statements.

Great supporting performances. Cliff Curtis, Dunn, Saïd Taghmaoui, Mykelti Williamson, Holt McCallany. Kennedy’s annoying and probably should signal Russell’s eventual tone problems, but he’s good with Dunn. Williamson is awesome opposite Clooney. Then ppor Taghmaoui has to carry Wahlberg in their important (and informative) showdowns.

Decent music from Carter Burwell. Robert K. Lambert’s editing is probably exactly what Russell wanted, though some of the cuts aren’t graceful enough. Three Kings takes place in all of us, Russell demands the audience engage. Three Kings needs more script busywork and far less technical busywork. It also needs a director more concerned about his actors.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by David O. Russell; screenplay by Russell, based on a story by John Ridley; director of photography, Newton Thomas Sigel; edited by Robert K. Lambert; music by Carter Burwell; production designer, Catherine Hardwicke; produced by Charles Roven, Paul Junger Witt and Edward McDonnell; released by Warner Bros.

Starring George Clooney (Archie Gates), Mark Wahlberg (Troy Barlow), Ice Cube (Chief Elgin), Spike Jonze (Conrad Vig), Cliff Curtis (Amir Abdulah), Nora Dunn (Adriana Cruz), Jamie Kennedy (Walter Wogaman), Saïd Taghmaoui (Captain Said), Mykelti Williamson (Colonel Horn), Holt McCallany (Captain Van Meter) and Judy Greer (Cathy Daitch).

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