Ondine (2009, Neil Jordan)

Ondine is very committed to the bit. The film opens with Irish owner-operator fisherman Colin Farrell bringing a woman up in his nets. A beautiful woman. She seems very confused to be breathing air and doesn’t tell him very much about herself. Alicja Bachleda plays the woman. She refuses to go to a hospital, and instead, Farrell puts her up at his dead mother’s waterfront cottage. I kept wondering if there was electricity, but the film deftly ignores that issue time and again. Lots of Ondine is writer and director Jordan deftly ignoring things or even distracting from them. Usually, he’s distracting from the very flat expository dialogue. If it weren’t for Farrell being lovable, Bachleda being charming, and Alison Barry (as Farrell’s tragically ill but precocious daughter) being adorable, Ondine would be in real trouble. Jordan can get away with a lot thanks to Kjartan Sveinsson’s music and Christopher Doyle’s photography, but only the actors make that script happen.

Well, the actors and editor Tony Lawson’s cutting. Ondine is always on the move. Jordan and Doyle are shooting with digital video, and they’re able to leverage the inherent truthiness of the format with Doyle’s succulent lighting. The little seafront town is gray, and the muted green is vibrant, teeming with life. It’s the perfect setting for a modern fable about a fisherman (Farrell), a selkie (Bachleda), and his kid, Barry, who immediately loves the idea of a land-sea romance. Farrell’s a dry alcoholic who used to be the town drunk. His ex-wife, Dervla Kirwan, is still a drunk (she dumped him for sobering up) but has custody of Barry because kids say with their moms in Ireland. Kirwan’s got a new boyfriend, Tony Curran, who’s a potentially dangerous prick. We know he’s a prick because he’s mainly from Barry’s perspective, and she’s uneasy around him.

But he’s also a jerk to her dad. Ditto Kirwan. Jordan doesn’t have much in the way of dialogue going for Ondine, but he’s got it absolutely layered with angst. Barry spends most of her time in a wheelchair because of failing kidneys. The other kids don’t exactly bully her, but they also don’t really leave her alone, creating these parallels to Farrell, who everyone treats dismissively. Even the town priest, Stephen Rea. Rea’s an adorable cameo. Farrell’s not religious but uses the confessional for his AA since there are no meetings nearby. Except Rea’s never run an AA, Farrell’s never been, so they both wing it.

Of course, Bachleda sees Farrell differently than everyone else. And he’s got to balance that different and welcome kind of attention with his responsibilities for Barry, who basically gets to school on her own, but then Kirwan lets Farrell do the rest so she and Curran can get drunk.

Besides the character relationships, which manage to shine even with the clipped banter dialogue—Farrell and Barry are like a comedy duo back and forth at each other, Farrell and Bachleda are a guarded flirtation where it’s unclear how much they understand each other, then everyone else is just hurling abusive one-liners at Farrell. But thanks to the acting and Lawson’s cutting, it’s okay. And when there are big character moments, they’re always a success, and they never let up on the bit. Is Kirwan a mermaid or not? Farrell’s not even sure she’s real, and she won’t let him get anyone else for outside verification; she only wants him to see her, which turns out to be part of the legend. Because Farrell tells Barry all about it, framing it as a fairytale he’s made up. Barry’s engaged–apparently Farrell’s never told anywhere near an exciting story before—and starts doing research into the legends, which then informs the audience (and Farrell). Jordan only worries about being effective; obvious never matters. Especially not with the digital video realism.

Great performances from Farrell, Bachleda, Barry, and Rea. Kirwan and Curran are both good, but they’re not the good guys in the fairy tale. The only other significant supporting part is Emil Hostina. He’s real good.

Jordan’s direction is strong. Occasionally uneven, like he can’t figure out what to do with a shot once he’s been able to do it with video. Doyle’s lighting keeps it smooth, ditto Lawson’s cuts, and then Sveinsson’s music. Ondine looks and sounds great.

It’s a particular kind of delightful.

The 13th Warrior (1999, John McTiernan)

No one in The 13th Warrior seems particularly thrilled to be participating in The 13th Warrior. Some people carry it better than others—Omar Sharif’s cameo is the only “good” acting in the film, as he translates and interprets events for lead Antonio Banderas, who can’t speak the common language with the Vikings they’ve come across. Vladimir Kulich, as Beowulf (13th Warrior is an adaptation of co-producer and shadow director Michael Crichton’s novel, Eaters of the Dead, which is a riff on Beowulf), is kind of fine. His presence is indicative of the problem with Warrior, which is no one wants to take it seriously and actually ask anyone to act, so they just get a handful of personable actors and a handful of romance novel cover models and put the band together. Kulich at least takes it seriously. Taking it seriously requires effort, which is on short supply.

And, really, on short demand. No one cares. William Wisher and Warren Lewis’s screenplay is not some poorly realized masterpiece. It’s a Viking movie with an Arabian guest star. With Antonio Banderas as a tenth century Muslim traveler—based on a real person, but the film… avoids treating Banderas as a real person. The script avoids Banderas as a person so much it isn’t until the last battle, which is a very noncommittal Seven Samurai homage because neither credited director McTiernan or uncredited Crichton are any good at the action. It’s particularly stunning from McTiernan considering he made Predator and the “monsters” in Warrior decapitate and camouflage too. Warrior’s almost willfully bad.

Anyway—the movie doesn’t show Muslim Banderas pray until the last battle scene. How Banderas is going to pray five times a day—at set times—while traveling with a bunch of Vikings on a mission to kill a monster and save a village? Exploring that culture clash would probably be interesting. But they can’t do it because it’s an action movie with what ought to be a pulpy premise but instead wants to get executed like a nerdy one and it’s not. Warrior either needs a compelling lead, compelling adversaries, or compelling cannon fodder (the Vikings slash samurai). It’s got none of those things. And it’s not even Banderas’s fault. He’s not good, but it’s very clearly not his fault. His biggest scene—outside that one prayer—is when he figures out how to speak Old Norse just from sitting around and listening to the Vikings talk for a couple hours. Now, if it’d been set over weeks and the journey had narrative weight, Warrior might have something going but of course it doesn’t because it’s terrible. And the whole translating thing really shouldn’t have been raised because initially it just makes you think Sharif’s going to be sticking around longer and he’s really just there to give the movie some actual Hollywood Middle Eastern star cred before turning it all over to not Middle Eastern Hollywood star Banderas.

Again, it’s a big shame as Sharif’s a lot of fun and he’s able to make Banderas likable in a way the film never repeats. Particularly not for Banderas’s romance with Viking woman Maria Bonnevie, which is one of those “in crisis” situation romances and lacks not just romance but any sense of humanity. Bonnevie’s not bad but you’re never happy to see her because the scenes are just bad and are somehow worse than the bad A plot.

The A plot never delivers. How two directors, cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr., and editor John Wright managed to so completely fumble the action sequences—the Vikings hunting the monsters, the monsters hunting the Vikings—is inexplicable when you consider the professional pedigree and production budget. No one wanted to spend any time figuring out how to make this movie and instead they rely on slow motion a bunch of times. Including slowing down Kulich’s battle cries at one point, which is just cringe-inducing.

If they’d done in serious, it’d have had a chance. Not with this cast, obviously, but with a serious take and a better script. Or if they’d just done it exploitation-y, maybe they couldn’t gotten some energy. The movie’s not even boring as much as it’s exhausting. It’s exhausted, it’s exhausting.

No one looks as miserable to be participating as Diane Venora, who’s got the thankless role of being a recognizable female name for the opening titles and maybe even the poster but nothing else.

The 13th Warrior is a stunning waste of time for everyone involved, viewer included.

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.