Twilight (2008)

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Cam Gigandet, Rachelle Lefèvre, Edi Gathegi

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Rating: C-

Where to begin... These are not good movies.  I'm not entirely sure how much of that is the fault of the movies themselves and how much is the fault of the source material upon which they're based, but it's many degrees of not good all around.  I will say this, though; they do kind of get better as the series goes on.  They never achieve a good state, but they get better - or at least, up until The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1.  I can't judge Part 2 as I haven't seen it yet.

For those lucky few who have somehow managed to avoid learning what Twilight is about, here's a quick recap.  Bella Swan (Stewart) moves to Forks, Washington, the wettest place in the continental United States, to live with her dad, Charlie (Burke).  There she meets Edward Cullen (Pattinson), a mind reading vampire who she falls in love with.  Edward and his family (patriarch Carlisle Cullen (Facinelli) and his wife Esme (Reaser), the psychic Alice Cullen (Greene) and her partner Jasper Hale (Rathbone), and Emmett Cullen (Lutz) and his partner Rosalie Hale (Reed)) are all what they call vegetarians, and do not heat human blood.  Most of the movie passes by with this being the only real plot point, but then the Cullens, Hales, and Bella meet nomadic, human blood drinking vampires Laurent (Gathegi), Victoria (Lefèvre), and James (Gigandet).  James is a tracker and after a confrontation with Edward becomes infatuated with the idea of killing Bella.

Once again, what to say... Okay, so there are three major problems with these movies.  One is the general script, the second the general acting and overall casting, and the third the general make-up.  The script... oh, the script.  I'm going to say this in defense of the movie overall; you can only do so much with a movie when the source material isn't that great.  For all of Twilight the movies' flaws, a lot of them are because of the flaws of the book.  This movie did a lot to stay true to the books, for which I respect.  A few things were omitted, and in such a way that while I don't think it really disabled Twilight, it does fail to set things up for The Twilight Saga: New Moon.  You see this a lot in movies and even in TV, and it really annoys me - if you're basing something on a series of books and planning on continuing the series think about how the cuts made affect later movies or seasons.  It's easy to harp on it in Twilight, but they also do it in Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games.

The second big thing here is the cast.  The acting isn't that great, and there are even points when it seems like some of the actors are breaking character, laughing at points that in-character they shouldn't be laughing at.  This isn't really a criticism of the actors themselves, because I don't think it's the flaw of the actors.  I've watched other works of most of the actors and really enjoyed them.  There are some really great actors in this movie, they're just not properly utilized here.  The other problem is the casting in general, which is rather horrible.  It's not enough to hire a good actor, you have to hire an actor that's right for a role.  There are some people who I thought were really perfectly cast - particularly in regards to the humans - but others not so much - particularly in regards to the vampires.  I think one of the biggest problems that Robert Pattinson has in this role is that his American accent definitely isn't a good one (it does get better), making you question why they hired someone to fill in the role of an American when he couldn't do the accent.  Accents are tricky and something that movies in general, not just Twilight, tend to get wrong.  Michael Collins is actually a really good movie, despite the fact that half the cast are Americans doing bad accents, and among the other half is Alan Rickman who doesn't even try to do an Irish accent. Accents are important, people.  The casting problems in Twilight, however, go beyond just accents. There's also the fact that the vampires are all supposed to be these pale creatures (the exception being Laurent, who is black), but for the most part they hired not-exactly pale actors.  The biggest example of this the case of Nikki Reed's Rosalie.  In the books, she's described as this gorgeous woman and Nikki Reed is gorgeous.  The problem is, naturally she's neither pale nor blonde - she's a brunette with a nice tanned complexion that comes from her Jewish, Cherokee, and Italian descent.  So, what do they do?  They slap what looks like pancake makeup and a horrible wig on her.  Nikki Reed isn't the only one that they got wrong here, although I do find it interesting that she's of Cherokee descent, while Taylor Lautner, who plays the Aboriginal Jacob Black, only has "distant" Native American ancestry.  Lautner's role immediately prior to Twilight was as Eugene Levy's son in Cheaper by the Dozen 2.  Don't hire a non-Aboriginal to play an Aboriginal, it's just an insult, especially as there are plenty of Aboriginal actors out there.

But, let's go back to the pancake makeup and bad wigs.  A huge part of what makes fantasy in general so great is the special effects.  The purpose is to take you out of the real world and into this fictional one, no matter how based-in-reality it is you need to have good special effects, especially when you're expecting to be a blockbuster.  The makeup here is horrible, absolutely horrible.  There are a slew of bad wigs, bad dye jobs, and bad attempts to make the not-pale actors look pale.  It's just bad all around.  I commend Twilight for attempting to stick to the source material a lot, but in regards to the makeup this really hinders the movie.  You want to have not-pale actors?  Then give up the pale aspect of the character.  Ditto with the blond.  Don't just give them a really bad dye job.  Yes, vampires are usually pale, but this is the 21st century.  We're allowed to update the myth - Stephenie Meyer does a lot to update this myth in general, and pale skin is not important to the plot.  The worst attempt at this is in the case of Edi Gathegi, who they attempt to make pale despite his being black.  It's just all kinds of bad.  But then, so is this movie.

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards

Director: Michael Apted

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C-

I didn't actually need to watch this movie to know what would happen in it.   A plot twist is always great, and their are some movies (as well as other works of fiction) that handle the twist so adeptly that when it happens you're left flabbergasted.  Others you can figure out easily enough, but the way it happens is still enjoyable so even if you're not surprised it's still great.  The World is Not Enough, however, is so predictable that you can figure out the bulk of the plot, twist included, by the time M's finished her initial brief.  There's no suspense, no surprise, nothing.

A British oil tycoon, who happened to have been M (Judi Dench)'s friend, has been killed and his daughter, Elektra King (Maurceau) has been threatened.  Bond is sent to investigate and protect Elektra, during which he uncovers a plot that involves Soviet terrorist Renard (Carlyle) and nuclear physicist Christmas Jones (Richards).  Renard previously kidnapped Elektra, and it's believed that he's going to make an attack on her again, while Christmas fits in in a weird way.... there's an oil pipeline and a silo and it's needlessly complicated.  If you've started making connections and figuring out who's good and who's bad, and what blows up what you're not alone.  Oh, bonus points as usual if you guess who sleeps with Bond.

I'm really not sure what to say about this movie beyond the fact that it was predictable to the point that I couldn't enjoy it.  It was just... disappointing.  One thing I did like, however, was the introduction of the new Q, or in this case the Q-to-be.  Here he's called R (John Cleese), although jokingly so, and is introduced as the current Q (Desmond Llewelyn)'s assistant.  From what I understand, there weren't actual plans to have Llewelyn retire from the franchise and "R" was just introduced as a bit of a joke gag, and it's done wonderfully so.  Llewelyn's death prevented his return to the franchise in later movies, so in Die Another Day Cleese steps up.  As such, this is Llewelyn's last film in the franchise - after having been in 17 films, and having worked with five different Bonds.

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Joan Allen, Albert Finney
Director: Tony Gilroy
Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
Rating: C-

I think my biggest problem with The Bourne Legacy was that it didn’t need to be made.  The Bourne Trilogy ended well – both book-wise and movie-wise.  Robert Ludlum wrote three Bourne novels, concluded the series, wrote a number of other books, then died.  Then in what has the appearance of being a case of greed and laziness the Ludlum estate gave permission to Eric Van Lustbader in order to write more Bourne novels.  The ending that had wrapped the trilogy up was shattered and Van Lustbader to this day is popping out a Bourne a year.  As someone who enjoys writing and creating characters this rather bothers me – I don’t particularly like the idea of continuing someone’s work posthumously.  It’s one thing in the case of Robert Jordan, where he made arrangements for it to happen prior to his death and wrote down how the story was supposed to end so that someone could continue The Wheel of Time series.  It’s another thing if the author ended the series, died some time later, and then someone decided to resurrect his books.

Okay, so now that that rant is out of my system, let’s move on to the movie itself. Continuing the theme of The Bourne Legacy didn’t need to be made, or at least didn’t need to be a Bourne film, is the fact that it doesn’t actually involve the titular Jason Bourne – at least not really.  In my opinion plans for the film should have been axed once Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon announced that they would not be involved in the film.  Despite being set in the same universe an being based around another member of the Treadstone Project Legacy has a really different feel to it and in my opinion could have easily been based in a similar but different world.  In fact, I think it would have been better off had they taken that route.

The events in Legacy are initiated by Jason Bourne (Damon, seen only via a photograph) exposing Operation Blackbriar and the Treadstone Project, leading to an investigation of CIA Deputy Director Pamela Landy (Allen) and Operation Blackbriar supervisor Noah Vosen (David Strathairn).  Upon learning of this, the CIA calls in Eric Byer (Norton) to deal with the situation and make it go away – which he does by eliminating all members of Operation Outcome, which I think was another aspect of Blackbriar and Treadstone.  This elimination is a problem for Aaron Cross, codename “Number Five,” who would rather not be killed.  He goes on the run, but he’s disabled by his dependency on pills the agency has given him to enhance his physical and mental capabilities – greens and blues.  Conveniently for him, the CIA is also attempting to kill all of its Outcome scientists, leaving Dr. Marta Shearing (Weisz) pretty much dependant on him for her continued survival.

So, just to start, this series does not need the Bourne connection.  The premise can exist really easily without the Bourne connection and would have been better off having severed it.  The few actors who were in both movies aren’t utilized properly – but then few of the actors in this movie are utilized properly at all.  The characters are, for the most part, flat and dull.  They fit stereotypical roles and are never given any real reason to expand.  I was particularly disappointed with Norton, who basically just stood around and barked orders.  Renner and Weisz bring a lot to the show and really stand out simply because they make the most out of their flat characters and try to add some depth.  I don’t know what’s motivating any of the CIA type agents, beyond the fact that bad guys are bad guys.  I only know that the good guys are motivated by the hey, let’s stay alive mentality of things – I’m not really given any reason to root for them beyond the idea that I should be rooting for people to stay alive.  There are a few good moments and I actually really liked Weisz’ role in the chase scene.  Her role was, in my opinion, the only perfect element about both this movie in general and the chase specifically.

With that one perfect moment behind us, let’s discuss the other failures of the movie. The chase scene where Weisz was awesome was, in my opinion, poorly done. There were elements that I loved about it – namely the fact that the police weren’t shooting at the fleeing protagonists, which is something that I always hate in action movies (if you’re fleeing from the police in a crowded area, they’re not going to shoot. The chances of hitting one of the many innocent bystanders is too great). The music was lame and rather redundant, which I guess kind of made it fitting for the sequence itself, which was also rather redundant. There were a few good action sequences overall, but none that was worth the cost of admission.  Really, when it came down to it this was an unremarkable addition to the series.  Oh, and the ending sucked.  I'm not going to explain why, because that would be a massive spoiler, but it was a let down.  I'd say skip this movie and hold out for The Expendables 2.

Buttercup's Baby

Author: William Goldman

Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance, Comedy

Rating: C-

I really didn't enjoy Buttercup's Baby.  I get that it's incomplete (and likely to stay that way), but it just didn't captivate me.  Instead, really it did the opposite: it took characters that I (for the most part) loved, and made me kind of really dislike them.  It made me dislike Inigo, Fezzik, Westley, and Buttercup.  Okay, I already disliked Buttercup, but I loved Inigo and Fezzik.  I swear I did, and by the end of the first chapter of Buttercup's Baby I hated Fezzik.

For those of you who don't already know, Buttercup's Baby is the announced but as of yet not actually completed sequel to The Princess Bride.  So far all that's been released of it is a sample chapter composed of the introduction and the first chapter, attached to the 25th and 30th anniversary editions of the book.  For the George R.R. Martin fan who is used to waiting for sequels to books the state of Buttercup's Baby should be almost comforting: the next A Song of Ice and Fire novel is going to be finished eventually, the next Princess Bride story, however, probably isn't.  To be honest, I'm really not going to be disappointed if Buttercup's Baby never takes any form beyond this first chapter.

In my review of The Princess Bride I wrote that Westley and Buttercup were in essence Mary Sues.  Things are just a bit too easy for them and they're a bit too perfect - or they're supposed to be.  In Buttercup's Baby Fezzik and Inigo seem to be determined to join the Mary Sue, especially following the birth of the titular baby, Waverly.  Sure the whole chapter sets up that Fezzik's about to die and thus fail at something, but the connection between Fezzik and Waverly is just.. it's lame.  Making things worse is the many inturruptions by Goldman himself.  While The Princess Bride was able to develop somewhat of a flow before Goldman began to interrupt himself here he just goes off, as if he has become overly obsessed with the sound of his own voice (metaphorically speaking, of course).  Thus, there's no real flow to the first chapter of Buttercup's Baby and as it all progresses you just can't help but cringe.  It's really just not enjoyable.

The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

Stars: Freddie Highmore, Mary-Louise Parker, Nick Nolte, Sarah Bolger, Seth Rogen, Martin Short
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Rating: C-
 

Even by the standard of being a film based on a not exactly good series of books, The Spiderwick Chronicles falls flat.  The film follows Jared Grace (Highmore), his identical twin brother Simon (Highmore), and their older sister Mallory (Bolger) as they encounter a series of magical creatures after moving into their great-aunt’s (Plowright) estate, Spiderwick Estate.  After moving to their new home and discovering Arthur Spiderwick’s field guide to all things magical Jared discovers that a house brownie/boggart, Thumbletack (Short), is living in the home, and that the shape shifting ogre Mulgarath (Nolte) and his goblin army wants the field guide so that they can use it to wage a war against all other magical creatures.  It’s up to the Grace children to save the day.

The movie’s biggest success was Highmore’s performance.  He has shown himself to have the potential to be a great actor, both in this movie and in some of his earlier works.  Here he plays not one but two very distinct characters, and if you pay attention you can easily tell them apart. It’s not even just that the boys have different personalities; Highmore plays them with different mannerisms and different voices – even more of a success if you consider that his accent in this movie isn’t his natural one to begin with.  The other acting isn’t bad, but the characters are all lacking substance so none of the performances really stand out.  This is a problem of the books themselves that the filmmakers chose not to address.  The one problem of the books that they did address was the lack of plot in the individual books themselves.  When taken as a whole, the entire series is good and suspenseful, but individually the books are too short and lacking in climax.  The film addresses this by trying to approach the entire series in one go, instead of each book individually.  As such a lot of the individual elements from the books are removed or condensed, but the overall story remains.  I think in that sense I preferred the movie to the books; while it wasn’t overly gripping or suspenseful, it was one complete story.  It wasn't the best movie... but it also wasn't the worst.