Under the Radar: Satisfaction, indeed

Shine a Light
Review by Nathan Weinbender

The greatest rock band in the world has teamed up with the best American director working today, and the result is one of the most electric music documentaries ever.

Martin Scorsese’s “Shine a Light” exists as a testament to the longevity of great music, and we see the Rolling Stones, who have been performing for more than 45 years now, as headstrong, energetic and relevant as they have ever been. It’s amazing that the Stones, all of whom are in their sixties, can still put on a knock-down, drag-out show, and they make it all look so effortless.

“Shine a Light” documents the Stones as they perform for a small crowd at New York’s Beacon Theater, and Scorsese has hired a team of respected cinematographers to capture the event. The footage is terrific and exciting, placing us right on stage with the Stones as they swagger their way through some of their finest songs, all with their trademark snarling, ramshackle musical style.

The film is, if anything, the polar opposite of the chilling “Gimme Shelter,” the brilliant 1970 documentary that chronicled the Rolling Stones’ infamous Altamont Speedway concert, and of Scorsese’s elegiac 1978 concert film “The Last Waltz.” This is a joyous, lively, endlessly entertaining movie, and it showcases the spirit and timelessness of the Stones like no other film has before. Unlike so many other aging rock stars, they have yet to become preening, humorless parodies of themselves.

No, those old bastards still know how to rock.

Grade: A-

“Shine a Light” is now available on DVD. Also be on the look-out for a charming, unassuming Israeli comedy called “The Band’s Visit,” about a traveling orchestra stranded in the wrong town for a night. It’s one of the best films I’ve had the pleasure of seeing so far this year—wonderful, warm, funny, good-natured and completely irresistible.

Men will be boys

Step Brothers
Review by Nathan Weinbender

You’d think it would be impossible to make Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly totally unfunny, but “Step Brothers” does it. They play middle-aged men with the mental capacities of twelve-year-olds, and although the movie thinks their arrested development is amusing, I found it creepy and annoying. It’s mean-spirited, too: Ferrell and Reilly have played clueless dolts in the past, but they were goofily endearing. Here they come across as malicious sociopaths.

Ferrell is Brennan, who lives with his doting mother (Mary Steenburgen), and Reilly is Dale, who lives with his doting father (Richard Jenkins). When their parents fall in love and spontaneously tie the knot, Brennan and Dale are forced to live under the same roof and sleep in the same room. At first they despise one another, but they swiftly become friends when they discover they have similar interests, one of which is hating Brennan’s more successful younger brother.

It’s a thin premise, but it certainly could have worked, especially considering how naturally charismatic Ferrell and Reilly are—Ferrell was very funny in “Anchorman,” and Reilly stole every scene in “Talladega Nights.” But “Step Brothers” ignores the charm of its actors, imprisoning them in roles that are unpleasant and forces them into situations that exist as textbook examples of how not to write and perform comedy.

Take, for instance, a scene in which Brennan and Dale are harassed, bullied and beaten up by a group of little kids. It’s a funny concept, sure, but the script, written by Ferrell and director Adam McKay, doesn’t know when to quit. The sight of two overgrown men being terrorized by eight-year-olds is worth a laugh, but the movie takes the whole idea too far: The sequence drags on for too long and then ends with a close-up of Will Ferrell licking dog poo. That’s lazy, uninspired writing.

It doesn’t help, either, that no one in this movie is remotely likeable. In fact, most everybody is completely detestable. Brennan and Dale are intended to be loveable dopes, but they come across mentally retarded creeps who should either be hospitalized or euthanized. And Jenkins and Steenburgen, both terrific actors, are given thankless jobs as the parents: They wander through the movie looking embarrassed and uncomfortable, almost queasy. I know how they feel.

I have yet to mention the language in “Step Brothers,” which is needlessly vulgar. Now, I’m all for hard-R language, but only if it serves a purpose. Here, the curse words function as a punch line rather than as punctuation, so we’re supposed to laugh simply because the characters have filthy mouths. This movie seems to have been written by a dirty-minded teenager who was paid by the four-letter word.

Oh, the movie looks crummy, too, although it apparently had a budget of $50 million. They must have had some terrific catering on set.

Grade: C-

Directed by Adam McKay. Written by Will Ferrell and McKay. Starring Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins and Adam Scott. R; 93m.

Gotham City nights

The Dark Knight
Review by Nathan Weinbender

“The Dark Knight” is more an ensemble drama than a superhero film, more a brooding morality play than an action saga. Yes, it features Batman, the Caped Crusader of yore, but the movie is, surprisingly, not really about him: It’s about a metropolis in turmoil, a civilization on the brink of despair; the forces of evil trying to breach the city’s walls, and the forces of good desperately fighting to keep them out. There is more than one hero, and there is more than one villain, yet sometimes they seem to be one in the same.

This is the sixth live-action Batman movie in the last twenty years, and it’s the first one to get everything absolutely right. It surrounds us with a diverse and interesting palette of supporting characters. It delivers astounding action sequences that are wonderfully shot and edited and that make perfect sense within the fabric of the story. It poses intriguing moral questions and keeps them grounded within reality. And, most impressively, it gives us perhaps the most terrifying, unhinged villain any superhero has ever had to face.

It is also the grimmest, most uncompromising Batman film yet, and it immerses us so completely within its universe that it makes the shadowy cityscapes of Tim Burton’s Gotham look like child’s play. “The Dark Knight” occupies the bleakest corners of Batman’s haunted existence, and it is intense, violent, unrelenting and sometimes very scary. Suffice it to say, it is light-years away from the campy lampoonery of the Adam West TV series.

Christian Bale returns as reclusive billionaire Bruce Wayne, whose alter-ego, you no doubt know, is the masked crime fighter Batman. He’s so good at his job, in fact, that Gotham City’s bad guys have gotten desperate, and the city’s mob bosses hire criminal mastermind and professional basket case the Joker (the late Heath Ledger) to kill Batman.

Meanwhile, recently-appointed district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) has allied with Batman, hoping to become the city’s newest hero (devotees of the series will be aware of Dent’s fate, which steers the film’s final act into an unexpected direction).

The Joker is quite a serious adversary, and he embarks on a city-wide crime spree that will not relent until Batman sacrifices his anonymity. He does this all with a perverted, bloodcurdling zeal, disguised in clown make-up and donning long, horizontal scars at the curled corners of his mouth that resemble a creepy perpetual smile. Ledger, who died shortly after production was completed, embodies the Joker so convincingly that his very presence on-screen commands our attention, and his performance inspires a morbid, terrifying fascination.

In one particular sequence, the Joker explains the origins of his scars. He’s holding a man in a headlock, playfully poking around in the guy’s mouth with a switchblade, and dutifully explains how his father, a brutal drunk, methodically carved the gashes into the sides of his face. The way Ledger plays this scene, with such relish and vindictiveness, is hypnotic, and I realized, halfway through his monologue, that I had been holding my breath, entranced, horrified, intrigued. It is a remarkable performance.

I also love Michael Caine as Bruce Wayne’s butler Albert, who is the voice of reason in times of great distress, and Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Maggie Gyllenhaal (replacing Katie Holmes as Wayne’s former love interest) are just as good. And Bale, too, is terrific: He seems to have realized that Bruce Wayne is, intrinsically, not a very interesting character, and, as the residents of Gotham grow weary of Batman’s presence, he allows himself to fade almost completely into the background, making him a gloomy, spectral figure.

The look of the movie is tremendous, too. All previous incarnations of Gotham City have looked like the products of art direction and production design, cartoonish and stylized and faithful to their comic book roots. But director Christopher Nolan’s version of Gotham looks remarkably like Chicago (it was filmed on location there), and although the bold look of the early Batman films are missing here, the city looks undeniably real and gritty, and the urban decay feels genuine. The strange architecture has been replaced with neutered skyscrapers, the bright colors muted so we’re left with cold, metallic grays, dismal browns and all-consuming blacks.

Nolan claims that “The Dark Knight” was inspired by the Michael Mann film “Heat,” which is evident. This movie is not a superhero picture in the traditional sense, but rather a serious crime drama in which one of the characters just happens to be a superhero. Nolan, who also helmed 2004’s “Batman Begins,” has drained the film of the series’ witty undertones and ironic subtexts—there’s no winking at the camera, no attempts at parody or comedy, and the wise-cracking villain’s one-liners serve more as an illustration of his own battered psyche than they do as comic relief.

Although he has taken a considerable risk in approaching the material as seriously as he does (a technique that didn’t work in “Batman Begins”), the film is all the more effective because of it. “The Dark Knight” assumes a grand, operatic sweep, a towering ambition that thrusts it into the realms of greatness. This movie raises the bar the way “Jaws” and “Star Wars” did in their day: It delivers as a summer blockbuster, but it also exists as an example of the genre being elevated to an art form.

Grade: A+

Directed by Christopher Nolan. Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan. Starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Morgan Freeman. PG-13; 152m.

Family sci-fi double feature: Take the kids on a 3-D ‘Journey,’ but stay unacquainted with ‘Dave’

Journey to the Center of the Earth
Review by Nathan Weinbender

“Journey to the Center of the Earth” is being presented in 3-D, which is the only reason I can think of to rush out and see it in the theater. It’s a crummy B-movie dressed up in a $50 million outfit, and it has clearly been made with the optimism that its perilous action set-pieces will go on to inspire theme park rides and video games.

It is also cheerful, harmless summer entertainment, and if you have kids that are too young for the horrors of Hellboy, take them to see this and they’ll likely have a new favorite movie.

The film suggests that the Jules Verne sci-fi classic was, in fact, non-fiction, and that a group of scientists called Vernians have devoted their careers to proving the outlandish theories in his writing true. Brendan Fraser plays a geologist, who, while looking after his teenage nephew (Josh Hutcherson), discovers that his long-missing brother had actually discovered an entryway into the center of the Earth, which is where he may still be.

Of course, they learn that Verne’s world-within-a-world really exists, they have exciting adventures (riding on runaway mine carts, falling down long, long volcanic tubes, hopping across magnetic floating rocks) and encounter PG-rated creatures (nasty man-eating fish and one perturbed tyrannosaurus rex), and lots of stuff is flung at the screen and at us in the audience.

The special effects are as good as they have to be, and the 3-D, although not completely overwhelming, is better than it usually is in non-IMAX features (you won’t have to wear those uncomfortable cardboard glasses with the red and blue lenses, either). Brendan Fraser, playing a variation on his character from “The Mummy,” is good, too; he’s like a human cartoon, walking a fine line between hopeless incompetent and brazen action hero.

For adults, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” will play as silly, disposable matinee fare, but it will probably enchant young children, especially if it’s their first 3-D experience. It’s fast-paced, noisy, easy to understand and thrilling without being too scary, and I know that if I were still eight years old this review would have been much more enthusiastic.

Grade: C+

Directed by Eric Brevig. Written by Michael Weiss, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin. Inspired by the novel by Jules Verne. Starring Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem. PG; 92m.

Meet Dave
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Eddie Murphy, if you’ll recall, was the edgiest, smartest, most no-holds-barred stand-up comedian of his generation. He could appear alone on a stage, demand your attention, rip through his material with terrific, foul-mouthed zeal and make you laugh and laugh and laugh.

And now, nearly thirty years after his breakthrough on “Saturday Night Live,” Murphy has made a complete transformation. Not only has he lost his edge, but his personality and intelligence seem to have evaporated as well, and he’s been sleepwalking his way through dismal, lame-brained comedies (including “Showtime,” “Pluto Nash” and “Daddy Day Care,” to name a few) for the past ten years now.

His newest film, coming on the heels of the woeful “Norbit,” is called “Meet Dave,” and it’s lazy, predictable, cheap-looking and barely funny. The movie concerns a group of miniature aliens that travel to Earth in a robotic spaceship in the likeness of its captain, played by Murphy. For reasons I don’t completely comprehend (and don’t really care to), they have been sent to our planet to rid the world of its ocean water.

In the process, the extra-terrestrials develop personalities and senses of humor. For instance, a black crew member hears hip-hop music for the first time and turns into a thug. Another guy sees a production of “A Chorus Line” and immediately becomes a flaming homosexual. This material is not only uninspired, but also kind of distasteful, especially considering the film is being marketed as a family picture.

The basic story, though, follows Dave (that’s the name attributed to Murphy’s character) as he tries to adapt to his foreign surroundings. This movie covers the same material as every fish-out-of-water comedy before it, and scene after scene involves Dave attempting, and failing, to effectively mimic basic human behavior. He also befriends a young boy, whose mother (Elizabeth Banks) is amazingly slow at catching on to Dave’s strange conduct.

Considering Eddie Murphy’s recent, unimpressive track record, “Meet Dave” could have been a whole lot worse. But even so, it’s really, really not funny. He is a gifted comedian, a talented actor and a magnetic screen presence, and it’s disheartening and almost offensive to see him wasted in movies that play like feature-length versions of bad sitcom pilots.

Grade: C-

Directed by Brian Robbins. Written by Rob Greenberg and Bill Corbett. Starring Eddie Murphy, Elizabeth Banks, Gabrielle Union, Ed Helms, Scott Caan and Kevin Hart. PG; 90m.

Raising a little hell

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Review by Nathan Weinbender

There is a scene in “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” where two of the central characters stop amidst all the mayhem, relax in their study and sing along with a Barry Manilow song. It’s funny, it’s charming and it’s original, and it’s moments like this that elevate the “Hellboy” movies above typical superhero fare. Like “Iron Man” before it, this film can detach itself from the action without ever neglecting the action.

“Hellboy II” has the same energy and good humor of its predecessor, but it has a wider scope, a broader imagination and a better eye for detail. This movie is a masterpiece of special effects, set decoration and character design, and even if the story isn’t incredibly compelling, plot almost doesn’t matter in a film that’s as visually sumptuous and staggeringly inventive as this one. You could stop up your ears with cotton before going into the theater and still be swept away by the splendor of the images.

Both “Hellboy” movies, the first of which was released four years ago, have been written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, the Spanish filmmaker who was behind the tour de force “Pan’s Labyrinth.” He has created some astounding, terrifying, mesmerizing beasties and creatures here, some of which, no doubt, were inspired by the work of Mike Mignola, who wrote the graphic novels upon which the film is based.

There are little winged monsters called Tooth Fairies that travel in swarms and devour humans (they’re so named because they go for your teeth first). There is a mammoth troll with an ejector fist, a giant forest monster that destroys a city square, a towering rock creature, a legless dwarf that pulls itself around on a wheeled cart. And then there’s the film’s most wondrous and frightening creation, the Angel of Death, a nearly indescribable beast that dwells in an underground cavern and has big wings covered in eyes.

These sights, along with the energetic action sequences, demand our attention, while the story sort of fades into the background. It reintroduces us to the members of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, including Hellboy himself (played by the invaluable Ron Perlman, buried beneath pounds of make-up); his girlfriend, the human torch Liz (Selma Blair); and the amphibious clairvoyant Abe Sapien (Doug Jones).

Because they exist on a plain somewhere between human and monster, our heroes have to be the mediators in a battle between mankind and the mythical world. See, the King of the Elves has just been killed by his son, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), who must piece together three pieces of a sacred crown in order to have control over the Golden Army, a collection of 4,900 robot soldiers that he’ll use to, I don’t know, rule both worlds.

Nuada has two of the three crown pieces, and his twin sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), has the third. She won’t give it up, though, and she forms a truce with Hellboy and company in hopes of preserving the peace. Meanwhile, in a nice counterpoint to the action, Hellboy and Liz have hit a few romantic speed bumps—she’s fed up with the fact that he’s more dedicated to television than to her—and Abe falls in love with Nuala, who, I guess, is pretty for an elf (she sort of looks like an albino Isabella Rossellini).

Another subplot involves the public’s reception of Hellboy—they cower in his presence, they call him a brute and a monster, and they ridicule and lambaste him even after he’s saved their lives. It’s an interesting idea, but the movie drops it in favor of more big action sequences, including one in which Hellboy hops across rooftops while clutching a baby in his tail, and another climactic battle that pits our heroes against the Golden Army itself.

All of this is maddeningly entertaining and sometimes dazzling, although it’s certainly imperfect. But what “Hellboy II” does better than most films of its kind is it can make us gasp and laugh in almost the same breath: We can marvel at the movie’s boundless imagination, at the wonderment of the special effects, and yet we can laugh at the dialogue and at Perlman’s brilliant, off-handed line readings.

Perlman himself may be the lifeblood of the “Hellboy” franchise. He always seems to find the right rhythm with his character, the perfect blend of self-seriousness and self-parody. It would be easy to dismiss his work here as nothing but a goofball performance, but Perlman handles physical comedy, action scenes and romantic material, all while being weighed down by make-up and prosthesis, and makes it seem effortless.

Grade: B

Directed and written by Guillermo del Toro. Based on the graphic novels by Mike Mignola. Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, Jeffrey Tambor and John Hurt, and featuring the voice of Seth MacFarlane. PG-13; 110m.

Superman with a drinking problem

Hancock
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Here’s a brilliant premise: What if L.A. had a resident superhero? He’s amazingly strong, impervious to bullets, has the ability to fly. But let’s say his job requirements get to be too taxing, and he becomes withdrawn and unreliable, a homeless sadsack with a drinking problem.

And as played by Will Smith, one of the best mainstream movie actors working today, “Hancock” really should have been a smash. Unfortunately, it’s a bust.

We learn that our hero-of-sorts, John Hancock, woke up in a Miami hospital some 80 years ago with amnesia. Since then, almost without reason, he has had super strength, and is practically on-call with the LAPD to swoop in and save the day. As the movie opens, Hancock, suffering from a nasty hangover, flies in to intervene in a high-speed freeway chase, leaving $7 million worth of destruction in his wake.

Hancock keeps the crime rate low, but he’s a jerk and a sloppy drunk—he’s like that next door neighbor who is annoying and insolent, but who comes in handy whenever your washing machine breaks. Taking advice from a PR guy (Jason Bateman), Hancock tries to restore his public image by serving a prison sentence for the damages he’s caused in the city. He’s excused from jail, however, when he’s called out to foil a bank robbery, and it’s at this point that a big secret is revealed and the movie takes a more serious turn.

As the film indulges in big-budget action sequences, I was yearning to know more about Hancock himself. He’s been a superhero for at least 80 years, so he’s no doubt had some amazing experiences in his lifetime. Imagine the stories he could tell, the countries he’s visited, the significant historical events he’s witnessed. The movie never seems to realize his potential as a character, and I wish he had been given more of a backstory.

Smith and Bateman inject their characters with enough personality that they alone hold our interest for nearly an hour. But the screenplay seems to exhaust all of its good ideas early on, and the story starts to fade when it really should be taking off. It introduces its villain far too late, it hardly gives us an exposition and it never fully exploits the possibilities of its surprise subplot.

Apparently the script for “Hancock” has been floating around Hollywood for more than a decade now. You’d think that would have given them enough time to do some re-writes.

Grade: C

Directed by Peter Berg. Written by Vy Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan. Starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman and Eddie Marsan. PG-13; 92m.