Premise: After Judgment Day, John Connor leads the human resistance fights Skynet and its army of terminators.
Stars: Christian Bale * Sam Worthington * Moon Bloodgod * Anton Yelchin
Story: After Judgment Day, John Connor (Bale) leads an army of human resistance fighters against the machines of Skynet. On one of his raids on a Skynet base, the human fighters discover experiments being done upon humans in order to create better infiltration units (the terminators of the previous movies). After Connor escapes, a lone survivor from the site stumbles out into the world.
Marcus (Worthington), the survivor, wanders until he ends up in devastated Los Angeles, where he is nearly attacked by a terminator. Saved from certain death by young Kyle Reese (Yelchin) and his companion, Marcus ends up traveling with the duo in an attempt to reach other survivors.
Meanwhile, Connor faces opposition to his plan to save humans being experimented on by Skynet from the leaders of the resistance, and works on rigging a signal designed to stop the terminators so that his team can stage a rescue.
Marcus and Connor cross paths after Reese is captured by the terminators and taken to the Skynet base. The stage is set for a showdown as it is revealed that Marcus is one of the prototypes for the cyborg terminators. However, the two reluctantly team up to save young Reese and to find out who made Marcus into a cyborg.
Review: Christian Bale has not expanded his repertoire. Capable of gritty and serious (Reign of Fire, Batman Begins) and borderline psycho (The Machinist, American Psycho) it appears that acting human has escaped Bale - although the writing doesn't leave much for him to expand in this direction. Bale's Connor is a grizzled, borderline psychotic action hero but has none of the humanizing qualities one looks for in a story such as this.
Instead, Marcus (Worthington) fulfills the role of the wandering mysterious hero - both human and different. He recalls Jean Claude Van Damme in the Cyborg movie - and bears more than a passing resemblance to the old action star. The bonding with both Kyle Reese and Blair Williams (Bloodgod) make the cyborg seem much more human than even Connor.
This dueling characterization - the machine as the hero, the hero as the machine - may seem to reflect an aim of the writers to make the movie more of a debate about the nature of heroism, but it fails. There is no bonding to the character of John Connor by the audience, and the forced ending kills much enthusiasm for the scant storytelling.
With the lack of solid characterization on the part of the humans, the storytelling heavily relies upon the effects departments - sound and CGI. The world looks more like the setting of a video game - one can honestly pick out what levels the adventure takes place on - and the sound and violence is loud and explosive. Of course the audience is really looking for the terminators, the endoskeletons, what Skynet looks like, etc. And for the most part, the terminators are men in suits - clearly visible in a few scenes - or model robots - motorcycles, planes, and even snakes.
There are obvious shots that are throwbacks to the three earlier movies - the diesel tow truck here, the motorcycle there, even Guns & Roses 'You Could Be Mine' is heard, along with a surprise appearance near the end. It's like the writers had a checklist and went down the line, marking off the requisite effect.
Instead of this, it would have been more appealing to make a movie where the John Connor storyline is in the background, and focus on Marcus Wright. He's really the only character you begin to care about in this movie, and a well-written story centered on him would've easily been a more welcome entry in this franchise. As it stands, there is very little humanizing about the movie, and the obviously forced ending removes any appreciation for characterization. Including departures from the established Terminator storyline, the film feels like a further notch on the downward spiral since Terminator 2, the obvious high mark in this effects-driven franchise.
Overall: Bad
Other Sites: IMDb * Wikipedia * AllMovie * Rotten Tomatoes
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
UP (2009)
Premise: An elderly man undertakes an adventure he's put off for decades but finds more than he bargained for when a neighborhood kid accidentally is brought along.
Stars: Ed Asner (voice) * Jordan Nagai (voice) * Christopher Plummer (voice)
Story: Carl Frederickson (Asner) is an elderly man whose life has been filled with love of his wife Ellie. After her passing, he lives alone, a shut-in, while the city moves in and surrounds the plot of land where the two had built their lives. Facing a forced move to a retirement home, he decides to undertake an adventure that both he and his wife had wanted to pursue as children, but had to put off as reality took most of their meager earnings.
Attaching thousands of helium balloons to his home, Carl detaches his home and life from the old plot of ground, but quickly discovers an unwelcome guest - Russell (Nagai), a Wilderness Explorer scout that was attempting to help the elderly man has accidentally stowed away on his porch. Unable to get rid of the boy, Carl faces his trip to South America with the passenger and experiences some - at first - unwelcome adventures as they approach his target.
Russell encounters a strange bird that he names Kevin and unwittingly involves Carl in the life's hunt of Charles Muntz (Plummer), setting the man against his childhood hero.
Review: The movie is absolutely superb. As with most Pixar films (A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo), the animation is excellent and does not distract. That aside, the story is moving, inviting, and endearing.
Without seeming to, Pixar has created their first truly human character, in Carl Frederickson, a triumph of writing, visual storytelling, and the gravelly voice of Ed Asner. Asner does an excellent job as Carl, an elderly man who has recently lost his beloved wife. The quiet, subdued music that accompanies the story of Carl & Ellie's life together is near-perfect as ten minutes unfolds and the trials, triumphs, and tragedies of their lives together unwinds on film. It literally left me in tears. As Carl faces life alone in his small house, the sprawl of the city takes over the once suburban landscape, leaving the man nothing but his dreams of the past. One can clearly see the years and care on the man's face, an achievement for Pixar animation.
Russell, voiced by newcomer Nagai, is a young boy whose happiness is built upon his scouting and the visits by his father at the awards ceremony. His earnestness and honesty are welcome even as they initially do nothing more than irritate the old man. His positive outlook masks an attempt to move past the disappointment in his family life, and the slow reveal of his inner character visibly moves Carl out of his shell.
The bond that grows between the two is possibly one of the finest storytelling moments in Pixar's movies. Previous films focused on established families (The Incredibles, Finding Nemo), blossoming romance (Cars, Wall-E), situational comedy (A Bug's Life) or buddy movies (Toy Story & Toy Story 2). This is the first film by Pixar where a family relationship is created on-screen, and between two dreamers - an old man setting off on what seems to be the end of his life's journey and a young boy trying to hold on to his fragile links to his father.
Their adventure together - it is unclear if the journey takes only a few days or more - brings Carl back to life, as it were, and through his experience, we share in the joy, the pain and heartache and the realization of a dream.
P.S. The opening animated short Partly Cloudy is also quite entertaining and serves as a nice appetizer for the film.
Overall: Good.
Other Sites: IMDb * AllMovie * Wikipedia * Rotten Tomatoes
Stars: Ed Asner (voice) * Jordan Nagai (voice) * Christopher Plummer (voice)
Story: Carl Frederickson (Asner) is an elderly man whose life has been filled with love of his wife Ellie. After her passing, he lives alone, a shut-in, while the city moves in and surrounds the plot of land where the two had built their lives. Facing a forced move to a retirement home, he decides to undertake an adventure that both he and his wife had wanted to pursue as children, but had to put off as reality took most of their meager earnings.
Attaching thousands of helium balloons to his home, Carl detaches his home and life from the old plot of ground, but quickly discovers an unwelcome guest - Russell (Nagai), a Wilderness Explorer scout that was attempting to help the elderly man has accidentally stowed away on his porch. Unable to get rid of the boy, Carl faces his trip to South America with the passenger and experiences some - at first - unwelcome adventures as they approach his target.
Russell encounters a strange bird that he names Kevin and unwittingly involves Carl in the life's hunt of Charles Muntz (Plummer), setting the man against his childhood hero.
Review: The movie is absolutely superb. As with most Pixar films (A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo), the animation is excellent and does not distract. That aside, the story is moving, inviting, and endearing.
Without seeming to, Pixar has created their first truly human character, in Carl Frederickson, a triumph of writing, visual storytelling, and the gravelly voice of Ed Asner. Asner does an excellent job as Carl, an elderly man who has recently lost his beloved wife. The quiet, subdued music that accompanies the story of Carl & Ellie's life together is near-perfect as ten minutes unfolds and the trials, triumphs, and tragedies of their lives together unwinds on film. It literally left me in tears. As Carl faces life alone in his small house, the sprawl of the city takes over the once suburban landscape, leaving the man nothing but his dreams of the past. One can clearly see the years and care on the man's face, an achievement for Pixar animation.
Russell, voiced by newcomer Nagai, is a young boy whose happiness is built upon his scouting and the visits by his father at the awards ceremony. His earnestness and honesty are welcome even as they initially do nothing more than irritate the old man. His positive outlook masks an attempt to move past the disappointment in his family life, and the slow reveal of his inner character visibly moves Carl out of his shell.
The bond that grows between the two is possibly one of the finest storytelling moments in Pixar's movies. Previous films focused on established families (The Incredibles, Finding Nemo), blossoming romance (Cars, Wall-E), situational comedy (A Bug's Life) or buddy movies (Toy Story & Toy Story 2). This is the first film by Pixar where a family relationship is created on-screen, and between two dreamers - an old man setting off on what seems to be the end of his life's journey and a young boy trying to hold on to his fragile links to his father.
Their adventure together - it is unclear if the journey takes only a few days or more - brings Carl back to life, as it were, and through his experience, we share in the joy, the pain and heartache and the realization of a dream.
P.S. The opening animated short Partly Cloudy is also quite entertaining and serves as a nice appetizer for the film.
Overall: Good.
Other Sites: IMDb * AllMovie * Wikipedia * Rotten Tomatoes
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