Tag: Movie Review

Culture on My Mind – Page to Screen: “Sahara” by Clive Cussler

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Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
Page to Screen: “Sahara” by Clive Cussler
July 16, 2014

SAHARA

Clive Cussler hadn’t really popped up on my radar before a good friend of mine gave me his collection of novels. I knew that Cussler existed, and that he wrote adventure thrillers, but that’s as far as it went. When my friend piled his collection into my car, he told me that Cussler was what he grew up on and that they were fun but not terribly deep adventures. Before that moment, I had seen the movie version of Sahara, and was eager to read the original novel to see how well they both stacked up.

The premise of the story centers around a rapidly expanding contamination that is threatening the Sahara region and the world. In the book version, this contamination is a red algae bloom that is spreading across the ocean and will absorb the planet’s oxygen supply in short order. Protagonists Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino race to find the source of this algae, which they determine is coming from an underground river system in the Sahara and is being driven by a mad general and a businessman with a solar reactor. Meanwhile, secondary characters Eva Rojas and a UN scientific team are trace a disease stemming from the same contamination source as it ravages the Malian people. The two teams eventually come and chaos ensues. The book is far more complex than the film, and in general, the multiple threads detract from the story. The book deals with the CSS Texas, a buried political conspiracy from the late days of the American Civil War, the mystery of a missing aviator, the red algae, and the Mali illness in conjunction with a corrupt government. The algae/illness thread takes center stage, with Pitt and Giordino driving the story as they uncover the origins and try to stop it. The aviator and the Texas lines take a backseat and are added for spice, with the latter being resolved as a mind-bending (but ultimately hollow) afterthought.

The movie version also centers on Pitt and Giordino, but their motivation is the novel’s tertiary plotline of finding the long-lost American Civil War ironclad CSS Texas. Rojas and Frank Hopper (one of her teammates from the book) are tracking down the same illness, and the movie focuses on trying to resolve that thread while Pitt seeks out the ship. The movie is a straightforward action adventure film with Pitt (played by Matthew McConaughey) and Giordino (played by Steve Zahn) playing Indiana Jones and Sallah seeking treasure. The illness thread comes into play as the pair enter Mali during their search, and Rojas (played by Penélope Cruz) joins Pitt to resolve both plotlines in a rather explosive manner.

The downside to the book is Pitt’s superhero status. He always has the solution to the myriad of situations they land in, quite often making the cinematic James Bond an everyday citizen in comparison. The man is even injured by gunfire, beatings, and severe dehydration, yet always seems to spring back with minor detriment to his skills and abilities. In the movie, he’s still an action star, but he’s a bit more believable with McConaughey’s charm to interpret Pitt’s wit. In both versions, Giordino takes second seat to Pitt, but he’s a slightly better character as a gunslinger in the book rather than the comic relief in the movie. Eva Rojas is a damsel in distress in both instances, but is more empowered in the movie.

The movie drops the Civil War political conspiracy and the missing aviator threads, and also notably drops the book’s cameo by the author. Yes, Cussler wrote himself into the novel for a short period, and the character even shared his name. That moment, which cues the novel version of Pitt into the Texas story, nearly made me set the book down in disgust.

Overall, both versions of the story were fun, but nothing more significant than beach or popcorn fare. I have a soft spot for empty entertainment calories, so that’s not a big hit against either. The book takes a hit from secret agent Super Pitt, where the movie stumbles by changing Pitt’s motivations from ecology to treasure hunting. While the plot of the entire world being in peril is a bit extreme for a maritime ecologist, the movie version seems to be working for NUMA just for the scuba diving. Between the two versions, I prefer the film, although I will continue to read the Cussler novels to further explore Dirk Pitt’s adventures.

Novel rating: 3.0/5
Goodreads rating: 3.92/5

Movie rating: 6.0/10
IMDb rating: 6.0/10

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Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Movie Review: Batman (1989)

Michael Falkner1 Comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
Movie Review: Batman (1989)
July 11, 2014

Batman is, by far, my favorite on-screen comic book hero. Superman typically (and tragically) embodies the best in humanity, but Batman is a man with money, a sharp brain, and numerous flaws. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the character, and his 50th was celebrated on June 23rd, 1989 with a return to the silver screen in Tim Burton’s Batman.

Surprisingly, Batman was not my introduction to the character. My parents bought me the Hot Wheels version of the film’s Batmobile, but I didn’t get to experience Michael Keaton in the cowl until Batman Returns in 1992. After that, I was further introduced to the World’s Greatest Detective through re-runs of the 1966 Batman television series on the FX channel. Since they were such building blocks of my fandom, both the darker version of the knight and the Adam West version hold special places in my heart. 1989’s Batman is a fun blending of the two in an adventure that has influenced nearly every interpretation of the Dark Knight since.

The opening credits elegantly trace the Batman symbol under the moody Danny Elfman score, a move that would be repeated in another epic adventure movie called Stargate in 1994. The Danny Elfman theme is the one that echoes in my brain when I think of Batman, and pairs well with the movie’s gothic art-deco noir style. Tim Burton also pulls a clever bait-and-switch with the film’s opening by showing the audience a family leaving a theater and being held up, echoing the very incident that orphaned Bruce Wayne.

Michael Keaton’s defining turn as Bruce Wayne was controversial at the time, but I love his portrayal. His eccentric oddball millionaire contrasts against the sharp-witted reality of the his alter ego, and it sets the tone of the essential duality between Wayne and Batman. His gadgets are also fantastic, from the batarangs, grappling hooks, and utility belt to the Batmobile itself. The Keaton-era Batmobile is a gorgeous example of the ’80s mixed with the ’60s, from the fins and the exhaust flame to the recent addition of the shields.

Jack Nicholson stars in a role of duality as well, from his standard henchman of Jack Napier to his maniacal and creepy interpretation of the Joker. He takes Cesar Romero’s humorous yet short-tempered character and adds an edge of lethality, easily killing as an example of his insanity. The makeup is a nod to the 1960s, but feels a bit dated in the modern era.

In supporting roles, Robert Wuhl’s is deliciously over the top as journalist Alexander Knox, and he’s a good comic counter to Kim Basinger’s spin on photographer Vicky Vale. Vale should have been a much stronger feminist role rather than a swooning damsel in distress, but that is easily attributed to the era. Jack Palance was also over the top as Carl Grissom, but his scenery chewing became grating in his short scenes. Luckily, his character quickly departed. Additionally, I would have loved to see Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face, but alas.

The last, but perhaps the most major supporting role is that of Michael Gough as Alfred Pennyworth. Alfred, the Wayne Manor butler, is Bruce Wayne’s adoptive father and Batman’s conscience. In the rather controversial move of compromising Wayne’s secret identity by bringing Vale to the Batcave, Alfred is pushing Wayne and Batman onto a course that neither could do on their own in an attempt to provide a life for his son by reconciling the duality of the Dark Knight. Ironically, that duality is why the relationship with Vale couldn’t work. Gotham needs Batman, as does Wayne, and try as she might, Vale cannot identify with both the man and the bat.

In minor notes, I loved the Bob Kane nod with the bat-in-a-suit ink drawing. I also loved the parallels in the film as noted by Shua of the TechnoRetroDads Podcast when the hosts reviewed the film on its anniversary, particularly those that I need to find on another viewing. When Bruce Wayne is orphaned, he’s grapsing onto a popcorn container. Similarly, when he’s about to reveal his secret to Vale but is interrupted by the Joker, Vale seeks solace in a bowl of popcorn.

In retrospect, the campiness of this film against the darker tone helps bridge the gap between the 1960s Batman and the more modern incarnations, bringing the character full circle from its darker origins to the Nolan/Bale era of films. The movie is dated, but it’s still fun.

My Rating: 8/10
IMDb rating: 7.6/10

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Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Movie Review: The Ultimate Gift (2006)

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
Movie Review: The Ultimate Gift (2006)
July 7, 2014

The Ultimate Gift is a dramatic family film based on the best-selling book of the same name by Jim Stovall. Drew Fuller (best known from Army Wives and Charmed) stars as Jason Stevens, a man who earns his inheritance in a most unusual but spiritually fulfilling manner.

The movie begins the passing of Jason’s rich grandfather, sublimely played by James Garner. The patriarch’s multi-billion dollar estate is up for grabs, and the family sharks start circling. Jason, who strongly resents the man because his father died while working for him when Jason was a child, believes that he won’t receive anything. Much to his surprise, his grandfather has a mystery inheritance package for Jason, but it requires him to complete twelve assignments within the span of a year. Each assignment focuses on a life lesson or gift designed to help shape Jason into the man that his grandfather believed he could become. These lessons are the gifts of work, money, friends, learning, problems, family, laughter, dreams, giving, gratitude, a day, and love.

Jason is guided through these quests by Mr. Hamilton and Miss Hastings, the family attorney and his secretary, who are portrayed by Bill Cobbs (Night at the Museum and Oz the Great and Powerful) and Lee Meriwether (Catwoman from Batman: The Movie). Garner, Cobbs, and Meriwether frame the major positive notes of this movie, punctuated by the overall message behind the story. For a Christian movie, it mostly stays away from the preachiness that I find tiresome in the genre, however when it hits those moments, the faith is turned on with the full power of a fire hose.

On his path, Jason meets a brash and outspoken girl named Emily, played by Abigail Breslin. I know Breslin best from Little Miss Sunshine and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, and I liked her in both, but it does pain me to say that I liked her better in the latter film than I did in this one. Her highlights in The Ultimate Gift are limited to witty rejoinders with variable delivery. She made me laugh on a couple of occasions, and she does decently portray a sense of innocence surrounding the Gift of a Day, but that was about it for her. Sadly, her talents were underutilized and marginalized in a story bogged down by its own moral weight.

The rest of the cast, including Ali Hillis as Emily’s mother Alexia, contribute to the painfully predictable and equally clichéd averageness of this film. The supporting characters nearly twirl their mustaches in attempting to look evil, and the resolution to Emily and Jason’s stories is telegraphed well ahead of time. The plot is cookie cutter with little deviation from the Jason’s growth, which harms the film when the story periodically reverses course on character development. In one scene, Jason understands what his quest means and embraces it, but in the very next scene he reverts to his former pig-headed petulance when he doesn’t get his way. Additionally, for a story that places so much priority on time – each of the gifts must be completed in a month’s time – the production team did very little to convey its passage. Jason is homeless for a month, yet appears freshly shaven during that time. In contrast, he is imprisoned for a segment of the movie, but grows an overblown Hollywood beard while still maintaining his haircut.

Ultimately, The Ultimate Gift has a decent message that bears repeating, but it needed to find an innovative way to tell it. What started as a clever method of doing so quickly reverted to sappy and overblown emotionalism that falls flat and fails to resonate.

At the box office, the film opened in limited release in March 2007 and earned $3.4 million. It has found new life as a sort of cult classic in the home entertainment market, and a sequel based on the follow-up novel, The Ultimate Life, will be released to DVD and Blu-Ray on December 10.

My rating: 4/10
IMDb rating: 7.4/10

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Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Movie Review: Green Lantern (2011)

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
Movie Review: Green Lantern (2011)
July 5, 2014

Three years down the road, I finally took a couple of hours to watch the live-action cinematic debut of Green Lantern. I’m not particularly familiar with the character, having only seen the superhero in Green Lantern: First Flight, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, and select episodes of the Justice League animated series.

Since the movie debuted in June of 2011, I have heard nothing but disdain and hatred for the film. From discussions with fans, I understand that fandom was buzzing with the hope that Green Lantern was the Iron Man of the DC Comics film universe. At this point, DC had primarily put Superman and Batman on the screen in multiple iterations, and had played with characters like Steel, Catwoman, and Supergirl, among others, but DC lacked any degree of cohesiveness or consistency with their cinematic properties. With Marvel’s Cinematic Universe Phase One dominating the playing field – Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Thor were released, and Captain America: The First Avenger was right around the corner – the argument makes sense, as does the disappointment.

(As an aside, I own a copy of Supergirl, and while I enjoy the outright cheesy campiness, I recognize that it’s a poor movie. It was very difficult to stay engaged for the last act of the movie. I don’t have any desire to watch Steel or Catwoman.)

That said, I don’t think it was the huge atrocity that the geek community made it out to be.

In the scope of the movie, Ryan Reynolds sold me on this Hal Jordan, a cocky pilot who has to evolve into a man of galactic responsibility. His disbelief at finding Abin Sur, his child-like wonder at the power of the ring, and his astonishment at discovering an entire universe and peace-keeping force beyond the horizon of Earth felt genuine and sincere. The response from the government was also expected, although the facility that was used to examine the remains of Abin Sur was a bit farfetched even for a comic book movie.

Green Lantern‘s downfall for me was two-fold. First, the CGI costume did not work for me. It was a bold gamble, but it was plainly obvious that it was CGI, and made it seem like Reynolds’ head was floating in a bad 1980s blue screen environment while even the alien creatures were more believable than Reynolds’ costume and mask. The rest of the CG work was fantastic and believeable as Jordan’s power was limited only by his imagination, and I think that re-introducing Green Lantern in the Man of Steel franchise might be more manageable now that the studio has mastered a purely animated Superman cape. The second fault of the film was the busy and meandering plot. The movie starts on simple terms, but quickly escalates to Jordan fighting on multiple fronts with an infected Hector Hammond, his training and conflict with the Lantern Corps, and the galactic threat of Parallax. It was just too much to squeeze into a less-than-two-hour origin story, and perhaps was a bit too beholden to the previous origin stories.

Honestly, this seems to be a problem with DC properties in live action cinema. They seem to want too much too soon in an attempt to win everyone instead of just telling a simple understandable story with understandable characters. For me, the beauty of the Christopher Nolan-era films (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, and Man of Steel) was that the filmmakers and studio chose a direction and then committed to it, for better or for worse. Even within the Christopher Reeve and Michael Keaton eras of Superman and Batman, the fandom accepted “good” films lacked a degree of thematic consistency from the first to the second. If Superman Returns is considered, then the Superman line’s themes vary wildly.

(As another aside, I love the first two Reeve Superman films, the two Keaton Batman films, and Superman Returns. I find Superman III, Superman: The Quest for Peace, and Batman Forever a bit less enjoyable but still watchable, and Batman and Robin to be pretty much intolerable after one viewing in 1997. I’m considering revisiting all of them in the future.)

That half-hearted overly-busy approach to Green Lantern made it a watchable movie, but not a fantastic one. I want to see more of Hal Jordan (or even Jon Stewart), but I think the Green Lantern would be better served in the cinematic mindset of the Bale/Nolan Batman films. DC needs to be consistent and committed to a course instead of stumbling about the oceans hoping to find treasure.

My rating: 5.5/10
IMDb rating: 5.7/10

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Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.