Based on a short story by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, who co-wrote the screenplay with Carnahan, it has Neeson playing yet another tough guy, albeit one contemplating suicide who works in Alaska killing wolves that threaten a team of oil workers. When the plane they all take home crashes, Neeson and six other survivors struggle against not only the elements, but a pack of grey wolves stalking them.

Neeson, unsurprisingly, is the film’s bright spot. His size alone makes him a commanding presence, someone you’re convinced could survive such a brutal ordeal. But he has a touching soft side, too. You hear the defeat in his voice in the opening scenes as he narrates a letter, and feel his compassion as, in the film’s best scene, he helps a survivor face his impending death.

To his credit, Carnahan (The A-Team) manages to wring some decent tension out of the wolf attacks themselves, and for the most part eschews explicit gore, staging the attacks at night or showing them from a distance. As well he does a solid job with the soundtrack, effectively creating brief moments of terror as wolves howl into the night or growl threateningly at the weary men.

The main problem is that, when the wolves aren’t attacking, the film attempts weightiness, which Carnahan doesn’t know how to pace. Scenes of the survivors discussing religion while sitting around a fire, or of an injured character quietly claiming he can’t continue, drag on and on and practically ground the film to a halt. The weak writing in these scenes only compounds the issue.

What’s more, the survivors (including Dermot Mulroney and Dallas Roberts) are poorly defined, save, naturally, for Neeson, making it hard to care what befalls any of them. They’re basically just types. Roberts is the one with humanity, Joe Anderson the freaked-out chatterbox and Frank Grillo the aggressive challenger (and the only supporting survivor with any kind of depth).

Beyond that, the script creates too obvious a parallel to the wolf-pack mentality, there’s a little too much shaky cam for my taste, and, save for a couple shots, Carnahan fails to do much with the obviously breathtaking Alberta locale. What burned me the most, though, is how Carnahan ends the thing. I wanted to see Neeson punch a wolf in the throat. I had to imagine he did instead. – [DVD]

Action/Adventure/Drama

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 5/15/12

First question:
Who is Gina Carano?

Gina is a mixed martial arts fighter and, I’m totally serious, a former “American Gladiator.” While this is not her first movie, it is probably her first movie to play in a movie theater.

Second Question:
Can Soderbergh do action?

In short, yes, better than most. While he’s known for more artful fare, the action in Haywire is exceptionally well executed.  There isn’t the crutch of a shaky camera or fast cutting; clearly Soderbergh trusts his fight coordinators, and the stunt performers.

Third Question:
Okay, I’m kind of interested, is there anyone else in it?

Well I mean, sure. There’s Ewan McGregor as the shady security firm owner, Michael Douglas as the CIA guy, Antonio Banderas as the guy with the awesome beard, Bill Paxton as Carano’s father, Channing Tatum as a former partner, Michael Angarano as the helpful kid with the car, and Michael Fassbender as a freelance operative.

Fourth Question:
Wow, that sounds like a great cast, and with the awesome action, are there any drawbacks?

As much as Gina Carano is an amazing butt-kicker, she clearly never went to Stella Adler. She does fine, but sometimes her delivery can be oddly stilted, and the internet says that Soderbergh altered her voice in post. The rest of the cast is fine, but kind of forgettable. While critically well received, the film didn’t do gangbusters at the box-office, bringing in 18 million domestically.

Fifth Question:
Now I’m torn, what do you think, Noah?

I’d say go for it. It’s not a perfect film, I didn’t root for Carano like I did Matt Damon in the Bourne movies, but the action is phenomenal, the script is interesting, and it’s probably one of the best shot action movies I’ve seen. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Thriller

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 5/2/12

The fart jokes were not funny at all and really did not make any sense either. I was just glad that I did not see any testicle kicking or more than a few fart jokes. And the parts when a frog tells Juliet that her butt looks fat or that she looks hot made me feel sick that children think that that is funny. The ironic twist to the original ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was not so great, as they had Juliet be a super athletic super ninja. I thought they were garden gnomes, but people who want a sporty princess in a movie are in luck.

Once the Terrafirminator lawn mower (Hulk Hogan) is bought by Gnomeo’s small companion, Benny (Matt Lucas), is where the good part comes in. Of course the ending is not too great for kids my age and maybe a little bit older. Maybe too happy or maybe too fun or whatever it might be. But, I would suggest this to young kids and maybe young parents too. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Adventure/Comedy

Rated G

DVD Release Date: 5/24/11

Director Peter Weir‘s films can have an exceptional if not perfect melding of character, subject and setting. The best examples like Master and Commander, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Last Wave and even the flawed Mosquito Coast offset the trite efforts like Green Card. As locusts buzz in the Australian outback, unbearable tension is maintained through the whole of Picnic at Hanging Rock and in the thriller Witness, what could have been any other genre exercise for a paycheck, Weir crafts as fine a character study as anything by Kazan.

So why doesn’t The Way Back work?

The escapees’ daunting trek is not particularly composed in any real fashion through Weir’s and cinematographer Russell Boyd’s lens. It’s like a point-and-shoot exercise at staggering vistas. Through most of the film the prisoners head in a compass direction, there’s an aerial view of rugged terrain, and then they’re on the other side of the obstacle. Interspersed scenes of them inventively finding food and maintaining their humanity feel just that way… interspersed. The viewer is never invested in these tiny figures traipsing through a blizzard or into an approaching sandstorm.

Jim Sturgess as Janusz the Polish officer is fine. Saoirse Ronan as Irena, another escapee they pick up on the way, is touching and warmhearted and Ed Harris is his gruff and fatalistic best. All concerned fit the bill performance wise, but when the film keeps misfiring, there’s no character richness past a certain point. Other things, like knowing how to combat body lice in a gulag, are detail for detail’s sake. The flat ending is predestined.

In light of his body of work, this seems a stumble for Weir and it’s too bad. In these days of franchise reboots, we could use a truly visceral return to the film epic á la David Lean. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Adventure/Drama

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 4/19/11

Black plays the title character, here reimagined as a long-time worker in the mail room of a New York newspaper whose crush on one of the paper’s writers (an appealing Amanda Peet) leads to him traveling to Bermuda where, thanks to a fancy CGI whirlpool, he ends up in the land of Lilliput, home to said pocket-sized people.

I do realize the film is meant to appeal to kids, as sophomoric gags abound, including the aforementioned robot with which Black does battle, but none more so than the sight of Black dousing a fire in the Lilliputian castle by relieving himself on it. And if Black falling on a Lilliputian soldier rear-end-first doesn’t get the little ones laughing, nothing will.

Black does little more than his standard slacker shtick as Gulliver, using phrases like “condish” and “grade-A courtage” to try and make the material seem more hip. But what seemed like very funny behavior in School of Rock just doesn’t work here. Admittedly, the film does mine a decent sight gag out of his flabbiness that involves cannonballs.

I can’t really fault director Rob Letterman for trying to impart a grow-up-and-be-responsible message, either, I suppose, but it’s a half-hearted effort at best. Black learns his lesson in the broadest way possible, so I didn’t buy it when he admits to Peet that “These little people have grown very large in my heart.” I rolled my eyes, in fact.

None of this is to say the film lacks laughs. Indeed, Chris O’Dowd is hilarious as an arrogant Lilliputian general who sees right through Black’s where-I-came-from stories (“Vice President Yoda”), while Jason Segel (I Love You, Man) earns some chuckles as a Lilliputian commoner with a crush on the kingdom’s princess (Emily Blunt, also funny) and Billy Connolly makes for a perfect king.

The only sequence I truly enjoyed (which borrows from the second story in Swift’s novel) was the one in which Black ends up on an island whose inhabitants are giants and where he’s captured by a little girl who keeps him in her dollhouse. Nothing else here made me laugh more than seeing Black being forced to wear a doll’s dress while being force fed a baby bottle. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Adventure/Comedy/Fantasy

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 4/19/11

Adventure/Drama/Fantasy

Rated PG-13

Its long-awaited sequel, Tron: Legacy, also focuses on its looks to the detriment of just about everything else. The writing is weak, the direction, by one Joseph Kosinski, lacks style and the acting, save for Michael Sheen and the returning Bridges, is adequate at best. But, thanks to the huge advancement in visual effects since the original, it’s a far more impressive-looking creature, a grand visual creation utilizing some truly dazzling CGI, and so I was more willing to overlook such flaws.

The plot is thus: some two decades after Kevin Flynn, the genius software engineer played by Bridges, went missing, his rebellious, twenty-something son Sam (Garrett Hedlund, who at various times resembles either Hayden Christensen or Christian Bale) inadvertently finds his way into the dystopian-tinged computer world created by his dad, where he discovers not only the old man, but Clu, Bridges’ digital doppelganger who has plans to conquer the real world.

Kosinski wisely retains many elements from the original film, but understandably updates them. The suits still light up according to their wearers’ allegiance (blue for good, orange for bad, yellow for Clu), but are now sleek, black leather duds, the Light Cycles have the same shape, but are bigger and shinier and can curve around the track, and the identity discs (the glowing Frisbees) are razor-sharp weapons that can slice right through a digital denizen. I also appreciated the brief appearance of Bruce Boxleitner, who played both the title character and Bridges’ friend in the original.

As well the numerous action sequences possess a nice muscular energy, less the result of Kosinski’s directorial choices, I think, than of the superlative CGI work and superb sound design. It was especially cool to watch the way various vehicles materialized around characters, though I also liked how the Light Cycles exploded into big, brilliant gouts of blue or orange pixels when getting hit. And I do have to give Kosinski credit for creating the Outlands, the dark and ominous realm beyond the borders of the digital metropolis where digital thunder rumbles through digital clouds.

Bridges plays Flynn with a certain Zen-like weariness, wearing white robes and sounding a lot like The Dude from The Big Lebowski, only smarter. It works, though. He gives the film dramatic weight, and manages to make his solar-sailing bonding time with Sam a poignant pow-wow. But the big thing here with Bridges is that we also get to see a younger version of him as he plays Clu, a nifty, cutting edge digital trick that’s fairly convincing, save for the moments where his mouth doesn’t move quite right when he talks.

In his turn as a neon-cane-using club owner, Sheen (The Queen) briefly injects some outrageous, over-the-top energy into the film, prancing about like Liberace on steroids. Which leads me to mention Daft Punk, the electronic-music duo that cameos as the club’s digital DJs. They composed the film’s score, a most excellent fusion of electronica and orchestral elements that is perhaps the best thing about the film, turning what would otherwise have been just another slick and expensive sci-fi flick into an otherworldly epic. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 4/5/11

Tales From Earthsea

The superficial look of the characters and environments is classic Miyazaki. Supposedly, Hayao had no involvement at all with his son’s film once it was underway (they were apparently not even on speaking terms), so it is disappointing that Goro did not establish his own aesthetic for his film, rather than borrowing his father’s style wholesale. But despite the clear intention to mimic the appearance of a Miyazaki classic, Earthsea‘s characters look strikingly flat, opaque and disconnected from their watercolor environs. At times I even thought it looked like a lower budget television production, not the blockbuster feature film it was in Japan. In the end, though, it mostly only pales in comparison with other works from Ghibli. The world of anime in Japan is vast, encompassing a broad spectrum of genre and quality. To put it another way, Hayao Miyazaki is to Pixar what Goro is to Dreamworks Animation. As for its suitability for kids, I wouldn’t recommend Earthsea for younger kids–its content is closer to the PG-13 range. Of course, even if you don’t watch Tales From Earthsea, that shouldn’t stop you from revisiting the real Miyazaki classics. This week also saw the release of Hayao’s second feature, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, on Blu-ray, which is a perfect excuse to watch (or rewatch) one of the great classics of animation. – [DVD]

Animation/Adventure/Fantasy

Rated PG-13

I hadn’t had much occasion to remember that time until Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) dramatized it in 127 Hours, the sixth of this year’s ten Best Picture nominees to arrive at the Video Station. James Franco (Pineapple Express) almost has a one-man show as Ralston, who we meet as he departs home in Aspen to engage in his exhilarating weekend routine. The opening scenes pulsate with adrenaline amid a montage of the crowded cookie-cutter civilization Aron is fleeing. Once on the trail he chances on a pair of young women (Kate Mara & Amber Tamblyn) and spends a few hours playing trail guide for them in spectacular fashion (spectacular enough to make it the only part of the film the real Ralston calls fake). By the time he’s alone again and gleefully scampering through Bluejohn, the adrenaline is wearing off, and in a single, mildly clumsy moment, he gets his arm pinned by a heavy boulder against solid rock. The remainder of the film chronicles his attempts to keep himself alive and get free, which he finally does in famously harrowing fashion.

If you’re afraid to watch this movie because you already know what’s going to happen and don’t want to see it–well, yes, it’s a pretty intense moment, but it’s handled about as well as any filmmaker could ever manage it. Boyle accents the viscera not with gory imagery but with sounds that any human nervous system will respond to with sympathy. It is harrowing, but never disgusting. And it’s only one moment in a film full of tension, grace, and surprising energy. Franco may not have redeemed himself as an Oscar host, but he certainly earned his keep as an Oscar nominee. You’ll root for him all the way. Boyle, who incorporates low-res video footage in his films frequently, has an excellent excuse to do so here, as Ralston did indeed record messages on his video camera while he was stuck. This not only makes for a convenient way to pass on exposition, but also serves as an opportunity for grim humor and poignant reflection. This isn’t 90 minutes of a guy stuck under a rock. It’s a step inside a mind confronted with a grim reality–a mind that wanders, waxes nostalgic and finds poetry in the mundane things it has left behind. It’s also one heck of an ironic admonition about hiking safety. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Adventure/Drama/Thriller

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 3/1/11

Milla Jovovich

It opens with a bang, as Jovovich’s genetically enhanced superbabe and her clones breach the Tokyo headquarters of the evil Umbrella Corporation (which created the virus that zombified most of the world population), before eventually settling in Los Angeles, where Jovovich helps a group of survivors holed up in a former prison surrounded by zombies find a way to a supposed safe haven.

For me, a big part of what makes this entry better is the return of Paul W.S. Anderson (Death Race) as director. Not because he helmed the first film and wrote every installment and is therefore an expert on the franchise. But because he is, plain and simple, one of my favorite auteurs of slick action entertainment, a man who energetically and expertly puts style over substance.

He proves it right from the start with this one, too, stuffing said prologue with a level of mayhem one would expect to find in a finale. Jovovich and her doppelgangers brandish swords, machine guns, grenades and telekinesis as they flip, slice and blaze their way past hordes of guards. And the explosion that ultimately consumes the underground HQ is, literally and figuratively, awesome.

After that, Anderson basically tweaks zombie abilities (they swim! they dig tunnels!) and finds new ways for his characters to kill the things beyond just a bullet to the head. Like how Jovovich, cable tied around her, jumps off the zombie-filled prison roof just as it explodes, swings down to the ground and smoothly starts blowing away flesh-eaters, using quarters as ammunition.

There are, somewhat disappointingly, no zombie crows in this one, but Anderson does offer up a giant hooded zombie for Jovovich and fellow female survivor Ali Larter to battle (while soaking wet, natch), as well as yet another appearance by those nasty zombie Doberman Pinschers. In perhaps the film’s most creative moment, Jovovich dispatches one of them by kicking a falling piece of glass at it.

On the slight downside, the characters are a fairly colorless bunch (save for Wentworth Miller’s soldier) and the film blatantly apes The Matrix, partly in how the main villain is a super-powered being who looks and sounds like an FBI agent and can bend around bullets, but mostly in Anderson’s somewhat tiresome tendency to freeze scenes mid-action and slowly swirl around them.

But I digress. The film is a rousing good time, and demonstrates once again that you don’t have to be a guy to successfully headline an action franchise. Granted, Jovovich isn’t quite as good an actress as Sigourney Weaver, but she sure looks good performing gravity-defying somersaults. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Adventure/Horror

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 12/28/10