Disney's The Lone Ranger

...A Cloud of Dust...
or
Depp in the Heart of Texas

The last time "The Lone Ranger" hit the big screen (1981's The Legend of the Lone Ranger, directed by cinematographer William A Fraker), it hit with a resounding thud.  It's not that the story wasn't any good, or that the basic idea isn't ripe for story-telling—it's just that the movie was dull, dull, dull, even as it was trying to be more "politically correct," giving John Reid's "Indian companion," Tonto, a bit more respect and hewing a little closer to a generically Native culture.

That was then.  This is now.  John Ford made the first modern Western in Stagecoach.  Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah made the "post-modern" Western in the 60's.  Then, after post-modernism came death.  People stopped making Westerns entirely, with hold-outs like Eastwood and Costner and Kasdan and Harris, the tropes of the genre falling into use in, cop movies and martial arts and space fantasy films.  But the form stayed pretty much dead and buried.  Given the history of the form, and with its emphasis on the spirit world, resurrection of dead men, and its manic quality (especially as its de rigeur for the creatures these days) maybe Gore Verbinski's film of The Lone Ranger (now Disney's) is the first zombie Western.

It fits.*  One of the themes galloping through this one is that "nature is out of balance," what with the "Wild" West being invaded by iron horses, the presence of "spirit horses," villains who will eat the hearts of their victims and manically carnivorous jack-rabbits out on the plains.  Zombies, okay.  But it's a bit of a Frankenstein monster, as well, made up of parts of what has gone before.  The final credits say that it was filmed "from Moab to Monument Valley," mostly Utah, and its true, with shots in Zion, Arches National Park, and the Monuments (looking slightly different from the time John Ford filmed them—the calved spires seem to have been digitally erased—although Verbinski has taken a lot of Ford's specific angles several times in the film). 

Verbinski's The Lone Ranger on the left; Ford's The Searchers on the right

But it seems like Nature isn't the only one with the problem.  The Lone Ranger is a Western out of balance, tipping from side to side and waving its arms frantically while standing on a line between olde Westerns and the post-modern varieties, with full-stops at the Leone era** and the silent era of comedic Westerns, specifically Buster Keaton's The General (not technically a Western, but go with me here) in the film's final bursts of energy.  The movie veers from queasy nastiness to whimsy to outright comedy and slapstick, without taking a break for water.  The villains are played absolutely straight, from Tom Wilkinson's rail baron to his nasty co-hort, Butch Cavendish  (a greasily unrecognizable David Fichtner), while the heroes are bumblers with good intentions, like Armie Hammer's rube of a Ranger,*** and top-billed (above the character and movie title) Johnny Depp's bizarre take on Tonto—well, it's bizarre for Tonto, but not for Depp, as this "Indian companion" would line up well with his other pasty-faced odd-balls like Edward Scissorhands and Barnabas Collins.  And, in action, his Tonto acts more like the Sam character in Benny & Joon, there's some Chaplin, but a lot of Buster Keaton in his stone-faced, article-challenged Tonto (the make-up for which is inspired by a painting by Kirby Sattler entitled "I Am Crow," which is neither authentic or historically accurate, but it looks distinctive, which suits Depp's purposes, I suppose). 

The movie runs on two parallel tracks of revenge—the Ranger, John Reid's, and Tonto's—as the two end up joining forces to deal with the guys who ambushed the Ranger's brother and posse, and the guys who wiped out Tonto's village, for which he feels responsible.  It's a little late in the game to plead weariness of the revenge scenario—it seems like every movie hero has to have a personal grudge as a pilot light, rather than to "do what they gotta do" through some sense of altruism.  Possibly that heroic quality is passé or considered foolish in today's culture, or maybe there's no sense of audience involvement if it isn't seen why the protagonists stand up for what's right.

But, it spends most of its running time moseying through origin stories and the whittling away at the uneasy alliance between Reid and Tonto.  Then, once things get going, there's an extended chase sequence featuring the two trains involved in the driving of the golden spike uniting the nation's railways, an "Indiana Jones" type of marathon that explores everything that you can possibly do with two trains running on occasionally parallel tracks (when did they find time to lay all that extra track, one wonders?).  The sequence would make the silent comedians gape, and propelled by variations of "The William Tell Overture," provides a lot of entertainment.  It's fun for quite awhile and Verbinski constructs some Rube Goldbergian scenarios that are, once or twice, ingenious.

But, instead of coming at the nick of time, it comes a might too late.  The focus there at the end comes after a lot of wandering aimlessly through the desert, looking for something to do.  Granted, its not as dull as the 80's attempt to put the spurs to the franchise, and in parts its entertaining, if one isn't looking for native axes to grind**** or is approaching the material with an already jaundiced eye.  One wonders if it was worth doing, or whether "The Lone Ranger" should be allowed to pass into legend, a relic of the thrilling days of yesteryear.

The Lone Ranger is a Rental.

My favorite appearance of Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels as

The Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Kind of reminds me of how the movie plays them.*****

* Yeah, but one can see that as a strain running through Verbinski's work, especially considering the "Pirates" movies and Rango, where folks are coming back from the dead, or at least the crossing back from whatever spirit-world seems to fit the project.

** Composer Hans Zimmer does a lot of riffing off Ennio Morricone, the most notes taken from For a Few Dollars More (with its tinkling chime contrasting with a heavy-handed forward momentum theme), but also in the comedic grace notes that follow Tonto's shenanigans with a punctuating trill that Leone used for Eastwood's "Man with No Name" in A Fistful of Dollars.

*** Hammer is introduced like Jimmy Stewart's Ransom Stoddard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the "duded" pilgrim who stands out far too much in the rough West, in a suit so formal he's mistaken for a missionary...by a missionary.  It's one of his better performances, showing that he's at his best, comedically, despite (and maybe because of) his blandly handsome looks, in a way that's similar to Cary Elwes. 

**** Most of the talk is focused on Depp and his "white-face" portrayal of Tonto and how authentic it is (not very), which with the existing suspicions people have of the character as demeaned and inferior, has been mostly negative, because, like skin color, its very easy to see and remark upon with what one thinks of as authority.  One wonders if such a rehabilitation is possible, given the character's man-servant past, like Robinson Crusoe's "Friday," or The Green Hornet's "Kato" (although it certainly helped if Bruce Lee was in the role, bringing the character up several notches just on ability and charisma—should we mention that Brit "The Green Hornet" Reid is a descendant of The Lone Ranger?), and whether its even worth it to right the past's wrongs.  The alternative is to stay in place, and be content—although grousing—with the way things were and just leave it aside.  I think it says something that Depp thought Tonto was the more interesting character to play, as for authentic...is anything Depp does very authentic?  Short answer: No.  As for the whole racial thing, I thought the best line was Depp's Tonto griping about the ranger being a "stupid white man," and the Chinese railroad workers grinning and nodding in agreement at him—he's just another American...to them.  Now, that's some funny ethnic humor there.

**** It also is inherently racist as it paints Tonto in a bad light, obviously Natives are gluttonous. (*cough*)

Les Misérables (Musical; 2012)

The Song of Angry Men
or
 "To the Barricades!"

I realize I am not the man to do a critical analysis of Les Misérables, the filmed version of the long running staged presentation of the concept album produced by Claud Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil and Jean Marc Natel, (from the novel by Victor Hugo) for many reasons: 1) I'm not terribly fond of musicals, finding the form unnatural and artificial—the inclination to burst into song having the requirement of being necessitated by the surge of emotion, which, if you do it too much, is a bit unsufferable—but, if the words and music are clever, born out of character and need, my prejudices can be batted away in the sweep of sheer admiration; 2) I’ve never seen “Les Miz” on stage, so this is my first exposure to the material, which I found musically strong, with nice linking strains between songs, but the lyrics, for the majority of it, trite and of the “Moon-June” variety, and the propensity to insert (with a guillotine) moments of light-heartedness in the midst of the most dramatic moments; 3) I have never liked the direction of Tom Hooper (who directed the mini-series “John Adams” with a heavy emphasis on unnecessary dutch angles, tortured compositions, and camera movement “baggage” for its own sake, and then directed The King’s Speech with a somewhat less gaudy eye, but a penchant for “gilding the lily” of competent performances with camera and lens tricks. So, Les Misérables is almost a “perfect storm” of things I don’t like in movies, making me feel a bit uncomfortable about even attempting to discuss it without the need to eviscerate it like an after-meal chicken.  Oh, there are things I thought were marvelous—the grittiness of it, the general down-troddeness of the whole thing, the brio of the effort in dragging it, naturalistically, to the screen, when everything cries out to leave it on the stage where it seems the presentation would be at its optimum.

So, kids, let’s get started.  I’ll leave out the show itself, which has more than silenced its original critical drubbing by becoming the wildly popular “people’s choice” at the box office, entirely appropriate given its liberté/fraternité themes.  Vive “Les Miz” and all that.  But the stage presentation was already an odd ying-yang of performers belting out their inner emotions to the cheap seats, confessing their shame at the top of their lungs.  To then bring it back down to intimacy, forcing powerful song material to be played out with naturalistic emotions—crying, snuffling, doubt—then compounds the confusion by compromising the musical material from its original intentions.

Then, director Hooper further piles on the emotional dissonance by shooting everything in very tight close-up, so we have intimate emotions couched in thundering expressiveness delivered at a timid range right in our faces.  Hooper did no service to his actors here, threatening to expose every mis-step of their performances (which, by the way, was sung and recorded on set in real time) so close that the audience can’t miss it.
 

How’d they do?  Admirably well, considering.  Anne Hathaway will surely win an Oscar for the “I Dreamed a Dream” sequence alone, finding the right balance of giving the song its due, while also expressing the grief, humiliation and moments of rage in her character.*  Towards the end of the film, Eddie Redmayne pulls off a similar gift with “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” and, surprisingly, Amanda Seyfried makes the most of her moments with a high, feathery voice that doesn’t betray fragility.  Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe are other matters.  Both great performers with musical pasts (the former on Broadway, the latter with his vanity band), both are very capable, but the material, production and presentation get the better of both of them, exposing Jackman’s reedy voice (somewhere between Anthony Newley and David Bowie) and Crowe’s pop sensibility to pitch to the note he’s seeking. The unlikeliest successes are Sascha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, as the unscrupulous Thénadier couple, because their song is a knockabout one with lots of stage business letting them lose from the trap of Hooper’s tight framing, and because Cohen is allowed to throw in a couple of ad-libs (in beat, mind you) between lyrics, allowing a little bit of fresh air into the proceedings.**

For me, it was a train-wreck that seemed to go on forever, with only a couple of bright spots to give me hope.  But, given the production’s history, I’m sure the people will rise above it all, despite the tyranny of the direction on display.

Les Misérables is a Cable-Watcher…in any language.

 

* One of the best lines at the Golden Globes was Amy Poehler’s about Hathaway’s performance: “I have not seen someone so totally alone and abandoned like that since you were on stage with James Franco at the Oscars."  

**  The creators of the stage version must have realized this, too, as they keep turning up and their capering has a tendency to undercut the heavy drama.  Entertaining, yes, but at the expense of the rest of the play.

 

Dark Shadows (2012)

Camping Vamps and Risible Damp
or
"What Strange Terrain is This?"

"Dark Shadows" has been a cult favorite for Baby-Boomers for 40 years (ouch!), long before it was fashionable to have vampires as fodder for young adults.  The ABC soap opera ran for several seasons of afternoons replacing the standard plot-lines of cheating spouses and long-lost family secrets with long-buried family relatives and a full range of gothic ghoulery that plundered every horror story in the crypt-library, including vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein-ish monsters, time-travel, parallel dimensions and ghost stories.

It was a TV habit of mine when I was a kid, timed perfectly to be the after-school tonic for a parochial school education, an occult chaser for the catechism, all those crucifixes I was surrounded by during the day being used for other purposes.  It was also a fixation for Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, Burton digging the horror genre and Depp grooving on the character of Barnabas Collins (played by the late—or is he?—Jonathan Frid, who puts in a very brief cameo here along with a couple of other cast-mates), the reluctant vampire who pursued hearts, rather than the blood that pumped through them.  The result of their dual obsessions is this version of Dark Shadows, produced by Depp, directed by Burton.

"It is said that blood is thicker than water," narrates Barnabas Collins (Depp), over the strains of Robert Colbert's alto flute-through-echoplex composition "The Secret Room" from the original series.  "It binds us, confines us, curses us."  For a moment, things are fairly serious as the 18th century story of young Collins scion Barnabas is unearthed, with his spurning of the witch Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) and her subsequent dark revenge, killing the Collins elders, forcing the suicide of Barnabas' love Josette and turning him into an eternally cursed vampire.  She subsequently sets the townsfolk on the monster who chain him into a coffin and bury him for all eternity.

Depp and Burton get it right at the beginning: Barnabas learns his fate.

The worst-laid plans of mages and men...Eternity is cut short around 1972 as the construction of a new McDonald's in Collinswood unearths Barnabas and he lays waste to a construction crew (who must have been getting overtime working at night!) with an explanatory "You have no idea how thirsty I am!" 

On a parallel course, Maggie Evans (Bella Heathcote, the latest in a long line of Burton ingenues with thin necks topped by big heads with huge eyes and "big" hair) is on a train to Collinswood where she has applied for a job as a governess to young David Collins (Gulliver McGrath), who is having psychological issues from the disappearance of his mother at sea.  Abruptly, she decides to change her name to Victoria Winters, indicating a past she wants to run away from, as The Moody Blues tune "Knights in White Satin" burbles over the soundtrack.  Hey, Burton may be onto something here.  The combining of '70's kitsch and some of its more mordant songs with the gothic mood of "Dark Shadows" works well, setting the tone of the series and the morbid fascination my generation had with it.  Can "Don't Fear the Reaper" be far behind?

Then, things get a little weird.  She's picked up by a VW van of hippies, and there's some stoned comedy about how they're so wasted, and Vicky is cool, man, and it's easy laughs and you wish it was more clever.  It becomes apparent quickly that Burton will be playing this for laughs, which is fine (he always does to a certain extent), but the original material is already so melodramatic and over-the-top that the humor undercuts the effectiveness of what drama there is that ekes through the dramatic stares and the vamping poses.  "Dark Shadows" was always "camp" entertainment in the broad sense, but to broaden it even further nullifies whatever chills and thrills can be drained from it.  This is why Frid's performance on the show was such an anchor for it—he played it absolutely straight, and in fact, ramrod-stiff; you didn't make fun of Barnabas for fear of his wrath—or his breaking down in tears.

Depp's Barnabas is tortured, of course, but risibly so (in a performance that's a combination of Frid's formality, some Max Schreck thrown in, and a bit of Ed Wood cast-mate Martin Landau's incarnation of Bela Lugosi).  And there's the "otherness" factor that Depp brings to so many of his roles, as if he's in a different movie from everybody else—he walks through it, and everybody reacts, usually comedically and derisively.  In part, that's the point: it ties in with Burton's feelings growing up as being an outsider-geek, looking on at the rest of the world that he found strange, while it found him odd (and there's a mirroring through-line of humor throughout the film of Barnabas, out of his time, observing to some horror the eccentricities of 1970's life, that reflects it).*

But Collinwood's odd family doesn't bat an eye when Victoria shows up and doesn't react to the disrepair of the gothic Collinwood mansion or to David's assertion that he speaks to his dead mother, and she follows quite readily when the ghost of Josette appears floating down the hallways, whispering "He's coming..."  Barnabas' arrival, in Victorian array and the palest of skin, and the oddest of manners only brings up temporary suspicions, but the matriarch of the house (Michelle Pfeiffer, who played Burton's Catwoman) readily accepts him as family, even after revealing his vampirism.  The cast is uniformly fine, gamely being archly camp throughout, but the one performer who's best at it is Green, who clearly relishes the villainess role and has fun with it, taking it in some very odd, even poignant places.

It looks great.  Burton's films always do, with a superb design sense and his knack for picking terrific, seemingly impossible angles to shoot from.  But, like a lot of Burton films, it tends to fall apart in story, snatching hasty explanations and deus ex machina to get out of trouble, or to provide the director with a bizarre concept that may seem right in retrospective sub-context, but that comes out of nowhere, randomly and jarringly.  One has to stop, back-track, only to realize that, no, this has never been mentioned before, and why now?

One suspects it's a whim, a passing "wouldn't-it-be-crazy-if" thought passed between Depp and Burton as they geek out, rocking in their corners, internal logic no longer mattering as much as a superficial entertaining notion.  As such, Dark Shadows accomplished their goals.  Yeah, it's entertaining, but highly insubstantial, a mere spirit of a movie.

Dark Shadows is a Rental.

The first Dark Shadows movie (left) and the original Barnabas Collins, Jonathan Frid

* This also sets up a series of sight-gags that are somewhat clever, as Barnabas never seems to be able to find appropriate sleeping arrangements at Collinwood.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

"Harry Potter and the Delay of the Inevitable, Part II"
0r
"Oh!  Like We've Never Done THAT Before..."

It is very disturbing to me that the all-time box-office-generating series of all time is the "Harry Potter" series.  I've only read one of the novels—the first—and found it charming, nicely irreverent, and "tuned in" perceptively on the subject of kid-angst, albeit "special needs" students.  J.K. Rowling deserves all the acclaim and revenues for her wizard knock-off, and a special thanks (and maybe a medal or something...flowers?) for getting kids to read again.


The movies started out with a wonderful charm under the directions of Chris Columbus and Alfonso Cuarón.  But starting with the fourth film, everything started to be treated just a Death-Eater shade too darkly, the scripts being too respectful to their sources (while simultaneously neglecting the arcana that delighted in the Rowlings), and the neat visual touches that were thrown in and taken for granted as part of the magical landscape, really WERE taken for granted, and never advanced in sophistication, or inspiration.  The emphasis has been on economics—meeting deadlines and cranking them out under the lackluster director of the series' final four films, David Yates.


The same holds true for the new one, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1.  Yates is back as the director (and Steve Kloves, thankfully, is back as scripter, providing bursts of dialogue freshness), and his shot-planning is just as uninspired as it has been his last two outings, taking his cues from the gloomy vista look of "The Lord of the Rings" series.  This time out, It is a Dark Time for the World, Muggle or No: the Big Nasty of the series, Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes, relishing the role) and his minions control the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts School.  Time to eliminate the one person he hasn't been able to kill—Harold James Potter (Daniel Radcliffe).  Harry's inner circle of loyalists spirit him away to hide him from The Dark Lord (which ends up killing a couple of them—and like every death in the series, they are disquietly unmoving).  Ultimately, the Trio to Whom Everything Happens (Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint) separate from the group in a self-sacrificing quest to find the horcruxes—the movie seems confused about whether there are seven or merely three—that contain the souls of Voldemort's victims that are keeping him together.  Destroy the horcruxes and destroy Voldemort.  Sounds simple enough.  But, we go through an extended camping trip with the three where they are fugitives from dark Snatchers and Death-Eaters and petty disagreements.  It's not spoiling anything to say that they find precisely zero horcruxes, and, instead, discover the secret of the Deathly Hallows (told in a quite nice animated story), which would appear to negate all previous plot-points and quests...hence, they wouldn't be in the title if they weren't so damned important, as this isn't "Harry Potter and the Completely Superfluous Thingamabobs."  One walks out feeling as if one had just spent a dragon-choking wad of cash and two and a half hours of precious life-time having merely seen the pre-game show, the same result as from the last two films.

There are joys and differences: the kids have learned to be very subtle actors, and, as always, the cast of British thesps is head-spinning in scope and styles, and they all seem aware that they must make the most of their limited screen-time, and they do—Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter and Jason Isaacs go out of their way to make their every moment count.  Bill Nighy makes his first appearance in a "Potter" and he has that sepulchral style that makes him a natural for it.  Some of the lines are clever, There are a couple of seat-jumps (remnants of when the film was to be released in 3-D),and there's even a touch of sex in this one—the kids are 17, now—with a chaste moment of Potter paramour Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright) asking Harry to zip up her wedding frock, and a vision of a naked Harry and Hermione making out is produced at one point to infuriate Ron Weasley ("That was...disturbing," said the girls sitting behind me...mm-hmm).

But, it's much ado about nothing.  We're left at the cusp of the action to come (and there are no hints or previews of Part 2 after the credits, so don't stick around unless you want to hear Alexandre Desplat's serviceable—and momentarily inspired—stand-in score for John Williams'), a theatrical moment that is merely some villainous chest-thumping.  Not the best or most impressive way to end it.  At this point, I'm beginning to think that the Potter film series is like a box of Bertie Bott's jelly beans—one or two might be good, but there are a bunch of ugly unsatisfying ones in the mix. 

The one thing missing that I hope—but doubt—will re-appear for the finale,* is the one thing that should be emblematic for such a series: some inspired magic.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 is a Rental.

* Is there some sort of spell we can conjure to ensure there are no more sequels, prequels or "inspired by's?" 

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

"Beautiful Soup"

Hesitant, I am, these days. Hesitant, I says.

After rushing the review for "Shutter Island" and dismissing it as "minor Scorsese," I found it had stuck like a bur in my hair and remained in my thoughts and my brain for a longish time. I went back and changed my rating—it's a "Matinee" now—but not the review, because my complaints are the same. But it's really good "Scorsese" and slots right into the body of his work, despite being unique in its qualities and unlike anything he's done before.

But, I can't tell you why. Curiously, this doesn't stop me from going on and on about it, because it's so rich, and after an essential second viewing, you realize what a dance it is with story-logic and the use of image to show you—and NOT show you—what's going on. It's a trip, and a breathless display of what a master of cinema can do with the form.

Which is why Martin Scorsese should have directed "Alice in Wonderland" in 3-D. Sure, your kid's head would explode. But it'd be a great movie!

I've been looking forward to Tim Burton's take on Lewis Carroll. Seems like a match made in anyplace but Heaven. Burton's lapses in story-logic and not playing by the rules in past movies make him the perfect Carroll adapter; he's the "just go with it" director, as he frog-jumps from set-piece to set-piece. If you have to ask questions, you're going to slow the tour-bus down. And his arrested art-student sensibility is so dark that it keeps Alice exactly where it should be—underground with the muck and the weevils and the roots tearing at your extremities.

So it's a MAJOR disappointment that Disney's "Alice in Wonderland in 3-D" (A Film by Tim Burton) is such a wisp of a movie and—dare I say it—conventional, that it misses the mark of being a great movie (and a good representation of Lewis Carroll) by a hedgehog-croquet slice.*

Here's the problem. The "Alice" stories are stuff-and-nonsense. Charming stuff-and-nonsense that can make little girls giggle and college professors scratch their heads. Buried deep in its purple marrow is the satire of the vagaries of Society, not of adults, necessarily, but of Society—of class distinctions and petty politics—the Games People Play (when they're not playing games).

It shouldn't make sense. It is full of new words and language that fire the synapses of minds, like when Mommy talks about something called pilates, or you have to find out why you can't steal a base before the pitcher throws. It's all bright and shiny and new and simply incomprehensible, and Carroll is just as fantastical for trussed-up adults as it is for children. The glory of it is children have the upper-hand in connecting with it—they don't have so far to fall down the rabbit-hole.

And Burton (and his screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who's worked on several Disney animations) know this to a point. When we first meet 19-year old Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska, looking dark-eyed and sallow—a perfect Burton heroine), she has been invited to an engagement party—hers.** It's a surprise, but it's not, and it is not going well for the hostess, Lady Ascot (Geraldine James) the mother of the groom-to-be, as everything is not...perfect. And Alice has this annoying habit, besides being late, of being...unconventional...and distracted by anything. Alice likes to see the Nature of things. The party made by adults just uses Nature as a tightly-controlled back-drop. At the moment the question is popped, Alice excuses herself to the party (as they're all watching, and it's for their benefit more than hers) saying that she "needs a moment." (Did they "need moments" in the 19th?)

This is pretext to Alice wandering off from the party, in her moment of highest risk of being cosseted, to follow a white rabbit and once more stumble down a rabbit-hole, returning to "Wonderland."***

It's here, as you'd guess, that the movie takes off. The colors more vibrant, the effects-work (by four FX houses but primarily Sony) magical, even the 3-D has more depth. The characters adhere to a mixture of Burton and first edition illustrator John Tenniel, and more in that direction than the way the Disney animators drew the characters for their 1951 adaptation. The film is nicely cast with Burton's usual suspects (Johnny Depp—top-lined as The Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter—simply delicious as The Red Queen, the voices of Alan Rickman—the caterpiller, Timothy Spall—Bayard the hound, Christopher Lee—as the Jabberwock, Paul Whitehouse—as The March Hare, and Michael Gough—as the Dodo) New to Burton are Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit, Matt Lucas as Tweedles Dum and Dee, but most impressively, Crispin Glover as the evil knave Stayne, and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. One wonders why Glover has never been in a Burton movie before—maybe Burton thought he was uncontrollable?—but he brings a hissing nastiness to what could have been a typical bad-guy role, and that Burton sets him up against Depp's Hatter is one of those movie match-up's you love to see. And Anne Hathaway proves once again that she's not afraid to explore her dark-side. Her creepy "Liza-Minelli-in-a-straight-jacket" White Queen evokes Burton's long-time exotic paramour Lisa Marie.

Quite the ingredients for a film, and with Burton doing the stirring, one salivates at the possibilities. There are lots of laughs, moments of exquisite beauty—wispy seeds occasionally enter the frame and at one point, we park in front of a dew-drop hanging underneath a mushroom (Robert Zemeckis would have shoved us through it)—the whole movie is filled with beautiful images and nice ideas to keep you in your seat. But, it has no staying power, and it might be because this "Alice in Wonderland" has the parts, but not the non-sensical sinnew that has made "Alice" a classic.

Wolverton and Burton take the essential pieces and make a typical action-adventure story-line out of it. There is some half-sized satire about political squabbling, but mostly it's a cut-and-paste job, based on "The Jabberwock Poem." That classic piece of nonsense turns into a fable "that will make everything alright." And it involves one of the characters defeating the Jabberwock in battle with "the vorpal sword" to invoke "the frabjous day" and blah, blah, blah. It's a silly poem, people, not a video-game scenario. By the time we get to the climax, there's a "Lord of the Rings" dark-sky battle between the characters, and we could just as well be in "Narnia" for all it matters. And it has an after-school special message to it, that is nice and all, but is a bit like cherry-flavored medicine.****

This is a lot of talk for a movie I'm only luke-warm about, but the bottom-line is, it's fun while it lasts, but it's like eating cotton candy in the rain. So, yeah, take the kids, it's imaginatively done (when it is), and they'll love it. But don't be surprised if they get sullen and whiny an hour after. Rich it may be, but it's mostly empty calories.
Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" in 3-D is a Matinee, but for the details.*****


* Here's the rub: "Alice in Wonderland" dropped out of my head very fast. One trip to the hardware store and *POOF!* it was gone like a puff of hookah-smoke (or was that diesel?). Now, I waited to write this, fearing another "Shutter Island" mis-take, and I found the movie shrinking away—shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, waiting for a cake to say "Eat me" to bring it back to size. Never showed up.

** There's a subtle joke there, as it's mentioned that the party has been in the works for twenty years...but Alice is only 19!

*** Woolverton and Burton add a nice touch that Alice is constantly questioned whether she's the "real" Alice—the Alice that showed up in "Underland" when she was six. She's grown up and the residents hardly recognize her as the strange child who changed the name of the place to "Wonderland." The original story's name was "Alice's Adventure Under Ground."

**** SPOILERS AHEAD: To show you how cookie-cutter this "Alice" is, somebody gets captured and has to be rescued, there's a last-minute save from an unexpected source, a character must claim an essential ingredient by facing danger, and a foe becomes an ally. Oh! And one character's actions provides the method for their eventual freedom. And there's no place like home. I may be a little harsh here, but "Pan's Labyrinth" showed that you could do something different with this sort of myth-weaving and still make a compelling movie.

***** See it in 3-D? I dunno. It will probably be brighter in 2-D, but betray the flatness of the images, and Burton has the same problem as James Cameron of bringing non-essential things on the frame-edge, like ferns and such, too close to prevent double-images. Zemeckis, Dreamworks and the Pixar folks are the champions of 3-D so far.

Terminator Salvation

"MOVE ON. (CYB)ORG"

"Everyone deserves a second chance," is the lesson of "Terminator Salvation."

They didn't, however, say anything about a fourth.

"The Terminator," of course, was the first low-budget, high-concept success of James Cameron. It launched Cameron's career, and made a star of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The sequel—"Terminator 2: Judgment Day" was an amazing recapitulation and expansion of themes, offered amazing stunt-work, cutting edge computer effects and was, if anything, even more entertaining than the first film. At the time, the most expensive film ever made, it still managed to make a healthy profit for its makers. You couldn't kill these Terminator things.

But while Cameron expanded his horizons and Schwarzenegger became a super-star, no more "Terminator" movies were made. Cameron seemed no longer interested (although he and Schwarzenegger teamed up for the clunky spy flick "True Lies").

I didn't see "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" (which featured Schwarzenegger's final Termination before launching his political career), but the current one is helmed by the worst director extant—McG—who, like a lot of today's directors would be hard-pressed to direct a movie if his camera couldn't move, and whose "Charlie's Angels" movies were not-very-funny bimbo-fications that barely held together (actually they didn't hold together). Surprisingly, he manages to maintain a fairly straight tone for this fourth "Terminator" film, which focuses on the humans' battles against Skynet with an adult John Connor (Christian Bale).

"Terminator Salvation." They should have called it "Terminator Salvage," as most of the good ideas have been used and are recycled into a feature length version of every visualization of those battles (complete with requisite skull-crushing underfoot) seen in the previous films.*

But, look at the cast, like Cameron's original design a mix of A-list and B-movie actors: Bale,** Michael Ironside, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anton Yelchin (the new "Star Trek" Chekhov plays a teen-age Kyle Reese, the character originally played by Michael Biehn), even Jane Alexander and Helena Bonham Carter (in a brief but effectively creepy role). Also Sam Worthington—who started filming James Cameron's "Avatar" awhile ago (quite awhile ago).

Wish they had something better to do. The plot is a demolition derby of past "Terminator" hits mixed with "The Road Warrior" and a "Transformers" movie. One expected to see Hasbro in the producing credits, as the only thing new in this are toy-exploitable "Terminator" creations: Terminator motorcycles, mighty-morphin' prison ships with separate pilots (why would robot-ships need pilots?), and underwater T's, I guess you could call them "Termi-gators." Plus, there's an older model that makes a computer-generated "guest" appearance. There's some plot-holes you could transport T-800's through over why some things, like explosions, will bring on Skynet attention, but a major fire-fight (with flares) amongst humans does not. And for all the technical wizardry on display, you can see the cinematic seams showing when cutting away from a post-apocalyptic setting to the green-screened CG expansion.

Things blow up "real good," the usual things are not what they seem, and, as per usual, the whole thing climaxes in a claustrophobic industrial setting.*** It's the same elements as before, just re-assembled in another order...if that. An entirely superfluous "further adventure" is hinted at, but one hopes they don't bother and just scrap this franchise.

James Cameron has moved on—to "Titanic" and the upcoming "Avatar." And Arnold Schwarzenegger has moved on, as well.

Maybe we should, too.

"Move along. Nothin' to see here." "Terminator Salvation" is a rust-encrusted Rental.

* Well, you could say the original was recycled, as well. A court ordered that a sum be paid and that acknowledgement be made to Harlan Ellison as "Terminator" more than resembled his "Outer Limits" episodes "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand." I didn't see him mentioned in the credits for this movie. Hopefully, he saw some cash (Come to think of it, I didn't see Cameron's name, either).

"Salvation" does introduce a new angle to its franchise—but it, too, is a well-worn cliche of science fiction and super-hero magazines.

** Bale uses a variation of his deep-Batman voice throughout, which I thought was just an affectation when I realized that Michael Ironside—and practically everybody—is talking in a husky rasp.

*** After 30 minutes, I began thinking "Hey! Where's the requisite beating-up of dirt-bags?"
Patience, patience...it showed up half an hour later.

Hamlet (1990)

"Hamlet" (Franco Zeffirelli, 1990) So, the big question was: "Mel? Mel Gibson? Hamlet?" Zeffirelli was no slouch when directing Shakespeare with "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Romeo and Juliet" already in his film-list. But Mel Gibson? "Lethal Weapon"/"Mad Max" Mel Gibson? How can this come to any good?

Turns out it can.

Seeing Zeffirelli's "Hamlet" for the first time is a film-long surprise at how good Gibson is in the role--his performance of the Elizabethan verse often inspired. He's backed by a stellar cast: Glenn Close (nine years older than Gibson) as Gertrude, Alan Bates as an on-guard Claudius, Ian Holm as a much more competent, even wily, Polonius, Paul Scofield, a brilliant ghost, Stephen Dillane as Horatio, and best of all, Helena Bonham Carter's Ophelia.

A second look at the film years later shows the seams. Gibson's Hamlet is all open-mouthed "busy" acting, a bit too manic and protesting too much. But it does make the case that his Hamlet is Glenn Close's son for she does exactly the same thing, gaping for the loges in Zeffirelli's rough-hewn settings. Dillane's "trying-to-take-it-all-in" Horatio and Bates' slimy, wary Claudius come off the best. But they're blow off the screen by the radical turn of Bonham Carter:



Ophelia--From the get-go, Helena Bonham-Carter plays the daughter of Polonius (and object of Hamlet's affections/mental torture), not as a frail flower, but a practical girl, down-to-Earth and obedient to her father, and loving to her brother. Bonham-Carter's line readings of the verse are flat and conversational, not lilting. Her reaction to Hamlet's bi-polarism are confusion, and incomprehension, not histrionics, and when her psyche snaps, there's no poetry in it. You could find her Ophelia on a city street-corner--agitated, rattling, eyes darting and fingers flailing; it's a powerful performance--a radical interpretation, scary and threatening. When she hands out flowers to the royal couple and her brother, she hands them weeds...and bones.

No wonder Tim Burton fell in love with her. Bonham Carter has never steered clear of the dark waters of her characters, and, in fact, will jump into the deep-end and maybe--maybe--swim up to the light. There's never been an Ophelia like this one, and disappointingly, I haven't seen one since. This is a feminist interpretation of Ophelia, one of real power while not sacrificing Shakespeare's text or the role's tragedy. I don't know if the Bard would recognize his creation in this performance, but the actor in him would be amazed.
Here are this film's other "Hamlet" touchstones:
The Ghost--Portrayed by Paul Scofield deep in the shadows, it is a heart-breaking performance, as the grasping King begs for satisfaction from his son, damned as he is for his sins. His Old King Hamlet has all the fear of Hell in his eyes, and a quavering in his voice, a King broken by the tortures of perdition. He's not a formal apparition of the supernatural, but a ghost who is, himself, haunted, and seeks out his son for a last chance at salvation. That's quite a guilt-trip he lays of Hamlet--even more so than a revenge mission. No wonder Gibson's Hamlet looks panicky through the whole movie.

Polonius--verbose he may be, but he's no fool. In fact, as played by Ian Holm, he's a bit of a snake-in-the-grass, currying favor with a calculated duplicitousness. And quite capable of sacrificing his daughter in order to further the fortunes of his son Laertes. And he lets her know in no uncertain terms that she must perform her duties as bait for the good of her family, though not necessarily for her own. His fate seems particularly deserved, rather than an unfortunate ironic happenstance in Elsinore's machinations.

The "To Be Or Not To Be" speech--Gibson walks down stone stairs into the dark to contemplate action/inaction and life/death and does well with "the" speech. His Hamlet is usually at wit's end (heh), but here he is hushed and still, as if not to wake the dead. Apt, as the location he's chosen to do his ruminating is the burial site for old King Hamlet. That's the King's sarcophagous in the back-ground of the screen-cap. Hamlet might be in his own version of Hell during the speech.
Gritty, grimy, with the drama accentuated rather than the artifice of the verse, this "Hamlet" is a fine interpretation. Gibson might have been the star (and the chief draw), but the humanization of the ghost and the bodice-ripping interpretation of Ophelia make it one to remember in the further explorations of The Great Play.