The Mummy - Movie Review

Starring Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Russell Crowe, Sofia Boutella, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance and Marwan Kenzari.
Written by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, Dylan Kussman, Jon Spaihts, Alex Kurtzman & Jenny Lumet.
Directed by Alex Kurtzman.

★½

This is the first movie in a planned Dark Universe franchise. Their first priority should have been to just make a good movie that can stand on its own. All it needed to do was be better than the Brendan Fraser version, and this is not.

Tom Cruise plays Nick, a soldier who happens to steal ancient artifacts in the Middle East. He and his buddy (Jake Johnson) are fleeing some insurgents when they stumble upon the tomb of Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), an evil ancient Egyptian princess who was buried 1000 miles away from home.

This movie isn't sure what it is. Is it horror? Is it action? What is its aim here? Nick is supposed to be this selfish weasel, and it's the first time I feel like the 55-year-old Cruise has been miscast. 39-year-old Jake Johnson as Nick would have been more like it.

Russell Crowe shows up as Dr. Jekyll, and the Oscar winner did not elevate the material. This is just a confused project that in trying to be many things winds up being nothing.

Noah - Movie Review

ByCommonConsent.com

Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, Logan Lerman and Douglas Booth. Directed by Darren Aronofsky.

★★½

My first impressions were what they were, but I was inspired to do a little more research into the story of Noah. I've always known the Bible's version, but I also read the Torah and Midrash, which has subtle differences and theories.

Noah is a hybrid tale. It has some adventure and some thrills and some psychosexual drama that you'd expect from the director of Black Swan.

Did he take artistic liberties? Sure. Which ones are the most egregious?

I don't have a problem with the rock monsters. The Bible refers to "giants" walking the land in those days, and the Torah and Midrash refer to the Nephilim - fallen angels - and combine these two, so sure, now the Nephilim are giants, encased in rock bodies unable to return to heaven. I'll give it that.

I don't have a problem with Noah's environmentalism, which he takes a weird extreme. But I can also see why there would be confusion. In this story, mankind's only been on the Earth a handful of generations, and after the fall of Adam and Eve, and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, man's figuring out how to make it on his own in this dreary world. Noah still sees tending the Earth, respecting the plants and animals, as part of his righteous duty.

God (almost always referred to as The Creator here) doesn't speak to Noah so much as send him visions. Noah then interprets these visions as to what he must do. And the visions aren't vague. Noah sees the evil of mankind in the way they... eat animals and mine for minerals.  (Not so much the robbery, rape and murder.) In this respect, the Creator/Noah motives reminded me too much of Keanu Reeves in that lame Day the Earth Stood Still remake.

I didn't even mind the villainous Tubal-cain secretly stowing away on the ark.

My biggest problem was Noah's insistance that Ham and Japeth don't get wives. The Bible's pretty clear that all three sons had wives. When the rains started coming, and only Shem has a wife, and Noah's not collecting any women for his other two sons... um, wait a minute. It's a pretty big part of the story that Earth was populated through the generations of Noah's three sons.

Noah believes part of The Creator's plan is for mankind to go extinct. He thinks the Creator called him to save the plants and animals, and then he, his wife, Shem and his wife, and Ham and Japeth will be the last humans on Earth.

Now in the Midrash it says that Noah and his sons entered separately from Noah's wife and his sons' wives, and there's a theory that the animals were separated by gender, and there was therefore no sex by anyone/anything on the ark until after the flood.

In the end, the very very end, Noah does the right thing, and it's implied the Earth will get repopulated when Shem's daughters are old enough for Ham and Japeth to marry, but that whole second half of the movie, I just couldn't get past that change.  Rock monsters? Fine. Stowaway? Fine. Noah wants to make mankind go extinct? No.

Side-notes of praise: The entire flood sequence was great. Aronofsky has proven he can handle a budget. And the acting is great. Crowe, Connelly, Watson, Hopkins, Winstone, even Lerman as Ham. Poor lonely horny Ham.

Noah - Movie Trailer

NOAH, starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone and Logan Lerman. Directed by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan).

Broken City - DVD Review

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jeffrey Wright, Barry Pepper, Kyle Chandler, Natalie Martinez and Michael Beach. Directed by Allen Hughes. 

★½

I can see why this drama flopped in its initial release. For one thing, the trailer gave away the ending of the movie. Even if it hadn't, the "mystery" is mostly a wheel-spinning exercise while its commentary on corrupt politicians was better handled in any two episodes of cable dramas like Starz's Boss or Showtime's Brotherhood. The bright spot was Jeffrey Wright as a cop who keeps us guessing which side he's on.

Man of Steel - Movie Review

Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Michael Kelly, Harry Lennix and Richard Schiff.
Directed by Zack Snyder.

★★½

This Christopher Nolan reboot adds some gravity to the Superman story. Maybe a little too much.  There's a lot of brooding, and it could have used some more fun.  Overall I liked it but it had its issues.

First, we'll start with Krypton. (Ever notice how all other planets have one government running the entire planet?  Earth has something like 180 countries, but how come other planets...?) Anyway, Krypton is about to be destroyed by a people too stupid to stop mining its core for energy.  Now to demonstrate how Krypton is run by the folks from Idiocracy, they have sent out scouting ships to other planets to test sustainability, but all of the projects were abandoned. Not really clear why.  But Jor-El (Russell Crowe) manages to sneak his baby boy on a capsule before the whole thing blows up.

Oh, but before that happens, General Zod (Michael Shannon) tries to overthrow the government and fails.  He and his followers are sentenced to 300 years in the Phantom Zone, a safe place that isn't about to blow up.  So Kal-El isn't the only surviving Kryptonian.  Those resourceful Phantom Zone dwellers survive as well.

Kal-El grows up to be Clark Kent, a drifter who goes from town to town trying to find himself, but as soon as he uses his powers to save lives, he moves on.  He just has to find the right time to go public.  Well, the right time is when Zod shows up and lets the whole world know an alien lives among them.

I just wish it hadn't been so brood-tastic.  This is Superman!  He's an alien!  We started out on another planet that looked like Dune meets Attack of the Clones.  I like that it actually digs into how alienating it must've been for Clark to just pretend he doesn't have powers.  Thing is, Clark's still trying to find himself at age 33.  C'mon, Clark.  Be a man already.

Zod is the villain, and Michael Shannon had no chance of outshining Terence Stamp's "Kneel Before Zod."  This Zod doesn't make the smartest decisions and he doesn't seem to understand anything about diplomacy or leadership, but he thinks he does.  He's like the Santa Anna of space generals.

The rest of the cast does the best they can with what they're given as well.  I liked Cavill; I think in the next movie he'll be allowed to have a little more fun.  Amy Adams wasn't right as Lois Lane, but this Lois wasn't anything like what Lois should be.  This Lois was a device to advance the plot.  She didn't really seem like a reporter.

Couple other points:
- Pa Kent's death was stupid. They should have left it as a heart attack.
- The final battle must have killed a lot of people.  You'd think Superman would have tried to get the fight into a more rural area.
- I did get a kick out of a couple Easter eggs in there.

The Sessions, Sinister, The Man with the Iron Fists - DVD Reviews

THE SESSIONS (★★★) - Starring John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, W. Earl Brown, Rhea Perlman, Robin Weigart and Adam Arkin. Directed by Ben Lewin.

Very well-made dramedy based on the true story of a man rendered virtually quadriplegic by polio who sets out to lose his virginity at age 38.  John Hawkes (Winter's Bone) has to do all of his acting with his face and voice, and he's great.  Helen Hunt gives her best performance in years as his "surrogate" who works with him for six sessions to get him to the point where he can achieve sex. Tons of casual nudity in this movie though.  There were times it might have been more polite for the movie to just film the bedroom door and give them their privacy.

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SINISTER (★★★) - Starring Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Fred Dalton Thompson and Vincent D'Onofrio.  Directed by Scott Derrickson.

Here comes a movie with some genuine spooky moments.  It stars Ethan Hawke and his sweater as two beings hearing things go bump in the night.  Okay, the sweater has no sentience, but it became about as much of a character as Johnny Depp's ratty robe from Secret Window.

Hawke's a true-crime author studying some horrific murders that happened in the backyard of his new house.  Of course, he doesn't tell his wife and kids that they're living in the very house where people were killed.  That might alarm them.  One day he investigates in the attic and finds some Super 8 film reels and a camera, and lo and behold he finds a recording of that very murder, as well as some others.

A malevolent, supernatural force is behind the murders, and for some reason every time Hawke hears something go bump in the night, he doesn't turn the lights on.  He might grab a flashlight occasionally, but is it so hard to just flip the switch right next to the door...?

This built nicely, like The Ring where you just know there's something big and scary waiting for you at the end of this movie.  It didn't quite have that final punch I was hoping for, and maybe that's because I had the ending guessed too early.  But it's a good script from C. Robert Margill (aka Massawyrm) and if they greenlight a sequel (and the door's left wide open for one), I'd be interested in seeing where it goes.


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THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS (★★) - Starring Russell Crowe, RZA, Lucy Liu, Rick Yune, Jamie Chung, Daniel Wu, Dave Bautista, Byron Mann, Cung Le and Pam Grier.  Directed by RZA.

"Quentin Tarantino Presents" is the first credit in this movie, and you know, I like the stuff he directs, but the stuff he "presents" can be quite questionable.

This is a martial-arts mish-mash that plays like a cross between Iron Monkey and Mortal Kombat 4: The Sequel You Never Asked For.  Having Lucy Liu show up as one of the main fighters just reminded me that oh yeah, she was in Kill Bill, and oh yeah, that was a much better movie.

You have WWE/MMA physican specimen Dave Bautista show up as a guy who can turn his skin gold and therefore be impervious to pain or damage.  Pretty neat power-up if you can get it. It's like Colossus never found the X-Men and decided to try a life of Chaotic Evil for a while.

You have RZA as the man who eventually gets Iron Fists.  You have Russell Crowe wander in from another movie as a British scallywag who's pretty bloody deadly in his own right.  These two are the good guys and they team up with Rick Yune, who's pretty much playing Ryu from Street Fighter, to fight the baddies.  Hi-YAA!

The action's not that well choreographed and I couldn't get into the silliness of the story.  It's junk food action with different moving parts that have all been executed better in other movies.  But at least kudos to Crowe for energizing any scene he's in.

Les Miserables - Movie Review

Starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks, Daniel Huttlestone, Colm Wilkinson, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.  Directed by Tom Hooper.

★★★½

This didn't feel like its own movie. It's an enhancement, part of a package to the Les Miserables experience.  It's another way to live through the material.  Les Miz the play is still the way to see this, but the film allows more acting to move to the fore.

Tom Hooper's decision to do lots of close-ups pays off more often than it doesn't. It also means the actors are singing live for the camera without the benefit of being dubbed in a studio. It means that the acting matters more than the singing.  Russell Crowe, for instance, gives a very good physical performance as Javert, but singing-wise most of his songs are beyond what he's capable of nailing. He'd go in and out of nasal quality and strain for those higher pitches, which is a good two-thirds of Javert's lines.  More than once I felt bad for him.

The majority of the cast comes off quite well.  Hugh Jackman, I thought, was tremendous. Vocally he's there (even if he isn't Alfie Boe), and we really feel the pain behind songs like "Who Am I" and "Bring Him Home."  It'd be a crime if he weren't nominated for this.  Anne Hathaway is as good as you've heard. Her "I Dreamed A Dream" is heartbreaking, and by my eye, done in one take.

Eddie Redmayne (My Week with Marilyn) is also the first time I kind of liked Marius.  It's easy not to like him when he falls in love so easily with Cosette and ignores Eponine, but I credit Redmayne's performance. The first tear the movie got from me was when Marius sings his final note in his "Little Fall of Rain" duet with Eponine. (Eponine is played by Samantha Barks, who also played the role in Les Miserables in Concert 25th Anniversary.)

Faring the worst were the Thenardiers. I expected Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter to be over the top, but all the close-ups for them ruined the humor of "Master of the House." It actually reminded me of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a hilarious musical that made for a bad movie under Richard Lester's direction in 1966.

This movie is an experience. It's flawed, but it leaves an impact, and it let me see Les Miz in a new light. That must count for something.

Catherine Zeta-Jones as Russell Crowe's cheating wife

- Catherine Zeta-Jones will play the philandering wife of the New York mayor (Russell Crowe) in Broken City, directed by Allen Hughes (co-director of Book of Eli). Mark Wahlberg co-stars as a private investigator hired by the mayor to confirm his suspicions.

- Tyler Perry has signed Kim Kardashian to a supporting role in his next movie The Marriage Counselor.

- Joseph Gordon-Levitt (50/50) is in talks to join Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, reuniting him with his Inception co-star Leonardo DiCaprio. It also stars Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Don Johnson, Dennis Christopher, Gerald McRaney, M.C. Gainey and Laura Cayouette.

- Bradley Cooper is the front-runner to star in Steven Soderbergh's big-screen treatment of the action-comedy The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Random Movie News 10/7/11

- Robert Downey Jr. will produce and star in the big-screen adaptation of Perry Mason. The 1950's TV courtroom drama starring Raymond Burr was based on a series of books, and the movie is going back to those source materials for the characters.

- Johnny Depp will star in a biopic about Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel).

- Dominic Purcell (Prison Break) has joined the cast of Paradise Lost. Directed by Alex Proyas, it's based on John Milton's classic about the battle between Michael (Benjamin Walker) and Lucifer (Bradley Cooper). Casey Affleck, Djimon Hounsou, Camilla Belle and Callan McAuliffe co-star.

- New Regency, in its deal with Fox, has picked up distribution rights to Broken City, starring Russell Crowe as a mayor who secretly hires a P.I. (Mark Wahlberg) to see if his wife's being unfaithful, but then she turns up dead.

The Next Three Days - DVD Review

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Starring Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Brian Dennehy, RZA, Lennie James and Liam Neeson.
Directed by Paul Haggis.

This mirthless remake (of a movie I didn't see) follows a husband (Crowe) who desperately seeks a way to free his wife (Banks) from prison, wrongfully accused of murder. Banks is known for her comedic chops, so on one hand I admire her stretching it here, but on the other hand, I didn't feel as compelled for her plight as I should.

Most of this movie is dedicated to planning the break-out, with a little sidetrack of Crowe killing some bad guys. Liam Neeson, heavy in the trailer, only has the one scene, where he gives the advice on break-outs.

Even then it was a thumbs-sideways until the little groaner they threw in there at the end.