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The Green Hornet (2011)
Enjoyable in some respects, but still appallingly bad.
When watching The Green Hornet, I had a feeling for the first time that this must have been what it was like to watch the Adam West Batman TV show during the 1960s. Corny and horrid, but still colorful and good for an occasional laugh.
By way of simple popcorn entertainment, as an action comedy, The Green Hornet is pretty digestible.
As a superhero film, it is absolutely one of the worst butcheries of a comic book character I've ever seen. Worse than the worst of the Incredible Hulk movies, worse than all the pre-2011 Captain America movies, worse than Judge Dredd. Quite possibly even worse than the 1967 movie version of the aforementioned Adam West TV series, where Bats runs around saying, "Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb!" I cannot imagine how the filmmakers managed to secure the literary rights to the character. Hollywood almost always mistreats superheroes by way of simple incompetence, but it's been a long time since they've made films that actually satirize and jeer at the concept itself. The Green Hornet actually has a multimedia history of being a very stodgy and humorless character. The makers of the Green Hornet film completely turned that on its head, making Britt Reid not only a "wild and crazy guy," but a crass, immature schmuck who one imagines would be working at the local video store for a living, were he not born into wealth and power. Seth Rogen is perfect for this sort of idiot savant treatment. He channels a sort of hyper-annoying combo of Robert Wuhl with Will Ferrell.
It is worth pointing out that in the game of scrabble, the word "camp" is only one letter away from being "crap." Ironically, the film's only redeeming quality--the superhero costumes look 100% faithful to the original comic book characters. No neon CG muscle striations, no protruding nipples, no rubber armored suits that look like the Michelin tire man. What a pity the actors inside depict a grotesque mockery.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)
A little charm amidst the schlock.
'Sgt. Pepper' is not too bad, considering the era in which it was filmed.
What young people under 40 need to understand is that, in the 1970s, movies were horribly, hideously, gut-wrenchingly bad---badly written, badly directed, and badly portrayed by the actors. In addition to that, they were horribly edited, and the special effects in most films were roughly on a par with Sesame Street. People on the set were sometimes bombed out of their mind on booze, pills, and cocaine, and the actresses were often anorexics on drugs who hadn't eaten all day, who slurred their lines, or couldn't remember them. Which might have been a good thing, because the screenplays could as well have been written by a gang of chimpanzees with typewriters. The results of all this showed on the big screen.
Spielberg was a little ahead of his time in this period, and so was Francis Ford Coppola. Everyone else, more or less, was making crap--either pretentious slice-of-life snobbery aimed at the critics that bored audiences to death, or cheesy, adolescent schlock that made audiences giggle in inappropriate moments.
This movie, like "Xanadu", and "Rocky Horror Picture Show", was a silly 1970s schlock musical that had a little charm amongst the cheesiness, largely due to the raw material involved in the project.
'Sgt. Pepper' had George Burns---who, arguably, played no logical role in a film based on Beatles music--but who was still George Burns, which is to say a likable character who is consistently fun to watch.
The musical performances by the BeeGees and Billy Preston were pretty good. Their costumes were well-designed.
It had very nice colors in the cinematography.
And it had the songs from The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, which gave the film an advantage, on the basis of the philosophy that, if you're going to make a submarine sandwich, at least start with good meat and bread, before you graduate to the dried-out onions, wilted lettuce and mushy black olives.
With those basic ingredients, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is watchable and digestible, and has a few cute on-screen moments, which may or may not have been intentional--but at least they didn't end up on the cutting room floor.
In the late 70s, just getting that much right was no small achievement.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
The Old Man Still Has What it Takes...
I saw this film today, and I was amazed at how good it was--it lives up to the series.
Yes, it is full of ridiculous stunts that stretch plausibility to the limit--so were the three films before it. Yes, there is still too much CGI in it despite Spielberg's promise that most of it was live stunt action. (This proves, at least, that Spielberg is in touch with younger audiences--who have collectively hated CGI since the first appearance of Jar Jar Binks.) And yes, it did get carried away at times...the giant ant scenes and the ridiculous mobile sword fight with Shia almost did the film in.
But in the end, Spielberg vindicated himself; it was Spielberg--and not Ford--who needed to prove that an old duffer "still has what it takes", and he did so very well. Spielberg has been making both artsy, pretentious films and utter stinkers simultaneously in the nineteen years since 'Last Crusade', and after 'War of the Worlds', it looked an awful lot like he had lost the ability to create a good action film. Since good action films were what made Spielberg a celebrity in the first place, this was a depressing irony. Fortunately, in Crystal Skull, Spielberg seems to have pulled out of his malaise.
Of all the Indy films, this one was most like a modernized 1930s Saturday morning serial. Critics who "expected more" misunderstand the essence of an Indy film.
Will there be another sequel? I hope so.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
At Wit's End
My first thought, early into Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, was simple enough: This is a pirate movie Uncle Walt would have hated.
Walt Disney would have never allowed this film to come out of his studios. The film begins with the hanging execution of a twelve-year old boy, and never grows much lighter in tone. It crawls through filthy brothels and opium dens and among the undead, foremost among them being Jack Sparrow--who was killed off needlessly in the preceding chapter as a cheap plot device.
The lack of sophistry in the writing is made up for by the thematic "I see dead people". Everything is darker, more ghostly, more black; more bleak. Missing is any earthly connection to piracy, swashbuckling, or even witty one liners. Jack Sparrow himself seems to have been enervated completely by his return from the dead and robbed of all charm, rakish spirit, and derring-do.
If there were ever a case for a movie being destroyed by easy availability of 3D digital effects, it can be made here. The film wallows in supernatural fantasy, and never stops. It isn't a movie about pirates at all--it's a movie about resurrection from the dead, sailing off the end of the world, giant sea goddesses who turn into crabs, cannon battles that take place in maelstroms, and other such nonsense. The silliest and most pointless gag occurs when the formerly late Mr. Sparrow leads his crew in turning a galleon upside down by rocking it (an absurdity in itself), and then the lot of them hold their breaths--for several minutes--while the cosmic bathtub sea the ship is floating in drains, proving cryptically that "Down is Up". After watching this, I could only wonder: What were the screenplay writers smoking..?
The film also depends upon blood sacrifice of protagonists and tugging on family heartstrings to engender goosebumps. Most of this is simple killing off of secondary characters--although the screenwriters can't resist using the most exhausted cliché in modern movie history: The hero's interaction with his long-lost father. It was an interesting twist twenty-six years ago in The Empire Strikes Back. It was a fun diversion eighteen years ago, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It has since become a bloody annoyance. At least the writers don't kill him off. (Although, I suppose, if they did, they would have simply brought him back from the dead..along with half the rest of the cast.)
This otherworldly sequel is as dreary, eerie, and bizarre as a Stephen King novel. Much bragging exists about how this Hollywood gold was mined from a mere theme park ride. Well, the ride is better conceived and more entertaining--and will be around long after 'At World's End' has been forgotten.
And by the way---Errol Flynn is still the King.
Superman Returns (2006)
Why Did Superman Returns Bomb?
And before you say, "It made a lot of money!" go research the budget they invested in it. Then contemplate how much they spent on advertising hype, endless merchandise tie-ins with Wal-Mart, and so on. Trust me, it hasn't broken even yet, and probably won't until Christmas when the toys and kiddie underwear sales kick in.
This movie was a Twenty Megaton bomb. A week after Pirates of the Caribbean came out, I accidentally walked into a theater where Superman Returns was about to roll trailers, and there wasn't a single person in there.
Here's what caused this disaster, in my opinion:
(a) The film was based on an idiotic concept. I don't have any idea why Brian Singer wanted to anchor the movie in the continuity of the original Richard Donner films. I'm suspecting his motivation was because he wanted to recreate the original music, the Kent farm, Jor-El's speeches, and so on. Logic apparently did not enter into the equation. What he should have done was reboot Superman, keep the original music and recreate the Kent farm as a tribute to the earlier films. Instead he locked the film into the Christopher Reeve continuity and thereby painted himself into a corner. By making it "Superman 2 1/2", set in 1982, he forced a comparison between the actor playing Superman and Christopher Reeve. This was a mistake, because...
(b) ..Brandon Routh doesn't look like Superman. Reeve did. Routh doesn't. Those who claim that Routh is a good physical match evidently never read the comic books. Reeve worked on screen, because he bore a superficial resemblance to Superman--enough to be credible, at least.
Routh looks nothing like Reeve, and absolutely nothing like Superman. He is physically undeveloped; Superman is barrel-chested. He has brown, lifeless hair; Superman has thick black hair. He looks very young; Superman looks ageless. He has a thin face with a small jaw; Superman has a square jaw with a large chin. These are not quibbles. They are fundamental to the look of Superman, and Superman is the most highly recognized comic book icon in the world. He has a certain look.
Routh couldn't fill the boots. Of course the boots they gave him would look bad on any actor, because...
(c) ..They redesigned the costume in the worst way imaginable. Routh would have at least had a fighting chance to look like Superman if they had given him a decent costume. Forget logic, again--forget that it made no sense for Routh's costume to be different than the Donner film suit, if the film is set in the Donner film continuity. Just for fun, they gave him a plastic costume that looked as if it was designed by 'Toys R Us'. Its ridiculous toy belt buckle dives toward the hero's crotch. Is it Superman or Speedo-man? And why was his red cape transformed into maroon patent leather? (Somewhere, a restaurant is missing its tablecloth.) Nobody, not even Arnold in his Mr. Olympia days, could possibly look heroic in that costume. Like the George Clooney costume in Batman & Robin, it appears to serve only one function: to look mildly erotic to a gay person who has really bad taste. (Singer qualifies.)
Since the costume is a large part and parcel of what a super hero is, it seems moronic and silly to redesign it---especially if the end result is something disastrous.
(d) The writing was uninspired and trite. The only bright point in the film was the characterization of Lex Luthor by Kevin Spacey. And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't his island continent scheme essentially a rehash of his San Andreas real estate scheme from 'Superman-The Movie'? Can't they come up with one original idea that isn't based on 'who's sleeping with whom'?
As a Superman fan, I find the whole mess indigestible. What bothers me most, I think, is how the big studios recognize superheroes as cash cows, but treat them with zero respect. That lack of respect shows in their quality control--or lack thereof.
I don't understand movie studios nowadays--don't they care about throwing good money after bad anymore? Yes, I know that with CGI, they can virtually create any special effect. I also know that it's very expensive, and audiences are growing restless with movies that showcase CGI without a decent plot or story. If they weren't, this wretched film, which they tried so hard to make a hit with gross merchandising, wouldn't have sunk like a lead balloon shot full of Kryptonite darts.
The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited (2004)
Another Lovable Original Cast Reunited by Bad Writing.
Actually the age factor in the show wasn't a problem--the gut-wrenchingly bad writing was the problem. This is hideously unfunny material.
I couldn't tell by listening to the laugh track if it was automated-- as laugh tracks often were in the era from which this show evolved--or if they just had a really easily amused audience. I heard the audience laughing, of all things, at Dick dancing around in a baggy red sweater while a 3D animated caricature of him cavorted on a monitor screen. This mystified me, since the show was created in 2004. Where did they locate an audience that would find a 3D cartoon dancing funny? Or even interesting? Perhaps the audience was made up of Sun City retirees like the cast, and they had never heard of "Shrek" before.
I haven't figured out if most of the writing team has watched episodes of the original show--I caught no clue of this one way or the other. The skyscraper-glitz penthouse suite the Petries were living in---in place of their previously normal suburban home--was pointless, and actually called so much attention to itself that it undermined the show. "Look! we have money and we're still alive and kicking!"-apparently was the message.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the writing. Supposedly Carl Reiner was responsible for this mess, but I find that rather incredible.
Hope Dick gets more work. Like Sean Connery, Bill Shatner, and Paul Newman, the aging actor still has more to offer the audience than do the clueless folk running today's film and TV studios. Age is a transient state. Stupid is forever.
Captain Blood (1935)
The Greatest Pirate Film to Date
'Captain Blood' is not easily understood by a lot of viewers. Although far from a "love or hate" film, it is frequently characterized as "boring" and "unconvincing" by people who do not understand its subject matter---buccaneers of the Caribbean.
For a lot of people,"pirate" translates as "gruff bearded man with a wooden leg, a parrot on his shoulder, and a vocabulary consisting mostly of four words--"shiver me timbers" and "Aaaarrrrrrrgh!"
In other words their definition of pirate derives from fictional pirate Long John Silver. Captain Blood is a more romanticized figure, and tends to leave fans of buffoonish pirates flat. Peter Blood, the protagonist, is much more influenced by the dashing exploits of Captain Henry Morgan---with a physician's mantle thrown in, formulaically speaking, to give him added genteel qualities.
'Blood' is, for the most part, however, the most realistic of pirate films made to date. Substantially more so than, say, 'Pirates of the Caribbean'--which dazzles with special effects, but displays little understanding of the historical period.
The Jerry Bruckheimer film appears visually influenced by Barbara Cartland novels, and, like most pirate films, depicts Port Royal unrealistically. I cannot vouch for exactly what Port Royal looked like a few centuries ago--considering that it was destroyed once by an earthquake in 1692, and burned a decade later---but it's doubtful that it resembled a quaint cliff side tourist retreat in the Grenadines. In Captain Blood, Port Royal is seen as flat and sandy, with colonial Spanish buildings. This is more authentic; the real-life city was a captured Spanish colony built on a sandpit.
Similarly, in most respects Captain Blood is carefully constructed, and does not resort to the hackneyed and often silly stunts seen in most pirate films.....such as exploding buildings with gunpowder (for no particular reason), searching for buried treasure, Twentieth Century-style fistfights (and karate-kicks), female pirates in every ship's crew, anorexic women in ruffled skirts who kick ass, etc.
In terms of characterization, Captain Blood is a tour-de-force, depicting the practice of white slavery (quite common in the colonial era) and the escape of Blood's slave band to become a crew of buccaneers. He is pursued by his former slave owner, an insolent, hateful man named Bishop, as a matter of personal grudge. As opposed to the usual cops-and-robbers chase scenes with British soldiers we see in most pirate shows. (In real-life Caribbean colonies, privateers and pirates were often ignored by the authorities..if not,in fact,quietly encouraged behind the scenes.)
The ships in Captain Blood also move like real ships (slowly, and by wind power only), and the final battle sequence between Blood's galleon and a French Frigate is extraordinarily vivid, especially considering the special effects used when the original film was made (1935).
As with many pictures from the 1930s, the film is chock-filled with corny characters who provide "color", but in so doing, still leave a more lasting impression than modern-day characters who do nothing but grunt, sweat, and bleed.
This is a stunning and very likable action film--and head and shoulders above all other Hollywood pirate movies.
Perhaps the next Johnny Depp film will get it right, and surpass Captain Blood..but I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.