Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: The Future of Cartoons

                Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, while a decent movie overall (not as good as the first one, but that’s pretty common) suffered from what looked like a lack of time put into the effects.  The script was good, highly predictable in parts – to the point where I telegraphed the final interaction between Caesar and Koba before it happened, but good nonetheless.  The acting by the humans was well done throughout.  They obviously didn’t get a whole lot of screentime in a movie devoted to our hairier ancestors, but they made the most of it.  No one will win any awards from their acting in this one, but it was full of quality performances.  The script did fail the actors a bit in that it didn’t give them a whole lot to work with.  Maybe this was intentional, but I cared more about whether any of the apes lived or died than I did the humans, and when one of the humans (I won’t give it away) sacrifices himself toward the end of the film, I didn’t really care as I was not given any reason to care.  Seriously, two minutes of this guy crying over family pictures on his ipad doesn’t get me to care as much as you would think, and therefore doesn’t give much meaning to his death.

                The apes were obviously the main focus, and Andy Serkis, who played Caesar, is a goddamned genius when it comes to motion capture.  The way that the apes move in general, Caesar specifically because he is so prevalent on the screen was incredibly convincing.  Not just the way he moves, but the way he emotes.  While I know that a lot of Caesar’s emotions came through because for the animation, Serkis did a phenomenal job laying the foundation for that. 

                The plot itself seemed pretty standard, though it was a great follow-up to the first movie, fitting right in to the end of that one and springboarding us “ten winters” into the future.  A future, mind you, that has seen San Francisco already turned back into wilderness and the apes setting up their own society in the redwood forest that they escaped to at the end of the last movie.  I do find it hard to believe that ten years of unchecked growth would make everything pretty damn unrecognizable, but I understand what the filmmakers were trying to get at.  That being said, the set-pieces were incredible.  Crafting not only the ape home, but also the city of San Francisco was a feat of magic in itself and made for a wonderful backdrop for the rest of the film.

                I had a couple issues with the movie, which was good overall, but could have been better in these respects.  The talking apes were a little off-putting.  I could deal with them speaking in single-syllabled words, “apes” “run” even “humans”, and I had no problem with Caesar talking, but when a bunch of other apes, including Caesar’s son (who oddly looks like Jared Leto) started speaking, or when Koba, the asshole ape, talks to Caesar closer to the end, it breaks from reality a little too much for me or my wife.  We would have preferred if sign language was still the main source of communication.  Maybe work up to apes fluent in English in the next movie, but this seems almost too soon for that kind of jump.  Also, I couldn’t help but feel like this was an animated film through a large portion of it.  While everything that was CGI-crafted was well done, it was not well done enough to make it totally believable.  This was no more apparent than the opening scene that showed the ape hunting party.  The apes looked okay, not totally believable but okay, but the elk and the especially the bear in the scene looked out of place.  They didn’t look like they really belonged, which was sad.  At this stage in the game, if you have the technology to make a gun-toting raccoon look believable, you should be able to craft a bear and force me to believe that it is an actual bear.  That was unfortunate as it gnawed at me for the rest of the movie and really hampered my enjoyment.  The movie felt almost like a cartoon with real actors thrown in, like Mary Poppins or Roger Rabbit which really took a lot of its credibility away.

                Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was good, but for the amount of money that it takes to go to the movies nowadays, it’s not really worth it.  I’d much rather stay home and watch it on DVD in a couple months. 

World War Z: aka Zombie Indiana Jones

                World War Z starts off as a creepy pandemic-movie, morphs into a zombie thriller for about twenty minutes and then stops.

Oh, you wanted more of a recap than that?

It was a solid movie with good acting and a decent plot.  For the record, I have not read the novel by Max Brooks, so I have nothing to compare it to, but as far as zombie movies go, it was ok.  The camera work was actually incredibly well done, mirroring the pace dictated by the script.  When the scenes were calm and more of a talking head variety, they camera was slow and “normal” but when the action kicked into high gear (and by action I basically mean people running from zombies) then the camerawork was frenetic, often losing the main focus of the scene (usually Brad Pitt) but showing everything else around him. 

One thing that I really enjoyed was the realism that was shown in the reactions to the pandemic.  It definitely felt like the writers tried to stay as true to human nature as they could.  Oftentimes when you see any kind of post apocalyptic movie (and this qualifies) you are shown extreme examples of behavior to drive home the severity of the situation.  In World War Z, everything feels organic in nature and relatively believable (though the “tenth man” discussion in the Jerusalem sequence was a bit far-fetched). 

The main issue I had with this movie though was the fact that it didn’t really know what it was, or what kind of movie it wanted to be.  It was almost like the producers took 28 Days Later, any traditional zombie movie, and Indiana Jones and put them in a blender.  At times, it worked.  The individual pieces were well crafted, but when you put them all together, it was easy to find something that was lacking.  For example, if you are making a zombie movie in any respect, you would think that it would have a bit more gore to it.  I realize that they probably had to trim that out to maintain the PG-13 rating, but I would have to ask why? Why was that rating so essential to this project?  You’re making a zombie movie, with a big-name movie star, based on a very popular book.  You can’t tell me that those three factors wouldn’t have got you your desired audience and you could have still made things a bit more authentic.  It doesn’t appear like any of the zombies really eat their victims; they just bite them and run away, so I can understand not showing any gore there.  However there is a sequence where Pitt’s character cuts the hand of a soldier off to stop the infection from spreading after she is bit.  It looks like, in that sequence as well as the part where he changes her bandages, that they are going to great lengths to not show you that injury, even from a profile view.  I’m not some bloodthirsty bastard that needs to see the bone and blood pouring out of the wound, but the camera work in those sequences is almost like the director said “whatever you do, don’t show the wound”.  It’s an insult to anyone that came to the movie looking for a real zombie movie.  It’s just too blatant-looking of a move to be anything but mandated from someone and not just a conscious decision of the director.

Speaking of the zombies, I liked them…to a point.  I know they aren’t traditional zombies, but I don’t think that is what the filmmakers here were trying to convey.  This wasn’t a traditional zombie movie at all.  It was a pandemic movie, where that pandemic was something that turned the hosts into zombies.  I would have liked to know a bit more about what caused it and, more importantly, how it kept them going.  The zombies were dormant when devoid of outside stimulus (like noise, they apparently hate noise) but when they get riled up, they go batshit insane.  While they don’t really run any faster than a normal human would, they keep going without an end in sight until they reach their prey.  Even then, it’s usually a bite and then they move on.  How in the hell are they able to do that?  If they aren’t actually eating any of their victims then they aren’t receiving nourishment (not that traditional zombies could really metabolize their victims, but they weren’t moving at an enhanced speed) so how could they keep up that pace?  I would think that after that initial push, their bodies would start to break down.  Yes, they wouldn’t stop, and would probably eventually turn into the slow moving zombies we all know and love, but it would be more believable.  Not only that, but early on in the movie we are treated to the hypothesis that this comes from a virus, and that is what creates the zombies.  Later on, when they are trying to devise a defense, we are informed that the zombies, not being alive, cannot carry a virus or bacteria around their bodies (and therefore can’t be stopped by biological warfare).  So which is it?  Is this not a virus, or is the virus only what kills them initially?  If that is the case, what reanimates them and keeps them going?  In short, I could have done with a bit more science and a bit less zombies walking around with their teeth chattering like a naked guy in the arctic circle.

While part of me was happy that “patient Zero” was not found, and the origin of the virus (if it was actually a virus) was never completely figured out, leaving the ending so open-ended it felt like a cop-out in a way.  I realize that finding a way to fight back (I’m trying to do this without spoiling anything for anyone, bear with me), and not actually fighting back, was probably the main conflict all along and therefore the climax of the story revolved around that.  However, a more comprehensive denouement than “we fought back” should have been utilized.  How much of the world’s population was infected?  What happened to the survivors? Hell, what happened to the world when the zombies were eradicated?  How could they be sure they had all of the zombies eradicated anyway?  Obviously if there was one left it could transform the world in months.  What about the people that were infected by the camouflage, any side effect to that?  None of these questions were sufficiently answered, hell the movie ended before answers were even available in the timeline of the movie itself.  It almost feels like we were cheated out of an additional twenty minutes of movie.  If they had provided a more succinct and comprehensive wrap-up it would have put a nice bow on the movie and made it a memorable chapter in the pantheon of zombie fiction.  Instead we are left wondering.

The Monster Cartoon Trifecta

            Over the last year there seemed to be a decent amount of movies made that had to deal with traditional “monsters” (and I’m not talking about sparkly Twilight vampires).  Three of the higher profile releases were part of our monster movie marathon at my house this weekend, as Goose had a great week at school and he is a sucker for all things monster-related.

Thursday:  Para-Norman

            The animation here was incredible.  The stop-motion/claymation-esque feel to it transported me back to my youth when that was more commonplace.  The character designs were just realistic enough to be recognizable as people but sufficiently over the top so that they were obviously cartoons.  The character designs for the zombies were some of the best I have seen, incorporating an uneasy humor with the ability to terrify at the same time.  The fully realized environment was a perfect setting for what went on, providing just enough support to the characters and the plot without being too intrusive. 

            My main gripe here is with the story.  I understood the story just fine, but it was very dull.  There were a couple funny moments, but most of those were what we were shown in the previews.  The majority of the movie does not even feature the zombies, and when it does it only has the seven that were of great importance to moving the plot along.  From watching the various TV spots, I was led to believe that this would be a little more of a monster movie and a little less of a tug at your heartstrings kind of thing. 

            The story itself is so very predictable as well.  Even something that you would expect to gloss over (the fact that the book that Norman has to read is just a bedtime story to put the witch back to sleep at night) is something that I picked up on right away.  I realize that this is a kid’s movie, but it was trying really hard to be more mature than kid-friendly or else it would have really played up the zombie slapstick elements.  It just felt like this movie tried a little too hard to be too many things, and while the visuals were superb, the story didn’t follow suit.

Friday:  Hotel Transylvania

            I went into this one expecting to be thoroughly entertained.  It contained all of the monsters, not just zombies, it had an “all star” voice cast (pretty much everyone you would normally find in an Adam Sandler movie) and the character designs were awesome.  This was a computer animated movie that basically did nothing really wrong but nothing really well.  The animation was pretty, maybe a little too pretty for the subject matter, and the whole thing had kind of a glossy sheen to it.  The character design for everything was very cartoony and exaggerated but incredibly fun at the same time.  It was almost like they were trying to catch a Monsters Inc. vibe with everything but doing it with traditional monsters. 

            This movie had more laugh out loud moments in it for sure, but it also had more cringe-inducing moments than any of the other movies we watched.  The script itself was incredibly formulaic and even more predictable than Para-Norman.  This was kitschy and definitely geared toward young children.  The best part about animation over the last ten to fifteen years is the fact that regardless of what the children’s story is, there are nuggets for the parents as well.  This not only creates more opportunities for parents to watch with their children, but also makes it so that the child will still be interested in the movie years down the road.  Hotel Transylvania lacks a lot of that.  If it wasn’t for the classic monster movie characters I would go out on a limb and say that there would be nothing there for adults. 

            And the music, oh the terrible, horrible musical numbers.  It’s like they were trying to be a traditional Disney cartoon complete with music (or the horrible later Shrek movies) but putting a horrible modern spin on it by having Adam Sandler rap.  It was neither fun nor entertaining and is the kind of thing that would make a parent not watch with their child.

Saturday:  Frankenweenie

            I fully expected to not enjoy this movie.  I’m not sure why but I didn’t anticipate really caring too much about a boy and his dog.  I was incredibly wrong.  This was by far the best movie of the three.

            The character designs were very Burton-esque as to be expected.  They were okay, nothing special in terms of the people.  The animals were wonderfully designed though and the fact that the story took a left turn and introduced more traditional movie monsters was a stroke of genius.  They also seamlessly worked this into the story to the point where kids watching it probably wouldn’t get it as much as the adults watching with them.  This was something I was waiting for all weekend long. 

            The story started out as predictable as I had expected and instead of following the natural conclusion in the science fair, it went off the rails (delightfully so) in the third act and became a monster movie.  This is what I was waiting for in Para-Norman but it never came.  Here the writers were able to meld the sentimentality from the previous two movies with a good deal of humor without really resorting to the traditional tropes of children’s movies.  It was almost as if Burton wanted this to be an adult’s movie that was marketed toward children on accident. 

            The animation itself is halfway between the rawness of The Nightmare Before Christmas and the polish of The Corpse Bride.  I really enjoyed the fact that it was shot all in black and white and it really helped with the overall mood.  The voice acting synched up with the animation perfectly and fit really well with each part cast.  The best part about the voice acting is that no where was there a Johnny Depp to be found; a downright revelation in a modern Tim Burton movie. 

            In short, buy Frankenweenie, rent Para-Norman and borrow Hotel Transylvania.    

Movie Review - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

            I don’t go to the movies.  As a general rule, I avoid their overpriced tickets altogether.  However, this is The Hobbit.  This is a piece of my childhood.  So I sucked it up, and like a big hypocrite, I sat in the theater and let Peter Jackson transport me to New Zealand…er…Middle Earth. 

            First of all, how many people found themselves referencing each scene to the old Rankin-Bass Hobbit cartoon from our youth?  I’m not the only one?  Good.  Okay, on to the review.

            This was just as beautiful as I remembered it from his Lord of the Rings movies years ago (which I also saw in the theater with my father, aka the guy that got me to read Tolkien in the first place).  Everything looked familiar, like I was going to visit an old friend, and at this point if you have read the books and seen the movies, Bilbo Baggins is an old friend to you too.  I must admit, it was great seeing Ian McKellen returning to the role of Gandalf too.  Considering the large part that he plays in The Hobbit, the fact that he was willing and able to reprise his role as the grey wizard did a lot to put my mind at ease when it came to revisiting Middle Earth. 

            People that go into any Peter Jackson movie concerning this subject matter need to be ready for a slow burn.  This is not a bang-bang action Michael Bay-esque cinematic experience (though some of the camera work in the fight scenes did seem reminiscent of the Transformers director).  Jackson will build up this world, build up these characters, until the payoff seems almost secondary to the world he has created and this is no different.  I have heard both positive and negative things regarding this film, and one of the most loudly shouted negatives is the fact that they spend too much time in Bilbo’s house, that they don’t get into the adventure fast enough.  I must politely disagree as I loved this scene, regardless of the time it took to complete it.  This had all of the comic relief that remembered from Gimli in the Lord of the Rings movies and multiplies that by thirteen.  Each dwarf has their own personality and while there are a few that seem a bit more fleshed out than others (with good reason) they all share screen time and blend well.  If you thought the ensemble from The Lord of the Rings was a lot to manage, Jackson turned it up a notch here and does a phenomenal job of getting us to at least be interested in all of these characters, even the ones we are not intimately familiar with from earlier movies. 

            Once we actually get out into Middle Earth, the interactions do not stop between  the Dwarves, Gandalf and Bilbo.  In fact, by throwing an element of danger into the mix, we get to see that this group is more than capable of taking care of itself.  All of the highlights from the book are hit upon here as well.  We get to see the trolls, Rivendell, Gollum and the goblins.  Each interaction was well done and stayed relatively true to the source material from what I remember.  Having read the book and knowing the story, the element of danger is basically non-existent as we know that everyone makes it through to the Lonely Mountain in the end.  Jackson is then tasked with making the action sequences exciting in spite of the story.  This he does with expert craftsmanship, especially in the escape from the goblin kingdom and the final “battle” of the movie.  I say this loosely because those looking for another Helm’s Deep from the earlier movies will be a bit disappointed.  While that battle as well as the final battles from The Return of the King feature massive armies on each side, these are thirteen dwarves, a Hobbit and a wizard against smaller groups of enemies.  They are not nearly as epic and awe-inspiring at first glance, but they are powerful in the little moments that occur within each battle. 

That is what I will remember the most about The Hobbit.  Those little character moments, where we get to see what each individual is made of.  Where the scope of The Lord of the Rings was massive (hence the title about a grand ideal) The Hobbit is more centralized, more intimate (hence its title about a character).  Whether Tolkien did this on purpose all those years ago, I have no idea, but it fits well here. 

The bullet points:

High – The cast is perfect.  Each dwarf has their own personality and the guy they got to play Thorin does a great job of making the role his own and not just trying to ape the stellar job Viggo Mortensen did with Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings.  I was a little worried that that is exactly what would have happened, but the opening scene at Bag End dispelled all those fears.  Bilbo is wonderfully played as well and all the trepidation and skittishness that most, if not all, of us would feel if presented with any of the scenarios in this film is worn right on his sleeve.  I can not stress enough how good of a job is done to make us feel like this is someone completely out of their element.  Ian McKellen is a master at his craft, that’s all you need to know.

High – The setting is beautiful and the camerawork in the larger travel sequences is breathtaking.  This is something that those familiar with The Lord of the Rings should be used to, but it doesn’t get old.  Peter Jackson does a great job of making Middle Earth feel as important as another character in the film and not just a throwaway set-piece. 

Low – The add-ons.  There is a lot of stuff to soak up in Tolkien’s world.  He lays it all out for us in his multiple books on the subject, and I heard that Jackson and his co-writers were trying to fit other bits and pieces of Middle Earth lore into The Hobbit.  However, at times it almost felt like they were doing it to just make more movie.  The white Orc, or just the orcs in general being included in this movie, while tying it into the previous films, feels like they are reaching to create villains so that they can justify three movies.  The same can be said for the Necromancer storyline that is only hinted at in the first movie.  I have no problem with this movie being stretched into three films (even though it’s only one book) and I know that Jackson is not going to make three bad movies just because he knows we will all shell out our money to see them, his reverence to the source material is pretty evident at this stage of the game.  I am also not implying that any of these characters or their stories were poorly written (in fact the white orc is quite interesting) but are they necessary is the question that should have been asked. The stone giants throwing rocks at eachother on the other hand is just graphics department masturbation and was probably the worst part of the movie for me. 

Low – While I realize that in the original text, everyone understood everyone else regardless of race, with English being the common language, it just felt weird to have the trolls and especially the goblins be so well versed in that common language, especially since the orcs spoke only in their own tongue (with the aid of subtitles for our benefit).  It just felt…off, and in a movie that was pretty seamless in terms of incorporating a lot of things together, that little bit stood out. 

High – When the dwarves had to take to the trees at the end of the movie, did anyone else catch Gandalf and Thorin’s exchange?  “Out of the frying pan…and into the fire” which just happens to be the name of the chapter that that takes place in the book.  I don’t think that blatant homage of calling out chapter names happens anywhere else (and I honestly don’t even remember any other chapter titles to check it) but that kind of specific nod to the source material adds a little bit more to the people that have read the book and remember random specifics such as that. 

High – I actually liked the fact that we saw so little of Smaug in this movie.  This was a set-up to that conflict and really was not about the dragon as much as it was about the quest to get to him.  Showing more of Smaug was unnecessary at this juncture and was one of the only instances in a Peter Jackson movie where I have seen the “less is more” mantra utilized.

Low – It’s long.  Like, uncomfortable to sit in my seat for that long kind of long.  It was chock full of movie and every bit was visually intriguing, but holy shit I am too old to sit in theater seats for three hours.

In short, go see this movie.  It is well worth the inflated price of admission and I would imagine that even if you are not a fan of Tolkien’s work you will find something to like in it.