By John McNamara
Since I found out that I would have the privilege of reviewing films for the Collegian this year, I finally had a legitimate excuse to see, well, a lot of movies. I've chosen to comment on a few films that either: 1) were totally awesome, 2) were wrist-slittingly awful, or 3) caused a controversy and rocked the world.
I am going to assign a number to each review with a scale for which 0 is the bottom of the barrel, while 10 represents an artful masterwork.
To give you an introduction to my taste and typical criticisms, I offer some capsule reviews of a few of the summer's hottest movies: the good, the bad, and the ugly:
The Bourne Supremacy: 9
Matt Damon returns to the big screen in a dynamic role in an extraordinary summer blockbuster. Having moved to India to escape his dangerous past, Damon finds himself again caught up in a complicated espionage plot, and the end result is surprisingly one of the best thrillers in recent years.
Paul Greengrass, the incredibly talented director of 2002's haunting (and shamefully underviewed) Bloody Sunday , has a talent for establishing a challenging and shocking sense of realism on the screen.
Using handheld cameras from a multitude of angles while incorporating a frenetic editing style all his own, Greengrass gives the film its excitement, concluding it with a car chase that is among the greatest I have ever seen. Despite the fact that it's a sequel with some minor narrative convolutions, this is a solid and exhilarating summer movie.
Collateral: 4
It's not so much that I disliked Collateral , the new Michael Mann film, but my high expectations were crushed.
I admired the performances (sans Tom Cruise, whose character and performance are tragically ill-conceived), the beautiful shots of Los Angeles and the soundtrack, which complimented both the urban milieu and the ominous tone.
The film also has some wonderful opening and closing scenes, both involving a commanding Jada Pinkett Smith, who possesses a wonderful charisma that allows her to steal the show. She and Jamie Foxx have a phenomenal chemistry in the film, and it is to the film's disadvantage that she did not play a greater role.
But it's the script, the film's most crucial element, that collapses and brings the movie with it. When the story attempts to legitimize Cruise's murder spree while also keeping the audience interested, it just doesn't work. And as a result, the film's critical moment is one action-packed drag.
Fahrenheit 9/11: 1
Regardless of political affiliation or lack thereof, I can't imagine a single person finding Fahrenheit 9/11 enlightening. And this is not necessarily due oto its content, but more so the manner in which it is presented.
The film's final third consists of Moore interviewing a woman from Flint, Mich., during different times of the war, primarily before and after her son is killed in combat in Iraq.
Yet, what begins as an exercise of apparent sympathy somehow becomes an act of emotional excess.
The audience watches in horror as the woman breaks down and sobs upon reading a letter from her son, and, as if it weren't quite enough to get the message across, Moore feels inclined to zoom in on her face every time she crumbles.
There is more where this came from.
An unnecessary decapitation and a segment where screams are heard over a black screen are all for the sake of the art, of course. But this art seems to work toward making the events of 9/11 "aesthetic" in order to support Moore's political agenda.
His film comes off as an act of complete and total desperation; its ideas are so flimsy that what they form completely lacks merit. I struggle to see even the most fervent of Bush-haters finding the movie to be insightful or uplifting; nothing revealed is revelatory, and what is there is manipulated. I haven't had a more unpleasant experience in the theater all year. The effects of it are soul-depleting.
Garden State: 6
For a film that eventually disintegrates into a grating (and cliché) discourse on existentialism and solipsism, Garden State looks far too good and contains too many memorable moments to be dismissed entirely.
Zach Braff, the writer, director and star of this ambitious debut picture, is a quiet and depressed young man returning home after five years of absence to attend his mother's funeral. He finds love, which, as can be easily predicted, fills him with joie de vivre .
The film walks well-worn territory, but is in love with itself (almost unbelievably so).
Its execution occasionally borders on pretentiousness, but its actors are genuine, and, in case you haven't already heard, its soundtrack is exceptional and complements the film in a way that most films of its kind never do.
Overall, it disappoints, but is definitely worth the matinee admission price. And it's got a knight in shining armor in it!
Napoleon Dynamite: 9
Napoleon Dynamite is "sweet" to quote the title character (and yes, I am trying to include as much of its vernacular into my everyday speech as well as this review).
By the end of the film the title character, brilliantly played by Jon Heder, becomes a sort of hero, which is altogether sweet because Napoleon is himself a total anti-hero. The film is consistently hilarious, and though it has been criticized for being brutally condescending toward Napoleon, I found myself to be constantly laughing with him, not at him.
Even the supporting cast is totally sweet, especially Shondrella Avery as LaFawnduh, the hilariously exuberant and sultry chat-room bride of Napoleon's equally nerdy older brother.
And be prepared for a dance sequence so over-the-top and hysterical, you'll tumble into the aisles. It's an altogether awesome movie that I'm sure people will be quoting ad nauseum for years and years to come. This is the nerd movie to end all nerd movies.
Spider-Man 2: 9
The original Spider-Man , though inventive and exciting, really seemed like an introduction to the story and was quite insufficient to stand alone as a feature film-much in the way the first X-Men film was two years prior. Luckily, the sequel proves far better in nearly every department, bursting with explosive and far more realistic special effects and better-developed, multi-dimensional characters.
But it succeeds primarily in establishing Peter Parker as a flawed individual, struggling with a highly unusual identity crisis. The audience is confronted with a man attempting to pull off a rather cumbersome balancing act, while a bigger-than-average man in a metallic octopus getup is tormenting the city.
The movie is exuberant, frenetic, exciting, and somewhat revolutionary. It not only improves on the comic book genre, it transcends it.
The Village: 2
I think it's time a petition came out asking M. Night Shyamalan to stop making movies. I found myself to be one few people who disliked The Sixth Sense (a lot). Unbreakable was interesting only for a while bfore collapsing, and for all of Signs ' successful atmospheric tension, the climax was nothing short of preposterous.
Still, nothing could have prepared me for the debacle that is The Village . It is never frightening, rarely interesting, too self-obsessed, and its ending falls short of creating the mundane thrill of a mediocre carnival ride.
While the film is beautiful visually and sonically, and though it possesses a talented cast, Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of Ron Howard, gives a commendable performance as a precocious blind girl with a slight curiousness about the surrounding forbidden forest, its story is unsalvageable. The Village is banal, uneven and lame.
UNDER THE RADAR:
Before Sunset: 10
Deceptively small, yet full of beautiful and provocative ideas, it is highly unlikely that any avid moviegoer could find a more rewarding film this summer than Before Sunset , Richard Linklater's pensive sequel to 1995's Before Sunrise .
In the earlier film, a young American traveler meets a French graduate student in Vienna, and, you guessed it, they spend a night together and depart before sunrise.
Now, nine years later, and seemingly more mature, the two find each other in Paris, where they embark on a beautifully filmed walk throughout the city, partaking in one extended conversation that ranges from political activism to flawed marriages to depression to love to Nina Simone.
Sound simple? It is. Sound boring? It is anything but. Their fascinating conversation flows remarkably, and the actors never appear to be acting.
At 80 minutes, Before Sunset demands very little of you, and it is guaranteed to give you more life when you leave the theater.