Rajeev Masand – movies that matter : from bollywood, hollywood and everywhere else

March 09, 2012

Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton

Director: Andrew Stanton

It’s hard to believe that the same filmmaker who made us fall in love with a waste-recycling robot is responsible for the over-long, humorless adventure that is John Carter. Directed by animation veteran Andrew Stanton (of Wall-E and Finding Nemo), this expensive, live-action film is based on a series of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 100-year-old fantasy-romance novels, and features Taylor Kitsch as a former Civil War soldier in Arizona, who comes across a mysterious cave and a powerful amulet that instantly transports him to Mars, or Barsoom as it is referred to by the locals.

Once there, he encounters several warring factions including the Zodangans, the Heliumites, the Tharks, and the Therns. When he falls in love with Helium princess Dejah Thoris (a wooden Lynn Collins), he teams up with her to save the planet from some sort of threat that is never clearly defined.

Despite some impressive CGI battle scenes, and fantastic creature design, the story itself feels episodic and boring, with Carter repeatedly being captured and escaping over and over again. Fine actors like Willem Dafoe and Samantha Morton are buried under prosthetics to play members of the green-skinned, four-armed barbarian tribe, the Tharks. And leading man Taylor Kitsch just doesn’t have the presence or the acting chops to rise above this fractured film.

Fans of the books might appreciate that the film is faithful to Burroughs’ dense writing, but those unfamiliar with the stories are very likely to find themselves at sea amidst the clunky dialogues and the incomprehensible plot turns.

I’m going with one-and-a-half out of five for John Carter. Thrillingly staged action scenes can’t make up for the dull characters and the confusing plot.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

March 09, 2012

Cast: Channing Tatum, Rachel McAdams, Sam Neil, Jessica Lange, Scott Speedman

Director: Michael Sucsy

The Vow, starring Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, is the kind of mushy movie that’ll appeal to anyone who still gets teary-eyed watching The Notebook for the third time.

Tatum and McAdams play a bohemian young married couple, who get into an accident on a snowy Chicago night. He’s all right, but she wakes up from a coma with the last five years wiped clean from her memory, and with no recognition of the stranger in front of her who says he’s her husband. It’s up to him now to win her love all over again, and to get her to choose the life they had together, instead of gravitating back to the past that she’d abandoned…including her snotty, controlling parents, a smarmy fiancé, and a boring career in law.

Tatum and McAdams have a comfortable chemistry, but the romantic scenarios in the film range from occasionally endearing to nauseatingly schmaltzy. In one flashback scene, he asks her to move in with him by spelling it out with blueberries on a breakfast plate. In another scene, a visibly unwell McAdams opens a gift box containing cute recovery items that he’s sent her, while Tatum stands outside in the pouring rain.

Although it packs in all the usual trademarks of a sappy Nicholas Sparks-style adaptation, The Vow claims to be based on a true story. And those are always the ones you least believe. Not because the premise seems implausible… No! Because by the time it’s been Hollywood-ised and sent through the studio machinery, it comes out looking like any other gooey rom-com intended to melt the hearts of its 16-year-old female demographic.

I’m going with a generous two out of five for The Vow. Chicks will dig Tatum as the beefcake with a soft, sensitive heart. Just don’t expect anything more.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

March 02, 2012

Cast: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Alexandra Roach, Olivia Colman

Director: Phyllida Lloyd

It’s hard to find fault in Meryl Streep’s extraordinary performance as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, but it’s a shame the film itself has little of interest to say about either the woman, or the period of British history she shaped. Streep nails the accent, and finds emotional depth in her portrayal of the polarizing leader, but the film never goes beyond a surface look at Thatcher’s controversial political career.

Buried under layers of make-up and prosthetics, Streep channels the aged Thatcher even as the film focuses on the fictionalized story of the former politician pottering about in her home, having long hallucinatory conversations with her dead husband Dennis (Jim Broadbent). Using the flashback as a narrative device, the movie offers up shallow, brief snapshots of Thatcher’s career – her invasion of the Falkland Islands, her getting elected to Parliament for the first time, and her consultants remolding her image as she runs for Prime Minister. But they’re all hollow glimpses. The film simply isn’t interested in exploring the reasoning behind her politics, her hunger for power, and her unwillingness to compromise. What’s more, the makers offer no real perspective on her growing unpopularity among the people.

The film works better as a sort of love story, in the snatches of affectionate banter and disagreements we witness between Thatcher and her husband in the earlier years. It’s the love story again that rears its head when you watch the Alzheimer’s-afflicted Thatcher struggling to let go of her husband even years after his passing.

The Iron Lady has three fine performances at its heart – Jim Broadbent plays Dennis Thatcher with a playful glint, as a sort of cuddly uncle, encouraging his wife when she’s low, occasionally roaring at her when he thinks she deserves it. Also impressive is Alexandra Roach as the younger Margaret, the “grocer’s daughter”, who portrays the character’s political awakening convincingly. But it’s Meryl Streep, playing the older versions of Lady Thatcher, who is absolutely riveting on the screen. She inhabits Thatcher completely, from the voice to the dresses to the steely resolve in her eyes. It’s the only reason to watch this mediocre film.

I’m going with two out of five for The Iron Lady. It’s a lazy film about one of the most influential leaders of our times. An opportunity has been wasted.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

March 02, 2012

Cast: Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max von Sydow, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright

Director: Stephen Daldry

Some stories are genuinely moving, others so shamelessly manipulative that they come off as crass. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, directed by Stephen Daldry, falls somewhere in between.

Adapted from a polarizing novel, the film focuses on 11-year-old Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), a socially awkward but remarkably intelligent boy, whose father (Tom Hanks) died in the World Trade Center attacks. Haunted by grief and guilt, and unable to make sense of this horrible tragedy even a year later, Oskar becomes obsessed with solving the mystery behind a key he believes his dad left for him in an envelope simply marked with the word ‘Black’.

Setting off on a search to find the lock that fits this key, Oskar creates an elaborate and methodical project to track down every person with the last name Black in New York City. Before you know it, he’s combing the streets, knocking on doors, and telling strangers his story, in the hope of finding some last message from his father. Even as his mother (Sandra Bullock) struggles to get through to Oskar, the kid finds an unlikely companion in a mysterious old man who doesn’t speak (Max von Sydow).

While there are a few genuinely poignant moments in this film – like one in which Oskar tells his mother he wishes it was her, and not his father, who was killed – for the most part Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close comes off as contrived and exploitative. The suggestion that this kid and his cute project becomes the catalyst of recovery for hundreds of grieving New Yorkers feels cheap, and only undermines the impact of that tragedy.

Tom Hanks, in what’s essentially an extended cameo, seems perfectly cast as the best dad in the world, and Sandra Bullock brings quiet dignity despite the cloying material here. But it’s the supporting cast that’s terrific – particularly Max von Sydow who’s superbly restrained and moving, and Viola Davis who conveys volumes through her eyes.

But the film rests squarely on the tiny shoulders of its young lead, and works only if you’re invested in the character of Oskar, and in the performance of Thomas Horn. Although impressive in portions, Horn’s shrill voice is grating after a point, and it doesn’t help that Daldry saddles the film with an incessant voiceover from the precocious kid.

I’m going with two out of five for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Watch it if you don’t mind being manipulated into shedding tears.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)