Great movies that hit their target are hard to review, and Joss Whedon pretty much smacked this puppy out of the park. He made a 2:23 ensemble superhero movie that never lags and that doesn’t shortchange any of the characters. The real telling sign: my sweet wife, who is more tolerant of than eager about superhero/action films, turned to me as the movie ended and said, “This was wonderful!”

What more can I say? Well, all the actors did a better job in this film than in their lead-in superhero films, with the possible exception of Robert Downey Jr (who, as far as I can tell, was born to play Tony Stark/Iron Man and was absolutely outstanding in the first “Iron Man”). Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansen (Black Widow), Samuel Jackson (Nick Fury) and even Clark Gregg (Agent Coulsen) all had a great platform and did an outstanding job. Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) got a chance to be significant rather than the bit part he had in “Thor”. Mark Ruffalo, the third person to place Bruce Banner/the Hulk, does in my opinion a better job with fewer lines or screen time than either Eric Bana or Edward Norton.

The real key, in my opinion, was the choice of Tom Hiddleson (Loki) as the arch-villain for this film. Hiddleson (and Kenneth Branaugh’s direction) gave the “Thor” movie complexity and gravitas that saved it from being a silly B-grade superhero movie. He does the same thing here; you really believe in him as Loki, and he is often several steps ahead of those who are trying to stop him. Hiddleson was outstanding and deserves tremendous credit.

But the credit, above all, goes to Joss Whedon for both his writing and direction. At the start of the film, there’s a certain awkwardness in this group of disparate heroes, most of whom don’t even consider themselves to be heroes. They clash, figuratively and literally, and hardly seem up to the task in front of them until events lead them to put aside their own squabbles and agendas, and they come together as a team. “Come together” is such a trite cliche, yet it is very much what happens, and it happens in a real way.

Whedon writes great dialog and funny scenes, and there are plenty of both in this film. The special effects are great — and can I just say, some forty years after I first saw it in a “Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D” comic, how wonderful it was to the the SHIELD heli-carrier on the big screen.

Highly, highly recommended, even if you’re not a comic book fan. Spoilers after the jump.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!!

Agent Coulsen (Clark Gregg), who has been the ‘Wedge Antilles‘ of this series of Marvel films, is killed by Loki, stabbed from behind. Whedon being Whedon, you had to suspect that someone would die, and I had been tracking the various reports of follow-up films for any clue that one of the superheroes might buy the farm. I never suspected Coulsen would be the one, which gave his death all the more impact. And Coulsen, dying, recognizes that his death might be the one thing that brings the still-squabbling Avengers together. He’s right, though Fury does some rather shameless manipulation to make sure that happens.

It is the Hulk who ends up with some of the best “lines”, though in his case, they are mostly actions. The best is a scene where Loki and the Hulk are facing off in Tony Stark’s penthouse. Loki is monologuing on how Earthlings are beneath him when the Hulk grabs him and — in a move straight out of Looney Tunes cartoons — slams him back and forth on the floor three times in quick succession, leaving him dazed, unmoving, and partially embedded in the floor. The audience erupted in spontaneous applause and laughter.

Finally, there are not one but two ‘after the film’ scenes, one at the end of the major credits, the second at the very end of all credits. The first one shows long-established Marvel supervillain Thanos as the one behind Loki’s invasion of Earth. The second one — a follow-up to a comment made by Stark during the film — shows the Avengers, in costume and apparently immediately after the final battle, sitting around in a shawarma restaurant, mostly shell-shocked, as the staff is cleaning up damage from the destruction. Even though the scene goes on for 30 seconds or so, no one says anything; they just all look at each other or stare off into space (though Thor is unfazed and eating).

Great, great film. We saw it in 2D; I’ll probably try to go see the 3D IMAX version sometime next weel.  ..bruce..

My sweet wife and I went to see “The Hunger Games” today. I’ve read all three novels and enjoyed them — they are a cut above the usual Young Adult novels and are a bit dark and unrelenting. The release buzz for the film itself was very positive, so I was interested to see just how good it was.

It was outstanding.

That’s not a word I use lightly. Acting, directing, writing, cinematography, art direction were all excellent. The bleakness of District 12 looked more like a documentary about pre-WWII Appalachia that a film setting. Likewise, the gaudiness of Panem made the citizens thereof look like the privileged, self-obsessed class that they are. Casting was great; both Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland stayed in their roles instead of chewing scenery, while Stanley Tucci — who is one of the best and most versatile actors around — makes you like his Caesar Flickerman even as you recognize the awfulness of his role in these brutal games. I’ve seen some grumbling about the creature special effects near the end of the film, to which I say: get a life. The effects were fine. Not stunning like “John Carter”, but then again, the film didn’t cost a quarter of a billion dollars to make and will likely be profitable after this weekend.

Beyond that, this may be the single best book-to-film adaptation I’ve ever seen. It trimmed where it needed to in order to get down to the 2:22 running time, yet did no violence to the novel or its characters. It resisted the temptation to make the very end either more resolved or more dramatic than it was in the book — no hope-and-glory scene, no cliffhanger or overt threat.

Also, the film made me tear up. More than once. Actually, I came close to sobbing outright at one scene, but fortunately I have years of practice of stifling such noises in a theater.

Finally, it was brilliantly marketed and released. It is likely to have a near-record opening weekend, and I fully expect it to stay in the #1 box-office slot for several weeks — the “Titanic” effect, if you will — possibly until “The Avengers” opens on May 4th. I also think this will be the highest-grossing film for 2012, so for those who did grumble about effects, don’t worry: they’ll have a ton of money to spend on the second and third films.

In all, as I said to my wife while we walked back to our car, it was everything “John Carter” was not. Spoilers, such as they are, after the jump.

If you’ve read the book, I have no spoilers for you, because the ending is faithful and intact. For those of you who want to know the ending but haven’t read the book — yes, Katness and Peeta both survive and get out, by threatening a joint suicide after they’re the only two Tributes left. At the very end, President Snow, who rules over Panem and the twelve Districts, is clearly unhappy with how things turned out. Katness and Peeta — who had a ‘public’ romance during the games to gain sympathy and sponsors — return to District 12, where Gale — Katness’s best friend before the games, who clearly has a romantic interest in her as well — is waiting. Peeta asks Katness, “What happens now?” And she responds, “I don’t know.”

And there the movie ends. ..bruce..

UPDATE [3/12/12]: They should have let Brad Bird direct instead of Andrew Stanton. Bird did “The Incredibles” (and has since done MI-4); Stanton did “Finding Nemo” and “WALL-E”. Which director do you think would have done a better job with a swashbuckling retro-SF story?

UPDATE[3/16/12]: I went to see “John Carter” again yesterday, and pretty much stand by what I said below, with a few more additions.

First, I think the whole Tars Tarkas/Sola/Sarkoja story was poorly handled. First, it starts with a hard-to-swallow leap: Carter somehow guesses (“a father’s intuition”) that Sola is Tarkas’s daughter, even though Carter has been on Barsoom for only a day and he’s dealing with an alien race — and yet, none of the Tharks have reached the same conclusion. Second, it is too terse, rushed and obscure. If you’ve read the books, you know this has to do with the culture of the Tharks and that Tarkas represents a bit of a throwback to kinder, gentler Tharks. I suspect those not familiar with the books were mostly confused at why this was all significant. I would either drop this story line entirely, or I would have condensed it into a single, more detailed exposition after Tarkas takes Carter into the tent to ostensibly slay him (after the temple incident).

Second, the movie left it very unclear — even after two viewings — why Sola was branded. Was it because Carter broken his chains and escaped? Was it because she somehow implanted him with the Barsoomian language (itself a confusing sequence — was it due to the fluid she gave him, some sort of telepathic imprint, or both?). Same thing with the “9th Ray” — it’s referenced, but never really explained.

Third, there appears to be a massive chronological/continuity flaw in the film, as well as possibly some distance problems, due largely to the Hollywood habit of compressing events into as short a time period as possible. Working from memory, the film’s chronology appears to go as follows:

• Day 1: Carter arrives on Mars and is captured by the Tharks; that night, he escapes, is chased by Woola, kills a Thark with a single blow; is generally accepted.
• Day 2: the Zodanga v. Helium air battle takes place; Carter rescues Dejah Thoris; they go (with Sola) into the temple that night and are caught; Tarkas takes them into his tent to execute them, but lets them escape.
• Day 3: Carter, Thoris, Sola and Woola ride across the desert. It is unclear how long they are traveling, but it is likely several days. I’ll be extremely generous and say that it’s two weeks (14 days), even though the movie never shows riding or camping at night, and it would also conflict with how long it takes Sola to later get from Iss to Zodanga.
• Day 17: Carter and company reach the River Iss, go to the temple, come back. Carter and Woola fights the Warhoons (and how did Woola not get killed? A single short or two would have done it); Carter and Thoris are rescued by a Helium ship and taken to Zodanga; Sola is left on foot, as is Woola.
• Day 18: it is possible that some time elapses here in Zodanga, though nothing indicated that. I’ll add another week just to be generous (and to give time for Sola and Woola to make it to Zodanga).
• Day 25: Kantos Kan helps break Carter out; Carter visits Thoris; he is captured by Matai Shang; they watch the wedding procession; Woola helps him escape; he finds Sola outside the city; they all fly to the Tharks. Carter is taken prisoner; he meets up with Tarkas; he fights the white apes; he challenges and kills Tal Hajus. The Tharks mobilize and Carter leads them on thoat-back to Zodanga; he flies to Helium and disrupts the wedding; the Tharks arrive on flyers and help defeat the Zodangans; Carter and Thoris marry.
• Day 26: In the wee, small hours of the morning, Carter wanders to another part of the palace and meets up with Matai Shang, who sends Carter back to Earth, where he finds that his body is covered with dust, his clothes crackle, and Powell’s head at least has been reduced to what appears to be a fairly clean skull.

In four weeks? All flesh is off of Powell’s skull, in a desert setting, in four weeks? And note that four weeks is a generous estimate; if you go by what the movie actually shows, you would think that the entire story takes place in about 4, maybe 5 days. The logical assumption would be that Carter’s “late night restless walk” is taking place months or even years after the marriage (which is what actually happens in the book, though it is a different type of incident that sends him back to Earth). However, when the camera closes in on Carter while he’s standing at the balcony, you can still clearly see the bruises and scrapes from the fight at the wedding.

On top of this, there is no clear indication of the relative locations of and distances between Zodanga, Helium, the River Iss, and the Thark city. Look at all the action and traveling in Day 25 above; for this to work out, the Thark city and Zodanga would have to be very close indeed (and note that Zodanga is always moving). Also note that Sola made it on foot from the River Iss to Zodanga during whatever period Carter was being held in Zodanga.

For a $250 million film, this is very sloppy continuity and plotting, and I think it’s yet another reason why a lot of people left the film with a vague (or not so vague) sense of confusion.

ORIGINAL POST:

As I said in my review yesterday, there was much I liked about “John Carter”, but there were some major flaws: too complicated, too slow in getting to Barsoom (Mars), and a poor characterization of John Carter himself (and corresponding poor casting). Since seeing it yesterday, I’ve formed a few opinions on how it could have been a better, shorter and more successful film. Keep in mind this is being written in one sitting, and that I’ve only seen the movie once, so it’s largely off the top of my head — but I think it points in a better direction.

First, the title. Those idiots at Disney apparently were so paranoid over the word “Mars” that they passed over the perfect title: “A Princess of Mars”, the actual title of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first Barsoom novel. The immediate disjunction between “princess” — which suggests knights and chivalry and fantasy — and “Mars” — which suggests space and rockets and science fiction — provides a compelling hook. Princesses on Mars? Really? How can that be? It immediately tells you to expect the unexpected — as opposed to the title “John Carter”, which tells you nothing at all. It also sets up the storyline: John Carter meeting, being attracted to, defending, offending, protecting, pursuing, being rejected by and ultimately winning Dejah Thoris, the aforementioned princess of Mars, and in the processing causing — as an unintended side effect — great social, political, and (in the 2nd and 3rd Barsoom novels) religious upheaval in his wake.

Second, the characterization and casting of John Carter. In the Barsoom novels, John Carter is a polite, chivalrous, self-assured but self-deprecating swordsman and fighter, with a wry sense of humor. He is never quite so happy as when he in engaged in a challenging swordfight; while he does not kill for pleasure, he has no problem doing so when life or honor is at stake, and often smiles when he’s in the middle of a fight. Think of a melding of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom’s character) from the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” film and the Dread Pirate Roberts from “The Princess Bride”. Here’s ERB’s description of his “Uncle Jack” at the start of “A Princess of Mars”:

He was a splendid specimen of manhood, standing a good two inches over six feet, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear cut, his hair black and closely cropped, while his eyes were of a steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. His manners were perfect, and his courtliness was that of a typical southern gentleman of the highest type.

His horsemanship, especially after hounds, was a marvel and delight even in that country of magnificent horsemen. I have often heard my father caution him against his wild recklessness, but he would only laugh, and say that the tumble that killed him would be from the back of a horse yet unfoaled.

This, of course, is vastly different from the shaggy, sullen, angry, hostile, reluctant John Carter, portrayed by Taylor Kitsch, that we meet and have to endure through much of the film. Frankly, a clean-cut Gerard Butler or Chris Hemsworth would have been a better choice. Heck, simply a clean-cut and cheerful Taylor Kitsch would have been a better choice. Let’s leave it at that, so I don’t have to play “what-ifs” about casting.

Title sequence/prologue: drop the voice over, shot of Mars, early shots of John Carter, etc. Instead, start immediately with Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) riding in a horse-drawn cab to his Uncle Jack’s mansion on a rainy afternoon, with the title “A Princess of Mars” appearing and then fading away over the arrival sequence. We’ve now added a third source of cognitive dissonance, since the time and setting appears neither fantasy nor science fiction. We can then pretty much use the ERB arrival and exposition as filmed (perhaps tightened up just a wee bit), but with one exception: when ERB opens Carter’s journal for the first time, he opens it in the middle to Carter’s drawing of Dejah Thoris. He then turns back to the start and begins reading….

A (clean cut and humorous) John Carter walks into the saloon/general store to buy supplies. He tries to cajole the merchant into giving him more supplies on credit, but reluctantly takes out and places the gold ingot on the counter. The merchant holds it up to examine it — and the three toughs in the saloon suddenly get up, gather around — one drawing a gun — and ask Carter if he’s got more gold. Carter tries to talk his way out of it, but they don’t buy it. Carter then reluctantly digs into his pocket, pulls out another ingot — and flips it in the air up over their heads. As they all look up and grab for it, Carter whips out his cavalry sword, stuns one tough with slamming the end of the hilt into his head, disarms the one with the gun with the flat of the blade (breaking the tough’s finger in the process), and puts his foot on the fallen gun as he has the point of his sword at the third tough’s throat, drawing a bead of blood — this all happens just as the ingot clatters on the floor. Carter draws his own pistol with his left hand and suggests that the two conscious thugs take their unconscious friend and leave — and tells them that if he runs into them again, he won’t be so gentle with them. They leave, muttering threats. Carter picks up the ingot, turns, and finds the merchant hastily working to fill his order of supplies.

Next scene, Carter is riding somewhere outside of town and meets up with his prospecting partner, James Powell, who’s riding towards town. Powell is excited — he thinks he’s finally put together where the apparent source of the two ingots — the ‘cave of the spider’ is — but that the Apaches don’t want them going there. “Is it sacred to them?” “No…it seems more like it’s cursed or evil. And the Apaches aren’t in a mood to tolerate white folk right now.” Carter and Powell come around a bend in the ground and discover — the three toughs on horseback, with a few more friends. Both are startled, but Carter and Powell react first and light out, with the toughs pursuing and firing occasional shots at them. Some scenes here could establish Carter’s outstanding (and reckless) horsemanship. They come over a rise and run (full speed) into and through an even larger group of Apaches on horseback. Carter and Powell ride right through, and the Apaches and the toughs engage each other. Carter and Powell keep riding but Powell starts losing control of his horse, and it becomes apparent that he’s been hit. They can’t head back to town, so they ride in the direction (according to Powell) of the cave.

Here we can pretty much pick up the film more or less: they stop in the ravine below the cave, Carter sends both horse continuing up the ravine, he get Powell up to the mouth of the cave, the Apaches show up, are scared away, Carter goes in the cave, meets the Thern, gets transported, and wakes up in a strange looking desert, discovers he can leap high, meets Tars Tarkas, learns the language through Sola’s efforts, chafes a bit at being an amusement to the Tharks, fights one who mistreats Sola, and is accepted as an honorary Thark, and is grateful to have a sword back in his hands — though he’s curious that the sword they give him seems small for a Thark. He’s also curious why the Tharks don’t find him as strange and unusual as he finds them.

He finds out the next day when a Thark raiding party returns with what appears to be a human female. He tries to get near her, but is blocked from doing so by the Thark who led the raiding party. He uses his jumping ability to get to the (high) room where she’s being held. He meets Dejah Thoris — and now we can get a bit of the backstory about Barsoom and Zodanga. Thoris plays up her 9th ray research and says nothing about being a princess; she says she was ambushed by Tharks while searching for some ancient ruins that might hold the key she needs to make the 9th ray technology work. As is the film, she’s puzzled by Carter’s ignorance of all things Baroomian (such as flying ships) and treats as outright lies his stories about actual seas of water.

He and Sola help her escape (fill in great action sequence), Thoris proving her own fighting chops in the process, and it’s clear that mutual respect is growing. We can stick in the Temple of Issus sequence here — as part of her ongoing 9th ray research — but afterward, instead of more Tharks showing up (or, perhaps, as they show up), they are picked up by a Helium airship. (Sola and Woola are left off after a while, at Sola’s request; she wants to go back and see her father, Tars Tarkas). Carter learns that Thoris is actually a princess and heir to the throne of Barsoom, and that Helium ships have been searching for her. Thoris turns a bit formal on him, and Carter takes it with wry resignation. However, when she thanks him for his help in escaping and says, “I will always be grateful to you, my chieftain.” Carter inclines his head and says, “I was honored to do so, my princess” — and it’s immediately apparent by the shocked reactions around him that he’s committed some kind of major faux pas. Thoris gets very cold and formal, saying, “It is only because you are from — somewhere far away — that I do not have you thrown off this ship. Never presume to say that to me again.” And she stalks off.

Carter is at a loss as to what he’s done — everyone else is treating him coldly as well — but Kanton Kan, who is one of the ‘fighter pilots’ aboard the ship, takes Carter aside and explains to him that while Thoris’s use of “my chieftain” signified her gratitude and approval of his fighting prowess on her behalf, his use of the phrase “my princess” implied that she had, ah, pledged herself to him, body and soul. Carter sighs and says, “You know, I was never very good with women back on Earth, either.” He and Kan commiserate a bit [I really like how Kantos Kan was portrayed in the movie] and bond enough that Kan shows him how the one-man flyers work, giving Carter something to do, since Thoris refuses to see him or be around him. Carter, after a few stumbles, suddenly realizes how to relate riding a one-man flyer to riding a horse, and starts to improve, while delighting in the ability to move in three dimensions and taking risks that even has Kan shaking his head. (Carter: “The tumble that kills me will be from a flyer yet unbuilt. Besides — I can survive a much higher fall than you.”)

The ship runs into a few other Helium ships and Thoris is transferred to another ship. They then run into a Zodangan fleet, and a big aerial battle occurs. The Helium fleet is clearly losing due to the Thernian technology that Zodanga is using, and Carter uses his flyer to rescue Thoris from death, though their combined weight forces the flyer to the ground. (Kan, under direct orders from Thoris and against all his warrior ethics, flees the battle in his own one-man flyer to inform Helium about Dejah Thoris and the battle.) The surviving Zodangan ships land — and the fleet turns out to be led by Sab Than, Jeddak of Zodanga himself. He says that a ship carrying her father – Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium — is coming out to meet him in a few days under a flag of truce, and if she doesn’t agree to the marriage, he will allow Mors to return to Helium — and then he, Sab Than, will continue the war, with the obvious outcome. And he (Than) pleads a heartfelt appreciation for Thoris’s beauty, courage, and intellect. With a look of great internal struggle — and a pained glance at Carter — Thoris agrees only to make no decision until she has spoken with her father.

That glance did not go unnoticed by Than, who summons Carter to him late that night. Sab Than says that while his Thern mentor wants Carter brought back to Zodanga alive, Than is not so sure that’s a good idea. He pricks Carter with the point of his sword, sees the red blood, and says, “They say you’re from another world. I would not believe it but for your blood. No doubt you have a fascinating story to tell, and under other circumstances, I think we could be good friends.” (Carter looks skeptical.) “But I want no complicating factors where Dejah Thoris is involved.” He then nods at his guards — who drop the railing behind Carter just as the ship suddenly banks to one side. Carter vanishes in the darkness, and the ship levels off and cruises on. The next morning, on the Zodangan ship, Sab Than tells Dejah Thoris that Carter left the ship to find a way back to his own world.

Elsewhere, that same morning, Carter comes to, having clearly been unconscious and feeling quite battered. He gets up and looks around to figure out where he is and why he’s still alive — and sees that he’s on a very tall rise, a mesa a few thousand feet high, in the middle of the dead sea bottoms.  He sees ruins off in the distance that look familiar. He is able to pick (and jump) his way down the slopes of the mesa and heads towards the ruins — only to find himself facing an attacking horde of Tharks.

Big battle sequence, Carter is captured alive, we can plug in the whole white-apes-in-the arena sequence here. In fact, we can largely pick up the rest of the movie –  Thoris and her father agreeing to her marriage, Carter leading the Tharks to attack Zodanga, then going on to Helium, lots of swordfighting and great leaps, etc., etc., with various tweaks and changes for pacing and continuity. The Therns may need a bit more massaging as well. Also, we can have Kantos Kan show up again — perhaps looking for Carter at Thoris’s request — and help lead the Tharks first to Zodanga and then (in the nick of time aerial cavalry arrival of the Tharks) to Barsoom.

That’s my at-one-sitting, I’m-definitely-not-a-screenwriter take on how to improve the film. This film would have been a good 20+ minutes shorter; John Carter would have been a far more enjoyable and sympathetic character, and we’d focus more on the swashbuckling and romance.

So much for my $0.02 worth. Thoughts?  ..bruce w..

P.S. I’ll keep tweaking this as I think of other changes.

I first read “A Princess of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs early in high school, over 40 years ago. I loved the novel and enjoyed the ten (yes, ten) that followed, though none were quite as good or as wildly romantic. So I’ve followed with interest over the past several years the various attempts to bring it to the screen. Today, at last, I got to see “John Carter”, Andrew Stanton’s vision of ERB’s novels.

The effort: a good solid “B”, though given the various budget estimates for the film, that’s probably not good enough. Disney must be hoping and praying for a massive international market, because the film — which clocks in at 2:19 — will most likely not make its costs back here in the US. I’d love to be pleasantly surprised, but I suspect it won’t cross $150 million (and maybe not $100 million) domestically.

The film, as a film, has a beautiful realization of ERB’s Barsoom (the locals’ name for Mars). But it suffers from three major faults. The first, pointed out over i09 yesterday, is that it has too many stories going on. The second is that it takes too long to get to Mars. The third is that it changes John Carter from a swashbuckling, devil-may-care, Errol Flynn-type character to a angsty, angry, semi-tragic figure. (It also changes Dejah Thoris — the princess of Mars — from a warrior princess to a warrior scientist princess, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. IMHO.) There are a few minor faults as well, some of which I’ll touch upon.

All three major faults are related. The opening sequence — both involving ERB’s receipt of Carter’s diary after his untimely ‘death’ and Carter’s discovery of the mysterious cave — could have been shortened by a good 10 minutes at least, and the movie would have been better for it. Likewise, the whole set of flashbacks regarding Carter’s wife and child (which he doesn’t have in the books) could have been excised, which would have dropped another few minutes at least. And, frankly, Carter would have been a more likeable and sympathetic character without the whole fight-in-the-calvary-post sequence and wife-and-child flashbacks. What should have been a fun and entertaining film too often becomes, in my wife’s one-word criticism, “ponderous”.  And, frankly, they should have introduced Dejah Thoris earlier and without the extended back-story-and-battle.

As for the minor faults, I don’t mind at all how they changed the Therns or the means by which Carter gets to and from Mars — it works better for a modern audience and gives a scientific twist to what was frankly more supernatural in ERB’s novels. But then they blew it by making Carter’s leaps and strength way out of proportion to what he could actually do in a 1/3-earth-gravity situation. Burroughs himself is guilty of this — he describes Carter’s first leap under Martian gravity as carrying him “fully thirty feet into the air and [landing] a hundred feet from my pursuers.” But the movie carries it far beyond that, with Carter making even more impossibly long and high leaps, at times while catching or carrying others. Woola (the calot) was also way too fast, and the moons of Mars were too large and too close together.

I know that Andrew Stanton, the director, has plans laid out for two more films, but I don’t think we’ll see them. And Stanton won’t come out of this looking good, either.

Spoilers, such as they are, after the jump. In the meantime, here are some thoughts of mine on how the film could have been better. That post also highlights what appears to be a massive chronology/continuity flaw in the film.

SPOILERS, more or less

The very ending — when Carter fakes his own death and draws Matai Shang to his tomb in order to (a) kill him and (b) get the medallion Carter needs to return to Mars — is a nice twist. But I’m still not sure it needed the long on-Earth prelude at the start of the movie.

That’s about all I can think of as a spoilers.  After all, the novel has been around for 100 years or so.   ..bruce w..

Those who “abjure” violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf. — George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism

This film has gotten a fair amount of ‘net publicity — though probably not nearly enough regular marketing — because of its fundamental concept: film a movie about what Navy Seals do, using actual Navy Seals and, by the way, a lot of live ammunition. It sounds like a recipe for a heartfelt but amateur film.

While it is heartfelt, it is anything but amateur.

Yes, the Seals themselves tend to sound just a bit stilted when talking with each other, as I suspect most of us would if we were filmed. But after a while, that just adds to the ambiance of the film. What came through is that these are real men who train for and carry out exactly these missions. At no point in the film did I roll my eyes or make a quiet snide comment to my wife. Nor was there any hint of political correctness, stupid plot twists, or Hollywood tropes (save one, but see below). The film had great direction, great cinematography, great sound, and great editing.

What I was not prepared for at the end of the film was the list of Naval Special Warfare personnel who have died in the line of duty since 9/11. It was a much longer list than I would have expected. My wife and I were quiet when we left the film and for most of the drive home. As we walked out of the theater, past the posters for various coming films, I was struck in a new way how fatuous most of what Hollywood produces is, compared to a film such as this.

While it is doubtful that George Orwell ever said, “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence in their behalf,” it is a true fact nevertheless. God bless such rough men in the service of the United States.

Highly recommended. Some spoilers after the jump.

SPOILERS

One of the lead characters, Roarke, is leaving behind a pregnant wife, and you know, you know as soon as you learn that, that he isn’t going to make it through the film. Yet it is powerful nevertheless. Because what happens is that a grenade is thrown into the midst of his team; he looks at it, and time slows down, and you find yourself asking, “What would I do? I have a wife, an unborn child at home. I can throw myself back away from it.” But Roarke does what so many military men have done, including those with wives and children — he throws himself on it and is killed, but saves the rest of his team thereby.

This has particular emotional resonance with me, because my nephew Darren is in the Marines. He has served two tours in Afghanistan and came back stateside to go through special weapons training before going back for a third tour — which has since been canceled due to the draw-down of US forces. He has a lovely young wife and an infant son, and yet he was not only willing but eager to go back to Afghanistan for that third tour. (His wife, God bless her, chewed his ass something fierce when he expressed disappointment over not being able to go back again.) Again, God bless not just the rough men who keep us safe, but their families as well. ..bruce w..

My sweet wife and I went to see the new remake of “The Woman in Black”, starring Daniel Radcliffe. We had watched the original (made-for-British-TV) 1989 version when it first came out on video and at least one time since, but it had been many, many years since then. We thought the original was very well done, so we were interested to see how the remake came out.

Well…TWIB-2012 is a decent haunted house story, but ultimately was unsatisfying. So we tracked down a copy of TWIB-1989 — Sandra found a copy for sale on the ‘net somewhere — and we watched it yesterday. Much better, and more chilling, and a more true-to-the-film ending.

The basic premise is that Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor (lawyer) from London in the early 20th century, is sent by his firm to a distant seaside village to the north in order to settle the estate and review the papers of a recently deceased client, an elderly widow who lived in a large house out in the middle of a sea marsh; the causeway out to her house is only passable at certain times of the day, due to the tides, and even then it can be tricky, due to thick sea mists that come up quickly. The local villagers react in a strange way when they find out why he’s there, except for one man, a wealthy local land baron, Sam. As Kipps goes about his duties, he begins to see a woman dressed all in black in different places, a woman who stares back at him. And then he begins to hear strange noises at the widow’s house….

I’ll save more details for the spoilers section below the jump, but it was interesting to note the differences between the two versions. While not as bad, TWIB-2012 is reminiscent of the 1999 remake of “The Haunting” (originally filmed in 1963) in that it tries too hard. In TWIB-1989, Kipps is happily married with two small children; his superior, one of the partners in his law firm, sends him there against his wishes, even though that partner is the one who has always handled this account. When Kipps arrives at the village, folks are generally quite friendly and accomodating, though he gets funny looks when he talks about going out to the widow’s house. He has no trouble arranging transportation there (via horse-drawn wagon), and the wagon-driver — who used to bring the widow her supplies on a regular basis — even shows Kipps how to start up the (oil-powered) generator, so that Kipps has electricity throughout the house. The house itself looks relatively normal, clean, and well-kept; the papers to be reviewed are not that voluminous. The grounds around the house are largely flat, open and bare, stretching away into the surrounding marsh.

By contrast, TWIB-2012 starts with three young girls committing suicide together. It then, post-credits, opens with with Kipps (Radcliffe) holding a straight razor to his own throat. It turns out that he has but one child, a son, and his wife died giving birth to him. When he arrives at work, his superior calls him in and tells him that he is in danger of being let go, due to his poor performance, apparently due to despondency over his wife’s death. [Since the boy appears to be 3 or 4 years old, this raises a serious question as to just how long this despondency has been going on.] The partner orders Kipps to take this matter and tells him that this is his last chance to retain his position. On arriving in the village, Kipps immediately runs into opposition; the inn-keeper claims to have no rooms available, even though a telegram had been sent in advance, but finally grudgingly finds a room for one night. Likewise, the next morning the local solicitor is very unhelpful and tells Kipps he has booked him on a train back to London that very day, with a driver set to take him to the station. The townspeople are very angry and upset that Kipps is there; Kipps has to bribe the driver of the horse-drawn wagon to take him out to the widow’s house instead of the train station. The grounds around the house are wildly overgrown (cf. the trailer above), and the house itself is very run-down, inside and out. And, of course, no electricity. Also, the 2012 version has a subplot in which Kipps sees what appears to be the spirit of his dead wife from time to time, making him wonder about life after death.

In a similar fashion, the supernatural events that start taking place in the house and the village are much more overblown in the 2012 version. This actually has the effect of making the film less creepy and more like every other modern ghost story/haunted house film. What is so effective about the 1989 version is that everyone and everything is pretty normal — except that Kipps keeps seeing the woman in black, and she looks more and more threatening each time, and then things begin to fall apart. While watching one such encounter — on the grounds of the widow’s house — I found myself getting honest-to-goodness gooseflesh on my arms, something that never happened while watching the 2012 version.

Finally, and this is a subtle note, in the 1989 version, no one except Kipps ever sees the woman in black, and we the audience only see her when Kipps sees her. However, the 2012 version uses the convention of showing the woman in black — usually faintly, in the background — at various times when Kipps doesn’t see her and isn’t aware of her. It’s a popular technique for building tension, but it is so overused in horror films these days that it has become a cliche — similar to the cliche of having a dark shape pass right in front of the camera while it is focused on a character some distance away. (That was very effective the first time I saw it, which I believe was in the film “White Noise” — now it just makes me roll my eyes.) In fact, there is probably no modern horror film cliche that this film doesn’t use.

After writing this review, I bought and read the Kindle version of the original 1983 novel (novella, really — it’s pretty short) by Susan Hill. The 1989 version is relatively faithful to the novel, with just one major change — Kipps is single, but engaged, when the events take place — and a few minor changes in events and sequences.  The ending is slightly different, but I’ll discuss that in the spoilers section below. The novel does explain more than the movie does the relationship between the deceased widow and the woman in black.

I highly recommend the 1989 version. The 2012 version, no so much — it’s a decent scary flick, but it’s not the classic that the original is.  Spoilers after the jump.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

In both films, Kipps find himself also haunted in the house by a dead child, Nathaniel, ostensibly the young son of the dead widow, but actually the son of the woman in black (who is the widow’s late sister). This young boy died when the horse-and-buggy he was ridding in went off the causeway and sank into the marsh. Also in both films, there is a tie-in between appearances of the woman in black and the death of young children in the village.  The 1989 film does not explain much beyond that; there is one near-fatal accident involving a gypsy child, but no children die.

The 2012 film, by contrast, shows at least two deaths that result the woman in black’s appearance to Kipps — one child drinks lye, while another burns herself to death, each time after having seen the woman themselves. It also makes explicit that the woman in black was forced to give up her son to her sister for adoption due to claimed mental illness, that her rage over that — and her son’s death — is what keeps her spirit around, and that this is why children die when she is seen. It then introduces a subplot very reminiscent of “The Ring”, where Kipps (with help) dives into the quickmud of the marsh, recovers the child’s body (somehow still intact decades later), and brings it into the house so that the woman in black can “find” her son and be at peace.

And now we come to the endings. In the 1989 film, Kipps — after a very rough night at the house — goes back into the village and stays at the inn, where he has a horrific encounter with the woman in black. He awakes days later in the house of Sam (the land baron), having suffered from a complete nervous collapse. Sam lets him know that the house has burned down in the meantime, and so the whole matter is closed. Kipps (and his wife) return to London, and Kipps — after a few more days of rest — goes back to the office. He confronts his superior about the house, but the superior dismisses it all. However, one of the junior clarks informs Kipps that he saw a woman, dressed all in black, standing on the sidewalk in front of the firm’s doors, looking as though she wanted to come in. Meanwhile, Kipps’ suitcase with all the widow’s papers has been delivered and put in Kipps’ office. Kipps confronts his superior again (physically, this time), then goes back, piles the papers around the small fireplace in his office, and sets them and the suitcase on fire, having liberally doused them with kerosene first. Kipps’ office is burned up, with water and fire damage to the rest of the law offices, and Kipps goes home. Some time later — it’s not clear how long, though Kipps seems to be no longer working at the firm — Kipps takes his family on an outing to the countryside, during which they get into a small boat and start rowing on a small lake. Kipps looks up as they are approaching the shore — and sees the woman in black standing in the middle of the lake, looking at him. At that point, a large portion of a tree overhanging the lake breaks off and falls upon the boat and its occupants, killing them all. The end.

In the 2012 version, Kipps is convinced that he has laid the woman in black to rest by ‘reuniting’ her with her dead son. His own son (and his son’s nanny) have come down from London that same night to visit him; he meets them at the train station, tells them that they’re heading back to London immediately, and asks the nanny to go buy their tickets. The nanny does so, but ends up letting go of the boy’s hand — and the boy sees in the woman in black. [Seriously? A nanny standing on a railway platform at night just feet away from the tracks would let go of a young boy's hand?] The boy climbs down onto the tracks, Kipps jumps down to save him, the train passes — and Kipps find himself and his son on the tracks in an empty, grey version of the train station. He realizes they’re dead — and then he sees his wife’s spirit again. They go to her, embrace, and then all walk off together into a light-filled mist.

The ending makes even less sense, because at the moment of the accident, while the train is passing by, Sam (the land baron) looks through the train windows and sees the woman in black on the other side, along with the spirits of all the dead children (including presumably, his own), and they all look pretty gray and unhappy and unpleasant. So, all these children are damned to haunt the village, but Kipps and his son get a free pass because his wife is already dead and leads them away?

The book’s ending is quite different from either movie in that Kipps is writing this story down probably 20 or or more years after the fact. As noted above, he is engaged at the time of the events at the widow’s house; on returning to London, he and his fiancee marry and have a young son. A few years later, they are on an outing at a park, when the young boy sees a trap-and-horse ride. It can only fit two (besides the driver), so the boy and his mother go on it, as Kipps watches on. As the trap is finishing its circuit through the park and returning to where Kipps is waiting, Kipps suddenly sees the woman in black standing beneath a tree next to the pathway the trap is on.  As the trap passes under the tree, the woman in black steps in front of the horse, somehow spooking it and causing it to run wildly until it and the trap crash into a tree. Kipps’ son is killed; his wife is terribly injured and dies months later. “I had seen the ghost of Jennet Humfrye and she had had her revenge. They asked for my story. I have told it. Enough.”

The end.  ..bruce w..

P.S. Did I really say “brief” in the title of the post?

In the interest of full disclosure, I must say that I’ve been a Nicolas Cage fan ever since “Raising Arizona”. It doesn’t mean that I like (or have even seen) all the films he’s done, but I do like some of his films (“Next”, “Knowing”) more than the general consensus. On the other hand, his first “Ghost Rider” (2007) film was ‘meh’ at best, while as for “The Wicker Man” — well, let’s not go there.

That said, “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” was a surprisingly well-done and entertaining film, particularly given that it’s based on a B-level comic book character. The plot can be best summarized as “Terminator 2″ meets “The Omen”: Johnny Blaze (Cage) is recruited by a religious (but violent) man named Moreau to help located and protect a young boy, Danny, who has been fathered by Roarke, the human incarnation of the Devil — the same man who made a deal with Blaze (to save Blaze’s father), turning him into the Ghost Rider — and who is destined to become the Antichrist if a certain ritual takes place a few days hence.  The offer made to Blaze is that if he brings Danny to a certain place of sanctuary, Blaze can have his curse lifted.

While the overall story arc holds no great surprises (name the last comic book movie that did), the ride is a fun one. Cage’s famous quirkiness and propensity of scenery-chewing works well for his character, a man possessed by an actual demon (himself a fallen angel) whose only desire is to punish the wicked and occasionally consume their souls. Cage plays Blaze as someone who is borderline functional, who chews handfuls of prescription pain meds, and who admits when asked that, yeah, sometimes he enjoys being the Ghost Rider. The special effects are largely seamless and at times impressive, such as when the Rider turns an enormous complex of earth-moving equipment into his ‘ride’. Another refreshing change from most comic book films is that the entire story takes place in Europe (filming was in Romania and Turkey). The film doesn’t try to hide its comic book origins, either, with a few brief illustrated backstory sequences and a bit of occasional live-action comic book editing (side-by-side panels, momentary flashbacks). Also note that unlike a lot of comic book films, there’s a high body count in this one — and unlike almost any other comic book film (except maybe “Captain America”), it’s the hero who’s killing everyone.

I actually went to see this in 3-D, the first 3-D film I’ve seen in probably two years. The 3-D effect was a bit jarring in the earliest action sequence, but after that was not a problem (and was not overused). On the other hand, they showed the “Amazing Spider Man” trailer in 3-D before the film, and it was awful (watching the trailer in 3-D, that is).

Finally, for those of you who sit through the credits looking for additional little bits — there aren’t any.

In all, I give the film a solid B+. Spoilers after the jump.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

OK, it’s hard to have a lot of spoilers in a comic book film, since the arc does largely follow what you’d expect. It even contains the classic comic-book twist of hero gives up his powers, then needs to reclaim them in order to save the day, but even there it’s done with a bit of style. Blaze (Cage), having delivered the boy to the sanctuary, actually has the demon exorcised out of him. But then the boy is recaptured by one of Roarke’s minions, Methodius — the original human kidnapper, killed by Blaze, but brought back to life by Roarke and given powers of his own. As it turns out, Roarke doesn’t want Danny per se — he just wants transfer himself into Danny’s half-human, half-devil body. Blaze, sans powers, decides to go after Danny anyway (with the help of both Moreau and Danny’s mother), since Blaze had promised Danny to keep him safe. They interrupt the ceremony before it’s complete — Moreau is killed by Methodius and Blaze is about to be — when Danny walks up and uses his newfound powers to restore the demon into Blaze. Lots more bodies (or, more accurately, ashes), big chase scene, the Rider causes the van driven by Roarke (and containing Danny as well) to crash. He wraps his chain around Roarke and smashes him into the ground, sending him back down to Hell.

But:  Danny died in the crash. The Rider carries him over to his mother, then converts back to Blaze…and Blaze, for the first time, can feel the angel that his possessing demon once was. He draws upon that power (a blue flame, rather than orange) and restores Danny back to life. The final scene shows the Rider on his motorcycle again, but this time the flames around him are blue, not orange.   Fade to credits.

One last spoiler, which shows that Cage is not above poking fun at himself. At one point, Blaze and Danny are in a roadside diner, and as Blaze is walking back to the table with a tray of food, he sees Danny looking a man at another table, tousling the hair of one of his kids. Blaze sits down across from Danny, then reaches over to tousle Danny’s hair. Danny pulls back and gives Blaze a “what are you doing?” look; Blaze says, “Uh, a bee. There was a bee in your hair.” I have to believe this was in reference to this scene from The Wicker Man:

Heh.

My sweet wife Sandra is not a particular fan of SF films (though she’ll certainly watch or go see them with me), nor of war movies. Yet after we saw this movie today, she talked about how engrossed she was during the entire film. (I’ll note that she went with me to see “Skyline” last year, and her reaction afterward was: “Really?”)  That speaks well for how this film is likely to do at the box office.

What makes “Battle Los Angeles” work is that it is first and foremost a war film about Marines. My son Jon spent four years in the Corps and did a tour in Iraq; my nephew Darren is still in the Corps and is on his second tour of Afghanistan; so the Corps has a special place in my heart. I claim no particular expertise in matters of the Corps, but the film seemed very authentic all the same; some of the younger Marines looked and sounded like my son and my nephew. War film cliches abound — the grizzled staff sergeant (Aaron Eckert, in a great performance) on the verge of retirement, the young lieutenant just out of OCS, the rumors among the men about how Eckert live while his men died on his last combat tour, the mission to rescue some civilians and bring them back out of harm’s way, the steady attrition of the members of the squad — but that provides a frameworkon which hangs the rest of the story.

And the rest of the story is that it’s these human Marines vs. alien Marines, who are making an amphibious assault, coming literally up out of the waves after having landed just offshore in cities around the world. The aliens are tough, but not invincible — still, they’re chewing up everything in their path as they make their way inland. And each time the Marines think they may have things under control, the alien assault escalates.

The film uses a bit too much shaky-cam early on, but settles down  reasonably as the movie goes along. Eckert is outstanding in his role as the staff sergeant and vanishes into it far better than he did as Harvey Dent/Two Face in “The Dark Knight”. The set pieces are very intense, and the filming and art direction is outstanding: you really think you are in the ruins of Los Angeles (most of the film was shot in Louisiana, to take advantage of areas still devastated from Katrina). My only complaints — which I’ll address specifically in the spoilers below — have to do with the rationale for the alien invasion and the ending of the film.

It’s not a great enough film to make me say, “Gee, I want to turn around and go see that in the theaters again.” But it is good enough that I’ll almost certainly buy the BluRay disk when it comes out. All in all, a well-done effort. Spoilers after the jump.

SPOILERS! BE WARNED!

OK, I just about put my face in my hands when — halfway or so through the movie — the Marines, holed up in a building, find an outside ‘net link, find a TV feed, and hear a news report that scientists have determined that the aliens are here for…our water! Which they use to power their ships and themselves! And, furthermore, that (a) Earth is the only planet in the galaxy (or maybe the universe) with so much liquid water on the surface, and (b) our sea levels had already started dropping. Y’know, the director went to great lengths to achieve some level of USMC authenticity (the actors went through a mini boot camp, etc.) and yet comes up with a rationale that is not only patently false but profoundly stupid, and that any 12-year-old reader of science fiction could have set him straight on. Sheesh. The aliens could simply have landed on Europa, drilled through the ice, and pulled out all the liquid water they needed. And there are probably literally millions — and possibly billions — of planets in our galaxy alone that have liquid and/or frozen water. And…water for energy? Srsly? It was all just so profoundly stupid that it sucked a lot of the enjoyment out of the rest of the film. The director would have been far better off not having any explanation at all than to come up with that idiocy.

The second big flaw in the film (IMHO) involved the fact that the alien aircraft turned out to be drones. All the drones in an area (e.g., Los Angeles) are hypothesized to be controlled by a command ship somewhere. The last part of the film has the surviving Marines hunt for the LA command ship, then call in a missile strike on it — at which point drones start dropping out of the sky. Once again: srsly? A race capable of interstellar travel can’t build an autonomous drone? We can build an autonomous drone now, and we can’t even get humans beyond low earth orbit any more. And in an echo far, far too reminiscent of “Independence Day”, once the alien control ship in LA is taken out, the news is radioed to the other cities being invaded, so that they can take them out as well.

I think it should be mandatory for anyone making an alien invasion movie to read and heed this article over at Cracked. I think that “Battle Los Angeles” made just about every mistake listed here. It is a tribute to how well done the movie was that I enjoyed it anyway. As always, your mileage may vary.  ..bruce w..

My eye was caught over at the Apple Movie Trailers site by an upcoming film named “2012: Time for Change“. I read the movie synopsis and was practically overcome with giggling.

“2012: Time for Change” presents an optimistic alternative to apocalyptical doom and gloom. Directed by Emmy Award nominee Joao Amorim, the film follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on a quest for a new paradigm that integrates the archaic wisdom of tribal cultures with the scientific method. As conscious agents of evolution, we can redesign post-industrial society on ecological principles to make a world that works for all. Rather than breakdown and barbarism, 2012 heralds the birth of a regenerative planetary culture where collaboration replaces competition, where exploration of psyche and spirit becomes the new cutting edge, replacing the sterile materialism that has pushed our world to the brink.

Srsly? ..bruce..

…we can start looking at potential candidates for next year.  Hat tip to John in the comments to this post over at Language Log.  ..bruce w..