Crank 2: High Voltage

Yesterday I delighted in a chance encounter with a sublime filmic experience. It was a gorgeous Seattle day and as the fates would have it I commuted home on foot. Instead of taking the same ol' route, I chose a path that took me past Seattle’s beloved Cinerama.

A mere glance at the reader board and my future realigned. Crank: High Voltage, which you may know as Crank 2, was not only screening, but it was screening in SUPER PANAVISION 70!

Popcorn in hand, Coke in other hand, ticket stub in pocket, smile on face, I walked into the theater.

As I was preparing myself for a joyful, yet violent jaunt projected on a titanic scale, I was surprised and delighted that Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (co-writers and directors) had chosen to begin their sequel with an epic orchestral overture before the curtains pulled back--a drastic departure from the opening tone of the first film which opened in the first person POV of Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) drugged, sleepy, and panicked about the adrenaline-fueled time bomb implanted in his chest cavity, Crank: High Voltage gently eased the audience into the story with an orchestration both dark and lovely. This was only the first indication that Neveldine and Taylor had matured with their audience.

When the curtains opened and the film begin, we were treated to a short and dynamic motorcycle action scene (totally sweet) before cutting to a series of short clips that indicated our off screen protagonist was in a state of post mortem. This, of course, put us on track with the tag line, "He was dead...But he got better," and I was prepared for Jason Statham to burst, fist over, um, bullet, out of the bronzed memorial bust and start kicking some serious ass. At this point I should have known that the film was moving in a different direction. Yet another bold artistic choice for this big budget Hollywood flick was to strike a brooding juxtaposition between our expectations and the viewing experience, by skipping over what was surely a miraculous, Lazarusian reanimation scene and cutting right to the heart. Well Played, Neveldine and Taylor, well played.

In short, the rest of the film was a masterpiece. Jason Statham will surely be acknowledged by the academy for his knock ‘em dead performance and bewildering physical transformation (matched only by Charlize Theron in Monster). Overall, I give Crank: High Voltage five stars and two thumbs up! This unexpectedly historically relevant, character powerhouse of a scenic film will wow even the most disillusioned Hollywood spectators. Each of the 96 minutes felt twice as full, robust, and dare I say long? Just goes to show that modern cinema is more than competent in creating masterful art even in throw away sequels… although, despite advertising, I’m pretty sure this was a prequel.

On my way out I noticed that the reader board mentions that Lawrence of Arabia is also playing... snoozefest.

Grade: A+

Hellboy 2 (2008)

Too bad Hell Boy 2 had to be a blockbuster. You see, in blockbusters shit blows up, concrete is torn from the ground and your senses are sent to an overwhelmed plane that only Michael Bay truly understands. The problem here is that director Guillermo Del Toro has crafted such intricate and innovative monsters that the explosions distract from what is actually interesting about the film. The monsters have such life that just watching them walking around and twitch is enthralling, but then, oh wait, what? I guess they have to fight now.

The same problem afflicts the film’s protagonists. Hellboy and his crew of misfits (Jeffery Tambor!) are the first group of superheroes that you would actually want to hang out with. They share a goofy sense humor that’s infectious and when Hellboy and Abe get drunk and sing sappy love songs it’s transcendent. But the movie quickly moves from engaging camaraderie to world-saving, which means less interaction and, ironically, less fun. Also a few things just don’t work; Abe’s love story falls painfully short of awkward-funny and the preening villain only moves via slow motion back flip (at one point he cuts a rain drop in half. Did we learn nothing from the Matrix Revolutions?)

But this movie is better than its predecessor. Ron Peralman is great, the monsters are dazzling and everyone seems like they are having a blast. Let’s just hope that in Del Toro’s next film the hobbits get more time to chill out and banter.

Wanted (2008)

Every few decades or so, I get to watch a movie that has absolutely everything: amazing characters, genius plot, bullet time, moistened cleavage... "Wanted" is that movie. I saw it, I saw it again, and I'm watching a bootlegged version of it that I downloaded off of LimeWire right now.

This is the greatest movie I have ever seen.

Grade: B+

Wanted (2008)

Sometimes the hardest part about reviewing a film is admitting that you actually went to see it. This movie lured me with promises of bullet time and slightly moistened cleavage. I paid ten dollars.

It was a really shitty movie guys.

Grade: D+

Network (1976)

If you were wondering what movie George Clooney has been trying to make for the past decade, look no further then Network, an eloquent satire of sensationalized news. The film was meant as comedy but the humor hit so close to home, it was interpreted as a drama by the Academy and given the award for best picture. There are some really brilliant moments, such as the network pioneering reality TV by paying terrorists to film their bank heists and kidnappings and the accurate prediction of Rupert Murdock’s monopolistic media clusterfuck. But the best joke comes from the film’s enduring catch phrase, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!” Screaming it sure makes citizens feel better but doing so changes nothing and ultimately shows how Limbaugh-ian anger is manipulated for ratings.

The film is not always subtle (at one point the protagonist tells other characters what they symbolize) and any character, no matter how minor, might erupt into an expressive monologue at any time, but this is all part of the movie’s urgent charm.

Grade: A+

WALL-E (2008)

Pixar’s streak of movies that are both innovative and commercially successful is unreal. They are the Beatles of animation and WALL-E is their Sergeant Pepper’s. Like that defining concept album, WALL-E experiments with narrative and point of view in ways you have never seen in computer animation. The film operates with very little dialogue; visual clues, and clever slapstick fill in where exposition and fast talking celebrity cameos were before.

But mainly, it’s a movie about adorable robots in love. The treatment of animated characters as emotionally complicated beings is Pixar’s gene for success and WALL-E is no exception. WALL-E collects trash from an abandoned world and through his curious interactions with everyday items, we know him. Its hard to resist a robot who uses a film canister as a top hat and dances along to a discarded Barbra Streisand musical. Most importantly, the love between WALL-E and the i-podesque EVE is unorthodox and touching.

Ok, so I know I’m gushing a bit, but this movie makes you feel great. I guess if I really thought about it hard, I might complain that the themes of environmentalism and anti-wal-martism were a little simplified but this is an unabashedly romantic film and hell, maybe love is all you need.

Grade: A+

Be Kind Rewind (2008) or Anand has a fight with Ali part one

Expectations are a funny thing. When we see a comedy, Judd Aptow's films come to mind, we don't feel betrayed when the dim protagonist bumbles through the film only to miraculously transform into an intelligent, emotional human being. But when we are presented with similarly non-dynamic characters in Michel Gondry' Be Kind Rewind, we feel cheated. Gondry is supposed to be an artist! But the thing is Gondry has never promised to present fully realized characters or a plot grounded in reality and the sort of film making he celebrates in Be Kind Rewind, both hollywood and backyard productions, don't either. So this is a flawed film but the flaws are forgivable if you accept that Gondry's creations come with their own style of camp.

Of course, Gondry's considerable knack for imaginative shots and homemade sets makes forgiving him particularly easy. And this film was built to show off Gondry's DIY genius. The protagonists hastily recreate classic blockbusters like Robocop with homemade sets and slap dash special effects that are as inventive as they are charming.

And ultimately, Gondry's thesis about cinema absolves him. For Gondry, movies are more then just the characters and plot which inhabit them, they exist in the viewing public's memory and communities of experience are formed around them. Sweding itself is central to this celebration of collective memory. Sweded films are not shot by shot remakes of their sources but rather 15 minutes of what everyone involved remembers about the film and then some stuff that the creators just made up ( hilariously shown by Jack Black's mangling of the Ghost Busters' theme song). This is why Rush Hour 2 can play an equally important role in community building as the protagonist's Fats Weller documentary and why this film, with it's two dimensional characters and fantastical plot, can make an important and artistically justified statement about movies. Is Be Kind Rewind's final scene whimsical and unrealistic? Yeah, but so is a robotic super cop with the soul of a human trapped inside.

Grade: B+