From the Front Row

After gaining international recognition in 2004 for his vampire film, Night Watch, Russian director Timur Bekmambetov makes his English language debut with Wanted, a new action thriller starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie.

McAvoy stars as Wesley Gibson, a wimpy accountant stuck in a seemingly meaningless existence, with a boring job, a horrible boss, and an unfaithful wife who is cheating on him with his best friend. His life seems to be going nowhere until one day a beautiful assassin named Fox (Angelina Jolie) rescues him from certain death at the hands of the man who killed his father, who as it turns out was a world class assassin himself, a member of a super-secret organization of assassins known as The Fraternity.

Wesley is saddled with the task of tracking down his father’s killer who was a member of the fraternity who went rogue and betrayed them, as Fox and the members of the Fraternity train him and help him hone the skills he inherited from his father that he never knew he had.

It is the kind of film where one must totally surrender to it in order to fully enjoy it. It takes place in a world where bullets can be curved and collide in midair, where the blood flows fast and candle wax can heal anything. It is not something that can be thought too much about (the mysterious Loom of Fate could have used more development), but the ultimate product is one of such eye-popping spectacle that it’s well worth the ride.

Bekmambetov brings an energy and a verve that keeps the adrenaline pumping and the action coming fast and furious. Wanted is a film that never lets up once it gets going. Through his inventive visual style, Bekmambetov shows he knows just how to thrill an audience by creating some truly jaw-dropping action set pieces.

James McAvoy is an appealing lead, and it’s good to see him showing up more often. Jolie is basically playing Jolie, but she’s still great fun.

The naysayers are already complaining about the level of extreme violence and vigilante themes, but you can’t come into a film like Wanted looking for politics. It is only intent on showing the audience a good time, and it does…in spades. You have to evaluate it on its filmmaking skill, and Bekmambetov has crafted, a mean, taut thriller with a slash and burn, take no prisoners sensibility.

I loved its balls-to-the-wall aesthetic and rebellious spirit. It comes blazing out of the gate flashing the middle finger on both hands, almost daring anyone to hate it. Which is something I don’t see how anyone can do. We’re not dealing with great filmmaking here (music is a different story though, Danny Elfman’s Russian/rock flavored score is one of the best of the year, period), but that’s not the point. It’s a bold, raucous adrenaline shot, and I left the theater with a big, goofy grin on my face, which is often all I can ask for. Wanted may quite possibly be the best film of its kind since The Matrix.

GRADE – *** (out of four)

WANTED; Directed by Timur Bekmambetov; Stars James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Thomas Kretschmann, Terrence Stamp; Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language and some sexuality

Brick Lane: B-
The Children of Huang Shi: D
Get Smart: C
The Happening: D
The Incredible Hulk: B
Kung Fu Panda: A-
The Last Mistress: C
Mongol: B+
WALL-E: A
Wanted: B
When Did You Last See Your Father?: A-

Seriously. People need to get over their insipid moral nosebleeds about “oh it’s so violent, it condones bloodshed and vigilantism blah blah blah” shutthefuckup.

I am sick and tired of people going into movies like this and getting caught up in moral umbrage as if it were some kind of real life situation and completely ignoring the skill of the craft. Wanted is an extremely well made action thriller, maybe the most innovative and balls-to-the-wall entertaining of its type since The Matrix. It has a verve and a style that is addictive, and for director Timur Bekmambetov’s (Night Watch) obvious skill to be ignored because some people find the central idea morally objectionable is bordering on obscene.

One of the great things about the movies is that normal rules of right and wrong do not apply. I myself do not agree with vigilantism or killing of any kind, in fact I am a pacifist. But I loved Wanted. I detected nothing hateful, bigoted, or evil in its nature, just a desire to entertain and send adrenaline pumping through the audiences’ veins. Which it does, with great aplomb.

I’ll be typing out my full thoughts later this evening.

I’ love it!

Disney/Pixar’s WALL-E is just about as close to avant-garde as any modern children’s film is ever going to get, because it is essentially a silent film.

Pixar-wise I think it falls somewhere between Finding Nemo and the original Toy Story. I still think Ratatouille is the studio’s finest effort. But WALL-E is such a beautifully unique joy. It takes two characters who can barely say anything more than each other’s names, and builds an entire narrative using mostly just images and Thomas Newman’s gorgeous score.

The filmmakers can deny, deny, deny all they want about WALL-E’s “green” themes, but they’re there, and quite blatant. It’s above all a love story, but it’s a love story with a message, and some very pointed satire. I think in many ways Disney wanted to do some damage control, lest conservative middle America catch wind that this is some kind of pro-environment anti lazy fat ass movie. Which it is, in all honesty. It’s a film about being good stewards of the planet and of ourselves lest we fall into some kind of mega-corporate nightmare where everything is a marketing tool and we’re just drooling, obese sheep who have been lulled into a kind of walking death.

But enough about all that. WALL-E is a sweeping, glorious film with a sense of humor reminiscent of the films of Charles Chaplin and Jacques Tati. It’s a groundbreaking work of art, both breathtaking and intimate in its scope. Pixar has scored another triumph, and WALL-E is the best American film so far of 2008.

My full review will be published in The Dispatch on Thursday.

Vulture has posted a list of the Pixar films in order from best to worst (if you can use the word ‘worst’ in a discussion of Pixar films), and come up with a list that is so singularly bizarre and backward that it’s barely worth mentioning (kind of like AFI’s latest list, which I have not mentioned on the blog until now).

I don’t plan on posting the list. If you want to see it you can click here. Instead, I offer my own list of the Pixar films in order:

1. Ratatouille
2. Finding Nemo
3. Toy Story 2
4. Toy Story
5. Monsters, Inc.
6. The Incredibles
7. Cars
8. A Bug’s Life

From The Dispatch:

Director Peter Segal, who has made a career out of making second-rate studio comedies like this one, seems to sap all the natural humor out of Carell and turns what should have been an incisive send-up of the spy genre like the Mel Brooks TV series with which it shares a name into a loud, bombastically obnoxious action comedy that takes itself way too seriously. The script is flat and dull, causing most of the jokes to land with a painful thud.

It stumbles even more when it tries to foray into political humor, where the jokes fall embarrassingly flat. I almost felt bad for the actors who had to chew on the tired dialogue, filled with one-liners that second rate stand-up comics would have found outdated five years ago.

Click here to read my full review.

The fact that Catherine Breillat’s The Last Mistress (IFC, 6.27) begins with a long shot of an elderly Viscount biting into a piece of chicken should have sent up a red flag right away. It’s that kind of aimless, choppy misdirection that pockmarks the film and serves little purpose in the grand narrative. In fact, Breillat’s odd bookending of the film with the Viscount (Michael Lonsdale) and his flibbertigibbet wife (Yolande Moreau…aka the female mime from one of my favorite segments in Paris, je T’aime) serves as an unnecessary distraction, making for one of the most glaring examples of a film that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself.

Based on the novel, Une vieille maîtresse, by Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aureville, The Last Mistress is the story of Ryno de Marigny (Fu’ad Ait Aattou), a penniless upper crust Lothario who is finally settling down with a virginal aristocrat, Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida), and putting an end to his wild days. However, he cannot shake the memory of his ten year love affair with Vellini (Asia Argento), a tempestuous Spanish firecracker known not for her beauty, but for her domineering, independent spirit and eccentric ways.

That’s a kind way to put it, because Argento’s Vellini, is a coarse, uncouth, wholly unlikable whore of a woman who is all but impossible to like. I can’t remember a more reprehensible romantic heroine in all of cinema. She makes Scarlett O’Hara look like a sweet Southern lady who just wants to be loved.

That was perhaps my biggest problem with The Last Mistress. My absolute loathing for Argento’s despicable character nearly killed the entire movie for me. But there were plenty of other weaknesses to help it along. For a movie as filled with sex and infidelity as this one, it’s surprisingly un-sexy. The sex scenes are dull, lifeless, and boring. I never once felt like these teo people ever really wanted each other, even without their seemingly random love-hate dynamic.

This is mostly due to the fact that Breillat has an annoying habit of telling rather than showing. A good chunk of the story takes place in flashback, as Marigny relates the story of his torrid love affair to Hermangarde’s grandmother, La marquise de Flers (Claude Sarraute). But instead of showing, Breillat spends more time watching Marigny tell the story.

This would not be a problem if it had been done with any kind of dramatic tension or psychological drama, but instead Breillat sucks out all the energy with stilted pacing and awkward dialogue. It’s an 18th century French soap opera by way of Telemundo.

In fact, much of the film has the feeling of a second rate high school play with unusually high production values. Fu’ad Ait Aattou is an extremely attractive and magnetic lead, but Argento is, well…it’s just a bizarre performance let’s leave it at that.

Mostly the actors are just saddled with a stiff screenplay that should have been fluid. The film seems as if its never quite sure where it wants to go. It’s trying to be a steamy, bodice ripping period soap opera, but it just comes off as uninspired and unsatisfying. When you have this many attractive people having this much sex onscreen, the result should not be so ho-hum. But The Last Mistress is a creaky yawn from the word go.

GRADE – ** (out of four)

THE LAST MISTRESS; Directed by Catherine Breillat; Stars Asia Argento, Fu’ad Ait Aattou, Roxane Mesquida, Claude Sarraute, Yolande Moreau, Michael Lonsdale; Not Rated; In French w/English subtitles; Opens Friday, 6/27 in select theaters.

Rolling Stone’s Pete Travers has gotten a sneak peek at Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (Warner, 7/18), and he pretty much creamed his critical pants.

To wit:

Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan’s absolute stunner of a follow-up to 2005’s Batman Begins, is a potent provocation decked out as a comic-book movie. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. But Nolan is just warming up. There’s something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe. Striking out from his Batman origin story, Nolan cuts through to a deeper dimension. Huh? Wha? How can a conflicted guy in a bat suit and a villain with a cracked, painted-on clown smile speak to the essentials of the human condition? Just hang on for a shock to the system. The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil — expected to do battle — decide instead to get it on and dance.

I’m trying not to get my expectations up too high for this one. But Travers’ largely spoiler free review (I only had to skip a few portions) has really got me excited. Admittedly, I was not a big fan of Nolan’s Batman Begins, which I found a bit…underwhelming and overpraised. But I am fully expecting The Dark Knight to make up for that.

Travers finishes up the review by saying:

The haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination. It’s full of surprises you don’t see coming. And just try to get it out of your dreams.

Of course, as Jeff Wells points out, Travers is not necessarily to be trusted in cases such as this. He has a tendency to go a bit overboard on films that don’t always deserve it. Although I’ve always respected Travers, he’s no Pete Hammond in that regard. But I can’t help but feel that he’s right on the money with this one. It sounds as if it’s exactly what I hope it will be, and if it is, then The Dark Knight truly will blow the summer wide open.