Hitchcock Review

Alfred Hitchcock was one of the most famous directors in film history. He had an iconic and entertaining public image as well as creating some of the most influential films in his day. Psycho is easily my favorite Hitchcock film; I got to analyze Psycho to pieces in my film class. I knew what kind of a sacrifices Hitchcock made for that film, but I never envisioned making a movie about making Psycho. Someone did think of it and thus Hitchcock (2012) was born.

in 1959, Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), are at the top of their creative game as filmmakers amid disquieting insinuations about it being time to retire. To recapture his youth's artistic daring, Alfred decides his next film will adapt the lurid horror novel, Psycho, over everyone's misgivings. Unfortunately, as Alfred self-finances and labors on this film, Alma finally loses patience with his roving eye and controlling habits with his actresses. When an ambitious friend, Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), lures her to collaborate on a work of their own, the resulting maternal tension sullies Alfred's work even as the novel's inspiration (Michael Wincott) haunts his dreams.

So, Hitchcock opens with a scene where Ed Gein, the real life inspiration for Psycho's Norman Bates, kills someone for calling him a "momma's boy." Before the scene becomes gory, the camera slowly pans to the left and settles on Anthony Hopkins in a remarkable prosthetics and make up job casually sipping some tea as he watches the murder take place. He then turns to the camera and speaks briefly to the audience in Hitchcock's signature coyly grim demeanor about how these events inspired a great movie. It starts off just like an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Not only did this set a fascinating tone for the movie that draws you in from the get go, but also it put me, as a Hitchcock fan, in a some kind of film-production enthusiast overload. I was put in an "awesome coma" before the movies' title had a chance to appear on screen.

Anthony Hopkins and Alfred Hitchcock

The casting was beyond compare. Anthony Hopkins is incredible as Alfred Hitchcock. Granted, Anthony Hopkins is incredible as anything, but makeup job and prosthetics aside, Hopkins captivated Hitchcock's vocal tone, speech inflections, and mannerisms perfectly! Even the script gave him dialogue that sounded exactly like things Hitchcock would say. Scarlett Johansson and James D'Arcy were cast to play the stars of Hitchcocks' masterpiece Psycho. They look and act so much like Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh it was simply amazing. Whoever did the casting for Hitchcock deserves an award.

The movie is about a married couple. Both are aware of their age, the romance in their relationship is basically dead, they are at a low point in their lives with all the personal sacrifices they each made for the Psycho film, and both have reason to suspect the other of infidelity. What I loved about both these characters is they are able to become more unified as they work together on a mutual project, which also happens to be something that I am passionate about: movie making! Hitchcock shows us how most of Hitchcock's films would have been much weaker without the unseen collaboration from his wife. Unlike a lot of contemporary movies, Hitchcock depicts a marriage as something that is reciprocally beneficial and requires much work and trust from both husband and wife to succeed. I really appreciated that aspect of the movie.

Hitchcock is a movie about making a movie. It captivates the energy and excitement of making a film and creating art. The movie depicts Alfred and Alma as being highly passionate about film and struggling to create despite the apathy and business side of the industry. The studio execs want movies that are exactly like every other film; it's safe and will guarantee a profit. Hitchcock wants to be bold, take calculated risks, and refuses to make standardized art just to make money. That resonated with me immensely as I hate seeing movies that follow a moneymaking formula and have no  heart. That, coupled with watching some classic scenes being filmed, was just fantastic to behold!

Hitchcock was an excellent film that hit nearly every point that makes a good movie while also catering to my fascination with film as an art medium. The acting was superbly presented by an outstanding cast, the plot was good, the history was mostly accurate. The allusions to the Psycho movie were creative, meaningful, and well implemented without actually showing clips from Psycho. I also loved seeing Hitchcock and Alma in a masterful creative collaboration that culminated in making movie history. If you like Alfred Hitchcock movies at all, I think you owe it to yourself to see this one. You'll probably get more out of it if you've seen Psycho. If you haven't seen Psycho you should see that, too. Not everyone will enjoy it as much as I do, but I still implore you to see Hitchcock; it's a good, solid movie that is worth owning.

What is your favorite Alfred Hitchcock film? Comment below and tell me why!

Wrath of the Titans Movie Review

Back in 1981, a special effects move was released called Clash of the Titans. It featured some fairly impressive stop-motion animation coupled with live actors. It's a cheesy classic that few people seem to remember. In 2010 was a cutting-edge remake that was basically a special effects fest. It was pretty fun, but couldn't be taken very seriously. Box office successes deserve sequels, right? So Wrath of the Titans (2012), a sequel of a remake of a old cheesy movie, was made. Why did they think this was a good idea?

A decade after his heroic defeat of the monstrous Kraken, Perseus (Sam Worthington) the demigod son of Zeus (Liam Neeson) is trying to live quieter life as a village fisherman as the only parent of his 10-year-old son Helius (John Bell). Meanwhile, a struggle for supremacy rages between the gods and Titans. Dangerously weakened by humanity's lack of devotion, the gods are losing control of the imprisoned Titans and their ferocious leader, Kronos, father of the long-ruling brothers Zeus, Hades (Ralph Fiennes), and Poseidon (Danny Huston). Their unity had overthrown their powerful father long ago, leaving him to rot in the abyss of Tartarus, a dungeon that lies deep within the cavernous underworld. Perseus cannot ignore his true calling when Hades along with Zeus's godly son, Ares (Edgar Ramirez) switch loyalty and make a deal with Kronos to capture Zeus. The Titan Kronos' strength grows stronger as Zeus' remaining godly powers are siphoned. If Kronos is able to escape Tartarus, it will mean the end of the world.

The cast that appears in this movie had to have been contractually obligated to take up these roles again for this sequel. Liam Neeson is known for some outstanding roles; Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Henri Ducard in Batman Begins, even some of the lousy movies he's appeared in like Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Battleship were made slightly better just because he's in them. One of the best reasons to watch the 2010 Clash of the Titans was to hear him say, “Release the Kraken!” Then there is Ralph Fiennes reprising his role as Hades. He's a stellar actor who will likely be remembered forever as Lord Voldemort. Bill Nighy even appears for a short while. All these actors are exceptional, but given the terrible script and and sloppy story, I can't imagine why they would consent to appear in this movie. Sam Worthington's acting hasn't improved, and the only real change we see in the character is he now has a stupid-looking haircut.

The script in Wrath of the Titans is ridiculous to say the least. Right from the opening character introductions, the dialogue is awkward, forced, and corny. One of the villagers in Perseus' community approaches him and basically says, “Well, hi there! You are Perseus. You defeated the Kraken exactly ten years ago. You are the son of Zeus. You fight good. Now everyone knows what happened in the last movie. I will now remind you that you have a son who will probably fight as well as you did. For the sake of the audience I'll also remind you that I have asked you before, but do you intend to teach your son to fight?” I'm exaggerating only a little bit. No one causally walks up to someone and reminds them of their personal history and reputation as if it was a conversation starter. Sadly, it doesn't get any better after that. Fortunately, later on there's too much action for us to notice much of the laughable dialogue the characters are shouting at one another.

Like its predecessor, Wrath of the Titans is a special effects fest. The CGI artwork was actually quite good. Lots of fireballs, exploding mountains, ugly monsters, and moving labyrinth walls. The scene that has Perseus and company braving the labyrinth that surrounds Tartarus is an intricate one. The walls moved constantly; halls became dead ends, narrow corridors crushed in on our heroes, and floors withdrew themselves from underfoot. It's was like a gigantic stone clockwork device that could sense where the human-size gods were and tried to destroy them. The monsters and titans were fairly detailed and well animated for the most part. That has to be the most pathetic excuse for a minotaur I've ever seen, though; it looked more like an ugly human with horns. The minotaur scene was so short, I'm not even sure why they bothered including it.

There have been movies made where the excellent implementation of special effects are what made the movie worth watching. Wrath of the Titans is not one of those movies. The special effects and CGI work was excellent, even if the scale and spacing was vague. The characters were shallow and uninteresting, the script was laughable and poorly written, and the story was murky and incomprehensible. That significantly weakened my ability to enjoy the special effects and action. The production itself was way below the talents of most of the actors involved, but I'll excuse them on the grounds that they were probably under contract. Wrath of the Titans was not a good movie; it was not even a decent sequel. If you really want to see some fun Grecian gods clash, just stick with Clash of the Titans. It's silly and over the top, but it's fun. Don't bother with Wrath of the Titans, it's just not worth the money to even rent it.

Do you have a favorite "Greek Epic?" I thought Ben Hur was pretty good. What's your favorite? Comment below and tell me all about it!

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Movie Review

In general, sequels usually are not as good as the original movie, but they aren’t always bad. Prequels, however, are consistently horrendous; often tarnishing the original movie and characters. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) is no different.

In 1845 Canada, young James Howlett (Hugh Jackman) sees his father killed by groundskeeper Thomas Logan. The trauma activates the boy's mutation: bone claws protrude from James' hands, and he kills Thomas, who reveals with his dying breath to be James' real father. James flees into the forest along with Thomas's son Victor Creed (Liev Schrieber), who is thus James' brother. They spend the next century as soldiers in the American Civil War, both World Wars, and the Vietnam War. Major William Stryker (Danny Huston) offers the two of them a position in Team X, a group of mutant special operatives. But James leaves because of the questionable actions and disregard for life. Years later, James now goes by Logan and lives in Canada as with his girlfriend, Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). Colonel Stryker appears to warn Logan that someone is killing members of Team X. Shortly after, Victor murders Kayla and attacks Logan. Stryker offers Logan a way to beat Victor; an experimental procedure that would reinforce his skeleton with adamantium, a virtually indestructible metal. Logan asks for new dog tags that read “Wolverine” after a story Kayla had told him. After the procedure, Logan overhears Stryker ordering Logan’s memory to be erased. Logan violently fights his way out, and learns about Stryker’s elaborate plot to combine the powers of several mutants into one: Weapon XI, the Mutant Killer.

The story in X-Men Origins: Wolverine really seems haphazardly thrown together in an attempt to maintain interest in X-Men film series. The story was rushed; they threw in lots of well known comic book characters but didn’t give them enough screen time to allow any of them to develop into the interesting characters that they are. I was most upset about Remy “Gambit” LaBeau (Taylor Kitsch). Gambit was always a favorite of mine; like most of the other characters, he shows up for a little bit delivers a few lines and shows off some mutant powers and that’s it. One of Gambit’s more endearing traits is his thick Cajun accent, which is scarcely detectable in this movie. It just so happens that Gambit owns and knows how to fly an airplane to transport Wolverine to Stryker’s hide out; that never occurred in the comic books. It’s almost like after the story was written, they then stuck iconic Marvel characters in wherever it was convenient, regardless of how illogical it would be for the previously established characters. It’s just poor writing.

It was neat to learn about where Wolverine came from, but it removes the intriguing mystery behind the character. Wolverine is one of the more popular X-Men characters, and there really is no one that could play him like Hugh Jackman, who is perfect for the role! Wolverine’s ability to heal from anything makes him the perfect action hero, and the action in this movie is over the top and fun. Having an invulnerable character as the main protagonist brings to mind tank-like action heroes of the early 1980’s; fun but uninteresting. I’d hate to think this movie has essentially thrown Wolverine away, but there’s not much left that can be done with him. It would have been much better to have Wolverine go on a quest to find out all the details of his past (since in the original movies he has amnesia), and see how these revelations change him as a character and how he grows from it. Starting over from the very beginning and encountering token cameos from other popular characters doesn’t do the franchise or characters any favors.

If you’re an X-Men fan, I do not recommend watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It’s a weak attempt to keep the franchise alive and will leave you upset with what they did to your favorite characters. The only reason to watch it is to see Hugh Jackman be Wolverine some more. If you aren’t a fan, it will just leave you confused and annoyed. Just stick with the first two X-Men movies.