The Huntsman: Winter's War Review

Snow White and the Huntsman was released back in 2012 and was surprisingly decent for what it was, despite having Kristen Stewart as one of the leads. Charlize Theron as Ravenna, the evil queen, stole the show and made it exciting and interesting; I wanted to see more of this amazing actress in this interesting role. Well, a movie pegged as a prequel to Snow White and the Huntsman was released and I was psyched to see more of Charlize Theron as Ravenna. Unfortunately, The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016) is a major flop and seems to go out of its way to avoid showing us what made the previous movie decent.

Betrayed by her evil sister Ravenna (Charlize Theron), heartbroken Freya (Emily Blunt) retreats to a northern kingdom to raise an army of huntsmen as her protectors. Gifted with the ability to freeze her enemies in ice, Freya teaches her young soldiers to never fall in love. When Eric (Chris Hemsworth) and fellow warrior Sara (Jessica Chastain) defy this rule, the angry queen orders them to be killed. Eric escapes, believing Sara to be dead. Many years later after Snow White had defeated Ravenna, The Magic Mirror Ravenna used as the source of her powers is stolen before it can be destroyed. Fearing the return of the Evil Queen, Eric is ordered to seek out the Mirror and destroy it. Accompanied by dwarves Nion (Nick Frost) and Gryff (Rob Brydon), Eric sets out to find and destroy The Mirror. But Freya also seeks The Magic Mirror for its power, and she sends one of her most lethal Huntsman to retrieve it first and kill Eric along the way if necessary.

The Huntsman: Winter's War was marketed and promoted as a prequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. That's just fine, of course. However, the story is more of a prequel/sequel mash up. The first fourth of the movie is a prequel and we are introduced to Freya, Sara, and Eric, and we see Ravenna's relationship with her sister. Then we get "Seven Years Later" on the screen and from that point on, everything is supposed to have happened after Snow White and the Huntsman, effectively making it a sequel. A sequel is also fine. But doing both in one movie is both confusing from a narrative perspective and a blatant cash grab from a film making perspective. Yeah, I wanted to see Ravenna's fantastic villain in action again, but this was a convoluted way to make it happen. Yes, it's just fine to have a few years pass in a story to shorten the span of time between important related events. But it's sloppy story telling if within that elapsed time, which we gloss over, a whole other movie's worth of events occur, the likes of which have a significant impact on rest of the story. I can appreciate a movie expecting it's audience to have seen the previous movie, but there's so much that The Huntsman assumes the audience knows and doesn't bother to explain. It makes the story confusing, convoluted, and poorly presented. The dreadful quality coupled with rehashed good quality special effects and big name actors makes this seem like a cash grab; there's no heart in it. It feels like it was thrown together at the last minute just to sell tickets.

The trailers for The Huntsman were pretty exciting. We got to see some shots of Freya and Ravenna throw down against each other with flashy special effects and action. That's the kind of larger-than-life stunts I appreciated about the first movie and wanted to see more of them in this second movie. Unfortunately, nearly every scene in which that sort of action occurred was shown in the trailer. I wanted to see lots of Ravenna doing her crazy thing; using beauty as a weapon, harnessing the power of The Magic Mirror, and manipulating blood in disturbing ways. Sure, we see some of that and what we see is pretty cool, but what we see is only toward the end during the climactic fight. We see a whole lot more of Freya, but we don't really see her use her powers much either. Granted, what made Ravenna so menacing in the first movie was how powerful and manipulative she was before she even resorted to using magic. Here, she's all super powers with none of the sophisticated subtlety of the previous film. The big fight at the end is probably the best part of the movie; but, it spends too much time with uninteresting characters mucking about in the woods doing very little pertaining to their intended quest.

The Huntsman does have a pretty good cast. Chris Hemsworth has shown us some good acting in the past. Charlize Theron is reprising a role I adored, and she was incredible in Mad Max: Fury Road. Emily Blunt is great actress as well. Nick Frost plays an excellent comic relief as usual. Really, the whole cast is good, they just had a horrible script to work with. The few characters returning from the previous film aren't as interesting or well developed as they were before. I actually feel sorry for the cast involved. It seems like they were present only to fulfill contractual obligations, not because they thought this would be a good movie. The best part of The Huntsman is that while Snow White is mentioned nominally a few times, Kristen Stewart does not appear in the movie.

The Huntsman: Winter's War boasts some nice special effects and a stellar cast, but neither one is enough to make up for the sloppy storytelling, lousy script, and convoluted nature of this entirely unnecessary sequel. This movie is disappointing no matter how you look at it. The returning characters aren't as interesting or fleshed out as they previously were, new characters were weak and bland, and important points of the story are left out under the assumption you've seen the previous movie. It seems like the producers thought that Elsa in Disney's Frozen was popular and tried to shoehorn a rip off of that character into a half-baked sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. This movie lacks the heart and epic quality of its predecessor, and even that movie wasn't all that good to start with. I cannot recommend seeing The Huntsman: Winter's War even if you did like Snow White and the Huntsman. It's a blatant cash grab which I can't imagine anyone involved in it enjoyed making.

Into the Woods Review

I'm ordinarily not fanatical about musicals by any means, but they can be deliriously fun on occasion. There was tons of hype and excitement about a movie version of the Broadway musical Into the Woods (2014) being made. I confess I knew next to nothing about Broadway production apart from the fact that it involves fairy tale characters. It sounded fun, but what I saw was nothing like I expected.

As the result of the curse of a once-beautiful witch (Meryl Streep), a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) are childless. Three days before the rise of a blue moon, they venture into the forest to find the ingredients that will reverse the spell and restore the witch's beauty: a milk-white cow, hair as yellow as corn, a blood-red cape, and a slipper of gold. During their journey, they meet Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) and Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), each one on a quest to fulfill a wish. As they work to make their wishes come true, their actions release great danger upon the land.

When a stage production moves to the big screen, there ought to be some significant changes in set and location. For example Little Shop of Horrors; on stage, the whole story takes place inside Mushnik's Skid Row Florists shop. For the movie adaptation, director Frank Oz took every opportunity to get the characters out of the shop and show them in many different locations. This gave the movie a bigger and more open feel to it, and made the fictional setting seem more real. For Into the Woods the primary location was, believe it or not, the woods. While events took place at different locations within the woods, many sets felt very much the same; there wasn't much variety in the background other than trees. Furthermore, most scenes didn't feature much happening other than characters singing dialogue to one another while standing around by the trees with the camera capturing close shots of the characters. This gave everything a claustrophobic look. We're shown a few wide aerial shots of the woods to suggest that its extensive, but when we're down in the woods we're given almost no sense of space or direction. And since the characters move and do so little other than sing dialogue, it almost feels like this could have been on a rather small stage. The whole point of making a movie adaptation is to make everything bigger, grander, and to do things that can't be done on a stage. Apparently no one told that to the director of Into the Woods, and it gave the whole production an uncomfortably amateur quality to it in terms of camera work, and set design. The sets looked good but seems so small that it was practically begging us to notice it was a soundstage.

Because the characters spend most of their time standing around in the forest singing dialogue about how terrible things are for them and what they wish would happen, the story doesn't lend itself to a whole lot of action. I don't mean in terms of chase scenes, explosions, and fights; I mean in terms of things actually happening. It is frequently suggested that events do take place but most of them occur off screen. This is occasionally a good thing, but is usually just confusing and robs the audience of interesting cinematography. For example, none of Jack's adventures up the beanstalk are ever shown; we just see him wander onto the set with an item of loot and hear him talk about what he did. This sort of thing happens a lot, and weakens a very visual storytelling medium by NOT showing us major events. Not showing us things that happen makes for a very slow moving and uninteresting movie. At one point some of the story arches were wrapping up and I hoped we were coming to the end of the movie, but then something happened to push the story further and I realized to my horror that there was a second act.

There were a number of times that something important happened but it wasn't shown happening. Towards the end there's a major character that dies; all we see is this character in a close up looking around and then stepping backwards to move off screen. I felt like something important had happened, but I was given no context to know what. It's not until halfway through the next scene that someone said they found this character, dead. There were so many times I was watching the movie and thought, "What just happened?", because we aren't shown enough of what little action there is to know what is happening in the story. In fact, there's another scene where another character makes a dramatic exit, and as soon as the scene was over a little girl in the back of the theater loudly asked "What just happened?" If small children who usually aren't concerned with things like movie logistics are left confused, then the movie is doing something very wrong.

The few times the lack of action was a good thing was in instances where story elements of the original Grimm's fariy tale were mercifully done off screen, such as Cinderella's Stepmother cutting off the toes of her daughters to try to get Cinderella's lost slipper onto her daughter's feet. It's moments like that which are dark and violent that are obscured enough to keep it's PG rating, but it still obfuscates any potential to actually show the audience something happening other than dialogue.

At least the music makes up for the poor camera work and lack of action, right? Wrong. I'm not sure how this musical has earned such notoriety. None of the music was catchy, exciting, or moving. The lyrics weren't profound, interesting, or inspiring. In the case of Les Misérables many songs were upbeat enough to enjoy, and lyrics so meaningful that they moved audiences to tears. That memorable and intense quality was completely lacking in the music of Into the Woods. None of the tunes have stuck with me. The only lyrics that stick out in my mind were when all of the characters were repeating the same line over and over and over. The opening song had the cast singing the words "into the woods" repeatedly for an obnoxiously long time. I understood very early on where they were intending to go and it would have been nice if they'd just get there and do something already. Much of the music was almost like listening to insufferable bored children trying to amuse themselves on a long car ride.

One of the few things I liked about the movie was how intricately the characters' stories were interwoven. We're all familiar with most of these character's stories already. The way that these stories influence one another and how some characters weave in and out of stories they don't originally belong to was highly impressive and interesting. The structure of the story was well done, even if the story itself was slow moving. It still would have been better if we got to see more of the story rather than just hear the characters talking about the story.

I honestly didn't know what to expect going in to see Into the Woods, but this wasn't it. The camera work was bad, the music was drab and forgettable, and the pacing was very slow. The intricacy of the story is impressive, but the story mostly features the characters standing around in the forest talking about things the movie should have been showing us. I can see how this would be a good production if it were on stage, but the transition to movie was not done well at all. The writing, camera work, and set design should have had a lot more attention for it to be a solid movie. It has cute moments here and there, but the bad aspects of the movie really do ruin the few good bits. I can't recommend seeing this. Fans of the musical might enjoy seeing the play with CGI special effects and such, but I imagine the awkwardness of the overall movie production would make it disappointing. If you had no prior experience with the musical, you'll probably get a good laugh at how bad and awkward this movie is. This isn't even worth renting. Go watch Hairspray or something else if you're in a mood for a musical.

The Adjustment Bureau Review

Mashing up genres can make for some interesting stories. Recently a couple of sci-fi romances movies have been released; The Adjustment Bureau (2011) and Upside Down (2012). I've been meaning to see both of them, and just now got around to seeing The Adjustment Bureau. It tosses around some neat ideas about determinism versus free will, but the actual romance part was pretty weak to say the least.

On the brink of winning a seat on the U.S. Senate, ambitious politician David Norris (Matt Damon) meets a beautiful contemporary ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) - a woman like none he's never known. But just as he realizes he's falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart. David learns he's up against the agents of Fate itself - the men of The Adjustment Bureau - who will do anything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let her go and accept a predetermined path or risk everything to defy fate and be with her.

We don't often see a politician character who isn't to some degree caught up in the deceit and corruption inherent in politics. David is a pretty down to earth guy for being a politician. Maybe it's because we're seeing the version of him presented to the news and media as well as the behind-the-scenes version of him. There's not a lot of difference in personality on and off the news, though he certainly puts his game face on for the cameras. I'd probably vote for this guy. Inversely Elise is not necessarily a bad person, but she is kind of a brat. She's a bit selfish, likes to stir up drama from time to time, and cause small amounts of trouble in the interest of looking playful and cute. I didn't like her and had I met her, I doubt there would have been a second date, let alone a first one. While the two actors had some decent chemistry, I didn't see much of a reason for them to fall in love other than "they just clicked." That's a convenient reason to put characters together, but it robs them of potential depth and development.

This is a sci-fi film, but it's not high end science fiction. The science fiction/fantasy element plays an important role, but does not lend itself to big budget special effects or complex shots. There are special effects that are coyly inserted here and there when you aren't expecting it. It's subtle enough to avoid drawing you out of the scene and story to appreciate flashy visuals, yet sometimes so subtle that you catch yourself realizing a moment or two later that what you just saw couldn't have actually happened. It's not unlike the kind of sci-fi you'd see on the classic Twilight Zone television series. There is an interesting chase scene toward the end where David and Elise are teleporting through New York City's doorways similar to the scenes in Pixar's Monsters, Inc, though not nearly as elaborate. It's interesting, but probably won't blow your mind with visual effects and sci-fi wonderments.

There are some fascinating philosophical and theological implications in The Adjustment Bureau. I love stories that toss around ideas related to ethics, existentialism, and philosophy. There's a great deal of conflict between the ideas of free will and predestination. We have a story about a mundane existence that is totally a product of unseen manipulators trying to keep things going according to a specific plan. That lends itself to interesting Abrahamic theological implications such as an omnipotent and omniscient God. While not implicitly stated, it's suggested that The Chairman of The Adjustment Bureau represents God, while his caseworkers are angels. The downside to all these interesting ideas is that the movie seems to be too cautious to delve into these concepts that would lend themselves to a complex and fascinating theme for this movie. I suspect the filmmakers were reluctant to follow these implications too far, which is entirely understandable. The Adjustment Bureau could become thematically preachy if not kept in check.

Another very interesting aspect of this film is that while The Adjustment Bureau itself  is not at all evil, it does try to thwart our protagonists from reaching their goals, thus making The Bureau the antagonist in the story. There are several caseworkers from The Bureau that we meet whom are portrayed by Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, and Terence Stamp. For the most part these characters do not actually threaten David with injury, death, or even pain to persuade him to follow his predetermined fate. Thompson (Stamp), the most imposing caseworker, does little more than give David an epic guilt trip. There really is no violence in this movie and not a lot of action other than a couple of chase scenes, yet it still expresses a sense of urgency, foreboding, and some suspense. That suggests some clever writing.

The Adjustment Bureau was a good movie that could have been a great one had it been a little more daring. For a sci-fi romance thriller, the romance is there though I didn't particularly like the female lead character. It certainly has some science fiction elements to it but it's not as loud and overbearing as most science fiction movies are, and the thrills might not put you on the edge of your seat. It's a more tame movie than what we are usually accustomed to for sci-fi, but that doesn't make it any less good. I recommend seeing The Adjustment Bureau, it's an interesting movie that will raise some fascinating questions for you to think about. It's a renter, or a good find if you happen upon it in a $5 bin at Wal-Mart.

Can you think of any other non-action science fiction movies? A.I. Artificial Intelligence is one of my favorites, and I'm still looking forward to Upside Down. Comment below and tell me about some others!

Sunshine Cleaning Movie Review

I'm kind of a sucker for stories about underdogs and those who strive to make their lives better in spite of circumstances and poor decisions in the past. I'm sure most people do, actually. It gives us a kind of optimism and hope for our lives. Sunshine Cleaning (2008) is one such story that goes about that sort of theme in a unique way; by having the protagonists clean up after dead bodies.

Back in high school, the future looked pretty bright for Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams); not only was she the cheerleading captain, but she was also dating the star quarterback. Flash forward a little over a decade, and Rose is working overtime in hopes of getting her son into a better school. Her sister, Norah (Emily Blunt), is still living at home with their father, Joe (Alan Arkin), a failed salesman whose penchant for jumping into get-rich-quick schemes has left the family without a financial net to fall back on. Rose may be down, but she certainly isn't out, and when she hatches a plan to launch a crime-scene cleanup business, the money starts rolling in. Sure, cleaning up murder scenes and suicide sites may not be the most glamorous job in the world, but death is a fairly profitable business, and as the phone keeps ringing, Rose and Norah finally begin to experience the closeness of sisterhood that has eluded them all these years while also providing their family with true security.

Sunshine Cleaning is a comedy drama that is full of tense emotional states, a somewhat dark comedy, with some all too real life problems. It's more sobering than funny; there is a great deal of death involved in the movie, and it gives full weight to the impact of death without actually showing us grisly crime scenes. The unpleasant subjects of suicide and murder permeates the movie, but we don't actually see anyone die. We see just the crime scenes after the fact, and one incident of a man about to do himself in, but the scene changes before anything graphic can be shown. Even scenes where Rose and Norah are cleaning up the mess aren't really graphic.

It doesn't sound like pleasant movie to watch, but it features some interesting character developments in both women as they remove blood and body fluids and help console the individuals affected by the death of their loved ones. In an excellent scene, Rose is explaining her business to old high school cohorts, it dawns on her what kind of an impact she's having on other people. Rose explains, "We come into people's lives when they have experienced something profound - and sad. And they've lost somebody, you know? And um, the circumstances, they're always different. But that's the same. And we help. In some small way we, um, we help." Sunshine Cleaning is about connecting with people and how that makes all the awful experiences and circumstances in life more bearable. I genuinely love that theme and can relate to it.

Sunshine Cleaning is not without its flaws. It has a considerable "indie film" vibe; as if too much time was spent developing the characters and plot to the point that they somehow feel sterile and without believable imperfections. It also has kind of an run-of-the-mill bitter sweetness that a lot of indie films have; as if carefully measured amounts of sad drama and quirkiness were put into the prescribed "indie film recipe" so to speak.

The best reason to watch Sunshine Cleaning is to see Amy Adams in action. She's an outstanding actress and she does a exceptional job here. Adams sweeps through a wide array of emotions; the character struggles to remain optimistic and enthusiastic while trying to suppress her own self-anger and it makes her character and her role much more interesting. Most everyone did a good job with their acting, but Amy Adams really shines above the rest in this movie.

Sunshine Cleaning was pretty good. I loved the actors; they did a great job. I loved the theme; I thought the quirky way of going about interpersonal connection via a bio hazard removal/cleaning service was highly interesting. There's some profanity in it, but it's usually pertinent to the despair and emotional tension of the scene. I'll bet that if the one sex scene and only a couple of F-bombs had been left out Sunshine Cleaning would have easily had a PG-13 rating. I didn't feel that the few things that gave it a higher rating were all that necessary. I enjoyed the movie for what it was, but I felt that other movies achieved the same themes a little bit better. I doubt I'll bother seeing it again, but if you can tolerate overtly "indie films," it's not a bad selection for an indie-comedy-drama.

If you could have any kind of weird job (regardless of pay) what would it be? I'd probably be an old-timey soda jerk! Comment below and tell me about your odd job!

Looper Movie Review

A good time travel movie will really make you think about the implications of time travel, the dichotomy of paradoxes, and possibly even philosophical differences between determinism and free will. I think that since I began watching Doctor Who, I expect a certain level of mind-bending awesomeness as I try to understand the time line. Looper (2012) was a well written time travel story that gives you a mental exercise as you watch an action packed movie.

Set in the near future of 2044, Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) works as a hit man for the mob that exists 30 years in the future. Time travel hasn’t been invented yet, but it will be within the next three decades. It will become illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they send their target 30 years into the past where a “looper” like Joe is waiting to mop up. The target has silver strapped to him as payment for the looper. Joe’s friend Seth (Paul Dano), another looper, is paranoid about the mob deciding to “close the loop;” the looper’s contract is ended by sending the looper’s future self back to be killed by the looper, along with a very large payment. Joe is getting rich and life is good. But something is wrong when Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) appears for assassination unhooded. Young Joe’s hesitation costs him a lot when Old Joe knocks him out and goes about his own agenda. The mob of 2044 lead by Abe (Jeff Daniels) begins hunting down Young Joe for not taking out his target. Young Joe hunts down his older self to finish the job and get the mob off his back. Old Joe goes about an elaborate man hunt of his own while trying to keep Young Joe alive so that Old Joe himself doesn’t disappear before his objective is accomplished.

Looper is a very intelligently written movie. Some time travel movies sidestep paradoxes in the interest of telling a story. That causes the story to not make a whole lot of sense. Rather than avoiding paradoxes, Looper embraces them! By the end of the movie there are several impossibilities piling up, but we get an astonishing and logical conclusion that it’s as if the paradoxes created by time travel never existed. As far as time travel stories goes, I’m sure that even Doctor Who would be satisfied with it.

There was a really neat scene that only time travel can create where both Old and Young Joe meet in a diner, sitting across from each other in a booth. Imagine sitting across the table from yourself with a 30-year age difference. The two converse, which could open up an endless conversation about the emotions and metaphysics of encountering yourself this way. But interestingly, the conversation is left very simple and down-to-earth. Professional hit men must not be particularly inclined toward philosophical debate.

The actors do a fantastic job. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis both play the same character with a 30 year difference. It’s evident that the two actors spent a lot of time together to refine the one character they play. Levitt managed to perfectly imitate Willis’s pursed lip smirking smile, and Willis captivates some of Levitt’s subtle mannerisms. There was also a stunning makeup and prosthetics job done on Levitt to make him physically resemble Willis even more. You can’t help but believe that Joseph Gordon-Levitt will inevitably become Bruce Willis one day.

Really the only negative things I can say about Looper stem from my own personal preferences. It’s got a pretty bleak and pessimistic view of people. There are mobs and gang violence, drug use, hookers, and plenty of profanity. Even the time travel aspect tends to favor a determinist philosophy. Toward the end it ebbs more towards a standard shoot-‘em-up action movie. But none of this is incorporated without reason. The movie is about a hit man working for the mob; such individuals aren’t known for their scruples and ethics. The mob environment isn’t conducive to peaceful negotiations or friendly verbal exchanges.

I can’t fault the movie for these things since they are meaningfully built into the plot and character development. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but it was so well written and directed that I have to say Looper was a good movie that succeeds on its own merits. It’s not going to appeal to most viewers who don’t enjoy violent action movies, but even if that is the case for you, I still recommend seeing it because it’s such a well written time travel movie. I’m glad I saw it, but I probably won’t go out of my way to see it again, let alone get a copy of it. If you enjoy violent action movies, you practically owe it to yourself to see Looper.

What is your favorite time travel movie? Comment below and tell me why!