Cantankerous Critic Webcast

Watch my reviews of "Cop Out," Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," and "The Crazies."

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Shutter Island B

Shutter Island is one hell of a mind bender where you and the characters never seem to know exactly what's real and what isn't. Sometimes this comes off as a legitimately interesting idea, other times it just feels like the filmmakers are fucking with you. Leonardo DiCaprio reteams with director Martin Scorsese again for this tale of a federal marshall investigating an escaped prisoner at the most imposing looking mental hospital on an island in the boston harbor.

This images in this movie exploit an inherent fear of psychology, and the impression that anyone could be declared crazy and tagged with that label for good.

The Wolfman B+

I must say the sight of a werewolf in tattered pants and a button down shirt is as exciting to me today as it must have been when Lon Chaney Jr. first burst on the scene almost 60 years ago. The new version of the classic "Wolfman" certainly has its problems, but I found it to be a real howler (in a good way.)

The story gives us our first dose of gore galore right away when we see a man ripped to pieces before our very eyes while walking alone in the woods. When are characters in horror films going to learn it's never a good idea to walk alone, even if you're the hero. But that's beside the point. We soon find out our first victim was the brother of famous actor Lawrence Talbot, played by Benecio Del Toro. He comes back to his family's rural and imposing country estate presided over by a paunchy looking and cheerfully aging Anthony Hopkins.

Del Toro vows to get to the bottom of his brother's death, and follows the chatter from the local pub down to a camp of gypsies in the woods during a full moon. The townsfolk blame the gypsies circus bear for the recent deaths, but soon the meeting is broken up by our old pal the werewolf. Del Toro fights with it and is bitten. The gypsies stitch him up, and when the next full moon comes around he's howling for blood and displaying an aversion to silver bullets.

The werewolf transformations are this film's bread and butter and they do not disappoint. I for one don't want to see an instantaneous transformation. I want to hear those bones creek and see the arms, feet and face transform inch by inch.
And these are the best ones I've seen on screen since An American Werewolf in London.

The acting here is somewhat lazy though. Del Toro never really digs into the emotional turmoil behind his wolf bitten character preferring to coast by on his dark look and brooding eyebrows. Hopkins is on autopilot as the same old authority figure who may know more about the werewolves than he's letting on. And Emily Blunt has little to do as the love interest except look concerned and be a shoulder to cry on and fantasize about devouring.

That said, director Joe Johnston keeps things moving at a swift pace, and he knows how to make all the creaky doors, candlelight and moonlit chases by carriage and horseback seem thrilling again. This is how a re-imagining should be done.

Valentine's Day D

Valentine's Day is like the "According To Jim" of Romantic Comedies- a film so witless and insipid you wonder how it got made in the first place. The film functions more as a stimulus package for actors in hollywood since the cast seems to feature half the working actors today (at least those who have graced a magazine cover in the past few years.) No one character develops beyond a one line sketch. Ashton Kutcher is the florist who still believes in love, Jennifer Garner is a perky elementary school teacher and his best friend, Jessica Biel is a harried lonely P.R. Flack, Julia Roberts is an army soldier trying to get home for Valentine's Day and so on and so on and so on. We even get geezer love in the form of Shirley McClaine and Hector Elizando.

The film takes place in some hackneyed greeting card netherworld where the whole world revolves around Valentine's Day and every single character mentions it in just about every conversation they have. At one point early in the film, Kutcher actually says "Love is the last shocking thing in the world today." From there, we get an endless stream of relationship bon mots that would have to improve to be sitcom level insights. Sure, there are relationship entanglements and disappointments and betrayals but they're the kind that be easily wrapped up with a little shoddy writing and yet another race to the airport.

Going into this movie I didn't expect believability, and I didn't expect it to be a great love story for all time. But I did expect professionalism and enough charm and wit to make the familiar situations go down easy. Instead this Valentine's Day confection just gave me indigestion like an off brand chocolate sampler you picked up at a dollar store.

From Paris With Love C+

John Travolta has left so many cinematic stink bombs in theaters for unsuspecting audiences in recent years that his name on the marque doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
So when I saw what looked from the trailers like a pretty generic looking action film staring Travota sporting his fu man chu badass goatee and a shaved head I did not have high hopes. The best I can say about From Paris With Love is that Travolta is actually the best part of the movie. It's a sublimely ridiculous film, and Travolta seems to understand this because he's clearly having a ball and getting both intentional and unintentional laughs in the process.

Travolta stars as Charlie Wax, another in a long line of secret agents who play by their own set of rules. Travolta seems to be about 20 to 30 pounds too heavy for the role, but the film asks him to dispatch half a dozen Asian thugs on the streets of Paris in hand to hand combat without breaking a sweat. I haven't seen a hero quite this indestructible since Bruce Willis in "Live Free Or Die Hard." And Travolta shares the same self aware smirk through the whole proceedings. I particularly liked one scene that has him chasing someone over the rooftops of Paris, rolling down inclines and jumping 50 foot gorges with the greatest of ease while looking like he could barely get up a flight of stairs without wheezing.

Travolta is paired with Reiss (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) an assistant in the U.S. Embassy trying to break into the spy game. Meyers, sporting a dodgy American accent, is there mostly to play straight man to Travolta's clowning while on the trail of drug dealers and terrorists.

But unfortunately the rest of the movie can't quite match Travolta's zany intensity. The action scenes are pretty generic, the shaky cam cinematography is a little old hat by now, and the filmmakers never really stage any great ludicrous set pieces other than a freeway chase involving a car bomb and Travolta trying to shoot it with a bazooka from a moving car. The time went by faster than I thought it would during its trim 90 minute running time. It's worth watching at 2am on HBO but it not quite special enough to spend actual money on.

From Paris With Love: C+

Dear John: C-

In the spirit of fairness and glass-half-full optimism let's talk about the good parts of "Dear John" first. Hard working character actor Richard Jenkins does a good job as John's autistic father. His performance is touching without being to actor-y, and even though he says very little, his eyes speak volumes that are only amplified by his shrugs and discomfort outside the home base of his own house and his coin collection. I wish they'd made the movie about him instead.

Amanda Seyfried is pleasant to look at. Her doe eyed innocence a shimmering beacon of true love. And the Charleston, South Carolina locales are beautiful especially when viewed from the frigid cold of Chicago.

But sadly the love story here falls flat. Channing Tatum is surely going to be a welcome piece of eye candy for the ladies in the audience. But he's pretty much a big dumb lunkhead here as a soldier named John on a two week break back home from his duties overseas. And in what seems like milliseconds he falls in love with Seyfried, a young college student home on spring break.

Over the course of two weeks on the beach they are supposed to have forged a love that will last a lifetime. But this chemistry free couple has about as much passion as two sleepy bank clerks in a teller window.

When time comes for them to go their separate ways, they promise to write each other faithfully. Which leads us to another problem. For a movie that relies on the beauty and prose of love letters, its letters are remarkably pedestrian. They lack prose, poetry or any passion of any kind.

These impossible love stories are supposed to carry you away and sweep you off your feet. If they're particularly good, fans might be tempted to read them or see them over and over again to cherish those moments. But it all rings hollow here. And the filmmakers seem to be particularly proud of their coin metaphors, because they use the same one twice as a metaphor for war.
Believe me, it doesn't get any better.
And I don't think this one would benefit from repetition either.

Dear John: C-