Movie Review: Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian (2011) 

Directed by Marcus Nispel 

Written by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Sean Hood 

Starring Jason Mamoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Leo Howard, Ron Perlman

Release Date August 19th, 2011

Published August 19th, 2011 

In all honesty, I expected to hate Conan the Barbarian. Critics aren’t supposed to be prejudiced against a movie but director Marcus Nispel doesn’t have a great track record. Nispel’s Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes are exercises in brutality and I’m not talking about what he puts his characters through, but what he puts the audience through with his ham-fisted, overly stylized, blood and guts approach that treats characters as bags of meat that exist only to be split open like piñatas.

Don’t misunderstand, there are plenty of meat-bags in Conan the Barbarian waiting to be split open like so many pigs at a slaughterhouse, but somehow, one of the writers actually snuck a modicum of character development into the film and the yeoman work of the casting director found a few shockingly talented actors who miraculously manage to act amidst Nispel’s fetishistic bloodlust.

Jason Momoa plays Conan the Barbarian, a man born as a warrior; literally. He was born in the middle of a battle, cut from his dying mother’s womb amidst a clash of swords and the separating of limbs from bodies. Raised by his barbarian daddy, expertly played by that charming lunkhead Ron Perlman, Conan develops into a warrior at a very young age.

14 year old Leo Howard plays young Conan and the kid is a star. It was Howard as young Conan exhibiting badass skill in taking down a small horde of bad guys and carrying their severed heads back to his father as a trophy that won me over. When young Conan is forced to witness an atrocity against his family at the hands of the ruthless, power hungry Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang), Howard brings fierce intensity to Conan rather than the simple tears and fears of a child.

Jumping ahead a decade or so we find Conan as a warrior pirate sailing the scummy sea sides in search of any sign of Khalar Zym and the chance to avenge his family. When his chance arrives, following a siege by Zym and his nutty sorceress daughter, Marique (Rose McGowan), at a formerly peaceful mountainside monastery, Conan doesn’t let the opportunity pass, even if it means using an innocent beauty, Tamara (Rachel Nichols) as bait.

Jason Momoa, I’m told, is quite compelling on HBO’s Game of Thrones where his Khal Drogo is a silent yet imposing killer. In Conan the Barbarian however, Jason Momoa is shown up big time by the young Conan the Barbarian, Leo Howard. Howard is the star, Momoa merely carries on the compelling character that the kid creates. Momoa’s leaden line delivery nearly undoes the hard work Leo Howard put into making Conan so compelling. Thankfully, what Momoa failed at as an actor he makes up for as a physical presence and sword swinging apparatus.

I could sit here and hammer Conan the Barbarian for its blatant misogyny and massive lapses in logic but that would ignore the fact that I knew what Conan the Barbarian was before I saw it. I went into Conan the Barbarian aware that the film was going to treat women as sex objects and damsels in distress and I knew not to expect a heavy dose of brains other than those that spilled out of the cracked skulls of many CGI extras.

It seems unsportsmanlike to call out Conan the Barbarian for living down to expectations. And what would be more unsportsmanlike would be to deny that once you put aside the preconceived notions of Conan the Barbarian, the film is surprisingly compelling, even gripping in its blood and guts way.

Is Conan the Barbarian a little daffy at times? Absolutely, but it is also surprisingly involving and exciting. Do I welcome a Conan the Barbarian sequel? No, I don’t need to see this character ever again but for a one off, blood and guts, 3D epic, Conan the Barbarian is shockingly fun and surprisingly worth the 3D ticket price.

Movie Review Resurrecting the Champ

Resurrecting the Champ (2007) 

Directed by Rod Lurie

Written by Allison Burnett 

Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Kathryn Morris, Alan Alda, Rachel Nichols

Release Date August 24th, 2007

Published August 23rd, 2007 

Josh Hartnett is a young actor who I have really come to enjoy. His work is always complex and never predictable. His performances in Lucky Number Slevin, The Black Dahlia and Mozart & The Whale are three of the best performances by any actor in the last two years. Each has a different tone, a different approach and requires different skills and yet Hartnett nails each one.

For his latest film Resurrecting The Champ, Hartnett outclasses the material which takes a compelling true story and fouls it up with false subplots and an ending far too neat and tidy to be believed.

Resurrecting The Champ is loosely based on a story by L.A Times writer J.R Moehringer. The story of an old homeless man who claimed he was once a heavyweight boxing contender. His stories about Rocky Marciano and Jake LaMotta and Floyd Patterson held Moehringer in sway  for weeks but in researching this compelling fellow, Moehringer discovered a secret that changed the story from one of redemption to one of grand delusions and good intentions.

The movie Resurrecting The Champ casts Josh Hartnett in the role of Erik Kernan, a struggling boxing beat writer for a fake Denver newspaper, The Denver Times. His boss (Alan Alda) feels his writing lacks personality and buries most of his stories. Kernan's wife, Joyce, also a journalist, has kicked him out of the house for reasons that are only moderately clear.

Kernan lives in the shadow of his father, a legendary boxing announcer who abandoned him and his mother when Erik was only 6 years old. He is at the bottom of his self loathing, daddy blaming rope when he stumbles across the champ (Samuel L. Jackson). Claiming to be Bombing Bob Satterfield a one time contender for boxing's world heavyweight championship, the champ as those on the street call him, is now living next to a dumpster behind the Denver sports arena.

Sensing a heart rending sports story that could save his career, Erik implores the champ to tell him his life story and how he went from nearly fighting for the title to being homeless in Denver. His stories about breaking Rocky Marciano's nose and falling to Pretty Boy Floyd are compelling and Erik is at rapt attention. However, the champ has a secret that threatens to take both of them back down to the gutters.

Resurrecting The Champ is a project 10 years in the making. Producer Mike Medavoy bought the rights to J.R Moehringer's LA Times Magazine story not long after it was published in 1997. The film passed between a number of talents, including Morgan Freeman who was once set to play the champ. Finally, producer Bob Yari and director Rob Lurie managed to land Sam Jackson and Josh Hartnett for the leads and Medavoy's Phoenix Pictures finally gave the go ahead.

Jackson and Hartnett are terrific casting. Though Jackson has struggled recently, allowing his bad ass reputation to become something of a caricature, he redeems himself with an immersive performance as the champ. Josh Hartnett continues a series of tremendous performances with complex turns as a feckless self aggrandizer who is forced to confront the emptiness of his own life opposite the life of the champ who despite his circumstances, seems to want for nothing.

The script by Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett mirrors in many ways Stephen Ray's Shattered Glass. Both films are about journalists who find themselves overwhelmed by their own ambition. Shattered Glass is more accomplished, but Resurrecting The Champ benefits from a cast that elevates similar material. Both films are insightful about the pressures of the world of journalism through Glass again has the advantage with a cleaner, linear narrative.

Resurrecting The Champ tries a little too hard to cover a number of complex issues. As if the central story of this homeless fighter and the opportunistic journalist weren't enough, the film ladles on a backstory for each character about fathers and sons and the lengths one goes to be a good father or to avoid becoming a bad father. It's not that this fathers and sons subplot is poorly played, rather just that it distracts from the more interesting world of journalism and this dynamic relationship between the champ and the journalist.

Regardless of some aching narrative problems, including an ending that is far too easily tied up in a pretty bow, Resurrecting The Champ is a compelling character study. Watching Samuel L. Jackson return to form by becoming 'the champ', you are reminded of what a great talent Jackson is when given a good character to play.

His work in Resurrecting The Champ alongside Josh Hartnett is so good that you can't help but get caught up rooting for both characters even as they fail and reveal their flaws. The champ is something of an innocent, having spent much of his later years punch drunk from years in the ring, he is easy to sympathize with to a point.

Josh Hartnett has the more difficult character. His Erik Kernan is feckless, self loathing and a little lazy. When confronted about his writing early in the film we are told he really isn't very good. His own wife evinces only disappointment when she looks at him. Worst of all, Erik feels compelled to lie about his life to his six year old son leading to a scene with former Broncos quarterback John Elway that is painful and embarrassing in very real ways.

Hartnett's job is to somehow bring us to care about this guy and root for his redemption and he succeeds with an earnest come to Jesus series of epiphanies about his life that had me riveted. His character is, unfortunately, undermined late in the film by an ending that rushes past some of his more emotional moments, on its way to a too tidy ending, but Hartnett throughout remains a compelling presence.

Resurrecting The Champ is something of a disappointment in the end. The film aches to be deeper than it is and more complex than it needs to be. The story wraps up too quickly and too neatly. Still, Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett make a great team and they elevate the material to the point that their work together is worth the price of admission even if the movie itself does not hold up to much inspection.

Movie Review: The Woods

The Woods (2006)

Directed by Lucky McKee

Written by David Ross

Starring Agnes Bruckner, Patricia Clarkson, Bruce Campbell, Rachel Nichols

Release Date September 26th, 2006 

Published December 29th, 2006 

Lucky McKee's debut feature May should have made him a star director. With rave reviews from Roger Ebert, Ainitcoolnews and several other high profile outlets the film had killer buzz and somehow never made it past a couple hundred theaters. The botched release of May did no favors for McKee's follow-up a boarding school set creepfest called The Woods.

Havng been completed in 2004, the film was shelved when M. Night Shyamalan briefly considered the title The Woods for his own film which later changed to The Village. The Woods ended up temporarily without a studio home until MGM snapped it up. Then the film was lost in that company's collapse. Two years later the film is now found dumped unceremoniously on DVD and another brilliant example of talent of Lucky McKee goes unnoticed.

Agnes Bruckner (Blue Car) stars in The Woods as Heather a troubled teen who finds herself being dumped into a creepy all girls school after she nearly burned her house down. The Falburn Academy is located in the middle of a forest that has a creepy legend attached to it. It is alleged that some years ago three girls were found in that forest and taken to the school. There; the girls were suspected of being witches and were subjected to horrible taunting.

Somehow, after escaping back into the woods, the three girls turned their classmates into their co-conspirators and returned to the school late one night to murder the headmistress with an axe. Even before hearing this legend; poor Heather has seen this story play out in her dreams. Heather isn't the only one hearing voices; her bitchy rival Samantha (Rachel Nichols) and her only friend Alice (Emma Campbell) hear them as well.

All of this is somehow tied to the creepy faculty lead by headmistress Ms. Traverse (Patricia Clarkson). The headmistress pulls Heather and two other scholarship students out of class often to work privately. These private lessons often lead to inexplicable supernatural occurances all of which are somehow linked to the legend of the woods that surround the school.

The story of The Woods is rather convoluted and often misunderstood. Working from a script by David Ross, director Lucky McKee seems far more interested in his directorial toys than with telling a creepy compelling story. The difference between the Lucky McKee of May and the Lucky McKee of The Woods is this time McKee did not write the script. First time screenwriter David Ross has a good sketch of a horror movie idea but it never comes together.

This may be why McKee throws himself so much into the technique of filmmaking and ignores some story aspects. There are gaping holes in this plot and occasions when the younger actresses, Agnes Bruckner especially, seem lost. That is as much McKee's fault as Ross's

There is no denying that McKee's direction is first rate. The look he achieves for the film, with the help of cinematographer John R. Leonetti, eerily evokes the 60's and 70's work of Dario Argento and Roman Polanski. Pay close attention to the clever and creepy way McKee uses sound in The Woods. Listen to how certain effects are used, how footfalls are occasionally louder than need be, the way wind and rustling leaves so deftly mix with the film score. Sound design is an underappreciated art but in the hands of a master like Lucky McKee it certainly gets its due.

Kudos to Lucky McKee for hiring Bruce Campbell to play Heather's father. Just when you think its only a cameo, McKee brings the greatest B-movie actor alive back into the action late in the film. If only he had access to a chainsaw; I might have found fanboy nirvana.

The one actor who thrives in The Woods is Patricia Clarkson whose perfectly measured gentility never boils over into cackling villain overkill. Clarkson's headmistress is far more intriguing for being serene and eerie and that is just how Clarkson plays it. The oscar nominee brings gravitas to an otherwise B-movie cast and her presence raises the level of the actors around her.

The Woods is a rare example of how great direction can be a form of popcorn entertainment. For fans of the techniques of filmmaking a movie like The Woods is as enjoyable as any average good movie. Lucky McKee's little filmmaking touches, his use of sound, his evocative visuals, his numerous homages to genre veterans, all of these things are so clever and entertaining that I can forgive the rather mundane story he's telling.

Not nearly the masterpiece that was May, The Woods is an example of the talent and potential of Lucky McKee. He should probably stick to self generated material from now on in order to keep himself interested in all aspects of filmmaking. His storytelling in The Woods suffers mostly for lack of attention as much as not having great material to work from.

Flawed but still quite engaging, I am recommending The Woods but be sure to see May first. That way you will have a full understanding of just how talented Lucky McKee really is.

Movie Review P2

P2 (2007) 

Directed by Franck Khalfoun 

Written by Alexandre Aja, Franck Khalfoun, Gregory Levasseur

Starring Wes Bentley, Rachel Nichols

Release Date November 9th, 2007

Published November 8th, 2007

Alexandre Aja has been undistinguished in two outings as a writer-director, High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes. Still, Aja does show a sense of how to work in this genre and that shows in his work as a producer and co-writer of the new horror thriller P2. Handing the directorial reigns to talented newcomer Franck Khalfoun, Aja's hands off approach works and the best instincts of his work show through.

Angela (Rachel Nichols) never thought staying late at work was a bad thing, even on a holiday. Sure, her whole family was waiting for her but she had numbers to crunch and no boyfriend waiting to go with her. She could afford a few more minutes, or so she thought. On this night, Christmas Eve, staying late was the worst idea possible. The last to leave among her office mates, Angela will have to walk through the creepy parking garage all by herself, save for that one parking attendant with far away stare. 

That parking attendant is named Thomas (Wes Bentley), and unbeknownst to Angela, he has had a secret crush on. Moreover, Thomas has decided that tonight is the night he will reveal his feelings. Did he buy her flowers? Candy? Make her a mixtape? No,Thomas is something of a social misfit. His idea of courtship involves a chloroform soaked rag and some handcuffs. Whether Angela likes it or not she is joining Thomas for a holiday meal.

What director Frank Khalfoun does in P2 is take strong advantage of the one unique thing about this plot, the setting. Parking garages are inherently creepy places, all dark corners and echoes. Khalfoun makes this underground garage into an underground maze of darkness and disturbing noises. Also, the garage setting turns the classic cliche of a cellphone with no signal into a necessary plot point as opposed to a merely convenient one.

The holiday setting, the movie takes place on Christmas Eve, is also a clever trick. It closes the parking garage and gives our main characters plenty of uninterrupted room to run and play hide and seek. The film also makes great use of Elvis' Blue Christmas turning the hacky holiday classic into a creepy, funny running gag.

We haven't seen Wes Bentley much since he exploded on to the scene with his touchingly oddball performance in American Beauty. He failed to take advantage of the buzz following that film and has since picked up his highest profile paycheck as the lame bad guy in Ghost Rider. Strange to say, this is the best performance of Bentley's career since American Beauty. What Bentley gives Thomas is this odd sort of cornpone romantic crossed with a Johnny Depp style antic psychopath.

He's also quite funny. Keep an ear out for one of the best lines of the year when Thomas whines about not wanting to lose his job. Rachel Nichols, heretofore unknown to me, isn't given much to play but give her credit for not making all of the cliched choices of a victim in this situation. Her Angela is smart but she's not McGyver, she doesn't adapt to this situation as if it were second nature. She is no match for Thomas's brand of crazy but she has luck on her side.

The closer of P2 features yet another funny line featuring that one thing a man should never say to a woman. The ending is all too typical, but I never said the film broke the mold. This is just a director and cast that takes on genre conventions and simply performs them slightly more entertainingly than the several thousand genre clones before it. Franck Khalfoun doesn't remake the genre he just makes good use of his genre tools. P2 is just a little smarter. The film has a bit more polish than the dozen or so directors who have worked with the same genre material. P2 is an exceptional thriller/horror genre movie.