Movie Review Mission Impossible 2

Mission Impossible 2 (2000) 

Directed by John Woo

Written by Robert Towne

Starring Tom Cruise, Dougray Scott, Thandie Newton, Ving Rhames

Release Date May 24th, 2000 

Published May 20th, 2020 

The second installment of the Mission Impossible franchise is really where the series found its feet. After the first film, though financially successful, failed by forcing director Brian DePalma to make a standard, mainstream action movie, the makers of MI2 picked the right director to deliver a slick, stylish, fast paced action movie that didn’t have to do anything other than just be cool looking to succeed.

Director John Woo, the inventor of the cool style of action adventure cinema, was the perfect choice to direct Mission Impossible 2. Woo favors visual dynamism over story and that style over substance approach works for the mindless sort of fun that was missing from the first film which ached to be both taken seriously as a movie and be enjoyed as an action adventure movie, and nearly failed on both accounts.

We picked up the action of Mission Impossible 2 by introducing our ‘MacGuffin.’ For those that aren’t aware of classic movie tropes, the macguffin is a term coined by the legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock to describe a plot device that all the characters in the movie are seeking. It can be any kind of nebulous concept as long as everyone is chasing it, that’s what propels the story along. The Maltese Falcon is arguably the most famous example of a MacGuffin, a thing everyone in the movie wanted for whatever reason the plot decided.

The Macguffin in MI2 is a virus and a cure known as Chimera and Bellerophon. A doctor friend of our hero, IMF Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has created both the worst virus in history and its cure and is attempting to escape with them both as the movie opens. Unfortunately, the doctor falls into the hands of a turncoat IMF Agent, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), impersonating Ethan. Ambrose murders the doctor and absconds with the MacGuffin and the chase is on.

To find Ambrose, Ethan must enlist Ambrose’s former flame, a thief named Nyah (Thandie Newton). It will be her job to get back into Ambrose’s life and get Ethan and his team, including his old buddy Luther (Ving Rhames) and a newcomer Aussie pilot named Billy (Jon Polson), close enough to retrieve the virus and cure before Ambrose can sell them to the highest bidder or unleash them on the world out of spite for the IMF.

The plot of Mission Impossible 2 isn’t important, we’re here for the cinema of cool, the cinema of John Woo and the style over substance master does not disappoint. Slow-motion cameras capture spectacular chases and stylish cinematography brings out the sexy fight over the affections of Newton’s Nyah between Ethan and Ambrose. Sure, saving the world and all is important or whatever, but looking good is the point of MI2 and everyone and everything looks incredible.

Every Mission Impossible is known for the stunt that nearly got Tom Cruise crippled or killed and MI2 is no different. Our first glimpse of Ethan Hunt in MI2 is him free-climbing a craggy rock in the middle of the Utah desert with no one around for miles. Naturally, Cruise insisted on doing the stunt himself and watching him narrowly cling to the side of a nearly flat cliff face is honestly still as breathtaking today as it was in 2000 when the film was released.

Screenwriter Robert Towne, back from having over-written the first Mission Impossible film crafted the screenplay with a much leaner and clearer narrative. Towne claims that he had to fit a pair of stunts into the movie even before the plot of the film had been devised and had to write the scenes into the movie as he created the screenplay. This, naturally, includes Ethan’s introductory scene and a scene near the end involving a motorcycle fight.

The motorcycle ballet at the end of Mission Impossible 2 is wildly silly and implausible but wonderfully so. Director Woo delivers the scene in his classic, slick-slo-mo style and it works for the slick, empty spectacle of MI2. Also great is the closing fight scene between Cruise and Scott where Cruise’s lithe physicality is framed beautifully within Woo’s perfectly seamless and crisp scene-setting that, of course, includes his trademark fight-scene doves.

Tom Cruise appears a great deal more comfortable in this empty-headed sequel. The first film featured him being cocky yet calculated and when you could see Ethan’s wheels turning it often slowed the film to a halt with overwrought flashbacks and other such nonsense. Thankfully, MI2 does not burden the actor or character with too much to think about and just gets on with the business at hand, super cool fight and chase scenes.

Mission Impossible 2 is as shallow as a drying puddle but it looks and feels spectacular. It’s like a great looking car that gets no gas mileage, completely impractical for use, but it looks amazing. Every frame of Mission Impossible 2 is a gorgeous fantasy of the action spy genre. The awesome locations, the world travelogue cinematography and the spectacular action makes the movie insanely watchable if not all that rewarding for your attention-span.

Movie Review Mission Impossible

Mission Impossible (1996) 

Directed by Brian De Palma 

Written by David Koepp, Robert Towne

Starring Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emilio Estevez, Emmanuelle Beart, Kristen Scott Thomas

Release Date May 22nd, 1996

Published May 20th, 2016 

Mission Impossible doesn’t really hold up. I hate to say it because I really enjoy most of the franchise but the 1996 movie doesn’t hold up 22 years later. Watching Mission Impossible with modern eyes, the flaws stand out from Cruise’s desperate performance, Jon Voight’s lazy performance and the underwritten female characters stand apart from the lesser good things about the movie.

Ethan Hunt is an agent of the Impossible Mission Force, a branch of the CIA that specializes in the kind of espionage of the most impossible nature. Hunt works under veteran agent Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) alongside a team that includes Jack (Emilio Estevez), Sarah (Kristen Scott Thomas), and Claire (Emmanuelle Beart). Claire is Jim’s wife though quickly sees that she and Ethan appear to have eyes for each other.

A digression, the chemistry between Cruise and Beart has heat from time to time but the great disappointment of the movie is how little is done to exploit that chemistry. Brian DePalma is one of the great sleaze directors of all time and for him to allow the Ethan-Claire relationship to be so innocent to the point of being cookie-cutter, ala dozens of similar movie relationships, indicates how little this is really a Brian DePalma movie.

On a mission in Prague attempting to prevent a Russian spy from stealing a list of the real identities of IMF agents worldwide, everyone on Hunt’s team is murdered and he is framed for their deaths. On the run, Ethan is surprised and notably suspicious, to find Claire had survived despite having been in a car that later exploded. Nevertheless, he trusts her to be part of his mission to find the person who framed him. 

Mission Impossible was directed by Brian DePalma who appears to have been hired for his name value and not his style. Mission Impossible contains almost none of the classic DePalma style of sexy, weird, chaos. Sure, some of DePalma’s output is deeply problematic through the lens of history but you can’t argue that he was boring except when he directed Mission Impossible.

Compared to movies like Snake Eyes or Carrie, the action tropes of Mission Impossible are dull.

It’s hard not to assume that Mission Impossible is boring because of Tom Cruise. I say this as a fan of Tom Cruise. I am genuinely someone who believes Cruise is a fine actor. However, the deep, almost fetishistic control Cruise has over his onscreen persona can keep him from being fun. The actor assiduously avoids anything controversial, he plays it safe especially here in the wake of his first real failure, his much mocked performance in Interview with the Vampire.

Mission Impossible is such a rigidly paced action movie that even that classic Tom Cruise twinkle in the eye and million dollar smile are toned down and held back in favor of a stoic, dare I say, charisma dimmed performance. I get that Ethan Hunt is supposed to be a rigid, book hero but we go to the movies to see stars and big personalities and while his willingness to let the action do the talking is nice, I’d rather he have some personality while he’s action-ing.

It’s especially egregious because I expect so much more from both Cruise and Brian DePalma. DePalma has an eye for idiosyncrasy and had he been allowed to find the idiosyncrasies of Ethan Hunt and exploit them and had there been anything even remotely controversial about the character, perhaps the movie would hold up over time. Instead, looking back at the original, it’s a wonder this franchise is still around.

Thankfully, the franchise picks up the personality in the other movies, especially when they allow John Woo to make the film franchise his own. Here however, Brian DePalma is wasted and the film is shocking by the numbers. Cruise is sweaty and desperate throughout, rarely allowing Ethan to have a personality beyond his remarkable competence and impressive physicality. Kristen Scott Thomas and Emilio Estevez are killed off and Emmanuelle Beart is left with far too much of the dramatic heavy lifting.

The one thing that stands out as genuinely inspired in Mission Impossible ‘96 is the casting of Vanessa Redgrave as the big bad. The veteran actress is the one person in the film who is genuinely having fun. Redgrave sinks her teeth into the role and in her brief screen time the film is as fun as she is. The rest of the movie however, is just dour. Jon Voight especially is miscast as Jim Phelps.

Oddly the only even remotely controversial thing about Mission Impossible, and mind you I am not asking for the film to be outre in a violent or transgressive way, just have some personality. The only controversy the film courted was in the portrayal of Jim Phelps. Phelps was one of the main characters of the beloved TV series Mission Impossible and the twists and turns of his plot angered fans who held a love for Peter Graves’ stoic, reliable performance.

Even the famed train sequence that closes Mission Impossible appears less impressive though the frame of history. In wrestling terms, Mission Impossible is what is called a Spot Fest, a match centered on the biggest moves the competitors are capable of. The series focuses heavily on topping one big action spot after another and what’s happened in the more modern sequels has rendered the helicopter spot from the original film not unlike the Hulk Hogan leg-drop, a move that was once iconic and now seems rather silly next to a 5 Star Frog Splash.

If only Mission Impossible had half the personality of a wrestling match, perhaps it wouldn’t be so unremarkable.

Movie Review Never Back Down

Never Back Down (2008) 

Directed by Jeff Wadlow 

Written by Chris Hauty 

Starring Sean Faris, Cam Gigandet, Evan Peters, Djimon Hounsou 

Release Date March 14th, 2008

Published March 15th, 2008 

It is fair to wonder, as we watch the stream of PG-13 garbage like Never Back Down roll out, could someone like Ralph Macchio even have a chance of being a lead actor today? Looking over the last five years worth of movies even remotely similar to Macchio's teen fluff of the 80's you find nothing but buffed up, gap models.

Moreover, rarely do you see someone who might be, to adopt the vernacular of the casually racist, too ethnic. Ralph Macchio, with that hint of olive in his skin and slight northeast accent, would likely be left to fend for a best friend role. Daniel son in the 2008 version would likely be played by Sean Faris.

Jake Tyler (Sean Faris) was a hotshot football star at his little high school in Iowa. Now however, as his mother moves him and his little sister to Tampa Florida, he is ready to leave football behind and settle into high school anonymity. His hopes of becoming a wallflower disappear however when he falls for a hottie named Baja (Amber Heard) who happens to be the girlfriend of the school bully.

He is Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet) and he runs the school by beating the crap out of people. He holds underground mixed martial arts contests and is the undisputed king of the school. For Jake to win Baja's heart and change the landscape of the school he must train and become the new, benevolent, king of the school. To do that he seeks out the help of an ex-MMA champ turned gym owner (Djimon Hounsou) who trains him and becomes something of a father figure.

I'm sure many critics made the connection between Never Back Down and The Karate Kid but it bears repeating. That film starred Ralph Macchio as the picture of innocence, a sweet youngster who, through the teachings of Mr. Miyagi, finds confidence and inner strength through beating people up. Never Back Down is the exact same formula, right down to stealing the bad guy's girl, but with better looking actors and the fad of mixed martial arts.

Djimon Hounsou is a much more female friendly version of Mr. Myagi with his chiseled physique and exotic accent. And Amber Head's lolita like Baja, dressed only in short skirts and tight bikinis, a stark contrast to Elizabeth Shue's charming innocence and love of fluffy sweaters tied at the shoulder. Finally, there is star Sean Faris who plays the Daniel character only with more muscles and less.... Ethnicity.

Mixed Martial Arts is having its moment in the cultural spotlight and seems likely to carve out a small place for itself. In that sense, Never Back Down is certainly timely if not in any way original. Of course, MMA is merely a cultural touchstone for Never Back Down not really a milieu. The fights are cut quickly to avoid any actual contact that might mess up the GQ ready faces of the stars.

Think I'm exaggerating? Check out one of the fight scenes in Never Back Down and the scene that follows. After repeatedly pounding one another, fighters arrive at school the next day with a bandaid over an eye minus any visible bruise, cuts or contusions. While you're at it, find yourself a real MMA fighter, you aren't likely to find one who looks much like Sean Faris or Cam Gigandot.

To ask for realism from any movie, let alone a lame little teen movie is admittedly, ludicrous. But equally as ludicrous is a fight movie starring guys who look as if they have never been in a fight before. Say what you will about the waifish innocence of Ralph Macchio, each time he fought in The Karate Kid he came out looking like he had been in a fight.

Karate Kid was a modest pop melodrama but everything about it is superior to Never Back Down. In fact Karate Kid puts the lie to Never Back Down in every way imaginable. Where one has characters we believe and come to care about, the other has cardboard cutouts borrowed from body spray commercials. 

Movie Review Obsessed

Obsessed (2009) 

Directed by Steve Shill

Written by David Loughery 

Starring Beyonce, Idris Elba, Ali Larter, Bruce McGill, Jerry O'Connell 

Release Date April 23rd, 2009 

Published April 22nd, 2009 

The thriller Obsessed wants to be, needs to be a trashtastic spectacle. Instead what we get is a timid, messy, goofball effort that fails to deliver on the promise of its guilty pleasure premise. The commercials sold Beyonce vs that chick from Heroes that isn't Hayden Pannetiere. We want the catfight, we get a minor kitten tangle.

Idris Elba, who may be best known for his work on HBO's little seen but much loved drama The Wire, stars in Obsessed as Derek, a happily married executive trying to put his womanizing ways in the past. You see, his wife Sharon (Beyonce Knowles) was his assistant when they met. Now, as a married man he has a rule: No female assistants.

That rule however, has to be waived when Derek is stuck with a comely temp named Lisa. They met and  briefly, modestly flirted before Derek knew she was going to temp for him. Derek didn't think much of the flirtation but Lisa is consumed with it. It's not long before she is making excuses to get him alone and eventually making a serious play on him at the office Christmas party.

Derek turns her down at every turn but unfortunately, he kept the whole thing from his wife. When Lisa makes a dramatic move that gets the cops involved Sharon finds out and Derek's picturesque life is in shambles. Meanwhile, looming from the movie's marketing campaign is that Sharon-Lisa confrontation that is the film's selling point.

Directed by television veteran Stephen Shill, Obsessed is a surprisingly dull slog for what should be a trashy little B-movie filled with cheap thrills. It's as if Shill and company were reluctant to accept their place in the movie world. It's not that they really aspire beyond cheap thrillers but rather that they lack the commitment to be as cheap and nasty as a movie like this needs to be to be successful.

Obsessed wants desperately to match the zeitgeist capturing heights of the similarly themed 80's classic Fatal Attraction. However, it lacks the raw, visceral sexuality of that film, not to mention the utterly fearless performance of Glenn Close. Ali Larter is certainly no Glenn Close. Though quite a beauty, Larter can't Close's commitment and strange, frightening charisma.

As for pop star Beyonce, her limitations as an actress continue to show. Her face, though lovely, is a blank slate in even the most stressful of scenes. Her soundtrack contributions are filled with passion but her acting leaves a great deal to be desired. In the head to head fight with Larter we get some hair pulling and an obvious, predictable end so badly shaded in the opening scenes that you might laugh if you haven't checked out already. Dull, dimwitted and inept, Obsessed fails at the minimal goal of being a cheap thrill.

Movie Review Paddington

Paddington (2014)

Directed by Paul King

Written by Paul King 

Starring Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi

Release Date November 24th, 2014

Published November 23rd, 2014 

The trailer for “Paddington” is among the worst I have seen in some time. Based on the trailer one would not be incorrect in the assumption that “Paddington” will be another in a series of insulting takes on beloved children’s properties such as “The Chipmunks,” or “The Smurfs.” The trailer features gross out humor, bad slapstick and, worst of all, not one, single, solitary laugh.

That was just the first trailer. The second trailer only seemed to pile the dirt higher on the film’s grave. The follow up trailer introduced Nicole Kidman as the film’s villain, a taxidermist determined to make Paddington the next prize in her museum collection. Ms. Kidman’s career has been on a steady decline for some time now and her status, plus the general awfulness of both trailers seemed to signal doom for “Paddington.”

So, imagine my surprise when upon seeing “Paddington” I did not find a steaming pile of Smurf like offal. Imagine, in fact, expectations so lowered by awful marketing that I found myself delighted by “Paddington.”  Yes, the lowered expectations helped, but truly “Paddington” is really quite unexpectedly good.

“Paddington” features the voice of Ben Whishaw as the titular bear, a rare breed from deepest, darkest Peru who learned to talk from his grandparents who were visited by an Englishman in some timeless realm. The Englishman invited the bears to come visit him in England any time and when poachers begin poking around the forest, Paddington is sent off to England for safe keeping.

During World War II as London was besieged by German bombers, children were evacuated from the city. Some of the children were orphaned by the bombings and to give them a new life in a new town they were often given only a cardboard sign around their neck asking that someone please take care of them. Knowing this story, Paddington is given a similar sign upon his arrival in London.

Found by the Brown family, including mother Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins), father Henry Brown (Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville) and their two children, Judy (Madeline Harris) and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), Paddington quickly finds a new home while also beginning his search for the Englishman who once invited his family to England.

A rather convoluted backstory introduces Nicole Kidman as Millicent, the film’s villainous Taxidermist. That the role is not a complete embarrassment to the one time box office star and Academy Award Winner is something of a triumph. You can sense from the beginning that this is a movie Kidman made so her children could see her and yet the compromise somehow doesn’t harm the performance. Kidman hams it up to surprisingly good effect in “Paddington.”

First time feature director Paul King makes “Paddington” work by creating a very simple, pleasant tone. The film is gentle and sweet and, aside from the abysmal bathroom sequence seen in the trailer, avoids being simpleminded and pandering. Smartly no effort is made to make Paddington hip or modern, the film exists in a time warp, it’s very own universe with familiar rules, save for the fact that bears can talk.

Aside from the bathroom scene from the trailer, the fact that no one in England finds a talking bear odd is the film’s biggest flaw. I hate it when a movie makes the fantastic seem common place. Aliens, superheroes, and talking bears are something to marvel at if they’ve never been seen before. Avoiding how unusual a talking bear is plays like a joke that only the filmmakers found funny.

I generally don’t care for movies that are described as ‘Gentle’ or ‘Pleasant’ but I didn’t mind it so much in “Paddington.” Something about the plushy “Paddington” invites ‘Gentle’ and welcomes ‘Pleasant.’ Had the marketing campaign played up the gentle and pleasant aspects of “Paddington” rather than the one, outlying scene of misguided antics, I might have even more appreciation for “Paddington.”

Movie Review Miss March

Miss March (2009) 

Directed by Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger

Written by Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger 

Starring Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger, Craig Robinson 

Release Date March 13th, 2009 

Published March 13th, 2009 

The guys behind IFC's The Whitest Kids You Know are a relatively funny troupe in the sketch comedy setting. Given a large scale film production and asked to deliver a cohesive coherent feature film, that funny becomes truly something relative.

Miss March stars Zach Cregger as Eugene, a High Schooler who advocates for abstinence. With his girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi) he delivers disturbing talks to small children about sexually transmitted diseases. Eugene had hoped that he and Cindi could wait till they were married before they fell into bed but with prom approaching, Cindi wants to have sex.

Eugene eventually agrees but on the night in question, at a post-prom party, he is absolutely terrified. With Cindi waiting in a bedroom upstairs, Eugene attempts some liquid courage with the help of his long time horndog pal Tucker (Trevor Moore). In fact, Eugene imbibes so much liquid courage that he ends up dropping himself down some stairs and into a coma.

4 years later Eugene wakes up with a bat to the face. It's Tucker who had to try something to wake his best friend. This, especially important because Eugene's gal Cindi is all grown up and posing in Playboy. With this knowledge, Tucker busts Eugene out of the hospital and heads for the Playboy mansion.

Tucker also has an ulterior motive. A fight with his girlfriend Candace (Molly Stanton) has him the target of her angry brother and his brotherhood of crazy firefighters who end up chasing Tucker and Eugene all the way across the country. Also joining the chase is Tucker's pal, a rapper played by The Office star Craig Robinson.

Robinson's rapper has a name that is, I am quite sure, meant to be hilariously funny. I won't repeat it here. I will say that I don't get it. There are non-sequiturs and then there is outright absurdity, I am not sure where this rapper's name falls on that bizarre continuum.

Bizarre is a good way of describing Miss March. It has a plot with a simple propellant. A guy wakes from a 4 year coma to find his girl has posed for Playboy. Simple, straightforward, not unlike the J. Geils classic Centerfold, aside from the coma part.

What writer-directors Cregger and Moore do with this premise is overload it with lowbrow humor and non-starter absurdity that never seems to land within miles of a punchline. Did I laugh? Yes. Trevor Moore has one of those rubbery faces and odd vocal manners that make for easy laughs. Unfortunately, the laughs are too few and far between.

One funny sequence in the movie that I can recall has Cregger repeatedly slapped by a playboy security guard. The guard is played by Davon McDonald who excels in small roles such as this. He was lovable as Dwayne the bartender in Forgetting Sarah Marshall last year. His repeated reasoning for slapping Eugene is the one moment where Miss March earns a few significant laughs.

But, as I said, the laughs here are too few and far between. Miss March is basically a dull witted sex romp/road movie with little invention beyond the simple premise and its series of unfunny body function jokes. It's not terribly offensive really, more of a forgettable waste of time.

Movie Review American Sniper

American Sniper (2014) 

Directed by Clint Eastwood 

Written by Jason Hall 

Starring Sienna Miller, Bradley Cooper 

Release Date December 25th, 2014

Published December 21st, 2014

One scene in “American Sniper” wraps up who Chris Kyle truly is. Set atop a rooftop in Iraq, among a group of other snipers protecting a convoy, Chris Kyle spies a chance to kill a rival sniper. This rival sniper, a former Olympic shooting champion from Syria, has been picking off American soldiers from an incredible distance for some time now.

The rival sniper is about 1000 yards away and Chris can just barely make out his presence from a brief flash of light. The shot is nearly impossible but what makes the situation even more dangerous and compelling is that Kyle cannot make the shot without tipping off nearby insurgents to the presence of American soldiers on the rooftop.

Here is where Chris Kyle is truly revealed: will he take the shot and compromise his own safety and that of his fellow snipers for the chance to kill his ultimate rival? All at once we come to know Chris Kyle as competitive, dangerous, loyal to a fault, vengeful, protective, arrogant and devoted to a very particular cause: protecting the men on the ground.

Kyle takes the shot and remarkably, though 1000 meters away, he does take out his target. The shot then alerts the insurgents who quickly converge on the building. In this moment a new Chris Kyle is born, a vulnerable, frightened and remorseful man who in the midst of the coming chaos calls his wife to declare that he’s ready to come home. Bear in mind, in this moment, there is no guarantee that he will leave this rooftop.

Bradley Cooper infuses this scene with gut wrenching authenticity. Chris Kyle’s time as a soldier ends in this moment and the grief, relief, fear and catharsis arrive in waves. Director Clint Eastwood amps the scene with powerful, confident angles, quick cuts between Kyle, his wife back in Texas, an approaching sandstorm and the blur of faceless enemies rushing into the building.

The tension of this scene exhausting in the best possible way as we have been on a rollercoaster of emotion already and the scene plays like the last major climb and climactic drop. Many of us will never know the exhilarating fear brought about by actual life or death combat and this scene is likely as close as we will ever get.

Many critics have claimed that “American Sniper” is a jingoistic celebration of a warmonger. This dismissal of the film ignores the many conflicting emotions at play in the rooftop scenes. In the space of several minutes Chris Kyle is revealed as a man of great determination, skill and patriotism as well as a man who is quite vulnerable, dangerously competitive and arrogant and carrying enough guilt to have developed a death wish.

It’s not clear if Chris Kyle wants to die, the call to his wife seems like an indication of something to live for, but here he is initiating a situation that very likely will get him killed. That he is willing to die so that others may live is noble but the scene does not portray a noble sacrifice but rather a man in a fit of pique, defying orders with an agenda all his own. To this point, Chris Kyle has been a model soldier and yet he defies orders and likely got men killed in his single minded pursuit of his own goal.

Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper do not cower from the uglier side of Chris Kyle’s life in “American Sniper” and the rooftop sequence is a fine example of their complex and thoughtful take on his life. At every turn of “American Sniper” we in the audience are invited to see to Chris Kyle and make up our own mind whether we find him heroic or not. This is not hagiography, as the rooftop sequence indicates, this is one of the most raw and honest portrayals of the complexity of being a soldier ever put to screen.

Movie Review The Eye

The Eye (2003) 

Directed by David Moreau, Xavier Palud

Written by Sebastian Gutierrez

Starring Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, Parker Posey

Release Date February 1st, 2008

Published February 3rd, 2008 

Growing slowly into her star power, Jessica Alba steps up to the solo lead role in the Japanese horror remake The Eye. Alba is hoping to find the same kind of mainstream success that Naomi Watts and Sarah Michele Geller found after each topped the box office in their respective remakes, The Ring and The Grudge. Alba has the advantage of having the best source material of the three, the original The Eye was a creeptastic freakout. The dumbed down American version, clipped for mass PG 13 consumption, fails to do justice to the source material but doesn't stink nearly as bad as The Ring or The Grudge, financial success never an indicator of artistic success.

Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) has been blind since a childhood accident at the age of five. Now, more than 20 years later, her sight is going to be restored. A donar retina has been found and the surgery perfected to apply it and give her sight for the first time in decades. Unfortunately, with her new sight comes the visions and memories of the former owner of the eyes. According to scientific studies, there are documented cases of transplant patients who take on the personal habits of the people who donated to them. The case most cited is of a marathoner who received a donated liver from a smoker. After the surgery she started smoking.

Nevertheless, her sister Helen (Parker Posey) and her new doctor Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola) both believe she is cracking up. Maybe she is but we believe her because we see everything she sees.

David Moreaux and Xavier Palud co-directed The Eye from Sebastian Gutierrez' watered down, PG 13 script. In typically sub-genre fashion Moreaux and Palud are pigs at the Hollywood trough, willingly dumbing down their work for the benefit of their bank accounts. Gee guys, why not just make another The Ring movie, or another The Grudge. We don't confuse audiences by challenging them too much. The Eye is close enough that the audience you think is rather pea brained anyway will get the close association with those other The.... horror flicks, but you don't want to confuse the children.

Kids 13 to 17 I understand that you are desperate for entertainment but the more you are willing to watch movies like The Grudge, The Ring and The Eye, the more Hollywood will make them. These producers really think you are stupid. And you aren't helping change that. You've seen the same movie, counting the Ring and Grudge sequels, 6 times now. Hollywood has given you PG-13 photocopies 6 times and you keep going back. It's the same with those awful spoof movies. When you throw away money on Meet The Epic Date Scary Movie, you give Hollywood the idea to make more of them.

Kids, you must stop this yourselves! Demand something different or they will continue to think you are stupid.

The Eye is not the worst of this genre, merely the latest. Jessica Alba continues to be an engaging presence but she needs to fire her agent for putting her in a series of bad movies meant solely to pad her bank account. Then again, that may be the only reason she got into the biz. Maybe she's just after the fat cash. She took that role in Fantastic Four despite obvious issues with those two awful scripts. She took the lead in Awake, a unique but flawed thriller from late last year. Now she stars in a Japanese horror remake and picks up a fat paycheck and little else.

If it's just about the money it makes sense. If however Ms. Alba is serious about her craft or about entertaining people, I hope she begins finding better roles. It's not that she lacks the talent to play better roles. Rather, she has simply chosen badly thus far in her career.

Movie Review Hairspray

Hairspray (2007)

Directed by Adam Shankman

Written by Leslie Dixon 

Starring Nikki Blonsky, John Travolta, Christopher Walken, James Marsden 

Release Date July 13th, 2007 

Published July 12th, 2007

John Waters Hairspray was an independent movie that made only 6 million dollars during its theatrical run in 1988. Nevertheless, the film struck a chord with someone, because over a decade later the film was plucked from obscurity and turned into a Broadway musical that went on to gross far more than the film ever did and garnered a few awards along the way.

Now Hairspray is back on the big screen and in a most astonishing turn of events, Hairspray gets even more successful in its return to the big screen. This jaunty good natured, upbeat satirical musical is the most consistently smile-inducing film this side of Ratatouille and nearly as much of a must see.

First time actress Nikki Blonsky, who won a nationwide talent search to get this role, stars as Tracey Turnblad an optimistic young teenager in early 1960

Of course, what people really want to know about Hairspray is, how does John Travolta pull off the crossdressing, the fat suit and the song and dance all at once. He's absolutely terrific. Though saddled with a Baltimore accent that limits his ability to belt out the songs in full voice, Travolta really throws all of his talent and charisma into this performance and his joy is fun and infectious.

The star of Hairspray is not John Travolta however, it's the music. These are some terrific songs; performed with style, humor and panache. My personal favorite is "Run and Tell That" a fast paced dance tune performed by Elijah Kelley who I believe is a star waiting to happen. Watch this performance and the chemistry he has with Amanda Bynes during this song and throughout their scenes. Bynes herself is a real joy to watch, together with Elijah Kelly, they are great fun.

The showstopper is an all-cast blast called "You Can't Stop The Beat" a rousing announcement of the arrival of the 1960's and modern times and values. Hairspray captures our move to a more permissive time, an experimental and unique time in our history. In this moment the film is both of its time, the 60's, and beyond it.

Hairspray is a guaranteed great time at the movies. A non-stop toe-tapping, smile inducing musical that will leave you humming, if not dancing, out of the theater. Young star Nikki Blonsky is a revelation as Tracey Turnblad, not bad for a contest winner, and John Travolta is a scene stealer as her mom Edna, just wait till you see Edna dance with Christopher Walken as Wilbur Turnblad, this scene alone is worth the price of a ticket.

Rat up your hair, call your best girl and go see Hairspray. If you can't have fun watching this movie, you simply don't know how.

Movie Review: Captivity

Captivity (2007)

Directed by Roland Joffe 

Written by Larry Cohen 

Starring Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies, Laz Alonzo 

Release Date July 13th, 2007

Published July 13th, 2007

Director Roland Joffe made a splashy Hollywood debut with back to back Best Director Oscar nominations for 1984's The Killing Fields and 1986's The Mission. From there his career has been a precipitous freefall. He followed up The Mission with 1989's bloated cold war drama Fat Man and Little Boy and 1992's dull Patrick Swayze drama City of Joy.

Then Joffe really hit the skids. In 1996 Joffe teamed with then hot star Demi Moore for a remake of The Scarlett Letter that is now a legendary debacle. Joffe has worked only one other time in the past decade, a forgettable period piece called Vatel, and he returns to the big screen with yet another disastrous turn. His latest, Captivity , is an ugly little enterprise in brainless brutality.

Elisha Cuthbert stars in Captivity as Jenifer, a supermodel/actress who, as luck would have it for our central serial killer, travels the streets of New York with no bodyguard or boyfriend. Luckier still, she goes to a hot nightclub where she has no friends, acquaintances or hangers on of any kind, leaving her wide open to be drugged and carried off by some skeevy loser.

When Jenifer awakens, she finds herself locked in a cell where she will be repeatedly drugged and tortured. Thankfully, there is another captive next door, Gary (Daniel Gillies), who helps keep Jenifer sane and plan a way out of this situation. Along the way Jenifer and Gary fall for each other and more than just a little captive romance gets going, even as the two are tortured in tandem.

Rumor has it that director Roland Joffe crafted a more cerebral take on this material, less gore, more psychology. It is alleged that After Dark Films honcho Courtney Solomon rejected that cut and ordered re-shoots that eventually churned out this mind numbingly brutal exercise in torture porn ugliness. Whether that story is true or not, it's hard not to notice how some of the more disturbing, violent or just plain disgusting scenes in Captivity feel tacked on.

As this dopey plot unfolds, with one confoudingly ludicrous scene after another, it nearly becomes Ed Wood-ian in its overall ineptitude with director Roland Joffe not in the Ed Wood role but more like the sad, tragic, aged Bela Lugosi. Blissfully unaware of how awful the project is, Joffe plunges ahead with all the professionalism he can muster and does manage to keep the film looking as if it were directed with some talent.

However, the blundering storyline and ridiculous turns of plot undermine any attempt by Mr. Joffe to make Captivity anything more than an exercise in numbing sub-genre histrionics.

So what is the entertainment value of Captivity? Are we frightened? Not really, the flaws in the films logic remove much of any suspense. Are we disgusted? Yeah sure, but do you find that bubbling in your stomach as a character is force fed a human remains smoothie, entertaining? I don't. And so we are left with ogling star Elisha Cuthbert, something one could do in the privacy of their own home with an FHM Magazine and a far more satisfying result.

A quick disclaimer for you PETA members out there. There is a scene with a dog in Captivity that will have you rushing to the door to get a ticket refund. Save yourself the trouble of watching the scene, take my word for it, just start protesting now.

Captivity is really faux torture porn horror pic. The film is padded with extra gore and some disturbing images in the marketing to glom off the supposed cool of films like Hostel or Wolf Creek. In reality, Captivity is a bad movie tagged with extra violence and viscera as a marketing technique. Maybe that story about the reshoots is true but the logic was likely that Captivity is so bad as a psychological horror film that gory was the only way to give the film a pulse.

Whatever the reasoning, it didn't help. Gore or no gore, Captivity is simply a bad movie.

Movie Review Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 

Directed by David Yates

Written by Michael Goldenberg 

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Ralph Fiennes, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane

Release Date July 11th, 2007

Published July 10th, 2007 

With any series of movies fatigue is inevitable. That is one of the things that has made the four previous Harry Potter films so impressive, each was seemingly better than the last. Well, the law of averages has finally caught up to J.K Rowling's creation. The fifth Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is a step down in quality from the first four.

Don't get me wrong, by the standard of your average Hollywood production, Order of the Phoenix is very good. However, by the high standards of its franchise predecessors, it's a slight disappointment. Confusing plot holes, skips in the timeline, and lapses in logic give Order of the Phoenix the messy feel of an aging franchise.

Another summer has come to an end and young wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is ready for his return to Hogwarts School of Magic. However, his arrival is not without trouble, terrifying dreams of his encounter with the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) are plaguing him. Worse yet, few if anyone in the magical realm believe him when he says he faced off with the dark lord

The Ministry of Magic, led by Lord Fudge (Robert Hardy), for one is highly skeptical and even suspicious that Harry's story is a scare tactic being used by Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) to take over the ministry. Fudge's staunchest ally, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) is even more paranoid and suspicious of Dumbledore and Harry. When she becomes Hogwarts new Defense of the Dark Arts teacher, at the behest of the Ministry, she begins making life difficult for Harry and getting under Dumbledore's skin.

All of these strands of plot coalesce naturally toward a head to head fight with the dark lord that is one of the film's more impressive visual moments, but something of a let down in terms of grandiosity and emotional impact. First time director David Yates renders the action of Harry Potter exceptionally well. The encounter with Voldemort and the battle that precedes are terrifically compelling set pieces, visually dazzling and edge of your seat exciting.

Sadly, where director Yates and first time Potter scribe Michael Goldenberg is in giving the action an emotional impact. Plot holes doom these major action scenes to simply looking impressive while logically faltering. In the case of a dramatic death at the height of the action, the moment is so chaotically rushed that the impact is blunted.

As for the logic problems, a description would require heavy spoilers. Let's just say that there are mindless moments in Order of the Phoenix that are quite surprising for this series which has rarely been simplistic or predictable. The hand of god seems to reach in more than ever before in the Potter series offering rescues and trapdoors when the plot requires them.

The Harry Potter franchise features a who's who of the best British actors in the business and this time around Oscar nominee Imelda Staunton is the scene stealer as the prim and proper villainess Dolores Umbridge. Hers is a performance of marvelous malevolence. From the moment her lacquered hair-do and horrifying pink ensemble appear on the screen, with her shrill drill sergeant's tone of voice, Staunton steals the show as the villain you love to hate.

Staunton isn't the only new scene stealer in the Potter universe, Irish youngster Ivanna Lynch is a real treat as the odd duck Luna Lovegood. Revelling in J.K Rowling's wondrously detailed character, Lynch brings loony life to this oddball while also managing to make her sympathetic and a favored ally of Harry and company. Lynch performs this role with her whole being, a lilting yet determined voice, a relaxed funky manner and a style all her own, her Luna Lovegood is a welcome addition to the sprawling Potter ensemble.

As for our returning stars; Daniel Radcliffe continues to be the perfect embodiment of Harry Potter's angst ridden youth. Though never the picture of an action hero, it is Radcliffe's average qualities that make him so perfectly suited to the role and able to consistently surprise us with his strength and vulnerability. In Order of the Phoenix we begin to get inklings of what a Harry Potter might be should he survive his ever imminent encounter with Lord Voldemort and Radcliffe imbues these scenes with hope and optimism even as Harry evinces fear and uncertainty.

His young co-stars are having a harder time finding the right balance in their performances. Rupert Grint's Ron Weasley continues to be Harry's loyal sidekick but sadly he recedes deep into the background of Order of the Phoenix rarely offering even his usual comic relief. As for Emma Watson her struggles are the most obvious in Order of the Phoenix. Her Hermione Granger is becoming somewhat shrill with her emotions running to extremes at all times. Watson needs to find some balance between constant fright and tight lipped ascension before she burns out from bounding from one extreme to the other.

For J.K Rowling loyalists, the scene many will be waiting for with bated breath is Harry's first kiss with the comely Cho Chang played by Katie Leung. Indeed the scene is in the movie but sadly it falls flat compared to Harry and Cho's chaste tower encounter in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Unfortunately, Director David Yates blunts the emotional impact of the scene by rushing it along.

Book fans however can take heart in Yates' wonderful foreshadowing of another character who is set to become Harry's love interest in future sequels.

Yes, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a lesser effort compared to the previous Potter films but considering that this is a truly transitory entry in the series; that is to be expected. Keep in mind that David Yates is a first time director taking the helm of one of the greatest franchises in film history and working with a screenwriter who delivered his first Potter script after Steve Kloves adapted each of the first four films and you have to marvel at the fact that the film wasn't a complete disaster.

If Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix demonstrates anything it is that the main creative force here remains Potter creator J.K Rowling. Directors come and go and even screenwriters come and go but the vision for these characters and this story remains with Rowling's stunning creativity. Whether you come to love Order of the Phoenix as much as the previous films, or not you will still walk out with the same anticipation for the next chapter that you had waiting for this one.

Movie Review Rescue Dawn

Rescue Dawn (2007) 

Directed by Werner Herzog

Written by Werner Herzog 

Starring Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies 

Release Date July 4th, 2007

Published July 5th, 2007 

Werner Herzog is one of our filmmaking treasures. As both a director of fiction and a documentarian he has shined a human light through art that few directors can match. A close friend of Herzog was a man named Dieter Dengler. Herzog chronicled Dieter's extraordinary life in the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly. Now Herzog has fictionalized Dieter's story in the drama Rescue Dawn.

Going from the strict realist perspective of the documentary to the more free form of fiction; one would assume Herzog might take liberties with Dengler's story of his extraordinary escape from Vietcong sympathizers in Laos in 1966. Instead, Herzog is actually more strictly realistic in Rescue Dawn than he was in Little Dieter Needs To Fly and the result is a rather dry and distant recollection of events that should have a more cathartic and human focus.

Dieter Dengler never wanted to hurt anyone, he just wanted to fly. After seeing American pilots nearly kill him in his world war 2 era home in Germany, Dieter moved to America and pursued his dream to fly in the only place he knew he could get his wings, the Air Force. It was 1966, Vietnam was becoming a hot zone and pilots were in demand to straif the countryside and make way for ground forces bogged down by the unique and challenging jungle battlefield.

For his first mission Dieter was given top secret clearance for a dangerous and controversial mission. Hos squadron is authorized to fly over Laos and take out North Vietnamese supply lines coming from that country. Dengler is shot down and is soon captured by Vietnamese sympathizers. Taken to a POW camp, Dengler finds a hopeless group of fellow POW's whose emaciated bodies made for an atmosphere of desperation.

Dengler would have none of it and his attitude began a brave rebellion that would eventually save his life.

Based on the story told to writer-director Werner Herzog by his friend Dieter Dengler in the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly, Rescue Dawn is no action movie take on Dengler's struggle to escape. Rather Rescue is a dry retelling of an extraordinary story. Herzog, maybe because he told this story before, doesn't seem to see much that amazes him about this story, he observes Dieter's actions with a detached, just facts approach.

I'm not saying the story needs embellishment or some invented action, just observing that Herzog's approach here is so irreverent that the real life danger Dieter Dengler faced is reduced to a detached recreation of Dengler's memory of the events.

Christian Bale does what he can to bring life to Herzog's sparse dialogue in Rescue Dawn. Bale infiuses Dieter Dengler with a playful arrogance and serious determination that he would have needed to survive this horrific situation. It is a very real performance by Bale, one of his most fascinating if not his most successful.

Rescue Dawn is simply too far away from this material for it to be really involving. Not until the end, after Dengler has made his escape, is the audience allowed a little catharsis but soon after the film is over, as if Herzog sensed the audience identifying with the material and sought to end that as soon as possible. This arms length approach defines Rescue Dawn and handicaps it.

Rescue Dawn is well made and professional but refuses to let audiences get involved in it. Like the just the facts approach of a classic documentarian, Werner Herzog strives for truth in Rescue Dawn at the expense of the kind of audience identification people expect in a movie. Oddly enough, as Roger Ebert observes in his Rescue Dawn review, Herzog approached his documentary version of this story with some magic realism that softened the story and made it more audience friendly.

Taking Rescue Dawn as it is I can recommend it for fans of Herzog and for you History channel lovers but for those looking for a classic war movie or action flick, Rescue Dawn is not the movie for you.

Movie Review: Transformers

Transformers (2007)

Directed by Michael Bay

Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman

Starring Shia Le Beouf, Megan Fox, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Anderson 

Release Date July 3rd, 2007 

Published July 2nd, 2007

The leaps forward for CGI technology in movies have had a few obvious leaps in innovation. Terminator 2 signaled the arrival. The Matrix and Lord Of The Rings are certainly high water marks. And, of course, George Lucas' mindblowing effects work in the modern trilogy cannot be forgotten, even if the movies weren't as well remembered.

Now comes Transformers from director Michael Bay. Though Bay never met a story he could tell well, he is a master of special effects and his work with George Lucas' effects company ILM has provided a new benchmark in the evolution of CGI. The robot aliens of Transformers are an extraordinary sight, a sight so impressive you almost forget there is no real story, plot or characters bringing proper context to these amazing effects.

In some distant universe a pair of alien robot races have fought and destroyed their planet. The impetus for this destructive war is an all powerful cube that has now been lost somewhere in the universe. It has in fact landed on earth and now the evil Decepticons and the caring Autobots are arriving on earth with differing methods but similar goals. The Decepticons, lead by Megatron, will destroy the earth to retrieve the cube, the Autobots, lead by Optimus Prime, will protect humanity, even if it means destroying the cube.

On earth a teenager named Sam (Shia Le Beouf) may be the key to finding the cube. Seems his great grand father actually located the cube some years ago and after an encounter with Megatron, came to know where the cube was located. Now, under the protection of Bumblebee, a rusty yellow camaro that also happens to be an autobot warrior, Sam is about to have the experience of a lifetime, trapped in the middle of an alien robot war; and he gets the girl, Mikaela (Megan Fox).

The cast ofTransformers also makes room for Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as military heroes who encounter the Decepticons in the Iraqi desert. Jon Voight as the heroic defense secretary. John Turturro tuns up as an X-Files-esque secret agent and Anthony Anderson in the unlikely role of a computer hacker whose technical expertise cracks important Decepticon codes.

The goofball plot of Transformers is pretty much brain or in other words, typical Michael Bay. Director Bay simply does not care a lick for plot, or characters or dialogue. His expertise lies in special effects and everything else be damned. Thus, we get scenes where allegedly smart military types pass up miles of empty desert for their last stand against the Decepticons in favor of a cityscape filled with innocent bystanders.

Never mind a proper motivation that could have been written into the story, fight scenes set in the fictional city of Mission Hills just look cooler than anything that could have been done in the desert. Just one example of Michael Bay's usual logic be damned approach to storytelling.

Transformers is a truly brainless exercise by typical standards of movie criticism. However, from a more coldly technical perspective, Transformers is one of the more impressive feats of Computer Generated Imagery ever committed to film. The CGI of Transformers is leaps and bounds ahead of CGI that we have seen previously.

As Terminator 2 was landmark moment in the development of CGI technology in the early 1990's, Transformers is a landmark of how far we have come with this technology and what may be possible in the future. Working with George Lucas's team at Industrial Light & Magic, Michael Bay has pushed this technology beyond what many thought was possible.

The CGI of Transformers fully integrates these giant alien robots with human characters in ways that simply were not possible less than a decade ago. Building on the foundation that George Lucas built in the modern Star Wars trilogy and what Peter Jackson crafted in Lord of the Rings and King Kong, Bay surpasses them both with the creation of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Jazz, giant robots who function as characters as well or better than their human counterparts.

From a technical standpoint, in terms of special effects and CGI, Transformers is a landmark moment in movie history. Never before have CGI characters been so well integrated with human characters. Bay's control of the action and effects of Transformers shows the potential he has as a director. If he paid the same attention and gave the same care to his story and characters as he gives his special effects, he could make a real masterpiece.

As it stands, Transformers is a truly brainless enterprise. An exercise of awesome technical mastery in service of one of the dumber stories told in this decade. See Transformers on the big screen because DVD will only minimize the technique and play up this idiotic story.

Movie Review License to Wed

License to Wed (2007)

Directed by Ken Kwapis

Written by Vince Dimeglio 

Starring Robin Williams, John Kracinski, Mandy Moore 

Release Date July 3rd, 2007 

Published July 3rd, 2007 

Robin Williams is one of the quickest, funniest wits in the business. His whirling comic dervish is a perpetual motion device of comic invention. His mind leaps from one wild reference point to the next, selling even the worst one liner with high energy histrionics that themselves often earn a laugh. If he has one major weakness, it's a taste for the maudlin and simple minded.

Williams' worst films aim for the heart instead of the funny bone with eye rolling results. His latest comedy License To Wed falls somewhere in between Williams at his best and worst. His wildman preacher, Reverend Frank, is perfectly suited to his fast paced style. However, License To Wed being a romantic comedy also opens up the opportunity for the overly sentimental and sappy, an opportunity Williams cannot resist.

When Ben (John Kracinski) met Sadie (Mandy Moore) it was love at first sight. Both of them knew right away that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together and six months after that first meeting; Ben asked her to marry him and she said yes. Of course, it could never be that simple. Though Ben wants to fly down to Jamaica for the wedding, Sadie wants to marry in the church she grew up in and planned her dream wedding around.

To give Sadie the wedding of her dreams Ben has to survive meeting Reverend Frank (Robin Williams) who is not just the church pastor but also a pre-marriage counselor who will refuse to allow a couple to wed if they cannot survive his rigorous pre-marriage course. The couple has three weeks until their wedding day and during that time Reverend Frank will drive them completely nuts to make absolutely certain they are ready to be wed.

License To Wed, directed by Ken Kwapis (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), plays like a one line Hollywood pitch meeting "Robin Williams as a wacky priest/wedding counselor". It's an idea more than it is a movie and it plays much like an unformed idea that never coalesced into a full length feature. Director Ken Kwapis does manage to capture a few of those typically Robin Williams moments, the kind of fast paced, improv jokes that only Williams can pull off, but most of License To Wed just lays there waiting for another Williams improv to give it life.

The Office star John Kracinski is an appealing comic presence whose deadpan expression and mischievous nature have been terrifically funny on TV turns bland in this banal pseudo-romance. Struggling to connect with the wooden Mandy Moore, Kracinski is pushed into some forced slapstick in order to drag laughs out of scenes that Robin Williams can't save with a quick improv.

Kracinski comes off bland and boring in License To Wed and co-star Moore is little help. Once, I had thought that Moore had potential. She delivered a terrifically bitchy performance in the indie comedy Saved and did a similar number in the daring disaster American Dreamz. And she was terrifically funny in a brief stint on TV's Scrubs. Since then however, she has regressed as she tries desperately for romantic comedy stardom in the dreadful Because I Said So and now License To Wed.

What little that works in License To Wed comes from Robin Williams. Allowed to run amok by what is only a semblance of a plot, Williams can't help but find a few solid one liners and a few big gags. However, he also can't help whiffing on a few stale jokes and in his inevitable soft and cuddly turn. There is no denying though that when Williams is on his game he's as funny as anyone in the business and he rescues more than a few scenes in License To Wed with his talent for improvisation.

As hit and miss a's Willams can be and often is in License To Wed, scenes without him long for his spontaneity and energy. The fact is that this movie got made on the pitch of Robin Williams as a wacky preacher which puts stars John Kracinski and Mandy Moore at a big disadvantage. Their roles are bigger than Williams' and yet as the film is set up, they are in service to him and without him they flounder.

License To Wed has a number of laugh out loud moments, all of them thanks to Robin Williams. Sadly, however, those laughs are random and often don't serve to move the story forward. Some gags, bits and jokes even pause the story to complete themselves, as if the movie itself were acknowledging its own story bankruptcy.

Looking on the bright side, as long as John Kracinski is picking such poor film roles he will have plenty of time for his TV show The Office. That bright side has nothing to do with License To Wed but as an Office fan it made me smile.

Movie Review: Evening

Evening (2007) 

Directed by Lajos Koltai

Written by Susan Minot, Michael Cunningham 

Starring Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Meryl Streep, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Mamie Gummer, Glenn Close 

Release Date June 29th, 2007

Published June 30th, 2007

Some films just look like Oscar movies. They carry a certain weight of subject matter and location that gives the film the pretense of quality. That pretense accompanies the movie Evening which features an all star cast, including Claire Danes, Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep and Toni Collette, a gorgeous seaside location that films like a travelogue, and the subject of life, death and regret, the ingredients of a deep dramatic story.

With all of that quality in place all that is needed is a story to tie it together. Sadly, a good story is exactly what is missing from Evening. What is in place of a good story is a melodrama ranking somewhere between Lifetime movie and WB network teen drama.

Lying in her deathbed, Ann (Vanessa Redgrave) is flashing in and out of conscousness and flashing back to the night that changed her life forever. Fifty years earlier Ann (Claire Danes) was a bright eyed bohemian with dreams of becoming a famous singer. For now she is visiting the Newport home of her best friend Lila (Mamie Gummer) who is about to be married.

Whether Lila really wants to marry Carl (Timothy Kiefer) is in question, but she will marry him. This will happen despite the drunken protest of her brother Buddy (Hugh Dancy) who implores Ann to try and stop his sister from marrying without love. Buddy himself is holding on to a love that can never be, a confused attraction to both Ann and a handsome man from his and Lila's past named Harris (Patrick Wilson).

Harris arrives at the wedding as the guest everyone is watching. Lila and he had a brief flirtation when she was just a girl and then there are Buddy's complicated feelings. Things get even murkier when Harris falls for Ann and the two spend a torrid night together that ends in tragedy when one of the other main characters suffers a major injury.

In the modern story, Toni Collette and Natasha Richardson play Ann's daughters. As they hover at their mother's bedside they represent the dual tracks of Ann's life. Collette's Nina is a boho chick with a rocker boyfriend and an ambivalence about marriage and commitment. Richardson's Connie is a typical soccer mom with the minivan and the 2.3 kids. Both are the lives that Ann lived and regretted in her time.

Director Lajos Koltai spent years as a Cinematographer on such well photographed films as Being Julia, The Emporer's Club and Sunshine and he brings that same painterly eye to the look of Evening. How unfortunate that he didn't bring the same attention to detail to the films confused plot and confusing characters.

Evening has the air, the pretension of a prestige picture. It has an all star cast and a well appointed location. It has a grand, sweeping timeline and the hint of depth given to any movie that deals so directly with death. This depth however, is never earned by the story but expected by it. We are just supposed to assume because the pieces are in place for great drama, that great drama is unfolding before us. That is simply not the case.

What unfolds before us is the kind of movie the Lifetime network might make if they had the budget for this kind of starpower. It's a film that is not without its charm and even a few moments of honest drama, most courtesy of the wonderful Toni Collette who overcomes an underwritten character and delivers the only moments close to true drama.

The rest of the film is a confusing melange of mixed motivations, confusing character twists and even more confused timelines. Then there is poor Vanessa Redgrave whose unassailable dignity is put to the test as she is subjected to a number of humiliating fever dream fantasies. These scenes are so embarrassing that you stop feeling for the character and start feeling for poor Ms. Redgrave as she shuffles about in her nightgown.

It's interesting to note that Mamie Gummer who plays the young Lila is the daughter of Meryl Streep who plays the older Lila in cameo late in the film. Similarly, Natasha Richardson plays one of Vanessa Redgrave's daughters in the film and of course happens to be Ms. Redgrave's real life daughter. I mention these tidbits because there is so little else of interest here.

The biggest obstacle to this film working, aside from the first time director with the mixed up script, is the wooden, sullen performance of Patrick Wilson as Harris. After a near Oscar level performance as Kate Winslet's eye candy in Little Children, Wilson returns to the form that made him a hammy punchline in Phantom of the Opera.

His Harris is supposed to be the man who inspires to different women's fantasies for the rest of their lives. However, I can't imagine any woman remembering this Harris long after he's walked out of a room, let alone for their rest of their life. Stuffy, stuck up and just a tad bit creepy, Harris couldn't inspire bad poetry, forget inspiring a lifetime of fantasy and regret.

Then there is Hugh Dancy as Buddy who goes the opposite way from Patrick Wilson. Buddy is the typical movie drunk always ready to make everyone uncomfortable with a few fumbling words or a tumble in the middle of the room. His love for both Harris and Ann is played as a side effect of his drunken stupor and does nothing to make him sympathetic, rather just simply pathetic.

Meanwhile Claire Danes, Mamie Gummer, Toni Collette and Natasha Richardson deliver performances that in a better movie would radiate great warmth, humor and charm. Each of these lovely actresses aquit themselves as well as they possibly can within the messy narrative of Evening with only Collette emerging as the punky younger, or was she older? One of the many miscues of the movie, I couldn't figure out if she was the younger or older sister of Ann's two daughters. Scenes point to two different conclusions.

Nevertheless, Collette's punky, spirited, sad performance is the one consistent source of honest drama in Evening.

The payoff of Evening is a scene that puts two of our greatest actresses together for one scene. As Vanessa Redgrave's Ann lay dying, in walks Meryl Streep as her former best friend Lila. The film has been building to this scene, the director has kept Streep offscreen to this moment so we could have this scene.

As we wait and watch as Lila arrives to relieve her friend of so many of the burdens she has been dreaming of throughout her convalescence we find that nothing really gets resolved. The scene devolves into a mutual fantasy of Harris, the man who could not inspire a bird to fly if he threw it off a cliff. Then the film simply ends. Ending with the abruptness of sudden death.

I'm not giving anything away here, the point of the film is a frank discussion of dying. There was not going to be any last minute reprieve for Ann who is old and frail and ready to die. However, we really aren't ready for her to go. We long for a little resolution, a mention of what the film was really about. Certainly we did not just waste two hours of our life watching this woman remember a wet blanket like Harris?

There must have been something richer and deeper than that. Sadly there isn't and that is the disaster of Evening.

Movie Review Live Free or Die Hard

Live Free or Die Hard (2007) 

Directed by Len Wiseman

Written by Mark Bomback

Starring Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Maggie Q, Kevin Smith

Release Date June 27th, 2007

Published June 26th, 2007 

It's official, the Die Hard series has jumped the shark, to appropriate a TV term. Or maybe it's a literal term, there may have been an actual shark jumped in Live Free Or Die Hard. Lord knows director Len Wiseman has every other type of mayhem imaginable crammed into this over the top Tom and Jerry meets Wile E. Coyote concoction of cartoon action hero histrionics.

And yet, how cool is Bruce Willis that no matter how brainless the action, he never fails to entertain.

If there is one character in our cultural stew who can relate to 24's Jack Bauer; it's John McClane. This New York City cop has seen dangerous situations that only Kiefer Sutherland's CTU agent could relate to. In his latest entanglement, detective McClane finds himself smack dab in the middle of a cyber terrorism attack by a group formed inside our own government.

Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) was once the go to guy in Washington when it came to cyber terrorism. However, when the government refused to listen to all of his warnings, he went rogue and decided to demostrate the possibilities of a cyber terror attack on America's infrastructure, and if he can get paid big bucks along the way, so be it.

Employing some of the greatest hackers in the country to help him carry off his attack, Gabriel sets in motion a plan that eventually leads to detective McClane getting stuck with a young hacker named Matthew Farrell (Justin Long) who unwittingly contributed some important info to the bad guys. McClane is tasked with getting the kid to Homeland Security in Washington but along the way the bad guys try to kill him. Let's just say, John McClane does not take kindly to being targeted for death.

Bruce Willis has an endless supply of cool and charisma that he can tap with a curl of his lip and a snarling curse word and he makes a good solid living off those characteristics in Live Free Or Die Hard. The rare working parts of this otherwise execrable piece of action trash is Willis' charm and his comic chemistry with the talented comic Long.

Live Free Or Die Hard plays like Michael Bay by way of Ed Wood. Director Len Wiseman, he of the Underworld movies, you know those vampire flicks about Kate Beckinsale's butt in tight black spandex; those Underworld movies, Len Wiseman directs Live Free Or Die Hard with a callous disregard for the brains of his audience. And, by the way, there is yet another hot babe in tight spandex, martial arts master Maggie Q, for good measure.

Like the old Dave Thomas-John Candy characters on SCTV, Wiseman's only joy comes from watching stuff blow up, blow up good. Early on it's Willis shooting a fire extinguisher with the precision of a military marksman; leading to the kind of explosion only McGyver could recreate. Later the film abandons even a television level of reality as John McClane drives up an embankment in a tunnel and dives out as the car flies directly into a helicopter.

Later, John drives a semi-truck that is attacked and destroyed by rockets and bullets from a harrier jet. McClane survives, as does some portion of the driving part of the semi which drives up a crumbling portion of overpass, also destroyed by the jet. Eventually John must abandon the truck and when does, he ends up landing on top of the soon to crash jet and then out running the jet as a giant fireball.

It's all so ludicrous that indeed it does take on a camp quality that makes it all goofily entertaining.

Live Free or Die Hard is high camp. With mind numbing explosions and mind blowing mindlessness, the film surpasses some of the greats of the high action, low brain power genre. A most recent comparison, Mr. and Mrs Smith starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, a film that fired more bullets than your average war and featured more evil henchmen than a James Bond villain convention, is really the only film in the last decade that can match Live Free or Die Hard explosion for explosion.

Both films are equally entertaining and that is because of pure starpower. Bruce Willis is such a force of personality that no matter how ludicrous the film becomes we in the audience are still emotionally involved and even compelled because we love this guy and this character so much. Whether it's years of earned loyalty from four movies in the series or simply the force of Willis' charisma, there is no denying the awesome star wattage of Bruce Willis.

Even as the film is a sieve in the brain department, the screenplay by committee does manage a few good chuckles at the expense of other film franchises. References to Spiderman and Transformers are just a couple of the meta moments from this otherwise brain free movie. Other inside moments include numerous references to the original Diehard.

Final Destination star Mary Elizabeth Winstead appears in Live Free or Die Hard as Lucy McClane, John's now grown daughter. Her inclusion here is really only as plot addendum to be used to refer to the first film. Yes, she does become involved in the climax of the film but that really is the lesser part of her purpose here.

And the final joke of Live Free or Die Hard is the use of director Kevin Smith in the role of Warlock, a hacker who lives in his mom's basement. Smith is legendary online for his love of all things movies, including the Die Hard series. His inclusion is one of many nods to and knocks on the internet community that has been a Live Free or Die Hard constituency since the film was rumored years ago with Bruce starring alongside Britney Spears as Lucy McClane. Sadly, screenwriters couldn't find a meta way to work a Britney joke into the script.

Live Free or Die Hard would be unforgivably dimwitted if it were not for Bruce Willis whose star persona is so powerful you can almost forgive all of the deplorable excess of his latest film. The Diehard franchise has likely run its course and there is certainly no need nor want for more of the tortured life of John McClane. So, if Live Free or Die Hard is in fact the final installment, let us remember John McClane as the most charismatic of our action heroes, an everyman superhero in street clothes who goes above and beyond the call of duty and the bounds of logic for our entertainment.

Bless you John McClane, and here's to what we hope will be a long and fruitful retirement.

Movie Review: A Mighty Heart

A Mighty Heart (2007)

Directed by Michael Winterbottom 

Written by John Orloff

Starring Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Irfan Khan

Release Date June 22nd, 2007

Published June 21st, 2007 

The death of journalist Daniel Pearl is one of the seminal moments in the history of middle east terrorism; post 9/11. In the post 9/11 world few deaths were as shocking, brutal and senseless as that of the Wall Street Journal's middle east bureau chief. Pearl was chasing a story when he was killed and whether he was set up as a suspected CIA spy or randomly taken because he was an American and Jewish; only deepens the intrigue and the tragedy of his death.

The movie A Mighty Heart tells the story behind the death of Daniel Pearl from the perspective of his wife Mariane and the police officers who searched high and low trying to save his life. It's a gut-wrenching story and one that is instructive of the bravery it takes to live in and report in the age of terror.

In January of 2002 Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman) left his temporary home in Karachi Pakistan for a meeting he hoped would give him an important insight into the story of Richard Reed, aka the shoe bomber. Daniel has been warned that the man he is meeting with is quite dangerous and that the meeting should take place in public, something Daniel assures colleagues will be the case.

Unfortunately, Daniel Pearl would not return home that night. While friends gathered at his home with his pregnant wife Mariane (Angelina Jolie), Daniel was taken hostage and disappeared into the black hole of Karachi's terrorist underground. It will be days before photos emerge of Daniel being held by terrorists we will later learn are affiliated with Al Qaeda.

The film A Mighty Heart from director Michael Winterbottom, unfolds with a documentary style, handheld camera, look that makes every scene burn with immediacy. We are thrust immediately from Daniel Pearl's disappearance into the frantic search lead by Mariane and her friend and fellow journalist Nasirin (Sairah Khan) who jump right into the investigation of who Daniel met with that day and when.

Their research is very useful to the Pakistani police lead by the Captain (Irfan Khan) who allows Daniel's wife and friends and fellow journalists to play an active role in the investigation. The American government is quick to pitch in as well as US envoy Randall Bennett (Will Patton) pledges as much US government support possible.

As A Mighty Heart unfolds Michael Winterbottom's approach gains the momentum of a large rock rolling down a hill. It is at once a fast moving ride and a droning, numbing procession toward a known conclusion. The fact that we know Daniel Pearl is going to die does not take away from the excitement of the chase, which is rather reminiscent of a very good episode of Law & Order.

The problem is that the pace of the investigation and the fast paced tone of the storytelling causes the films heart to recede into the background. Though Mariane Pearl is at the center of most of the action, her husband Daniel seems to disappear inside this narrative and never emerges. Then there are times when even Mariane fades into the background as the search for the terrorists moves front and center.

While I wish we could know Daniel Pearl better we do get a good sense of his heart from the portrayal of his wife Mariane by Angelina Jolie. This is a wrenching, heart breaking performance. One of, if not the, best performance of Ms. Jolie's career. Her Mariane Pearl is fierce and defensive but also quite vulnerable and romantic. Her spirited defense of her husband's pursuit of a story, even in risking his own life to get it, is one of the films most powerful moments.

Another compelling performance is that of Indian actor Irfan Khan in his American movie debut. Khan plays the captain, the lead Pakistani investigator in the search for Daniel Pearl. The performance is strong and determined however, as the investigation takes center stage in the films second act, the film becomes more remote and distant. The chase scenes and interrogations are tense and well shot in Winterbottom's documentary style but what is lost are the characters whose stories are being told, Daniel and Mariane Pearl.

A Mighty Heart is a consistently compelling but remote drama that suffers a documentary style approach that places to much distance between us in the audience and the tragedy that unfolds before us. Director Michael Winterbottom is a pre-eminent auteur who crafts a number of very effective scenes in A Mighty Heart. Unfortunately his cold hard facts approach to telling this story keeps the drama and emotion at a distance.

A Mighty Heart leaves you wanting some sort of catharsis, some kind of emotional resolution. Instead we are left with is merely a cold appreciation of the films technique and an admiration for the real life bravery of Mariane Pearl. That might be satisfying enough for some but will leave most wanting more

Movie Review: 1408

1408 (2007) 

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom

Written by Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski 

Starring John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Tony Shalhoub

Release Date June 15th, 2007 

Published June 14th, 2007 

Adaptations of horror master Stephen King's many novels and short stories can't be called hit and miss because there are far more misses than hits. Hollywood has failed on numerous occasions to capture the nuances and intricacies of King's psychological approach to horror. Whether it's timidity, Hollywood producers unwilling to go the extremes of King's writing or if it were simply that King's work is unadaptable to the film medium, we really have yet to see one filmmaker find the right take on King's unbelievably popular work.

The latest attempt to bring King's work to the screen is arguably the most successful yet. 1408 is a short story about a disillusioned writer searching for ghosts in corporeal form and in his own psyche.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a hack who writes fake creepy stuff about tourist trap hotels that purport to have ghosts. Mike is nearly burnt out on searching for the supernatural and never finding it when he stumbles across the legend of room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel in New York City. It's a room where numerous murders and suicides are alleged to have taken place.

Unlike most of the tourist trap fleapits that claim a paranormal connection,  Mike discovers that the management at the Dolphin Hotel, lead by Mr. Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) aren't interested in promoting their haunted history. Olin does all he can to try and discourage Steve from staying in 1408. Explaining that murders and suicides weren't the only occurrances of death in 1408, Olin goes as far as to give Steve the entire gory history of 1408 if he will just not stay there.

Unfortunately, Steve comes to believe this is merely part of the spiel to sell the creepiness of the room. He insists on getting the keys and despite Olin's ominous warnings, he's prepared to spend the night in 1408 come hell or high water. Little did he know hell and high water are literal features of this room.

Mikael Hafstrom, whose last film was the overwrought thriller Derailed, directs 1408 with an eye for dream like detail. Watch the way the room is filmed, how things are always slightly off. Doorways, hallways, paintings all seem to shift uncontrollably and yet ever so subtely that you only notice if you  begin to really look for it.

That said, there is fair debate as to whether what happens in 1408 is meant as a sort of fever dream of depressed writer on the edge of sanity or if this is in fact the evil of the room working its mojo. It's that compelling mix that keeps you guessing throughout this endlessly clever, scary, entertaining film.

John Cusack's complicated performance in 1408 is one of the most fascinating of his underappreciated career. Considering that much of the film takes place with Cusack alone in a hotel room, acting by himself, you must be impressed with his technique and endless charisma. Using the device of a tape recorder to allow Cusack's writer to talk to us aloud, director Mikael Hafstrom trains his camera tightly on Cusack's upper body and head giving us that tight claustrophobic feel.

We are trapped with Cusack in this room and Hafstrom uses his camera to shrink the room around us. It's a remarkable piece of direction that will chill the spine and push you to the edge of your seat. Hafstrom is the rare director who gets the spirit of King's very internalized form of horror. Many other King adaptations have picked up on the more twisted or gory aspects, 1408 is the first to tap the mind of King and follow his disturbing psychic instructions.

A taut psychological horror flick, 1408 far surpasses the product that passes for horror in this day and age. 1408 proves that you don't need idiot teenage characters in tight clothes (or no clothes at all), sadistic directors, or pseudo porn to make a horror film. This is a movie that thrives and scares with smarts and technique.

1408 is also the very rare example of a Stephen King adaptation that actually looks and feels like a King work. Terrifyingly cerebral, 1408 is Stephen King brought to the big screen for the first time in his finest form.

Movie Review Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew (2007) 

Directed by Andrew Fleming 

Written by Tiffany Paulsen 

Starring Emma Roberts, Josh Fitter, Max Thieriot, Rachel Leigh Cook, Laura Herring, Bruce Willis

Release Date June 15th, 2007 

Published June 16th, 2007 

In 1930 a prolific author by the name of Carolyn Keene launched a new character, a young female detective named Nancy Drew. What's interesting about that is that Carolyn Keene was just as fictional as her now famous creation. The mysterious Ms. Keene was the moniker created by the Stratemeyer syndicate, a low budget bookseller responsible for dozens of young adult titles of the 1930's all under the same fictional authors name.

Regardless of her creation by committee origins, the character of Nancy Drew resonated with young girls and has maintained a unique place in popular culture for more than 75 years. Now as she gets her big budget Hollywood treatment Nancy suffers from a lack of any particular vision, let alone one by committee.

Emma Roberts takes on the legend of the teenage trouble seeking sleuth Nancy Drew. Dressed in fifties finest, plaid dress, knee socks and penny loafers, Nancy is the picture of nerdy sweetness. Underneath that nerdy exterior is an endless curiosity that has led her on numerous adventures. The latest had her smack dab in the middle of a hostage situation that she manages to diffuse with her charm and good humor.

Though her latest adventure is a success, her dad Carter (Tate Donovan) is none too happy about the dangerous situation. Thus why he has imposed a no sleuthing rule for their upcoming, temporary move to California. This puts Nancy in a tough spot, she has a new mystery waiting for her at their new California mansion, a home once owned by a movie star who may have been murdered.

Can Nancy sleuth behind dad's back and figure out who killed the dead starlet, played in flashback by Laura Elena Herring, or will she find herself in even more trouble. Meanwhile Nancy must also adjust to a new school and new friends including a lecherous 13 year old named Corky (Josh Flitter) whose crush on Nancy leads him to becoming her sidekick. Then there is Nancy's hometown crush Ned (Max Thierot) who makes an appearance in California just in time to help solve the case.

Nancy Drew is a quaint throwback with modern ambitions. The film has the feel of a live action Disney flick from the sixties, a lighthearted, kid safe sort of goofiness that pervades those films is featured all throughout Nancy Drew with just a touch of Scooby Doo thrown in for good measure. The problems come when director Andrew Fleming, who co-wrote the script with Tiffany Paulsen, tries to hip up the story for modern audiences.

Nancy Drew kind of works when they are working the old school charms of the sleuthing teen. When the movie tries to be modern however, we get painful examples of how out of touch director Fleming is. Examples like the performance of Daniella Monet. Saddled with the role of Nancy's bully, Monet is a painful to watch caricature of a modern teenage girl.

Seemingly cobbled together from episodes of MTV's prurient My Super Sweet 16, Monet's Inga puts the brakes on the film's charm with unnecessary nastiness and unfunny attempts at what I assume is a parody of the kind of teen who would adopt Paris Hilton as a role model. Nothing against Ms. Monet who is a lovely young actress, I'm sure no one could pull off a role this ill-conceived.

When the film isn't failing with its modernisms it gets simply sloppy. A scene where Nancy takes her visiting boyfriend to a Chinese restaurant is an insulting embarrassment to Asian Americans and the midwesterner for whom the boyfriend is a stand in.

Other scenes where Nancy attempts to show her resourcefulness are bizarrely illogical. Two scenes where characters are choking to death feature Nancy first attempting mouth to mouth on the victim and then performing an emergency tracheotomy. Has she never learned the heimlich maneuver?

Despite the bizarre and the illogical elements of Nancy Drew, star Emma Roberts flies above the problem, nearly overcoming them, with easy charm and boundless energy. The offspring of Eric Roberts and niece of Julia, Emma has inherited her aunt's gift of a winning smile and the ability to win over an audience on spunk alone.

If only the rest of the film could match her delightfulness. Unfortunately, the film surrounding her is simply a mess. Predictable to an irritating point, Nancy Drew unfolds with a quick pace but unravels even quicker as the central mystery is solved about half way through the film's 90 minute runtime. Poor Emma Roberts then must pretend that Nancy doesn't know what we in the audience have long figured out.

Nancy Drew is not a great movie but for the target audience it's inoffensive and cheery with a good heart. Emma Roberts isn't exactly a revelation but there are many indications that she will have a very bright future. With her bright smile and seemingly boundless energy you can see the leading lady qualities that won her this role and why her presence was so reassuring to producers that they were planning sequels well in advance of this film's release.

Those sequels are unlikely after the film failed to open well, but that should not prevent young Ms Roberts from becoming a very big star in the future.