Aeon Flux

Not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. Beneath the polished surface of outré costumes, stark futuristic architecture, and gratuitous solemnity, there is actually a half-decent plot. There are enough cool sci-fi gadgets to keep the novelty value going all the way through, and although the conflict between the various factions isn’t particularly sophisticated (the twisty betrayals only go one level deep), they were certainly enough to keep my attention from wandering.

Plus, you get to see Charlize Theron in a variety of skintight outfits. Which is nice, I suppose, if that’s your kind of thing.

Crank

Crank begins with a beautifully simple action movie premise: professional killer Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) learns that he has been poisoned, and only has an hour to live. But he finds that he can counteract the drug by raising his adrenaline level, and keeping heart pumping at full tilt.

It’s a recipe for non-stop mayhem as Chelios hunts down the men who did this to him, and the first half hour is a truly wild ride. Given that most people will be watching the film with some notion of the idea behind it all, the way he figures out the life-saving effect adrenaline has may seem a bit long-winded and clunky; but with everything else that’s going on in this short time–police chases, hold-ups, bar-fights–this is easily forgiven. Chelios has no time to plan an elaborate attack–he has to stay focused on where his next hit of energy is going to come from. The script handles this pace by sticking to a succession short, snappy, and mostly hilarious set-pieces. The editing is fast and jumpy, with lots of playful post-production effects.

Unfortunately, the middle part of the film flags a bit as Chelios picks up his girlfriend to try and explain everything to her. Although she is key to a few action sequences, she represents everything that Chelios wants, but can’t have, and that he must say farewell to. Her very presence is a dampener rather than a thrill. This also means that The Sex Scene (note the capitals) comes at a point in the film where the emotional tone has shifted more towards the serious and realistic.

The Sex Scene was clearly intended to be humorous. After learning that her boyfriend is a hired assassin rather than a computer games programmer, Eve (Amy Smart) storms out of the restaurant in Chinatown where they were eating. Chelios chases after her. Eve beats him off, he grabs on to her, and in the wrestling match that ensues they end up having fiery sex in front of a crowd of amused onlookers and a tour bus of Chinese school girls.

But at no point does anyone shout “rape” or try to intervene.

Given the complete lack of realism inherent in the rest of the film, and the blatant disregard shown for human life, perhaps I should have treated this scene with the same level of amused disbelief and detachment, but I couldn’t. It feels strange to say this about a film where I laughed at a gangster’s hand being chopped off and tossed around, but the Sex Scene felt inappropriate, and in poor taste.

It wasn’t the sex act itself, or the minimal nudity on display. It also wasn’t the way anger turned into sex; A History Of Violence has a far more shocking scene exploring the intersection of violence and lust, and it was not inappropriate. But elsewhere in Crank when Chelios pulls out a gun in the middle of a crowd or crashes a motorbike into a cafe, people run and cower in fear. The crowd reactions are correct in the context, and therefore remain inconspicuous compared to the action at the heart of the scene. In The Sex Scene, however, the reaction of the crowd is wrong, and therefore draws attention to itself. My suspension of disbelief was disrupted, and suddenly violence stopped being funny, and started being questionable.

I’m not going to condemn the whole film on the basis of a single mis-staged scene. But it sits right at the middle of an otherwise very good and cleverly constructed action flick, and it made me more critical of the remainder of the movie. It ends well, and appropriately, but it leaves behind most of the humour of the first half in a way that left me wondering whether its overall quality was down to luck or good judgement.

The Ant Bully

Lucas Nickel is a small kid, who gets pushed around by the local bullies and big kids. In retaliation, he torments a small ant colony in his front garden. One of the ants, Zoc, is a wizard who plans to save the colony by making a potion that will shrink “The Destroyer” (Lucas) to the size of an ant. What Zoc hadn’t counted on was the Queen’s decision about Lucas’s fate. Rather than sentencing him to death, she forces him to live with the colony, so that he can find out what it is like to be an ant himself. Adventures ensue. Lessons are learned. It’s a fun film.

But what bothered me about it is the billing the voice actors get. The big names on the movie poster are Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, and Paul Giamatti. I have no problem with Cage and Roberts being there. They do the voices for Zoc and Hova, two of the main ant characters. But Streep and Giamatti both have exactly two scenes each. And not big scenes, either.

Until I saw the film, I had no idea that the mighty Bruce Campbell does the voice for Fugax, an ant scout. Campbell has a big role in this film, with substantially more screen time and more lines than Streep and Giamatti put together, and yet he is relegated to a much lower billing.

The emphasis placed on the voice talent–or rather, the lack of such emphasis–is something that I like about Pixar’s animated films. If you look at the posters and promotional material for Cars, for example, you won’t find Owen Wilson’s name in big letters, even though he’s a reasonably big box office draw right now. The fact that Pixar itself is a guarantee of quality allows them to concentrate on finding the right voice for their characters, rather than the right star to put on the poster. Would Craig T. Nelson have been given the lead voice in The Incredibles if Pixar had been unsure of a box office hit? Would Brad Bird have been given the opportunity to play Edna Mode (one of the best voice performances ever)?

I know that the reality of Hollywood is that big names are what draw an audience in. I just find it disappointing that even in animated features, where the actual presence of a big name actor is less relevant than in a live action film, this is still so clearly the case.

Cars

As others have pointed out, the plot of Cars is a rehash of Doc Hollywood: hot shot rookie racing car Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) is on his way to the big final race of the season when he gets separated from his support truck, and is pulled over for speeding through the sleepy town of Radiator Springs. He is sentenced to fix the town’s main street, and in the course of serving out his time, he finds friendship, love, and a certain amount of humility. The small-town core of the film is bracketed on both sides by a sports underdog plot that can’t help but stir the heart.

Outstanding computer animation is commonplace these days, but Pixar still manages to produce films that are–visually, at least–a cut above the rest. Cars is probably the most beautiful film they have done to date, but because they make it seem so effortless you probably won’t even realize it until the film is over and you think about some of the sequences. It isn’t as complex a film as The Incredibles, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a perfectly judged classic family film, the like of which is hard to find these days. The story is rich and well paced, the characters are memorable and likeable, and its wholesome themes are so well integrated that they don’t trigger waves of message-induced nausea. When it (inevitably) becomes a daily feature in our living room as soon as it is released on DVD, I won’t object in the least.

Miami Vice

So many action films these days are action comedies, and so many of the current glut of remakes tip knowing winks to the audience, that it came as a little bit of a surprise to find no humour whatsoever in Miami Vice. No shared jokes, no snappy retorts, no witty one-liners as the heroes casually blow away the bad guys. In fact, there’s not even any casualness. This is a very deliberate and very intense movie.

My two main criticisms are that the sound was muddy and unclear–I had a hard time following some of the dialogue–and that it peaked too early. The hostage scene at the trailer park felt like the climax to me, rather than the big confrontation that followed it. I still recommend it without hesitation, though.

My Super Ex Girlfriend

Ordinary guy Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) starts dating shy, neurotic Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman), only to discover that she is actually the superheroine G-Girl. Jenny/G-Girl’s neuroses prove too much for Matt (she is especially jealous of his friendship with his co-worker Hannah) and he breaks up with her. A decision Jenny doesn’t take too well.

For the most part this is a funny, clever riff on the everyday life of a superhero. The humour is mature and sometimes crude, and much less silly than you might expect. Although Uma Thurman takes things a bit over-the-top, Rainn Wilson as Matt’s dorky buddy, and Eddie Izzard as the mild-mannered supervillain provide excellent support, and the cast spark off each other in a very engaging way.

In fact, right up until the closing scenes I was thoroughly enjoying myself. But OMG the ending is a mess. It shakes off any pretense of subtlety and intelligence, and dives into to a poorly shot and appallingly special-effected girly cat fight, followed by a “let’s all be friends” wrap-up in which all enmities are quickly forgiven and forgotten. Given the imagination and decent screenwriting apparent in the rest of the film, it’s a lapse of creativity that led to me shaking my head in disappointment as I walked out of the cinema.