Spawn (1997)

In the earliest days of cinema, audiences would sit through anything just because moving pictures themselves were so new and fascinating. Thus, folks actually paid to see the Kinetoscope *Fred Ott's Sneeze*, in which one of Thomas Edison's mechanics sneezes. *La sortie des ouvriers de l'usine Lumiere* (*Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory*) is a primitive 1895 film, historically significant, somewhat lacking in drama, and a regular blockbuster in its day. Although the visual language and narrative conventions of cinema, which we now take for granted, were still being created in those early films, cinema then was limited more by primitive technology than a lack of imagination on the part of pioneer filmmakers.

Today, the reverse is true. A few years ago, a film with really spectacular and innovative special effects could get away with a fairly marginal story and still be visually exciting, because the technology was new enough that there was something on screen that had never been seen before. Computer animation has opened up a whole new world of possibilities in moviemaking and cinematic storytelling. Unfortunately, as often as not, film stories have failed to keep up with advances in special effects technology. Ironically, the technological innovations are usually ushered in by pretty good films (*The Abyss*, *Toy Story* and *Star Wars*, for example), only to be exploited by bad films which rely entirely on special effects to shore up a dull, vacuous story. *Spawn* is in this latter category.

The prologue to this yawn-fest is some silly claptrap about an army from hell burning down the gates of heaven (as if they wouldn't be fireproof -- please!). The Devil is apparently a sort of administrator who chooses to delegate rather than lead the army himself, so he sends his minion Clown (John Leguizamo) to recruit someone on Earth. Al Simmons (Michael Jai White) is the unlucky winner. A government assassin, he is set up by his evil boss Wynn (Martin Sheen), a nutjob bent on world domination. Burnt to a crisp in a biological weapons factory explosion, Al dies and goes to hell. End of story? Oh, to be so lucky.

After five years in the fiery pit, which looks exactly like a computer generated cartoon version of Hell as Sid and Marty Krofft might envision it, Al is sent back to Earth, where a battle for his soul ensues. Clown wants him mad and evil and bent on revenge. An annoyingly cloying mentor type, a Saxon assassin named Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson), tries to steer him away from the dark side, so he can use his necroplasmic body armor for good. Assuming that the audience isn't sharp enough to get the *Star Wars* reference, the script makes a point of mentioning it. Likewise the references to *It's a Wonderful Life.* The influences this derivative movie doesn't mention are *Darkman*, *RoboCop* and *The Crow*, to name but a few.

So Spawn, as Al is now called, is all mad and irritable, and his skin hurts a lot, and Clown and Cogliostro keep pestering him, and his faithful dog Spaz follows him everywhere. Like everybody else from Hell, Spawn has a bad case of the vapors, and green fumes emanate from his body whenever he gets really steamed. Clown farts green fumes, which, of course, is the height of hilarity. Or at least, the height of hilarity in *Spawn*.

Based on the comic book series by Todd McFarlane, *Spawn*, written by director Mark A.Z. Dippe and Alan B. McElroy, shores up the confusing plot by relying on a comic book convention that is inappropriate to movies, even bad ones: characters who explain what's going on by talking to themselves out loud. Another handy source of plot exposition is the omniscient voiceover provided by Cogliostro, who also talks to himself rather a lot. These distracting bits of exposition are necessary to understanding *Spawn* because most of the action in the movie has nothing whatsoever to do with the various plots. Spawn is supposed to kill Wynn, but he mostly flies around and admires his own neato necroplasmic abilities (a subtle hint to the audience that they, too, should be filled with admiration and awe). Meanwhile, Wynn is being used by Clown in a plot to release a killer virus that will wipe out the entire planet. Clown goes to an awful lot of trouble to do something that should be quite simple to do for a demon beast such as himself. And I don't know what the Devil's problem is, but he's so lame his mouth doesn't even move when he talks. It just hangs open and his big grey tongue wiggles a little. Which is exactly what a Sid and Marty Krofft Devil puppet would do, which is why the world of the Kroffts was so morally simple, and all of their shows were a half hour long.

*Spawn* is substantially longer, and has lots and lots of sophisticated computer-generated special effects, some of which are almost interesting. I liked Spawn's big red cape, which looked a bit like molten lava, or cinnamon ribbon candy. But most of the special effects in *Spawn*, like the silly scenes of Hell, are not only unbelievable, they're totally unimaginative and uninspired. The technology is squandered in service of a dumb story and dimensionless characters who are given absolutely nothing interesting to do or say. I would rather watch Fred Ott sneeze.

The opening and closing title sequences of *Spawn*, designed by Imaginary Forces, deserve mention. Jiggly, off-kilter and hard to read, they were visually aggressive and assaultive. The film stock itself seemed to be disintegrating, creating an unsettling sense of instability and descent which, coupled with the fiery images, were genuinely hellish and much more interesting than the movie sandwiched in between.


11Aug1997

Air Force One (1997)

Harrison Ford brings an unimpeachable sense of integrity to all of his roles, even the President of the United States. As *Air Force One* begins, President Jim Marshall, sobered by the suffering of war refugees, publicly vows that the US will actively crush dictatorships, and will never negotiate with terrorists. "It's your turn to be afraid," he warns the villains of the world.

Apparently, a certain group of die-hard Communists weren't listening, because only hours later, they hijack *Air Force One*, taking hostage the first family and half the cabinet. The President is hustled aboard an escape pod by his Secret Service agents, and presumably parachutes to safety. But this is Harrison Ford here, not Gerald Ford -- rest assured that he would never leave his wife and daughter, his loyal staff and the fate of the free world to a bunch of wild-eyed Soviets. No sir. President Marshall, decorated war veteran, devoted family man, patriot and liberal idealist is no waffler. He doesn't consult the polls first, he isn't crippled by indecision. He springs into action, crawling around in the bowels of the impressively realistic 747, picking off terrorists with his bare hands when he has to. This chief executive can execute.

It's surprisingly fun to watch a world leader beat the tar out of the bad guys. This is something we'll never see in real life, of course, not even when we elect some withered old third rate movie star as president. But wouldn't it be a far better world if our leaders duked it out themselves rather than sending in the troops and killing a bunch of civilians? (I doubt that Clinton would win many fights, what with his bad knee and all, but I bet he could take Newt. Hillary could whup Milosevich. And should the need arise, Chelsea could easily make mince meat of Yeltsin.) Fear of nuclear weapons could be replaced by fear of black eyes and broken noses. Presidents would have to train for summits with punching bags and push-ups, the Marquess of Queensbury rules would replace the tired old rules of diplomacy. George Foreman would eventually be president, Evander Holyfield might be vice president. The major drawback is that Mike Tyson would have the president's ear.

In the mean time, Ford gets my vote. This is an inspired piece of casting, with Ford embodying all the attributes we would like to see in our dream president: brains, ideals, conviction, an inability to knuckle-under, and a mean right hook. So much of the satisfaction of *Air Force One* derives from the perfection of this presidential fantasy, from the pleasure of seeing a president do the right thing, or do anything, for that matter. Although it could easily lapse into rah-rah patriotism (and veers close to it at times), *Air Force One* is effective because it doesn't get red-white-and-blue-faced, because sets very high *personal* stakes for the President as a human being, putting the father-husband-friend at odds with his own role as head of state, where the stakes are only slightly less personal for him, and no less important.

Top terrorist Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman) is an ultra-nationalist who dreams of reuniting Russia under the rule of strongman Alexander Radek (played by Jurgen Prochnow with icily effective silence), currently imprisoned in Kazakhstan. Ivan gets all misty-eyed when he speaks of "mother Russia." He gets positively verklempt when he hears "Le Internationale." He gets apoplectic about Kapitalism -- the very word seems to leave a bitter taste in his mouth as he spits it at the Pres. And, although he is a raving lunatic and an arch villain, he makes some valid points about American foreign policy and government sanctioned aggression. But of course, the President isn't negotiating with terrorists today.

*Air Force One* is hardly the first movie to posit a hostage situation on an airplane. But director Wolfgang Petersen, whose *Das Boot* was an early model of the tube thriller, manages to wring a surprising amount of suspense and emotion out of a well-worn plot device. *Air Force One*'s plot is not especially innovative or surprising -- the restricted space of a jetliner imposes limits on action and story -- but the characters are developed well, putting the emphasis here on the psychological aspects of terrorism. Marshall and Ivan are engaged in a hearts and minds battle, a test of wills, where it is always obvious that Marshall has the most to lose. The President may have drawn a political line in the sand, but Ivan has no qualms about stepping over it and dragging real humans along with him -- he is true to his word about killing hostages, and the executions are jolting and dreadful. The President feels their pain, and so, it seems, does Ivan.

Back at the White House, another test of wills develops as loyal, stiff-as-starch VP Kathryn Bennett (Glenn Close) engages in a Constitutional tussle with an ambitious Defense Secretary (Dean Stockwell) who quickly and comically declares "I'm in charge here!" It's a dandy subplot, contrasting the ineffectual political maneuvering on the ground with the highly effective, nonpolitical (though highly dogmatic) action in the air.

Even though it mostly develops exactly as expected, *Air Force One* is rich and satisfying, taking an unlikely circumstance to every possible extreme and making it paradoxically convincing and highly entertaining. There are moments of real dread, a sense of genuine personal and national violation in this movie that keep the tension high, while the characters are real enough to make their fates matter. There are lighter moments as well -- apparently even presidents have problems with surly telephone operators and cell phone batteries. One of the most stirring moments, one of the most deeply patriotic moments in *Air Force One* occurs when a very important fax goes through -- the very personal joy of fax and minor technological triumph colliding with collective patriotism in a breathtaking instant that is both moving and hilariously low-key. I've sent faxes too, and doggone it, I'm an American! (I think it was a Sony fax machine.)

28Jul1997

Operation Condor (1997)

Abandon all reason, ye who enter here. In *Operation Condor*, Jackie Chan, action star par excellence, has done it again, crafting a spectacular movie that transcends the time honored rules of narrative and storytelling. Anyone stuck on sensible plots, character development, narrative arc and scintillating dialogue should just stay home, because *Operation Condor* can claim none of the above. Nonetheless it is a delightful trifle full of slapstick, supersonic stunts and amiable political incorrectness.

The plot, such as it is, is straight from the Indiana Jones files, with a little James Bond whipped into the mix. Chan is United Nations secret agent Jackie, code-name Condor, and his mission involves retrieving a fortune in Nazi gold hidden somewhere in the Sahara Desert. With a lovely U.N. attache as his guide, and aided by the granddaughter of the Nazi commandant who originally stashed the gold, Jackie battles Arab terrorists, spear-throwing Saharans (don't ask), Nazis and unaffiliated mercenaries.

None of which matters at all, of course, as the episodic story merely serves up occasions for spectacular fights and chases where Chan, performing his own stunts as always, laughs in the face of certain death again and again. *Operation Condor* features an imaginatively staged car chase that wreaks havoc on Barcelona, babies and ever-vulnerable produce merchants. An inspired, elaborate fight set in a wind tunnel gives rise to extended and hilarious gags as bodies fly about, stick to walls, and battle gales. Chan takes his inspiration from Buster Keaton, and his action sequences are every bit as inspired as those of the silent film master. Chan's physical prowess, also reminiscent of Keaton's, is unmatched in modern moviemaking. A natural acrobat who seemingly hops over ten foot walls as easily as he walks down the street, Chan brings an inimitable grace and elegance to movie mayhem that his muscle-bound action contemporaries, like Van Damme, Seagal and Schwarzenegger, just can't match.

The Chan movie persona is an affable, goofy fellow who never loses his good cheer even when surrounded by gun-toting villains. He is not unflappable, and not immune to pain, however, and much of the humor in Chan's movies is derived from the occasional fearfulness of a man who is so agile and fast, so obviously superior, so impervious to bullets, spears, and other projectiles. There is little in the way of character development beyond that, however. *Operation Condor* will not reveal anything about secret agent Jackie's homelife, his lovelife, nor his motivation, all of which are effectively non-existent. He's a good guy who does good things, and that's good enough.

*Operation Condor*, directed and co-written by Chan, contains about as little dialogue as is possible. In fact, it has about as much dialogue as might be found in a silent Keaton film, perhaps less. What little dialogue there is isn't too badly dubbed, however, with Chan actually dubbing his own lines in a welcome change. Jackie's accomplices in *Operation Condor* mostly squeal with girlish fright and fight to preserve their dignity and modesty, roughing up a few bad guys along the way as well, none of which requires them to say very much.

*Operation Condor* is not a new film, but is actually a 1991 film, newly released to American theaters. Chan has long been one of the most popular stars in the world, but, until recently, was an undiscovered gem in America. There are dozens of films in the Chan oeuvre which have never seen the light of a projector on this continent (although Chan fans in the know circulate videos); following the success of *Rumble In The Bronx*, his films are being re-released at a fast and furious pace, but not necessarily in chronological order. The drawback of looking backwards into Chan's film past is that with each successive film he makes, he gets inexplicably and impossibly better, raising the stakes by creating ever more spectacular, elegant and imaginative stunts. To see his older work is not always to see him at his best -- two films released last year, *First Strike* and *Supercop*, now available on video, are much better than *Operation Condor*. Regardless, the wonder of Jackie Chan's films is that they really do transcend narrative conventions and language barriers, and the shortcomings of *Operation Condor* don't really diminish the goofy fun of it.

21Jul1997

Contact (1997)

It was a good week for Carl Sagan, wherever he is. A space station on Mars, the first one built by Earthlings, was named after the late astronomer. And a surprisingly intelligent and affecting movie, based on Sagan's novel *Contact*, afforded a quiet and thoughtful respite from the sound and the fury of the summer movie season.


*Contact* is a beautifully quiet film -- at times it is almost meditatively silent -- although it is a film about sound and listening to voices, both the voice within, and the voices *out there*. A rumination on science and religion, it explores the limits and possibilities of both, landing at the point at which fact and faith intersect.


*Contact* opens with a view of the universe, not as a silent, dark vacuum, but a place buzzing with signals, littered with radio and TV broadcasts, the aural detritus of Earth civilization zooming through space and time as an unofficial ambassador to worlds beyond. It is an unsettling image of Earth as a planetary despoiler of the universe, a place where the noise of modern life obscures the messages we send and the ones we might, potentially, receive. (As horrible as Don Imus is today, imagine his words travelling thousands of lights years for eons to come, to wash ashore on some distant, unsuspecting planet -- there's an argument for public radio if ever there was one.)

Back on Earth, Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster), radio astronomer, listens for signs of extraterrestrial life. For Ellie, orphaned and alone since childhood, it is a search for scientific truth, for proof that we are not, in fact, alone. Her work is controversial, viewed by many, including her self-aggrandizing, intellectual thief of a boss Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), as a waste of time and resources. He cuts her funding, and she is forced to go begging, until she finds a benefactor in a mysterious, wealthy recluse.

When Ellie finally hears her extraterrestrial beacon, it sets in motion a whirlwind of earthly controversy and bureaucracy, as governments and groupies, foes and fanatics all flock, satellite dishes in hand, to listen in on the mysterious celestial signal. The message from the heavens contains a blueprint for a transport vehicle, designed to take a single passenger to a destination unknown.

Complicating Ellie's life is her on-again off-again affair with Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), former seminarian turned popular author and skeptic. Joss is a deeply religious man who questions the values and virtues of science, who questions, foremost, unquestioning faith in science. As the spiritual advisor to the president (our president, Bill Clinton, that is), he is in a position to influence decisions about Ellie and her discovery .

McConaughey makes Joss both Christ-like and hunky, a prophet as sexiest man alive, but it is not his status as incidental love interest that makes Joss interesting. Rather it is his philosophical viewpoint -- he believes most of all in things that cannot be proved empirically, while Ellie believes only what she can see and hear and touch. The real conflict in *Contact*, the real mystery, does not involve little green men and signals from the stars, but the very nature of truth. The unstated implication that science is also a religion leads to fascinating philosophical complications for Ellie, whose the search for scientific truth requires more than one leap of faith.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis (*Forrest Gump*), *Contact* is quietly engrossing, with a lot more science in it than science fiction. Zemeckis isn't really much of a stylist, and he unnecessarily updates Sagan's novel by *Gump*ing in footage of Clinton (making his speech about the microbe-filled Mars rock), the Heaven's Gate cult suicides and such. Aside from those gimmicky touches, however, Zemeckis allows *Contact* its unconventional plot and characters, finding real intrigue and danger in worldly political machinations, and conflict in big abstractions like god, science, and humankind's place in the universe.

The screenplay by James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg does a nice job of honing in on scientific theories and concepts, like special relativity and Occam's Razor -- it's the rare movie that would even make the attempt, but *Contact* is unusually intelligent, dealing with complex ideas in a way that is neither pedantic nor oversimplified. Even more rare these days is the movie character who thinks big thoughts -- Ellie and Joss do, and believably so, with dialogue that easily mixes the scientific, the spiritual and the commonplace to create conversations and complications that ring true.

Without much in the way of special effects, *Contact* looks and feels real, unhindered by distractions (with the exception of the Clinton inserts). Yet *Contact* has moments that are genuinely thrilling in much the same way that seeing pictures from Mars are thrilling and engrossing. Ellie's discovery of the message from space gave me goosebumps, in part because it was cinematically rendered so simply: a haunting, rhythmic noise accompanied by the visual image of the spiking lines of a soundwave graph. The thrills and chills of *Contact* don't come from death-defying stunts, but from the big stakes involved, from the sense of big questions being answered by characters that are real and developed.

*Contact* deftly juggles ideas that are as slippery as quicksilver, respecting mysteries, savoring the elusive. In a medium whose mantra is overstatement, *Contact* is nicely understated, letting visual images express unspoken ideas, and allowing silence to speak. There is little in the way of physical peril in *Contact*, and none of the monstrous aliens that are sci-fi staples, and that is perhaps the most unusual and enticing thing about this movie -- that it is the life of ideas, the thoughts and beliefs of characters, and not their corporeal beings, that are challenged and imperiled. The immaterial *is* the material of *Contact*.

14Jul1997

Men In Black (1997)

The premise of *Men In Black* is that the whole UFO-extraterrestrial-Roswell-Area 51-government conspiracy hooha is really just an immigration problem. Aliens walk among us every day (primarily in New York City, naturally), and it's up to the mysterious men in black, those legendary maestros of cover-up and confabulation, to keep tabs on them. The MIBs run a secret customs check-in point (where aliens must declare all fruits and vegetables) in their secret headquarters which is full of secret technology. Aliens who mind their own business and obey the laws can roam freely and live like any other earthly creature (they aren't all disguised as humans, mind you); those who make trouble get trouble in return.

Based on the cult comic book by Lowell Cunningham, *Men In Black* is hip, cool and funny, a weird but effective mixture of comedy and sci-fi, with a witty script by Ed Solomon, spectacular production design by Bo Welch (*A Little Princess*, *Edward Scissorhands*) and aliens and nifty gadgets galore.

Tommy Lee Jones is the unflappable Agent K, an experienced alien-chaser who is on a first-name basis with all the local out-of-towners. K is sort of a high-tech, highly effective parole officer -- he knows where all this subjects are at all times, he knows which ones can grow a new head if necessary, and he sanguinely saves the world on a daily basis. Will Smith is Agent J, K's hand-picked recruit, having a wild first day on the job after a Bug, the meanest, nastiest, ugliest, most ill-tempered alien in the universe, crashes to Earth and steals the skin of Edgar (Vincent D'Onofrio), an equally ill-tempered and ugly farmer from upstate New York. The Bug scares the bejeebers out of every upstanding alien in town as he staggers around in his ill-fitting Edgar suit in search of a much-coveted trinket. Earthlings live in blissful ignorance of the alien infestation, thanks to the MIBs, who erase all evidence of ETs, and erase the memories of all witnesses.

Deftly directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (*Get Shorty*), *Men In Black* is a breezy little comedy cleverly disguised as a big sci-fi adventure, a hipper, cooler *Ghostbusters* that trades on our mania for paranoia. Overstuffed with special effects and big stunts, *Men In Black* also brims with winking pop culture references (Isaac Mizrahi and Sylvester Stallone are both aliens!) that poke fun at both science fact and fantasy while explaining a whole lot of weird things, like microwave ovens. *Men In Black* is a slick, stylish, poker-faced barrage of cultural silliness mixed with slapstick comedy and cartoonish action. It posits a world where aliens are generally a friendly, likable bunch, far from the menacing, abducting, orifice-probing greys of modern legend -- these aliens, like other immigrants, aren't here to undermine governments, morals or economic systems, they aren't here for our women, and they aren't especially interested in amateur proctology. They want jobs, cars and Air Jordan sneakers, just like everybody else.

Jones is dead-on perfect as the deadpan, coolly professional K. Smith plays J with a familiar cocky swagger and goofy bewilderment. Together, they make a classic old cop/young cop, straight cop/wild cop, straight arrow/loose cannon team, but with a twist. Smith is a smart-alecky goofball who winds up playing straight man to Jones as he steals every scene, never revealing the tongue in his cheek. Linda Fiorentino is smart and funny as Dr. Laurel Weaver, the coroner who notices something is amiss when dead aliens land on her slab. As top MIB Zed, Rip Torn, who always seems on the verge of an outburst, remains collected and nonchalant even as the world is on the verge of annihilation. A ginger tabby plays a pivotal role in saving the planet, not unexpectedly.

*Men In Black* is a smart little comedy painted on a galaxy-sized canvas. The sets are huge, the stunts are huge, the aliens are huge, but the idea is rather slight, a tasty little nut in the center of a gigantic box of eye candy. *Men In Black* is enjoyable and entertaining through and through, right up to a devilishly twisted final scene that is both thought-provoking and smile-inducing.

7Jul1997

Face/Off (1997)

Director John Woo can be depended upon to create visually beautiful films that take cinematic style to a far higher level than that attempted by any American director. As the former high priest of Hong Kong action films, Woo, now on his third Hollywood feature, has done it again with a gorgeous and gory movie that is both balletic and bullet-riddled. *Face/Off* features all that is familiar in Woo's ouevre both thematically and stylistically, save one crucial element: emotion. What should be another moving meditation on violence, retribution and redemption is scuttled by an apparent lack of conviction and a story too cumbersome and preposterous to be engaging.

Sean Archer (John Travolta) is an FBI agent in perpetual mourning and pursuit after the death of his young son at the hands of assassin and terrorist-for-hire Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). When Archer kills Castor, his troubles are only just beginning, however. Turns out Castor recently planted a biological bomb, set to detonate in several days. Castor's sociopathic brother Pollux (no sign of sister Helen of Troy here, by the way) won't divulge the location of the bomb, so, to trick Pollux (Alessandro Nivola) into spilling the beans, Archer goes undercover in prison, after assuming a most clever disguise. With amazingly simple (and disgusting) technology, Castor's face is cut off and transplanted onto Archer in a supposedly reversible procedure.

But it turns out that Castor isn't dead after all, and he miraculously awakens from his vegetative state only to discover he has no face. Luckily, Archer's disembodied countenance is conveniently floating in a nearby pan and presto-chango, the Archer-enemy assumes his nemesis' identity and kills all the people who know about it. Castor enjoys Archer's life, complete with heroic escapades and accolades, a patient and surprised wife (Joan Allen), and rebellious teenage daughter (who thinks her Dad is suddenly cool), a little too much. Castor-as-Archer is at his most menacing, and the movie is most suspenseful as the familial fox-in-a-henhouse subplot plays out. Meanwhile, Archer-as-Castor is forced to escape from a brutal prison, hang out with lowlifes, and kill lots of people who would ordinarily be on his side of the law.

With its heavy symbolic and mythological underpinnings and Woo's signature Christian imagery (including his standard shootout in a church), *Face/Off* has the potential to be a better-than-average psychological thriller. The hero and villain, in altering their external identities, find themselves altered within, good turning to bad, bad turning to good. In a nice twist, each man also embraces paternity in an unexpected, figurative child swap. While struggling with the complications of their dual identities, they must also face off against each other (as nicely realized in a shootout staged in a mirror-filled room). The psychological possibilities are not quite satisfactorily explored in *Face/Off*, however, and at no point does this visually compelling film manage to suspend disbelief long enough to be involving or moving, despite the poignancy of the familial relationships.

The part of *Face/Off* that's works best, surprisingly, is the whole silly face transplant business. Through a neat bit of sleight of hand, Travolta and Cage sustain the illusion that they are characters pretending to be other characters. So Cage first plays Castor, then Castor as Archer might impersonate him, while Travolta, in the juicier role, is Archer, and Archer as a psycho killer might impersonate him. Travolta and Cage do some fine acting and have a lot of fun hamming it up with the two-in-one roles, and both are quite effectively convincing even though the identity shifts are purely a psychological illusion, requiring no physical changes whatsoever.

If only the rest of the film were so convincing. *Face/Off* features huge, spectacular stunts, and land, sea and air chases, but there's never any real sense of conviction about them. It's like seeing the wizard behind the curtain -- with no real illusion of reality to thrill and chill, all that's left is a distracting awareness that some pretty neat stunts are rolling out on film. And while Woo's action sequences are precisely and beautifully choreographed (one gun battle was set to the song *Over The Rainbow*), the moves are predictably familiar by now -- the shootouts always start with two-fisted, guns-a-blazing, bodies-a-flying mayhem and end in an inches-away who's-got-nothing-to-lose standoff. After the sixth or seventh movie, it's like seeing *Swan Lake* over and over again -- *Swan Lake* is great, but maybe *The Nutcracker* would be nice for a change.

From a purely stylistic standpoint, *Face/Off* is a gorgeous, lyrical film, far superior to standard action fare. Thematically, *Face/Off* is overly ambitious, exploring paternal, maternal and fraternal love, revenge and redemption, good and evil, internal and external identity, good science and bad science, and more. The result is an unwieldy narrative structure whose collapse, ironically, is hastened by the distracting beauty of the storytelling technique.


30Jun1997

My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)

Julianne (Julia Roberts) really has her heart in the wrong place. Her head is all wrong, too. She's altogether Ms. Wrong, and altogether a mess the minute she learns that her best friend is getting married. This isn't just a run of the mill case of always the bridesmaid never the bride jealousy, however. This is psychotic, desperately lonely jealousy, the kind of cupidity that instantly turns an ordinary restaurant critic into a raving lunatic.

That's because Julianne's best friend is Michael (Dermot Mulroney), and his impending nuptials cause her to suddenly realize that she has been in love with him for nine years. But he's about to marry Ms. Right, a sweet, adorable heiress named Kimmy (Cameron Diaz). So Julianne, rather than confess her love to Michael, hatches scheme after devious scheme to drive the lovebirds apart on the eve of their wedding -- she'll stop at nothing, even if it means ruining both their lives. Some friend.


There's a fine tradition of devious, lovesick women in romantic comedies. They always get their man through trickery, chicanery, wile and guile, but they have the very best intentions, and they really are meant to be with the generally unsuspecting objects of their affection. And aside from her ruthlessness in romance, the romantic comedienne is always a likable, charming, smart but screwy gal, a self-sufficent, self-possessed woman rendered nutso by love. Not Julianne. She's no Katharine Hepburn. Julianne breaks every rule by being venal, petty, cruel and utterly selfish, a woman singularly determined to destroy a good relationship at any cost.


That's the catch to *My Best Friend's Wedding*, and a big catch it is. Not only is the protagonist generally unlikable, but she's obviously *not* meant to be with the man she so mercilessly pursues. He's happy with Kimmy until Julianne starts to work on him. *My Best Friend's Wedding* is a deliciously subversive, sneaky movie that violates the rules of romantic comedy and violates audience expectations as well. If this was a classic romantic comedy, you'd like Julianne, you'd want her to get together with Michael, to believe that true love always win, but there's nothing true or very loving about Julianne. If she wins, Michael loses, and if she loses, the whole romantic comedy genre gets turned on its head. *My Best Friend's Wedding* makes you want what you don't want, and ambivalent about what you get.

Catch number two: Julianne's real soul mate, her true best friend is obviously George (Rupert Everett), her patient, saintly editor. It is really George that Julianne is meant to be with, except that George is gay. George and Julianne and have an ease, familiarity and compatibility that makes them sizzle, while Julianne and Michael don't -- they fizzle.

Ronald Bass' script has moments of frothy wit mixed with screwball comedy, plus numerous plot twists and loads of rich, funny characters. *My Best Friend's Wedding* is an unexpectedly fresh new take on the old genre, a twisted, devious little movie that really sneaks up on you by being utterly unpredictable. Director P.J. Hogan (*Muriel's Wedding*) brings his flair for bright, quirky comedy and even quirkier musical numbers to this movie, which is loaded with catchy Burt Bacharach songs.


Everett is a major scene stealer -- the movie could have used a lot more of him because he's a complete delight. The gay friend is practically a stock character in movies nowadays, but Everett brings an unusual intelligence, dash and mischievousness to George -- imagine suave James Bond as a sensitive, smart gay man and you not only have George, but you're getting awfully close to the ideal male. The rest of the cast handles the many mood swings of *My Best Friend's Wedding* well -- this movie puts everybody through their emotive paces, particularly Diaz, who pulls off the difficult task of being likably perfect. Mulroney is unusually bland, an atypical romantic lead, but that's all part of this movie's cunning subterfuge -- Michael has no spark, and he's no match for firecracker Julianne, as combatant or mate. Rachel Griffiths (also from *Muriel's Wedding) is terrific as a saucy bridesmaid who has a memorable encounter with a racy ice sculpture.

*My Best Friend's Wedding* lacks a true-blue heroine, but the movie itself is like an old-fashioned romantic comedienne, and the audience is the unsuspecting victim of this unlikely romance, starting out at odds, resistant, uncertain, and finally, won over by its unconventional charms.


23Jun1997

Speed 2 (1997)

Cruising isn't exactly a high excitement activity. It implies a certain languor, a leisurely lifestyle, a wandering nature. It does not imply speed. The oxymoronic title of *Speed 2: Cruise Control* is meant to be punny, since most of the action, such as it is, occurs on a cruise ship. But there's a lot more cruising than speeding in this waterlogged high seas adventure. Snooze Control would have been a more apt title for this damp, derivative *Love Boat* meets *The Poseidon Adventure* meets *Under Siege*. Were it not insufferably irritating, *Speed 2* would have been merely insufferably boring.

Among the uncommon irritants to which this movie subjects its audience are emergency lights that flash constantly for at least half the movie, and the shaky camera effect, suggesting a drunken steadicam operator, that is *Speed 2*'s primary stylistic effect. As an effect, and used properly and with restraint, the shaky camera can create a sense of tension, but as it is abused here, it is more likely to cause seasickness and, in vulnerable individuals, epileptic seizures. Let me be the first to suggest an instant moratorium on the rampant misuse of this nauseating effect in entertainment.

But back to that cruise ship. Annie (Sandra Bullock), charming heroine and ersatz bus driver of *Speed*, finds herself on the *Seabourn Legend* with her new cop boyfriend Alex (Jason Patric). All is well until a mad bomber (Willem Dafoe) hijacks the boat using smoke bombs disguised as golf balls. Geiger the bomber is disgruntled because his employer fired him when he became terminally ill with copper poisoning as a result of designing cruise ship computer systems. Or so he says. Geiger takes lots of pills and periodically applies leeches to himself, when he isn't planting golf balls in the air vents, throwing people overboard and laughing maniacally. Geiger is no mere terrorist, however; his elaborate and nefarious plot is actually a ruse designed to divert attention while he steals jewels from the ship's vaults as the terrified passengers abandon ship. Of course, none of this would have happened in Canada, where they have national health insurance.

Geiger's plan goes awry, as such plans always do, and Alex, Annie and a bunch of whiny passengers are stranded on the ship, which is cruising towards a Caribbean island at a terrifying 17 knots (the land equivalent of about 21 miles per hour, or, less than half the velocity of the runaway bus in *Speed*). Why doesn't everyone just jump off the ship? Apparently they'll be pureed into fish food by the massive propellers, unless, of course, they jump off the back of the boat, where they'll be safely whooshed out to sea, but nobody ever thinks of that. That's the problem with stressful situations and dumb movies -- nobody ever thinks of the right thing to do at the right time.

The plot of *Speed 2*, scripted by Randall McCormick and Jeff Nathanson from director Jan DeBont's story, has enough holes in it to sink the Bismarck. There's not a single lifeline in the form of decent subplot, dialogue, character development, or humor, either. Most of the lifeless dialogue involves characters reporting on events in the movie with a blow-by-blow account of the action, sort of like watching the Olympics, only much less interesting. Since he's a saucy villain, Geiger gets the wittiest lines this movie has to offer, and says memorably uninspired things like "Let's see how he likes that!" and "How do you like your vacation now?"

The closest *Speed 2* gets to character development and humor is taking characters from *Speed* and placing them in similar situations in *Speed 2*. So Annie is once again taken hostage by a mad bomber, and hapless traveller Maurice (Glenn Plummer) once again has his vehicle commandeered by a cop on a more or less high speed chase. Oh, the irony. Meanwhile, Alex, the putative hero of this soggy tale, is so bloodless and dull that one suspects he's feeding a stash of leeches of his own. With all that dead weight, it's little wonder this leaky vessel sinks like a stone (although stuff like this usually floats).

Bullock works overtime to compensate for her zombie-like co-star -- a far better movie would have developed Annie into a full-fledged heroine, rather than devolving her character into a passive, imperiled Pauline. Bullock is quickly dragged under by the feckless Patric. Not one single emotion found purchase on his stony face, nor anywhere else on his person, throughout the entire movie, not even when he was barking orders at the poor little deaf girl who got stuck in the elevator. Dafoe gets all buggy-eyed in his effort to inject some life into the psycho du jour, to little effect. Temuera Morrison shows action-hero potential as first-mate Juliano, but like everyone else who actually bothers to act in this movie, the script gives him only one oar to row with, and he, too, goes down with the ship.

Despite every desperate measure taken to pump interest into the underinflated, hyperventilating *Speed 2*, this movie is slower than a slow boat to China. There's lots of screaming and shaking and swimming and quaking, with big boats, little boats, sail boats and even menacing oil tankers, but none of it adds up to anything other than sound and fury. Long before the laughably idiotic and headache-inducing climax, *Speed 2* makes like the *Titanic* and capsizes.

16Jun1997

Con Air (1997)

A good action movie plot is like a good car: once it gets you where you need to go, you don't have to worry about it anymore. Utilitarian simplicity works best, not something with a lot of bells and whistles and complicated parts that take attention and effort to figure out. Fuel, fire, zoom.

*Con Air* has a simple, utilitarian plot with lots of fuel, fire and zoom. Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage, with a Southern drawl and sounding exactly like Hi, his dopey character in *Raising Arizona*) is a highly decorated Army Ranger who goes to prison for killing a man in a bar brawl, leaving behind a pregnant wife. When he's paroled seven years later, he ends up on an airplane transporting several of the world's worst prisoners: serial killers, serial rapists, serial lunatics, and other remorseless recidivists, the kind of hardened criminals that make Republicans open the coffers wide. When the prisoners hijack the plane, only Poe stands between civilization and two dozen bloodthirsty villains, but being a selflessly heroic sort, and, thanks to his military training, a human deadly weapon to boot, Poe is up to the task even though it might mean never seeing his wife, or the daughter he's never met. On the ground, US Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack) suspects Poe is a good guy, and battles with bloodthirsty bureaucrats who want to shoot down the plane.

The simplicity of *Con Air* -- bad guys try to get from point A to point B, good guy tries to stop them -- leaves lots of room for big bangs, and this movie has them in spades: huge, fiery, technicolor explosions, all manner of vehicular mayhem, brutal fist-fights, blazing shoot-outs, in short, an exhaustive barrage of violence, stunts and special effects that result in a seemingly endless string of climaxes. *Con Air* isn't a movie that never ends, it's a movie that does virtually nothing else.

The thing is, when you've seen one explosion, you've pretty much seen 'em all, and the same goes for car chases, plane crashes, gun fights, and so on. First-time director Simon West is an anti-auteur, leaving virtually no stylistic imprint whatsoever on this film, save for some fairly cornball slo-mo effects, so he doesn't add anything artistic or innovative to the action, although *Con Air* is abundantly energetic and fast-paced. West is a director who, like the plot, doesn't get in the way, which is far preferable to an in-the-way director whose style is incoherently flashy and meaningless.

*Con Air* is as entertaining as it is because of a witty script by Scott Rosenberg. The best moments of this movie happen when *Con Air* occasionally slows down to refuel before resuming the mayhem anew. The abundant villains are not a complex, shades-of-grey lot, but neither are they standard-issue movie psychos. Each man possesses his own colorful moniker: there's ring leader Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich), an indiscriminate mass murderer and phrenologist's dream with a bald pate, "Diamond Dog" Jones (Ving Rhames), a black militant who blew up an NRA convention, and everybody's favorite psycho, Garland "The Marietta Mangler" Greene (Steve Buscemi), a mild-mannered cannibal and a loquacious travelling companion who arrives a la Hannibal Lecter ("I love your work" Cyrus tells him). Poe's only pals are his former cellmate Baby-O (Mykelti Williamson), a near-comatose insulin-dependent diabetic, and Bishop (Rachel Ticotin), a prison guard who spends most of the film manacled and menaced by serial rapist "Johnny 23" (Danny Trejo). With the exception of "Sally Can't Dance" (Renoly), an unfortunate drag queen stereotype, the cons of *Con Air* are an ugly but witty bunch, armed with pithy one-liners *and* rocket launchers -- these fun-loving fellas really love their work . There are at least as many laughs in *Con Air* as there are explosions, and that's quite a few.

*Con Air* is armed with a self-mocking tone, an awareness, verging on self-parody, of how silly all this testosterone-fueled noise and naughtiness actually is. This is most evident in the performances of Cage and Malkovich, who all but wink when they deliver lines that are knowingly absurd and extreme variations of archetypal villain-hero dialogue. *Con Air* seems to lose this smart self-awareness, however, when the movie reaches its real conclusion, and goes out in what should be a blaze of glory. After so many premature climaxes, the final act is really an anti-climactic lunge for the finish line, a stunt-filled, cliche-riddled, emotionally corny last gasp, an all-out effort to top the movie off with bigger, faster, wilder action that only betrays the rest of the film.

*Con Air* gets off the ground and flies high because it's smart and funny. When this movie crash lands, it is because it dumbs down and flies too low.

9Jun1997

Addicted to Love (1997)

An effective romantic comedy has to overcome the inevitability rule. That’s the rule that potential lovers, be they boys and girls, boys and boys, girls and girls, or any imaginative permutations thereof, must fall in love by the end of the movie. Without romance, the romantic comedy obviously isn’t. So the trick is to keep the audience interested until the inevitable occurs, by making the path to true love as full of potholes as possible. This generally involves various shenanigans, numerous complications, vociferous denials by one or both parties, and, almost always, at least one other person who is in love with the one of the other two. Everything gets sorted out in the end, and everybody goes home happy and stuffed full of popcorn. The end.

Boy, does Addicted To Love have potholes. Sam (Matthew Broderick) is in love with his childhood sweetheart Linda (Kelly Preston). But Linda leaves for New York and falls in love with Anton (Tcheky Karyo). So Sam abandons his career as an astronomer in order to gaze upon Linda in her little downtown lovenest. Enter Maggie (Meg Ryan), Anton’s ex, who went a little psycho when he dumped her for Linda. Maggie invades the crumbling, condemned tenement where Sam spies on Linda with an elaborate camera obscura, and sets up an equally elaborate bugging system so the two stalkers can also listen in as Linda and Anton have sex, and eat, and eat during sex, and so on. Will Maggie and Sam fall in love? But of course.

First, however, they have to cause Anton and Linda to break up through various overly elaborate and complicated schemes. Sam does it because he thinks he still wants Linda back. Maggie doesn’t want Anton back, and she won’t settle for just ruining his relationship -- she wants to ruin his entire life. These two wounded hearts take a substantial detour into wrath and resentment on their way to true love.

Addicted To Love has replaced Cupid’s arrows with poison arrows, and that’s a fatal misfire. A dark romantic comedy isn’t a bad idea, but the execution of this one just doesn’t work. The dialogue and acting are stylized in a way that is stiff rather than witty -- there’s an obvious attempt here to make the sort of wild screwball romances that Wilder and Hawks used to make, but it falls flat because the script by Robert Gordon is sloppy and heavy-handed, with too little wit and too much venom. First-time director Griffin Dunne adds nifty visual touches to the movie, particularly in the interesting use of the camera obscura, but his nice style doesn’t hide the unpleasantness of the story.

Not one of the principle characters in Addicted To Love is particularly appealing, and even worse, it’s next to impossible to understand what any of them see in each other. That is pretty difficult to do with cute actors like Ryan and Broderick, but, alas, they get dragged down along with the rest of the movie. Addicted To Love features a pretty morose and unsympathetic bunch: Sam and Maggie are motivated by jealousy and revenge fantasies, Anton is a scoundrel, and Linda is a flighty codependent who loves the one she’s with, whoever that may be. These are not exactly good candidates for healthy, happily ever after romance.

Addicted To Love has its moments, as when Linda repeatedly sends her long-faced Dad (Nesbitt Blaisdell) to read Dear John letters to her victims-- but those moments are too few and far between, while the movie too frequently stretches credulity, even for a comedy, by being downright dumb (like when Sam gazes at galaxies through his telescope *at noon*.) The plots hatched by Sam and Maggie are too far-fetched and generally downright cruel -- by the end of the movie, creepy, misogynistic Anton is the most sympathetic character, and even he is still a jerk.

The romantic comedy is essentially a character study -- everything is designed to move characters towards romantic epiphany and a change of heart. But there are no real changes of heart in this cynical movie, and there are definitely no epiphanies of any kind. In fact, there is precious little heart at all in Addicted To Love. Taking the romance and love out of a romantic comedy is like taking the murder out of a murder mystery -- what you’re left with is neither comedy nor mystery. There’s nothing to hang your hat on in Addicted To Love -- if any of these characters ever were addicted to love, they’ve long been cured.

2Jun1997