Rock of the Ages

Back in the late ‘80’s to early '90's, a good buddy and I would often hit local independent music stores like Rhino Records and Amoeba Music on weekends.  While he’s on his neverending quest to add to his impressive Beatles bootleg LP collection, I would be in one of my Metallica or Iron Maiden t's browsing the hard rock/heavy metal section.  Ah, good times.

When I heard that the Tony-nominated Broadway homage to ‘80’s rock was being made into a movie a la’ ‘Hairspray’ and ‘Chicago,’ I couldn’t be happier.  Back in March, I caught ‘Rock of Ages’ during its last week at the Pantages and had an absolute blast, so I knew that I’d probably enjoy the movie too.  And the movie certainly did not disappoint.  Many critics panned RoA for being a ‘jukebox musical’ because the story took a backseat to the songs, but they’re missing the point here because in RoA the story fits around the songs, not the other way around.

In ‘Glee’ fashion, RoA is ambitious and covered songs from popular ‘80s acts like Journey,’ ‘Poison,’ ‘Scorpion,’ and ‘Foreigner’ among others too numerous to mention.  For what it’s worth, RoA is the story of a small town girl (Julianne Hough) from Oklahoma seeking fame and fortune in LA who fell in love with an aspiring young rocker (Diego Boneta) at a popular but seedy club on the Sunset Strip called the Viper, ahem, Bourbon Room.  But even more than that, it’s also an uplifting story of redemption for ‘tortured’ rock star Stacee Jaxx, played to near perfection by Tom Cruise, who somehow managed to channel Axl Rose and Jim Morrison in equal measure for the role.  Alec Baldwin as club owner Dennis Dupree and Russell Brand as his partner Lonny provided welcome comic relief, and Catherine Zeta-Jones was also great as the mayor’s wife who embarked on a moral crusade to shut down the 'sinful' Bourbon Room because she had an axe to grind with Stacee Jaxx.

But who cares about the flimsy story, because it’s the songs that truly shined.  All the rock hits featured  in the movie are fun and infectious, taking us on a trip down memory lane, and Adam Shankman (‘Hairspray’) did an admirable job in the big screen adaptation.  While the musical was a true ensemble affair with no particular character standing out, this movie needed someone to ground it, and that someone came in the form of Tom Cruise, whose Stacee Jaxx is a much more pivotal character in the movie than in the musical.  If you like ‘80’s glam rock/hair metal, this movie is not to be missed.

RoA may never attain the cult stature of a ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ but it more than stands on its own as an entertaining rock musical comedy romp through the '80's suitable for ages 13 and up.

8 out of 10

3 Encapsulated Reviews

Because I don’t feel like writing full-length reviews, I’m going to deviate from my usual modus operandi this time with these 'quick and dirty' reviews of the three movies I saw over the last couple of weekends.  And no graphics this time.  Sorry.

Prometheus: Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated "is-it-or-isn’t-it?" prequel to ‘Alien’ is a visually stunning classic sci-fi movie.  33 years after Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley found to her dismay that “in space, no one can hear you scream,” we finally got some answers as to where these hell-spawned horrors came from.  It is too bad the movie also proved to be unsatisfying.  A group of scientists discover that humans were created or engineered by ‘gods,’ who later sought to destroy their wonderful creations with the perfectly bioengineered weapon.  While I can overlook the fact that many of these so-called scientists behaved irrationally and immaturely in the movie, what I can’t forgive is that the movie resorted to its Deus ex machina device only to deprive us the answer to its central question.  Such conceit!  Noomi Rapace was passable as the main scientist, even though she’s not quite as kickass as Sigourney Weaver.  Instead of killing aliens she had to get one out of her.  Michael Fassbender as the wondrously curious android David provided the movie with its only memorable character.

Snow White and the Huntsman:  The second of two ‘Snow White’ movies released this year, SWATH took a much darker spin on this classic Disney tale.  Kristen Stewart played the titular princess whose father was murdered by the Evil Queen (deliciously played by Charlize Theron) to usurp the throne.  Forced to seek refuge in the dark forest after being declared the ‘fairest of them all’ by the Mirror and hunted by the EQ, Snow allied herself with the oft-drunken Huntsman (played by Chris Hemsworth) and seven dwarves to win back what’s rightfully hers.  Billed as what ‘Snow White’ might have been like if penned by J.R.R. Tolkien, SWATH sought to make Kristen Stewart look like Joan of Ark.  But lacking the charisma and gravitas for such a role, she only managed to look bland and sulking throughout the movie.  And Edward fans can rejoice!  There is zero chemistry between Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth.  Even Charlize Theron couldn’t save this movie from being a complete disaster.

MIB3:  The latest installment of the Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones-starred buddy sci-fi comedy took us back in time to 1969.  An evil alien named Boris the Animal escaped from a maximum security penitentiary on the moon and traveled back in time to kill Agent K (Jones), so Agent J (Smith) must go back in time to prevent that from happening.  Can you do the time warp?  Josh Brolin, as the young K, played the role with gusto.  Though MIB3 is as campy and cheesy as you might expect, it is also fun for the whole family with a charm that's hard to resist.  MIB3 went a long way in explaining how K ‘chose’ J as his protegé in the first movie.  As much as I would like to call this just another shameless sequel, it’s actually not too shabby.

Prometheus - 7 out of 10

SWATH - 4 out of 10

MIB3 - 7 out of 10

A 'Chernobyl' Diary better left unwritten

If ever there is a prime example of Hollywood’s tendency to latch onto the latest gimmick and shamelessly milk it for all its worth, ‘Chernobyl Diaries’ is it. This ‘found footage’ docudrama is the most recent offering in a genre first made popular by ‘The Blair Witch Project,’ then rejuvenated in the ‘Paranormal Activity’ franchise. With its low production cost and unknown actors, found footage films don’t have to gross nearly as much as CG- and star-heavy blockbusters to realize a good profit, and unfortunately suckers like me keep giving them reasons to make more.

Conceived by Oren Peli, who gave us ‘Paranormal Activity,’ ‘Chernobyl Diaries’ is set in the town of Pripyat near the infamous site of a nuclear reactor meltdown in 1986, when a group of young friends decided that taking an ‘extreme tour’ of the place wouldn’t be a bad idea. Of course, when they reach the doomed town strange things started to happen and they find that they are in fact ‘not alone,’ despite the assurances of their ex-Russian Spetznaz tour guide. What was supposed to be a fun and adventure-filled trip soon turned out to be their worst nightmare (big surprise!) and threatened their very lives.

I usually am very forgiving when it comes to ‘found footage’ films but, quite simply, ‘Chernobyl Diaries’ is uninspired, tepid and entirely devoid of tension and suspense, with stock characters whose fate you just don’t care for. The radiation-altered mutants (spoiler you say, really, what else did you expect?) who terrorize our group of young twenty-somethings are anything but scary, as were the cheap scares the movie employed to make us jump, like the bear that crashed through an abandoned house in one of the early scenes. Even the ‘big reveal’ at the end hinting at a government conspiracy wasn’t much of a twist at all, since I guessed it when the group was stopped at the checkpoint before they entered the town. Take my advice and save yourself the money on this one.

2 out of 10 (and that’s being generous)

Battleship Sunk!

When they announced this movie based on a popular Milton-Bradley game I used to play as a kid last year, I rolled my eyes in that most ‘gimme a break!’ tradition. I mean, how the heck are they going to make a 2-hour movie out of a game based on luck and educated guesses? Then I heard that Michael Bay is the producer and saw the preview and thought: “Ohhh-kay, Transformers on the high seas, think I’ll pass on this one.” You see, I’m not a fan of Michael Bay, whose stupid but hugely successful movies like ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Transformers” totally baffle me. Why do people watch this kind of crap and give him more reasons to make even more stupid movies with big explosions but no brains?

 

Okay, so I went to see ‘Battleship’ against my better judgment because: (a) Michael Bay didn’t direct it and (b) I kinda like Peter Berg, the actor-turned-director whose other movies like ‘Hancock’ and ‘The Kingdom’were alright.  Well, this movie might as well have been directed by Michael Bay, because it’s got his stamp all over it and I simply can’t tell the difference. ‘Battleship’ is every bit as overblown, loud and stupid as every other Michael Bay movie, with the notable exception of the opening scene, in which our protagonist (played by John Carter’s Taylor Kitsch) went to great lengths to obtain a chicken burrito to woo a blond hottie who happened to be the daughter of the admiral played by Liam Neeson.

 

"Battleship’ is an alien-invasion movie with lots of cool gee-wiz special FX and mind-numbing action. Given the amount of carnage and damage inflicted by the sinister lizard-like aliens in this movie with their superior military technology, it is unfathomable to me how little blood was shed. I suppose it was to maintain the movie’s PG-13 rating, but the movie seemed too much like a ‘game’ (no pun intended) to me. There are a few scenes in the movie that beggars belief, even in the context of an alien invasion movie, such as when a battleship museum was brought out of mothballs in record  time so that it can get into point blank range to fire a devastating broadside salvo with its 16-inch guns against an alien ship. In one laughable scene, our  hero fired a .50-caliber sniper rifle to open a hole in the ‘window’ of the alien ship because the aliens are sensitive to sunlight (they’re lizards right?).

 

Just as ‘Battle: Los Angeles’ was essentially a two-hour recruiting commercial for the US Marines, ‘Battleship’ aims to do the same for the US Navy.  Boy oh boy I just can’t wait to see what the USAF has in store when its own alien invasion commercial comes out.

 

5 out of 10

Avengers Unleashed

The 21^st century has ushered in a golden era for superhero movies, thanks in large part to advances in computer graphics technology (CGI) which made such movies possible.  The ‘X-Men’ and ‘Spiderman’ trilogies paved the way, to be followed by ‘Batman’ and others too numerous to mention.  Nary a summer would go by without Hollywood shoving at least 2 or 3 superhero movies down our throats, to the point that many bemoaned that they suffered from ‘superhero fatigue.’  Then along came ‘The Avengers,’ directed by uber-geek director Joss Whedon, or ‘The Mighty Avengers’ to you comic purists.

Like the uncanny X-Men, the mighty Avengers is a team of super-powered individuals created by the legendary Stan Lee, founder of Marvel Comics (make mine Marvel!).  The challenge in making a superhero ensemble movie like ’The Avengers’ is that you lose focus on any one superhero because you have to give every member of the team his or her due.  The X-Men worked largely because of the charisma of its central characters, Charles Xavier and Logan (aka Wolverine), which provided the anchor point for the other characters.  By contrast, it didn’t work so well for ‘The Fantastic Four.‘  With a roster full of egos like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and Hulk, how is Joss ever going to make this work?

As it turned out, our worries are unfounded because Joss proved to be the perfect director for a movie like this.  As he had shown us before with ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘ and ‘Firefly,’ he has a particular knack for dealing with group social dynamics.  He orchestrated the interpersonal conflicts among The Avengers like a true maestro, be it the world-weary cynicism of Iron Man versus the patriotic idealism of Captain America or the testosterone-charged, ‘king of the jungle’ pissing contest between the Son of Odin and the not-so-jolly green giant.  Nick Fury (played be Samuel L. Jackson) was the Xavier of this movie, tasked with the seemingly impossible job of knitting this group of disparate and egotistical heroes into a unified and well-honed fighting force to repel the evil machinations of the scheming Loki, who struck a deal with a nefarious alien race known as the Chitauri to invade earth and subjugate mankind. 

‘The Avengers’ puts the capital E in epic superhero movies, brimming with super-powered action and superhero kickassery.  Even at two and a half hours there’s never a dull moment, for when our heroes are not fighting Loki or his evil alien army (or among themselves), Joss Whedon sprinkles the movie with the witty quips and one-liners he’s so well known for.  You can’t help but smile when in one memorable scene Thor tried to reason with his adoptive brother Loki, and Tony Stark swoops in on their little chat with: “Shakespeare in the park?”

And what’s a Joss Whedon movie without a few femme fatales for the geeks who can’t get a date?  Scarlett Johansson was great reprising her role as the ‘Black Widow’ from Iron Man 2, but it was ‘How I Met Your Mother’ alum Colbie Smulders (and yes, her beauty does smolder) who IMO stole the few scenes she was in as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill, most notably the opener where she went after Loki making off with the Tesseract.

With such panache and oodles of flair, including an oh-so-cool flying aircraft carrier, The Avengers truly set a new standard in the superhero genre.  The extended, chaotic battle royale in New York City in which our intrepid heroes fought off legions of invading Chitauri (not to mention the ineptitude of our own politicians) is alone worth the price of admission.  This movie is not to be missed.

10 out of 10  (Joss goes 2 for 2!)

  

Losing "My Way" in World War II

Since 'Saving Private Ryan,' some of the best war movies to come out have been from South Korea, of all places.  Boasting big budgets (by Korean standards anyway), great CGI and high production values, movies such as 'Taegukgi:Brotherhood of War' and 'The Front Line' are loosening Hollywood's grip on war movies.  It is thus with great anticipation that I went to see South Korea's latest ambitious offering, the WWII-themed 'My Way.'

'My Way' is the story of two erstwhile friends who were swept into the maelstrom of war in 1939.  One, a Korean peasant named Kim Jun-Sik, was impressed into the service of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) against his will.  The other, a Japanese aristocrat named Tatsuo Hasegawa, volunteered out of patriotism and a sense of duty.  Althogh the two were childhood friends, an unfortunate incident which resulted in the death of Tatsuo's beloved grandfather at a party led to a bitter rift which was further exacerbated by their competitiveness in the Olympic sport of marathon running.  Alas, when our two protagonists cross paths again at Nomonhan a year later it was under anything but ideal circumstances.

Tatsuo, now the youngest colonel (his rise must have been quite meteoric) in the IJA, had relieved the disgraced colonel who retreated against massed Soviet tanks rather than making suicidal charges and ordered his seppuku.  He soon found himself fighting for his very survival when his own well laid plans were thwarted by yet another well-timed massed Soviet armored attack, and ended up a prisoner-of-war of the Soviets along with Kim.  After serving some time in the frozen Siberian gulag, Germany invaded Russia in 1941 and they were given the choice of fighting for the Rodina against the invading Nazis or facing summary execution, so the former it is.  And guess what?  Once again, the side he's fighting on had no tanks and less firepower than the enemy!  Oh, why must our poor boys always end up with the short end of the stick when it comes to battles?

Whatever misfortune befell Tatsuo and Kim, however, were more than made up for the fact that they were the only two survivors in the suicidal charge against entrenched German defenders (so who said your 'ying' doesn't balance my 'yang?), even though Tatsuo was gravely wounded while fighting for the now tankless Soviets.  Soon afterward, they were captured by the invading Germans and became separated.  Flash forward three years later and voila!, Tatsuo is in German feldgrau preparing the defense of Normandy against the pending D-Day invasion.  And lo and behold, he saw his buddy Kim running along the beach!  Whaaaaaat???!!!  Supposedly this movie is based on a true story, but come on!  Fact can be stranger than fiction, no?

I must admit, the CGI battle scenes in 'My Way' are first-rate and spectacular, though it feels like I'm playing 'Medal of Honor:Allied Assault' or 'Call of Duty' on the Playstation at times.  The final battle scene at Normandy is truly something to behold, even if it wasn't quite the way it actually happened.  But then I had to ask myself: "Does this excuse the movie from having a semblance of a coherent and believable plot?"  This movie is little more than a series of battle scenes tied together with the flimsiest of storytelling, and is also overbloated with melodrama and sappiness in typical Korean fashion.  But other than the laughable plotlines, what really ruined it for me is the high 'implausibility factor.'  There is one scene in which a Chinese female sniper shot down a strafing Russian fighter plane with a single well aimed shot at a critical point on the plane.  This is just one of many unlikely coincidences and happenstances that stretched my belief beyond the breaking point and prevented me giving this movie a 'thumbs up.'  It may be 'inspired by true events,' but that doesn't mean director Kang Je-gyu (Taegukgi:Brotherhood of War) didn't play very fast and loose with the facts (and believe it or not, he was going to give the movie the narrow and unimaginative name 'D-Day').  Sorry, but all I can give 'My Way' is:

6 out of 10

Counterinsurgency Warfare, early 20th Century Style

“Warriors of the Rainbow” is a John Woo-produced movie inspired by the Seediq rebellion of 1930 in Taiwan against Japanese imperialism.  It earned much acclaim in the international film circuit and has drawn comparison to such movies as Mel Gibson’s ‘Braveheart’ and Michael Mann’s ‘The Last of the Mohicans.’ 

The story is told through a warrior named Mona Rudao of the village Mahebu.  As a young warrior who had proven himself in battle against rival tribes over disputed hunting ground, Rudao’s only concerns in the world were hunting enough food with the other young braves from his village.  That is, before the Japanese encroachment thanks to the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ceded Taiwan to the Japanese.  Despite their martial prowess and killing many Japanese soldiers, Rudao et al. were ultimately futile against Japanese arms and forced into an uneasy peace.  Flash forward 30 years into the future.  In strict accordance with the ‘British Manual of Colonial Rule,’ if such a thing ever existed, administrative apparatuses and schools were established throughout the region in order to civilize and educate the ‘barbarians.’  While Rudao (now the chief of his village) knew that defying the Japanese would mean suicide, he seethed within at his powerlessness to restore their traditions and way of life.  A fight between his eldest son and a local Japanese police official during the drunken revelry of a wedding, however, provided the spark for open mutiny.  Rudao, perhaps somewhat inebriated himself, saw an apparition of his deceased father by the river, who sang the songs of his youth with him and ‘convinced’ him to unite the disparate tribes in open revolt and mercilessly attack the Japanese during a local celebration.  An orgy of violence ensued which resulted in the slaughter of many Japanese, including women and children.

 

Having embarked upon his fateful act, Rudao scattered his warriors in anticipation of the reprisal that was to come.  Women and young children from the revolting tribes evacuated the villages and committed suicide so as to deny the Japanese targets for retaliation (Well I did say ‘fateful act’ didn’t I?).  With just some 300 braves including teenage boys, Rudao’s only option was to wage hit-and-run guerilla warfare to bleed the Japanese as much as possible before the inevitable end.  And of course, in typical colonial fashion, the Japanese underestimated the ’savages’ and paid for it dearly with their lives.  Eventually, they were humbled and became ‘wiser,’ employing a divide-and-conquer strategy by exploiting the longstanding blood feuds between the tribes against each other.

As much as I tried to, I couldn’t find much to like in this movie because I simply did not care for its key players.  Rudao lacked the depth and charisma of Mel Gibson’s William Wallace or Daniel Day-Lewis’s ‘Hawkeye,’ and I was put off by the macho ethos of the tribes, which demanded their young men to kill each other (often by decapitation) over hunting grounds and various other petty disputes of ’honor’ in order to prove themselves as warriors.  At two-and-a-half hours long, the movie dragged due to its sluggish and uneven pace, and there is a limit to the decapitations that even I can take in one sitting before succumbing to tedium (imagine my horror when I learned that there is an even longer, two-part version of this movie lasting 4 hours!).  And without the presence of the ‘fairer sex’ to humanize its key characters, like Braveheart's Sophie Marceau or The Last of the Mohicans's Madeline Stowe, it’s exceedingly difficult to sympathize with its main protagonist. 

5 out of 10