Movie Review: "Pan"

Pan (2015)

PG

1.5 Stars out of 5

Director                                Joe Wright
Writer                                   Jason Fuchs
Cinematography                 John Mathieson, Seamus McGarvey

Hugh Jackman                     Captain Blackbeard
Levi Miller                            Peter Pan
Garrett Hedlund                 James Hook
Rooney Mara                      Tiger Lily
Adeel Aktar                         Smee
Kathy Burke                        Mother Barnabas
Amanda Seyfried               Mary

 

Director Joe Wright’s and Writer Jason Fuch’s 2015 “Pan” is so bad it screams for a critic to abuse the movie’s title – so, okay, I will do so. “Pan” has been panned by audience and critics alike. I will join the crowd and pan it myself. When I saw the advertisements for this movie, I was thrilled. It looked like it had great artwork, cinematography and an over the top performance by Hugh Jackman as Captain Hook; and to a great extent it does indeed have each of these elements. It even has a fine performance by Levi Miller as Peter Pan. What it also has is a complete misunderstanding of who this movie is intended for; from its anachronistic music, its exceptional use of violence, and it’s very rushed opening scenes, this movie failed almost from the beginning.

“Pan” is intended to be the prequel to J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play, “Peter Pan”. Barrie’s very popular play ran in London for nine years and inspired Barrie to publish a follow-up book in 1911 entitled “Peter and Wendy”. Peter's character is apparently inspired to some extent by the mythological Pan, but is unlike the lustful Pan, Peter is actually a childish boy who has decided to never grow up. He lives out his daydreams on the island of Neverland with fairies, mermaids, pirates, and American Indians. What would inspire Wright and Fuchs to write an origin tale about the central character in a wish-fulfillment story intended for children? Or worse yet, how could they lose a grip on the whimsy and wonder that underlay the original, and instead make use of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bob”. Great songs, yes, but a discordant emotional tone for a child’s movie; not to mention, what genre does this movie belong to anyway: musical? A worse move from a tone perspective is the unrelenting evil personified by Blackbeard and his pirates. Sure pirates can be portrayed as evil, but there is an appropriate level of violence, implied and actual that would have far better fit into this movie. The Wright/Fuchs team went far over-board in their choices for the piratical behavior. A good example of this would be Blackbeard’s first appearance. He struts onto the stage as his character would demand that he do so. He and his imprisoned miners (mostly children!) belt out “Smells Like Teen Spirit” creating an atmosphere of a surrealistic joint endeavor between the captive and their captor. But not just a joint endeavor, no to help enforce his rule, to further subjugate the minds of his slaves, Blackbeard proceeds to execute one of them to the cheers of the remaining  and for the moment, not executed workers. This bizarre scene could have worked well as a key moment in another, darker movie or video (I’m thinking of “The Wall” by Pink Floyd), but in a movie designed to show the origins of a child’s story, one set with fairies and children pretending to be animals, this was a big mistake. It was only the first of many.

This movie really seems more like a skeleton that was bedecked with CGI ornaments. They are surely there. Consider the elegance of a flying pirate ship as it flies over London (oddly chased by British Spitfires during the WWII German blitz) or the soon to follow scene of Peter tied to the ship with a rope but floating skyward/heavenward when the ship reaches low Earth orbit (!!? – what’s it doing in outer space?). These were artistically beautiful parts to the movie as were subsequent scenes of the approach to Neverland. Even the aerial scenes looking down into the mining pit have a kind of beauty. Did the art and cinematography director make this movie? The art is great, Blackbeard's costumes/hair are bizarrely diverting, but the story and its character development are deeply flawed.

The plot is simple enough: Peter is kidnapped, meets and fights with Blackbeard while making friends with Tiger Lilly and a young Captain Hook (both badly cast with the exotic Rooney Mara from “The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo”, and Garrett Hedlund as a cowboy-accented Hook), but the character definition let alone development is absent. The early scenes of Peter in an orphanage run by a woman (Katy Burke as Mother Barnabas) I can only presume is the female equivalent of Blackbeard are rushed and appear to have little to no purpose beyond leading to the aforementioned flying pirate ship scenes. We are led to believe that Peter has a head on his shoulders and a heart in his chest, but there is very little attempt to show these character features. The worse blow to Peter’s character portrayal in the movie is the ridiculous speed he is transformed from a realistically portrayed young boy by Miller to a sword-wielding leader of a rebellion against Blackbeard.

One might note my criticisms are over-wrought and over-thought for a movie intended for children; and if this had actually been a consistently-made movie for children, I would heartedly agree. We come then full circle: for whom was this movie intended. The music score would suggest angry and disaffected adolescents, the original subject material of Peter Pan would suggest young children, and the CGI artwork would suggest young adults (or old, as in my case) that love to see good CGI artwork of fantasy subject material. In a final analysis though, any parent that would like their children to see a movie entertaining for both kids and adults, will find that no matter whomever this movie was actually written and directed for, it certainly was not really made for anyone. This movie was a critical and commercial bomb, and should frankly be avoided by all.

Movie Review: Chappie

Chappie (2015)

R

2 Stars out of 5

Writer/Director                 Neill Blomkamp
Writer                                 Terri Tatchell
Cinematography               Trent Opaloch
Music                                   Hans Zimmer

Sharlto Copley                   Chappie
Dev Patel                             Deon Wilson
Ninja                                     Ninja
Yo-Landi Visser                  Yo-Landi Visser
Jose Pablo Cantillo            Amerika
Hugh Jackman                   Vincent Moore
Sigourney Weaver            Michelle Bradley
Brandon Auret                   Hippo
 

Neill Blomkamp wrote and directed his first film, “District 9” in 2009. This was Blomkamp’s first full length feature film. Co-written with this wife, Terri Tatchell and produced by Peter Jackson (“Hobbit” trilogy, and many others), "District 9" made use of Blomkamp’s background as an animator and his South African youth. He was able to create a visual treat that proved his technical competency with CGI but also allowed him to use Apartheid as a political subtext to what otherwise was an entertaining science fiction yarn. “District 9” was a seamless blend of the escapism style of movie-making with a story that had a level of social importance worth watching. Following “District 9”, Blomkamp and Tatchel created “Elysium” in 2013. “Elysium” was yet another science fiction film with a message: access to health care. “Elysium” was far less a commercial and critical success as the Oscar nominated (Best Picture) “District 9”. In 2014, Blomkamp/Tatchell have evidently decided to drop their previous efforts at sub-text and focus on escapism alone with their latest movie, “Chappie”. Unfortunately, they have also failed to deliver even this with the derivative, largely inane and illogical “Chappie”.

As with “District 9”, Blomkamp/Tatchell have created a full length film based on a short they did in the mid-2000’s. “Chappie” is based in a near future Johannesburg, South Africa that has recently switched from a human police force to a robot force. These robot police are referred to as scouts and were designed by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) for a corporation run by Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver). Deon has a corporate rival, Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman) whose larger robot appears to be a cross between the warbots of the Empire of Star Wars and Robocop. The scout robot police force have reduced crime by such an extent that the local crime boss, Hippo (Brandon Auret) is failing to steal as much money as his ego demands. He therefore decides to threaten a minor criminal, Ninja (Ninja) to give him $20M. Ninja and his team/family of Yo-Landi (Yo-Landi, like Ninja from the South African rock group Die Antword) and Amerika (Jose Pablo Cantillo) decide to kidnap Deon and force him to help them overcome the robo-police; this would allow them to steal again, evidently. Deon in the meanwhile has been working on creating an Artificial Intelligence. At first he’s frustrated, but after staying up all night and drinking a Red Bull, he does it! Not only has he invented an AI, it all fits on a PC's hard drive – cool. (This will be super-ceded later in the movie when one of the characters figures out how to transfer a complete human consciousness and place it on a thumb drive - you really have to admire the characters' software skills in this movie. I guess its because they can type so fast?) Ninja and company eventually kidnap Deon and his makings of a scout with an AI. By daylight they have coerced him to finishing such a robot. Yo-Landi, soon to be known as Mommy, names the robot Chappie (Sharlto Copley). Let the excitement ensue.

Needless to say an hour long series of illogical decisions and actions by all involved take place. And who could have predicted it, there are lots of guns, explosions and people getting shot by both flying robots and robot's with Ninja skills at the movie’s climax. I won’t reveal the exact ending; oh, that’s right, it’s irrelevant. To Blomkamp’s credit, the CGI that depicts Chappie is remarkable. I grant him full credit on the technological achievement of bringing him to the screen. But the writing and acting by all surrounding this character is astonishingly bad: from Dev Patel who was charming in “Slum Dog Millionaire” (2008) but whose character Deon is utterly unbelievable in terms of acting and writing in this movie to Sigourney Weaver who must surely be the most stupid CEO character in the history of cinema. Perhaps Sigourney was just warming up for Blomkamp’s pending revival of the “Alien” series. And then there is Hugh Jackman (“Les Miserables”, 2012, one of my favorite musicals of all time) playing an ex-black ops kind of character (Vincent), one that wears a pistol on his belt to evidently remind us of his tough guy persona. There is little that is logical about Vincent as he ultimately decides to place the city and its inhabitants in peril of their lives in order that he might demo his competing robot. Really; is there some hidden universe out there in science fiction land where decisions like these (and plenty of others I am sparing you from) make sense to somebody? Is it really necessary to abandon all logic in order just to reach another pointless climax where a flying robot can shoot cluster bombs, etc., etc.?

Sadly, Blomkamp is failing to live up to his start with “District 9”. I fear he is falling into the category of one hit wonder from the music world. “Chappie” might well be renamed “Crappie” as my daughter mistyped when she first told me of this movie. It is really not worth watching for anything beyond the CGI of the robots, and that will only take 2-3 minutes of your time, not two hours. Two hours of my life, I want back.

Les Miserables

Les Misérables

2012
Musical/Drama
4.5 stars out of 5

I love musicals. I have since I was a child and first saw Oklahoma! From it through at least one Elvis quasi-musical (State Fair with Ann Margaret) to Moulin Rouge,  I wonder if I have seen one that I hated (Grease comes to mind; sorry). Les Misérables occupies for me a rare position - easily one of the best pictures I have seen in the past five years.

The story of Jean Valjean as expressed in Les Misérables is based originally on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo and also on the musical theatre productions that go back to 1980 Paris. The salvation of Jean Valjean, his pursuit by the tortured Inspector Javert and the stories of Fantine and Cossette provide more than sufficient story material just on the surface level. You could also follow the movie for its depiction of how desperate the plight of the poor were in early 19^th century France, and the indifference of almost everyone as an allegory to modern America, and you would not be displeased.

However, there is an even deeper layer to the story, and it is best revealed in the first act. There one is nearly overcome with emotion as you watch the love and devotion of the local Monsignor when he forgives Valjean’s thievery, and thus starts the wheels of redemption that eventually saves Valjean from himself, not to mention from Javert and society at large. This scene is followed very shortly by what I consider the highlight of the entire movie: the step by step degradation of Fantine culminating with her incredible song of dreams lost. The other notable part of the story involve the moral ascent of Valjean after he re-covers his soul; especially when this is contrasted to the moral descent of Javert as he clings to the law and his tight walk along a moral precipice.

The story arc, theme and technical artistry aside (watch the camera angles of the boat being dragged into the not so dry dry-docks or consider that all the singing was recorded live), the acting and singing are for the most part just superb. Both Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway as Fantine sing and act at the highest levels. Meanwhile Isabelle Allen as young Cossette and Samantha Barks as the adult Éponine sing superbly. And even though I usually cringe when I see another love triangle, in this movie I get to see Éponine, the adult Cossette and Marius (played by Amanda Seyfried and  Eddie Redmayne, respectively) sing their way through it, and it makes it more than watchable, it makes it a work of art.

To be sure there were things I would have wished done differently: chief amongst them, I would have re-written the movie to remove the discordant comic elements and inadequate singing of Sacha Baron Cohen as Thénardier. I did like having Helena Bonham Carter in the role of Madam Thénardier in order to provide the dark counterpoint to young Cossette’s beautifully sung “Castle on a Cloud”. And though criticized by many, I also like using Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert. Yes, you can discuss his vocal limitations. However, his solo atop the rooftops of Paris as he sings and walks the knife edge between life and his own doomed redemption,  and then once again this time above the Seine, Crowe proves his worth for the role. His dramatic abilities and fair to good singing makes for a more than competent Javert.

From the amazing opening to the lyrically described triangle to the tragic but redemptive ending, I loved this movie, and strongly recommend it to anyone even mildly interested in musicals.