Seven Pounds

 

“Seven Pounds” opens with Ben Thomas (Will Smith) making a 911 call regarding his upcoming suicide.

I’d like to make a 911 call myself: Lord, please stop this increasingly fine actor from climbing onto another cross.

Smith is a movie star, not a martyr. When he suffers here, boy, do we all. The last thing anyone wants is to dissuade an actor of Smith’s magnetism from exploring the bounds of his charisma and his talent. But this vat of chicken soup for the soul does no one any favors. Unless, of course, you happen to be one of the folks lucky enough to receive what Ben is giving.

This is the sort of movie that leaves you with too many questions. What, for instance, is up with Ben having a pet jellyfish? Why is he calling a blind telephone operator (Woody Harrelson) and mocking his sightlessness? Why, when Ben hangs up, does he weep a bit then beat his coffee table with an expensive-looking chair? Why, whenever he talks to his best friend (Barry Pepper), does the best friend fall to pieces? Why does Ben sign his beach house over to a Mexican family, move into a motel, and continue to stalk sickly Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson, looking her luscious self even at death’s door)? How, if Ben is so suicidally depressed, does he still get his hair to have that perfect S-Curl sheen? (That’s not easy to do when you want to live.) How does any of this relate to his work as an IRS agent? And most crucially: Seven pounds of what?

Amid all this, there are flashbacks to a time when Ben knew how to smile. Apparently, those were the days. Then Something Happened. Now he acts like the illegitimate child of Jeff Bridges in “Starman” and Della Reese on “Touched by an Angel.” Everything is explained, but long after we’re owed clarity of some kind. Or maybe the explanation is just underwhelming.

“Seven Pounds” is exasperating because it doesn’t seem to know how exasperating all its ambiguity can be. The film’s chronology has been decentralized so we don’t really know where in time we are, and Gabriele Muccino directs the stuffing out of everything in the name of achieving the loping artiness you maybe recall from “Babel” and “21 Grams,” two movies made in collaboration between director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga.

The script for “Seven Pounds” is by Grant Nieporte, whose credits include writing for the sitcoms “8 Simple Rules . . .” and “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.” Before banging out his first screenplay, he appears to have spent a weekend watching the tortured fruits of Inarritu and Arriaga’s labor. “Seven Pounds” strives for similar unliftable heaviness but lacks even the grand ponderousness of an Inarritu-Arriaga production. The movie is a doorstop that thinks it’s a statue.

A couple of years ago, Muccino got an astonishing piece of acting out of Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness,” in which he created one of the most realistic renderings of a parent I’ve ever seen in a movie. Smith is just as achy-breaky in “Seven Pounds.” But the urgency of being a broke, homeless single dad gave the actor real problems to react to. This new movie keeps quiet about what’s eating Ben for far too long. We don’t know what he’s reacting to. Smith manages to be engaging, anyway. It doesn’t matter whether he’s bathing with that jellyfish or trying, with Dawson, to hit the glass-breaking high notes of Minnie Riperton’s “Lovin’ You.”

But too often the movie’s preposterous ideas of goodly sacrifice blur the line between altruism and self-importance. As a rapper, Smith’s charm was always that he could brag without ever seeming conceited. (Remember “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson”?) That unlikely wholesomeness is what’s keeping him the world’s most dependable movie star. But here there’s something unseemly about Ben’s virtue. His charitable give-away is really a ludicrous act of hubris.

Smith in “Seven Pounds” is looking to be more than a saint, a god, or some good Samaritan. Hilariously, the man wants the impossible: He wants to be Oprah.

 

Yes Man

 

In “Yes Man,” Jim Carrey plays Carl, an antisocial Los Angeles bank-loan officer who agrees to stop saying “no” – to friends, strangers, co-workers, the homeless; to fun, life, Mormons, even the horny old lady (Fionnula Flanagan) in his apartment complex. He twists, shouts, does a round of Dance Dance Revolution, plans a bridal shower, attends what must be the last rave in California, learns Korean, goes to a Harry Potter costume party, and courts Zooey Deschanel.

Yet the joys of affirmation appear lost on Carrey, who never looks truly happy. It’s entirely possible that I’m projecting my forced smiles onto Carrey’s face. But he seems to hold this entire exercise (it is, alas, a workout) in contempt. Perhaps he thought he was through with these high-concept, one-note comedies, having failed to top the physical genius of “Liar Liar” in 1997, and having made a mild breakthrough of sincerity in 2003’s “Bruce Almighty.”

While Carrey was off exploring his dramatic range in movies as radically different as “Man on the Moon,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and the execrable “The Number 23,” the landscape for movie clowns changed. He does not belong to the fraternity that has come to dominate Hollywood comedy in this decade. Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Owen Wilson, on one hand, and the writer-director-producer Judd Apatow, on the other, share a franchise on the genre. It’s strange to say, but Carrey is an outsider in a rambunctious style he helped create. For “Yes Man,” he turns in what feels like a Jim Carrey impersonation – 104 minutes of high-energy heartlessness.

The gist of it all is that Carl must carpe his diem. He attends a seminar led by a yes guru (Terence Stamp, comically smug) where everyone around Carl is happy (or something like it), so why shouldn’t he be, too? In our pharmaceutical age, there’s probably a great farce to be made about emotional conformity. This movie, directed by Peyton Reed and adapted from Danny Wallace’s novel by three writers, feels made from quirky-comedy instant mix: just add heart. It’s a cynical attempt, ultimately, to make obnoxious people palatable by throwing them into a tub of romantic comedy.

Casting Deschanel as The Girl is not the wonderful stroke it once was. Between this film and “The Happening,” she seems more warmed over than Carrey. Deschanel glides through “Yes Man” with a cute haircut and cuter clothes, fronts a band called – quirk alert #1! – Munchausen By Proxy (they have a semi-funny song about booty calls), and – quirk alert #2 – teaches a jogging photography class. We’ve seen her scoot through this part before in “Elf” and “Failure to Launch.” There are probably a dozen better ways for her to spend her time (although few as lucrative), so it seems too soon for her to be on autopilot. For one thing, where’s her “Yes Woman”?

That, of course, is the biggest problem with this movie – not that it’s mediocre, dull, or barely written (though it’s guilty on all counts). It’s that Carrey himself is miscast. This is a star-making part as opposed to a part for a star committing a repeat offense. I watched Carrey ride a Ducati motorcycle in a hospital gown during the climax of this movie and thought about how much more fun it would have been to see a fresher face (Michael Cera’s, Robert Pattinson’s, or Paul Dano’s) do that and all of Carl’s exclamatory slapstick, to see someone care enough to make a character out of this.

If Carrey looks resentful or bored, it may be because he’s made things too easy for himself. He doesn’t have to worry about breaking character in “Yes Man.” He’s not playing one.

 

Nothing Like the Holidays

“Nothing Like the Holidays” offers proof that canned ham can still taste pretty good. A Latino entry in the weathered home-for-the-holidays genre, the movie leaves no cliché unturned, but the enthusiasm of the players and the genuine fellow feeling that courses through the story fan a few new flames from the smoldering Yule log. Next to a garish plastic Santa like “Four Christmases,” this is a handmade ornament – not very elegant but you’re glad to hang it on the tree anyway.

Not every Hispanic and Latino actor in Hollywood has been given a part here – it only seems that way. Actually, there’s a ringer at the head of the table: the British-born Spanish/Italian actor Alfred Molina as Edy Rodriguez, Chicago bodega owner and paterfamilias to a large, fractious Puerto Rican clan. Arriving home for Christmas are his three children: Iraq war vet Jesse (Freddy Rodriguez), struggling LA actress Roxanna(Vanessa Ferlito), and Wall Street honcho Mauricio (John Leguizamo), the latter toting his yuppie bride, Sarah (Debra Messing).

At first, “Nothing Like the Holidays” looks like it’s going to set up the Anglo for potshots: Sarah is a tightly coiffed ice cube who barely speaks Spanish and doesn’t want kids. Yet director Alfredo de Villa and his writing team (Alison Swan, Rick Najera, Robert Teitel) throw gentle curveballs throughout.

When mom Anna (Elizabeth Pena) announces her intention to divorce the wayward Edy at the dinner table, the family freaks out in unexpected ways. Powerbroker Mauricio falls apart completely while his wife turns out to know more of the family secrets than she’s letting on. (You’ll guess the big one before anyone in the movie does.)

Meanwhile, Jesse has to come to terms with his Iraq traumas while trying to woo an ex-flame (Melonie Diaz) and Roxanna needs to decide whether the Hollywood C-list means more than local sweetheart Ozzie (Jay Hernandez), himself dealing with a street-revenge subplot. The ribbons are laid out with care and the cast acts like they’ve never tied them into bows before.

The tartest performances come from the ever-reliable Pena – she invests every bit of business with sublimated fury – and Luis Guzman as a loudmouthed family friend, the jester who gets to say what the others can’t. At its most original, “Nothing Like the Holidays” implies there’s no greater force for conservatism in a Latino family than the children, desperate to hold together the illusion of clan while the parents deal with unpleasant facts.

The movie’s not really interested in originality, though. Instead, it wants to wrap the old seasonal homilies in the warm specifics of time and place and ethnicity. At that, it succeeds. Both despite its familiarity and because of it, “Nothing Like the Holidays” brings it home for Christmas.

 

Australia

 

“Australia” shows all the signs of having been a labor of love for director Baz Luhrmann. One problem: It’s his love, and the audience’s labor.

A mix of bad acting, convenient plot turns and politically correct sentimentality, the movie has more endings than the third “Lord of the Rings” film and clocks in at nearly three hours. It feels even longer. Luhrmann aims for epic scope and ends up with pretty pictures. He veers from earnest drama to brisk comedy and then tries to hold it together with awkward voiceover narration. Within five minutes, “Australia” seems headed for trouble. It gets there and stays there.

Luhrmann develops a bad habit in “Australia”: He keeps insisting his audience feel emotions his movie can’t incite. When he wants a warm feeling, he has composer Dave Hirschfelder crank up the violins. When he wants to indicate triumph, out comes the horn section. Sometimes he’ll show a character getting all choked up – before we even see what the character is looking at. Yet with all that prodding, “Australia” never connects. It’s too giddy and zany to be taken seriously, too self-serious to be taken comically, and too safely in the realm of the magical to make us ever really fear for the characters’ safety.

The magical element comes by way of an Aborigine witch doctor, who keeps constant watch over the main characters from a nearby mountain. No matter where the characters travel, by car or horse, there’s always a mountain for this fellow, who shows up on his own and always arrives on time. If there’s danger, if things seem really hopeless, he’s the handy deus ex machina, always ready with an appropriate spell. Whenever the cattle are about to stampede – or some villain is pointing his gun – count to 10 and watch as the camera pans up the mountain and the old man goes into his dance. The first time he saves the day establishes the pattern. From then on “Australia” loses all sense of threat.

The action is set in the northern part of the country in the early days of World War II. Nicole Kidman plays Lady Sarah, a wealthy and very proper Englishwoman who inherits an Australian cattle ranch. Kidman rolls out all the English cliches she can think of for this role, playing Sarah as repressed and snooty, walking stiffly, as though in a constant comic tizzy. She’s a figure of farce, very like a supporting stuffed shirt in an Oscar Wilde play, and considering that Sarah is intended to be the leading lady, it’s a bizarre choice on Kidman’s part.

In truth, Kidman has never seemed so lost in a role. Couldn’t Luhrmann tell she was drowning? This is a fine actress. Couldn’t he help her? Likewise, never has Kidman, a screen beauty, ever looked so unappealing onscreen, caught in a triangulation between an absurd characterization, an unflattering hairstyle and ugly clothing. Why didn’t Luhrmann look out for her? Why did he leave her twisting in the Australian wind?

He especially owed her special consideration, knowing he was placing her in the same frame with Hugh Jackman, who, as an Australian cowboy, has never looked better in his life – and his life before this wasn’t so bad, either. It’s not uncommon for beautiful actresses to inspire hushed awe in audiences, but with actors, it’s rare. But Jackman has several close-ups in “Australia” in which the whole movie seems to stop, as everyone in the theater stops breathing and stares at this guy, as though he were Greta Garbo. Or Michelangelo’s David. Or a solar eclipse.

The main action of “Australia” – or at least the first part of it – involves Sarah, as the newly minted cattle baron moving her livestock across the country. To that end, she hires Drover (Jackman), who doesn’t like her at first, because that’s how it usually works in movies. (People never like each other at first.) Among the others along for the ride is Nullah (Brandon Walters), a half-Aborigine boy, who narrates the film. He narrates it, even though he’s in no position to tell some of the stories he tells. Maybe the witch doctor tells him. That’s his grandfather.

A distinction should be made. “Australia” is not an inept piece of filmmaking. Walk into the movie and watch any two minutes, and it will seem like a fine picture. It is well made, in the sense that it’s a completely realized expression … but of a misbegotten vision. Luhrmann had an idea to portray Australia as a barnstorming, rollicking, rip-roaring country, but it all comes off effortful and tiresome. He had an idea to portray the nobility of the Aborigines, and he does, but the treatment comes across as careful and worshipful. Finally, he had an idea to show how beautiful Australia can be, but then he forgot to integrate these images into some statement or feeling about the soul of the place.

It’s the saddest thing in movies – the saddest thing in art – when this kind of thing happens. Luhrmann made the movie he wanted to make. It just wasn’t worth making.

 

High School Musical 3: Senior Year

 

 

 

The phenomenally successful High School Musical franchise makes the leap onto the big screen with the third installment, High School Musical 3: Senior Year. As the name implies, this time out the students at East High are dealing with impending changes in their lives as Graduation nears. Troy (Zac Efron) wins another basketball championship with his best friend and teammate Chad (Corbin Bleu), and finds himself conflicted about his college plans, unable to choose between basketball and theater. And as if this weren’t enough, he’s also struggling to figure out how to maintain his relationship with loving girlfriend Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) when she opts for early admission to Stanford. The movie’s opening number, “Now or Never,” is all about having one last chance to get something right. The song serves not only as a rallying cry for the Wildcat basketball team, but also as a statement of purpose for the movie’s cast and crew; and it’s a message that leading man Zac Efron appears to take quite seriously. HSM3 shows that the young actor has learned a thing or two since skyrocketing to the head of the teen heartthrob class with the first movie — he’s relaxed in a way he hasn’t been before. During an early party scene, his natural ease with his classmates and girlfriend is tremendously endearing, showcasing a newfound confidence that replaces his once-awkward self-consciousness. That’s not to say he’s become lazy, he’s simply learned how to modulate his charm and intensity. He’s become a more seasoned performer, and this improves his dancing as well; his biggest moments here show almost no sign of the stiffness that wrecked his big solo number from HSM2 (“Bet on It”). He’s come a long way as a performer since the first film. Director and choreographer Kenny Ortega varies the look and feel of the production numbers, often serving up fleeting but fun allusions to some of the legendary scenes and performers from classic musicals. There are visual references to Singin’ in the Rain and Grease, as well as tributes to the choreography of both Busby Berkeley and Bob Fosse. It’s as if Ortega, who directed and choreographed all three of the HSM movies, wanted to fashion a graduation day for not only the cast, but for audience members as well — Efron and company (including Ashley Tisdale and Lucas Grabeel) get multiple chances to showcase that they are all ready to move on to bigger and better projects, and teen audiences are left with the building blocks to enjoy the rich history of movie musicals. Keep in mind, however, that as a whole the movie is certainly far from perfect. Toward the end, the storytelling gets rushed and sloppy, and it doesn’t help that the last couple of numbers are much less enjoyable than most of the showstoppers in the film’s first half. Those dud moments offer an unwelcome reminder that HSM3 is still, first and foremost, Disney product — but it’s a product with more quality than you might expect. It’s a well-produced yearbook that will one day bring back sweet memories for the cast and fans, but probably won’t be of interest to anyone who wasn’t part of the scene. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

 

Quarantine

 

With innovation such a scarce commodity, Hollywood should really stop remaking foreign films. Aside from their almost universal track record for underachieving, there is something so basic about experiencing a movie in its native tongue that no translation (or poorly scripted dubbing) can match. This past August, the sensational Spanish thriller [REC] — as in the “record” button on a video camera — caused an uproar in New Zealand when one beleaguered audience member soiled themselves during a screening. Naturally, Tinseltown already had its version — relabeled Quarantine — ready to jump on such publicity. As found footage/first person POV style shockers go, it’s pretty good. You can leave your adult diapers at home, however.

Viewed through the lens of her accompanying cameraman Scott (Steve Harris), reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) prepares for a night following the exploits of an LA fire company. Quickly introduced to Jake (Jay Hernandez) and George (Johnathon Schaech), she learns that the hook and ladder life isn’t always emergencies and heroism. When a call comes from the tenants of a rundown apartment building, the guys treat it as routine. But Angela and Scott soon uncover something horrifying — people in the complex appear infected with a kind of super rabies. And the city, state, and national governments are closing off the building, locking everyone — the sick and the healthy — within. While trying to get out, our news crew discovers an even more shocking truth. The ill have gone insane and are attacking and killing the living.

If you never saw [REC], never read a single review of the mesmerizing shocker, or have no idea of the brilliant work done by directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, then Quarantine will appear absolutely fresh and highly imaginative. Using the Blair Witch/Cloverfield/Diary of the Dead conceit of presenting everything through the viewfinder of a photojournalist, this story of a building under siege and the residents trapped inside is a lot like a single-location 28 Days Later. We aren’t really dealing with zombies, just diseased individuals who roam around a dark environment and lash out in violent and excessively bloody ways at those around them. And like the first film, everything is traced back to a spooky penthouse residence… and whatever still exists inside.

But true to the American way of “bigger is better,” the small scale Spanish production is given a much broader cinematic canvas from which to work. Most of the previous shocks are present again, but Poughkeepsie Tapes director John Erick Dowdle (who co-wrote with brother Drew) can’t leave well enough alone. He does add a couple of clever gross outs — including one involving a mad dog, a man, and a closed elevator — but he counters that with an overabundance of unimportant characterization. It takes a good 20 minutes for the movie to get going, leaving the irritating Jennifer Carpenter ample time to show off her sizable scenery chewing skills. She gives other talent termites a bad name, literally gnawing at her scenes, and shrieking like a broken banshee.

Even worse, the Dowdles diddle with [REC]’s breathtaking ending. Sure, there are the same signature beats, but they try to make scientific sense of what’s happening, instead of sticking with the original’s supernatural religious ambiguity. All differences aside however, the duo conjures up a decent amount of dread. Quarantine is not perfect, but it takes its unusual premise (and by now, overused approach) and manages to find a way to make it all work well. Fans of what Balagueró and Plaza accomplished should probably steer clear. But if you’re in the mood for a solid, suspense-filled 90 minutes, this movie will definitely give you the Westernized creeps.

 

Eagle Eye

The word preposterous is too moderate to describe “Eagle Eye.” This film contains not a single plausible moment after the opening sequence, and that’s borderline. It’s not an assault on intelligence. It’s an assault on consciousness. I know, I know, I liked “Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” but that film intended to be absurd. “Eagle Eye” has real cars and buildings and trains and CNN and stuff, and purports to take place in the real world.

You might like it, actually. Lots of people will. It involves relentless action: chases involving planes, trains, automobiles, buses. Hundreds of dead. Enough crashes to stock a junkyard. Lots of stuff being blowed up real good. Two heroes who lack any experience with violence but somehow manage to stick up an armored car at gunpoint, walk on board an unguarded military transport plane and penetrate to the ultra-secret 29th-floor basement of the Pentagon.

They are Jerry and Rachel (Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan). Both are ordinary Chicagoans until they start getting commands from a mysterious female voice on their cell phones. Now try to follow this. Whatever force is behind the voice has control of every cell phone and security camera in the nation. They can control every elevated train and every stop light. Can observe the traffic and give precise driving instructions. Can control the movements of cranes in junkyards, the locations of garbage barges and arrange for a rendezvous on a dirt road in an Indiana country field. Oh, and when a guy drives down the road to meet them in a van, They can instruct them to warn the guy that if he walks away, he will be killed. If They don’t want him dead, then why do They kill him — since the situation clearly reflects Their power?

We haven’t even arrived at the Pentagon, and already the audience is chuckling at the impossibilities. I won’t even get started on the air cargo container, the syringes inside and the on-time recovery of the heroes after they give themselves shots. Turns out the syringes were in a briefcase that the heroes survived incredible death and destruction to pick up, and it isn’t even needed after the plane takes off. I won’t give it away, but the only thing They really need is an attribute of Jerry’s. So here’s an idea that would save billions of dollars and hundreds of lives: Why not get a couple of no-neck guys from the West Side to kidnap Jerry, haul him on board a private jet and transport him to Them?

OK, OK. Enough with the implausibilities. This whole movie is a feature-length deus ex machina, and if you don’t know what that is, look it up, because you’re going to need it to discuss “Eagle Eye.” And yet I think I’ll use the tricky star-rating system to give it two stars. Now why would I give it two instead of, oh, say, one star? Both because of the elements I’ve complained about, and in spite of the elements I’ve complained about.

Let me explain. If you’re looking for a narrative that makes much sense, “Eagle Eye” lacks one. It’s essentially a lot of CGI and stunt work, all stuck together in a row. LaBeouf is a good young actor, but you wouldn’t discover that here. I barely had time to observe that he resembles an underweight John Cusack when he was off and running, as Jerry and Rachel became elements in effect scenes. The movie obviously intends to resemble and inspire a video game, and at that it is slick. I look forward to film students using their clickers to work out the average shot length. I’m predicting less than three seconds. So to summarize, “Eagle Eye” is great at all the things I object to, and I admit it. But I didn’t enjoy it.

 

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