New(ish) Releases (2015): Creed & Man Up

Creed

Director: Ryan Coogler

Very well-done chapter that lives up to its classic, original forebear.

One of the reasons I enjoyed Creed so much is that I knew very little about it going in. In that spirit, I won't reveal more than the basics. Michael B. Jordan plays Adonis Johnson, son of Apollo Creed, one of the greatest boxers in this fictional world, before he was killed in the ring. Adonis has rather atypical motivations for fighting, and he seeks out his father's former rival and friend, Rocky Balboa, in an attempt to find a trainer.

The story is presented and plays out with enough surprises to feel fresh. Yes, it hits many of the marks that you expect in a Rocky movie, but nothing comes off as stale. Thanks to some crisp writing and excellent direction, nothing feels overdone or sentimental. Director Ryan Coogler clearly has such a love and respect for Stallone's original film that he was able to draw inspiration from the very best parts of that iconic movie. The stakes to the title character feel very high on a personal, emotional level, and this carries through right until the end.

The fight scenes are done extremely well. In fact, I'm willing to say that they are the best of any Rocky movie, and among some of the best in boxing movie history. It's a sport that can be beautiful and brutal, in turns, and this is exhibited with great skill in the several fights carried out in the narrative.

Apparently there is a Creed 2 in the works, which might be a complete mess. Whatever happens with it, Creed is a great sports movie that I think even non-sports fans can appreciate.

Man Up

Director: Ben Palmer

Rom-coms are certainly not me genre. Man Up, however, is among the most enjoyable that I've ever seen.

This was an easier sell to me than most rom-coms, thanks to the presence of Simon Pegg and Lake Bell. Pegg is a well-known and highly respected quantity in the nerd world, where I often dwell. I also know Bell from her sly, hilarious writing and star role in 2013's In A World..., which looked at the odd and male-dominated niche world of movie trailer voice-over narrators. Man Up quickly repaid my faith, as Bell's character Nancy, a professional journalist, is very quickly established as a woman looking to overcome her reticence and skepticism to find romance. Her impish nature takes over when she decides to steal a blind date from a mildly pestering, overly cheerful young lady she meets on a train. When Nancy is mistaken for the young woman by Jack (Simon Pegg) at the train station, Nancy decides to roll with it. This is perhaps not the most imaginative of comic setups, but it more than suffices for this tale, which gets stronger as it unfolds.

As Jack starts to reveal more about his life, Nancy keeps up her charade, wavering between distaste and attraction towards Jack. Unlike most rom-coms, which tend to take place over several days, weeks, or even months, Man Up hits all of the genre's marks in an unhurried tale which covers about 4 or 5 hours. And it does it by taking some amusing left turns, as it reveals traits in both aspiring singles which are both admirable and off-putting, while sometimes quite dark. Both Nancy and Jack come off feeling more genuine than most rom-com characters I've seen, lending a mature tone I often find lacking. There is an exploration of the romantic versus the practical notions of companionship which, while not novel, is handled deftly enough to remain engaging. What I appreciated as much as as anything is that neither Jack nor Nancy is pigeonholed as "the woman" or "the man". Yes, each one exhibits a few of the traits ascribed to their sex by stereotypes, but each one also contradicts them in several ways through their words and actions.

Of course, what is a rom-com without the "com"? The humor in Man Up is steady and solid, running the gamut from effective sight gags to dry sarcasm, with a healthy dose of blue, R-rated dialogue for spice. In keeping with the theme of breaking certain stereotypes, each of the main pair give as good as they get. This is a balance that is very welcome in a class of movie which often plays things rather safe, in terms of breaking out of preexisting character types.

There is certainly not an abundance of romantic comedies which I would gladly watch again. Man Up just made that short list of mine.

Retro Trio: Bridget Jones's Diary (2001); Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011); First Blood (1982)

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

Director: Sharon MaGuire

One of the stronger, more accessible rom coms that I've seen, if not exactly a movie that I'll put on my all-time favorites list.

The title character (Renee Zellweger) is a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, unlucky-in-love, 30-something bachelorette who works at a publishing company. She makes a resolution to cut down on her vices and make every effort to find a decent man. Unfortunately, she soon falls for Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), a handsome, funny, womanizing rogue who is a manager at her company. Bridget engages in a fun, sexually satisfying affair with Cleaver, though she does remain curious about another man on the periphery of her life, Marc Darcy (Colin Firth). Darcy is a much dryer, serious lawyer whom Bridget knows through family friends. Bridget's feelings become even more confused when more details emerge about Cleaver's past friendship with Darcy, and the former's unwillingness to fully commit to Bridget.

This is a more singular rom com, as its protagonist is unusually degenerative. Jones's loneliness is fairly standard fare for the rom com genre, but her humorously chronic attempts to drown her sadness with booze and cigarettes make her much more accessible than similar, more poised and innocent protagonists. She is a nervous type who has "diarrhea of the mouth," which results in her embarrassing herself more than any other person possibly could. It all makes for solid comedy.

The two most appealing aspects of the movie are the acting and the adult nature of it. I can appreciate the foul-mouthed exchanges, mostly between Bridget and Cleaver, which make the characters more enjoyably earthy. The actors are all perfect in their roles, with Hugh Grant especially standing out as the attractively hedonistic and sleazy Cleaver. Colin Firth plays the stuffy Darcy masterfully, and these two polar opposites offer plenty of opportunity for Renee Zellweger to show off her comedy acting chops.

My viewing partner for this one was my wife, who has seen the movie more times that she can count. It was nice to be informed that the movie, just as the source novel, drew from Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice (I suppose Colin Firth playing a character named Darcy should have given it away). I can appreciate such updates, and it gives the tale some welcome intelligence and literary heft.

While the Bridget Jones character may come off as an incompetant clown a little more than her creator, author Helen Fielding, might have liked (my wife assures me that this is the case), it hardly spoils anything in a light-hearted film like this one. This is never going to be a movie that I'll go out of my way to watch, but I'll be happy to put it into the holiday rotation to see every year or two.

Don't lie - you know you enjoy the cuteness.

Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

Director: Jennifer Yuh

A fun enough sequel, though not as enjoyable as the original (which I reviewed here).

The tale picks up some time after the first movie. Po (voiced by Jack Black) is now a legitimate kung-fu master, working with the Furious Five, defending locals from evil-doers. Not far away, the exiled son of a powerful family - Shen (Gary Oldman) - plots to return and overthrow the country. Shen also has an obsession with avoiding a prophecy which states that a black and white warrior will utterly defeat him. This is about all there is to the main story, which is far less interesting than the story of Tai Lien in the first movie.

The other story elements include learning much more about Po's past, and it also follows Po's quest to further master kung fu by "embracing inner peace," as his master Shifu puts it. These parts to the story are fine, but the tale isn't quite as engaging as the previous movie. This is the general theme of every aspect of this sequel: decent enough, but a weaker version of the original.

From the dialogue to the visual action, all aspect of this movie are slightly less clever or entertaining versions of the themes and gags set up in the first movie. Plenty of the lines are funny, but not quite as funny. Some of the action is a visual treat, but not as much of a treat as the original, as this movie relies more on overly long fighting sequences. You get the picture.

Unlike the first movie, which was a complete story in and of itself, this second movie clearly had an eye on an assumed third film. Panda 2 plants seeds the for a plot which will obviously bear fruit in the next film (released earlier this year, in fact). This is fine, but it leaves more dangling plot threads by its end, which can make for a slightly less satisfying narrative.

This is still a good series, and I'll check out the third film. I do hope, though, that it can be a little more like the original.

First Blood (1982)

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Somehow, some way, I had never watched First Blood at any point in my meat-eating, suburban-living, red-blooded, all-American Gen-X'er male life. I finally decided to fill in this glaring blank on my dance card of '80s tough guy movies, and it was well worth it.

Based on a short novel of the same name, First Blood follows several brutal days in the post-war life of Vietnam veteran John Rambo. Rambo is a drifter of sorts, and he wanders into a small town in Michigan after finding out that one of his platoon buddies had died from complications of exposure to Agent Orange. In the town, the local police officers try to bully the somewhat ragged-looking Rambo out of town. The quiet veteran, however, civilly refuses. He is then promptly put in jail.

In the jail, while being physically abused, Rambo suffers a severe PTSD flashback and lashes out, badly beating several police officers and escaping into the nearby woods. Over the next few days, the police refuse to back down, hounding Rambo to the point that he accidentally kills one of them in self-defense. The situation escalates to the point that more troops arrive, along with Rambo's former commanding officer, Colonel Troutman. It becomes clear that Rambo was not only a war hero but also one of the fiercest and most capable soldiers he had ever trained. What unfolds is a showdown between an ignorant local law enforcement team and a man who has been trained into a lethal killer but who also suffers from untreated psychological trauma.

It's easy to see why this movie obtained such respected status. Yes, it is a survival story and a case of one-versus-many, which both have a certain macho appeal. On these fronts, the movie still hits its marks. Beyond this, though, the movie taps into some very dark psychological territory that standard action movies were rarely exploring in the early 1980s. Rambo is presented as a tragic figure, rather than simply as the "wrong man to mess with" which so many imitation characters tried to emulate.

Some of of the scenes and sequences are a bit overlong, and a few points are belabored a bit much. Still, this was a really good movie that I wish I had seen long ago. It does further beg the question, too, of what if Sylvester Stallone had managed to keep his narcissism and ego in better check? The guy was in some outstanding movies early in his career, with First Blood being of particular note. If he had aspired a little more towards artistic integrity over fame and cash, he probably could have many, many more excellent movies on his resume, and far fewer movies like Rambo III, Cobra, and Rocky 5.

Retro Trio: Made (2001), Escape Plan (2013), We Own the Night (2007)

Made (2001)

Director: Jon Favreau

In a word: lame.

The look on Favreau's face here is pretty
much how I felt watching this movie.

This was a surprise for me, since I've generally liked Favreau's writing and direction in his various films. From Swingers to Elf to the first two Iron Man movies, I thought he was solid enough, if not exactly spectacular. I don't put him in any kind of pantheon of great directors, but he's solid. Even films of his that I wasn't terribly enthused about, such as Chef, are well-done, for what they are. 

So it was disappointing to watch this earlier stab of his at spoofing the mafia genre. It's not hard to see what Favreau was trying to do - throw a couple of bickering buddies into the lower levels of the mafia that has been glamorized by countless great movies. But it never gets any real steam. First of all, Vince Vaughn's character is supremely annoying. I'm no Vaughn hater (even though he has absolutely zero range, outside of playing himself), and I actually think he's hilarious when cast in the right movies. But imagine his typical motormouth character firing off line after line, without a single thing actually being funny. Well, that's what he is in Made. I actually wanted him to get whacked after about 15 minutes.

Second off is that the story rambles through a sluggish and vague narrative that seems to have been meant as a mafioso Odyssey of sorts. There are a few mildly amusing scenarios here and there, but most of the scenes simply drag. In the end, the big "reveal" of the plot only made me think that the movie should have been about 45 minutes shorter and saved us viewers the trouble.

This movie had potential, with a decent idea and really good cast, including Favreau, Vaughn, Peter Falk, and about half the cast of The Sopranos. Alas, the whole was far, far less than he sum of its parts. So much so that I was surprised that it made a "Top 100" list of gangster movies compiled by a few Philadelphia area film aficionados. Not sure what they were seeing on this one. 

Escape Plan (2013)

Director: Mikael Haefstrom

This movie fell just slightly on the wrong side of "mediocre." It's not terrible, but there's no way one can call it "good." 

The plot is all but given away by the two-word title. Stallone plays Ray Breslin - a security professional who breaks out of prisons in order to expose any weaknesses, so that they can be corrected. When his services are procured by a a mysterious woman working with the C.I.A., things start to go wrong. All of his safeguards are stripped, and he is truly stuck in a high-tech, ultra-secret, maximum security prison which is completely off of the grid. Inside, he meets a sly German inmate (Schwarzenegger) who takes great interest in his demeanor and skill set. From there, the two try to (you guessed it) escape.

Escape movies' biggest strength is always waiting to see just how the escapee will use his cunning to make his way past all sorts of obstacles to gain his freedom. In that respect, Escape Plan gets it right. The set up is fine, and the super max prison presents a few interesting obstacles that Breslin has to surmount. But none of them are so creative that they become memorable. Breslin's methods for studying and using his environment are just compelling enough to have kept me watching, but they weren't exactly mind-blowing.

One must absolutely NOT think too hard about this movie's story. There are a laughably high number of logical inconsistencies. I was able to shrug them off for the most part, as it didn't take too much away from the escape element of the movie, but they are pretty bad. If the very reason for the prison's existence doesn't hold up to some mild questioning, then the scriptwriters have done a pretty poor job. There are more than a few other massive oversights that are nearly as awful, so a viewer will need to be ready not to analyze things too closely. You'll only be disappointed.

The aesthetic is just hilariously bad. Clearly going for style over any kind of pragmatics, the prison design is unnecessarily silly, and the guard uniforms look like bad Halloween costumes. Style over substance can work, as long as there is actual style. Escape Plan's notion of "style" equated to what an 11-year old boy would find "cool-looking."

There is also one missing element that I had mixed feelings about. When you sit down to watch a movie with Stallone and Schwarzenegger, then you would expect more than a few one-liners, right? Well, this movie is woefully lacking in that department. Yes, there are a few attempts at some zingers here and there, and one or two of them are half-decent. But mostly, the banter is absent, and much of what is there is thoroughly forgettable.

Do I feel like I wasted my time watching this? Not quite, but close. And there's absolutely no need for me to watch it again. It's a barely passable popcorn flick that you can turn your brain off for, and we all need one of those every once in a while. 

We Own the Night (2007)

Director: James Gray

A good crime flick, if not quite an outright "classic."

The movie tells the tale of Bobby Green - a self-absorbed, semi-outcast brother of one cop and son of another. Played by Joaquin Phoenix, his is a story of self-actualization and transformation through suffering. It's a unique story for the crime film genre, in the type of character that serves as the focus, and just how that character evolves throughout. While it does seem a tad extreme and rushed to an all-too tidy ending, it is a rather satisfying arc.

The movie's two greatest strengths are the acting and the fact that it doesn't pull too many punches. The large-scale "crime" conflict is between the local cops and an ever-increasing Russian mob presence, and Bobby is caught between the two. The tightrope that Bobby walks through most of the movie is constantly wavering in the winds of his own indecision, and we viewers know that he will eventually fall off. The suspense comes from waiting to see if Bobby will make the choice of which direction he falls towards, or if the decision will be made for him. The emotional ramifications make for great theater, as Joaquin Phoenix wears the struggle exceptionally well. He has to struggle through several dilemmas that threaten either his body or his peace of mind, without a single easy answer or fully acceptable outcome for himself or his loved ones. The grey areas certainly set this film apart from many others of its ilk.

Though much of the movie focuses on emotional turmoil, there are certainly several highly suspenseful action sequences, which are quite well-done and affecting. More than simply adding some visceral excitement to the proceedings, they often serve to jar Bobby out of his sometimes paralyzing indecision.

The clearest weakness to me is simply that the transformation goes a bit too far, by the end. I won't give anything away, but the end of Bobby's journey went to a place that I thought oversold just how far he had transformed by story's end. It hardly ruins the film by any means, but it wasn't completely to my liking.

A very good movie that I would certainly recommend to anyone who is a fan of more sophisticated crime tales that focus more on individual character study and transformation, rather than the more procedural elements of most crime films.