The Wolverine: Claws for delight

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>The Wolverine</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox/thewolverine/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense sci-fi action, mild sensuality and fleeting profanity</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a> • </b></span>Originally published in <i><a href="http://www.davisenterprise.com/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">The Davis Enterprise</a></i>, 7.26.13</b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve never understood why critics sharpened their claws so gleefully while savaging 2009’s <i><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2009/05/wolverine-feral-fun.html">X-Men Origins: Wolverine</a></i>. Few bona-fide actors have inhabited a superhero role with the panache Hugh Jackman brings to this Canadian-born berserker, and that earlier solo adventure was just fine, in my book.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGkWl7OKW822i2UkgU6fTgOpkvY2uRRu2Owp4GSv12ErN7UKjI6HzXFeRM4G8MVJ56tS8BkDTKm7onx6lvLvllgulrEyGihXcUlbdA3s7oJa7ydm0JB7pdSG2jU7Q5dQY5Z0xWFpuT_88/s1600/Wolverine+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGkWl7OKW822i2UkgU6fTgOpkvY2uRRu2Owp4GSv12ErN7UKjI6HzXFeRM4G8MVJ56tS8BkDTKm7onx6lvLvllgulrEyGihXcUlbdA3s7oJa7ydm0JB7pdSG2jU7Q5dQY5Z0xWFpuT_88/s400/Wolverine+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Logan (Hugh Jackman) finds himself helplessly manacled, his claws unable to extend,<br />as the sinister Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) reveals that this imprisonment is<br />merely one element of her horrible plans. Still to appear: the dread Silver Samurai.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sure, it lacked the wit and overall snap of <i><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2012/05/avengers-well-assembled.html">The Avengers</a></i>, but that’s true of most big-screen superhero epics. The more important observation is that <i>X-Men Origins: Wolverine</i> was far, far better than, say, <i>Daredevil</i> or either <i>Fantastic Four</i> bomb.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And, for the purposes of our discussion, Jackman’s newly released sequel. <i>The Wolverine</i>, is better still.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writers Christopher McQuarrie, Mark Bomback and Scott Frank focus on the key element of Wolverine’s character: that he’s a modern <i>ronin</i>, a samurai without a lord or master to serve. This definition applies to the X-Men mythos in both comic books and big-screen adaptations, where Wolverine may or may not consider himself part of the team at any given moment, depending on recent events.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Building further on that core, McQuarrie & Co. have constructed a narrative from several of the X-Men/Wolverine comic book story arcs that found our clawed protagonist in Japan, a country that understands and practices the same warrior’s code of honor by which he lives. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps the surprise success of the big-screen adaptation of <i><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2010/04/kick-ass-quite-kick.html">Kick-Ass</a></i> had something to do with this, thanks to that saga’s flamboyant, sword-wielding character of Hit Girl; perhaps it’s mere coincidence. Whatever the reason, we finally get live-action embodiments of Mariko Yashida and Yukio — characters co-created in the Marvel Comics universe by writer Chris Claremont and artists John Byrne and Frank Miller — and brought to excellent life by Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima, respectively (although costume designer Isis Mussenden shouldn’t have based the latter’s look <i>quite</i> so heavily from the aforementioned Hit Girl).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Angst-ridden journeys of the soul always make good sagas, and this one’s no exception. The core plot doesn’t always hold together — the barrage of double- and triple-crosses makes it rather difficult to separate some of the good guys from the bad guys — but the destination isn’t nearly as important as the trip itself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One other caveat: McQuarrie, Bomback and Frank assume that viewers either know the Marvel universe or have seen all previous X-Men films, which I regard as mildly presumptuous. For the benefit of newbies, then, a few key facts left unexplained: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Logan (Wolverine) is essentially immortal, thanks to a scientific process that laced his bones with the indestructible metal allow adamantium, and a “healing factor” that quickly repairs all wounds. He’s also much older than one would expect, and doesn’t show his age. Finally, he’s currently consumed with guilt and grief over having been forced to kill X-Men teammate Jean Grey, when she “went evil” as Dark Phoenix (that crisis depicted in 2006’s <i>X-Men: The Last Stand</i>).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br /> <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This new solo adventure finds Logan brooding in an unspecified Canadian wilderness, surfacing to deal some payback to thrill-seeking hunters. That’s long enough to be noticed by Yukio, a feisty, sword-wielding samurai bodyguard. She has been sent to find Logan, and request that he accompany her back to Japan, where an old friend — Lord Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), a wealthy industrialist — wishes to say goodbye before he dies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’re granted Yashida’s back-story via a series of brief flashbacks that occasionally interrupt the core story, and we gradually learn that Logan saved the young Japanese soldier from certain death when American forces dropped its second atomic bomb on Nagasaki during World War II. A grateful Yashida tried to present his ceremonial sword to Logan at that point, but the latter gently refused, promising to collect it at some unspecified time in the future.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That time appears to have arrived, and honor demands that Logan grant his long-ago comrade’s dying wish.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Logan and Yukio arrive at Yashida’s heavily guarded estate at a tempestuous time. The elderly industrialist hovers at death’s door, despite the best efforts of his doctor (Svetlana Khodchenkova), a sinister-looking, green-eyed blonde. Logan is equally curious about Yashida’s granddaughter, Mariko, who seems to have serious issues with her curt and condescending father, Shingen (acclaimed stage and film star Hiroyuki Sanada).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Business intrigue fills the air, with Yashida’s imminent death necessitating the transfer of his corporate empire to ... somebody. This instability has prompted threats from local Yakuza thugs, under the control of ... somebody. Then there’s the mysterious Kenuichio Harada (Will Yun Lee), a master archer and member of the Black Hand, a cadre of ninja warriors tasked with protecting House Yashida. Harada, in turn, answers to ... somebody.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ordinarily, these disparate elements would ring Wolverine’s heightened alarm bells, but he’s further distracted by an offer from the dying Lord Yashida, who claims — after years of medical research — to have discovered a way to remove Logan’s invulnerability, thus allowing him to live a normal life, and then die gracefully. Logan, beset by constant nightmares involving Jean Grey (Famke Janssen, returning to her role), finds the offer tempting. Perhaps.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But then all hell breaks loose, with Yakuza goons, Black Hand warriors, Yashida’s bodyguards and other persons unspecified shooting, slicing and dicing each other. Mariko appears to be the primary target, and so Logan takes her under his wing as they flee across Japan. Along the way, he discovers — to his horror — that his healing factor doesn’t seem to work any more. He’s being <i>hurt</i> ... and with Mariko to protect from massive enemy forces, this sudden weakness couldn’t have come at a worse time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of which — and this really isn’t a spoiler, since her cover is blown pretty quickly — Yashida’s doctor turns out to be Viper, an über-deadly supervillain with a ghastly snake’s tongue and a rather novel method of dispersing venom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although these numerous elements allow director James Mangold to stage plenty of slickly choreographed action scenes — none better than a crazed, hell-for-leather skirmish atop the cars of a speeding bullet train — he also ratchets back to allow Logan plenty of time for soul-searching, along with time for the developing bond with Mariko.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, this film resonates — lingers as more than a flashy series of battle scenes — because of Logan’s deftly crafted relationships with Mariko and Yukio. Okamoto lends gentleness, dignity and unexpected flashes of defiant spirit to her complex portrayal of Mariko, who transcends the superficial characters generally found in such films. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m reminded of the way both Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama similarly humanized the otherwise cartoonish elements of 1967’s <i>You Only Live Twice</i>, along the way encouraging more heartfelt emotion from Sean Connery’s James Bond, than that film probably deserved. The same is true here; Okamoto is a well-conceived and sensitively played heroine-in-peril, who in true Shakespearean fashion must contend with a family not known for its finer instincts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Logan’s growing bond with Yukio, on the other hand, is purely professional: the mutual admiration of professional assassins. Fukushima is equal parts sparkle and sass as this jokey, black-garbed killer with day-glo purple cellophane tresses, and the actress knows how to employ her mocking smile before dispatching another goon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Khodchenkova is deliciously, shiveringly scary as Viper, clearly up to no good from the moment we meet her. Sanada is properly imperious as Mariko’s father, while Brian Tee is memorably smarmy as Noburo Mori, a jerk businessman betrothed to Mariko.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The blank-faced Lee, alas, doesn’t make much of an impression as Harada.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Production designer François Audouy has a field day with the various Japanese locales, from the soothing calm of a small fishing community, to the palatial surrounds of Lord Yashida’s home, and the mountain-hugging opulence of the third-act Big Bad Villains’ lair. Mangold and editor Michael McCusker pace their film well, so that it doesn’t flag at 126 minutes, and cinematographer Ross Emery grants both painterly beauty and big-city bustle to these disparate settings within the Land of the Rising Sun.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the other hand, the after-the-fact (i.e. fake) 3D effects add nothing to the film, so save your money.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All told, this is a solid superhero entry: a stylish romp with a welcome undertone of character pathos. And it clearly sets up events for next year’s <i>X-Men: Days of Future Past</i>, so be sure to linger in your seats until <i>all</i> the credits are done.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><!--EndFragment-->

2013 action Famke Janssen fantasy Hiroyuki Sanada Hugh Jackman Rila Fukushima Sequel Series superhero Svetlana Khodchenkova Tao Okamoto Will Yun Lee x-men The Wolverine: Claws for delight

The Wolverine   (2013) •  View trailer   3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense sci-fi action, mild sensuality and fleeting profanity By  Der...

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R.I.P.D.: D.O.A.

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>R.I.P.D.</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/universal/ripd/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for relentless fantasy violence, sexual candor, mild sensuality and some profanity</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a></b></span></b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This film is saddled with a salad bar script.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Start with a heaping helping from the big bowl (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Men in Black</i>), add some variety from the mid-sized tubs (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghostbusters</i>and others), top off with some dressing and a pinch of seasoning swiped from even more fantasy predecessors, and you’ve got a movie.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoSRlGOk61jq0kWEzRoLP4WcdNeiZD1WpwJwzvlsCrR3ChJiPJWzr90oGsc5rKhIHH9JCm-h_czhmvj0gMKriZmMq44NsI9HtM_KTVjCco5mf7ygN0Ltwcn_Il1wi1B-x9H8F3aPdqAFM/s1600/RIPD+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoSRlGOk61jq0kWEzRoLP4WcdNeiZD1WpwJwzvlsCrR3ChJiPJWzr90oGsc5rKhIHH9JCm-h_czhmvj0gMKriZmMq44NsI9HtM_KTVjCco5mf7ygN0Ltwcn_Il1wi1B-x9H8F3aPdqAFM/s400/RIPD+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">While new R.I.P.D. recruit Nick (Ryan Reynolds, center) watches from the background,<br />veteran lawman Roy (Jeff Bridges, right) and fer-shur bad guy Bobby (Kevin Bacon) try<br />to determine who can out-glare the other. Honestly, that's one of the more genuinely<br />entertaining moments in this lamentable misfire.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or that may have been the theory, anyway. I call it leftovers. Stale leftovers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writers Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi and David Dobkin haven’t an original idea between them; everything here is begged, borrowed or stolen from other sources (some better, some ... just familiar). The premise may have started with Peter M. Lenkov’s cheeky Dark Horse comic book series, which ran for four issues back in 1999, but it turned into something of a derivative mess en route to the big screen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And while <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">R.I.P.D.</i> would be an unsatisfying film under any circumstances, it’s particularly tiresome during a summer laden with similarly overblown, city-leveling action fantasies. The result, for the viewer, is a serious case of Been There, Endured That.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If Ryan Reynolds isn’t careful, he’ll squander his 15 minutes of fame. Between this and 2011’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Green Lantern</i>, he’ll get a reputation for destroying mid-range comic book franchises.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At a scant 96 minutes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">R.I.P.D.</i> certainly doesn’t linger, but director Robert Schwentke’s feverish pace borders on the ridiculous. He and editor Mark Helfrich have orchestrated a film that feels as if it’s on Benzedrine; everything comes fast and furious, the rat-a-tat cutting as breathless and frantic as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Crank</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Run Lola Run</i>. But while atmospheric frenzy may have been a solid stylistic choice with those two flicks, here it’s just another annoying affectation ... and something else cribbed along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Actually, Schwentke misses no opportunity to be irritating. He even opens his film with a fleeting, action-laced flash-forward, and then employs a brief voice-over to wind the clock back a few days, to the story’s somewhat quieter origins. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That move is the first refuge of a nervous director who worries that he can’t hold an audience without employing tactics, and it smells of panicked, eleventh-hour tinkering. Voice-over isn’t used again — a telling sign — and we also wind up watching that opening sequence again, when the narrative catches up to it. Déjà vu, anyone?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’d be inclined to write this flick off as a total loss, but Jeff Bridges is too entertaining to dismiss; he makes the viewing experience genuinely worthwhile. Which — as is the case with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">RED 2</i>, also opening today — explains why stars deserve their salaries.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Boston cop Nick Walker (Reynolds) begins the last day of his life by cuddling Julia (Stephanie Szostak), the wife he adores, and who adores him in return. She thanks him for the new little fruit tree in their back yard, unaware that Nick concealed some contraband beneath the root ball, when he planted the tree late the previous evening, in order to surprise her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br /> <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Nick has second thoughts about the assorted chunks of gold that he and partner Bobby Hayes (Kevin Bacon), ah, “liberated” from a scummy drug lord the previous day. Nick tells Bobby that he intends to file the gold as evidence, as he should have done in the first place. Despite Nick’s assurances to the contrary, Bobby can’t take the chance that Nick will implicate him, as well; during a weapons-blazing skirmish a few hours later, Bobby waits for the right moment to blast his partner to Kingdom Come.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Except, in Nick’s case, his ascent toward heaven in a funnel of light (hello, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This Is the End</i>) is interrupted when he winds up in a sterile examination room (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Men in Black</i>), with a crisply dressed Proctor (Mary-Louise Parker) regarding him expectantly. This, then, is Nick’s introduction to the celestial Rest In Peace Department, tasked with identifying, locating and incarcerating — or terminating — the departed nasty souls (“Dead-O’s”) who should have gone straight to Hell, but somehow managed to extend their stay on Earth’s mortal plain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At least, I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">think</i> that’s why the Dead-O’s hang around. This film’s clumsy script never bothers to discuss that detail, just as it never explains why Nick has been tagged for R.I.P.D. duty. Initially, it seems as if he’s being “punished” with this 100-year assignment in a sort of constabulary Purgatory ... but why, in that case (as Proctor explains), would his new colleagues be “history’s greatest police officers”? Surely such dedicated cops wouldn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i> be stuck in Purgatory. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More to the point, if Proctor and her unseen bosses upstairs in Eternal Affairs know absolutely everything about Nick, as is made clear, wouldn’t they also know about his change of heart regarding the gold stash — apparently the one “bad” move in an otherwise exemplary career — and recognize that he is, in fact, on the side of the angels? So he should have been granted access to Heaven in the first place?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This film is littered with similar narrative inconsistencies, and they’re all annoying. Oh, and here’s a big one: Based on what we learn later, why would Bobby have left <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">any</i> of that gold in Nick’s possession?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the newbie, Nick is assigned to partner veteran lawman Roy Pulsifer (Bridges), a 19th century sheriff in the Wyatt Earp mold, who shoots first and asks questions later. Access to our workaday realm, at least for the Boston branch of the R.I.P.D., is granted via the back room of a somnambulant VCR repair shop: a direct lift from Del Floria’s tailor shop, in television’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Man from</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">UNCLE</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rounding up Dead-O’s generally is a standard procedure that first involves penetrating their human disguises (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Men in Black</i> again), made easy with the application of the tandoori spices prevalent in Indian cuisine. That sight gag is a minor giggle, since it reveals the undead spirit in all its putrescent, body-mangled glory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then, if the Dead-O is unwilling to come along peacefully, it can be snuffed into vapor via the special bullets in R.I.P.D. weapons, which emit a burst that strongly resembles the meson particle ray from a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghostbusters</i>proton gun.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, and in order to do their work without being detected by rank-and-file Earth civilians, R.I.P.D. officers are granted “identities” that make them look like somebody else (a note from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heaven Can Wait</i>). Roy’s avatar is a hot supermodel babe (Marisa Miller), while Nick is stuck looking like an elderly Chinese gentleman (the always delightful James Hong). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Their weapons, in turn, appear (respectively) as harmless hair dryers and bananas ... although Schwentke cuts those sight gags so abruptly, that we scarcely have time to notice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So yes, some of this film’s running bits are reasonably amusing, as is the banter between the frustrated Nick and the gruffly condescending Roy. Indeed, Bridges plays this cowpoke-out-of-time to the hilt, his twinkling eyes and often bemused expression put to excellent use as the cranky Roy complains about losing his favorite hat, or laments the rather ghastly way in which his human life came to and end, back in the day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This might have been a better film, had we been able to spend more time with routine Dead-O trackdowns, and the developing bond between Nick and Roy. But Schwentke and his inept scripters can’t wait to rush into their story’s central Big, Bad Catastrophe, which (naturally) involves leveling great chunks of the surrounding metropolis, much as we’ve recently seen in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Iron Man 3</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Trek Into Darkness</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fast & Furious 6</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Man of Steel</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">White House Down</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pacific Rim</i>, and ... you get the idea.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m simply exhausted. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Enough</i>, already.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bridges’ charm and Parker’s snarky sass aren’t enough to keep this leaky ship afloat, and Reynolds brings very little to the party. Bacon makes a great villain, chewing up the scenery with a panache that this film could use more of, while Szostak makes good eye-candy as the Sexiest Wife Of All Time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sure, visual effects supervisor Mark Hawker’s work is polished and convincing, as are Thomas Nellen’s various Dead-O makeup effects. No doubt about it: Plenty of money was thrown onto the screen. But that’s the point; it was hurled like spaghetti onto a wall, rather than applied artfully or logically.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We cannot get emotionally involved without a rational (and consistent!) script, or characters we actually care about, and this film offers neither. Its Rest in Peace Department is no more than random pieces that fail to connect or engage.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bridges deserved better.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so do we.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><!--EndFragment-->

2013 fantasy James Hong Jeff Bridges Kevin Bacon Mary-Louise Parker Ryan Reynolds Stephanie Szostak R.I.P.D.: D.O.A.

R.I.P.D.   (2013) •  View trailer   Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for relentless fantasy violence, sexual candor, mild sensuality and some profa...

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Pacific Rim: Monster Mash

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>Pacific Rim</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/pacificrim/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense sci-fi violence and brief profanity</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a> • </b></span>Originally published in <i><a href="http://www.davisenterprise.com/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">The Davis Enterprise</a></i>, 7.12.13</b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Guillermo del Toro must have loved Godzilla movies as a kid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His newest action fantasy, <i>Pacific Rim</i>, is a valentine to the dozen or so romp ’em, stomp ’em features that starred “the big G” during del Toro’s formative years. (Quite a few more have been made since then.) This tip of the hat clearly is deliberate, since the director and fellow scripter Travis Beacham refer to their ginormous critters as <i>kaiju</i>, the Japanese term — literally “strange beast,” but more commonly “giant monster” — coined, back in the day, to describe Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and their ilk.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjylp-R5OFQNaWthRY5u15kaJLngJC5zBAuP08AWfvu-r-n0EEa7QGUujrChBF5I1exGSWz9C-GPAjpyuGsqWaIJN4b2yBabY9veq87FYwymIoVyMcyL60hgrq4pcGG_VBkkHgEVyzLSFk/s1600/Pacific+Rim+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjylp-R5OFQNaWthRY5u15kaJLngJC5zBAuP08AWfvu-r-n0EEa7QGUujrChBF5I1exGSWz9C-GPAjpyuGsqWaIJN4b2yBabY9veq87FYwymIoVyMcyL60hgrq4pcGG_VBkkHgEVyzLSFk/s400/Pacific+Rim+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Strapped into the high-tech body suits that make them "one" with the giant robot<br />warriors into which they've been placed, Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako (Rinko<br />Kikuchi) prepare for a battle they already know is unwinnable, against a monstrous<br />beast with adaptive "enhancements" that have made it far stronger than their<br />mechanical avatar.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throw in plenty of 21st century whiz-bang special effects, and the result is a high-tech thrill ride that blends <i>big</i> monsters, equally massive robot-like avatars, and the stubborn pluck of a puny human race unwilling to go quietly into that good night.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During a summer laden with end-of-the-world scenarios — zombie apocalypse and Kryptonian apocalypse, not to mention the biblical Book of Revelations — this one takes the prize for cheeky absurdity. At the same time, del Toro and Beacham pay careful attention to the human element, giving us would-be saviors who are inspiring for their fortitude, and endearing for their flaws.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not to mention, it’s always nice when a screenplay takes the optimistic view, and shows world powers uniting in an effort to save the planet. Such all-for-one selflessness goes all the way back to H.G. Wells’ <i>War of the Worlds</i>, and the reminder is refreshing in this divisively cynical age.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Audacious fantasy has been del Toro’s stock-in-trade ever since 1997’s under-appreciated and genuinely creepy <i>Mimic</i>. He also was the perfect choice to adapt graphic novelist Mike Mignola’s lunatic <i>Hellboy</i> series, and — as an executive producer — del Toro has chaperoned riveting projects such as 2007’s wonderfully atmospheric <i><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2008/01/orphanage-creepy-childs-play.html">The Orphanage</a></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And let us not forget his masterpiece: 2006’s <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i>, the Oscar-winning horror film that brought adult sensibilities to a genre too frequently willing to settle for much less, and which demonstrated that human monsters can be much, much worse than anything cooked up by our vivid imaginations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Pacific Rim</i> doesn’t wade through such high-falutin' waters, though; this is simply del Toro’s first stab at a crowd-pleasing, mega-budget summer blockbuster, and he has done a commendable job.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The film, set in the not-too-distant future, opens with an extended flashback: An unseen narrator recalls the unexpected arrival of the first <i>kaiju</i>, an enormous — and quite savage — amphibious creature bent on death and destruction. It rises from the ocean depths and wreaks considerable havoc before being brought down by conventional military hardware.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apparently passing this off as an isolated incident — perhaps a lone, Bradbury-esque behemoth, driven by curiosity to the surface world — mankind is similarly unprepared months later, when the next one arrives. And then another. And another, at noticeably shorter intervals. Scientists realize that they’re coming from some sort of dimensional portal deep in the Pacific Ocean.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br /> <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Faced with the obvious need to Do Something, the world’s nations pool their resources and develop the largest, most versatile and aggressively lethal weapon ever devised. This is the Jaeger Program, which constructs 25-story-tall mechanical “robots” that are operated by two pilots whose minds are linked both to each other, and to the machine’s limbs and assault gadgets.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Think Wii technology, taken to the obvious extreme.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For a time, the ploy is successful; thanks also to a computer-sensor “early warning system” that registers portal activity, the <i>kaiju</i> become an irritating but dispatchable menace. Jaeger pilots, like Apollo astronauts, turn into the world’s new heroes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Years pass ... and, then, the unthinkable. The <i>kaiju</i> adapt; a Jaeger robot falls. The pendulum shifts, and Earth’s first line of defense loses its edge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Yes, this is all back-story!)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The story proper opens as the Jaeger Program is scrapped, much to the dismay of its guiding light, Pan Pacific Defense Corp Commander Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba). World leaders shift their strategy to the construction of tall, thick sea walls apparently intended to prevent the <i>kaiju</i> from making landfall. (This seems an idiotic notion on all sorts of levels, not the least of which is the havoc increased numbers of the monsters would wreak on ocean life.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Predictably, this new defense proves less than successful. Worse yet, scientists have determined that the <i>kaiju</i> are popping up at exponential rates, leading to the ghastly realization that, soon, two of them will appear at the same time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All hope now rests with the remnants of Pentecost’s Jaeger program, and its four surviving robots: Gypsy Danger, from the USA; China’s Crimson Typhoon; Russia’s Cherno Alpha; and Australia’s Striker Eureka. Although everybody already knows that Jaeger tech has proven unsuccessful, mankind isn’t about to go down without a fight. (Damn straight!)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Del Toro never works with big-name stars, preferring the greater verisimilitude of fresh faces blended with seasoned character actors. Our all-American good guy, Raleigh Becket, is played by Charlie Hunnam, best known these days for his ongoing role on TV’s <i>Sons of Anarchy</i>. Hunnam is properly clean-cut, and Becket is a flawed tragic hero: an emotionally crippled, one-time Jaeger pilot who never recovered from the years-ago battle that marked the beginning of the end.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, as Pentecost insists — in the grand tradition of such underdog sagas — “You’re the best we’ve got.” Elba probably is one of very few actors who could make that hoary line sound credible; his Pentecost is the epitome of crisply starched, unswerving loyalty to tactical precision. We’ve not seen a military commander rendered so persuasively since George C. Scott’s George S. Patton.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Australian Jaeger is manned by the father-and-son team of Herc and Chuck Hansen (Max Martini and Robert Kazinsky). Martini, a longtime acting veteran, exudes the sort of hail-fellow-well-met Aussie charm that we’ve come to expect; Herc also grants Becket the respect he deserves. That isn’t the case with Chuck, played by Kazinsky — a relative newcomer — as an arrogant snot whose only saving grace is ownership of an adorably sloppy bulldog.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pentecost has a ward, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), the now-grown survivor of a horrific <i>kaiju</i> attack that terrified her as a child. Although she has trained just as hard as anybody else, and wants desperately to co-pilot a Jaeger, Pentecost holds her back; acknowledging her Japanese devotion to honor and respect, she complies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Becket won’t have it. Recognizing that he and Mako share the all-essential mind-meld compatibility necessary for superior Jaeger control, he naturally rebels. (Cue the inter-personal tension.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of which, Mako is seriously cute.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kikuchi brings unexpected emotional gravity to these proceedings; as also is the case with Hunnam’s Becket, we learn much about her personal tragedy. Mostly, though, Kikuchi makes Mako <i>interesting</i>, and she effortlessly wins our hearts and minds.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A shout-out also goes to Mana Ashida, who plays Mako’s younger self. This little girl brings frightening intensity to a flashback sequence that explains her thirst for revenge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We never get to know the Russian or Chinese pilots, which is a shame. For openers, they <i>look</i> intriguing ... and, more to the point, del Toro muffs this opportunity to make his film as inclusively international as the storyline.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Comic relief is supplied by Charlie Day and Burn Gorman, as Geiszler and Gottlieb, a pair of whack-job scientists with <i>way</i>-outside-the-box views on how best to tackle the <i>kaiju</i>“problem.” They’re the original odd couple: Day’s Geiszler is sloppy and dangerously impulsive, while Gorman’s Gottlieb is fussy, prissy and just as misguidedly wary. They’re obviously conceived, by del Toro and Beacham, as an entertaining alternative to the boring, white-garbed scientist-types who customarily offer dull-as-dishwater “explanations” in such films.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But we know right away that salvation must lie with these nutball researchers, despite their tendency to try Pentecost’s patience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, Ron Perlman — a familiar face in del Toro’s films — pops up as Hannibal Chau, a Hong Kong-based black marketeer who has made a fortune selling <i>kaiju</i> parts on the black market. Perlman chews up the scenery in style; he’s the only actor, thus far, able to give the late James Coburn’s devious ear-to-ear grin a run for its money.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Production designers Andrew Neskoromny and Carol Spier have a field day with the opulent sets, from the Loccent Command Center, home of the holographic computers that monitor the <i>kaiju</i> battles, to Chau’s opulent “<i>kaiju</i> reclamation center.” Visual effects supervisors John Knoll and James E. Price do equally well with the city-leveling battle scenes; we’ve come a long way from the days when Godzilla would stomp cardboard cities.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much of the film’s persuasive, pulse-pounding power comes from cinematographer Guillermo Navarro’s ability to convey the essential sense of size and scale. Unfortunately, the 3D effects were applied after the fact; although the results are better than most cases of “fake 3D,” the finished film nonetheless suffers from the overly “dark” look that is typical of retroactive enhancement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Pacific Rim</i> won’t win any awards for originality, but that’s not an issue; del Toro and Beacham intend their film as a genre homage, much the way George Lucas riffed classic westerns in <i>Star Wars</i>, and Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich updated H.G. Wells in 1996’s <i>Independence Day</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This high-tech monster mash is ripping good fun, as is the case with <i>White House Down</i>. And there’s nothing wrong with that, when it comes to popcorn action flicks.</span></span><!--EndFragment-->

2013 action Burn Gorman Charlie Day Charlie Hunnam fantasy Guillermo del Toro Idris Elba Max Martini Rinko Kikuchi Robert Kazinsky Ron Perlman Sci-Fi Pacific Rim: Monster Mash

Pacific Rim   (2013) •  View trailer   3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense sci-fi violence and brief profanity By  Derrick Bang  •  Origin...

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The Lone Ranger: The mild, mild West

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>The Lone Ranger</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/disney/theloneranger/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense action violence and suggested gore</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a> • </b></span>Originally published in <i><a href="http://www.davisenterprise.com/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">The Davis Enterprise</a></i>, 7.5.13</b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The best that can be said for this fiasco, is that it’s marginally superior to director William A. Fraker’s leaden, charmless 1981 film, <i>The Legend of the Lone Ranger</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that’s damning with <i>very</i>faint praise.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDwU1YzZ7KG-TtIWqjB5Zx-is2ZYgbMKz-PvSW8BRmZw9vo-e0fY5sb8rO2wf3v3u1jNC9zZV-JCPXMkiMjqkoYPEjRIlp9RMyVUwEO1BAl9mSb59EAuIg9EwwZeNl1VvjKpXAcklLKLg/s504/Lone+Ranger+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDwU1YzZ7KG-TtIWqjB5Zx-is2ZYgbMKz-PvSW8BRmZw9vo-e0fY5sb8rO2wf3v3u1jNC9zZV-JCPXMkiMjqkoYPEjRIlp9RMyVUwEO1BAl9mSb59EAuIg9EwwZeNl1VvjKpXAcklLKLg/s400/Lone+Ranger+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Having failed to persuade a Comanche tribe that war with the neighboring white-man<br />settlement is a bad idea, Tonto (Johnny Depp, left) and the Lone Ranger (Armie<br />Hammer) are left in a painfully vulnerable position. And it's about to get worse, when<br />scorpions come calling...</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chief among that earlier film’s many flaws was the block-of-wood “performance” from no-name star Klinton Spilsbury, in (thank God) his only big-screen appearance. Michael Horse, as Tonto, acted circles around him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But pretty much everything else was wrong, as well; even the usually dependable John Barry turned in a listless score that was marred further by a pokey, half-speed rendition of “The William Tell Overture” — the Lone Ranger’s iconic theme — that brought the already sluggish drama to a dead stop.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I give composer Hans Zimmer credit for his spirited, cheer-inducing handling of “The William Tell Overture” during this new film’s climax, and I credit director Gore Verbinski for knowing how best to use it. Kudos, as well, to Verbinski and special-effects supervisors Tim Alexander and Gary Brozenich, for two audacious train chases: a good one to open the film, and a dog-nuts-sensational one to close it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But pretty much everything else is wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For openers, this clumsy, overcooked mess runs a butt-numbing 149 minutes: a “privilege” Verbinski apparently earned because his similarly bloated <i>Pirates of the Caribbean</i> entries have made a gazillion bucks for Disney. Mind you, length is fine if the script demands it, but that’s far from the case here; as my watch’s illuminated dial ticked off the minutes — depressingly slowly — toward the two-hour mark, I desperately hoped we were about to wrap things up ... but no, the slog continued, mercilessly, for another half-hour.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The major problem is that Verbinski and his scripters — Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio and Justin Haythe — can’t decide what sort of movie to make. On the one hand, they more-or-less attempt to honor the existing Lone Ranger mythos, as established by the popular radio series (1933-54) and TV series (1949-57). I appreciate the effort, half-hearted though it may be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the other hand, they blend this often grim drama with the sort of jokey, slapstick tone that marked the <i>Pirates</i> series ... no surprise there, since Elliott and Rossio wrote all four entries in that franchise. No surprise, as well, that Johnny Depp’s Tonto is the same sort of mincing, scowling, alternate-reality caricature that the actor made of Capt. Jack Sparrow. The only difference is that Tonto isn’t ever drunk ... although the film’s scripters flirt with that notion, as well.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br /> <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These two extremes of tone simply don’t work; at times, the mix becomes deeply offensive. The film’s low point — and it’s a ghastly, horrifying miscalculation — comes when an entire Comanche tribe is slaughtered by a corrupt U.S. Cavalry captain and his Gatling gun-toting soldiers. Moments later, our heroes crack wise as usual, and events proceed in that farcical fashion, as if nothing significant has occurred.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Comanches aren’t mentioned again, despite their relevance to Tonto’s back-story. Hey, what’s a few hundred dead Injuns, right?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thoroughly, reprehensibly tasteless.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enduring that sequence and its aftermath, in the moment, I couldn’t believe Disney had signed off on it. Days later, I <i>still</i> can’t believe it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heinous though it is, that’s merely an isolated incident. The bigger, ongoing problem concerns this film’s depiction of John Reid — the Lone Ranger — who is played by Armie Hammer as a prissy fop, idealistic far beyond the point of absurdity, and utterly incapable of doing or saying the right thing. He is, in short, an irredeemable fool: a clown who exists solely to serve as a foil for Depp’s Tonto.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No fault of Hammer’s; he was directed this way. Indeed, he’s quite convincing as an imbecilic, bumbling, starry-eyed näif.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until, that is, he has to shift gears so that Reid can truly, seriously mourn the loss of a brother who is murdered — and has his heart cut out and <i>eaten</i> — by this story’s key villain. Suddenly, Hammer’s otherwise dainty performance doesn’t seem so amusing. Nor is it as successful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I simply cannot understand why modern filmmakers find it necessary to defecate on the carefully cultivated legacy — sometimes generations in the making — of characters who mean a great deal to fans who grew up with them, back in the day. Why irritate the people who care — the acolytes who will recognize the name, and expect a certain fidelity toward folklore — when it would be easier, and safer, to simply invent <i>new</i> characters, and establish <i>new</i> traditions?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The notoriously campy big-screen revivals of <i>I Spy</i> and <i>Wild, Wild West</i> — as two examples — were shameful financial duds, driving a stake through the possibility of any serious remakes. This new debacle — call it Verbinski’s Folly — is equally disgraceful, and I hope Disney posts a whopping financial loss on its (reported) $250 million budget.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To cases, then:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The film unfolds in the fashion of <i>The Princess Bride,</i> as a fable related to an impressionable young listener. We begin in San Francisco, during the Depression, as a young boy (Mason Cook, suitably wide-eyed) visits the “Wild West” exhibit in a large carnival. Pausing at a display case showing a wizened Native American “in his natural habitat,” the boy is astonished to see the statue’s eyes flicker. Indeed, this is a very, <i>very</i> old Tonto, who is deeply moved by the kid’s cowboy outfit and black domino mask.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And, so, Tonto tells his story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We move backward to 1869, as residents of the small Texas town of Colby cheer when railroad baron Latham Cole (Tom Wilkinson) enthusiastically proclaims that the “iron horse” soon will connect their community — and the entire United States — from sea to shining sea. First, though, there’s an old matter to deal with: the proper hanging of notorious outlaw Burch Cavendish (William Fichtner, grimy down to his blackened teeth), soon to arrive by train.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The local rangers, led by Dan Reid (James Badge Dale), ride out to meet the train. Conveniently, its passengers include Reid’s younger brother, John, returning after years of absence, during which he has become an idealistic, big-city lawyer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also on the train, locked up alongside Cavendish: Tonto ... for reasons of his own.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cavendish manages to escape, with help from his outlaw gang. Dan mounts a posse that John insists on joining, much to the consternation of Rebecca (Ruth Wilson), married to Dan but apparently still carrying a torch for John. Her son, Danny (Bryant Prince), is understandably confused by his mother’s behavior.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(We wonder, throughout this entire film, if Danny actually is John’s son. The question remains unresolved.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Things subsequently go very, very bad; there’s a reason John Reid subsequent adopts a new identity as the <i>lone</i>ranger. He owes his rescue to Tonto, whose generosity comes reluctantly, and only because a wild white stallion — regarded as an intelligent, mystical spirit — “chooses” John for greater things.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This majestic beast steals the film (not all that difficult, considering). Silver, far more intelligent than either John or Tonto, has a disconcerting tendency to appear in treetops, or on the roof of a burning barn. Reid’s new mount also is utterly fearless, whether galloping amid gunfire or (ahem) atop a moving train, leaping from one car to the next.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When Tonto mutters “Something very wrong with that horse,” we can’t help laughing ... because, actually, something is very <i>right</i>. Silver’s various antics are masterminded by horse-wrangler Bobby Lovgren, who worked similar magic in <i>Seabiscuit</i> and <i><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2011/12/war-horse-truly-incredible-journey.html">War Horse</a></i>. As a result, Silver displays far more personality than his two-legged co-stars.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, the chase is on, and on ... and on. Tonto and the Lone Ranger get caught, escape, get caught again, escape again. They bicker, make up, bicker again. Cavendish gets caught again, and <i>he</i> escapes again. Over and over and over. Meanwhile, Cole makes smarmy advances toward Rebecca, who is understandably wary.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sidebar characters enter the mix: Barry Pepper, as the morally challenged Cavalry officer; and Helena Bonham Carter, actually quite amusing as Red Harrington, a peg-legged madam whose scrimshaw-adorned false limb conceals a rather lethal gun. We’re told that Red lost her leg to Cavendish, with a further implication that he may have eaten it. (<i>Such</i> palatable details, in this story.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No question, Depp’s shifty-eyed performance can be quite funny at times. His double-takes are superbly timed, and he gets considerable mileage from a variety of scowls: doubtful, bewildering, angry, playful. We wait for Tonto to crack a smile; I’m not sure it ever actually happens ... and that, too, is amusing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Far less amusing — indeed, tedious — is the amount of time Tonto spends “feeding” the dead crow that adorns his headpiece. Not even the Monty Python gang would have beaten a pallid joke to death so relentlessly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fichtner is memorably nightmarish: every inch a loathsome villain. Wilkinson is sinister in his own right, on the level of a slow burn; we wonder, throughout, what he’s actually up to. Dale’s Dan Reid is the story’s most credibly “real” character: a decent man whose passing we mourn deeply.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bonham Carter’s Red Harrington is a hoot, but Pepper can’t begin to navigate the ethical extremes assigned to his character. The members of Cavendish’s gang aren’t allowed to display much personality, and therefore remain anonymous blobs. Rebecca is similarly ill-defined; Wilson’s performance is so muted that she seems to be in a drug-induced haze (actually true only once).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Things are pretty bad when the stand-out characters are a horse and the kid listening to this saga unfold. And they can’t begin to sustain a 149-minute movie.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nobody can. Nobody does. <i>The Lone Ranger</i> is a clumsy, badly directly and atrociously scripted slog.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When radio audiences heard the Lone Ranger shout “Hi-yo, Silver ... away!” — back in the day — they knew an exciting riding sequence was about to take place. It’s too bad this film’s Silver couldn’t have dragged Verbinski, the writers and most of the cast far, far away ... thus sparing us the need to sit through this dud.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><!--EndFragment-->

2013 Armie Hammer Barry Pepper fantasy Helena Bonham Carter James Badge Dale Johnny Depp Ruth Wilson Tom Wilkinson Western William Fichtner The Lone Ranger: The mild, mild West

The Lone Ranger   (2013) •  View trailer   Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense action violence and suggested gore By  Derrick Bang  •  Ori...

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Man of Steel: Dull as iron

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>Man of Steel</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/manofsteel/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Three stars. Rating: PG-13, for brief profanity and vicious, unrelenting violence and destruction</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a> • </b></span>Originally published in <i><a href="http://www.davisenterprise.com/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">The Davis Enterprise</a></i>, 6.14.13</b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Grim, humorless and unpleasantly brutal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not to mention boring and redundant, particularly during the interminable, body-slamming final act.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No fun at all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRVPJmEZB-p5hKJLRKcZFO8iummbjziOCUVGCto8cmY1bfHHtM5F2dNeg1_vYoIXLfdFtHIBEMbYRUhnRsukNBGDdGwb-239P8mJIe2-x6IvRrEe52GcJz-OgY_sRSMFHPQJRrTAsKeT0/s1600/Man+of+Steel+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRVPJmEZB-p5hKJLRKcZFO8iummbjziOCUVGCto8cmY1bfHHtM5F2dNeg1_vYoIXLfdFtHIBEMbYRUhnRsukNBGDdGwb-239P8mJIe2-x6IvRrEe52GcJz-OgY_sRSMFHPQJRrTAsKeT0/s400/Man+of+Steel+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Having been punched through half a dozen buildings by an equally super-powered<br />adversary, our caped hero (Henry Cavill) pauses for breath before returning to the<br />city-leveling skirmish. At which point, we wonder: With a hero like this, who<br />needs enemies?</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Director Zack Snyder has delivered a Superman film with the nasty, cataclysmic tone he employed so well — and much more appropriately — in <i>300</i> and <i><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2009/03/watchmen-tick-tock.html">Watchman</a></i>: a dark, dour mood that also suited Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, but is wholly out of place here. No surprise: Nolan shares story credit here with David S. Goyer, with whom he co-wrote those Batman epics. All things considered, then, Snyder, Nolan and Goyer have concocted precisely the sort of Superman we should have expected from them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I do not approve.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All concerned desperately need to take lessons from Joss Whedon, when it comes to choreographing the real estate-leveling carnage of a melee between super-powered beings. As Whedon proved with <i><a href="http://derrickbang.blogspot.com/2012/05/avengers-well-assembled.html">The Avengers</a></i>, he understands the importance of the occasional wink and nod, not to mention his recognition of the fine emotional line between necessary collateral damage and a callous disregard for brutalized civilian bystanders.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Snyder obviously relished the opportunity to envision what it <i>really</i> might be like for a being such as Superman to be tossed through half a mile’s worth of office buildings; the director and his special-effects wizards certainly beat such scenes to death. But, speaking of death, it’s impossible to overlook the hundreds (thousands?) of fragile humans who’d be maimed and killed along the way, as a result of each super-powered punch ... which turns Superman’s “code against killing” into something of a joke.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hell, he must kill scores of people every time he slams his evil, super-powered adversaries through said buildings. Ironic, then, that his code eventually becomes an important — if ill-defined — plot point.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of which, the various Metropolis-shattering skirmishes go on for so long, and thus to such diminishing returns, that they become no more meaningful than watching Godzilla stomp and flatten a miniature cardboard Tokyo in all those 1950s and ’60s Japanese monster flicks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br /> <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then, too, the notion that our poor planet would survive the terraforming consequences of the third act’s big, bad whatzis machine, is just too laughable for words. No residual earthquakes? No disrupted weather patterns? Seriously? Somehow, everything gets put right again, entire cities apparently resurrected in mere weeks, if not days, just in time for an epilogue that delivers the single solitary line — “I think he’s kinda hot” — that draws the only mild chuckle granted during the entire film.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, no, no.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Such an overwrought, overblown mess.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank God for Amy Adams’ turn as Lois Lane. She, at least, injects some sparkle and spunk into these proceedings. Everybody else — and I’m including Henry Cavill’s dreary Superman — seems to be competing in a scowling contest.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve already missed Christopher Reeve for all sorts of reasons, but never more so than during last week’s preview screening of <i>Man of Steel</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The comparison is both apt and ironic, not only because Reeve granted the character all the warmth, compassion and expressive depth that Cavill’s blank-faced Superman lacks, but also because Goyer and Nolan borrow heavily from the template of that 1978 film’s first act.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Goodness, Russell Crowe’s dour, tight-lipped Jor-El practically channels Marlon Brando’s performance in the same role, all those years ago. Except that Crowe apparently feels that Jor-El should be equally adept as both scientist <i>and</i> warrior. (This is what happens when an ego-laden star re-shapes a character to suit his own image.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Familiarity aside, the lengthy Krypton prologue remains a good place to begin a film tasked with re-booting Superman’s origin. Jor-El and his wife, Lara (Ayelet Zurer), have defied Krypton’s genetic laws by having a baby the old-fashioned way; additionally, the Kryptonian Council of Elders continues to ignore Jor-El’s warnings that their planet is becoming increasingly unstable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a nice nod to contemporary real-world events, Jor-El blames this pending catastrophe on the depletion of natural resources, and an ill-advised, longstanding program of extracting materials from deep within the planet’s crust. A lesson to be learned, for those paying attention.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The debate is forestalled by the militaristic Zod (Michael Shannon, at his foaming, mad-dog best) and his elite warriors, intent on staging a <i>coup d'état</i>. The uprising fails, but not before panicking Jor-El and Lara into blasting their infant son, Kal-El, into space for safety: destination, Earth. Zod and his minions are banished to lengthy prison terms in the “phantom zone,” and — shortly thereafter — Jor-El’s prophecy comes true, as Krypton’s core erupts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Time passes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In one of their few genuinely clever touches, Goyer and Nolan introduce the now-grown Clark Kent (also Cavill) as a wary, wandering loner who clandestinely helps people here and there. Key moments of his childhood and recent back-story emerge through occasional flashbacks that show how Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, both quite moving, if inherently sad) helped their adopted son learn to control abilities that flourished in our own, superior planetary environment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ongoing moral dilemma comes from Jonathan, who rightly worries that — because people fear what they do not understand — the world likely wouldn’t welcome an extraterrestrial being with Clark’s powers ... which expand and improve, year by year. It’s an intriguing notion, and one that deserves to fuel water-cooler debates.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Lois Lane, ace reporter with Metropolis’ Daily Planet, has become intrigued by a pattern of “guardian angel incidents” that stretch all the way back to small-town Smallville. She similarly signs on when U.S. Gen. Swanwick (Harry Lennix), Col. Hardy (Christopher Meloni) and their research team discover an ancient something-or-other buried beneath the ice in an outlying region of Canada.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Lois’ mind, everything points to a long-concealed visitor from another world, a theory she soon proves. But any further discussions about whether Superman should “come out” are rendered moot with the arrival of Zod and his forces, conveniently freed by Krypton’s destruction, who’ve tracked Kal-El while collecting all sorts of weapons long abandoned on other planets by failed Kryptonian settlements. (One can’t help wondering why they all failed. At best, this is a sloppy plot point.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Zod isn’t a happy guy, and he’s perfectly willing to wreak havoc on Earth, in order to obtain Kal-El. Actually, Zod also has other plans, which suit his equally savage followers just fine. The nastiest of these is Faora-Ul, a warrior bad girl played with malevolent intensity by Antje Traue. And, sadly, these baddies benefit from the same Earthian atmosphere and sun that granted Kal-El his powers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cue the first of many landscape-leveling sequences that’d be more at home in an average issue of Marvel Comics’ Hulk.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In another mildly clever touch, both sides are granted vulnerabilities. Kal-El loses his powers when exposed to any aspect of the Kryptonian atmosphere that fills Zod’s warship (nope, no sign of radioactive green Kryptonite); Zod and his minions, in turn, can be overwhelmed by the sensory overload of Earth-granted powers that Kal-El has mastered for two decades.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But this doesn’t slow the fight scenes a jot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In between the various clashes, Laurence Fishburne gives a solid performance as Lois’ boss, Perry White; I liked the brief editor/reporter squabbles between these two. I also enjoyed all the quieter moments involving Costner and Lane, and getting to see both of them throughout the film — thanks to the aforementioned use of flashbacks — nicely anchors the story each time, at least briefly, as things spin out of control.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lennix and Meloni make solid military types, and Richard Schiff is memorable as a scientist who plays a key role in the third act.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other key players in the long-established Superman mythos get little more than name-checked, though, such as Lana Lang (Jadin Gould) and Pete Ross (Jack Foley as a boy, Joseph Cranford as an adult). They’re present solely to elicit smiles from über-fans who’ll also appreciate touches such as a tanker truck bearing a logo for LexCorp.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Production designer Alex McDowell clearly had a lot of fun, and the film’s many examples of Kryptonian technology range from intriguing to way-cool. Cinematographer Amir Mokri lends a refreshingly gentle tone to the various Kansas sequences in Smallville, but gets no chance for artistry once things get chaotic. And the 3-D effects, added after the fact, are pointless; don’t waste your money.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hans Zimmer’s noisy, monotonous score too frequently pounds us into submission, much like Snyder’s approach to the lengthy third act.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Actually, the whole film is self-indulgently excessive, and in no way justifies its 143-minute length. (Once again, Whedon’s <i>The Avengers</i>, coming in at precisely the same running time, had <i>no</i> trouble holding our attention.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hate to think that Snyder, Goyer and Nolan might return for another round, should this film prove financially successful; I’m not even that wild about seeing Cavill again. I fully intend to renew my acquaintance with Reeve’s 1978 film, just to remove the taste of this maladroit, misanthropic mess.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><!--EndFragment-->

2013 Amy Adams Antje Traue Diane Lane fantasy Henry Cavill Kevin Costner Laurence Fishburne Michael Shannon Russell Crowe superhero superman Zack Snyder Man of Steel: Dull as iron

Man of Steel   (2013) •  View trailer   Three stars. Rating: PG-13, for brief profanity and vicious, unrelenting violence and destruction By...

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