Craiger’s Cinema Corner

**  out of  ****

The new fantasy/comedy NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM has one of the most impressive comedic rosters of any recent film.  Just consider the talent on board here: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Paul Rudd, Ricky Gervais, and –yes – Dick Van Dyke. 

Stiller has made some of the more sidesplitting comedies of the last decade.  Ditto for Owen Wilson.  Steve Coogan perhaps gave one of the funniest performances of the year in one of 2006’s best comedies, TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY.  Paul Rudd was a scatological riot as a loser in THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN.  Ricky Gervais just may take top honors as the funniest man alive.  His performance in TV’s THE OFFICE (the original BBC version, not the Americanized NBC offering) just might be the most hilarious ever to grace the tube.  It seems legitimate to say that NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM has the goods – at least on paper – to potentially be a romp of unrelenting hilarity.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the film is not so much in the number of gifted comic actors the film has in its arsenal, but more in how misused they all are.  NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM has moments of slapstick fun and a few genuine chuckles here and there, but it is never able to create and maintain a consistent laugh-out-loud quotient throughout its 95 minutes.  It has a nifty presence (what if all of the exhibits at the Natural History Museum in New York came alive every night), but the film itself never creates anything clever or memorable beyond its own gimmick.  Instead, it lets its predilection towards juvenile humor that only pre-pubescent kids would enjoy and its oversaturated – and inconsistent – CGI effects take center stage.  As a result, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is never really exciting, entertaining, or funny.  It lacks that latter element to the largest degree.  It also might be the first film that I’ve seen where a Natural History exhibit urinates on a person’s head and shoulders.  Hardy-har.

The film typifies Hollywood’s strict and strident adherence to what I call “kitchen sink” cinema.  In essence, throw just about anything at the screen and hope that it all gels seamlessly and smoothly together to create an enjoyable whole.  Certainly, there’s a lot of stuff thrown at our eyes in the film – famous historical figures and monuments, cowboys and Roman soldiers, lions and tigers, zebras and monkeys, hell…even stampeding dinosaur bones – but having all of these things run amok does not make for a fun and enjoyable ride.  There’s simply too much chaos aplenty in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM and not enough discipline.  Even worse is the cast, who collectively should have been able to leave me in stitches for weeks.  Instead, they inspired me to check my watch a lot and yearn to leave the theatre to see the light of day. 

Now, there is nothing wrong with a comedy with fantastical elements that approaches being a live action cartoon.  There is energy to NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, but no heart and wit.  Surely, there could have been ample room for social satire and hearty laughs with the thought of a night watchman interacting with – say – Attila the Hun or Teddy Roosevelt.  The film creates a few scattered scenes of mild amusement, but no moments truly grasp for wanton hilarity, or a sense of cadence or flow.  All we essentially have is the usually funny, socially inept Ben Stiller run, fall, scream, and get peed on.  Clearly, Stiller has made a career of playing roles where his utter humiliation provides for much of the laughs, but in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM he seems to be a bit on auto-pilot in a derivative, mindless, and hyperactive story.  When the sights and sounds overwhelm the actors – some of whom are the funniest working today – then what’s the point?

Stiller plays Larry Daley, a desperate sap and a divorcee that sees to have a lot of problems securing and holding on to a job.  He has a strained relationship with his ex-wife and an equally problematic one with his son that means the world to him, but he really needs to land a job to get some respect.  His mission to gain employment is made all the more dire by the fact that his wife is getting close to a hugely successful bond trader (Paul Rudd, whose comedic abilities are all but stunted in a role that could be best described as a walk-on; what a waste).  The bond trader not only has Larry’s wife in his back pocket, but he’s even managed to lure his son over to his side.

Soon, in a desperate act, Larry takes the only job that is currently available to him: night watchman at New York’s Museum of Natural History.  Obviously, a graveyard shift at a job he has little interest in seems very unappealing, but Larry begrudgingly takes it.  Larry may not know much about being a watchman, but he also knows very little about history, so he tries to pick up some helpful info from the museum’s pretty guide (Carla Gugino, the film’s only good eye candy).  Through her he also meets up with the museum’s hard edged and foul tempered museum director, Mr. McPhee (played by the great Gervais in a performance that never really harnesses his gifts).

Larry also meets the men that he’s set to replace.  His predecessors are played by none other than veterans Dick Van Dyke, Bill Cobbs, and Mickey Rooney, the latter who just might be old enough to actually be an exhibit at the museum.  Anyhoo’, the three of them give Larry a few pointers here and there, as well as leaving him an instruction manual that he is to follow.  As the three old chuckleheads leave Larry slowly starts to think that something is not normal with the museum.  His suspicions are confirmed when he sees the T-Rex bone exhibit come to life and take a drink from the water fountain.  While Larry is astonished, I was left wondering, gee, what benefit would a creature made up all of  bones need with guzzling H2O?  Oh, never mind.

Within no time, all historical hell breaks loose.  Larry finds himself being chased by Attila the Hun, conversing with Teddy Roosevelt (curiously underplayed by the usually zany Robin Williams), and being tormented by miniature exhibits, like the Wild West one with a cowboy played by Owen Wilson, who has some of the films decent chuckles (“I wish you would not refer to me as small, that hurts me!”) as well as 3 inch tall Octavius, played by Steven Coogan who also generates a few more laughs (“Our hearts are all big in battle…metaphorically speaking”).

Considering the wild and imaginative premise, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM really suffers from a definite lack of magic and heart.  Nothing really captures a legitimate sense of awe and wonder.  I mean, what if one could strike up a conversation with Teddy Roosevelt or hang with an ancient Egyptian ruler?  Beyond that, what if lions, mammoths, and skeletal dinos came to life right before your eyes?  There was not one moment during NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM that inspired a sense of fun, whimsy, or excitement.  What we really have is scene after scene of regurgitated CGI visuals that seem like discarded elements from JUMANJI mixed in some bathroom humour and a lot of sight gags that no one over ten will honestly appreciate.  There’s no intelligence in the film’s humour.  All we get is a lot of creatures running around and into things and a few embarrassing glimpses of an 86-year-old Rooney sheepishly dish out weak and stale one-liners as if he’s being fed them through hearing aid.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM ultimately suffers considerably from the squandering of its most precious resource – its talent.  Again, it needs to be mentioned that the film should get some sort of lifetime Razzie achievement award for most blatant misuse of accredited comedic stars.  Stiller has been so winning, funny, and likeable in past comedies where he played an everyman who commanded our sympathy when insurmountably heinous atrocities happened to him.  Here, he just runs around screaming and reacting to visuals.  Coogan and Wilson have some fun with their parts, part they never really sparkle.  Williams seems to be reigned in a bit much, and Dick Van Dyke and company do a lot of horrible camera mugging.  And – horror upon horror – when a film can’t make Ricky Gervais inspire large laughs to the point of tears, then something is very wrong.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is not an awful film; I would recommend it to younger children who can find entertainment value in being distracted for a few hours by visual excesses and unintelligible jokes.  Beyond that, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM will bore the rest of us in the sense that it represents a large misappropriation of power.  While watching it I felt like it came across as being directed by a kid that had every cool toy and his disposal and had no idea how to play with them.  NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM was directed by Shawn Levy, a filmmaker who took a tremendously gifted comedian like Steve Martin earlier this year and made him parade around in the abortively awful PINK PANTHER remake.  As with that film, Levy has a huge arsenal of proven comic masterminds in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, but instead of letting them loose to inspire and generate hearty laughs, he lets them get swallowed up by the film’s perfunctory and monotonous spectacle.  The movie is just too pea-brained and dumb for the calibre of performers it has.  Even worse, it’s disposal and banal filmmaking.  The film reminds me of something Ricky Gervais’ David Brent once said: “If at first you don’t succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.”

Read hundreds reviews of classic and contemporary films by CrAiGeR at:

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

COMING SOON: His picks for the TEN BEST and WORST films of 2006.

***  out of  ****

Between 1964 and 1983 Marshall University’s football team suffered an absolutely dismal streak of losing seasons.  Perhaps adding salt to their wounds was the fact that The Thundering Herd was involvement in the worst tragedy in college sports history, an event that cost the lives of 75 people.

The team’s Southern Airways Flight 932 was a charted DC-9 commercial jet flight as it left the airfields at 7:35pm on November 14, 1970.  All 37 players from the team were aboard, as well as eight members of the coaching staff, 25 boosters, and five flight attendants.  The team had just suffered a heartbreaking l7-14 loss against East Carolina University.  Through a disastrous chain of events the plane – soon after takeoff – crashed into a hill near the Tri-State airport in Credo, West Virginia.  Everyone that was on board perished that evening.  It marked the first time that an entire sports organization was decimated in one accident. 

The impact of the crash on the university’s town and residents was swift and powerful.  Because the plane trip was the team’s only charted flight of the season, many of the people on board – aside from the players and coaches – were prominent citizens of the town.  It has been recorded that 70 children lost one parent in the crash and 18 were subsequently orphaned.  The effect on the college’s football team was equally damaging.  It almost single-handedly discontinued the football program for good.  The large question that loomed heavily over the town and university after the crash was whether it was a decent idea to continue the university’s football team.

WE ARE MARSHALL deals with this disaster and its aftermath and is a sports film that rises above the usual clichés that typically dominates the genre by dealing with thoughtful and sensitive issues that often never see the light of day.  Most football films usually preoccupy themselves with dealing with the more obvious physical obstacles that impede a team’s path to victory.  WE ARE MARSHALL does have many of the staple ingredients of uplifting sports films – like the rag-tag team that is assembled who lack skills needed; the fiery and determined coach who is determined to prove to the world that he and his team are worthy; the final “big” game where everything seems on the line…and so on and so on.  However, the one aspect that makes the film stand a bit further than the usual assortment of witless and endless sports pictures is in how it deals with large-scale tragedy. 

Usually, teams and their players have to overcome odds to win.  In WE ARE MARSHALL the largest obstacle is a moral and ethical one:  Should a University continue a losing legacy of football after a disaster has destroyed their team?  Moreover, would it be more fitting to pay tribute to a dead team by not dishonoring them with a losing team of nobodies?  Would it be a better move to remember those that fell by not hastily putting back a relatively unskilled team back on the field?

On these levels, WE ARE MARSHALL is a really absorbing, moving, and thoughtful football film.  It’s a stirring tribute to a fallen sports team that does a decent job of not sugarcoating the tragedy for claptrap theatrics.  In a lesser film the sentiment and heart-rending themes could have been viciously slammed down our throats to the point of being woefully saccharine.  WE ARE MARSHALL is bittersweet and uplifting, to be sure, but the really inspiring aspect of the film is not in its football scenes or in the possibility of the team marching triumphantly to final victory.  This is a sports film that’s more attune with finding the right ways to both pay respect to the memories of victims of a disaster and finding the strength to do so.  In the long run, winning does not really matter.

The film dives right into the heart of the subject matter by opening on the team’s loss to Carolina and their doomed plan trip.  Characters are quickly introduced and not thoroughly defined or developed, which is a smart move for helping underline the immediacy and shocking swiftness of the tragedy.  It should be noted that the film is incredibly restrained in showing the actual disaster (we never see the plane go down or make contact with the field).  Instead, there is a jolt of a camera pan and an immediate cut to a black screen.  We don’t need to see the plane go down.  The approach the film takes here helps hammer home the catastrophe perfectly. 

Of course, the University’s hometown of Huntington is irreproachably grief-stricken and dismayed.  Like FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, WE ARE MARSHALL wisely equates a town’s sense of identity and pride with the athletes they cheer for on the playing field.  In the wake of all of the deaths, the University’s immediate gut reaction is to terminate the football team “indefinitely.”  However, one of the surviving players, Nate Ruffin (played with an earnest sincerity by Anthony Mackie) thinks otherwise.  Obviously, guilt permeates through him, seeing as an injury was the only thing that kept him off of the plane.  University president Donald Dedmon (played by the great David Strathairn) initially balks at Nate’s idea to re-field a team while the town is still going through a deep mourning period.  However, after Nate gathers what appears to be hundreds of townspeople and university students to crash a university hearing that was likely to cancel the football program, Dedmon has a quick change of heart.

However, there will be obstacles.  Some of the town’s vocal minority – including one dead player’s father, Paul Griffen (Ian McShane from TV’s DEADWOOD) does not share Dedmon’s desire to have the football program continue.  Clearly, it would prove to be a Herculean task of getting a team fit and ready to play.  Since the disaster took everyone on the team (including coaches), Dedmon had the thankless task of not only finding new players, but also an entire coaching staff.  He has a wide and expansive list of coaches he has handpicked for the job.  Not surprisingly, all of those that he calls turns down his offer.  He first approached Red Dawson (Matthew Fox), the only surviving coach (he offered his plane seat to one of the other coaches so he could drive), but he very quickly rejected his offer.  Dawson is so overcome by an insatiable level of personal guilt that he feels that he may never be able to return to the field in any capacity. 

After all other name coaches reject his offer, Dedmon receives word that another candidate not on his list has asked for the job.  Jack Lengyel (played with a level of gung-ho intensity and eccentricity by Matthew McConaughey) is eventually given the job and is given a somewhat insurmountable task of hiring other coaches and – most importantly – players.  Lengyel uses his enormous powers of persuasion and his boundless energy and enthusiasm to convince others to join his quest.  He is able to commandeer Red Dawson back, albeit reluctantly, and is able to persuade Dedmon to make a pitiful and emotional appeal (in person) to the NCAA committee to allow Marshall to use freshman players (something the committee never allowed). 

Slowly, but surely, Lengyel and company start to develop a team, but the road ahead proves daunting.  Many athletes actually turn them down.  Soon, it becomes apparent that the coaching staff will have to acquire people who may not have ever played the game at the college level before.  Some of the boys they enlist play soccer and basketball and even more never played competitive sports on the level of college ball.  Nevertheless, Lengyel is able to forge a team out of the ashes of the plane crash, but – again – it deserves mentioning that WE ARE MARSHALL does not shy away from the larger issues of assembling a new team.  Is a team of pathetic misfits who will likely go on to lose horribly really paying tribute to those that died on November 14, 1970?  Contrastingly, is it even more shameful to never put a football team back in the University’s stadium again?

WE ARE MARSHALL has some echoes of the first ROCKY in the sense that it never gees out of its way to highlight the notion that the big climatic game is all that matters.  Like ROCKY, the film’s emotional epicenter is not so much in terms of winning.  The most important thing to be learned are the lessons achieved on the way to the big match, like regaining a sense of respect and dignity.  To the Thundering Herd, the real thing to be gained was playing with honor and passion in a way that would do an anguished town proud.  The team that was forged only went on to win two games in the entire 1971 season and Lengyel further went on to have a horrible 9-33 record during his tenure with the college.  The real victory for the team was an emotional one.  They helped a town overcome one of its worst calamities.

Aside from the refreshing handling of the material, WE ARE MARSHALL gets considerable mileage out of its solid performances from most of the leads.  David Strathairn has a tricky job of playing the college president who could have been a one-note and unsympathetic character.   Instead, he paints Dedmon as sincere, honest, and – at times – a man who is the voice of reason when people don’t want to hear it.  McConaughey’s performance as Lengyel has all of the prerequisite gusto and vigor that is demanded out of genre characters like this.  Perhaps the two finest performances are by its supporting players.  Ian McShane finds the right delicate balance between wounded and anguished with a soft-spoken melancholy.  Matthew Fox, as Red Dawson, gives a breakout performance as a coach that would rather not re-open fresh wounds by returning to the field.  Fox gives Dawson a heartfelt amount of frank determination of inner torment and remorse. 

Perhaps the biggest surprise of WE ARE MARSHALL is in the fact that the film was helmed by none other than – yes – McG, who previously directed two of the more unforgivably awful films of the last few years in the CHARLIE’S ANGELS series.  Whereas those two films were bathed in wickedly excessive stylistic waters, McG shows a commendable amount of moderation and self-control with the material in WE ARE MARSHALL.  Considering the genuine soullessness of the CHARLIE’S ANGELS films, McG’s compassionate handling of the film’s central issues is noteworthy.  He does allow the story to run a little long and some of the characters are somewhat underwritten, but he has crafted a strong emotional surface here to draw the viewer in.  I never thought that I would type these words, but I was frequently moved during this McG film. 

WE ARE MARSHALL seems carved from the same material that other inspirational sports films are, but the real reason it works so effectively is primarily in how it defies and rallies above its more obvious clichés.  At its core is a film centered in dealing less with the gridiron feats of a sports team and more with how the team is able to help a town deal with their tortuous grief after a life-altering tragedy.  The film does have a big football game at the end whose outcome one can see from a mile away, but it’s the lead up to the game and the way the film uses its sports to identify with larger, more pressing issues that’s stands out.  With great performances by its stars, a heartfelt and compassionate script that does not pour on the syrupy sentiment too much, and confident and tailored direction, WE ARE MARSHALL continues a recent strong tradition of memorable sports films with the likes of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, MIRACLE, and GLORY ROAD.  The film is a uplifting and deeply felt rallying cry that pays deserved respect to a University and football team that overcame larger adversity than any other team can take claim to.  The film superficially resembles a lot of dime-a-dozen sports genre films, but it is it handling of the material that allows it to stand further apart from the pack.

Read more reviews by Saskatchewan’s most prolific film critic at:

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

COMING SOON: CrAiGeR’s TEN BEST and WORST films of 2006.

***1/2  out of  ****

During the end credits of ROCKY BALBOA we see a montage of what appears to be “real” people running up the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum just as one particular Italian Stallion did countless times in the past.  The people throw up their fists, shadow box, and mime the nuances of the character that Sylvester Stallone brought to the silver screen so earnestly 30 years ago.  I think the inclusion of these little moments is crucial in illustrating one thing:  The character of Rocky Balboa has transcended beyond being just a movie persona.   

The moment in the original ROCKY when the title character runs of the museum steps to Bill Conti’s strings of “Gonna Fly Now” still remains to this day remains one of the most indelible scenes of the movies.  Like Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane, Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine, Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey, and Peter O’ Toole’s Lawrence of Arabia, Stallone’s pugilist from the streets of Philly is a genuine cinematic icon.

ROCKY – one of the most surprising multiple Oscar winning films ever – was a film that worked less because of its superficial sports elements and more because it was about character interaction, and human emotion.  It’s wrongfully labeled a “boxing picture.”  The sport was always more of a tertiary element to the film.  ROCKY was – at it’s truest – a tender and poignant love story that was about two people learning to love both each other and themselves.  Moreover, the film centered on how downtrodden people develop respect for both themselves and by those in a world that considered them outcasts without hope.  Because of this, ROCKY still remains the ultimate feel good story of inspiration and perseverance; it defined the underdog genre picture. 

The dark side of ROCKY’s critical success was that most of its subsequent sequels lost the very key to what made the first one a definitive knock-out.  ROCKY II had heart and solid performances, but the real persistent element in it was the climatic big fight itself.  The first ROCKY worked because of the moral lessons characters learned before they made it the big final fight.  After ROCKY successfully beat Apollo Creed, the successive ROCKY films became more about the fights and less about the characters. 

In essence, ROCKY III and up were more about the freakish menagerie of cartoonishly evil boxers that Rocky had to dispatch with.  Yes, Mr.T’s Clubber Lang and Dolph Lundgren’s Ivan Drago were scary to my pre-pubescent eyes, but they are laughably one-dimensional to adult ones now.  I mean, when Rocky addresses the Russian government and people after a match in Moscow in ROCKY IV and pleads with the Cold War powers to learn to just get along (followed by thunderous applause) then ya just knew that Stallone and the franchise were losing touch with what made the first ROCKY one of the best films of the 70’s.  Not only that, but that sequel was so egotistical in its godlike hero worship of Balboa that it wanted us to believe that Russian spectators - at the heart of the Cold War - would turn on their own boxer and chant Rocky’s name.  Sure.  Yup.  Uh-huh.

The last ROCKY film – one that was noble minded, but mismanaged – came out in 1990 and was all but considered the kiss of death to Stallone’s populist franchise.  When Internet rumours began blasting over the web about Sly returning to his creative well one last time to make a sixth ROCKY, to say that I and the public were enormously incredulous is an understatement.  The thought of Stallone – who just turned 60 this year – stepping back into the ring for the semi-obligatorical “last time” to regain his honour is hard not to laugh at with spite.  The ROCKY heritage of wretched sequels made the possibility of a new film that much more difficult to swallow.  I mean, who in the hell would Rocky fight next?  An Al-Qaeda-trained terrorist in a 12 round bare knuckles match in the deserts of Afghanistan?

Now prepare yourself for ROCKY VI – actually called ROCKY BALBOA – because it is a million miles removed from being the embarrassing train wreck that most of you (and myself) thought it would be.  Perfectly matching the first film’s tone and pitch, ROCKY BALBOA is Stallone returning the character to his roots, so to speak, in a film that feels more attune with dealing with drama first and pulse-pounding, ringside action second.  For most of the film’s running time, boxing is a non-entity.  Instead, the film is a shockingly touching, funny, melancholic, and affecting character piece that examines a Rocky well beyond his prime trying to deal with the painful inevitabilities of getting older and being alone. 

For what it’s worth, watching ROCKY BALBOA is a nostalgic experience, to say the least.  Having grown up on countless viewings of the ROCKY films on home video as a child, it’s really heartrending to see the fragility and vulnerability of Rocky as he’s pushing 60.  There’s a sincere level of sadness seeing my childhood movie hero moving on to the autumn of his life.  That’s why the film ultimately works so well.  It’s a remarkably satisfying bookend to the first film that it kind of dramatically clones without coming across as being plagiaristic.  ROCKY BALBOA – like ROCKY – makes the title character more endearing by who he is outside of the ring.  The big fights in both films (yes, as implausible as it sounds, there is one in the new film) are not what matters; what does is the arc of the characters and their personal journeys.  Amazingly, the new film emerges of one of the great underdog surprises of 2006.  The fact that ROCKY BALBOA trumps the series’ baggage and does not become something wholeheartedly humiliating to watch is astounding.

ROCKY BALBOA is kind of bittersweet in the way it shows Stallone’s character reminisce about the past.  Much of the film is about Rocky back in his old haunts.  He is in his late 50’s, long retired from boxing, and lives back in the streets of Philadelphia.  Many of his friends have passed on and – worst of all – his wife Adrian has also died and left Rocky alone.  Living a life of relative solitude, Rocky ekes through his days by running a nice little Italian restaurant named “Adrian’s.”  The restaurant is every Rocky fan’s wet dream.  The walls are plastered with oodles of images form Rocky’s greatest fights and the two-time champ himself comes over to your table and gives your all the inside dope on his greatest battles.  I’d be there every night.

Rocky does have some company and companionship left in the world.  That old loud mouthed Paulie (played very well by Burt Young) still bends Rock’s ears, and his twenty something son, Robert (played by Milo Ventimiglia of the TV hit HEROES, who does look a lot like a really young Stallone), but Robert is now a working man and has little time for dear old dad.  In actuality, Robert has a really difficult time carving out his own identity seeing as he is always seen as “Rocky Jr.” to his buddies.  Even worse is when he tries to have a heart-to-heart with his dad when endless onlookers approach Rocky and ask for his autograph or ask for a picture.

The entire arc of the Rocky character in the film is touching and bitter sweet.  Rocky here is a character kind of beaten up by life.  He feels that the world let him down – sort of as he felt in the first film.  His efforts to reconnect with his son are awkward failures.  If anything, the only real relationship he has is with his dead wife, who he pitifully visits at her grave all the time.  Once a year Rocky drags Paulie to all of the places where he first grew to love Adrain: the old pet shop where she worked; his old apartment; the ice skating rink of their first date (now torn down); and so on.  At one point Rocky goes to a pub that he and Paulie used to frequent 30 years ago and he meets a 40ish bartender who looks vaguely familiar.  He soon learns that the woman – Marie (Geraldine Hughes) – is the same little teen girl that he tried to help in the first ROCKY film.  The two of them forge a friendship that could have developed into a new love interest, but Stallone plays off of their relationship in unexpected and more satisfying ways.  Rocky will forever love Adrian and no one else, and Marie is a bit too world weary for love herself.  The frailty of their lives is what allows them to bond.

Of course, this is still a ROCKY movie, which still has the prerequisite climatic fight.  As cataclysmically implausible as it appears for the aging Stallone to yet again bounce back in the ring, he nevertheless handles the material in such a manner where it all kind of preposterously works.  Perhaps the best approach Stallone uses is to make the film self-aware that the concept of a washed out Rocky (and, let’s face it, a washed up Stallone) fighting in his late 50’s is fairly ridiculous.  As one fight commentator states, the “exhibition” that Rocky fights in is called just that so it would not be labeled an “execution.”  Yet, one thing is not addressed in the film.  How is Rocky able to get medical clearance to fight despite his advancing years, eye damage (as addressed in ROCKY II) and horrendous brain damage (as addressed in ROCKY V).  Oh well.

Anyhoo’, it seems that Rocky will face off against current Heavyweight Champ Mason “The Line” Dixon (played by real fighter Antonio Tarver).  Dixon is a paper champion who makes a living fighting bums.  The fans hate him as a result and he gets no respect.  ESPN decides to show the world a computer simulation of a fighter from a different era (you guessed it, Rocky) against him and good ol’ Rock comes out victorious.  Soon, the promoters hatch out a sly scheme to get Dixon to fight in a “controlled” exhibition fight against Rocky.  Rocky will re-live his glory years and Dixon will get some respect for allowing a has-been a chance to rekindled with his youth.  However, Dixon does not understand that when Rocky appears to mean business, that he may have his work cut out for him.  Dixon also does not have Duke (ROCKY character actor Tony Burton) to train him, nor does he have a sweet training montage that only Rocky fans crave.  Duke has a brief monologue that is inspired in its language.  Seeing as Rocky has arthritis and other aliments, Duke suggests in his speech that he trains Rocky for “blunt force trauma” and “hurt bombs” that will inflict so much damage that Dixon’s “ancestors will feel them.” 

Again, the big fight is the more perfunctory aspect of ROCKY BALBOA, although it still inspires a lot of testosterone-induced excitement and awe.  Stallone, also the director, films it to feel like the viewer is watching a real PPV, all with title cards and statistics.  The approach here makes the fight a bit more interesting and visually fresh.  Ironically, it is arguably the fight that works the least well in the film, as is Rocky’s willingness to so quickly agree to participate.  His son’s equally quick reception to helping his father is also a bit too telegraphed.  Tarver is also not developed into a really intriguing antagonist.  He seems more misguided than he does a legitimate egomaniac that wants to make a mockery of Rocky.  However, it’s hard not to get giddy goosebumps while seeing Rocky running up those Art Museum steps again to the thunderous Bill Conti score.  Like hearing John William’s STAR WARS theme blast out in the cinema with the film’s title cards a few years ago in THE PHANTOM MENACE (and after not having seen a STAR WARS film in a theatre in a long time), seeing a Rocky training montage sure takes you back.  As a result, ROCKY BALBOA is a really fun trip.

The best and most rewarding aspects of the film are the writing and the acting.  Stallone gives his single best performance in this ROCKY.  The character is punchy and not all too sharp witted, but he is street smart and is able to make cogent sense of the world and his feelings in simplistic manners.  Behind his rough façade there is tenderness to Rocky.  He never shies away from showing his pain over Adrian’s death, as he does in a remarkably sad moment in the film.  Several small scenes with Paulie are masterfully acted and written, as is one scene where he lays his cards on the table with his son and tries to justify to Robert why he has to do what he needs to do.  Certainly, Stallone’s dialogue could have approached an overbearingly saccharine tonality, but ROCKY BALBOA is done with such restraint and emotion that it’s hard not to be greatly moved at times.  Stallone – as actor, writer and director – clearly has his heart in this one, and it shows.  He really gives one of the best low-key performances of gentleness and compassion of the year.

Certainly, the very notion of a sixth ROCKY film could have very easily become odious punchline material for every late night comedian.  There is little doubt that the series has more than worn out its welcome in terms of it being ravaged by witless formulas and even more inane storylines.  I guess it is all of these initial fears that made me go into ROCKY BALBOA with very low expectations.  To my genuine surprise, the film is an incredibly fitting tribute to one of the most popular film series ever and it faithfully and lovingly captures to subtle nuances of what made the original ROCKY so entertaining.  The writing is refined and well realized, the characters are warm and engaging, and Stallone himself does his best work ever as an aging and lonely Rocky looking to find a path through the later years of his life.  ROCKY BALBOA greatly mirrors its main star: It has taken more than its fair share of pre-release criticism and mockery and has instead bravely risen against those odds to go the distance and emerge triumphant.  More than anything, watching ROCKY BALBOA is a sublime experience.  Like this year’s CASINO ROYALE and last year’s BATMAN BEGINS, it genuinely has restored the luster and legacy of a once frowned upon and ridiculed franchise.  To loosely paraphrase Rocky himself, “Yo, Stallone…ya did it!”

Read hundreds of reviews by CrAiGeR at his site at:

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

****  out of  ****

The more that I watch the original ROCKY the more it dawns on me that the film is not really a boxing and/or sports genre picture.  Granted, the underdog Rocky formula has greatly persisted over the last three decades to great effect, but the allure and success of the first entry into the exploits of the Italian Stallion is relatively simple: It is a finely nuanced character drama and a poignant love story. 

Yes, the film epitomizes the very essence of P.I.G. (perseverance, integrity, and guts) better than any I’ve seen, but ROCKY works marvelously beyond its obvious elements.  The film is about a boxer, but it really is about how he wins over the love of a woman and how he gets the world to respect him at a time when it would rather spit on him.  That’s the secret to ROCKY.  At its core, it’s an urban fairy tale.  The boxing and the big, climatic fight scene at the film’s conclusion are almost superfluous  elements.

It’s so deceptively easy to forget how great the first ROCKY film was, not to mention how equally solid the title performance is in it by the then-relatively unknown Sylvester Stallone.  Watching the film – in pure hindsight and retrospect – is to see the freshness of a new emerging talent, not yet contaminated by years of witless action films and even more moronic and juvenile comedies.  Stallone, at least if one glances at his resume, is almost the by-product of too many jokes and inside puns; he’s made a lot of crap, for lack of a better word.  However, his performance in the original ROCKY still is one of his finest and remains, to this day, to be his most enduring and beloved characters.  Even if he allowed the persona to populate a series of inferior and moronic sequels, there should be no denying that Rocky Balboa has emerged as one of the hallmark Cinderella characters of American cinema. 

The road to making ROCKY almost mirrored the story within it.  Sylvester Stallone himself was a struggling actor in the early to mid 1970’s.  In 1975 he only had $106 in the bank.  His car had just blown up and he had to hitchhike to auditions.  His wife was pregnant with their first child.  He only had a small amount of legitimate screen credits that bore his name (he played an uncredited thug in Woody Allen’s BANANAS in 1971,  headlined 1974’s LORDS OF FLATBUSH and 1975’s cult favourite DEATH RACE 2000).  With the $700 he made from starring in DEATH RACE, he barely managed to pay of four months worth of rent on his San Fernando Valley apartment.  Yet, his journey from a nobody to an instant celebrity makes ROCKY seem all the more autobiographical.

Within the span of the year Stallone took his script – which he wrote in three days – to a major studio (United Artists), convinced them to green light it and further convinced the studio to allow him to be the main star when they wanted bankable talent (like Robert Redford and James Caan) to be in it.  The film went on to be an incredible financial success (it made back it’s paltry budget of a million dollars a hundred fold at the box office) and one of the largest surprise critical successes in Oscar history.  It went on to beat heavyweight films like Martin Scosese’s TAXI DRIVER and NETWORK for the statue for BEST PICTURE at the 1976 Oscars.  It would also win two others (for Editing and Direction).  Stallone himself became the first entertainer since Charlie Chaplin to be nominated in the same year for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.   The success of ROCKY was a minor cinematic miracle.  Like its title character, its path to glory was a million to one shot.

ROCKY seems well entrenched in classic portrayals of rough, rugged, and sensitive pugilists of the past (Marlon Brando’s performance in ON THE WATERFRONT comes to mind), but Stallone’s real inspiration for the film may have come from actual headlines.  In a recent documentary Stallone reveals how he based Rocky Balboa on a real New Jersey club boxer named Chuck Webner.  In March of 1975 Webner challenged the then Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali to a title match in Cleveland, Ohio.  Amazingly – and in pure Balboa-esque fashion – Webner went the distance with his seemingly insurmountable opponent.  He also became one of the few boxers ever to send Ali to the canvas.  Webner eventually was TKO’d in the final round, but the importance of the match is noteworthy.  He was what many people believed to be a “bum” and he went against the odds and achieved a major moral triumph.

Sound familiar?

Stallone, seeing that Webner’s story could make for great drama, slaved away in his tiny, run down apartment and hammered away at his type-writer for three days.  Stallone shopped around ROCKY to just about every studio in town until United Artists finally decided to take a stab at it.  Stallone – in an act of career bravery and determination – never relented in his sheer insistence that he would be the only one that could possibly play Rocky with any amount of humility and realism.  UA had their doubts, but finally relented.  They did, however, offer up some terms.  In exchange for allowing the then unproven Stallone to headline the film, the studio forced the filmmakers to make Rocky for under a million dollars.  Fearing that the budget was too low, the producers for the film even went as far as mortgaging their homes.  The resulting budget came in at 1.1 million, still a low sum.  With the extremely low financing, a lead that has never headlined a picture before, and a script that every studio turned down, ROCKY went into production and was finished in lightning time: 28 days.  A year later, it would be heralded as a darling of the critics and in the minds of moviegoers.

A simple glance at the offering of films from the 1970’s would indicate that ROCKY was not a typical film that embodied the disillusionment of the decade.  It was not nihilistic, not gritty and morose, nor was it unrelentingly depressing in its themes and story.  ROCKY was a rigidly atypical film of the 70’s in the sense that it is about the triumph of the downtrodden human condition.  Whereas other 70’s films pained to tell the world what a unsettling and disturbing place it was, ROCKY can be considered a breath of fresh air for the times. 

The film was about an everyman-nobody that occupied a world that does not respect him.  Rocky Balboa is not too unlike Travis Bickle in this respect, but the fundamental difference between the two is in the sense that Rocky defies his overwhelming odds in the end to prove that he is not just a two-bit loser.  Whereas TAXI DRIVER had its main character caught in tailspin of emotional implosion, ROCKY had its star run the gambit through impossible odds to eventual emotional victory.  ROCKY never created the feel-good motion picture, but it sure was one of the finer ones.  From the eyes of most critics (myself included) ROCKY is not a superior film to TAXI DRIVER - the rightful and deserving winner of Best Picture for 1976 - but it remains a transcending and powerful  film.  It works on us for different reasons.

It sure is hard not to relate to and empathize with Rocky.  He’s one of those nice and polite bottom feeders in the sense that he knows he’s at rock bottom and does not pain to tell the world that he is.  ROCKY correctly places its title character in the middle of a grungy and decayed urban Philadelphia.  At the beginning of the film Rocky does not aspire for greatness; he just wants to manage to get by everyday on his meager means.  He’s not a talented fighter with any discernable skills other than his ability to take a pounding and dish more out.  He’s a slugger and a bruiser, one that will gladly fight any bum for a $50 purse and - upon victory - will try to get a cigarette off of one of the spectators.  On the side he works for a loan shark, but his heart is not really in it.  At one point it is revealed that his boss wanted Rocky to break a client’s thumbs if and when he could not come up with his money.  Rocky is just too noble spirited to be a hooligan.  Instead, he lets the client go, but not before the client promises to bandage up his hands as to not get Rocky in trouble with his employer.

Rocky lives a shabby existence.  He has a crumby one-bedroom apartment that looks infested with any imaginable creature lurking out of baseboards.  He’s a lonely and isolated figure without family.  He does have two pets – turtles – that he amusingly names Cuff and Link.  He has amusing conversations with them (“If you two could learn to sing and dance then I would not have to go through this crap”).  Rocky bought the turtles at a local pet shop that is across the street from the gym he trains in.  The girl that sold him the turtles is Adrian (Talia Shire), who is irreproachably shy to the point of it being deemed a sickness.  Adrian is so timid that she has never been intimate with a man before.  When a hulking and imposing presence like Rocky comes her way, his stature and inarticulate manner scares her off.  Rocky secretly pines for her affection and has been trying to woe her for a long time.  He’s in love with her.  His attempts at winning her over are not made any easier based on the fact that she is the sister of one of his loud-mouthed and temperamental friends, Paulie (Burt Young). 

Rocky has other problems.  The boxing club that he frequents has tried to push him away, at least its manager has.  Mickey (played by the immortal Burgess Meredith) heads up the club and is one of those gnarly, spitting, cantankerous managers that seems spawned from countless other sports genre pictures.  Mickey is small in stature, but he sure speaks his mind.  He’s disgusted and ashamed of Rocky.  Like another classic movie boxer, Mickey believed that Rocky “could have been a contender,” but instead he feels that he has wasted his life being a punk with no ambition working for a cheap, second rate loan shark.  Mickey disowns Rocky and empties out his locker for another more fitting protégée. 

However, just when things looked their bleakest to Rocky, his fortunes change for the better.  The heavyweight-boxing champion Apollo Creed (played memorably by Carl Weathers in a performances that has definitive echoes of Ali) just discovers that his newest challenger has been injured and is unable to fight.  He was to fight him at a gala spectacle in January of 1976 dubbed “The Bicentennial Match” and now without a challenger the champ and promoters could lose millions.  Apollo then conjures up an amazing plan: Find a relative unknown and give him a once in a lifetime chance to challenge him in the ring.  Who he is will not matter; in his cocky and narcissistic mind, “He’ll take ‘em in three.”  The hook here is that he’ll give a local Philadelphia fighter a chance at glory.  When he comes across the Italian Stallion, he is instantly attracted.  Creed and his promoters go out of their way to lure him into the match of a lifetime.  Creed’s trainer has reservations.  Rocky is a southpaw.  Creed has never had to contend with one.  Apollo, however, never seems worried.  In his mind, no bum will last longer than a few rounds with him.  Right?

Of course, Rocky accepts and thus begins a two-step journey towards getting some respect.  Not only does he strive to be a worthy contender for the champ, but he also tries to win Adrian’s heart.  In one of the great movie date scenes, Rocky finally is able to get Adrian to go out with him.  They go for long walks and end up at a local ice skating rink.  When Rocky finally gets her back to his dirty apartment, she wants to leave.  He slowly and tenderly breaks down her incredible façade of timidity and bashfulness in a scene that plays slowly and delicately.  The build up to their first kiss remains one of the sweet and finer love scenes.

Now that Rocky has the woman he loves, all his has to do is secure respect from the world that sees him having no chance in hell against the champ.  Mickey quickly warms over to Rocky and pleads with him to allow him to manage and train him.  In another of the film’s great scenes of emotion, Rocky pitifully lashes out at the crusty trainer that he desperately wanted to be a surrogate father figure to him when he needed him the most.  The two finally get over their differences and commence the training, all which culminates in an unforgettable training montage. The scene where Rocky runs triumphantly up the Philadelphia Art Museum’s steps, struts and dances around, and finally pumps his fist in the air remains one of the most memorable moments of contemporary cinema.  Rocky is sending a message: He will not be defeated so easily.  He will rise to the occasion.

All of this builds to the final match, which is masterfully constructed and builds real tension and intrigue.  Of course, those that are familiar with the final outcome know that it is primarily an emotional and moral victory for Rocky.  Even before the match Rocky slowly begins to realize that the key to getting admiration is not really in beating the champion.  In one pitiful – but heartfelt and honest – moment he reveals to Adrian how he feels he’ll never beat Creed.  “I mean, who am I kiddin’? I ain’t even in the guy’s league.  it really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.”  The real inspiring aspect of ROCKY is not in the possibility his triumphant defeat of the champion.  Victory and winning the title are almost secondary.  All that matters to Rocky is getting self-respect by going the distance.  In this way, Rocky emerges as even more of a powerful hero figure.  He understands intuitively his obstacles and – even with the realization that he will be the loser – he will spiritually be the victor.

I think that this is why the first ROCKY works so well whereas it’s other sequels went so astray.  In the first film and its first sequel, they were more concerned with characters and interactions.  They were not concerned about the boxing and big fight themselves.  The first two ROCKY films knew that the reasons they worked so well were primarily because they were concerned with the frailty of the human condition and how people tie themselves together to tackle the obstacles that impede their progress.  Rocky wanted the world to see him as being worthy, but he also wanted to instill the same feelings in Adrian. 

Adrian herself is a reflection of Rocky too, as she also tries to emerge from her fragile shell of isolation and loneliness and become the woman she wants to be.  The film is uplifting in its portrayal of Rocky, but also in the sense that it is a liberating experience for the female love interest too.  There is a moment where Adrian finally stands up to her brutish brother that emotional berates her.  Paulie cathartically chastises his sister to make up for his own shortcomings because she never fought back.  What Rocky teaches her is that she too can stand up for herself and prove her worth.  In this way, ROCKY is an uplifting experience on more levels that many see otherwise.

The performances in the film are as rock solid and universally strong as it gets.  Along with Stallone, Burt Young, Talia Shire, and Burgess Meredith rightfully received Oscar nominations for their work.  Meredith in particular remains one of the film’s most unforgettable characters.  His performance is the essence of scenery chewing.  Yet, the true epicentre of the film is Stallone’s portrayal of the punchy pugilist with a heart of gold. 

ROCKY surely launched Stallone’s career and by the mid-1980’s he was one of the most popular and successful action stars of the time.  In the last 30 years it seems that many have forgotten how great Stallone is in ROCKY.  Of course, ROCKY soon became the very concept of predictable clichés (the other sequels did not help in this matter), but long before the ROCKY series become a dim and redundant formula it highlighted Stallone as an actor with talent.  Rocky was not a one-note simpleton.  He was crude, fairly slow-witted, and brutish, but underneath him was a decency and compassion.  He’s not a traditional screen hero, in this sense, but what makes us root for him even more is his innate likeability and the affectionate ways he treats the woman he loves. 

We respect him even more when he goes on to learn one of life’s greatest lessens at the end of the film – sometimes, it’s not winning that really matters, but what you get out of the journey towards that.  ROCKY III, IV, V, and – at least in part – ROCKY II forgot the morals that the first film taught.  Those films cared more about the character achieving victory.  The big climatic fights that Rocky wins were really all those films cared about.  The first ROCKY did not concern itself with this, which is what it endures as the finest outing in the series.  It cares about what the hero gains in defeat.

Ultimately, it is for those reasons that ROCKY – even 30 years after is release – still emerges as one of the great, memorable and optimistic films about limitless passion and drive to triumph in life when all others think it to be impossible.  Whereas all of its sequels seemed more inspired to showcase the title character winning at all costs in the end, the first ROCKY is more interested in the sense that its heart lies in the fact that its hero becomes self-actualized and confident even before reaching the climatic big fight.  The film’s basic underlining premise has been regurgitated endlessly for years by the other ROCKY films and by other less inspired sports pictures, but the first ROCKY still remains the most successful film to utilize the underdog, subjugated, and demoralized sports hero formula to best effect.  However, perhaps the most longstanding and noteworthy aspect of ROCKY is that – deep down - it’s less a sports film of a down-on-his-luck prize fighter than it is a warm romance about two people who allow their budding love to strengthen their resolve against a world that beats them down.   The universality of its themes are ROCKY’s proudest legacy.  It wisely illustrates that just when life can perplex and suffocate your into submission, you can find a way to gain your confidence to find your way again.  How anyone could not cheer while watching the film is beyond me.

Read more reviews by one of Western Canada’s most prolific on-line critics at:

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

****  out of  ****

If there is a better and more magical Christmas film than Frank Capra’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, then I would surely like to know what it is.  Yes, there have been a very small selection of great Christmas films, classics like MIRACLE ON 34th STREET, A CHRISTMAS CAROL and to more recent works like THE POLAR EXPRESS (a film that I am willing to bet my morning donut on will be much more respected in the years to come).  Yet, Capra’s 1946 film still goes down as one of the most watched and cherished of all the Christmas films.  Anyone doubting this assertion should consider one obvious sentiment:

Can you not find this film on any major television channel either on or before Christmas? 

Not likely.   
It’s amazing how much audiences - especially contemporary ones -  so wholeheartedly embrace this film.  Contrary to popular belief, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE was not a huge box office hit upon its initial theatrical release (it barely made back its original budget in ticket sales), nor was it a darling of the mainstream critics of the time (several significant American critics of the 40’s loathed the film).  It did manage to garner five Academy Award nominations (including one for Best Picture and one - most importantly and deservedly - for Best Actor for the late Jimmy Stewart in the lead role), but critics and filmgoers alike nevertheless poorly received the film.  Yet, the film, to this day, remains not only one of the most appreciated Christmas fables of all-time, but is often seen as a landmark work for both Jimmy Stewart and director Capra.  It certainly would make a list of my own of the greatest films of all-time. 
Question:  How did this film become so widely loved and respected? 
Answer:  US copyright law.
The greatest single irony behind IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE just may be in a loophole in US Copyright law.  The film, at least before mid-1970’s, was still copyrighted.  Before this time it was probably respected no more than as a little seen Christmas film.  This all changed in 1974 when, most inexplicably, the film’s copyright was not renewed and, as a result, it tumbled into those murky and ambiguous waters known as the public domain.  In other words, any television station anywhere could get a print of the film and show it, as many times as they liked, and they could do so without obtaining any formal permission.   

This was probably the best and worst thing to ever happen to the film.  It was great because - with it saturating of the TV airways - millions upon millions of viewers were being exposed to this film that had, most likely, never seen it before.  A newly built audience was established and this single-handedly created the type of cult following that the film has now.  IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, before its copyright eroded, was nothing more than a forgotten Christmas film.  After it’s copyright was gone, with so many people seeing it, the film became elevated to the upper echelon of cinematic greatness. 

Its rediscovery by fans all over the world created IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE as an essential part of our cinematic and holiday seasonal traditions.  The film became as much a part of Christmas as opening presents or trimming the tree.  Network executives also caught on to what a good thing the film was becoming and - in an immeasurably shrewd and smart move of counter programming on their part - they used the film (which was free for their use) and played it opposite of other big and glossy network specials.  With time, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE was being watched more and more.  This small town classic grew and grew until it became something more than just a holiday film…it became a holiday ritual. 
All of this was great, especially for Capra and Stewart (the actor, to his dying days, always maintained that this film was, indeed, the favourite of his career).  If anything, the film brought a considerable amount of cheer (not to mention critical and popular vindication) to the hearts of the makers.  On the negative side, the lack of a copyright led to the film being victim to the most heinous and insidious crimes that could be perpetrated – it was colorized.  This prompted Stewart to testify before the US Congress in an effort to promote film preservation and restoration.  The colorized version was a bastardized edition that altogether stripped away the entire beauty and purity of the original black and white film.  In the newly computerized colorized version, the film looked God-awful and lost its sense of timelessness.  Anyone that feels colorizing old films is a good idea, consider: How would you emotionally respond to looking at photos of your great-grandparents if the original sepia toned prints were hand colored?  See what I mean?  The magic is completely gone. 
As for the film itself?  Well, having just viewed it on a glorious new remastered Special Edition DVD, the one thing that always stands out about it is its timelessness and sense of nostalgia.  On basic levels, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE dramatically is an uplifting and sentimental fable and a morality tale.  Yet, the film has the strong ability to go beyond its inherent melodrama and contain themes that are universal: No matter how insignificant you may feel you are, you are important and that your life touches and affects so many others, sometimes beyond your own recognition and understanding.  These are powerful motifs and ones that span beyond cultures and borders.  
I think that is the key to the film’s overwhelming sense of appeal.  It’s universally attractive in ways so many films are not.  It’s simple and straightforward storytelling at its finest.  Sure, it’s more corn-infested that the fields of Iowa, but the film nevertheless grows greater with age and improves with familiarity and repeated viewings.  Watching the film is kind of like revisiting old friends you never grow tired of and that is the key to encapsulating what a true classic film is like.  It’s one that - no matter how many times you’ve seen it - still remains fresh, entertaining, endearing, and wonderful.  I probably can’t name more a dozen or so films that resonate in this way, and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is clearly at the top of the list. 
Almost everyone knows the story of the film, even those who have never seen the film are familiar with it’s basic premise.  George Bailey (played by in my favourite screen performance of all-time by Jimmy Stewart) is an average Joe from Bedford Falls.  While he was a child he was a wholesome, all-American kid who was selfless and sensitive (he saves his own brother from drowning and becomes deaf in one ear as a result).  As he grows into adulthood he gives up his lifelong dream of traveling the world over and to go to college and instead stays home to take over his father’s building and loan business.  By his own philosophy, Bailey lived his life feeding off of the riches of friendship and family, which always meant more to him than monetary wealth.   

Unfortunately for Bailey, the evil and miserable town millionaire, Potter (played with an unsurpassed amount of nastiness and contempt by the great Lionel Barrymore) tries to take over the town.  The Bailey business seems to be the only one he does not own, and he is willing to do anything to take it over (and in one desperate and despicable scene, I do mean anything).  Through one incident perpetrated by Potter himself, Bailey and his business reach a point of financial ruin, which builds to a crescendo of absolute despair for the hapless Bailey. 

For what it’s worth, the light-hearted spirit and tone of the film gives way to its dark and somewhat bleak third act, where George, feeling so broken down, contemplates suicide.  Before he can, he is saved by a mysterious man named Clarence (the lovable Henry Travers) who tries to show how “wonderful” life is for George.  George remains skeptical, so much so that Clarence manages to show George what life would actually be like if he had never been born.  I think it’s no surprise at all that, in the end, George comes to his senses and the film ends on a scene of overwhelming sentiment and uplifting power, so much so that how anyone could not be reduced to tears is beyond me. 
It’s funny looking back on this film and seeing so many that label it as just a “Christmas film.”  When you step back and look at the film critically in context, it’s more a “message film” about the human condition than it is a holiday film.  What it does - and does so effectively - is use Christmas as an emotional backdrop to frame the narrative and themes.  The film is an enriching and emotional experience not only because it takes place at the most loved time of year, but more because it pulls at our heartstrings by presenting to us the brightest and darkest aspects of the human psyche.  When we meet George Bailey he is a confident and kind man, willing to do anything for anybody.  Near the end of the film we see him at his absolute lowest point, where he becomes such an atheist to the goodness of the world and society that he begins to lose his faith in that society and those he has touched around him.  C’mon, who has not felt that way before?  This ideology  brings us to the essence of the film.  It works on us because we are as much the everyman as George Bailey.  We relate so much to him as a character that when he does hit rock bottom, we really feel for him. 
Capra may have been a genius at crafting this melodramatic fantasy, but he was also gifted at casting.  Jimmy Stewart was never better than he was as Bailey and he plays so role so low key and with such a disarming charisma.  There’s no denying the likeability of Bailey and I think that’s why he remains one of cinema’s most engrossing and cherished of characters.  His persona became more than just a small man of simple pleasures and ideals; he has become synonymous with the epitome of small-town American values.  In a way, he is one of cinema’s greatest heroes in the sense that he reaches out and touches the lives of so many, often with something as subtle as a polite smile, a handshake, or a caring and understanding ear.  George Bailey is the kind of person we all wish we were, and his perseverance as an iconic image of this universal and elemental vision of the goodness of the common man is one of the film’s most gratifying elements.   

So much of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is memorable.  Some films have a few great scenes; Capra’s has dozens, often that work on so many diverse levels.  The ending needs no more exploration than was already given, but I also liked how touching some of the other more less obvious moments were, like the moonlight stroll that George and his high school sweetheart Mary (played memorably by Donna Reed) take, or the slapstick antics of that occur at the high school dance they go to.  There are also the scenes where George saves his brother, and one terrifying moment where George, as a boy, tries to tell his drunken boss, a pharmacist, of his ill-calculated prescriptions. 

However, two scenes in particular still remain as some of cinema’s finer moments.  One occurs in during a phone conversation where an angry George and Mary become hopelessly drawn to one another (It’s one of film’s all-time great love scenes).  The other moment occurs where George, completely beside himself, down on his luck, and in a drunken fit of absolute desperation, pitifully and quietly prays to God for guidance.  If you want to see film acting done as well as it ever has, watch Stewart in that heart wrenching moment. 

It’s one of the cinema’s great scenes of isolation and inner helplessness.

For a film that Frank Capra never intended to be seen as a “Christmas movie”, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE remains the definitive Christmas film.  It’s a joyous story of “feel good” sentiment at its finest, and in our cynical and contemporary mindset that is, unfortunately, a hard pill for some to swallow.  Yet, the film remains great despite its clichés and powerful despite its warmness and overt cheerfulness.  It accomplishes what great films do: they become transcending.  They work on more strong and visceral levels.  IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is one of the great populist fables because, at its core, its about us.  The film is a celebration of the lives of the common and ordinary citizen and how, despite all of the negative that can be thrown at them, they still are able to do the right things to help themselves and those around them, despite enormous obstacles.  IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is a two hour love sonnet of the average man, and that’s why I think its has endured as one of the most loved films of the last 60 years.  Modern films only wish they could successfully marry the ideals and values together into something meaningful that Capra’s film has.

Be sure to read hundreds of other reviews on CrAiGeR’s site at:

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

***1/2  out of  ****

One of my favourite comics books as a child was the wickedly inventive series “WHAT IF…” by Marvel Comics, which ran for a scant 47 issues from 1977 to 1984.  The ingenious aspect of the series is that it took the legitimate canon of the mainstream comic heroes of the company and radically turned them upside down.  The series explored the “road not traveled” by some of Marvel’s biggest and most successful characters.  Some of the issues had titles and covers that instantly intrigued.  You could not help but pick one up.  Some of my most cherished issues were WHAT IF DR. DOOM WAS A HERO?, WHAT IF CAPTAIN AMERICA RAN FOR PRESIDENT?, WHAT IF CONAN THE BARBARIAN WALKED THE EARTH TODAY? and – shock of all shockers – WHAT IF SPIDER-MAN NEVER WANTED TO FIGHT CRIME?

Gabriel Range’s DEATH OF A PRESIDENT reminded me considerably of that Marvel Comics series.  Am I trivializing the film by drawing that analogy?  Far from it.  The film is – from its very inception and implementation – a stirring, sensationalistic, intriguing, and – I must emphasize – dramatic WHAT IF drama that deals with the ramifications of the death of US President George W. Bush.  The film has been under a considerable amount of heated controversy since it made a critical splash earlier this year at Toronto’s International Film Festival, where it received rousing accolades.  Range’s work is a documentary - sort of - in the way it conjures up an eerie and suspenseful telling of a successful assassination attempt of the 43rd American President and the following FBI investigation to bring his killer to justice. 

On certain levels, it can be said that the film has a morbid premise (surely, who would find entertainment value in a film detailing the fictitious death of a real person still holding public office?).  However, let it be said that DEATH OF A PRESIDENT is not deplorable in its stances or commentary.  It’s no where near the anti-Bush diatribe that you may be expecting, nor is it sadistically amoral in its dramatic killing of the President. 

The amazing aspect of the fictitious documentary is in how compelling and assured it is with the subject matter and how it uses its basic premise to make larger points about the current socio-politic climate that we live it.  This is not a film that wishes to burn Bush in effigy because he is - as some think - a vindictive and ruthless war criminal for his actions invading Iraq.  The film is not a mean-spirited character assassination piece that tries to go out of its way to make us believe that Bush’s death would be a good thing.  DEATH OF A PRESIDENT is surprisingly sympathetic towards the President in question, but it’s most calculating and sobering aspect is that it uses his fictional demise to say something larger about how the world operates today.  Because of that, Range’s film is not a threatening work to the masses, but one that is electrifying and provocative. 

Range is no stranger to making grand leaps into what if.  His previous works, like 2003’s THE DAY BRITAIN STOPPED, detailed how the UK would cope with the loss of their public transportation system.  Also, Range’s film would certainly not be the first time that a filmmaker has used real life figures and themes and sandwiched them in with fictional storylines to make social and political statements.  In essence, there has been a definitive precedence for this type of docudrama. 

It’s kind of alarming, in hindsight, to see that DEATH OF A PRESIDENT has been seemingly banned from screenings in a number of US cities.  It is assuredly no more offensive than other recent films that dive into painful subject matters, like UNITED 93 or WORLD TRADE CENTER.  Range’s film is not ghoulishly depraved, nor does it take great satisfaction in the killing of a world leader.  Instead, what he does here is make Bush’s death a sad and tragic event that puts the US’s domestic and foreign policy into a tailspin.  The film, by the time the end credits roll by, is an icy and troubling reflection on how the current US administration abuses the civil liberties of its citizens.  It makes the viewer watch the unthinkable and then uses that as a catalyst for dealing with their own internal political leanings.

An assassination of a US President is also not entirely unheard of.  Even if a film deals with one that is still holding office that alone should not instantly warrant viewers turning a blind eye.  Yet, it’s sure easy to see how some viewers may have a difficult time watching the film.  DEATH OF A PRESIDENT is not some horribly assembled and directed work that uses obviously fake stand-ins for Bush and actors to portray the President.  Instead, the film creates an enormous level of realism in the way it combines actual Bush footage with fabricated footage via computer visual effects.  Range is able to take real footage of the President and manipulate them into the events of his story and the end result is unrelentingly moving.  Incredibly, the film also creates an astounding level of suspense in the assassination.  DEATH OF A PRESIDENT develops a palpable sense of dread and anxiety in ways other fictional dramas and suspense films do, but in the stylistic trappings of a documentary.  At times,  Range’s film feels all too real.

His “documentary” is one that occurs, presumably, in 2008, after the October 2007 killing of Bush.  It showcases the events leading up to his death, the investigation afterwards, the capturing and trying of the supposed gunman, and all of the insights and reflections of those that were key players in the terrible events, all being handled by an unseen interviewer.  The documentary is broad, interviewing a Secret Service Agent (who feels partially responsible), a Chicago cop who was in charge of dealing with riotous mobs of protestors the day of the shooting, a Bush-loving campaign speechwriter, an FBI interrogator, and finally the wife of the man who is accused of the murder.  Again, most of the actors here lend to the film’s strong sense of verisimilitude.  They all reveal their thoughts and emotions in the film and do so very naturally and uncomfortably, most likely how people in a real documentary would act.  DEATH OF A PRESIDENT works mostly because of the emotions that the actors all bring to the table.

Each of the subjects have their own troubling memories of the night in question.  We are told in the film that a large number of radical protestors converged in Chicago on the night of the assassination.  All of them agree that they are all angrier and more vindictive than a typical “peaceful” protest group.  At one point Range shows how a few of them break through barricades and actually come within feet of the Presidential motorcade.  The footage here, as shot by Range, is shockingly realistic.  Yet, Bush makes it through and proceeds to go to the Sheraton Hotel to give a speech at a business conference (Range here uses actual footage of a Bush speech in Chicago).  Despite the dire warnings of the Secret Service, Bush bravely decides to go outside to greet some of the delegates and visitors.  Then, without warning, shots ring out and Bush’s is hit.

As Bush is rushed to Northwestern Hospital, authorities shut down the perimeter around the Sheraton and proceed to investigate.  It is here where the film generates the most interest, as it becomes an evocative who-dunnit.  Fake news broadcast try to garner a picture of what’s happening, all while the FBI swoops in and tries to piece things together to find the culprit.  Alongside this is an interview with one Secret Service man, who convincingly relays his sadness and regrets about not doing more to keep the President safe.   Then there is the police officer that tells of his frustration and worries over dealing with the protestors.  He rightfully reminds us of the First Amendment right to “peaceful” and “law-abiding” protest, but he also makes mention that he thought that the actions of the Chicago protestors were anything but civil.  As one FBI agent fittingly put it, when protest segues into a direct threat to the president, then it ceases to be peaceful.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of DEATH OF A PRESIDENT is not the killing of the head of state but the events that transpire afterwards.  Dick Cheney is quickly put into office in replacement of the slain Bush and - in a move that echoes the abuse of using the 9/11 to further political agenda - he uses Bush’s death to target terrorists.  Obviously, no one in a post-9/11 age would ever assume that an American would have killed the President.  A radical terrorist or Muslim extremist fits the bill better. 

Because of the dire times, Cheney assumes power and forces the implementation of THE PATRIOT ACT III, which gives the government unspecified powers to even further abuse the civil liberties of Americans.  Even more terrible is the way the FBI negotiators go out of there way to arrest, try, and convict a Syrian man to death row for the killing, even when most evidence points that he’s innocent.  Well, the man accidentally found himself in an Al-Qaeda training camp, but escaped and fled to America.  Unfortunately, the fact that he was there – even against his will – was enough to arrest and detain him.  As his defense lawyer summed up, it was next to impossible to give the man a fair trial in the US.  How can a juror be impartial when the media has already portrayed the man as a vile terrorist?

Perhaps even sader is that – after they have tried and convicted the Syrian man – the FBI discovers evidence that the plot to kill the president has more home-grown elements.  Actually, the documentary begins to show that the Syrian man, in fact, did not kill the president, but the FBI did not seem interested in pursuing other leads and letting the innocent man go free.  After all, the case was closed in the literal court and in the court of public opinion, so who cares that the Syrian sits on death row?  After all, he sure appears like the man most Americans want to believe killed their Commander and Chief.  The convicted man’s wife appears many times on camera, teary-eyed and emotionally tortured.  Her family’s life is ruined and no one seems willing to come to the table to help them.

On larger levels, DEATH OF A PRESIDENT is spectacular and enlightening in the way it places the fictional death of Bush in large context.  What it does, in fact, say is that Bush’s demise at the hands of a sniper would not make the US a better place to reside in.  If anything, Dubya’s tragic death would only add more fuel to the fires of 9/11 paranoia and fear that sweeps through America.  The social and political ramifications are, in themselves, more deplorable than Bush’s death itself.  DEATH OF A PRESIDENT states that the President’s death – no matter how terrible – would have even worse ramifications to the fragile American psyche.  Imagine a post-9/11 and post Bush assassination world were peaceful and law-abiding Muslims are considered criminals without any proof otherwise and where the government has even more powers granted to them in the current Patriot Act to worsen the already fragile civil liberties of Americans.  DEATH OF A PRESIDENT does not promote violence or killing; it wants the viewer to think about the moral questions it proposes and how we as people can deal with the ever-growing xenophobic policies of governments.

DEATH OF A PRESIDENT is not so much a morally objectionable and offensive stunt film as you have been lead to believe it is.  Yes, the film marries actual archival news and press frottage of the current US President with created footage of his terrible assassination, but the film is not heavy-handed, nor cruel, nor an unmitigated cheap shot at a much-hated man in political office.  Instead, Gabriel Range’s fictional documentary about Bush’s death and the consequences of it is ultimately a powerful work of make-believe and what if.  No reasonable thinking person will come out of the film thinking that it promotes acts of vengeful and sadistic violence.  What the film does do is ask the viewer to look at how the world could end up as a result of a current Presidential assassination and how our ideas of freedom and liberty could be compromised.  Ultimately, the film works stupendously as a crafty editorial piece that prompts viewers to think.  It’s ironic, but in our age of brutally sadistic horror films (like the SAW TRILOGY and HOSTEL), where wanton acts of torture and mayhem are considered entertainment for the masses, I find it more deplorable that some people take increased offence to a stirring and challenging film like DEATH OF A PRESIDENT.

Read more reviews at Saskatchewan’s biggest film review website at:

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

*  out of  ****

 

When films are imaginative and ambitious, it could be said that those traits are virtues.  However, when a film is painfully and woefully derivative to the point of being a rip off, then it commits one of the few unforgivable cinematic sins. 

The new fantasy ERAGON fills the latter category.  Its storyline feels so remarkably similar to a particular 1970’s space fantasy that it was shocking to see that there was no title card at the beginning that said, “A long time ago in a forest far, far away….”  ERAGON superficially feels more like an appropriation of works of J.R.R Tolkien, but George Lucas almost deserves one of those special thank-you credits at the film’s conclusion.  ERAGON comes across as the bastard son of the first STAR WARS and THE LORD OF THE RINGS.  If anything, it walks around acting like A NEW HOPE wearing FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS clothing.

Astoundingly, ERAGON is based on a so-called “INHERITANCE” trilogy of books (the third that has not even been written or published yet) written by a then 19-year-old home schooled teenager named Christopher Paolini.  Paolini graduated from high school at the tender and young age of 15 and when his parents balked at sending him to college he began to write.  By the time he hit his late teens ERAGON was produced and his parents’ publishing company released it to the masses.  When it attracted the attention of rival publishers and was later released under Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. it became a New York Times best seller.  Now, when a teenager has a book that has made a National best seller list, that in itself is commendable.  Yet, I can’t say how much of the book made it to the screen.  Nevertheless, ERAGON is a story that feels like it got its impetus by Paulini’s innumerable viewings of STAR WARS.  There’s nothing wrong with paying homage, but when a work is nearly plagiaristic, then it becomes hard to really become involved in.

Am I being a bit overzealous by saying that ERAGON seems to beg for a lawsuit from Lucasfilm?  I don’t think so.  Even a lay filmgoer with a cursory knowledge of STAR WARS from 1977 would be able to perceptively see the similarities.  Just consider all of the analogous elements:

q       STAR WARS had a young farm boy named Luke Skywalker that dreamed of something beyond his mundane life of agriculture.  In ERAGON, the title hero (Ed Speleers) is also a young, blond, blue-eyed teen that is a farmer.

q       Luke in STAR WARS works at his uncle’s farm.  Ditto for Eragon.

q       In STAR WARS Luke has friends that decide to enlist in the Imperial Navy before being drafted.  In ERAGON he has a cousin that leaves home to also join the military.

q       In STAR WARS the main villain is Darth Vader whose Empire ruled over the galaxy.  Vader was once a Jedi Knight, the guardians of peace and justice in the universe.  He and his Emperor hunted down and exterminated all of the Jedi.  Vader was also master of the mystical and magical “force.”  In ERAGON, the main baddie is Galbatorix (John Malkovich) who also rules over his lands.  He has decimated all dragon riders, who also performed magic and were the guardians of peace and justice in the lands.  Vader had a large helmet and breath mask to protect his fragile visage.  Malkovich should have worn one out of embarrassment to hide his actual appearance in the film.

q       In STAR WARS a small and banded group of rebels fight together to finally destroy the Empire.  Ditto in ERAGON.

q       In STAR WARS Luke appears to have a heritage of being Force sensitive and eventually becomes the new hope for the Rebellion.  In Eragon, the title character also discovers that he too possesses the abilities to be a fierce magician and dragon rider.  He is also referred to in the film as an “only hope.”

q       In STAR WARS Luke has an introspective moment when her stares off into the sunset, contemplating who he is and what life will bring him.  One shot in ERAGON seems almost identical with its title character.

q       In STAR WARS Luke’s uncle is killed by Vader’s men.  He arrives to his farm to see his father’s dead body.  Ditto for the hero in ERAGON.

q       In STAR WARS a wise old hermit named Ben “Obi-Wan” Kenobi - who was once a famed Jedi Knight that protected the galaxy - befriends Luke.  Ben reveals this to Luke and decides to train him in the ways of the Force.  In ERAGON, the title character also meets up with a local village hermit named Brom (Jeremy Irons).  It seems that Brom was once a magical dragon rider and will use his age-old skills to teach Eragon in the ways of the Jedi…er…I mean…dragon riders.

q       In STAR WARS Luke and Obi-Wan go in search of the Rebellion and their secret hidden fortress.  Ditto in ERAGON.

q       In STAR WARS Vader dispatches his henchmen to find and capture the heroes.  In ERAGON Galbatorix has his main henchmen Durza (Robert Carlyle) hunt down Eragon and Brom.

q       In STAR WARS there is a pretty young princess that is part of the Rebellion that hopes to destroy the Empire.  She is captured by the villains and held captive in their space fortress.  Luke disguises himself to break into the fortress and successfully rescues her.  In ERAGON there also is a pretty princess-like persona that is too captured by the bad guys and placed in a Death Star-like castle.  Eragon does not don Stormtrooper armour for a disguise, but wears robes and sneaks in and rescues her.  There is, thankfully, no incestual kissing between the two as Luke and Leia engaged in.

SPOILER WARNING:

q       In STAR WARS Vader kills Ben Kenobi while helping Luke, Leia and the rest of the heroes escape the Empire’s Death Star.  In ERAGON Brom also bites the dust at the hands of a weapon by the bad guy.  He does not wither away, nor does he command Eragon to “use the force” during the climatic conclusion battle versus the villains.

q       The climax of STAR WARS has Luke and the Rebels launch an attack on the Death Star.  Luke uses his affinity to the force to save the day.  In ERAGON the title character uses his advanced skills in magic and dragon riding to defeat Galbatorix and his armies.  The force was with him after all!

q       In STAR WARS Vader escapes unharmed and appears to be back for a very much-anticipated sequel.  In ERAGIN Galbotorix also escapes harm’s way, but we really wanted him to die so he would not re-appear in a not-so-anticipated future sequel.  Maybe in that one he’ll reveal himself to be Eragon’s father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate.   Wait a tick…then we can add plagiarizing SPACEBALLS to the mix here. 

END OF SPOILERS:

Beyond the film’s disastrously obvious echoes of STAR WARS, ERAGON fails to elicit any real sense of overt danger, tension, or intrigue.   Since this is a paint-by-numbers fantasy, nothing that passes by throughout the film’s 100 minutes seems surprising.  Also, the title hero inspires even less emotional buy in from the audience.  Unlike Luke Skywalker – who was naïve and impatient, but brave and noble – Eragon is kind of a petulant brat who seems to be a bit cocky.  You never really grow to want to root him on against the antagonists.

His supporting cast does not help either.  Jeremy Irons does not ham his performance up as he did to ridiculous levels in his work in a previous fantasy, DUNGEON’S AND DRAGONS, but he essentially phones in his role here.  Sienna Guillory is tragically underdeveloped as the love interest and spends most of the film either in a strange, intoxicated coma or a state of distress at the hands of the villains.  John Malkovich is so criminally underused here that why the character of Galbotorix is even in the film is debatable, especially when Robert Carlyle seems to be having a decent time as the film’s only scary and evil presence in Durza.  Malkovich perhaps has three or four lines in the whole film and has more of a glorified cameo.   When great actors are wasted, that is a shame.  And the beautiful and luminous Rachel Weisz is not even in the film.  She provides the voice of Eragon’s dragon (which only appears as a telekinetic voice in his head), which hardly makes the dragon an intimidating creature to be feared.  At least the dragon looks decent and the art direction of the film is adequate, albeit in a low budget, Middle Earth kind of way.  Yet, there is a genuine lack of hobbits in its villages.  And for the love of God, ERAGON does not even have the decency to have one damn wookie in it.

ERAGON may be based on a book by a 19-year-old author, but the film feels like a 9-year-old wrote it.  The plot and characters are such carbon copies of STAR WARS that while watching ERAGON you’d swear that your viewing yet another special edition of A NEW HOPE, this time with flying dragons occupying Tolkien-esque environments.  When a fantasy like this spends nearly its entire running time repeating ideas, regurgitating themes and personas, and attempts to thrill and inspire audiences in the ways that other better, classic films have already done, then what is the point?  ERAGON is simply dull, lifeless, and monotonous.  The resulting work is one that feels vaguely like some of the stories your buddies ripped off and attempted to pass off as their own in creative writing classes in high school.  When caught red-handed, students like this deserve an “F”.  Recycled and hackneyed fantasies like ERAGON seem to stand up and demand the same grade. 

Be sure to log on a read more reviews of one of Western Canada’s most prolific film critics at:

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

****  out of  ****

 

APOCALYPTO is such a stunningly realized vision that it begs the viewer to stand up and take notice of one thing:  If you can excuse his very public, anti-Semitic drunken rants, then Mel Gibson has developed into a powerfully effectual filmmaker.  Only a director with a bold, sprawling, and daring grasp of his own abilities could have made APOCALYPTO. 

There is kind of an inspired, almost fanatical, spirit and energy that Gibson brings to the film and it is dripping with lush atmosphere, opulent and magnificent scenery, and searing, take-no-prisoners violence and action.  From the man who brought us BRAVEHEART and THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, the mayhem and bloodshed APOCALYPTO contains should be of no surprise.  This is not a film for those that are weak-stomached.  What is a surprise is that the film surpasses Gibson’s two previous works as his most confident, assured, and wonderfully realized film.  It surely is one of 2006’s most memorable and transcending experiences I’ve had at a cinema.

Perhaps the overall key to its success is in how the film taps into our most basic, primordial reactions.  APOCALYPTO is a film that works primarily as one to be simply experienced, not watched, per se.  Like many great films of the past, APOCALYPTO is a resounding triumph on the level of being an “out-of-body” experience.  I have commented in previous reviews of how the most powerful entertainments are one’s that transport us to different times and/or places and how they are subsequently so redolent and so stunningly crafted that we consciously become less and less aware of the fact that we are in a theatre watching a movie.  Instead, we live in the moment of the film, almost as if we are silent, neutral bystanders involved in its proceedings.  In essence, we become embroiled in the world of the movie.  The exotic and otherworldliness of STAR WARS comes to mind, or the grandiose scenery of frontier life in DANCES WITH WOLVES, or stark realism of gangster life in GOODFELLAS or – more recently – the depravity and desolation of Depression-era life in CINDERELLA MAN. 

Gibson’s APOCALYPTO achieves the same sort of ethereal vibes.  The movie is a period piece, set presumably during the tail end of Mayan civilization on the eve of visitors from the Old World.  Films have dealt with the peoples that have populated the New World before, but Gibson here makes it all feel even more vivid and exotic.  Filming in the state of Veracruz and on the Yucatan Peninsula – along with getting the services of Oscar winning cinematographer Dean Semler (DANCES WITH WOLVES) - Gibson is able to craft unbelievable images that transport the viewer six hundred years back in time.  The film is – like his previous entry – all done in a foreign language (the Mayan language of Yucatec with English subtitles), but its dialogue is kept to a serviceable minimum and the story’s overall narrative is sparse and simple.  The reasoning here is kind of crucial to the overall effect: Gibson is going for mood, tone, and ambiance and is not trying to craft interesting personas or a complex and meaningful story.  As a film that works as a primal visceral experience, nothing in 2006 has the sort of adrenaline-raging, punch-in-the-gut forcefulness as APOCALYPTO. 

However, like other terrific out-of-body films (like STAR WARS, oddly enough), APOCALYPTO has a strange familiarity to it.  The locales, costumes, and dialogue seem irrepressibly foreign and alien, but some of the emotions contained in the film are universal, as are elements of the film’s plot.  Obviously, a film in an old Mayan dialect with subtitles may seem like the act of a filmmaker in love with his own eccentricities, but Gibson here kind of does something ingenious and resonating at the same time: APOCALYPTO is a historical film set in a strange time and world, but it has definitive echoes of other very familiar films of the past.  Parts of the film – especially it’s third act – owes considerably to more mainstream fare like THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE FUGITIVE, FIRST BLOOD and – in terms of unadulterated chaos and stomach churning intensity – Gibson’s own past films like MAD MAX and BRAVEHEART.  If anything can be said of APOCALYPTO, it is irrefutably one of the first, great foreign language art house period films that just happens to be a high octane, edge of your seat thriller.   The film alone contains some of the most incredibly sustained scenes of spectacular action that I’ve seen. 

Yet, let it not be said that the film is void of any meaning.  At its core, APOCALYPTO uses the story of one lone man’s struggle to speak towards the larger theme of an entire civilization’s struggle to stay alive.  The film begins with a hunting sequence and an opening shot that will have many remember an equally beautiful opening visual in APOCALYPSE NOW.  Here, Gibson slowly dollies into the luscious foliage of the forest and lets the sights and ambient sounds immerse us.  Soon, we segue into the hunt as Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood, in a performance of astonishing poignancy and passion) leads his clan with his father Flint Sky (Morris Birdyellowhead).  Jaguar and his clan live a peaceful existence in their nearby village and he seems to – on some levels – want what all men aspire to have – a great, loving family and father who is proud of his achievements.  Jaguar seems fairly content, already having one child with his caring and devoted wife, Seven (Dalia Hernandez) who also has another bundle of joy soon on the way.  Jaguar, however, has a lot of work ahead of him and perhaps feels pressured by his father’s legacy…or maybe stamina.  After all, Flint Sky is daddy to ten children.

Nevertheless, Jaguar and his friends live a good life, but disaster soon strikes his home in the form of a dreadful warrior attack on his village.  The siege – all daringly and fantastically shot by Gibson – is gruesome and brutal, as the invaders maim, kill, rape, and destroy everything in their path.  Thankfully, Jaguar is able to take his pregnant wife and young son to a nearby hole in the ground before they are killed.  However, the marauders attack is too much for Jaguar and his villagers to withstand, and he and his friends and captured.  Flint Sky, unfortunately, does not get out alive and he’s sadistically killed in front of his son’s eyes.  As for Jaguar and his companions?  They are bound and tied up and are taken away from their burnt-to-the ground village.

It seems that the invaders have taken Jaguar and his friends as ceremonial trophies.  The invading tribe has seen severe famine on their homelands, which they see as being caused primarily by their gods.  In order to appease them, they plan to use Jaguar and company as sacrifices to the gods in hopes of reversing the wretched drought.  The march towards the Mayan city is long, arduous, and not without both physical and emotional torture.  As the treacherous journey comes to an end the posse leads Jaguar and the other captives to the Mayan city during the film’s most captivating and awesome moments.

The Mayan city – both astoundingly conceived and created - ranks high up there as one of the most unforgettable film environments.   Using state of the art computer generated visual effects, awe-inspiring and spectacular sets, and incredible costume design, Gibson creates such broad and eerily beautiful sights.  The details here are remarkable.  Yet, just as we are becoming engrossed and enamoured by the inconceivable scope of these images, the film takes a dark turn towards utter depravity when some of Jaguar’s friends are sold into slavery while he and the rest are taken up to a tall temple to be malevolently tortured and sacrificed in a barbaric ceremony. 

Obviously, Gibson is not shy to on-screen violence, and the temple sacrifice scenes here are sickening and sure to repulse many watching.  Taking a page out of Mola Ram’s playbook from INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, the native priest carves out hearts from the still alive victims after which he decapitates them and sends their heads bouncing down the temple stairs to the thousands below who scream and cheer.  However, Gibson does not get too extreme here, nor does he hammer the gore and blood down our throats as he did with THE PASSION.  Much of the torture is seen from afar or is cut away from.  Again, the power of the film is in creating mood.

Amazingly, Jaguar is spared – thanks to an eclipse, which the priest sees as a sign that the gods have been appeased enough.  And, as if the temple sacrifice scenes were not forcefully extreme enough, Jaguar escapes his captors and leads them in pursuit through the wilderness back to his home in a long, extended third act chase scene that emerges as one of the most potent of recent memory.  It is a pure adrenaline rush.  Not only does Jaguar have to elude his captures, but he also has to contend with all of the other variables, like dreadful waterfalls, decrepit sand pits, poisonous snakes, carnivorous and hungry panthers, and so on and so on.  The film’s final forty minutes is a masterpiece of tension and pacing.  Gibson, like any visionary filmmaker, goes for broke here and APOCALYPTO becomes unapologetically exciting during a time when most action-thrillers have already run out of gas.  You can sense Gibson behind the camera giggling with glee at his penchant for shocking and awing the viewers and – in one unforgettable reveal – he surprises us even in the middle of the mayhem with a twist some may have not seen coming.

Some mention needs to be made of the performances in the film, which are almost as extraordinary as the scenery and action.  Youngblood – in his first big screen performance – is outstanding here as Jaguar and it is equally powerful how h