HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE

Director: Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco, Pushing Tin)
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, many more

As my favorite of the Harry Potter books I had high hopes for this release. As the book weighed in at a chunky 750 pages, however, I knew it would be a difficult story to adapt to the screen. Both my hopes and fears were fully recognized in this fine, but hardly exceptional film. The story was about Harry testing his wits and knowledge of magic in the Tri-Wizard Tournament against competitors of other wizarding schools. It was also about a dastardly, and successful, plot by the evil Voldemort to return to power. In the film nearly all of the joy, and childlike fantasy, and battles of wits that filled the book were removed in favor of pure action. This … is disappointing to me. However, the action worked and I’m willing to accept it for what it was. After a first viewing this is probably my least favorite of the films, but only by a slight margin. This is still a thoroughly enjoyable and notable movie. (November 21)


Standouts: The Potter kids acting. They tackled their first forays into adult emotion very well.
Blowouts: The script. Left out the Winnie the Pooh delight in favor of the Rambo physicality.

Grade: B+

11/22/2005

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Director: Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow)
Starring: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmoor, David Kelly

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have “re-imagined” the almost classic children’s tale of Willy Wonka into a more psychologically grounded, albeit less fantastic voyage. Oh yes, there are bigger sights, and louder sounds, but much less whimsy in this version of the magical chocolate factory. Nonetheless, it is a fine little film taken in its own right – although it is difficult to take remakes “in their own right”, and perhaps rather pointless to do so. Johnny Depp got a lot of bad press for his Michael Jackson-esque portrayal of the childlike, yet creepy, Willy Wonka. I thought his role, while not a standout, was perfectly legitimate given the tone of this film. I will admit, however, that he was at the heart of the lack-of-heart in this film. Depp was creepy and weird as Wonka, but he was also entirely unlovable. Gene Wilder beat him by leaps and bounds on that score. A solid movie, but if you’re going to buy a Wonka DVD for your kids, you damn well better be buying the Gene Wilder original.

Standouts: Tim Burton’s unique direction. Freddie Highmoor as Charlie Bucket.
Blowouts: Johnny Depp – not necessarily bad, just weird.

Grade: B

7/23/2005

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

Director: Andrew Adamson (Shrek, Shrek 2)
Starring: Tilda Swinton, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, voice of Liam Neeson)

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, which is not to say that I found nothing to fault, just that I had a very good time throughout. It’s a classic story for good reason, and this production was mainly true to it. Oh, there were a few Hollywood-isms that would pop up now and again in the great final battle, such as silly, overdone swordplay and whatnot, and there's no denying that they turned the great battle into a Lord of the Rings’ type spectacle. Yes, this film tried to be a little bit of everything to everyone. Direct from the book was the Christian symbolism for the Jesus set and the humorous beavers and fauns for the kids, but the massive CGI spectacle was all Hollywood for the PG13 crowd. I’m pleased to say that although this was no masterpiece, I can’t fault them in the slightest for their attempts to sell tickets. Most of what was on the screen worked well.

And now on to Jesus. Yes, this story is vaguely allegorical, or at least it's heavy with Christian symbolism, with its sacrificial Lion, Aslan, Peter the high king on earth, and raging battle between good and evil. Here’s the kicker though: it’s quite a bit more than that. CS Lewis was smart enough to get many of the important and wonderful bits of the Christian tale and plug them into a rip-roaring story of great originality. This is not The Passion of the Christ, where the ‘true believers’ can wallow in their in own persecution. This is a story of imagination, sacrifice, great adventure, love, and childish delight (and Turkish Delight) for all people who can appreciate such things. Despite a handful of lines that I suspect are modern additions to the story to appease the worries of the current crop of faithful, I certainly did.

Of particular note in this film was the use of CGI. Aslan the Lion was extraordinarily well done with Liam Neeson voicing him to perfection in sad, yet strong tones. This was a beautiful digital fantasyland that exceeded most anything I’ve seen before. Additionally, I must give praise to Tilda Swinton as the White Witch. She gave a wonderful, fearsome performance.

Standouts: Great story, very good use of CGI, wonderfully imaginative.
Blowouts: A few (rather cheesy) modern additions for the benefit of our current crop of Christians, and/or the PG13 crowd.

Grade: A-

12/15/2005

TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE

Director: Tim Burton(Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Beetlejuice, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow)
Starring: Voices of Johnny Depp, Emily Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Tracy Ullman, Albert Finney)

First off please allow me to complain about the title of this film, would you? I don’t like having Tim Burton’s name in the freaking title. Get over yourself Timmy and sell some damn tickets without using a horrible title. Believe me, anyone who knows anything about Tim Burton and The Nightmare Before Christmas knows enough about this flick to decide whether to buy a ticket or not.

Whew. Sorry. I had a Bill O'Reilley/terrible twos moment there. I apologize.

Okay, now to the movie itself. I’ll begin by saying that I was a huge fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I thought it was an enormous success creatively, visually, stylistically and even musically. I loved Halloweentown and all the characters that lived in it. Alas, I love neither the drab no name town, nor the brighter and cheerier land of death in this similar claymation film. Burton has gone to these places before. Beetlejuice was pointedly about the exciting and fun afterlife, and I won’t bother to count the number of times he’s shown the everyday ho-hum world in a gray palette, whether figuratively or visually. There’s nothing wrong with these ideas. It’s a fine notion to paint the imagination of death as fantastical and alluring, but I don’t think that he did a particularly good job this time round.

Death, I say? Yes, that’s the fantasyland of this film. Johnny Depp is the voice of a sweet, soft, quiet boy matched by his parents for marriage to a sweet, soft, quiet girl with wicked parents. It’s a perfect match as a wedding, but alas, Johnny accidentally puts the wedding ring onto the outstretched finger of a corpse (while practicing his vows) and ends up betrothed to a dead woman. I won’t go into too many details here, although that is where the joy of this film lives, in the little singing black widows and the like.

The new couple head briefly to “Deadville”, or whatever the town of the dead is called. Of course, all must eventually be worked out. Johnny must find his living bride, and the corpse bride must get retribution from the baddie who killed her on her original wedding day. Fear not, they all do just that.

I have many complaints about the film, but I should note that it’s by no means an awful production. Much was fine, and parts did work. I simply found that for a number of reasons, the film didn’t come together anywhere nearly as well as The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s disappointing to me as I think this film could have been quite good. I won’t go into too much depth on the problems except to say that the music, acting and script were rather weak. I feel that each of these had the roots to be quite good, but that nothing grew out of it. The music was usually quite mundane, the script felt very rushed to me, and I rarely felt that the characters ever got “fleshed out” so to speak, whether they were living or dead. I liked the job Emily Watson and Helena Carter did, but I don’t think the script gave them much of a chance to really create characters. To probably mangle a phrase I attribute to Robert Evans, “If it’s not on the page, it won’t be on the screen”.

This was an average film that at its heart was quite creative, and could have been much more. A disappointment.

Standouts: Aspects of the art design and visuals were interesting, and at its heart this was a very creative story.
Blowouts: Script, music and some acting was “thin”.

Grade: C+

12/14/2005