WAR OF THE WORLDS

Director: Steven Spielberg ( no major film work)
Starring: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin

The latest Stephen Spielberg summer blockbuster is a moderately entertaining, moderately successful film. While it touches on large issues like our current fears of terrorism, and how society deals with them, it does no more than touch. It doesn’t quite overcome the limits of a standard sci-fi adventure flick, despite seeming to try. Again and again in Spielberg’s films we see what a master he’s become at the visual medium. This is perhaps surprising given his early work, but there are few directors out there with such a beautiful body of moving pictures. The evil machines destroying America quite effectively evoke early sci-fi design, but still create a palpable sense of fear in the viewer. They’re creepy, creepy things. Still they serve little artistic purpose beyond eye candy. It’s unfortunate that the director isn’t quite willing or able to create works of art rather than these standard movie spectacles. It certainly seems like he’s trying to turn this film into a commentary on society after 9/11, with some of the basest human emotions bubbling to the surface in the face of trauma. Unfortunately, just when the film seems like it’s going to work on this level, the plot turns into nothing more than hero Tom Cruise saving his kids from the bad guys. Similar to The Terminal, a recent Spielberg film, this movie attempts to be something more than entertainment, but just misses. Good solid entertainment, but I still think Steve-O can do better. He needs some more Schindler’s Lists thrown in amongst his Jurassic Park 2s.

Standouts: Adventure, evil baddies, and nice design and production.
Blowouts: Uneven script. In parts it’s smart and interesting, in others, somewhat banal.

Grade: B

7/10/2005

THE ISLAND (DVD)

Director: Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, The Rock)
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi

Long ago (well, 1996) Michael Bay directed The Rock with Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery. I very much enjoyed that film. It was fun, stupid action entertainment done well. The movie, and the director, and the actors knew that it was fun, stupid entertainment. Ever since that film Michael Bay has time and again made truly awful pictures. He seemed to confuse the stupid pictures he was making with better quality work. Or perhaps he thought he actually was making better quality work. Who knows? The end result is a series of movies that don’t have a clue how dumb they are. This is disappointing. Bay is certainly a quality professional, talented enough to make a smart movie, or at least more fun entertainment like The Rock. Instead that talent has been wasted on flicks like Pearl Harbor, my pick for the most offensive film of the last decade. (It’s not nearly the worst made film, but it is the most condescending piece of crap Hollywood has foisted on us in quite some time.)

So, where does The Island fit into this depressing parade of Bay’s work? It’s better than Pearl Harbor and Armageddon, but like those films it has no soul. At times it wants to be smart, or perhaps just smart enough so that people like me will stop calling Bay a Hollywood leach. The film just can’t help but be stupid though.

The Island is the story of a colony of cloned humans basically used as organ farms for the rich and famous. A nefarious doctor secretly creates these clones (somehow they are born as fully functioning adults) and placates them by telling them that the world outside has been polluted. They therefore remain happy and isolated in their little clone factory until their original human templates need their organs. At this point, the clones are told they have won the lottery and are going to “the island”, which they believe to be the only piece of earth that remains unpolluted. They then walk happily into the arms of the organ harvesting surgeons.

Frankly, this is not a bad plot. Cloning is a nice little charged topic for a story right now, and it really could work quite well as a science fiction movie, or perhaps even better as a morality tale. Unfortunately, Bay decides that this is an action film. So, the plot I described above occurs entirely in the first third of the film. The final 90 minutes is nothing but chase scenes that have been far better done in a thousand other movies. It’s nothing but Ewen McGregor and Scarlett Johansson being hunted. Worst of all, there’s very little excitement to the hunt. Then, of course, they go back and rescue all of the other clones in a spectacle that includes the mandated 1 on 1 fight to the death between Ewen and the evil doctor.

The worst bits of this film for me were a hundred dumb little plot points that I won’t bother to get into, but when they are combined with the rather boring and silly action, and the massively confused tone of the film, it adds up to a downer of a film experience. This is yet another Bay film that talks down to it’s viewing audience. It’s glossy and professional and vaguely interesting in spots, but mostly it’s an entirely disposable film.

I’d also like to note that this movie doesn’t seem to understand what clones are. Instead of genetic twins like a real clone would be, these clones seem to be identical copies of people that include their memories and much more. Weird. I really don’t have a problem suspending my disbelief on that one, but if someone has the guts to make a story about clones while it’s being debated in society, I wish they’d at least try to get the most basic facts straight.

Standouts: A fine core to the story with glossy production and perfectly good acting. I really like Sean Bean.
Blowouts: Michael Bay. What did the viewing public ever do to him to deserve this abuse, huh?

Grade: C

12/23/2005