by George Wolf
Annie
First of all, this Annie wants you to know she is a “little foster kid,” not a little orphan. That’s just one of the many updates made for the new film version of the classic musical, one that doesn’t end up being any better than the first version from 1982.
“Daddy Warbucks” is now a germaphobe business tycoon named Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), who’s made billions selling smartphones but now wants to be mayor of New York City. Will’s poll numbers aren’t good, but his advisors Grace and Guy (Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale) think a certain little girl could give him a big bump.
A chance meeting finds Will pulling 10 year-old Annie (Quvenzhane Wallis) out of the path of a speeding car, and the internet takes notice. So, why not invite the young street kid to come live in a mansion for as long as it takes to lock up the “swell guy” vote?
Director Will Gluck (Friends with Benefits/Easy A) introduces his film’s sugar-coated sheen with a colorful, pleasant opening, but things quickly fall clumsily flat. The musical numbers, which of course should be a high point, never get off the ground. Gluck’s heart is in it, and though he tries to throw in plenty of visual flair (quick cuts, props as percussion), he can’t muster the pizazz required to keep the numbers vibrant onscreen.
Wallis, so shockingly good at just six years old in Beasts of the Southern Wild, sings well enough and is an impossibly cute Annie, and that’s really all this script requires. The entire cast, most notably Cameron Diaz as mean Miss Hannigan, is pushed to exaggerated, big eyebrowed performances, which may fit the comic strip origins of the characters but often leaves the film feeling too childish.
With a two hour running time that will make the littlest viewers restless, Annie is more concerned with modernizing the plot through multiple nods to social media than actual storytelling. Despite some well-placed cameos and a few clever, self-aware asides, it ends up being a mixed bag of Christmas candy, endlessly sweet but never satisfying.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
This Christmas, Peter Jackson gives us the gift of his final trip to Middle Earth with The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (or Enough Already).
I went reluctantly to LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring back in 2001. I am not a big fan of fantasy and was never able to make it through one of Tolkien’s epics as a kid, so a cinematic adaptation held no interest. But I did go, and immediately celebrated that decision.
Peter Jackson (previously know to me solely for splatter-gore comedies) had such a facility for the landscape and heart of these Middle Earth sagas that I was immediately beguiled. And while by hour 4 of the third installment I had wearied of this first trilogy a bit, still I marveled at the accomplishment. Jackson and his versatile cast had carved out genuine characters, which made the peril and adventure all the more absorbing. The fact that Jackson’s native New Zealand lent an authentic backdrop to the derring do completed the fantasy.
The Hobbit has become a tougher slog. Though Martin Freeman continues to be a joy as Master Burglar Bilbo Baggins, the balance of the cast struggles to find dimension for their characters, and Jackson falls back far too often on swelling strings, dramatic lighting and lengthy, ponderous shots to emphasize drama.
What drama? Well, the dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) flies toward innocent Laketown to unleash his fiery fury; meanwhile Thorin Oakenshield (of the Glorious Mane Oakenshields) (Richard Armitage) begins his descent into madness, victim of the Dragon Sickness. Unbeknownst to him and his band of wee warriors, Azog the Defiler (now that is an awesome name) leads Orc armies to claim the mountain Smaug just vacated. Plus some fairies have grievances.
Unfortunately, the most interesting character is done away with before the opening credits, and though the film boasts almost constant action, it fails to hold attention.
Jackson’s first trilogy worked as well as it did because he managed to ground the high fantasy in something authentic. His second go at Tolkien abandons authenticity, creating stagey sets and falling back on theatrical performance and uncharacteristically so-so CGI. The late-film nods to the LOTR films only serve as reminders of that trilogy’s superiority. It’s time to ramble on.
Wild
There may be no more personal, more individual an emotion or experience than grief. It is, by definition, a selfish act: just you and your loss. No one can determine for you the length, depth, duration or symptoms of your own pain. Cheryl Strayed is a case in point.
Wild tells the story of how Cheryl overcame the guilt, regret, shame and profound sense of loss that overcame her after her mother’s death. Cheryl’s is a unique tale, as she is a fascinatingly individual character, but the film mines for the universality in her pain and redemption.
Wild moves back and forth between Cheryl’s 1100 mile trek across the Pacific Crest Trail and the memories that haunt her, past and present braiding together to form a clear picture of the woman emerging from her pain and the pretty jaw-droppingly dangerous behavior that pain wrought.
Though director Jean-Marc Vallee’s (Dallas Buyers Club) film gets off to a slow start, Reese Witherspoon’s performance – aided by the sometimes terrifying, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny events of Strayed’s journey – compel rapt attention.
Witherspoon leaves her comfort zone, allowing Cheryl more vulnerability and ugliness than you might expect. Strayed is comfortable enough in her skin to examine and, eventually, accept all of her own failings, so presenting the character fully is a requirement for the film to work. Witherspoon understands this and gives easily the grittiest, most naturalistic performance of her career.
Witherspoon spends an awful lot of screen time alone, Strayed’s relationship with herself the larger conflict than her relationships with the inhospitable terrain, weather, circumstances and occasional creepy guy. Her pain and self loathing are impeccably drawn, never maudlin or false, and in Witherspoon’s scenes with the equally impressive Laura Dern she sews the seeds that bloom in her time alone onscreen.
The truth is that Strayed’s grief is not typical, and her behavior is certainly extreme, yet Vallee is content to create a somewhat safe structure for the adventure: the lengthy journey punctuated by nightmares and memories that give us a glimpse into the life Strayed was trying to shake off with her hike.
Still, the understated approach allows scenes to breathe, and Strayed’s true alone-ness seeps into certain frames in a way that is deeply unsettling and yet triumphant. And there are no two words better suited to Strayed’s experiences than unsettling and triumphant, so Vallee, Witherspoon and crew were certainly doing something right.
Foxcatcher
Sibling rivalry, loneliness, competition and madness fuel director Bennett Miller’s award-worthy true crime tale Foxcatcher.
The film follows the events that unfolded as Olympic gold medal winning wrestler Mark Schultz, and later his older brother, gold medal winner Dave (Mark Ruffalo), get involved with sinister millionaire John du Pont, who’s looking to bankroll 1988 US Olympic competitors.
Tatum performs as we have simply never seen him before, a fact that may be outshone by the other two quite amazing performances. Tatum has proven himself a facile comic talent, but his dramatic skills to this point have been lackluster at best.Yet here he brings a brooding, insecure competitor to life in every facet of his performance.
The always excellent Ruffalo is likewise stellar as the more congenial, more talented of the brothers, and the two together create a realistic sibling bond, one as desperate for the other’s approval and help as he is to finally best him; the other a tender, protective mentor.
Joining them, Steve Carell is revelatory as John du Pont. Never transparent, offering no easy answers, equal parts monstrous and pathetic, Carell creates an enigmatic and unseemly presence that haunts the screen. His graceless chemistry with all cast mates creates an uneasy tension in every frame, though his scene with a marvelous Vanessa Redgrave is particularly intriguing.
One thing you can expect from a Bennett Miller film is his meticulous attention to the setting. Miller creates such rich yet understated contexts that the drama unfolding within that environment cannot help but feel authentic. Whether it’s small town 1959 Kansas rocked by murders in Capote or Billy Bean’s world of low rent MLB wheeling and dealing in Moneyball, Bennett shows such respect for the settings of these true tales that the stories immediately take root.
Foxcatcher benefits from his measured touch – from the spare score and the film’s unusual pacing to the embedded, inescapable symbolism he mines of the relationships and the sport of wrestling. It all contributes to a building sense of unease that befits the tale.
Miller may go unnoticed as the maestro behind the weird onscreen magic, but his faith in unproven talent alone is reason to hail him one remarkable director.
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Some trilogies come to a close with dragons, gold, tiny heroes, legendary foes and Ben Stiller. Wait, what?
Yes, though it may have flown under your radar, Stiller’s Night at the Museum series comes to a close with its third installment. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb completes the arc begun in 2006 when Stiller’s night watchman Larry Daly learned that, after sundown, the exhibits at New York’s Museum of Natural History come to life. (So basically, Toy Story in a museum setting.)
In 2009, Larry and his crew broke into the Smithsonian. This time around, when the golden tablet that reanimates the exhibits night after night begins to mysteriously corrode, the team heads to a London museum to repair the device and save everyone.
Truth be told, this is a series that has been sweet, imaginative but disposable from its inception.
Much fault lies with the series’ director Shawn Levy (Real Steel, Big Fat Liar), an unrepentant purveyor of anemic family fun. The Museum trilogy represents the best of his body of work. Still, he substitutes a busy screen and abundance of characters for actual pacing and energy.
The talent – Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan and others – creates likeable, rascally characters, and most draw at least a chuckle or two during the adventure.
We’re to learn that life is about letting go as Larry recognizes his son’s impending manhood, though nothing feels genuine or heartfelt. But why start now? When Levy expanded Milan Trenc’s educational children’s book to a feature film, he borrowed a concept and lengthened it with some inside jokes, some cheap theatrics, and lots of dated gags, but little in the way of heart. Its subsequent sequels rehash the same basic concepts in new museums, and because of an underlying lack of creativity and abundance of coasting on the comic timing of the cast, the sequels have all been about as entertaining as the original.
The concluding chapter offers some coincidental tear jerking as Robin Williams delivers lines more moving because of their real-life context than their importance to the film. There are some other mildly amusing, well placed gags and gimmicks, and an awful lot of rehashing. If you and yours enjoyed the first two installments, the third promises more of exactly the same. The rest of us can overlook the third episode, exactly as we did the first two.
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