Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

#184 - Up
Pete Docter, 2009



After his wife dies of old age, an old man decides to honour their unrealised plans to go adventuring by making his house fly using balloons.

Up is still one of the best Pixar movies in existence, never mind its rather implausible premise that is still prone to the occasional moment where the suspension of disbelief gives way (not even Pixar is immune to this). Starting off with one of the saddest opening sequences in animation history, it immediately sets up protagonist Carl as a plucky young boy who gets worn down by the passage of time into a grouchy old man, especially after his wife dies. When a group of land developers plan on moving him into a retirement home so they can demolish his house, he turns to his old trade as a balloon salesman and decides to fly his house to South America. However, he picks up an eager young Boy Scout looking to earn his "assisting the elderly" badge and thus a very amusing odd-couple dynamic develops. Once the pair reach South America the plot starts going in an interesting direction, but if you haven't managed to see Up yet and still want to then go do that then I won't say much more. Let's just say that the sudden introduction of a character voiced by a well-respected Oscar-winner really kicks the film into gear as the film shifts from its mismatched buddy comedy to something a bit more action-oriented - at least the shift is gradual and welcome by that point.

The animation is up to the usual Pixar standard - though it's undoubtedly been improved upon in the years since, it works well in the context of its fanciful narrative set in an exotic location with some colourful characters. Given the premise, there are naturally a lot of aerial sequences (especially in the film's second half) that are shot through with vigour and imagination and no small amount of humour. It's backed up well enough by a score that is more nuanced than you would think for a film like this. Though some aspects of the film may come across as a little mawkish (The old man never had kids! The kid's dad is never around! Will they slowly form a bond at all?) all the elements seem to work just fine and it helps that there's a very strong emotional core that sets the bar high even for a company that knows how to play to an audience as well as Pixar does. Definitely my favourite Pixar movie that doesn't involve sentient toys and definitely recommended to people of all ages.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

I wasn't a fan of Up when I first saw it, but I re-watched it recently for the animation list, and I liked it this time, but it's still nowhere near my favorite Pixar movie.

Up is excellent. While I didn't particularly want either to win the Animation Countdown I would have preferred Up to Toy Story. Great review Iro

Sounds like you'll have to join mark and myself in our campaign for the return of the 90 minute feature film.

__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.

Glad I'm not the only one who is not a fan of the horribly balanced Adjustment Bureau. I literally laughed out loud for several minutes when they were talking about the stupid hats.

__________________
"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

I was so disappointed in Snowtown that I feel like I missed something and need to
watch it again.

#185 - The Island
Michael Bay, 2005



In the not-too-distant future, two residents of a complex sealed off against the outside world learns the horrible truth about their world and must fight for their freedom.

There is an obscure sci-fi film from 1979 titled Parts: The Clonus Horror, which is mainly remembered for two reasons. One is that it was so bad that it ended up being featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The other is that the director successfully sued DreamWorks over the fact that The Island copied its entire premise from that particular film. Granted, the premise is an intriguing one, but it just seems so amusing that a filmmaker as widely criticised as Michael Bay would direct a film that ripped off a film so bad it appeared on MST3K. The real question is whether or not his version manages to improve at all on its apparently inferior source.

Unfortunately, what little goodwill Bay and co. engender as a result of the premise is squandered pretty quickly by the haphazard quality of the execution. You can easily pick apart a lot of the influences that are repeated without innovation, but at least that is somewhat compensated for by some decent production design (that even gets picked apart in-universe - at one point Ewan McGregor's protagonist complains about how the all-white uniforms make no sense because they get dirty so easily). The cinematography at least gets some strong colours and balances going, but it's shot to hell by the shakiness of much of the camerawork and the extremely choppy editing that is presumably trying to give action sequences a sense of intensity (as is the bombastic orchestral score). It's a shame because some of the chases and stunts look pretty decent when the camera actually focuses on them for more than a second.

The acting, well, I guess it doesn't help that the two leads are deliberately designed to have an adolescent sense of maturity, but at least McGregor and Scarlett Johansson are good enough to not make a mess of their roles (especially McGregor, who gets to play two distinct characters - in fairness, the film does a good job of crafting scenes that feature both of McGregor's characters). Other characters cover familiar ground such as Sean Bean's seemingly friendly villain, Djimon Hounsou's amoral mercenary, and Steve Buscemi's nervous scientist. The Island isn't a terrible movie but it doesn't make the most of its admittedly derivative premise and still gets bogged down by the kind of big-budget bloat that one has come to expect from Michael Bay. Even so, this still has enough problems that I can't imagine it being significantly better in the hands of a different director. Recommended if you need something nice and simple to pass the time.

#186 - 2010
Peter Hyams, 1984



Nine years after the events of 2001: A Space Odyssey, an expedition team of Americans and Russians sets out for Jupiter to find out the truth behind what happened.

It still seems weird to think of 2001: A Space Odyssey as a film that ever actually needed a sequel, but I guess Arthur C. Clarke and Peter Hyams thought differently. At least the premise of a rescue team finding out just what happened at the end of the first film made some degree of sense, even if it does ultimately play out like a somewhat generic space-faring mission for the most part. The rest of it, well, it gets a bit worse considering how 2010 seems dedicated to taking every single unique element from 2001 and providing a more concrete explanation. What actually happened to Bowman? Why did HAL malfunction? Why do those monoliths exist? While the relative ambiguity of the original film served both the film and audiences just fine, this film's lack of it just seems like a fairly basic attempt to justify a sequel. The inclusion of a Cold War allegory as a result of having Americans and Russians team up for a secret mission does seem especially on-the-nose, even if it does guarantee a possible source of tension between the astronauts.

There are some decent actors in the mix like Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren and John Lithgow, but they generally aren't given all that much material. In Scheider's case, there's too much to work with as the first twenty minutes take place on Earth and establish that Heywood Floyd apparently has a whole new family and home life, which makes me question how much of that was really necessary to the film. Granted, the effects work is decent enough, especially exterior shots set in space and the production design does a decent enough job of replicating the design of the original. The problem is that 2010 can't seem to make up its mind over whether or not to fully replicate 2001 or try to strike out on its own with a much more conventional space explorer's narrative, but its attempts to compromise the two distinct sides makes for a rather boring mess of a film. The effects may be decent, but they don't do all that much to help a film that wouldn't be of any significant interest without its connection to a much more renowned film.

#187 - The Day the Earth Stood Still
Robert Wise, 1951



An alien lands his spacecraft in Washington D.C. with peaceful intentions but the resident humans don't trust him.

The weird thing about watching black-and-white science-fiction films from the 1950s in the present day is how a lot of the best ones feel almost indistinguishable from the memorably awful B-movies from the same era. The Day the Earth Stood Still does feel like a glorified B-movie at times, especially considering the relative simplicity of its premise and characterisation. It's a novel enough premise given the time period - an alien invading Earth is familiar, but making them a good alien who means no harm yet is still considered a threat simply because they're an alien - that definitely stands the test of time no matter how many other pieces of fiction about benevolent invaders have appeared in its wake. My main problem is that how it struggles a bit to make the most of that premise and fill out its relatively short running time.

The first act is decent enough and introduces protagonist Klaatu (Michael Rennie), an alien who comes in peace but the effects of his peacekeeping equipment (disintegrating the military's weapons and artillery) make the top brass deem him enough of a threat to detain. The second act involves Klaatu escaping military custody and going incognito as a human so as to learn more about the real inhabitants of the Earth (as opposed to the incredibly restrictive military personnel he initially encounters), which is nice and all but doesn't hold my interest at all despite being of some importance to the film's message about tolerance. It's not like I was expecting this to be some effects-heavy action-packed kind of film, but even so I couldn't help but be a little bored by it during the middle part. This leads me to the third act, which naturally ramps up the tension and features a climax and denouement that demonstrates its core message (perhaps a bit too hard, as any movie that tries to get its point across in a climatic filibuster tends to do). At least with this film the effects that are featured are reasonably good and the acting isn't terrible (not by '50s sci-fi standards, anyway), but even so it's more than a little underwhelming for a sci-fi classic.

#188 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Gavin Hood, 2009



A prequel to the X-Men films that follows Wolverine as he is recruited into a squad of mutant soldiers that ultimately causes all sorts of problems for him.

Morbid curiosity drove me to check out this apparently very bad prequel to the original X-Men trilogy that followed everyone's favourite X-Man and explained his back-story. Even if I were to leave aside how badly this whole film clashes with the franchise as a whole when it comes to continuity or how it supposedly ruins a fan-favourite character or two in the process, it doesn't stop it from being aggressively boring for the most part. Hugh Jackman plays Wolverine the same as usual - general gruffness tempered with the occasional moment of emotional vulnerability. This is countered by Liev Schreiber as his mutant half-brother Sabretooth (who doesn't get called Sabretooth in this movie, but whatever, that's practically nothing compared to a lot of the movie's other problems) who feels like little more than someone trying to do an evil impression of Jackman-as-Wolverine. Most of the other performances don't leave any positive impressions. The exception is Ryan Reynolds of all people as the man who would be Deadpool, with his all-too-brief screen-time being a highlight, which is rare for this film. It's a shame because good performances might have been able to compensate for the incredibly poor writing. The film is riddled with plot holes, badly handled exposition, and blatant clichés that are woeful even for a comic book movie. Now, I know that movies of this calibre are supposed to be for entertainment and I shouldn't take them so seriously. The problem is that this movie's flaws are honestly so egregious that they frequently break the suspension of disbelief in ways that can't simply be credited to characters' apparent lapses in judgment.

You'd think that a recent blockbuster about a popular superhero would at least manage to fit in some decent effects work, but plenty of the effects here are not very well-done even by the standards established in the previous X-Men movies. Extremely fake CGI is everywhere, from Wolverine's claws to an attempt to radically de-age a certain other character. As far as superhero movies go, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is bad in multiple different ways. The fact that it's a prequel starring a pair of nigh-invulnerable immortals and several other characters who definitely survive to be in the franchise's original installments sucks a lot of tension out of the whole film and it's not like the remaining characters are interesting enough to care about anyway. Even though a film as full of problems as this one should present at least some ironic amusement, it's ultimately very lacking in that as well.

#189 - When Harry Met Sally...
Rob Reiner, 1989



Follows the titular characters as they initially dislike each other but soon form an intense friendship over the years.

Maybe it's because it's been imitated to death since its release. Maybe it's because I'm at a point in my own personal development where I find the characters and their conflicts uninteresting rather than relatable. Maybe it's because the film's emphasis on fast-talking neurosis in a New York setting reminded me of a certain acclaimed filmmaker whose work does very little for me. Maybe I just don't find it funny. In any case, I actually did not like When Harry Met Sally.... It's hard to place how I almost never found it genuinely amusing. This was the work of a director who had made at least two of my all-time favourite comedies (one of which also features Billy Crystal), but while those were deliberate parodies of long-standing genres (music documentary and swashbuckler respectively), this is an underwhelmingly straightforward romantic comedy. Not even the few curveballs that the film throws, such as the various interludes where old married couples recount how they first met, do anything to cover for the fact that, widespread influence or not, this is still a painfully generic excuse for a romantic comedy. It's times like these where my attempt to review a film becomes less an attempt to inform an audience about a film and more a way for me to process the film and articulate just why I felt the way I did about it. A rather selfish way to think of it, but if that's what it takes...

I've found Billy Crystal quite funny in other films, but here his talkative yet depressive Harry doesn't prove amusing or endearing no matter how many nihilistic one-liners he might spout off. Meg Ryan isn't any better as the incredibly prim and proper Sally who is in her own way just as neurotic as Harry. It doesn't help that the film's reputation virtually guarantees that there won't be any significant conflict between these two over the course of the film Other characters aren't much better - about the only other characters who get any remotely significant development are their best friends (Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher respectively) and even then there's barely any development for their talent to even try to carry. Of unfortunate note are the facts that the direction is bland and that the score consisting of relentless smooth jazz tunes (some with vocals, some without) does little to help matters. When I give a film one-and-a-half rating it usually means that I don't care at all about what's going on with the characters or the conflicts in the narrative. When Harry Met Sally... definitely feels that inconsequential, which is disappointing considering that it takes place over the course of a decade and wraps up in a mere ninety minutes or so. It jut sort of exists and proves extremely disengaging. Normally, a film full of relentless screwball banter should appeal to my sensibilities but here it just comes across as obnoxious and uninteresting. Maybe if I get to the point where all I care about is whether I'm married or divorced or whatever then I'll probably try to give this film a second chance, but until then, I'm just going to be disappointed.

#190 - Fantastic Voyage
Richard Fleischer, 1966



When a defecting Soviet scientist develops a life-threatening blood clot following an assassination attempt, a submarine and its crew are shrunk to microscopic size so they can be injected into the scientist's body and eradicate the clot.

Ah, the plot that launched a thousand episodes for a thousand different cartoon shows - that of the "shrink people to microscopic size and insert them into another person's body because of reasons" premise. Despite that particular pop-cultural assocation, Fantastic Voyage is reasonably enjoyable on its own merits. It naturally keeps things short, though it does spend a bit too much time setting up its premise in relation to the rest of the film. It sets up a fairly predictable set of characters to go on its titular voyage - the uninformed yet capable protagonist, the extremely nervous scientist who's never been in the field, the token female character, etc. They are all played reasonably well, but the main emphasis is not particularly on the characters - or the plot, for that matter. Sure, there's the occasional complication that feels like it's intended to stretch out the film rather than provide an intriguing twist in the tale, but as long as it results in a brand-new setpiece for our heroes to navigate, it's tolerable.

There is the sub-plot where one of the members of the expedition is actually a saboteur, which does manage to be rather intriguing. Of course, this ends up being one of the science-fiction films where the spectacle becomes more important than the substance. Fortunately, the spectacle is strong enough to adequately compensate for any possible narrative shortcomings. Though some of the sets look like they came from old episodes of Star Trek, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you're interested in sci-fi, Fantastic Voyage is a must-see, if only because of historical reasons. The premise may have become something of a cliché in recent years, but it still hits all the marks that its premise would entail with no problem at all.

Iro's One Movie I Hate A day Thread.

I'm not a particularly big fan of any X-Men movies but even within that context I thought both Wolverine movies were pretty disappointing. Just felt like the whole purpose was to cash in on the series and Jackman's current popularity.

I liked When Harry Met Sally. Generally I like Crystal's neurotic characters when used in a movie with a little bit of depth like this or City Slickers.

Robert Wise is a bit hit or miss for me as I really like The Set Up & The Sand Pebbles but don't think much of Star Trek or West Side Story. TDTESS is probably in the middle of those - I liked it but it's not one of his best IMO.

Yeah, this is basically my thread in a nutshell:

#191 - RoboCop 3
Fred Dekker, 1993



When war breaks out between the corrupt OCP corporation and the residents of a Detroit slum, it's up to RoboCop to save the day.

It says a lot about how much I like the original RoboCop that I'm willing to sit through not one but two considerably inferior sequels. While RoboCop 2 had its moments that made me think that it was at least close to being a worthwhile successor to its predecessor, RoboCop 3 is quite simply a mess. Never mind the fact that they replaced the inimitable Peter Weller (actor with limited range though he was) with a very different-sounding yet similar-looking actor - that ultimately ends up being the least of the film's problems. It takes about twenty minutes or so before the titular hero appears so that the film can set up the real estate conflict that drives the plot. Even then, he still doesn't do much of use for a sizeable portion of the plot (mainly the second act, which is rather lengthy). Rather, it's down to the resistance fighters to provide the interest - and it doesn't help that one of them ends up being a small child who is somehow capable of reprogramming giant robots. It's as if Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome convinced sci-fi action filmmakers that the key to success when making the third part of a trilogy was to add in precocious children and water things down to a PG-13 rating.

Despite the obvious class warfare implied by its premise, RoboCop 3 is incredibly lacking in virtually any kind of satire and seems intent on placating audiences by any means necessary (even if it means referencing the beloved original, whose audience it's not that likely to appease anyway). The introduction of an antagonist that basically comes across as a more human-looking and efficient version of RoboCop (and since it's built by a Japanese corporation, of course it fights with a samurai sword) sounds like it could have been interesting, but it really just comes across as the RoboCop franchise attempting to rip off the T-1000. The action does come across as awfully dated even for 1993 - that whole climax just felt too much like the climax of Death Wish 3 but with a flying cyborg grafted into the picture. Criticising this film by comparing it to previous action films may seem like a cop-out, but it's no better than what this joyless excuse for a sequel deserves.

#192 - Death Wish II
Michael Winner, 1982



After relocating to Los Angeles following the events of the original Death Wish, an architect returns to his vigilante ways when a vicious street gang brutally attacks his housekeeper and his daughter.

I panned the original Death Wish for trying to take itself too seriously and gave Death Wish 3 a relative amount of levity for at least going overboard with its ludicrous vengeance formula. In terms of tone, Death Wish II falls squarely in between the first film's seriousness and the third film's campiness and ultimately ends up being even worse than either. Part of what makes Death Wish II a legitimately bad film is that it falls prey to what I've decided to call "Rocky II Syndrome" because as with that film, it's a sequel whose entire premise rests on undoing the point of its predecessor simply for the sake of producing a whole new film. While that doesn't necessarily guarantee a sequel's inferiority (by that rationale, Terminator 2 would count as such a film), the law of averages dictates that it will generally be for the worse. In the original Death Wish, the real tragedy of Charles Bronson's rampage against the criminals of New York is that he never managed to kill the people who drove him to vengeance - even if he did kill them, in all probability he would never know for certain that they were the ones responsible. Death Wish II, the first of four sequels that takes Bronson's brand of vigilante justice to increasingly ridiculous heights, makes it so that Bronson knows exactly which gang members to kill (complete with handy flashbacks to remind the audience how he knows). Of course, this just makes the whole film feel like a bad slasher movie more than anything else as Bronson slowly goes after his victims one by one with the occasional breather or complication. The film even goes so far as to reintroduce the detective who pursued Bronson during the previous film only to have him take Bronson's side, though his new love interest is understandably perturbed by the subject of vigilante murders.

As with its successor, Death Wish II is scored by none other than Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame, which results in a score that bounces haphazardly because histrionic but memorable guitar-based stings and incredibly generic low-rent cinematic scores. The film-making itself is cheap, amateurish and exploitative, which I guess is what a film like this deserves. After watching two other Death Wish films I should know what to expect by now, but even when you're going in expecting a lurid, violence-soaked action thriller that's almost perfectly okay with murderous vengeance, this film still bounces between being a disappointment (in terms of not being even half as entertaining as its successor) and meeting incredibly low expectations (as set by its predecessor). It remains to be seen whether or not I'll end up watching the remaining two Death Wish films but I can't imagine them being much worse than this one.

#193 - Marathon Man
John Schlesinger, 1976



A young college student is thrown into a world of paranoia and danger when he becomes the target of a sadistic Nazi war criminal.

Marathon Man is a great little time capsule of a movie that does summarise reasonably well how a typical American thriller played out in the 1970s. It roots itself in that most timeless of suspense narratives - that of the ordinary person unsuspectingly getting dragged into a dangerous situation - and grounds it in a very well-realised setting. Dustin Hoffman plays the titular protagonist, a college student and marathon runner who is haunted by his past, which catches back up to him when his secret agent brother (Roy Scheider) comes back to New York with the intention of tracking down a Nazi war criminal (Laurence Olivier), who has come back intending to retrieve a large stash of diamonds belonging to his late brother. After a fairly protracted first act that sets all the wheels in motion, it's all downhill from there as Hoffman gets dragged in to finish off what his brother started.

First act aside, Marathon Man is a pretty good thriller. William Goldman really knows how to write a film, and though the dialogue doesn't have quite as much flair as I've come to expect from other films he's scripted, the way that the second and third acts unfold make for gripping paranoid fiction. The acting is also solid - Hoffman gives it his all as a friendly young man who is slowly broken by the events of the film, but Olivier steals the show as the film's softly-spoken but incredibly cruel and obsessive villain. John Schlesinger definitely knows how to best capture the seedier side of New York and play out the suspense and thrills with gusto. I do appreciate any film that can successfully generate a strong sense of conspiracy where the hapless protagonist is never quite sure which of the other characters he can trust or if he can even trust the world around him anymore. A solid thriller and definitely recommended.

Some films I really like there, Iro, including HK 100 favourite When Harry Met Sally. I love that film, it's the best rom-com and has great dialogue, beautifully put over by Crystal and Ryan (who had the added benefit for me of never looking better than she did in this). I think the Harry Connick Jr's renditions of the classics works well with the vibe of the film. However, I think Manhattan is Woody Allen's best film, so maybe there's a reason why this all works well for me.

It's great to see you give Fantastic Voyager kind words. As you may know, I really like that film and the sets are a big reason why. It just all looks such fun. There a theory that, in comedy, if it looks like the cast had a great time making it, then they probably did and it was a better time than the audience had watching them. I feel a bit like that with sets, with the exception that the more fun it looked for them to be at work, the more fun I'll have with it and Fantastic Voyage is towards the front of that queue.

A question about The Day The Earth Stood Still. When you wrote

Are you saying that The Day The Earth Stood Still isn't a B-Movie? Or that the despite the differences between great and terrible B-Movies, being able to tell between them simply from production values isn't one of them.

I've never bothered with Robocop 3. Like you I love the first and think the second is good/fun enough to be happy with it, despite it never getting near the heights of the original. I always thought that the third one looked like one of those films made from a two/three parter of the TV series. And not a good one, either.

#194 - RoboCop
José Padilha, 2014



When a police officer is suddenly murdered after investigating a criminal operation, a robotics corporation uses him as part of their prototype cyborg police officer.

When it comes to a remake of a film one has already seen, judging said remake on its own terms is difficult because more often than not it's hard to push one's opinion of its source, whether positive or negative, out of one's mind. The 2014 version of RoboCop sounds like it could have had some potential despite the first impression it makes being that of a slick yet relatively bloodless PG-13 remake of a notoriously violent B-movie. Unfortunately, RoboCop ends up filling out that first impression rather accurately, and though it's not terrible, it's hard to think of all that much to recommend about it.

Now, credit where credit's due, it does make an attempt to try to do something unique while still following the same basic narrative of the original film, most notably by trying to flesh out the development of RoboCop. Unfortunately, it's pretty telling how the film will focus on what amounts to an overextended training montage rather that develop any sufficiently compelling external conflicts or antagonists. Michael Keaton is the film's primary antagonist, who is (naturally) a corrupt CEO more concerned with the bottom line than the well-being of others. A clichéd role, of course, but Keaton does show some decent enough chops underneath it, as does Gary Oldman as the chief scientist who is conflicted about his role in the building of RoboCop. Samuel L. Jackson hams it up by playing a wildly opinionated media pundit who serves as a sort of Greek chorus to the film, though it's debatable as to how much these scenes actually contribute to the film beyond some extremely ham-fisted satire (which I should expect given how it's RoboCop, but here it just feels like an obligation) and a rather clumsy means of bookending the film. Unfortunately, the bulk of the other characters don't get much development or are portrayed particularly well. Given how much more emphasis this film places on Alex Murphy struggling to maintain his humanity as he is turned into a machine (instead of just afterwards), they probably could have gotten someone a bit more distinctive in terms of looks and personality than Joel Kinnaman shows here.

Effects-wise, well, it's decent enough, I guess. Some of the sequences do feel so overly dependent on CGI that it starts to feel like you're watching someone else play a videogame (such as one part of RoboCop's training where he is made to take on dozens of robots at once) and much of the action just feels extremely anticlimatic even without taking the logical inconsistencies and some especially unnecessary variations on the source material into account. It easily could've been a lot worse, but I don't particularly recommend it to anyone.