Immortals (2011)

4/5

Tarsem's Immortals took me by surprise. I was initially excited to see it, after enjoying Tarsem's previous film The Fall, but my desire waned after countless negative reviews piled up. I almost entirely gave up on it until I found it on Netflix the other day. I must have watched it at the last possible moment because the next day it was no longer available for streaming. And I'm glad I did.

The plot is straightforward and seems to be made entirely for people who want nothing more than an action movie: King Hyperion (Rourke) steals the Epirus Bow so that he can use it to release the Titans from their prison beneath Mount Tartarus. Theseus (Cavill), a peasant who witnesses his mother's death, is the only one courageous enough to fight back. Zeus (Evans) believes so much in the humans' ability to combat evil that he threatens all the other gods on Olympus with death if they attempt to come to the aid of the humans.

As I said: simple, uninspired. But something about it stirs up excitement and emotion, and I'm betting it's all that Greek mythology. Tarsem gives us a striking visual oasis, with eye-catching costumes, luscious landscapes, and seamless computer graphics. Add in some of the coolest fighting I've seen, and who cares about the story anymore? Tarsem defies the current trend in crappy modern action flicks of fast cuts and shaky camera movements. Instead he uses "bullet time" photography, and he uses it wonderfully, pausing on sweet moves before speeding up for some fast action. The editing is tight and keeps the film lean and tense.

As for the negatives, the acting is passable (although that is honestly better than what I was expecting) and the unnecessary voice-over doesn't detract too much from the film (but that's probably because there isn't much of it). For what it aims to be, it's pretty close to perfection. I highly recommend this movie for anyone who wants a cleanly-shot and strikingly beautiful mindless action film.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1600195/

Public Enemies (2009)

2/5

Michael Mann's Public Enemies is a disappointment from start to finish. The plot follows bank robber John Dillinger (Depp) in the early 1930's and the rising crime spree that spurs the police to declare a war on crime. Melvin Purvis (Bale) is put in charge of the Dillinger Squad and is responsible for taking him down, dead or alive. Where Mann's films usually succeed--tense action--here he fails. The gunfights are little more than confusing cuts and annoying noise. The fact that everyone looks, dresses, and talks the same makes it even harder to tell what's going on and who's getting shot. It completely deflates the tension. Mann's use of digital cameras at night without lighting worked in his modern revision of Miami Vice, but the grainy picture feels anachronistic in this film. The romance with Billie Frechette (Cotillard) actually feels slightly stronger here than in his previous films, although love stories were never his strong suit. But all in all, it's a fairly frustrating film and simply doesn't live up to my expectations. I don't know who should see this film, but I would not recommend it.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152836/

Nanking (2007)

3/5

Nanking describes the events of the winter of 1937 in Nanking, China: the heinous crimes committed by the Japanese during their occupation of the city and the protection offered by foreigners who created a Safety Zone. It serves mostly as a description, however, and doesn't succeed as a documentary. It is too mild and tepid to make any point worth making. It seems too afraid to offend, reiterating how all Japanese were not the cruel villains committing these sins. But it does not condemn the evil that caused it; in fact, it says nothing at all of evil, or of the nature of mankind, or of anything global or universal. It relays facts and draws no conclusions, and so we walk out of the theater knowing a little more about a tragic series of specific events and nothing else.

That being said, there are several moments that just tear me up inside thinking of them; horrifying firsthand accounts of atrocities backed by stunning archival footage I can never forget. While edited together proficiently, they never reached their full potential. In retelling the events chronologically, the filmmakers muted the emotional and visceral climaxes of the anecdotes. They seemed afraid of taking chances, and took the simple way out hoping the subject matter would be enough to make this movie good. It is not.

An interesting technique they used was having actors read diary entries and letters of real people involved. Seeing people I recognized made it hard for me to envision them as the people they were portraying. Additionally, the fact that they were reading letters, talking at you instead of to you, provided a distancing feel as opposed to an inviting one. Still, I commend this film for publicizing the rape of Nanking, for revealing something that has been hidden and denounced time and time again. You don't need to watch this movie, but you do need to know about this terrible scar on mankind's history.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0893356/