The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn: Part 2 Review

I’m glad that the Twilight Saga is finally over.  I really am.  That might sound a bit harsh, but I have absolutely no love at all for this series of films.  None of the five of them have done anything for me other than mildly entertain me at times.  The rest of the time I was subjected to lingering scenes of longing stares, bare-chested man-hunks being manly, and…sparkles.  No, I did not enjoy The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 all that much.  That shouldn’t surprise anyone who read my lovely review for Part 1 last year.

***Full Spoiler Warning is in Effect***

To be honest there were a few things that I enjoyed about Part 2, namely the final battle…that actually didn’t happen (more on that in a moment).  The only performances that entertained me in the slightest came from series newcomer Lee Pace and the always-eccentric Michael Sheen.  The former played a Revolutionary War-veteran who sides with the Cullens, whilst the latter reprised his role as the over-the-top leader of the Volturi.  It’s quite amusing to me that my favorite moments of the franchise all come from flashbacks to and discussions of vampiric actions in the past.  But I digress..

The acting from the main trio is just about the same as it’s ever been, although Bella (the stone-faced Kristin Stewart) actually got to show some emotions – more than the previous films combined.  I suppose all that sulking and emo’ing paid off in the end...continually Taylor Lautner seems to be the only one of the trio actually having any fun.  Although having fun doesn’t excuse a lackluster or stilted performance, which is what most of the cast put in on this project.

Despite loads of terribleness and buckets of mediocrity, I found myself wholly engaged in the final confrontation between Team Cullen and Team Volturi.  It is here that I must point out that I am quite the fan of action and explosions, but boy do I love me some good drama; The Artist was one of my favorite films last year.  Just because the only thing I really liked about Part 2 was an action scene isn’t a reflection of my general tastes – the actual “drama” is handled so incredibly poorly throughout the series that there was just little for me to hold on to.  But yes, the final battle was pretty intense, if not cheesy and over-the-top at times.  Vampires were decapitated and werewolves were slain.  At one point, Rami Malek’s Benjamin (who can control elements) created a fissure in the middle of the battlefield (which doesn’t really make sense – what point did that serve?) that caused many on both sides to plummet into molten lava – I highly doubt that actual molten rock is that close to the surface…but whatever.  This is Twilight we’re dealing with.  Nothing makes sense.

What I enjoyed the most about this final battle was that the stakes were sort-of high and people actually died.  Throughout the series I can’t recall many deaths, let alone deaths of main characters.  This battle saw prominent characters on both sides bite it.  When Bella and Edward tag-team Aro (Sheen) and finally rip his head off I was actually pretty stoked.  Then we find out it never happened.   

I don’t really wanna get into it here because I honestly don’t feel like expending then energy, but the whole scene took place inside Alice’s head as she was showing Aro what the outcome of the battle would be.  They decide not to fight and everyone lives happily ever after…which is a cop-out of an ending.  Now, I know nothing about how the book actually ends, but I do know good/bad storytelling when I see it.

See, in Harry Potter, people die.  I’m talking about main characters.  Sirius Black in Order of the Phoenix.  Cedric Diggory in Goblet of Fire.  Albus f’ing Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince.  And a ton of people in Deathly Hallows.  The stakes were high for Harry and his group and the consequences were fitting.  Both series end relatively happily, but in one it’s bittersweet because of the sacrifices made for Harry to succeed at stopping Voldemort.  The Cullens did almost nothing to earn their happy ending.  Alice runs up and shows the Volturi what will happen if they fight.  What if they just come back in a week with a thousand more vampires?  Will the Cullens have time to gather more followers if Alice sees that happening?  There are so many holes in the actual ending that it sickens me.  The writers should’ve grown a pair and ended it with how the battle played out.  The ending would have that much more weight and significance if people close to our protagonists gave up their lives to save/defend them.  This issue is simply indicative of the film series as a whole – a missed opportunity.

I do have to give quick props to one specific scene in Part 2.  One of my complaints about the series in general is that Jacob never took off his pants.  Stay with me here.  He always takes off his shirt and sometimes his shoes before he transforms into a wolf.  He never would take off his pants.  Just imagine all of the jeans that kid ruined by leaving them on during the transformation.  It really bothered me.  Thankfully, in a key scene with Bella’s dad, Jacob took off his pants and most likely his underwear, before transforming into a wolf.  I literally applauded.  It took them five films to do something right.  Bravo!

At the end of the day you know what you’re getting into if you intend to see this film.  Melodrama at its worst.  Bad CGI (the CGI face placed on baby Renesmee was horrifyingly bad.  I’m talking worse-than-Wolverine’s-claws-in-X-Men Origins-bad).  Over and under-acting.  Mediocre directing.  Poor green-screen.  And an unsatisfying ending.  Wait a second…am I describing this film or the entire “saga?”  Just something to think about.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is no better or worse than the other films…so it’s awful.

The Bearded Bullet.

Wreck-It Ralph Review

Wreck-It Ralph is the best Pixar film they never made.  That is probably the highest compliment an animated film could be paid.  Seriously, everything about Ralph screams Pixar – top-notch animation, an emotional, heart-felt story, and interesting characters that you really feel for.  Not to mention that the film is steeped in video game culture of the past three decades.  All of these fantastic elements coalesce into one of my favorite films of the year.

From the opening moments of the film I was completely on board.  Ralph is set in an aging arcade (something that is virtually non-existent in today’s world) – more specifically inside one of the longest-standing cabinets in the arcade.  The game is “Fix-It Felix Jr.” and is immediately reminiscent of the original Donkey Kong cabinet that first featured Jump Man (who would go on to become Mario).  This is just one example of a reference to gaming culture that I just loved (sometimes quite obviously and others a tad more veiled).  Our protagonist is actually the antagonist of Fix-It Felix Jr.  Wreck-It Ralph is a bad guy who aspires to be more than that.

The narrative is beautifully simple; Ralph just wants to be the good guy for once.  This quest leads Ralph to accidentally cause havoc in two other arcade cabinets, “Hero’s Duty” and “Sugar Rush.”  Hero’s Duty is a riff on first-person shooters a la Call of Duty and Halo.  Sugar Rush is clearly an homage to Mario Kart – it features myriad racers (in karts), using power-ups to demolish one another.  There are references to other gaming franchises peppered throughout both games (Mario gets a name drop!) and the world in general.  Many times I wished that I could pause the film and try to pick out every character that I recognized from gaming history (Q*bert, Pac Man, Bowser, the little guy from Dig Dug and more make cameos).

***Spoiler Warning***

I adore just about every aspect of Ralph.  The voice acting is fantastic, the animation is superb, and the tone is just right, but what really stood out to be is the story.  I was blown away that Ralph is actually a Disney “princess” film.  Ralph is our protagonist, but Venellope Von Schweet’s (Sarah Silverman) story takes center stage for most of the film.  We’re lead to believe that she’s just a glitch in the programming of Sugar Rush, but in the film’s third act it is revealed that the evil King Candy (the superb Alan Tudyk) attempted to delete her code and lock up the memories of the inhabitants of the game to oust her as the princess of Sugar Rush.  This revelation, along with the fact that King Candy was actually a long-thought-dead character from a cabinet broken years ago were handled deftly and both legitimately surprised me.

***End Spoiler Warning***

Wreck-It Ralph just cannot be recommended highly enough.  Anyone who has grown up with gaming as a part of their lives will deeply appreciate the film and the world that’s built within it.  Civilian filmgoers will be able to appreciate it as well on a different level.  The animation, voice acting, and narrative coalesce into one special film.  Ralph will undoubtedly end up as one of my favorite films of the year.

Wreck-It Ralph is the best Pixar film they never made.

The Bearded Bullet.

Red Dawn (2012) Trimmed Review

I have never seen the original Red Dawn, but I am quite aware of it; the “Wolverines” have earned their place in pop-culture history.  Because of this, I was able to go into my viewing of the remake, also titled Red Dawn, with relatively fresh eyes.  While this allowed me some objectivity, I can’t but feel that I should’ve seen the original first as I’m sure that it is leaps and bounds better than this remake.

Red Dawn is okay.  Not great, not terrible, but just okay.  It doesn’t aspire to be more than its paper-thin plot allows it to be.  For some reason, North Korea decides to invade the United States with some Soviet help.  That’s literally all we get.  Oh, and they used some form of an EMP that only knocked out our electronics and not theirs.  This lack of knowledge sort of makes sense, considering our rag-tag group of teenage and twenty-something rebels are living in the woods with little communication with the outside world, but that doesn’t make up for a lack of any reasoning or rationale on the North Koreans’ part.  The entire film is essentially just a series of small action set pieces interrupted by training montages…and none of it is particularly interesting or engaging.

The acting is a pretty mixed bag – there are some great people trying to do something worthwhile amidst a crowd of mediocrity.  Chris Hemsworth (pre-Thor) really tries to make something out of his role and is the only real highlight for me.  Adrianne Palicki, Josh Hutcherson (pre-Hunger Games), Isabel Lucas, and Josh Peck don’t really bring much to their roles outside of shooting at some North Koreans and running around.  Despite all of this mediocrity, I will say that the final action set-piece of Red Dawn was incredibly entertaining, if not altogether unbelievable (literally – I don’t believe they could’ve pulled it off), and was probably my favorite scene in the film.

Anyone planning on checking out Red Dawn probably already knows what they’re getting themselves into.  If they don’t, then they’re in for a fairly mediocre-to-poor action film with a thinner plot than the first Expendables film.  I would say wait for this on Blu-ray...then rent it for $1 at RedBox.

Red Dawn is a poor-to-mediocre action film that really isn’t worth your time.

The Bearded Bullet.

Lincoln Review

I have been following Lincoln for too many years to remember…even back when Liam Neeson was set to play the titular president.  My excitement for the film built over these years, but perhaps lead to a bit of over-anticipation on my part.  After waiting so long I was ultimately left feeling cold, with incredibly mixed feelings about the final product.

Let’s get this out of the way first: I wasn’t watching Daniel Day-Lewis, I was actually watching Abraham Lincoln himself.  Somehow, Spielberg built a time machine and went back and got him for this film.  Day-Lewis wholly embodies the character (he was apparently going method with this one) and seemingly becomes the President.  His portrayal gives us a glimpse into the great orator that Lincoln truly was.  Several times throughout the film Lincoln stops to tell a story to a group of people.  They’re incredibly funny (as is quite a bit more of the film than I anticipated) and usually poignant to what is actually happening in the film or to add some levity.  These moments may come across as a bit cheesy but I absolutely loved every single one of them.  I was just in awe of Day-Lewis and his mastery of the art of acting.  Please, just don’t even nominate anyone else and just this guy the Oscar.

Right up there with Day-Lewis is the fantastic Tommy Lee Jones.  Jones deserves the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Thaddeus Stevens.  His role isn’t quite a flashy as Day-Lewis, but he plays Stevens with a quiet reserve that boils over when it needs to.  Most of the rest of the cast puts in fine turns: Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln, David Strathairn as William Seward and Jackie Earle Haley (with what little screen time he actually has) as Alexander Stephens.

On the other end of the spectrum you have Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln.  Now, I fully understand that Mary wasn’t necessarily the most sane person in the world and that she had some mental issues, but I can’t help but feel that Field is just a bit over-the-top with her portrayal.  Every time she came on screen I just wanted her to edited out and let Day-Lewis just talk to nothing.  I absolutely love Lee Pace, the pie maker from the ill-fated Pushing Daisies, but in this film he’s a bit of a one-note bad guy who likes to yell all the time.  Same goes for Jared Harris; I adored him in Mad Men and in his smaller roles like in Benjamin Button, but here is was quite evident that he was trying his hardest to not speak in his native accent.  It just seemed painfully evident that he was straining to maintain his American accent for the few scenes he was actually in.

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting going into a film called Lincoln.  For some reason I was hoping for something a little closer to War Horse in terms of actual military action – Horse is a drama through-and-through, but there a few scenes of warfare that are gripping and just fantastic.  Lincoln, on the other hand, features one scene of combat that I can recall and it lasted for all of thirty seconds.  This isn’t a story about the war itself, but about the passing of the 13^th Amendment – to abolish slavery.  The entire run-time is devoted to Lincoln’s pursuit of this Amendment and the back-door dealings and dirty politics being played to support its passage.

After I came to accept what I wouldn’t be getting from Lincoln, I settled in and began to appreciate the story unfolding before me.  Some levity is introduced with  the characters W.N. Bilbo (James Spader) and Robert Latham (John Hawkes), who conduct the President’s dirty dealings for him with their pursuit of nabbing Democratic votes to help pass the amendment.  And despite knowing how the scene was going to play out, the actual voting on the Amendment is one of the more gripping and intense scenes of the year…and it’s just one man reading names and hearing how they voted.

One story thread that could’ve been excised wholly was Robert Lincoln (Levitt) wanting to enlist in the army.  Abe is fully against this and rebuffs his son’s attempts to persuade him several times until he storms off after a fight the two have.  The next time we see Robert, he’s with Harris’ General Grant.  His character and the plot line didn’t add that much to the film, besides showing us that Lincoln held the abolition of slavery over ending the war.  That idea was harped upon enough in the film that we didn’t need this blatant attempt to shove it down our throats even more.

I also take umbrage with the film’s final moments.  Probably 100% of Americans know that Abe was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while enjoying a play.  Lincoln decides to show us his son, Tad, hearing the news of his father’s assassination attempt at a different theater.  We are then shown Abe dying amongst his friends and supporters, fading into a speech to wrap up the film.  This felt somewhat jarring and unnecessary.  We all know how this story ends – Spielberg didn’t need to actually show us.  There is a scene just before we see his son’s reaction that would’ve been absolutely perfect to end on.  Abe is walking down a hallway in the White House after leaving a post-Amendment-win discussion.  We all know where he’s going; there was a bit of dialogue about Mary being upset when he’s late for things.  It would’ve been perfect to fade from him walking down the hallway to the final speech at the end.  Showing his son’s reaction and then his subsequent death seemed utterly unnecessary.

I’m not quite sure I can fully pinpoint why Lincoln didn’t resonate with me.  I just felt cold; like I was being kept at a distance during the entire film.  Individual parts drew me in and blew my mind (namely Day-Lewis’ performance) and the film as a whole just didn’t gel for me.  Perhaps upon repeat viewings, having thrown away previous expectations, I can appreciate this latest Spielbergian effort.  In the meantime I’ll just go back to War Horse..

Lincoln is an incredibly well-made and-acted period drama that ultimately left me wanting.

The Bearded Bullet.

Killing Them Softly Review

I was quite excited for Killing Them Softly.  I enjoyed Andrew Dominik’s previous film, The Assassination of Jesse James, and Brad Pitt is just fantastic in everything he’s in.  The trailers and marketing made this film seem like a heist-gone-wrong type of film.  On the surface, I suppose that’s what Softly is about, but at its core, the film is about how American crime is similar to big American businesses and how these criminals aren’t equal to one another, just as American citizens really aren’t that equal to one another.

I really wanted to like this film.  The major issue is that the political overtones and messages are hammered into us repeatedly.  Every other scene has a radio or TV playing in the background with some politician (usually Barack Obama) pontificating about America and how we’re part of one community.  One of the first shots of the film prominently features an Obama vs. McCain billboard for the 2008 election.  The final scene of the film has two characters openly discussing the political message being broadcast on the TV.  It’s just too much.  I have no problem with a film having a deeper message than what it seems, but Softly desperately wants to you “get” what it’s going for…and they go about it a little too bluntly for my taste.

This may just be a personal problem, but I was wholly confused for most of the run-time with respect to character’s names and who people were.  This is a film where title cards with character’s names on them would’ve helped when someone new was introduced.  People are throwing around names like we’ve known them for years.  When a scene of dialogue between two characters lasts for five-to-ten minutes (which happens often in this film) and is about a third character, of which I don’t know the identity, things get confusing fairly quickly.  Dillon (Sam Shephard) is mentioned quite frequently throughout the film as a big-time hit-man and I had literally no idea who this person was.  A post-film discussion with another patron (I saw the film with a friend who was equally confused as I was) lead to my finally understanding who this faceless person was…and it turns out they were in one scene, with fewer than two minutes of screen time.  Incredibly frustrating!

Softly does have some good stuff hidden underneath the political overtones.  Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini are simply fantastic in their respective hit-man roles.  Pitt’s Jackie is the younger, less jaded of the two, while Gandolfini’s Mickey has been around this business too long and seems to be constantly drunk and disillusioned.

The opening scene of the film is quite a jarring and unpleasant experience and perhaps mirrors some of the themes at play, especially with Jackie’s penchant for “killing them softly, from a distance;” he doesn’t like to get up close where emotions come to play and his job becomes unpleasant.  After a while I warmed up to the style of Softly and grew to love and appreciate the incredibly long scenes of dialogue, some shot in one take.  Gandolfini only has two scenes, both with Jackie, and the dialogue is incredibly fantastic and engaging.  Besides these two moments, three other scenes stick with me and will probably end up being some of my favorite of the year: an insanely intense card-game heist, a phenomenal slow-motion assassination, and a brutal, visceral beating that Ray Liotta’s character receives midway through the film.  See?  I actually liked something!

At the end of the day, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend Killing Them Softly.  Even if you’re a fan of American crime films a la The Departed or American Gangster you’ll probably end up being bored and confused for much of the film.  It may just be me, but I don’t think I’m in the minority on this one.  There are some moments of brilliance that shine through in the end, but the film as a whole is a little oversaturated in political themes that would’ve been better off left in the background.

Killing Them Softly is an incredibly flawed crime drama with a few redeeming qualities.

The Bearded Bullet