Showing posts with label Eva Green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eva Green. Show all posts

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Dumbo (2019)



If you have not visited before, let me tell you something about myself that repeat visitors have already heard, I am a sentimentalist. I tear up at dog stories, mt throat constricts when I see the American Flag waving in the background of a patriotic scene, and a well placed song can send me on a nostalgia voyage that I might take days to return from. With all of that front loaded, "Dumbo" should have been catnip to me and just the kind of soft sweet film to enjoy on a family night out. That is what makes it so depressing to report that the film is a rather joyless and empty exercise in spite of all the emotional manipulation that it attempts. Tim Burton has lost something here, and it is not his unique visual style .

The film looks great. I was so in during the opening moments of Casey Jr. chugging down the tracks toward the home of the Medici Brothers Circus. The hint of the original theme, and the near face on the front of the locomotive, made me think of riding in the tiny circus cages pulled by the miniature train at Disneyland. That moment was fleeting however. When we arrive at the circus, we are rushed through an introduction of characters that tells us their names but nothing about who they are. Milly is a scientist supposedly trapped in a circus child's body. How do we know this?, because someone says it. We don't learn it organically from her actions, the character is being described to us. She fares better than her brother however, poor Joe is not given any character at all, not even a expository line about his personality. In a blink and you'll miss it moment, we discover that they have been cared for by the circus magician and his wife after the death of their mother while their father was away in WWI. It is his return to the circus that starts the movie, and that feels like the wrong start. I can see the parallel being developed by the story structure of an absent parent and the need for connection. Colin Farrell as Holt Farrier, needs to re-establish with his kids, but we are seeing all of this out of any previous context and I mostly did not care because I had to emotional connection to anyone yet.

We should feel emotionally invested in Dumbo immediately. Baby animals are almost always cute and a baby elephant just screams "adorable". The CGI creature that is the star of this movie is suitably appealing but somehow still fails to capture our hearts the way he should. When baby Dumbo is being sepearted from his mother, it should be a moment of heartwrenching drama, instead it is a moment of mild sadness that passes much too quickly. I'm not sure what Burton and screenwriter Ehren Kruger missed, but there is definitely a shortage of giving a darn here. I think it may be that the story of the kids and their father steps on the emphasis on Dumbo and his mother. It also does so without giving us enough emotional reward for the human story. We are supposed to care about the tragedy that has befallen this family, but there was no flashback to happier times or a current display of the family bonds. Once again, we are just told that this is what is happening, not really shown it.

The biggest missteps in my opinion come from trying to establish the villainous characters in the story.  Holt is supposed to take over the responsibility of the elephants in the circus, but a roustabout who doesn't really like the elephants and has been in charge, resents having his authority undermined. That character is drawn so broadly, that you can tell he is evil from the moment he appears on screen. That his malicious treatment of the elephants and Holt, results in an on screen death in a kids movie, tales this away from being light hearted family fare. This has a dark edge to it, that might work in other Burton films but is a sour center to this piece of eye candy. It gets worse when the main villain, portrayed by Michael Keaton, comes on like a young John Hammond, all set to show the world something impossible and then he morphs into the standard shortsighted capitalist that is the easy parody for struggling screenwriters. Almost nothing Keaton's character does after bringing everyone from the circus to his amusement center makes sense. Each choice he makes is counter intuitive to the goals he has and the supposed status he has attained.  The climax of the film comes as a result of a temper tantrum that takes place for no reason what so ever.

Give Burton and Kruger a little credit for playing a bit subversively with the Keaton character V.A. Vandevere. When we see the amusement park he has created, it is a send up of Disney himself and the legendary park that he created. The "Trip to the Moon" ride in the background is lifted from one of the early attractions in Disneyland's Tomorrowland, as is the "Hall of Science" which has a futuristic display that anyone who remembers the "Carousel of Progress" will chuckle at. The ruthless businessman behind the warm hearted innovator is a caricature of Disney's legendary duality. This idea would have worked so much better if there was a redemption arc to the story rather than a comeuppance. Stupidity in a character who has succeeded beyond imagination may be Burton's attempt to get a little revenge in the complicated relationship he has had with the house of the mouse since the start of his career.

Danny DeVito is the ringmaster owner of the Medici brothers circus. He has played a similar role in other Tim Burton films so the casting works although his performance is a little outsized at times and the actions he is required to take to make the story move forward do not make much sense. Eva Green is an aerial artist who initially looks like a villain but moves into the role of ally effectively and love interest much less so. Her relationship with the children, their father and Dumbo himself is ambiguous when it should be more obvious.

So if a guy like me, who cries a little at the trailer for a chezy movie about a dog, can't get worked up about a film like this, someone has missed a step. There are only two moments where I started to feel a connection to the characters and the story. First was the moment when the circus folk are singing the song that came from the original film, and the mermaid is plucking it out on her ukulele. That was a piece of fan service that was necessary and worked because of the previous connection. The second moment is when Dumbo is watching the bubble show that goes on right before his performance and his head nods with the dancing pink elephants that are faintly suggested by the bubbles. Had there been a little bit more of that magic, this opinion would be different. Unfortunately, we miss the comic antagonists of the cartoon and don't care about the protagonists or antagonists in this re-imaging of the story.




Saturday, March 15, 2014

300: Rise of an Empire



When the original Zack Snyder version of 300 was released seven years ago, we got a fresh approach to making a graphic novel into a movie. The combination of animation, CGI, background art and live action was intriguing and visually stunning to look at.  Since that time there have been other films that have aped that look, including new works by director Snyder himself. While they have had varying degrees of success, it is safe to say that "300" itself still stands as the model for this vision. Now there is a sequel/prequel/simultaneous story told using the same techniques and while not directed by Snyder, the screenplay is co-written by him and co-produced by him and it perpetuates the franchise pretty well even if it is not as strikingly original as it once was.

I should be ashamed that I do not know my Greek history well enough to pick out all the enhancements, modifications and outright fabrications that this story must give birth to. I am wise enough though to know that you should never let a movie be your source of historical knowledge. To do so would lead you to believe that Abraham Lincoln killed vampires prior to freeing the slaves. There is enough of an historical tapestry to make this movie interesting without having to make any of it credible. Themistocles as historical political and military leader clearly was instrumental in the Greek repulsion of the Persian forces. The visual of him in this film involves the usual chiseled good looks that all the soldiers had in the original film.  Artemisia is another historical figure that is blended into the story and gives us a terrific antagonist in the form of Eva Green. It seems unlikely that Themistocles and Artemisia met on board her ship and conducted a sex exchange as violent as most of the battles depicted in the movie, but who am I to complain when the film makers manage to give us lusty images of the two of them engaged in violent naked conflict.

This movie is all about the bloody battles and staging them with gleeful mayhem galore. There was more CGI blood in this film than I have ever encountered before and it actually looked pretty good. I went cheap and skipped the 3D version and I'm a little sad for that because I could see the manipulative uses of swords and blood splatter and spears and arrows, and it made me want to see that coming off the screen into my lap. Where "300" focused on the Spartans, this film takes in all of Greece and manages to make the Athenians look pretty bad ass on their own. Most of the battles fought in this film take place on sea going vessels laden with slaves and fighting men. The cleverness of the Greeks in war strategy is emphasized and there are some smart tactics similar to the lesson that  King Leonidas learned and used in the original story. There was plenty here to exploit for random violence and chaotic throat slitting. The political intrigue is told in an aggrandized style that echos from the previous film as well. Never speak when you can shout, all speeches must be aggravatingly inspiring and when visual story telling can't fill in the blanks, rely on breathy narration from secondary characters.

None of this is to suggest that the movie is not worthwhile. It is in fact a swell piece of pulp entertainment that plays to the blood-lust of the audience. Some story points make seem repetitive but how many times can you watch a dismemberment and not begin to think this looks familiar?  If that is the kind of thing that brings you to a movie like this, then you will be very satisfied because all of it is staged well and easy to see and enjoy. Instead of the hyperkenetic, shakycam shooting you see in most action films, the visual images here are carefully planned and shot with an eye for lingering death and anticipatory swordplay. You can follow what is happening and enjoy it in slow motion on a regular basis. I had my doubts about the viability of a sequel but clearly there is plenty of historical story to share and another hero envisioned on screen is fine. Actor Sullivan Stapleton is fine but he lacks the charisma of Gerard Butler. After getting an elaborate backstory, Xerxes is placed on the sidelines for most of the tale, and his godlike pontification is not really likely to elevate the movie the same way Butler's ferocity did.

So in summary, it is a worthy followup to "300". There is nothing that will harm the memory of the original film and the addition of Green makes the movie more appealing than I originally thought it would be. Anyone who is interested at all in the movie will find something to meet their expectations, but if your only expectation is battle, blood, and bromance, then this is a movie that you can fully embrace.