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Totally bites

World War Z

With World War Z, we get two-thirds of a decent movie. The movie has a helluva start, and an even better middle, making it seem like it’s going to deliver the big summer goods. Then, in its final act, it totally craps out. Too bad, because I was looking to Brad Pitt’s zombie movie as relief from the mediocre, big budget blockbusters we’ve gotten this summer (with the blessed exceptions of Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness). The much troubled production shows every one of its scars, especially in its bungled, positively ridiculous finale. Those who frequent movie websites know that director Marc Forster was overseeing a tumultuous production that resulted in big delays and crucial reshoots. Lost and Prometheus scribe Damon Lindelof was brought in to write a new ending. That ending strains so hard to be clever, you can see the throbbing veins popping out of its head. In a movie that called for a finale that kicked mortal ass, Lindelof and Forster deliver a few minutes of Brad Pitt hanging out in a refrigerator while a lone zombie chatters its teeth. This is one of the least scary zombie films you are likely to see. Heck, I think I even got some better creeps out of this year’s zom-rom-com Warm Bodies. At PG-13, the movie can’t afford to show much blood, so it winds up rather tame. Forster and company pull too many punches, the sense of dread ratchets down, and the reliance is on pure thrills and action. The film does deliver on the action in a killer opening sequence that sees Pitt’s Gerry Lane and his family stranded in a Philadelphia traffic jam as a zombie apocalypse goes into full swing. The revved up zombies of this film apparently have some

sort of rabies, and they aren’t interested in dinner. They just want to bite and move on in as rapid a pace as possible in order to spread their contagion. Lane, a retired United Nations employee, finds himself in a race to find a solution for the zombie plague, partly to protect his family. Pitt, a well renowned family man, is by Bob Grimm good for the part, and he gives it a good go. Honestly, the sight of zombies forming bgrimm@ an anthill to scale a wall in Israel, and a newsreview.com nerve-rattling sequence above a jumbo jet, qualify as two of the coolest sequences to 2 show up in a movie this year. It’s a shame that they’re in a movie that runs out of gas. I won’t give up the major details of Lindelof’s screenplay tinkering. I will tell you that when you try to apply any kind of logic to his solutions, it just doesn’t play. It seems as if the budget on this thing was skyrocketing, and they had to come up with something less expensive than a huge set piece at the end. This results in a movie that not only fails to deliver on its promise, but also does so in a bland, somewhat moronic way. Zombies cling to a flying helicopter and bring it down in another memorable sequence. Their quick “turning” process results in some good, spasmodic physical acting. As for reliance on the original novel by Max Brooks—son of Mel—this is pretty much an adaptation by title only. So, fans of the novel and fans of bloody zombies are going to be let down. Fans of Pitt will see their hero, who also co-produced the film, laboring to save millions of dollars from the scrap heap. World War Z ultimately feels derivative in its zombie portrayal (echoes of 28 Days Later), wimpy in its lack of bloodletting, and played out by film’s end. I was all set for this film’s big finale, disappointed to see the movie didn’t have one final big trick up its sleeve. Pitt’s voiceover proclaims “this isn’t the end,” but unfortunately that same voiceover is, in fact, signaling the end of a movie that was setup for knockout blow, and delivers an ineffective kick to the shin. Ω

“I’m a movie star! Why do I have to do the grocery shopping?”

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Poor

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excellent

1After Earth The egos of M. Night Shyamalan and Will Smith collide in this stupid, useless movie about a father and son (Will and son Jaden) crash landing on Earth many years after it has become uninhabitable to humans. We can’t breathe on the planet anymore, but baboons, buffalo and birds are fine and dandy. Will Smith’s character is injured, so he directs his son from a tattered ship as Jaden must battle the elements, avoid the big monster their ship was carrying, and find the rescue beacon. Nothing in this movie works, from the ridiculous made-up accents the characters use, to the terrible CGI animals trying to eat Jaden. Will Smith’s performance is the dullest thing he has ever put to film, with Jaden being the overacting opposite. It’s remarkable to me that people keep giving Shyamalan money to make movies. Will the producers with the green learn their lesson after this one? I doubt it. Will this become a franchise like Will Smith had intended? I doubt that, too.

3The Bling Ring Based on a true series of robberies where some Southern California teens robbed the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, Sofia Coppola’s fifth directorial effort is a biting satire featuring fun work from Emma Watson in a performance reminiscent of Nicole Kidman in To Die For. The ensemble, including Katie Chang, Israel Broussard and Taissa Farmiga, do a good job of portraying vacuous teens obsessed with celebrities and what those celebrities are wearing. When they find out a star is out of town, they go to their house and basically go shopping. At one point, they go to Paris Hilton’s, shot on location at Hilton’s real house. In typical Coppola style, the film looks great and boasts a terrific soundtrack. It’s a return to form for the director after the sleepy misfire Somewhere.

2Fast & Furious 6 This franchise could’ve ended about five films ago, and I would’ve been fine with that. Vin Diesel mumbles his way through another fast car movie, this one with some admittedly fine driving stunts. The plot involves some nonsense about Vin and his crew (including Paul Walker) going after some other bad guy driver who’s threatening the world. He also has Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) working for him, even though she blew up in a prior movie. Dwayne Johnson is in there, too, as a badass lawman, and future installments will involve another one of my least favorite action stars if the post-credit footage is any indicator. I like to watch good pyrotechnics, but I hate it when just about everybody in these films opens their mouths. It looks like these movies will never end, and Michelle Rodriguez will never die.

1The Internship When I heard Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson would be reuniting for a film after their blessed Wedding Crashers, I got justifiably excited. I like when Vaughn is in profane mode, and he made Wilson tolerable in their first go round. However, what we get here is just a terrible two-hour commercial for Google that dumbs down and sanitizes the duo. They play a couple of salesmen who lose their gigs when watches become obsolete. For reasons that are never really explained, the Vaughn character hones in on Google during his job search and convinces the Wilson character to compete with him in an intern contest, with the winners getting jobs with the hallowed Google. Vaughn, who co-wrote the screenplay, allegedly worked closely with Google when creating the film so, needless to say, there aren’t a lot of profanities and nude shots in this flick. Instead we get family-friendly Vaughn and Wilson, with the results being boring, unfunny and embarrassing.

4Iron Man 3 Shane Black, director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (starring Robert Downey Jr. in his best performance ever) and writer of such action classics as Lethal Weapon, gets his second directorial chore and delivers big time. Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) is now an insomniac suffering from panic attacks after the events of The Avengers, and he faces a new adversary in The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). Stark is a little bit shaky in this one, and that gives the film a dark, comic edge. Gwyneth Paltrow gets a little more screen time as Pepper Potts, while Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall show up as mysterious scientific types. Downey Jr. is as fun as ever here, and Black knows just what to do with him. Black is also pretty snappy with the action scenes, which don’t disappoint. If this is the last of Downey Jr.’s solo Iron Man films, he’s going out on a good note.

2Man of Steel Director Zack Snyder and co-producer Christopher Nolan reboot Superman, and the result is a little disappointing. Henry Cavill puts on the tights—minus the red underwear—and does little else, giving us the dullest Superman to date. The whole endeavor is an effort to take Superman to darker Batman-like territories, and that’s a big mistake. Superman can be in a dark flick, but he must rise above the darkness, not whine about his mom all of the time. There’s a lot of whiz-bang in this film, and some of it is impressive, but lots of it is just noise and things smacking into one another. Michael Shannon provides a terrific villain in Zod, while Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner do well as Superman’s two dads. I just couldn’t get into the depiction of Superman as a joyless, humorless stud. As for Amy Adams as Lois Lane, she isn’t given much of anything to do. This is going to make tons of money, and Snyder is lined up for a sequel already. I hope he gets it right the next time.

5Mud It’s official: Jeff Nichols, who gave us the brilliant Take Shelter, is a writer/director who stands among the best of them. Matthew McConaughey plays the title character, a chipped-tooth, wild-haired drifter living in a boat in a tree along the Mississippi. Two kids, Ellis and Neckbone (Tye Sheridan of The Tree of Life, and Jacob Lofland) stumble upon him, and find themselves part of his strange and dangerous world. McConaughey is just catching wave after wave lately, and this is his best one yet. He makes Mud a little scary, yet charming and cunning. Sheridan and Lofland are terrific as the young friends who should probably stay away from guys living in boats in trees. The cast also boasts Reese Witherspoon, Michael Shannon and Sam Shepard—all of them equally great. Ladies and gentleman, we have the year’s first “excellent” movie. Jesus, it took long enough.

2Now You See Me For those of you hankering for another magician movie after The Incredible Burt Wonderstone … here it is! A Vegas magician act called the Four Horseman (Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco) concludes their show by seemingly robbing a bank in France through teleportation. An FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) and an Interpol detective (Melanie Laurent) investigate, and we snore. Morgan Freeman is on hand as a man who makes a living debunking magic, as is Michael Caine as a millionaire bankrolling the Horseman. It all amounts to nonsense, with a lot of swirling cameras and stupid fights involving playing cards and paper cuts. The big reveals are silly, and much of what happens on the magic side is never explained. Eisenberg delivers one of the year’s more annoying performances.

4This Is the End Seth Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg make a strong directorial debut with this crazed stoner comedy in which Rogen and a bunch of his pals play themselves as the world faces the biblical apocalypse. When Jay Baruchel comes to LA to hang with Rogen, he finds himself reluctantly attending a party at James Franco’s new house. The Rapture happens, the ground opens up, and a bunch of celebrities go to Hell, leaving Rogen, Franco, Baruchel, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill and Danny McBride to fight for the leftover Milky Way candy bar. All of the participants are in top form, with the laughs never slowing down. The movie is also a pretty good horror film in its own right, with lots of gore for those of you who like that sort of thing. Among the oddities are Michael Cera as a coke-snorting pervert, Hill getting possessed after a romantic evening with Satan, and Danny McBride eating people. The film is as crazy as anything to come out of mainstream Hollywood in a long time, and a welcomed return to form for Rogen and Franco.

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