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Rough
night? Del Toro in The Wolfman.
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Where’s
the Bite?
By
Ann Morrow
The
Wolfman
Directed
by Joe Johnston
Special effects have become a lot more special since the 1941
horror classic The Wolf Man, but judging by Joe Johnston’s
remake, bad acting and lousy plotting are timeless. This Wolfman
is preternaturally pretty: The English country estate where
Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) meets his lupine fate is
more ravishingly atmospheric than a Merchant Ivory pastoral
drama, while the costuming, interior design, and nighttime
lighting almost compensate for the tattered script—but not
quite. Adapted from the original, the screenplay is bloated
with histrionics when it easily could’ve been updated with
psychological suspense. That talented cowriter Andrew Walker
(Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow) seemingly fell asleep
on the job is only one of the film’s many peculiarities.
Lawrence is an American actor who returns to London to play
Hamlet. After his arrival, the film promisingly builds in
intensity. Lawrence’s brother, Ben, is missing, as he is informed
by Ben’s waifish fiancée, Gwen (a luminous Emily Blunt). Sir
John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins) is strangely stoic when his
son’s body is found with most of its flesh torn off. The provincial
villagers suspect a local encampment of gypsies, but when
the gypsies, too, fall prey to the mysterious monster (in
the only scary scene), the villagers, and Scotland Yard, come
into conflict as to whether the predator is man or beast.
Or mortal or infernal. These conflicts eventually sink under
their own vapidity, but in the meantime, Lawrence, who was
clawed, and Gwen, who is fearful of Sir John, find solace
by casting rapt gazes at each other while grieving in a nearby
forest primeval.
And then, it happens: Lawrence notices animalistic traits
taking him over, and Rick Baker’s creature effects improve
on his work for an American Werewolf in London with
grisly realism. And after much moody skulking about the Talbot
mansion, something else happens: The film transforms into
a campy flop and neither the not-so-mystical gypsies, nor
the Talbots’ underutilized family tragedy can be blamed. This
mid-movie curse may have been caused by a last-minute change
in directors, or maybe Sir Anthony Hopkins overpowered Sir
John’s role so he could unleash his beastly craving for hammy
overacting. Hopkins, who certainly should have an upper-class
accent down after doing two acclaimed Merchant Ivory movies,
seems to revel in the dialogue’s unintentional, er, howlers,
and he does so with a garbled gothic accent.
With a little more interaction, Del Toro and Blunt could’ve
given the story a poignant heart of doomed romance, but then,
there wouldn’t have been time for all the kitschy asylum scenes
and childhood flashbacks. Even a delectably grim Hugo Weaving
as famed Inspector Abbeline can’t save The Wolfman
from plunging into the brambles of nonsensical action sequences
inspired by other movies, most noticeably Bram Stoker’s
Dracula (another horror movie diluted by kitsch). And
out of all the actors who might be frightening bouncing through
the air in a smoking jacket, Hopkins isn’t one of them.
Looking
for Justice
Crude
Directed
by Joe Berlinger
Once upon a time, Texaco arrived in the Ecuadorian Amazon
to drill for oil. The company left a few decades later, leaving
behind either a little bit of pollution (says successor company
Chevron), or an environmental disaster that’s still sickening
and killing the indigenous population. Joe Berlinger’s verité-style
documentary makes a good case that petroleum pollution is
still having devastating effects on people, but the legal
thicket the film covers is murkier, and is both inspiring
and depressing.
Crude
chronicles how a team of lawyers from Ecuador and the United
States press on with a 13-year-old class-action lawsuit against
Chevron/Texaco. Filed on behalf of 30,000 plaintiffs, the
case has a twofold desired outcome: a huge cash settlement
and environmental remediation. The charismatic lead attorney
is Pablo Fajardo; only three years out of law school when
we meet him, he is a dogged advocate for his people. The American
legal muscle is provided by Steven Donziger, a bulldog of
a lawyer who isn’t afraid to fight dirty. And the money comes
from a Philadelphia law firm that’s banking on a big slice
of any judgment (or settlement).
Berlinger, who codirected the wonderful documentaries Brothers’
Keeper and Some Kind of Monster, never lets one
part of this sad story dominate. There is a goodly share of
heartbreaking testimony by parents of sick or dead children,
and he takes us right to the edges of the waste pits Texaco
left behind—where animals and birds still die of petroleum
poisoning. The editorializing is subtle but unmistakable;
we know where Berlinger’s heart is.
The oil company lawyers, scientists and spokespeople are predictably
reasonable-sounding. Their arguments are calm and considered;
a few of these people are even a little bit convincing. But
most come across as soulless assholes.
The saga has plenty of twists and turns as both sides play
the media game. The plaintiffs end up featured in a Vanity
Fair profile; Sting’s activist wife makes an appearance.
It’s a weird moment of recognition, watching the sick and
dying trotted out for wealthy celebrities and realizing that
we have a hell of a lot more in common with the latter than
the former.
We’re the ones driving the cars and trucks fueled by Chevron,
after all.
—Shawn
Stone
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Grand
Hotel it ain’t: (l-r) Roberts
and Cooper in Valentine’s Day.
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Boredom,
Actually
Valentine’s
Day
Directed
by Garry Marshall
There was a time, first during the hard days of the Great
Depression and later during the waning days of the studio
star system, when audiences flocked to see “a cavalcade of
stars” all in one movie. Some of these efforts were really
very good, notably Grand Hotel, which gave ticket buyers
the chance to gaze at two Barrymores, a Crawford, a Garbo,
a Beery, and more. Others, like It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad
World, were just silly, more potent in reminding us of
the swift passing of youth than in providing any major bang
for our entertainment dollar. Most recently, filmmakers have
tried throwing together an all-star oleo to grasp at recapturing
the heights of romantic comedy, and with mixed results (Love
Actually, anybody?). Which brings us to what must have
been dreamed up as the ultimate date flick, Valentine’s
Day, in which scores of hot young things, and a few legends
(including Shirley MacLaine), cross paths and try to work
up enough steam to have us longing for more.
Sadly, this just doesn’t happen. Nor does anything else of
any importance, humor, or substance. At about two hours’ running
time, Valentine’s Day is the cinematic equivalent of
water torture, so much so that I even texted my editor husband
halfway through with the reviewer’s version of an SOS—“Don’t
know how much longer I can sit through this.”
Director Garry Marshall plumbs new depths of boring, with
one-dimensional characters like Jamie Foxx’s sportswriter,
who, because it’s a slow sports day in Southern California
(!), is forced by his editor (Kathy Bates, collecting a paycheck)
to try to find something romantic to write about. Then there’s
Reed (Ashton Kutcher), a florist who singlehandedly delivers
flowers to several characters, thereby supposedly linking
a thread, however tenuous, between them. Reed loves Morley
(Jessica Alba), who can’t commit, and is best buds with Julia
(Jennifer Garner), a teacher in love with Dr. McDreamy, I
mean Copeland, (Patrick Dempsey), who is actually married
to someone else. Meanwhile, Julia Roberts, in uniform, is
seated on a plane next to recently single Holden (Bradley
Cooper), and we’re meant to wonder if something’s going to
happen, but get thrown a not-so- surprising curveball at film’s
end. Anne Hathaway shocks boyfriend Topher Grace with the
revelation that she’s a phone-sex operator. For the teenybopper
set, there’s Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner and Emma Roberts
and Carter Jenkins; of the four, only Lautner comes off as
semi-appealing.
Presumably, by the “let’s get naked” line at the end of the
movie, all ends well for most of this disparate bunch, but
does anybody in the audience particularly care? Robert Altman
did far more with far fewer (but still a lot of) characters
in Short Cuts, from which Marshall cops for the Hathaway
storyline. For all these beautiful people, there’s little
to no sense of the thrill of falling in love, or of being
madly attracted to another being, however inappropriate. There’s
no joy, no passion, just pretty faces and hot bodies posing
without purpose.
—Laura
Leon
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