Ian T. McFarland

Ratatouille might be the most disappointing film of the summer – when you can find the names of Pixar and Brad Bird in a film’s credits, you’re usually in a position to expect great things.  Though this rat can’t live up to those names like this writer was hoping, it’s still is Pixar and it still is Brad Bird, and that by itself should be enough to make the film enjoyable, if nothing else.

Ratatouille
3 & 1/2 Stars

There’s no greater dynasty in Hollywood today than Pixar.  Since day one, they’ve been putting out good product that grosses well into nine digits, and despite the scores of other computer animated films trying to copy the studio’s ironclad formula, no one even comes close to making it work.  It’s because of this that, even when the studio puts out as fine as a film as Ratatouille, it’s still a let-down that leaves you thinking there should have been more.

Remy is a rat that wants to cook; so when he meets a no-talent chef in need of some help, it’s a match made in heaven.  Unsurprisingly, there are a few hurdles to get through before everyone’s all-smiles, but it’s a family movie where everyone is happy (except the bad guy, who totally deserved it anyway.)  Easy as pie, without ever getting too complicated.  But the dudes at Pixar know how to tell a story – from fresh and full character designs, delicate humor that’s hilarious without being offensive and enough detail and ambiance poured in the streets of Paris to fill a library, seeing a Pixar film has always been more of an experience than just about all of Hollywood’s output, and Ratatouille is no exception.

So what’s wrong with the film?  There are plenty fine ingredients that come together wonderfully in the movie, it’s just that nothing really sticks out.  The visuals and the humor are never enough to push this only decent and sometimes lackluster script through to the level of creating the great film that I’ve come to hope for out of Pixar.  Really, there doesn’t seem to be a thing wrong with the film in the slightest, but it’s only good, not great.

The Pixar machine, after a spotless streak, is starting to slow.  They followed Finding Nemo and The Incredibles with the half-there, half-not effort of Cars, and now there’s Ratatouille to add to the mix.  But what’s worth mentioning is that the guys are still at the absolute peak of computer animation in a world where it’s the flavor of the week.  As disappointing as Ratatouille may be for me, imagine what it would be like if it were produced by the guys behind the Shrek franchise – it’d probably just be another parade of fart jokes that the theater would unreasonably expect you to pay $10 for.  Pixar might not be the invincible studio it was not even five years ago, but it’s still bounds ahead of anyone else.

Ratatouille is damn charming.  I can’t say that it lives up to some of Pixar’s other films; but with a line of work so long and so successful, the studio is sure to be the next Disney of animation – Ratatouille just won’t be a highlight.

• Title: Live Free or Die Hard
• IMDB: link

Okay, probably not.  In fact, it’s definitely not the best movie ever, but it’s a summer movie chock-full of over-the-top thrill moments perfect for the season.  It’s a stupid, stupid movie, but don’t let its mindlessness fool you – Die Hard kicks enough ass to make up for it.

It’s the 21st Century, and war ain’t what it used to be.  The armies only comprise of a few dozen hackers and a handful of guys carrying guns, and the good guys only have their information stolen – never their lives.  But Bruce Willis still knows how an stick his boot up a pooper or two, and movie-goers should be thankful for it.  After an often lackluster-ish Spider-Man 3 and the complete failure of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, summer has finally given us a good ol’ fashioned, buffet-of-explosions action flick that we can enjoy for just being a fun waste of time and thinking.

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A Mighty Heart’s problem is that it’s a superbly felt and acted film that’s put together so oddly that you can’t appreciate it.  The whole cast deserves an A for Effort, but in the end the film just too out of touch with its own story to work as well as it ought to.

A Mighty Heart
2 & 1/2 Stars

There’s a strange subtlety to A Mighty Heart.  WIth constant and quick cutting, the film is always moving through the story, rarely taking a minute to let the details sink in.  The problem this sort of film is asking to run into is, when a movie rarely has a shot last longer than five seconds, can the emotional core find its way out of the story and into the audience?  A Mighty Heart honestly tries to solve this dilemma, but it often fails.

Based off of real events, the film is about journalist Daniel Pearl as he is kidnapped while reporting in Pakistan in the immediate months following 9/11.  Once this happens ten minutes into the running time, the film blasts into a full-on investigation of his disappearance, never really stopping to take a breath or give much time to examining the characters.

Lucky for the film, it’s filled to the brim with strong actors who know how to appear to carry the burden of missing a loved one, and the desperation that inevitably follows.  One really shouldn’t overlook anyone in the film – this is a terrific ensemble that deserves recognition; but if you have to name one actor in particular, it’s probably going to be Angelina Jolie, who plays Danny’s wife and the lead of the film.  Her empty gaze that is used in most of her parts says everything that words can’t about the character’s fear for her husband.  as the film goes on, her scenes become more and more painful to watch as she begins to realize what has happened to her husband.

But the editing is too much and too fast to let us take a minute with the characters.  We never learn the characteristics of anyone here, we just have actors who know how to relate tragedy.  We can see them suffering, but we never get to know them or sympathize with them.  As it is, it’s just a movie about people being sad, without any real purpose or explanation.  There’s a solid hour in the middle of the film where it feels like nothing happens besides tiny advancements of plot that could have been cut out of the film, just parading on one after another – why couldn’t we have replaced it with a nice time-out at the beginning to see what life was like for the Pearls before the kidnapping?

I can go so far as to say – and believe me, a lot of people would say this is going too far – but I can say that if you were looking for a better non-fiction movie about the horror and stupidity of kidnapping, you wouldn’t have to go very far back, just to January of this year, to find the film, and the film is Alpha Dog.  It doesn’t carry a fraction of the buzz that A Mighty Heart has; but by letting us just hang out with the characters, we sympathize with them and ultimately, actually care about the outcome of the film.

A film as political as this could easily have a secondary message, but there’s nothing under the surface here, and there’s not much above it either.  The right people are involved for the most part, it just needs a few more scenes to let us understand who these people are and a pace that’s less about finding the accurate time-line of the real-life events and more about finding the emotions of the real-life events.

What’s the point of seeing a scary movie that isn’t scary?  In this case, there isn’t much of one at all.

1408
2 Stars

It’s too bad.  It really is.  Because 1408 has a great first act.  With a good 25 minutes of film dedicated solely to John Cusack being a pompous blowhard of a Writer (and really, isn’t that what we all are?), you settle into the character and know that, if anything bad happens to this character, you’re going to feel for him.

Except then the bad stuff starts happening, and, well. . .

Cusack plays a failed (and often drinking) novelist who writes about haunted houses to pay the rent, but all the while feels violently over-qualified for the gig.  It’s all going miserably until he checks into the Dolphin Hotel and becomes more miserable by experiencing his first actual haunting.  So this is when it gets good, when the room is torturing Cusack and the audience with all sorts of cute thrills that have you squeezing the armrest, right?  Wrong.

Once we’re in the namesake-numbered room, it feels like the movie is just wandering around the suite, trying to find an idea for a way to scare you; but most of the time it just comes up short.  There are a few bright spots (like a failed escape from the room) but this PG-13 never gets your blood running.  It’s just a tame thriller, and one that ends post-maturely and nonsensically at that.

The only force that keeps you in the film is Cusack.  The guy is like a 160 pounds bag of frosted lovableness, impossible to not want to see on the screen.  So it’s fun to watch a likable guy play a depressed asshole with a love for wisecracks, even while he’s experiencing his own personal Hell.  Samuel L. Jackson contributes to the film when he’s trying desperately to dissuade Cusack from going into the infamous room, but his only scene lasts ten minutes.  Oh well, at least he gets to say “fuck.”

Besides Cusack performance, there’s not much in the movie worth watching.  And if you’re just wanting a good Cusack movie, you’d be better off just renting High Fidelity again.

There’s no denying that Ocean’s Twelve was a let-down, and many wondered if the third, and what appears to be the last, film in the Ocean’s trilogy could reclaim the suave success of the first film.  As it turns out, it’s not quite as complete as Eleven, but Thirteen is still mostly a success and the first truly fun movie of the summer.

Ocean’s Thirteen
Custom Rating

Maybe there’s an unintentional message in release dates for all of the Oceans movies.  Parts Eleven and Twelve both opened early December as fully realized and completely separate heist films.  Now we find ourselves going to see Thirteen in the heat of June, and it makes perfect sense.  Ocean’s Thirteen isn’t quite its own film; but as an appendix to the series that’s fully loaded with great moments, it’s light and entertaining – just right for the dog days of summer.

As much fun as the film is, it does start off a couple of steps under.  With a pace that goes a tad too quickly for comfort, story elements slip by on occasion.  It feels like it’s just jumped into a boxing match and it’s scrambling while trying to find its footing.  Still, you pick up all the important elements to the story: after one of the gang is hurt by a Vegas hot-shot played by Al Pacino, those ragamuffins reunite to give him his just deserts.

Things start to work just as they should for an Oceans film: style is oozed out of every frame, slick but not over-the-top one-liners breeze out of the actors and a heist film somehow becomes more funny than most comedies.

Still, the film has trouble finding its footing in the ring.  Things are starting to make a little bit more sense, but side stories that aren’t required to understand are somewhat inaccessible.  It starts to become more and more apparent, however, that it doesn’t really matter.

Even though the film often has trouble finding a solid overall story to connect every scene, everything works out well enough, and on an individual basis, every scene is a riot of laughter with sets and direction dominated by enough design and style to fill the MoMA, thanks to the fact that director Steven Soderbergh is utterly incapable of delivering a visually uninteresting film.

It’s also a great return to the form of the first film.  After the second film lost its way in the franchise with some characters getting too much attention, and inversely some being forgotten, Thirteen is fixed by just treating the cast as an ensemble instead of giving its three most well known stars the three juiciest parts.  A side effect of this aspect is that there isn’t any real character development.  That might sound like a downer, but I think everyone would agree after seeing the film that it’s better to sacrifice the slightly meatier stories to fit in more laughs.  I mean, I much prefer seeing Brad Pitt‘s character losing the Catherine Zeta-Jones love interest if it just means we get the brilliant scene detailing the masculine appeal of Oprah. And enough can’t be said of the cast – though none ever have much drama around which to act, they exude a friendly coolness that, at the same time, is intimidating by reminding you how lame you are in contrast.

I mean, in all fairness, I don’t know that Ocean’s Thirteen is that amazing of a film in the traditional respect of having strong story and story-telling at its heart.  But just like all the tales you’ve heard about the actors having the times of their lives making the first two films, this movie more than any of the others is flat-out fun.  It’s not the place to start in the series – Ocean’s Eleven is still the strongest of the series – but in a summer full of the weighty and uneven Spider-Man, the over-bloated Pirates or the just plain Crappy Shrek movies, Ocean’s Thirteen is more worthy of being a summer movie than anything else out yet this season.