After films like the Oscar-nominated Babel (2006), and the Spanish-language Biutiful (2010), featuring an Oscar-nominated turn by Javier Bardem, it wouldn't be surprising if more than one person -- friend, colleague, critic -- suggested that Mexican writer-director Alejandro G. (formerly Gonzalez) Inarritu 'lighten up'. The good news for those who didn't enjoy his previous 'misery porn' is that he has. Kind of.
Birdman, Inarritu's first film since 2010, is a comedy albeit a dark one. If cynicism were a font, you can be sure that Inarritu used it during the writing process, in bold and the occasional all caps.
Set in the backstage world of a New York theatre, Birdman is a tale of the actor's lot. That actor is Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), one-time Hollywood superhero (the eponymous Birdman) who now, on the wrong side of 40 and fame, finds himself searching for relevance in both his profession (he's mounting an adaptation of a Raymond Carver book for his Broadway debut) and his personal life.
Off-stage, Riggan's life is complicated by an assortment of people: co-stars Lesley (Naomi Watts) and Mike (Ed Norton, in a scene-stealing tempest of a performance), the latter a method actor who comes in as a last-minute replacement but immediately sets about wreaking havoc on and off stage; another co-star, Laura (Andrea Riseborough), who is also Riggan's lover and may or may not be carrying his child; and a put-upon agent, Jake (Zach Galifianakis) who is equally as invested, emotionally and financially, in the production.
Then there's Sam (Emma Stone). Riggan's daughter from his failed marriage (Amy Ryan pops in and out), Sam is newly out of rehab and working as the actor's assistant, and whether flirting with Mike, possibly falling off the wagon, or calling dad out on his bullshit, she's a constant cause of consternation for the Hollywood has-been who is slowly but surely unraveling -- he's in on-going conversation with his Birdman alter-ego -- as opening night approaches.
Shot in a dizzying faux one-take by Emmanuel Lubezki (the cinematographer who won last year's Oscar for Gravity and does equally deserving work here), Birdman unfolds as both farce and stream of consciousness; Riggan's real and interior worlds coalescing and colliding as the cracks in his sanity give way under the mounting pressures and his existential crisis.
There's much fun to be had in Birdman, and even more so, one suspects, if you happen to be an actor or someone who is privy their world, their insecurities and vanities: the film is meta, playful, scathing and hyper-real.
Whether Inarritu is saying anything new or profound, however, is cause for debate (as is that ending), but for the most part Birdman flies -- and occasionally soars -- on its visual and verbal wings.
Few films have been as anticipated, talked about and touted for awards success this past year as Angelina Jolie's Unbroken. The actress's second film as director sees her tackling the life of Louis Zamperini, one-time US Olympic athlete and Japanese POW camp survivor, as detailed in Laura Hillenbrand's extensive biography (adapted here by four writers including the Coen brothers).
Yet with a run-time of 137-minutes, Unbroken focuses only on Zamperini's war service, with flashbacks to his childhood and then the 1936 Berlin Olympics (he turned to running to channel his delinquent energy), and even then we don't learn all that much about the man.
Serving as a bombadeer in the Pacific during WWII, Louis (Jack O'Connell) and his crew ditch in the ocean whilst on a rescue mission (and Jolie can certainly direct an action sequence). With two fellow survivors, Phil (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mac (Finn Wittrock), he spends the next 47 days adrift; fighting off starvation, thirst, enemy artillery fire, sharks and insanity before being picked up by a Japanese ship.
Taken to Tokyo, Zamperini would then spend the next two-and-a-half years -- and the rest of the war -- in a POW camp under the watchful and sadistic eye of Captain Watanabe (Miyavi, a Japanese rock star in his film debut). Known to the other prisoners as 'The Bird', Watanabe takes a keen interest in Zamperini, singling him out for brutal punishment when he's not courting his friendship.
It is this relationship which becomes the focus of Zamperini's imprisonment and not the standard WWII prison film staple of camaraderie with his fellow Allied prisoners. The POWs, which include Garrett Hedlund and Luke Treadaway, are never developed as fully-fleshed characters nor is Louis's attachment to them. His refusal to stay down or give in to his captors -- Christ-like in its climactic moment -- doesn't seem to earn his fellow inmates' respect organically, even as O'Connell's stoic central performance does the audience's.
Louis Zamperini may well have been an inspirational figure, both during the war and in his subsequent years where he delivered on a promise to serve God. But Unbroken, though occasionally stirring, is not an inspirational film; O'Connell, and Roger Deakins' cinematography can only do so much. Conversely, Alexandre Desplat's score strains for effect giving you the sense that Jolie is plucking nose hairs rather than heart strings.
The death of Zamperini in 2014 adds a certain poignancy to his story which may indeed be a great one. Unbroken, while a solid outing for Angelina Jolie - director, is not a great film.
In 2008, an unassuming, ultra-violent, quasi-xenophobic thrill ride through the streets of Paris with Liam Neeson in kick-ass mode surprised everyone by being a grubby but neat actioner and a box office hit.
Sequels were, of course, inevitable but the 2012 outing, set in Istanbul and continuing on from the first -- an Albanian father seeks revenge for the death of his son, one of the many among the body count of Neeson's ex-CIA operative, Bryan Mills, in the course of his all-out mission to rescue his abducted daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace) -- was a pale imitation of its predecessor. Lightning -- and Mills, with his particular set of skills -- failed to strike twice.
And yet we still get a sequel, for Hollywood is seemingly incapable of not making trilogies. But without the perverse thrills of the first film and the exotic locales of the second (Taken 2's Istanbul shoot that film's one redeeming feature), Taken 3, set on the streets and in the sewers of Los Angeles, is little more than a generic chase film which just happens to feature Mills and his daughter.
The plot involves the murder of Mills' ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen), and his subsequent framing for the crime. Mills goes on the run to prove his innocence, chased by Russian gangsters and a dogged police captain (Forest Whitaker), who, when he's not eating other people's bagels, slowly begins to suspect that his number one suspect might just be as innocent as he claims.
That's not before Mills has racked-up a damage bill that would make a fledgling superhero proud, and added to his ever-increasing body count. (He may be retired but hey, Mills loves what he does.) But Taken 3 has none of the thrills -- perverse or otherwise -- of that first film. As the third (and final? The tagline certainly suggests as much) entry in the franchise, box office is the key objective, thus the film's violence has been effectively neutered (there's barely even any blood) so as to garner a more audience-friendly rating and more bums on seats.
You certainly can't accuse series director, Olivier Megaton, of being subtle (with a surname like that?), but he and writer-producer, Luc Besson, have shortchanged both Mills and fans of the first Taken with this bloodless effort. Neeson may have done it for the money but Bryan Mills would never have.
The movie musical was a staple of the golden years of Hollywood but for whatever reason -- rising production values, the increasing popularity of television, the realism of late 1960s-early '70s films -- what was once a flood of song-and-dance films, proceeded by Elvis flicks and Doris Day hits, soon became a sporadic trickle.
But that interest was renewed and the well re-tapped in 2001 with Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge!, and gold-plated the following year when Chicago, an adaptation of the Broadway smash directed by film debutante Rob Marshall, high-kicked its way to the Best Picture Oscar.
A spate of movie musicals have followed in the wake of that Oscar winner with varying degrees of success; a few have even had BP aspirations, most notably Dreamgirls (2006), Sweeney Todd (2007) and Les Miserables (2012). That middle film was an adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, as is Into The Woods, which sees Rob Marshall returning to the musical after his less than stellar Nine (2009).
An amalgam of fairy tales including Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood, Into The Woods is a cautionary tale about dreaming big, beyond your means and above your station; the engine driving the narrative is a baker and his wife's (James Corden and Emily Blunt) desire to be parents and the witch (Meryl Streep) who sets them the challenge of retrieving items that will help reverse an infertility curse cast upon their house (one which the witch herself did cast).
So into the woods the baker and his wife go, on a scavenger hunt to retrieve the necessary four items: a blood red cape belonging to Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), a glass slipper belonging to Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), a lock of golden hair thanks to Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), and a milky white cow which just happens to belong to Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), on his way to trade the beast -- and his BFF -- for some beans.
Throw in a couple of vainglorious princes (Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen's duelling duet atop a waterfall is the film's high point), a lascivious wolf (Johnny Depp), and a widowed giant (Frances de la Tour), and you have what amounts to a pantomime which, though performed well and intermittently entertaining, is neither substantial or affecting. And it's doubtful that anyone other than Sondheim fans will be able to recall any of the songs.
Emily Blunt, having a good year after Edge of Tomorrow, is best-in-show and Streep is, of course, strong (those put off by memories of 2008's Mamma Mia! need not fear: Meryl's been practising). The rest of the cast are solid, too, but Marshall can only manage to make things entertaining in spits and spurts, while the third act -- an epilogue to the usual 'happily ever after' of fairy tales -- is a bit of a jumble.
It's doubtful the fate of the Hollywood musical is dependent on the success of Into The Woods, but a happy ending at the box office will certainly encourage those producers and directors thinking of mounting film versions of Broadway hits, especially those who had their doubts following Jersey Boys, Clint Eastwood's D.O.A. foray into the genre in 2014. Compared to that bum note, Into The Woods is a magical experience.
