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Red

January 20, 2012

Director Robert Schwentke ought to be thankful for the offbeat, talented cast he scored for “Red,” his big-screen adaptation of the DC Comics graphic-novel series. Without the combustible mix of Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren, “Red” would’ve been just another disposable actioner on Hollywood’s production slate. But the deadpan, sometimes hilarious chemistry between Willis and his co-stars give this stylistically half-baked venture a likeable twist.

Retired black-ops operative Frank Moses (Willis) lives in self-imposed suburban exile till two unrelated events happen: He takes a fancy to Sarah (Parker), a service rep at his pension firm, and he’s attacked in the middle of the night by a team of assassins. After dispatching his attackers, Frank takes it on the lam, bringing Sarah along for the ride. Yearning for exotic adventure, Sarah doesn’t mind the abduction once she realizes that Frank used to be the CIA’s most lethal and effective agent. While Frank and Sarah investigate why they’re being targeted, they’ve got to keep one step ahead of the tenacious Agent William Cooper (Karl Urban, who deserves his own action vehicle judging from his steely-eyed presence here).

One by one, Frank rounds up his veteran team of cohorts – Joe (Freeman), Marvin (Malkovich) and Victoria (Mirren). In between extended, generally unremarkable action sequences, they discover that the CIA – under orders from a Presidential hopeful (McMahon) and a defense contractor (Dreyfuss) – is eliminating anyone with knowledge of a covert Central American massacre perpetrated decades ago. Frank and company are, of course, tops on their list.

The actors bring their individual, trademark strengths to the material, and their dynamic together is where “Red” gets all its mileage. Willis’ wry, stone-cold self-assurance pairs with Parker’s high-strung, neurotic charm for a blend that’s comically pleasing, even pleasant by action-movie standards. The same holds true for Morgan’s sage charisma mixing with Malkovich’s antics as a paranoid lunatic and Mirren’s icy British elegance.

This motley cast is clearly having fun as members riff off each other, especially after Brian Cox gets in on the act in a somewhat farcical turn as a seasoned KGB operative. Urban, meanwhile, gives Cooper a deadly, laser-guided hyper-competence. The cast’s efforts go about halfway to compensating for “Red’s” lack of inspiration elsewhere. Schwentke aims for a John Woo-esque celebration of clever staging and stylish action, but we’re miles from “Hard Boiled” or “A Better Tomorrow” as sequences frequently have a falsely anarchic, been-there-done-that staleness about them (one in which Frank slides out of a spinning car, firing bullets without missing a beat is a brief exception). Given its lauded comic-book pedigree, one might expect the energy and confidence behind “Red” to be a class apart. But as it builds to its good guys vs. bad guys climax, the movie’s generic sensibilities hobbles the promise offered by a spirited cast.

Grade: C+

Directed by: Robert Schwentke
Written by: Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber
Cast: Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Helen Mirren, Karl Urban, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ernest Borgnine, Richard Dreyfuss, Julian McMahon

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Legend of the Fist

January 19, 2012

Andrew Lau’s “Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen” revives the popular Chinese kung fu hero (most famously portrayed by Bruce Lee in 1972’s “Fist of Fury”). The new Chen Zhen installment is decked out in a Hollywood style gloss that prettifies the production, giving it a cosmetic heft, but can’t bolster its sagging dud of a screenplay. Set in 1920s Shanghai, during the time of the Japanese occupation, the story pits the titular hero against a cabal of Japanese spies and military commanders bent on conquering China.

After his battlefield heroics are on acrobatic display in the movie’s WWI preamble, Chen Zhen (Donnie Yen) and his ragtag comrades return to their native Shanghai. There, Zhen infiltrates the glitzy Casablanca nightclub, whose owner Liu (Anthony Wong), a known war profiteer, welcomes wealthy British expats and even hard-drinking Japanese officers for whom Casablanca is an ad hoc canteen. Zhen cozies up to the club’s seductive star-performer Kiki (Shu Qi). But what he’s really after is rooting out the burgeoning Japanese conspiracy to take over China.

The heat ramps up once the Japanese release a death list, publicizing the names of everyone in the city whose days are numbered. The game is on between Zhen and the scowl-prone Japanese Colonel Chikaraishi (Ryu Kohata) to see how many death-list targets Zhen can save. Dressed up in dapper white duds during the day, Zhen suits up in what resembles a glossy black chauffer’s outfit, cap and mask (think Kato from “The Green Hornet”) during his nighttime kung-fu confrontations with Japanese assassins. Along the way, Zhen unmasks Kiki’s motives, and her loyalties are tested. But all roads lead to a wall-splitting, glass-shattering showdown between Chen and Chikaraishi.

Unless you are a diehard Chinese nationalist reactionary, still smarting from Japan’s aggression in the 20’s and 30’s, “Legend of the Fist’s” emotionalism packs very little punch. The nationalist fervor is laid on in broad strokes; long passages of the movie are glazed over in mushy, uninvolving patter as characters make fiery speeches, bemoaning the demise of their homeland, or protest bravely, rallying their countrymen into the spirit of unification. Understandably, all these hokey, operatic gestures suit “Legend of the Fist’s” intentions as popular Chinese entertainment befitting a mainland audience. But they’re inadequate in terms of hooking in general viewers elsewhere to the material.

Sure to win over action-movie fans (particularly kung fu enthusiasts), however, are the movie’s bruising, impressive action scenes beginning with the “Saving Private Ryan”-esque opener to a mid-movie smash-‘em-up inside a newspaper office to the climatic me-against-the-world hell-raiser inside Chikaraishi’s dojo. Chen Zhen’s super-heroic fighting skills – a whirlwind of pulverizing punches and gravity-defying leaps – find the eloquence that the movie’s hopeless, dialogue-driven stretches fail to. Adroit editing, camerawork and staging keep in step with Yen’s formidable martial arts mastery, showcasing a talent on par with Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

Grade: C+

Directed by: Andrew Lau
Written by: Cheung Chi Sing, Gordon Chan, Lui Koon Nam, Frankie Tam
Starring: Donnie Yen, Shu Qi, Anthony Wong, Huang Bo

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True Legend

January 19, 2012

Celebrated martial-arts filmmaker Yuen Woo Ping (the action-director behind “The Matrix Trilogy,” “Kill Bill: Vols. 1 & 2” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) brings his knack for hyperkinetic fight scenes to his latest directorial effort, “True Legend.” While there’s no doubting that the film is charged with the same zeal for kung-fu theatrics that’s come to distinguish Woo Ping’s cinema (“Drunken Master 2” remains a personal favorite), “True Legend” suffers from an erratic narrative pace, shoddy characters and an overuse of digital gimmickry, all of which create the impression of an ersatz epic spectacle.

“True Legend” means to be a tribute to its real-life central character, Su Can, the 19th-century founder of the so-called Drunken Fist technique of martial arts. Viewers familiar with Jackie Chan’s fighting style in the two-part “Drunken Master” series – in which the star combined the comical capering of a drunkard with the lethally swift movements of a kung-fu master – will immediately recall it.

After retiring from his stellar military career, Su Can (Vincent Zhao) retreats to a country life with his wife Ying (Zhou Xun) and son. But Ying’s brother, Yuan Lie (Andy On) – whose father was killed by Su Can’s father in an age-old feud – longs to avenge his father’s death. Possessing supernatural martial arts skills – Yuan exacts brutal punishment on Su Can and banishes him.

Su Can now finds himself in exile at a mountaintop sanctuary, under the care a mystic healer Dr. Yu (Michelle Yeoh, in a welcome cameo). There, he trains to become the elite master of the Drunken Fist technique, with some help from the Drunken God himself (Jay Chou). All of this leads to the inevitable, blood-spattering clash with Yuan Lie, of which Su Can’s wife falls casualty.

You’d think that the two’s confrontation was the finale, but it isn’t. The final third of “True Legend” becomes an extended episode in Su Can’s life, and it’s more engaging overall than the story preceding it. Left to fend for his boy and wandering China drunk and in rags, Su Can finds the zeal to rejuvenate his fighting skills after another run-in with his old mentor, the Drunken God. His spirit is galvanized (naturally!) during a gladiator-style death match against a gang of white, mixed martial arts fighters (in a wry appearance, David Carradine plays their nefarious manager), a scene brimming with the kind of anti-colonial indignation that’s another of this genre’s hallmarks.

As Su Can, the compact, super-agile Zhao dazzles with his athleticism alongside a cast of equally impressive fighter-actors. And Woo Ping integrates the hand-to-hand combat with his trademark wirework, sending his actors into preternatural dives and leaps. But as a cohesive, engaging narrative, “True Legend” is utterly at a loss. Christine To’s script provides us with a gallery of stereotypes – action pieces that Woo Ping can’t wait to pit against each other. A fitful impatience characterizes the pacing, so that viewers never engage with the characters except on the most superficial levels. Equally unfortunate are the digital effects – which often feels like a low-budget nod to “The Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” series – evident in the overabundant shots of animated rooftops, mountains, soaring eagles, all cheaply deployed and only putting us at a greater distance from the material. The result is an emotionally uninvolving, dramatically empty affair that, thankfully, boasts some world-class martial-arts skills on display.

Grade: C

Directed by: Yuen Woo Ping
Written by: Christine To
Starring: Vincent Zhao, Zhou Xun, Andy On, Guo Xiaodong, Jay Chou, Michelle Yeoh, David Carradine, Godron Liu, Cung Lee

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Point Blank

January 19, 2012

Save for its title, Fred Cavayé’s “Point Blank” is unrelated to the 1967 Lee Marvin lone-gun thriller. The new movie certainly deserves it’s in-your-face title for the sheer velocity of its pacing but viewers familiar with the Lee Marvin classic will pine for its style and intelligence while shaking their heads at the ludicrousness of Cavayé’s namesake movie.

This new “Point Blank” gets off the blocks fast with an opening montage of a foot chase through Parisian streets as gangsters stay on the heels of a mysterious fleer. The nifty sequence ends with a gunshot and motorcycle accident that leaves the fleer wounded and whisked off to the hospital. The nervy yet smooth filmmaking on display in “Point Blank’s” opening showcases a filmmaker in sure command of the nuts and bolts of action sequences. That sureness doesn’t let up in the following scenes in which Cavayé and co-writer Guillaume Lemans introduce us to Samuel (Gilles Lellouche), the male nurse caring for the wounded fleer, Hugo (Roschdy Zem), who happens to be a criminal. When Samuel’s very pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anya) is kidnapped by Hugo’s gang, Samuel finds himself in a Hitchcockian pickle as he has to do the bidding of the kidnappers or risk certain danger to his wife and unborn child.

It’s a dynamite setup and Cavayé does right by it up to a point, infusing panache and style in every scene. The sequences in which Samuel must smuggle Hugo out of the hospital, evading suspicious police, and deliver him to his gang hideout pack suspense in classically effective ways. As Samuel, Lellouche has both a believable physicality to carry him through the story’s demanding action as well as the vulnerability of an innocent man that wins our sympathy. And Sartet instills Hugo with just the right mix of a killer’s business-as-usual approach to, well, killing and a redemptive charm that makes his chemistry with the harried Samuel fairly combustible.

But Cavayé and Lemans spoil a good thing when they dump all manner of double-dealing and good cop-bad cop intrigue into what could have been a wonderfully streamlined, character-driven thriller about an innocent man forced to do the bidding of criminals to save his family. The plotting becomes hopelessly busy once crooked cop Werner (Gérard Lanvin) complicates the police pursuit because he’s in cahoots with the same criminals who were pursuing Hugo at the movie’s outset. In one clunkily handled scene that screams “Exposition!” Werner’s entire cover is blown when a dying hitman reveals the crooked cop’s involvement in the murder of a wealthy businessman.

The evidence of Werner’s involvement, of course, in a safe back at police headquarters, the setting for the film’s noisily protracted finale. The second half of “Point Blank” is simply the plot machinery working overtime: With Samuel in tow, Hugo arranges for the infiltration of police headquarters while Werner locks horns (and steely stares) with Fabre (Mireille Perrier), the good cop who suspects that Samuel is not a fugitive but a victim of circumstance.

All of these moving parts collide in a third act that makes mincemeat of all the suspense elements that held our attention in first act, exaggerating them to absurd – even dopey – proportions. To be fair, Cavayé and his team come up with a brisk, watchable climactic set piece. But the elements themselves are too predictable and absurd to be involving and, what’s worse, they betray the riveting simplicity of “Point Blank’s” arresting set-up.

Grade: C

Directed by: Fred Cavayé
Written by: Fred Cavayé, Guillaume Lemans
Cast: Gilles Lellouche, Roschdy Zem, Gérard Lanvin, Elena Anaya, Mireille Perrier, Claire Perot, Moussa Maaskri, Pierre Benoist

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Black Death

March 9, 2011

The pall of fear and death hangs over thriller-maker Christopher Smith’s “Black Death.” It’s 1348, and we’re in England’s bleak, mist-encircled countryside. The Bubonic Plague stalks the population, killing off entire villages and infecting those who’ve evaded it with constant dread. The Church finds itself losing ground to the Plague as it fails to deliver its followers of their suffering.

For callow monk Osmund (Eddie Redmayne), the crisis of faith in God is less about the heartless decimation of innocent lives and more about his personal struggle to reconcile his pledge to God with his irresistible love for a woman, Averill (Kimberly Nixon). To keep Averill from the Plague’s clutches, Osmund sends her into the forest while he himself signs on with a band of mercenaries, led by the steely-eyed Ulric (Sean Bean) on a mission for the Church Bishop.

Osmund is tasked with leading Ulric and company to the other side of a mysterious marshland where, as rumor has it, a village untouched by the Plague exists, guarded over by a sorceress, capable of fending off disease and resurrecting the dead. For Ulric, an agent of the Church, the sorceress represents a threat to Christian order and must be eliminated. Hence, once the men arrive at the mystical village, Smith’s film shunts into psychodrama as Ulric and the heretic sorceress, Langvia (Carice Van Houten), circle one another with suspicion and grapple for the hearts and minds of the villagers.

Whether Langvia is truly a sorceress or a charlatan manipulating the gullible villagers with sleight-of-hand is a question weighing on the film’s closing act. It’s a question Osmund faces head-on as he contends with guilt and grief upon realizing that Avrill may have been killed in the forest and Langvia tempts him by offering to bring her back. This issue of what is real, what is illusion and of one’s faith in God amidst so much misery entwine compellingly throughout “Black Death,” and give Dario Poloni’s script its thematic heft.

“Black Death,” rightly so, is not a pretty looking movie; Smith and cinematographer Sebastian Edschmid wash out primary colors, and give their film a coarse, grainy look, befitting the ugliness of their milieu and the brutality of the violence (and, be warned, there’s plenty of it). But “Black Death” is all jitters and quick cuts from the first shot; we hardly get a moment to absorb the mood of pervasive dread and paranoia without being distracted by the jerky, hand-held shooting and restless editing. Smith’s frenetic style is appropriate to the battle scene that takes place midway, but it’s everywhere, creating a sense of anxiety that doesn’t feel organic to the material.

Moreover, when Langvia enters the story, “Black Death” becomes enwrapped in its parlor game regarding her identity, complete with a secretive pagan ritual that feels recycled from every satanic-cult scene ever made, to maintain the sense of terror essential to it plot. The performances are generally sturdy, and while Redmayne’s Osmund is too slight a character to carry the film, Bean compensates with his intense presence. Ulric may be a secondary character here, but Bean owns this movie. His characters’ zealousness, personified by the actor’s grim visage and battle-ready comportment, as well as his commitment to his faith, tested in a painful-to-watch torture sequence, are the driving engines behind Smith’s otherwise sporadically effective film.

Grade: B-

Directed by: Christopher Smith
Written by: Dario Poloni
Cast: Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Carice Van Houten, Kimberly Nixon, David Warner, John Lynch, Andy Nyman, Johnny Harris, Tim McInnerny

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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

February 16, 2011

Everyone knows the plot by now: Three down-and-out gold prospectors slumming in a small Mexican town venture into the titular mountain range and strike the mother lode. But that’s when trouble starts brewing as one of the men, Dobbs (played by Humphrey Bogart in one of his career-defining performances) becomes completely dominated by his greed and murderous suspicions towards the other two men — the easygoing Curtin (Tim Holt) and the seasoned, wisecracking Howard (Walter Huston, who won an Oscar) — till everything they’ve worked for and accumulated is jeopardized.

Huston’s crackerjack screenplay is a study in karmic justice as the men follow their separate paths, destined to meet their separate fates. Six decades since its release and counting, the performances by the three leads continue to exert a raw moral power, especially Bogart’s. He really goes full-tilt in a bold, unapologetic turn as the unhinged Dobbs. Holt makes a sturdy counterweight to Dobbs’ excesses while Huston holds his own as a grizzled prospector who’s seen a thing or two. His foreboding look as Dobbs begins to unravel reveals that Howard is the movie’s oracle, our resident wise man and the jokester we badly need by the time Treasure pitches and storms to its close.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is an all-time masterpiece of characterization, structure, pacing and storytelling in general. While the outdoor photography could have been more expressive and textured (the early interiors are gorgeously filmed), and Huston’s early inspiration flags in the third act, the sheer narrative force of the whole thing — and Bogart’s indomitable performance — carry the film through. Among the most unforgettable action/adventure movies ever made.

Grade: A

Directed by: John Huston
Written by: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt, Walter Huston

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Zombieland

January 21, 2011

It’s a familiar horror-comedy premise: The Zombie Apocalypse. The world is in ruins and overrun with flesh-eating zombies. Among the few scattered human survivors is Columbus (as in Columbus, Ohio; the characters in the film are known for the destinations to which they’re headed), played by Jesse Eisenberg in his typical (and highly effective) dithering mode. He hitches a ride with the loose-cannon Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) along a highway littered with corpses and abandoned vehicles. Columbus and Tallahassee have a testy dynamic — the former being the tentative, always-anxious yin to the latter’s off-kilter, aggressive yang. Soon, the pair is joined by the scheming twosome, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). They form a dysfunctionally amusing clique, fending off hordes of zombies while tearing along in their truck towards a new destination, an amusement park in Los Angeles rumored to be zombie-free (No spoiler: It’s not).

The zombie-based action in Zombieland is old hat. We’ve seen it all before: Zombies attacking recklessly while our human heroes fend them off with shotguns and sharp objects. The comic violence is amusing up to a point after which it’s just a monotonous succession of beheadings and splatter effects; zombie violence is a dangerously one-trick pony and gives this sub-genre a been-there-seen-that vibe. But where Zombieland really shines is in its characters: Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, director Ruben Fleischer and the four-member cast create a group of truly endearing personalities who we enjoy following. Harrelson is in top nutcase mode, playing off perfectly against his exact opposite, embodied in Eisenberg. Stone, playing tough-chick Wichita, is charming, especially as a tentative romance develops between her character and Columbus. In fact, Zombieland’s best scene might be the one in which these two flirt tentatively and warm to each other. Breslin, meanwhile, as the no-nonsense Little Rock has a couple of sharply funny scenes with Eisenberg as well.

The central section of Zombieland, surprisingly, contains almost no action. It’s an extended interlude that takes place in, of all places, a mansion belonging to Bill Murray, who plays himself and brings to the film its goofiest, most hilarious moments. Dressed as a zombie to “blend in,” Murray has survived the apocalypse and, when he appears before our star-struck group, goes into a virtual stand-up routine, raising the nuttiness bar of Zombieland up one refreshing notch.

The action, especially its tiresome third act consisting of — you guessed it — more zombie mania, is about as dull and predictable as they come in this genre. It’s Zombieland’s delightfully offbeat characters that give the movie its staying power.

Grade: B-

Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Written by: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin

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Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

September 24, 2010

For its rapturous imagery and mythical sensibilities, director Zack Snyder’s “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” aspires to something akin to “Avatar” or the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. In fact, the attention to texture and detail that Snyder and his team have invested in depicting everything from the film’s painterly landscapes to every individual feather of its largely avian cast is downright impressive. Rendered in 3D, “Guardians” can often be a breathtaking experience approximating James Cameron’s work in his above-mentioned saga.

Writers John Orloff and Emil Stern adapt Kathryn Lasky’s popular children novels about two warring kingdoms of owls – the noble Guardians and the evil Pure Ones. From the looks of it, Orloff and Stern do their best with an overload of characters, numerous by-plays, back-story and incident, but, finally, the job of condensing the full scope of a novel into a 90-minute fantasy flick asks both too much of the form and of the audience.

“Guardians” follows two plucky young barn owl-brothers, Soren (Jim Sturgees) and Kludd (Ryan Kwanten), who find themselves on opposite sides in the story’s mythic clash of owls. While testing their fledgling wings, Soren and Kludd are captured by agents of the Pure Ones and whisked off to their nefarious stronghold. Rather than be added to the Pure Ones’ legion of brainwashed soldiers, Soren escapes the clutches of its leader, Metal Beak (Joel Edgerton) while Kludd – always jealous of Soren’s flying abilities – vows allegiance to Metal Beak and his queen, Nyra (Helen Mirren).

Soren, meanwhile, teams up with the tiny but intrepid Gylfie (Emily Barclay) and the buffoonish but well-meaning pair, Digger (David Wenham) and Twilight (Anthony LaPaglia). Together, they seek out the storied Guardians and warn them of the Pure Ones’ imminent invasion, and of Metal Beak’s vaguely explained ploy that involves bats and unleashing the destructive energies harnessed from a rare metal. Deception in the Guardians’ ranks and an obligatory final act beak-and-talon throw-down round out a script that packs in far too many emotional and expository beats for anyone unfamiliar with the source material, frankly, to care.

A game cast featuring established thespians like Mirren, LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving together with newer talents like Joel Edgerton and Ryan Kwanten all manage to breath dramatic fire and a sincere gravity to the proceedings. That added to the story’s inherent sense of fantasy, and its genuinely felt moments of exhilaration (as when Soren discovers his perceptive gifts) and of danger (as when the “Guardians’” scrappy heroes struggle to fly through a dangerous ocean storm) keep us engaged – for a time, at least.

But one question I kept coming back to was, “Who’s this movie made for?” It’s too violent and scary for very young children. And I wouldn’t expect tweens and teens to be jonsing for a fantasy adventure about owls. For older crowds, the movie doesn’t have rich enough story and character development – though it teases with potential in both – to make the material truly involving. That leaves the fans of Lasky’s books, but they too might be turned off by Snyder’s rushed, fevered telling. “Guardians” may be trying to please all the above equally with the end result that everyone leaves the theater feeling a bit gypped.

Grade: C+

Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: John Orloff, Emil Stern
Cast: Jim Sturgess (voice), Emily Barclay (voice), Abbie Cornish (voice), Hugo Weaving (voice), Geoffrey Rush (voice), Helen Mirren (voice), Joel Edgerton (voice), Sam Neill (voice), Ryan Kwanten (voice), Anthony LaPaglia (voice), David Wenham (voice)

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Resident Evil: Afterlife

September 14, 2010

Producer-director-writer Paul W.S. Anderson’s unstoppable spinoffs of “Resident Alien,” the megahit humans vs. zombies video-game franchise, continues with “Resident Alien: Afterlife.” It offers the full grab bag of “Matrix”-y effects thrown at your eyeballs over and over again accompanied by a head-pounding fusion of hard rock and techno. In fact, during many scenes in “Afterlife,” I wasn’t sure whether to watch Milla Jovovich do leaps and somersaults in slo-mo while firing bullets and bathed in droplets of rain, or just get up and dance to the soundtrack.

Unsurprisingly, “Afterlife” is being released in both 2D and 3D versions; I saw the 3D, which adds nothing qualitatively to the experience. While if offers some genuinely clever touches initially, “Afterlife” loses steam once Anderson becomes less interested in the story at hand and more on wrapping it up, making sure to set up another sequel.

In terms of visual design, the movie’s opening set inside the expansively futuristic headquarters of the evil Umbrella Corporation (the company that perpetrated the zombie virus) impresses most. Here, Alice (Milla Jovovich), a human with all the emotional register of a mannequin, confronts the company’s CEO, Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) – he’s the one sporting the shades and the bad Brit accent – in a no-holds-barred battle that begins indoors and ends in a plane crash from which Alice escapes. Thereafter, the bulk of “Afterlife” follows Alice and cohort Claire’s (Ali Larter) attempts to lead a group of survivors, holed up in a high-rise L.A. prison, to a tanker ship believed to be a safe haven from zombies, just offshore. The sections inside the prison work best as the survivors – ranging from the rangy, Will Smith-esque ex-basketball player Luther West (Boris Kodjoe) to the reptilian movie producer, Bennett (Kim Coates). Anderson, thankfully, slows the story enough to take advantage of his premise’s horror-movie and survivalist drama tropes as issues of betrayal, trust and camaraderie boil to the surface, and suspicions arise that the zombies may be tunneling their way in.

Once the zombies overrun the prison, “Afterlife” switches to action-movie gear from which it never returns, culminating in a finale that’s a pale rehash of the opening. The occasional flashes of imagination aside, “Afterlife” epitomizes what movies written largely by software and marketing committees look like. Diehard fans of the franchise and genre enthusiasts may flock to it, but on its own merits, the movie offers little. To say it’s nothing more than a crass merchandising gimmick would be to acknowledge Hollywood’s openly cynical attitude to story telling and the film business in general. And what’s the point of that?

Grade: C-

Directed by: Paul W. S. Anderson
Written by: Paul W. S. Anderson
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Kim Coates, Shawn Roberts, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Spencer Locke, Boris Kodjoe, Wentworth Miller, Sienna Guillory, Kacey Barnfield, Norman Yeung, Fulvio Cecere

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A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (San qiang pai an jing qi)

September 4, 2010

Watching a criminal cover his tracks at the scene of his crime has to be one of the guiltiest pleasures to be had at the movies. From wiping down traces of fingerprints to re-adjusting props and furniture in a way that might stave off suspicion and securing a hasty exit, everything is done in silence and with the readiness to strike if he were discovered at any moment. Director Zhang Yimou’s “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop” benefits handily from scenes like this, distinguished by precision filmmaking that amplifies suspense and even gets us rooting for the villain.

Yimou’s tale of crime and deceit is a remake of the Coen Brothers’ 1984 debut “Blood Simple,” transplanted to a Chinese frontier province a few centuries ago (the time is never established). Here, a wealthy, bitter and aging noodle-shop proprietor, Wang (Ni Dahong), ruthlessly lords over his young wife (Yan Ni), whose name is never given. Physically and emotionally abused, the wife finds intimacy with one of Wang’s cooks, Li (Xiao Shenyang), a sweet-natured milquetoast, ever paranoid that his boss is on to their affair. Swearing to kill him one day, the wife buys a gun and stashes it away.

When the mercenary patrol officer Zhang (Sun Hunglei) confirms the affair, Wang offers him a substantial reward if he kills the lovers. Zhang agrees, but he has something more sinister and ambitious in mind. Intending to rob the proprietor of his fortune and frame the lovers, he kills Wang using his wife’s gun. But, after that, everything gradually falls to pieces as Zhang must contend with the buffoonish but crafty Zhao (Cheng Ye), another of Wang’s employees, who also has his eyes on his boss’s fortune, and then, once Li discovers Wang’s body, he must hunt down the lovers fearing they know too much.

The plot mechanics of “A Woman, a Gun and Noodle Shop” is forgettable pulp. Furthermore, Yimou’s handling of the “Blood Simple” storyline is choppily paced, frequently jumping between parallel courses of action, impairing our involvement with any single character. Yimou also resorts to interjecting shots of racing clouds and the rising moon, a strategy meant to invoke doom and tension but, to this viewer, felt like haphazard visual filler.

The multiple characters here with their scattered motives can be a chore to keep track of because, by and large, they’re not compelling enough. As the lovers, Li is too timid to elicit our sympathy, much less respect, while Wang’s wife is too shrill (and as a passionate woman, her attraction to the cowardly Li seems implausible). Ye’s performance as Zhao draws too broadly from the buffoon stereotype of Chinese comedy to come across as a fully rounded character. Still, the actor demonstrates admirable timing and finesse in what is a nicely realized slapstick role. And while Dahong is aptly venal as the shamed and desperate Wang, it’s Hunglei’s work as the stone-faced, unflappable Zhang that dominates the film’s performances.

The stars of the show, ultimately, are Zhao Xiaoding’s gorgeous cinematography, Tao Jing’s evocative sound design and Yimou’s choice of otherworldly locations. Surreal panoramas of rugged, implacable mountains, the whisper of winds through the passes, the steady hoofbeats of galloping horses, and the clank of a metallic object puncturing the silence of a murder scene, all of these lend Yimou’s film a richly mystical, dream-like quality. It’s through such elements that the movie transcends its own weaknesses, and becomes a lingering, artful experience.

Grade: B-

Directed by: Zhang Yimou
Written by: Shi Jianquan, Shang Jing
Cast: Sun Hunglei, Xiao Shenyang, Yan Ni, Cheng Ye, Mao Mao, Ni Dahong

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