Anyone going to see Hope Springs thinking it is 2012's version of It's Complicated may be disappointed. This is not a broad comedy. It's more a drama presented humorously. It's warm, pleasant and rather realistic.
Kay and Arnold have been married 31 years. To say they're in a rut would be an understatement. But Kay wouldn't mind doing the same things in and out, if they did them together. Instead, they're often in the same room (though not the same bedroom) but worlds apart. Arnold doesn't hear or see her anymore.
She doesn't just want a change. She needs one. Their marriage, maybe her sanity, depends on it. She's inspired by a marital self-help book and books a weeklong counseling session in Maine, with its author, Bernard Feld (Steve Carrell). She tells Arnold she's already booked the trip, having paid for it with $4000 from her CD. He's annoyed that someone at his (accounting) office helped her access the money and he knew nothing about it. He tells her she can just go alone.
The next day she gives him his boarding pass and says she hopes he will be on the plane when it leaves the next day. She will be. Now, since we've seen Arnie at work and know he hasn't arranged for vacation time off, I think it's a little much that she basically gives him an ultimatum that he has to be prepared to leave for a week the very next day . . . or else.
Afraid of the "or else" (based on the fact that his co-worker's wife left him), Arnie gets on the plane at the last minute, grumbling all the way.
They meet with Dr. Feld who Arnie thinks is a quack. Carrell plays the role completely straight. So, don't go expecting wackiness from him. One wonders why Carrell accepted the part. It requires no effort from him. Perhaps, he just welcomed the opportunity to work with these stalwarts.
This movie works because the characters are believable. They have grown apart, but it's no War of the Roses. They don't fling wild accusations. There were no affairs, no impotence, no devastating trauma. They're two people who loved each other once, still love each other, but have grown apart. Arnie hurt his back years ago and slept in the guest room due to the pain. He never ended up going back to the master bedroom. They haven't had sex in almost 5 years.
We see him rebuff Kay's overtures early in the movie, but in therapy they reveal that it was Kay who stopped the sex first. Arnie says that sex stops being fun when you know the other person doesn't want it. So, he stopped asking. He doesn't say it, but eventually the lack of intimacy created a wall between them that he couldn't knock down, even when she asked. He still desires sex, desires her, but can't expose himself and open up without great difficulty.
The exercises that Bernie gives them work -- and that's the problem. When Arnie finds himself aroused, it creates more distance between them, not less. The focus is on the sex, but it's just a metaphor for the couple's psychological divide. Kay says she doesn't know why it's so hard to touch someone that you love. But the fear of being pushed away outweighs the potential thrill of being welcomed. Closed doors, closed hearts. Kay is in the Econolodge bed masturbating, something she hadn't done for years, because it only reminded her of what she and Arnie no longer shared. Arnie lies outside on the pull out couch, hearing her sighs, wanting her, but unable to move.
We see them make inroads in therapy, but Arnie runs away when Feld probes too deep and Kay is ready to end it and get a refund, exhausted from pushing too hard against an impenetrable force and, when Arnie is receptive, too afraid of making a fool of herself. We see them at their hotel packing to leave. But the next day they are back at Feld's office, ready to try again. We don't know how they worked through the road block, but it's clear that Arnie can't bear the thought of losing Kay, even if he doesn't know how to keep her. For her part, she tells Feld that Arnie is everything to her. Still, she thinks that if they can't come together, it would be less lonely being alone than it is staying with him. These two love each other and know they're loved, but don't feel wanted and are unable to fight through their insecurities, to find support on the other side. Bernie asks them isn't their marriage more important than their pride and they both say it is, but they say it to Bernie, not to each other.
Finally, things take an upturn and they have a perfect romantic evening, both straining to please the other and enjoying themselves immensely in the process. Kay had mentioned in therapy that Arnie scrunched his eyes closed when they kissed, as if he didn't want to see her. She felt he just wanted the sex, not her love. On this momentous night, as Arnie reaches a climax, she reaches up from beneath him and twists his head so he's looking down directly at her. That's when everything falls apart and Arnie's passion subsides. Kay takes this as proof that she no longer appeals to him. When he said he wanted her physically, he lied. Arnie objects, "It has nothing to do with that," but doesn't elaborate. Defeated, they return home. Arnie carries in the suitcases, leaves Kay's in the master bedroom and, though the audience is hoping he'll deposit his bag right there too, it is not to be. He walks down the hall to the guest room and closes the door.
One egg and one strip of bacon for breakfast. He'll be home from the office at 6 o'clock. Tax talk at the dinner table. Arnie is ready to fall back into their old routine, but Kay says she doesn't know if she can go back.
She packs a bag to leave. She's only supposed to be cat-sitting for a friend, but when we see her pack family pictures, we know she soon plans to leave for good. We hear her sobs from behind the bedroom door. It's not clear whether Arnie hears them too, but he certainly stops at the door, fingers its grooves. Wants to open it, but can't. Somewhere in the middle of the night, he finds the courage, goes into the room and he and Kay finish the mending that started in Maine.
Over the closing credits we see them renewing their wedding vows, with Dr. Feld presiding over the nuptials, then celebrating with the family. That might seem too sappy, but since it happened during the credits, one doesn't have to accept it as the true end of the movie, if it feels too contrived for your tastes. Since much of the movie felt so real, swallowing the obligatory happy ending is not especially difficult.
What resonated most with me though was not what ended well, but the night that went wrong. Arnie never explained why he couldn't consummate that romantic evening in Maine. Kay thought it was because he couldn't look at her, but I think the truth was he couldn't bear for her to look at him. The camera focused on Tommy Lee Jones' red face, engorged, every fleshy pock mark emphasized as Arnie heaved over Kay. There were no glamor angles in this movie, no gauze on the lens. The wrinkles showed and made the path into Arnie's head so easy. You really sensed how hard it can be to see yourself through someone else's eyes, if you don't feel their love is unconditional.
So often, rejection is just uncertainty. Arnie and Kay didn't get through to each other, as much as they let the other in.
Jones' "Arnie" possesses a gentleness that isn't apparent in the trailers. This movie isn't a masterpiece, but it doesn't take as formulaic a route as one might expect. The script is original not because it's brilliant or sharp, but because most of the words feel real. And if you go in thinking Meryl Streep could convey that realness more effectively than Jones, you'll be surprised.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
After the movie ended, I sat there until the last credit rolled waiting for the Easter egg peek at the next villain: it never came. It was then that I remembered that this was supposed to be the last part of a trilogy, so of course there are no spoilers to reveal for the next installment.
I realized then that it will seem hard to get excited about another Batman that does not have Christoper Nolan at the helm. It's not Christian Bale that I will miss. It's the look, the feel. Nolan's Gotham. Nolan's angst. Will anyone else be able to deliver anything that -- not satisfying -- but filling again?
At the end of this 2:45 hour epic, I realized that I'd spent the first 90+ minutes just waiting for all the puzzle pieces to come together. It wasn't that I didn't know where they all already. I just sat there waiting for them to move into position and suddenly, knowing created as much anticipation as not knowing.
We know from the start that Cat Woman and Batman will end up as allies. It's fun to watch that bond form. We may not know from the start that Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is Robin, but it gradually becomes quite clear. His dimunitive height is a clue. The fact that he is an orphan is another. The crowning revelation is not his first name, but when Batman tells Blake that if he's going to rescue people, he should wear a mask, not to protect himself, but those he loves. Blake's determination is just one of the reasons that I don't want this series to end. I want to follow him into superheroism, if not by Batman's side then on adventures of his own.
Finally, once Alfred leaves, we know that he will return and that was really the movie's high point for me. Maybe it's because this movie frequently relies on events that took place in the first two, building up our investment in the relationships. Maybe it's because Michael Caine is 79, has provided us with 50 years of wonder and I don't know how many times I'll see him act again or maybe just because it's hard to say goodbye, even when it's a happy parting, but I cried so much over Caine's last scene you would have thought I was at a showing of Terms of Endearment.
This movie is being reviewed everywhere and there's nothing I can add to everyone's impressions. I just want to write these notes for myself so that if I should rewatch the series at some point in the future I can remember what seemed significant to me today, in contrast to what sticks out to me then, when I've moved to another stage in my life and may perceive things differently.
First I'd like to address the complaint that Batman is not seen enough in the movie. Since I'm not a fan of action flicks, the more time the hero spends out of the costume is, for me, the better. I like to know what motivates him to put it on and what it covers rather than see how its aerodynamic qualities help him soar. I'm not there for the "Kapow" but if I was, it can hardly be said that this movie doesn't deliver on that punch. No matter how many minutes Batman spends on screen, there are plenty of fights and bat gadgets to ogle and the movie is certainly more about him than Catwoman, Bane or John Blake, so I don't get the airtime gripe.
On to the story: when we meet Anne Hathaway's Cat Woman she is a server at a party hosted at the Wayne estate. I know who she will come to be, but don't realize that she has already attained her villaint. After his last battle with Two-Faced in which he was left disabled, branded a murderer in the eyes of the public and lost his beloved Rachel he has become a recluse. He no longer manages his company or fortune and doesn't even attend events held in his name. Since the timid maid (Selina Kyle, aka Cat Woman) seems to be part of a catering group and is not a member of Wayne's staff, I'm not sure why Alfred tells her to take a tray up to Wayne's room. How does he know this strange woman is not a security risk? It seems like lax butlering to me. When she enters Bruce's cavernous, seemingly empty suite, I can't believe she starts poking around. How can she be sure she's not alone? In fact, since she was told that Wayne never leaves his room, she should be sure that she's not alone. Thus, her nosiness seems like great folly to me and I'm shaking my head.
Little did I realize that Selina could not care less if she is caught. She's not a burgeoning criminal, but already a skilled burglar and adept athlete, who easily escapes anyone who apprehends her even, or especially, Bruce Wayne. He comes upon her after she has already broken into his family safe and stolen his mother's pearls. They spar verbally. Since his legs are shattered and he only walks with the support of a cane, he's not much of a match for her physically. She easily escapes, the Wayne pearls encircling her neck.
After she's gone Wayne researches her identity with awe, rather than frustration over the theft, even when he tells Alfred that Selina also stole his fingerprints and he's not sure what nefarious use to which he might put them.
The fascination with Selina brings Wayne out of the shell, not to mention the house, he's been in for 4 years. Pretty soon he's out gathering information and Batman gadgets again. This to Alfred's chagrin. When Wayne finds there's a terrorist, Bane, building an invincible underground army, he warns Wayne that he's not powerful enough to fight him. Yes, he can recover his physical strength, but he does not have the mental will to live. Wayne has only known loss. He's come to expect it. It's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. He thinks that he must fight to the death, but Alfred thinks he should walk away. He doesn't remain tied to Gotham out of loyalty. He does it because he has a death wish and Alfred is tired of watching Wayne's die. This one will have to do it without him.
In one of those Good Will Hunting moments Alfred says that before Wayne returned 8 years ago he'd hoped he'd stay away. When he vacationed in Florence, he always daydreamed about sitting at a cafe and seeing Bruce at another table with a wife and maybe two kids. There Bruce would be basking in sunshine and happiness, things that Gotham can't offer. He'd see Bruce across the cafe and their eyes would lock, but they wouldn't even speak. Alfred would just know that Bruce was happy and leave. Well, I knew what happened when Chuckie painted a similar scenario for Will Hunting, but I didn't quite know where Alfred's statement would lead. I only knew that when Alfred and Bruce argued and then parted, their separation couldn't last.
Of course, the way that Alfred turns Bruce against him harkens back to The Dark Knight. He informs him that Bruce's love, Rachel, left a note saying she chose Harvey Dent (the Two-Faced villain) over Bruce and that Alfred burned it, to spare Bruce's feelings. He tells Bruce this now so that he won't use Rachel's memory as an excuse to stop living. Bruce thinks/hopes Alfred is only lying to manipulate Bruce into doing what he wants. He bids him a final goodbye and, the next day, Bruce wakes up in his mansion all alone. Later he finds he doesn't even have a key to enter the place. He's never needed one before. There was always someone to open the door.
Meanwhile, Bane is beginning to wreak havoc in the city and we meet Blake, a young uniformed cop determined to halt the evil uprising. Unfortunately, his boss, Foley(Matthew Modine) is more concerned with nailing Batman than fighting actual criminals. Sure, Batman was falsely accused of murder, but that was 4 years ago. What has he done to Foley lately? Bane has just entered the Stock Exchange, shot hundreds of people and stolen enough electronic information to clean out everyone's bank account, but when Blake tries to go after him Foley asks, "what's more important, catching a robber or catching Batman?" Huh? At that point, Bane was not a mere robber. He was a mass murderer. In fact, he still had hostages taken from the stock exchange with him. Foley's disinterest has classic seeds. The traditional law enforcement agencies always distrust the Superhero. They feel threatened by him, no doubt jealous of the worship bestowed upon him by the citizenry. The hero not only has to fight evil, but to combat the skepticism of good people. This is common, but it doesn't usually reach the extremes that Foley takes to ignore vicious crimes in his mad chase of the Masked One. At one point, I think he needs to be destroyed as much as Bane does.
As for Bane, he's rather mortal and pedestrian for a comic book villain, a body builder in a gas mask. Aside from his eloquent speeches, he smacks more of reality than imagination. I would have expected it would take someone more otherworldy to bring the creation that is Nolan's Gotham to its knees. However, as an allegory, perhaps the more concrete the evil is, the less likely the story can be dismissed as only fiction.
As Batman races to stop Bane's rampage, in the wake of the Stock Exchange rubble, an older policeman hears his bike approaching before Batman is even in view and he remembers the good old days. He turns to his young partner and says, "You're in for a show, tonight." The youngster helpfully shoots in Bane's direction, while Batman is trailing him. Batman gives him an impassive look and, chagrined, the rookie quickly backs off. 'Oops. Sorry.'
Batman tries to rally the troops against Bane and, basically, chooses Cat Woman as his second in command. For some reason, he thinks she's good at heart. I'm not sure why. All he knows is that she grew up poor. I suppose he feels she's still the needy girl, hungry, rather than greedy. She nurtures this belief by expressing her disdain of the wealthy and privileged, assuring him that she only takes from those who can afford it. Whatever her personal problems, he seems to place his trust in her before they've even come close to being resolved. He tells her to take him to Bane. She does, leading him right into Bane's trap.
With tears falling, she watches from outside a cage as Bane beats Batman to what looks like the death and breaks his back in two, pulls off his mask and tosses it aside, like so much rubbish. Selina then tries to leave Gotham before Bane comes after her. I don't understand Alfred, Selina and all of these people talking as if leaving Gotham will bring safety and protection. Alfred wasn't a recluse for 4 years himself. He kept up with undergound gossip. Like Selina, he knew that Bane's plans spread well beyond a city of $12 million people. He is threatening nuclear disaster that will destroy the world. So, I'm not understanding this "get out of town" mentality. Still, Selina makes a run for the airport, where she's detained by Blake. Bane has Batman. Is he dead, Blake asks. Selina's broken whisper is sincerely moving, "I don't know."
So, back at the ranch Bane has thrown Batman into a pit. The pit faces up to the sky, but no one can climb out of it. So, your despair is always tinged with hope that you can somehow make it up to the sun. The hope makes the misery even sharper. Many men have tried to get out, but only one has succeeded. I'm not sure how they all failed since the walls of the pit are lined with a series of protruding stones that look a lot like those rock climbing walls you see at the wall. With footholds that wide, even I could climb out of the pit. If they're going to pretend like it was such an impossible feat to get out, at least make the walls leading up slick and smooth, not the most easily scalable pit on the planet.
The other prisoners, broken old men, who have all tried to leave many times, rising up to the opening of the pit on a rope, only to come crashing down, battered on the jagged rock walls during descent, tell Bruce about the story of the only prisoner who ever got out. It was a child. The mother was thrown down there pregnant. That's where the baby was born and never knew any other life. Maybe that's why he alone got out. When he trapped Bruce, Bruce tried cutting the electricity to gain an advantage. Bane told him that he, Bane, was born in darkness. He didn't see light until he became a man. As the Batman, Wayne made himself accustomed to the darkness, but that's all Bane ever knew. Darkness was never a detriment for him. It's the light that he finds blinding.
Bruce now understands that Bane must have been the child in the pit. One prisoner says that when a plague hit the prisoners decades ago, acting as a doctor he tried to save Bane, but in doing so, he injured him badly and only having the mask over his face lessens the pain. I'm not sure how a gas mask (as opposed to a nice cushy bandage) helps deaden pain. I'm also not sure what treatment you can give a plague victim that would basically destroy their face. So, as far as an "origin story" goes, I think Bane's is pretty stupid. But whatever.
Anyway, the old men tell Bruce he will never make it because he's not afraid to die. If you have nothing to live for, you won't fight hard enough. Bruce says he's not afraid to die, but he's not going to die there. So, he tries to get up on the rope twice and fails. But then the men tell him that he should go the way the child did, without a rope. Duh? Why didn't they share that bit of info with him to begin with? Seems like passive/aggressive concealment to me. First of all, I've seen staircases more difficult to navigate than that wall, but that's a design problem I shouldn't hold against the plot. While the men might assume it's easier to ascend with a rope than without, since the only one to escape had no rope, why wouldn't any of them give that a try? Once Wayne gets a clue, he skeddadles pretty fast. It's all pretty hokey to me. But the higher he goes, the louder the cheers from the men below get, men who will never escape themselves, spurring him upward. They chant in a foreign voice, but their words mean "Rise! Rise! Rise!" As Wayne reaches the top with that chorus below, I get chills. I can't imagine a more thrilling trail to the movie's title. When Batman makes it out, my thoughts stay with the men who never will. But Bruce doesn't look back at them. He's headed towards Gotham.
Batman and Catwoman hook up. Bane has taken over the city, released all of the prisoners and launched a reign of terror, where the innocent citizens are overrun by the criminals. Batwoman enlists Selina's aid again -- even after the stunt she pulled the last time. She can't believe. How does she know that she doesn't like Gotham this way. Maybe she revels in the anarchy. Whether she does or not, Batman tells her that Bane has a nuclear reactor that's going to go off in a few hours, so it's going to be the end of everything, good and bad, unless she helps him. She concedes and hops into his bat plane. "My mother always told me not to get in the car with strangers," she intones. "This isn't a car," he replies.
Blake is on the ground trying to help the citizens, chief among them the boys from the orphanage that he grew up in. For whatever reason (given that a nuclear bomb is about to explode), he wants to get them on the bridge out of Manhattan, um, Gotham. But the police have been told not to let anyone exit. Blake tells them that the plans have changed. He's one of them. They can trust him. They need to have faith. They say that if keeps coming forward they will shoot him and if he persists further, they will blow up the bridge. Blake tests them. If he was hoping that they would stand down rather than injure a fellow cop, he was wrong. They shoot at him (his vest protects him) and then they blow up the bridge. He is livid, calling them SOBs. The priest caring for the boys is resigned. What would getting off the island would have done? The bomb would still have killed them all, the Father said. What's the difference? The difference is hope. Now, the boys have none, Blake tells him.
And that's a nice tie. Bane wanted to give Batman and the other prisoners hope of escaping to make their agony greater when they couldn't. Bane told Batman that he'd crush every last hope that he had, "Then, you have my permission to die."
Blake, on the other hand, thinks hope is the only thing that makes even certain death bearable. Blake sees no way out, but across town the Gotham police commissioner is about to face an icy death when someone throws a firecracker at his feet. He smiles and gets a phone call. A familiar voice on the other end tells him to light it. When he dies, a string of flame travels across the ice, runs up a building and lights up Gotham's bat signal, a symbol of hope that has long been dark. An incredulous Blake sees it miles away and knows he, the orphans, the world, all still have a chance. Is it believable that Batman would take the time to build a trail to the bat signal during that chaos? Yes, if it was the one thing that was needed to give desperate, frightened people the resolve needed to keep fighting.
In another location, Batman is cornered by Bane, but it turns out that his girlfriend, philanthropist Miranda Tate is the real villain. She was actually the baby born in the pit who managed to escape it. Bane was only a fellow prisoner who helped her. Her father (villain Henri Ducard from Batman Begins) hated Bane because his face was disfigured, but Bane's only crime was showing her love. Bane, a gloating brute up to this point, listens as she recounts her history, tears falling from his eyes. It was because her father left her mother that the pregnant was thrown into the pit where Miranda was born. So, she had always grown up hating the man . . . until Batman killed him. Then, she plotted her revenge in her father's name. She used the very weapon that Bruce Wayne's inventor, Lucius, (Morgan Freeman) built to defend the city to destroy it, by turning it into a nuclear reactor. What's even more ironic is that Bruce himself sold the weapon to her. After Bane's stock market electronic thefts left Bruce broke on paper, he thought that Miranda Tate was the only one left with enough money to preserve his defense projects. He was so grateful for her purchase that they ended up in bed together earlier (which was rather a hasty development for a man fresh out of seclusion and surprising, since I had expected Cat Woman to be his only love interest). Now, he realizes she was the enemy. Bane was just her servant.
She tells Bane she's off to launch the reactor, but warns him not to kill Batman. She wants him to live long enough to see the fire. Once she trots off Bane, wipes away his tears and is like, "You know you're going to die now, don't you? You'll just have to imagine the fire." Hilarious way to end the sentimental mood Miranda's words had created. Breathing payback Batman tells Bane he's going to see his plot demolished first, "Then, you have my permission to die." They battle and Bane is winning when Catwoman bursts in and just blows Bane away with an airy aside to Batman, "You know your position against guns? I'm not sure I feel as strongly about it as you do."
This movie doesn't have the humor that the other two possessed, but there are 4 or 5 moments that evoke deep laughs.
They get to the nuclear reactor and, seconds before it's about to go off, Batman hooks it up to the bat plane and flies it out to the ocean, so that it will detonate under water, hurting no one. His plan works, but an atomic plume goes off over the water, totally engulfing Batman's plane.
He's buried at the Wayne mansion which his will has bequeathed to the orphanage, to house parentless boys forever. An inconsolable Alfred tends the gravesite, blaming himself for having failed Bruce just when he needed him most.
Batman may be gone, but this time the police commissioner makes sure that Gotham will always remember him for the hero he was. A statute is erected in his honor. Blake thinks it small recompense for the price Batman made to save the lives of many who were ungrateful to Batman. He takes off his police badge and, undoubtedly, remembering his stand off with the cops on the bridge, tosses it aside, disillusioned.
He leaves the city with only a back pack. When a woman checks his identification she tells him he should use his first name because she likes it: Robin. We think he is leaving the city, but we find him walking instead towards underground waterfalls. Robin has found the bat cave.
Alfred is at a European side walk cafe. A lone diner, reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. He glances up briefly and something catches his eye. It's Bruce Wayne seated a few tables away, facing Alfred. A pony-tailed woman sits opposite him. When she tosses her head, we see Selina Kyle's profile. Bruce nods at Alfred, slightly lifts his coffee cup in tribute. Alfred tilts his head in answer. Folds his paper. Rises and walks away. He says nothing, so that catch in his throat that I hear as he leaves is only really there in my heart.
I realized then that it will seem hard to get excited about another Batman that does not have Christoper Nolan at the helm. It's not Christian Bale that I will miss. It's the look, the feel. Nolan's Gotham. Nolan's angst. Will anyone else be able to deliver anything that -- not satisfying -- but filling again?
At the end of this 2:45 hour epic, I realized that I'd spent the first 90+ minutes just waiting for all the puzzle pieces to come together. It wasn't that I didn't know where they all already. I just sat there waiting for them to move into position and suddenly, knowing created as much anticipation as not knowing.
We know from the start that Cat Woman and Batman will end up as allies. It's fun to watch that bond form. We may not know from the start that Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is Robin, but it gradually becomes quite clear. His dimunitive height is a clue. The fact that he is an orphan is another. The crowning revelation is not his first name, but when Batman tells Blake that if he's going to rescue people, he should wear a mask, not to protect himself, but those he loves. Blake's determination is just one of the reasons that I don't want this series to end. I want to follow him into superheroism, if not by Batman's side then on adventures of his own.
Finally, once Alfred leaves, we know that he will return and that was really the movie's high point for me. Maybe it's because this movie frequently relies on events that took place in the first two, building up our investment in the relationships. Maybe it's because Michael Caine is 79, has provided us with 50 years of wonder and I don't know how many times I'll see him act again or maybe just because it's hard to say goodbye, even when it's a happy parting, but I cried so much over Caine's last scene you would have thought I was at a showing of Terms of Endearment.
This movie is being reviewed everywhere and there's nothing I can add to everyone's impressions. I just want to write these notes for myself so that if I should rewatch the series at some point in the future I can remember what seemed significant to me today, in contrast to what sticks out to me then, when I've moved to another stage in my life and may perceive things differently.
First I'd like to address the complaint that Batman is not seen enough in the movie. Since I'm not a fan of action flicks, the more time the hero spends out of the costume is, for me, the better. I like to know what motivates him to put it on and what it covers rather than see how its aerodynamic qualities help him soar. I'm not there for the "Kapow" but if I was, it can hardly be said that this movie doesn't deliver on that punch. No matter how many minutes Batman spends on screen, there are plenty of fights and bat gadgets to ogle and the movie is certainly more about him than Catwoman, Bane or John Blake, so I don't get the airtime gripe.
On to the story: when we meet Anne Hathaway's Cat Woman she is a server at a party hosted at the Wayne estate. I know who she will come to be, but don't realize that she has already attained her villaint. After his last battle with Two-Faced in which he was left disabled, branded a murderer in the eyes of the public and lost his beloved Rachel he has become a recluse. He no longer manages his company or fortune and doesn't even attend events held in his name. Since the timid maid (Selina Kyle, aka Cat Woman) seems to be part of a catering group and is not a member of Wayne's staff, I'm not sure why Alfred tells her to take a tray up to Wayne's room. How does he know this strange woman is not a security risk? It seems like lax butlering to me. When she enters Bruce's cavernous, seemingly empty suite, I can't believe she starts poking around. How can she be sure she's not alone? In fact, since she was told that Wayne never leaves his room, she should be sure that she's not alone. Thus, her nosiness seems like great folly to me and I'm shaking my head.
Little did I realize that Selina could not care less if she is caught. She's not a burgeoning criminal, but already a skilled burglar and adept athlete, who easily escapes anyone who apprehends her even, or especially, Bruce Wayne. He comes upon her after she has already broken into his family safe and stolen his mother's pearls. They spar verbally. Since his legs are shattered and he only walks with the support of a cane, he's not much of a match for her physically. She easily escapes, the Wayne pearls encircling her neck.
After she's gone Wayne researches her identity with awe, rather than frustration over the theft, even when he tells Alfred that Selina also stole his fingerprints and he's not sure what nefarious use to which he might put them.
The fascination with Selina brings Wayne out of the shell, not to mention the house, he's been in for 4 years. Pretty soon he's out gathering information and Batman gadgets again. This to Alfred's chagrin. When Wayne finds there's a terrorist, Bane, building an invincible underground army, he warns Wayne that he's not powerful enough to fight him. Yes, he can recover his physical strength, but he does not have the mental will to live. Wayne has only known loss. He's come to expect it. It's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. He thinks that he must fight to the death, but Alfred thinks he should walk away. He doesn't remain tied to Gotham out of loyalty. He does it because he has a death wish and Alfred is tired of watching Wayne's die. This one will have to do it without him.
In one of those Good Will Hunting moments Alfred says that before Wayne returned 8 years ago he'd hoped he'd stay away. When he vacationed in Florence, he always daydreamed about sitting at a cafe and seeing Bruce at another table with a wife and maybe two kids. There Bruce would be basking in sunshine and happiness, things that Gotham can't offer. He'd see Bruce across the cafe and their eyes would lock, but they wouldn't even speak. Alfred would just know that Bruce was happy and leave. Well, I knew what happened when Chuckie painted a similar scenario for Will Hunting, but I didn't quite know where Alfred's statement would lead. I only knew that when Alfred and Bruce argued and then parted, their separation couldn't last.
Of course, the way that Alfred turns Bruce against him harkens back to The Dark Knight. He informs him that Bruce's love, Rachel, left a note saying she chose Harvey Dent (the Two-Faced villain) over Bruce and that Alfred burned it, to spare Bruce's feelings. He tells Bruce this now so that he won't use Rachel's memory as an excuse to stop living. Bruce thinks/hopes Alfred is only lying to manipulate Bruce into doing what he wants. He bids him a final goodbye and, the next day, Bruce wakes up in his mansion all alone. Later he finds he doesn't even have a key to enter the place. He's never needed one before. There was always someone to open the door.
Meanwhile, Bane is beginning to wreak havoc in the city and we meet Blake, a young uniformed cop determined to halt the evil uprising. Unfortunately, his boss, Foley(Matthew Modine) is more concerned with nailing Batman than fighting actual criminals. Sure, Batman was falsely accused of murder, but that was 4 years ago. What has he done to Foley lately? Bane has just entered the Stock Exchange, shot hundreds of people and stolen enough electronic information to clean out everyone's bank account, but when Blake tries to go after him Foley asks, "what's more important, catching a robber or catching Batman?" Huh? At that point, Bane was not a mere robber. He was a mass murderer. In fact, he still had hostages taken from the stock exchange with him. Foley's disinterest has classic seeds. The traditional law enforcement agencies always distrust the Superhero. They feel threatened by him, no doubt jealous of the worship bestowed upon him by the citizenry. The hero not only has to fight evil, but to combat the skepticism of good people. This is common, but it doesn't usually reach the extremes that Foley takes to ignore vicious crimes in his mad chase of the Masked One. At one point, I think he needs to be destroyed as much as Bane does.
As for Bane, he's rather mortal and pedestrian for a comic book villain, a body builder in a gas mask. Aside from his eloquent speeches, he smacks more of reality than imagination. I would have expected it would take someone more otherworldy to bring the creation that is Nolan's Gotham to its knees. However, as an allegory, perhaps the more concrete the evil is, the less likely the story can be dismissed as only fiction.
As Batman races to stop Bane's rampage, in the wake of the Stock Exchange rubble, an older policeman hears his bike approaching before Batman is even in view and he remembers the good old days. He turns to his young partner and says, "You're in for a show, tonight." The youngster helpfully shoots in Bane's direction, while Batman is trailing him. Batman gives him an impassive look and, chagrined, the rookie quickly backs off. 'Oops. Sorry.'
Batman tries to rally the troops against Bane and, basically, chooses Cat Woman as his second in command. For some reason, he thinks she's good at heart. I'm not sure why. All he knows is that she grew up poor. I suppose he feels she's still the needy girl, hungry, rather than greedy. She nurtures this belief by expressing her disdain of the wealthy and privileged, assuring him that she only takes from those who can afford it. Whatever her personal problems, he seems to place his trust in her before they've even come close to being resolved. He tells her to take him to Bane. She does, leading him right into Bane's trap.
With tears falling, she watches from outside a cage as Bane beats Batman to what looks like the death and breaks his back in two, pulls off his mask and tosses it aside, like so much rubbish. Selina then tries to leave Gotham before Bane comes after her. I don't understand Alfred, Selina and all of these people talking as if leaving Gotham will bring safety and protection. Alfred wasn't a recluse for 4 years himself. He kept up with undergound gossip. Like Selina, he knew that Bane's plans spread well beyond a city of $12 million people. He is threatening nuclear disaster that will destroy the world. So, I'm not understanding this "get out of town" mentality. Still, Selina makes a run for the airport, where she's detained by Blake. Bane has Batman. Is he dead, Blake asks. Selina's broken whisper is sincerely moving, "I don't know."
So, back at the ranch Bane has thrown Batman into a pit. The pit faces up to the sky, but no one can climb out of it. So, your despair is always tinged with hope that you can somehow make it up to the sun. The hope makes the misery even sharper. Many men have tried to get out, but only one has succeeded. I'm not sure how they all failed since the walls of the pit are lined with a series of protruding stones that look a lot like those rock climbing walls you see at the wall. With footholds that wide, even I could climb out of the pit. If they're going to pretend like it was such an impossible feat to get out, at least make the walls leading up slick and smooth, not the most easily scalable pit on the planet.
The other prisoners, broken old men, who have all tried to leave many times, rising up to the opening of the pit on a rope, only to come crashing down, battered on the jagged rock walls during descent, tell Bruce about the story of the only prisoner who ever got out. It was a child. The mother was thrown down there pregnant. That's where the baby was born and never knew any other life. Maybe that's why he alone got out. When he trapped Bruce, Bruce tried cutting the electricity to gain an advantage. Bane told him that he, Bane, was born in darkness. He didn't see light until he became a man. As the Batman, Wayne made himself accustomed to the darkness, but that's all Bane ever knew. Darkness was never a detriment for him. It's the light that he finds blinding.
Bruce now understands that Bane must have been the child in the pit. One prisoner says that when a plague hit the prisoners decades ago, acting as a doctor he tried to save Bane, but in doing so, he injured him badly and only having the mask over his face lessens the pain. I'm not sure how a gas mask (as opposed to a nice cushy bandage) helps deaden pain. I'm also not sure what treatment you can give a plague victim that would basically destroy their face. So, as far as an "origin story" goes, I think Bane's is pretty stupid. But whatever.
Anyway, the old men tell Bruce he will never make it because he's not afraid to die. If you have nothing to live for, you won't fight hard enough. Bruce says he's not afraid to die, but he's not going to die there. So, he tries to get up on the rope twice and fails. But then the men tell him that he should go the way the child did, without a rope. Duh? Why didn't they share that bit of info with him to begin with? Seems like passive/aggressive concealment to me. First of all, I've seen staircases more difficult to navigate than that wall, but that's a design problem I shouldn't hold against the plot. While the men might assume it's easier to ascend with a rope than without, since the only one to escape had no rope, why wouldn't any of them give that a try? Once Wayne gets a clue, he skeddadles pretty fast. It's all pretty hokey to me. But the higher he goes, the louder the cheers from the men below get, men who will never escape themselves, spurring him upward. They chant in a foreign voice, but their words mean "Rise! Rise! Rise!" As Wayne reaches the top with that chorus below, I get chills. I can't imagine a more thrilling trail to the movie's title. When Batman makes it out, my thoughts stay with the men who never will. But Bruce doesn't look back at them. He's headed towards Gotham.
Batman and Catwoman hook up. Bane has taken over the city, released all of the prisoners and launched a reign of terror, where the innocent citizens are overrun by the criminals. Batwoman enlists Selina's aid again -- even after the stunt she pulled the last time. She can't believe. How does she know that she doesn't like Gotham this way. Maybe she revels in the anarchy. Whether she does or not, Batman tells her that Bane has a nuclear reactor that's going to go off in a few hours, so it's going to be the end of everything, good and bad, unless she helps him. She concedes and hops into his bat plane. "My mother always told me not to get in the car with strangers," she intones. "This isn't a car," he replies.
Blake is on the ground trying to help the citizens, chief among them the boys from the orphanage that he grew up in. For whatever reason (given that a nuclear bomb is about to explode), he wants to get them on the bridge out of Manhattan, um, Gotham. But the police have been told not to let anyone exit. Blake tells them that the plans have changed. He's one of them. They can trust him. They need to have faith. They say that if keeps coming forward they will shoot him and if he persists further, they will blow up the bridge. Blake tests them. If he was hoping that they would stand down rather than injure a fellow cop, he was wrong. They shoot at him (his vest protects him) and then they blow up the bridge. He is livid, calling them SOBs. The priest caring for the boys is resigned. What would getting off the island would have done? The bomb would still have killed them all, the Father said. What's the difference? The difference is hope. Now, the boys have none, Blake tells him.
And that's a nice tie. Bane wanted to give Batman and the other prisoners hope of escaping to make their agony greater when they couldn't. Bane told Batman that he'd crush every last hope that he had, "Then, you have my permission to die."
Blake, on the other hand, thinks hope is the only thing that makes even certain death bearable. Blake sees no way out, but across town the Gotham police commissioner is about to face an icy death when someone throws a firecracker at his feet. He smiles and gets a phone call. A familiar voice on the other end tells him to light it. When he dies, a string of flame travels across the ice, runs up a building and lights up Gotham's bat signal, a symbol of hope that has long been dark. An incredulous Blake sees it miles away and knows he, the orphans, the world, all still have a chance. Is it believable that Batman would take the time to build a trail to the bat signal during that chaos? Yes, if it was the one thing that was needed to give desperate, frightened people the resolve needed to keep fighting.
In another location, Batman is cornered by Bane, but it turns out that his girlfriend, philanthropist Miranda Tate is the real villain. She was actually the baby born in the pit who managed to escape it. Bane was only a fellow prisoner who helped her. Her father (villain Henri Ducard from Batman Begins) hated Bane because his face was disfigured, but Bane's only crime was showing her love. Bane, a gloating brute up to this point, listens as she recounts her history, tears falling from his eyes. It was because her father left her mother that the pregnant was thrown into the pit where Miranda was born. So, she had always grown up hating the man . . . until Batman killed him. Then, she plotted her revenge in her father's name. She used the very weapon that Bruce Wayne's inventor, Lucius, (Morgan Freeman) built to defend the city to destroy it, by turning it into a nuclear reactor. What's even more ironic is that Bruce himself sold the weapon to her. After Bane's stock market electronic thefts left Bruce broke on paper, he thought that Miranda Tate was the only one left with enough money to preserve his defense projects. He was so grateful for her purchase that they ended up in bed together earlier (which was rather a hasty development for a man fresh out of seclusion and surprising, since I had expected Cat Woman to be his only love interest). Now, he realizes she was the enemy. Bane was just her servant.
She tells Bane she's off to launch the reactor, but warns him not to kill Batman. She wants him to live long enough to see the fire. Once she trots off Bane, wipes away his tears and is like, "You know you're going to die now, don't you? You'll just have to imagine the fire." Hilarious way to end the sentimental mood Miranda's words had created. Breathing payback Batman tells Bane he's going to see his plot demolished first, "Then, you have my permission to die." They battle and Bane is winning when Catwoman bursts in and just blows Bane away with an airy aside to Batman, "You know your position against guns? I'm not sure I feel as strongly about it as you do."
This movie doesn't have the humor that the other two possessed, but there are 4 or 5 moments that evoke deep laughs.
They get to the nuclear reactor and, seconds before it's about to go off, Batman hooks it up to the bat plane and flies it out to the ocean, so that it will detonate under water, hurting no one. His plan works, but an atomic plume goes off over the water, totally engulfing Batman's plane.
He's buried at the Wayne mansion which his will has bequeathed to the orphanage, to house parentless boys forever. An inconsolable Alfred tends the gravesite, blaming himself for having failed Bruce just when he needed him most.
Batman may be gone, but this time the police commissioner makes sure that Gotham will always remember him for the hero he was. A statute is erected in his honor. Blake thinks it small recompense for the price Batman made to save the lives of many who were ungrateful to Batman. He takes off his police badge and, undoubtedly, remembering his stand off with the cops on the bridge, tosses it aside, disillusioned.
He leaves the city with only a back pack. When a woman checks his identification she tells him he should use his first name because she likes it: Robin. We think he is leaving the city, but we find him walking instead towards underground waterfalls. Robin has found the bat cave.
Alfred is at a European side walk cafe. A lone diner, reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. He glances up briefly and something catches his eye. It's Bruce Wayne seated a few tables away, facing Alfred. A pony-tailed woman sits opposite him. When she tosses her head, we see Selina Kyle's profile. Bruce nods at Alfred, slightly lifts his coffee cup in tribute. Alfred tilts his head in answer. Folds his paper. Rises and walks away. He says nothing, so that catch in his throat that I hear as he leaves is only really there in my heart.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
The Avengers (2012)
I didn't see The Cabin in the Woods, so I finally had to catch The Avengers, just to keep my Joss Whedon Continuing Education credits current.
Chases, explosions and city-demolishing action are lost on me, so I have no opinion about those, but I found the characters likable and appreciated the humorous dialogue.
There's not much to say about this romp. It was fun, not deep. So, I'll just point out things that left me with questions.
I was not familiar with Tom Hiddleston going in and I found him especially good as the villain Loki. He's the bad guy up against 6 superheroes, so we know he's going to lose very badly (but oddly enough they don't kill him, I suppose out of deference to his brother Thor) and he's often made a buffoon. The script lets him puff up his arrogance just to make the inevitable deflation fun, so it would be easy for him to come off as weak or ineffectual. But he's not. He's never really threatening, but the movie is as much a battle of wits (or witty) as it is a battle of brawn. On that score, the polished Loki can hold his own against the other 6.
I knew a fair amount about The Hulk's origin story from the old Bill Bixby television series, but I still don't understand how much control Bannon's brain has over the monster. I suppose it's clear that he will destroy anyone who is around when there are slim pickings, but it seems that if he has a crowd of victims to choose from, Hulk goes after the bad guys first and helps his allies. Plus, he's cerebral enough to understand Loki's archaic ramblings, grunting that Loki is a "puny giant," after humorously pounding the villain like a ragdoll, to quickly end a proud speech exalting the superiority of Gods.
Hulk seems to understand and make choices fairly well. How unbridled is this beast really? Sure, after quelling all of their enemies temporarily, Hulk hauls off and punches Thor for lack of anything better to do (which reminded me of a hilarious Buffy scene when Angel, soul intact, slugs Xander declaring, "that guy just bugs me."), but he also actually rescues Ironman and screams in frustration (or grief) when it seems that Stark is dead. He was definitely controlling his violence to some extent. I don't know if this means the writer cheated a bit or if Hulk is really more complex than I thought.
I was also surprised that Hulk doesn't just jump really high. He actually flies for all intent and purposes.
This was my first time seeing Cobie Smulders outside of How I Met Your Mother. She slimmed down for the role and is sporting a sleek, futuristic haircut. Though her role was small, it was substantive and her character survived, so there's hope she'll make the sequel. Nice going for her.
Captain America was frozen for 70 years, yet when he and Stark meet, he doesn't seem to be completely unaware of who Stark is and Stark knows him too. It's almost like they have a history (did they develop one in some movie that I missed?). Stark mentions that his father idolized Captain America, so maybe he only knows the man's legend, but it seemed like they had been rivals in the past. I better go watch the last Ironman movie, to see what is eluding me.
I think it's ridiculous that Pepper didn't pick up her cell phone when Tony was calling to say goodbye, right at the end of his suicide mission. She knows him and the chances he takes. She knows that he is just the type of person who would try to get a message to her even while hurtling towards death. It would be not be a time for her to let it go to voicemail.
I know nothing about the backstories for Hawkeye and The Black Widow and found myself wanting to know more about their relationship. So, that would be a spinoff movie that I'm up for.
During all of the fighting, we saw the K fall off of the giant STARK building. I loved the ending where all but one letter has been destroyed. The "A" remains for Avengers. Nice way to end with the title.
Chases, explosions and city-demolishing action are lost on me, so I have no opinion about those, but I found the characters likable and appreciated the humorous dialogue.
There's not much to say about this romp. It was fun, not deep. So, I'll just point out things that left me with questions.
I was not familiar with Tom Hiddleston going in and I found him especially good as the villain Loki. He's the bad guy up against 6 superheroes, so we know he's going to lose very badly (but oddly enough they don't kill him, I suppose out of deference to his brother Thor) and he's often made a buffoon. The script lets him puff up his arrogance just to make the inevitable deflation fun, so it would be easy for him to come off as weak or ineffectual. But he's not. He's never really threatening, but the movie is as much a battle of wits (or witty) as it is a battle of brawn. On that score, the polished Loki can hold his own against the other 6.
I knew a fair amount about The Hulk's origin story from the old Bill Bixby television series, but I still don't understand how much control Bannon's brain has over the monster. I suppose it's clear that he will destroy anyone who is around when there are slim pickings, but it seems that if he has a crowd of victims to choose from, Hulk goes after the bad guys first and helps his allies. Plus, he's cerebral enough to understand Loki's archaic ramblings, grunting that Loki is a "puny giant," after humorously pounding the villain like a ragdoll, to quickly end a proud speech exalting the superiority of Gods.
Hulk seems to understand and make choices fairly well. How unbridled is this beast really? Sure, after quelling all of their enemies temporarily, Hulk hauls off and punches Thor for lack of anything better to do (which reminded me of a hilarious Buffy scene when Angel, soul intact, slugs Xander declaring, "that guy just bugs me."), but he also actually rescues Ironman and screams in frustration (or grief) when it seems that Stark is dead. He was definitely controlling his violence to some extent. I don't know if this means the writer cheated a bit or if Hulk is really more complex than I thought.
I was also surprised that Hulk doesn't just jump really high. He actually flies for all intent and purposes.
This was my first time seeing Cobie Smulders outside of How I Met Your Mother. She slimmed down for the role and is sporting a sleek, futuristic haircut. Though her role was small, it was substantive and her character survived, so there's hope she'll make the sequel. Nice going for her.
Captain America was frozen for 70 years, yet when he and Stark meet, he doesn't seem to be completely unaware of who Stark is and Stark knows him too. It's almost like they have a history (did they develop one in some movie that I missed?). Stark mentions that his father idolized Captain America, so maybe he only knows the man's legend, but it seemed like they had been rivals in the past. I better go watch the last Ironman movie, to see what is eluding me.
I think it's ridiculous that Pepper didn't pick up her cell phone when Tony was calling to say goodbye, right at the end of his suicide mission. She knows him and the chances he takes. She knows that he is just the type of person who would try to get a message to her even while hurtling towards death. It would be not be a time for her to let it go to voicemail.
I know nothing about the backstories for Hawkeye and The Black Widow and found myself wanting to know more about their relationship. So, that would be a spinoff movie that I'm up for.
During all of the fighting, we saw the K fall off of the giant STARK building. I loved the ending where all but one letter has been destroyed. The "A" remains for Avengers. Nice way to end with the title.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
In most Comic Book hero movies you gave a 10 minute synopsis of the back history and then Krypton is forgotten altogether and Superman and Lex Luthor spend the next 90 minutes fighting to the death.
This time around, Spiderman's creation takes up a full hour of the movie. This film is even more beginny than Batman Begins was. We don't just see Peter Parker lose his uncle, we see the first goodbyes that shape his life, as his clandestine parents make a hasty departure, never to be seen again. Then, we enter John Hughes' territory and follow Peter's geeky travails in High School, where he's pummeled by the bully Flash and smitten by the caring Gwen. By the time he's actually bitten by the radioactive spider, we're more concerned with his feelings than with his new powers.
Even after he perfects the web-swinging and costume, the audience sees and hears, a boy in a mask, not the burgeoning legend. Superman never becomes a stately, deep-voiced hero in this film. Andrew Garfield is an engaging lead. Even though the actor is 28, he's credible as a teen, his shyly bowed head more believable than Spider-man's derring do.
Even before he got his spidey-senses, Peter was always a protector. Intervening when he saw schoolmates humiliated or misused, though he couldn't protect himself, much less others. He trespasses into a genetic testing facility and is bitten by a bionic spider more robot than insect. From there, his superhuman powers begin to emerge and humor ensues as he struggles to control, then perfect them.
At school, the newly invincible Peter puts the old bully Flash in his place. Curiously, he is scolded by his uncle for doing so. Ben asks if Flash is the same person who punched Peter. Peter says he is and Ben scolds that getting revenge on Flash must have made Peter feel proud. Well, what if it did? Why shouldn't revenge on a bully feel good. Ben may be worried that Peter has turned into a bully himself, but he never asked Peter why Flash hit him in the first place. It was because Peter wouldn't let Flash abuse others. He got beat up for doing right when he was a weakling and, after he gained super powers, he still didn't use them to dominate Flash until after Flash, again, terrorized a third person. Peter did not pick on Flash for self-gratification as Ben, unreasonably, assumes that he has.
Nothing in the boy's (mostly polite) behavior at home would have given Ben that impression of Peter. But I guess the plot won't get furthered unless Ben jumps to such conclusions. He lectures Peter until he feels alienated and falsely accused. Petulant Peter then fails to stop a robber at a convenience store and the free robber ultimately ends up shooting Uncle Ben. Focused on revenge, Peter anonymizes himself as Spider-man and becomes the city's vigilante, hunting down criminals.
It is Gwen's father, the police chief who makes Peter realize that in focusing on hurting the criminal, rather than helping the innocent, Super-man could, arguably, be causing more harm than good. Once his knowledge hits him, it's easy for Peter to choose saving a life over torturing the bad guy. But this is something that Peter already practicing in school with Flash, before he became part spider. Uncle Ben only wrongly accused him of doing less.
From there, Peter's attention turns to fighting a giant lizard, created by the man turned mad scientist who had once mentored both Peter and Gwen. In the end, with PG-13 rated ease, graditude, loyalty and a communal sense of good do as much to save the day as Spider-man. "Poor Peter Parker, all alone. No father, no mother, no uncle" the Lizard villain taunts. "He's not alone," Gwen's father responds, helping the ailing Peter to victory, before losing his own life.
Predictably, Gwen's father makes Peter promise to stay away from Gwen, for her safety, with his dying breath. Peter agrees and duly avoids the heart broken Gwen, who must face her father's funeral without him. However, sitting in a class room together, Peter murmurs to a wooden Gwen that the best promises are meant to be broken and we know the two won't stay apart for long.
So, the first chapter in this Spider-man reboot ends with our hero still in school, still learning, but with a promising future of sequels ahead of him. Hopefully, that promise is one that won't be broken.
Musings: I can't believe the director's name is truly Marc Webb? Tell me he changed it just for this movie!
This time around, Spiderman's creation takes up a full hour of the movie. This film is even more beginny than Batman Begins was. We don't just see Peter Parker lose his uncle, we see the first goodbyes that shape his life, as his clandestine parents make a hasty departure, never to be seen again. Then, we enter John Hughes' territory and follow Peter's geeky travails in High School, where he's pummeled by the bully Flash and smitten by the caring Gwen. By the time he's actually bitten by the radioactive spider, we're more concerned with his feelings than with his new powers.
Even after he perfects the web-swinging and costume, the audience sees and hears, a boy in a mask, not the burgeoning legend. Superman never becomes a stately, deep-voiced hero in this film. Andrew Garfield is an engaging lead. Even though the actor is 28, he's credible as a teen, his shyly bowed head more believable than Spider-man's derring do.
Even before he got his spidey-senses, Peter was always a protector. Intervening when he saw schoolmates humiliated or misused, though he couldn't protect himself, much less others. He trespasses into a genetic testing facility and is bitten by a bionic spider more robot than insect. From there, his superhuman powers begin to emerge and humor ensues as he struggles to control, then perfect them.
At school, the newly invincible Peter puts the old bully Flash in his place. Curiously, he is scolded by his uncle for doing so. Ben asks if Flash is the same person who punched Peter. Peter says he is and Ben scolds that getting revenge on Flash must have made Peter feel proud. Well, what if it did? Why shouldn't revenge on a bully feel good. Ben may be worried that Peter has turned into a bully himself, but he never asked Peter why Flash hit him in the first place. It was because Peter wouldn't let Flash abuse others. He got beat up for doing right when he was a weakling and, after he gained super powers, he still didn't use them to dominate Flash until after Flash, again, terrorized a third person. Peter did not pick on Flash for self-gratification as Ben, unreasonably, assumes that he has.
Nothing in the boy's (mostly polite) behavior at home would have given Ben that impression of Peter. But I guess the plot won't get furthered unless Ben jumps to such conclusions. He lectures Peter until he feels alienated and falsely accused. Petulant Peter then fails to stop a robber at a convenience store and the free robber ultimately ends up shooting Uncle Ben. Focused on revenge, Peter anonymizes himself as Spider-man and becomes the city's vigilante, hunting down criminals.
It is Gwen's father, the police chief who makes Peter realize that in focusing on hurting the criminal, rather than helping the innocent, Super-man could, arguably, be causing more harm than good. Once his knowledge hits him, it's easy for Peter to choose saving a life over torturing the bad guy. But this is something that Peter already practicing in school with Flash, before he became part spider. Uncle Ben only wrongly accused him of doing less.
From there, Peter's attention turns to fighting a giant lizard, created by the man turned mad scientist who had once mentored both Peter and Gwen. In the end, with PG-13 rated ease, graditude, loyalty and a communal sense of good do as much to save the day as Spider-man. "Poor Peter Parker, all alone. No father, no mother, no uncle" the Lizard villain taunts. "He's not alone," Gwen's father responds, helping the ailing Peter to victory, before losing his own life.
Predictably, Gwen's father makes Peter promise to stay away from Gwen, for her safety, with his dying breath. Peter agrees and duly avoids the heart broken Gwen, who must face her father's funeral without him. However, sitting in a class room together, Peter murmurs to a wooden Gwen that the best promises are meant to be broken and we know the two won't stay apart for long.
So, the first chapter in this Spider-man reboot ends with our hero still in school, still learning, but with a promising future of sequels ahead of him. Hopefully, that promise is one that won't be broken.
Musings: I can't believe the director's name is truly Marc Webb? Tell me he changed it just for this movie!
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
I can't believe this movie is considered a comedy classic. I barely laughed and I have no hopes that the sequel will be anything but pathetic. While I would never say that a Judd Apatow movie would be on my Top Ten list of things to watch in the first place, I found this one less entertaining than most.
The only things that got a chuckle were:
1. The group's rendition of Afternoon Delight -- and that's only because I like the song and, while the writers thought it was funny, I actually found the harmonies quite pleasant.
2. Ferrell's phone booth melt down over the (apparent) death of his dog at Jack Black's hands.
3. The news team brawl, with Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn Ben Stiller and Tim Robbins heading the other networks.
4. The news team photo shoot where Ron's old colleagues refused to look in the same direction that Veronica did for the photo, to show their solidarity with him. A small, but wacky moment.
Other than that, I found the movie one big snooze. Coming the year after Old School, if I'd seen it when it was new, I probably would have expected to like it as much, given the similar cast and I would have been quite disappointed.
Maybe it's the fact that it's supposed to be a period film and the whole idea of laughing simply at the contrast between our generation and the one before it seems, well, outdated and that eliminated 50% of the film's so called comedy for me. Ron Burgundy's red jacket and Veronica's skirt suit (with vest) just don't provide humor in and of themselves. So, if they set it in the past just so we could titter because people still used typewriters back then -- it wasn't really that funny.
The only things that got a chuckle were:
1. The group's rendition of Afternoon Delight -- and that's only because I like the song and, while the writers thought it was funny, I actually found the harmonies quite pleasant.
2. Ferrell's phone booth melt down over the (apparent) death of his dog at Jack Black's hands.
3. The news team brawl, with Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn Ben Stiller and Tim Robbins heading the other networks.
4. The news team photo shoot where Ron's old colleagues refused to look in the same direction that Veronica did for the photo, to show their solidarity with him. A small, but wacky moment.
Other than that, I found the movie one big snooze. Coming the year after Old School, if I'd seen it when it was new, I probably would have expected to like it as much, given the similar cast and I would have been quite disappointed.
Maybe it's the fact that it's supposed to be a period film and the whole idea of laughing simply at the contrast between our generation and the one before it seems, well, outdated and that eliminated 50% of the film's so called comedy for me. Ron Burgundy's red jacket and Veronica's skirt suit (with vest) just don't provide humor in and of themselves. So, if they set it in the past just so we could titter because people still used typewriters back then -- it wasn't really that funny.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Men in Black 3 (2012)
Men in Black II fell so flat that I don't think anyone gave the third entry in the series much hope. The pessimism was compounded by the fact that long before the release there were rumors of trouble and delays on the set, friction between Will Smith and the producers and a bad script. However, none of that was apparent to me watching the film. It may not be blockbuster material, but there was nothing disappointing about the film.
The plot contains both action and sentiment and Will Smith's humor is always engaging. He is very similar, in look and manner, to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and there's not much wrong with that. It's not new, but that makes it no less charming.
Of course, Agent J (Smith) has to go back in time to save the world, but one feels that the world is actually secondary. He's really going back to save his partner's (K's) life. He loves the man. He misses him -- even though they've only been apart a day. He doesn't want him erased from his life. The universe takes second place to that very basic affection between friends. At one point, after J does return to 1969 to meet and assist a young K in killing a bad guy, K asks J if J has a girlfriend in the future. J responds, "I've got you." It's just sarcasm, but this movie shows that it's true. These men aren't partners or friends. They are family. And it feels like it. They've worked together for 14 years and even though the audience has been with them for all of that time, we do feel as if we've been part of the journey which, as it turns out, began even earlier than we think.
We meet Agent O (Emma Thompson) and discover that she and K had feelings for each other. Why they never materialized into something deeper between 1969 and today remains a mystery. Maybe that's being saved for the sequel. But it's somehow sad, just as the wall between Emma and Anthony Hopkins' characters in Remains of the Day was sad. J marvels at the moments of lightness and warmth he glimpses in the young (29 years old) K and he keeps asking, "Man, what happened to you." Young K just laughs and says, "I don't know, it hasn't happened yet." And you laugh, but you also smart a little. Whatever happens you wish it would unhappen, because you don't want K to live the next 40 years so cut off from his feelings, so alone. It's how I felt after reading Young Goodman Brown in school. Why did Goodman ever have to have that dream? It cost him so much. It cost him his Faith -- in more ways than most. Well, here, J still has people who love him 40 years later, but not in the way they could have, if something hadn't happened to change him.
I liked the fact that the psychic's words made J (and us) think that the only way that K could live is if J, himself dies. He was willing to sacrifice himself to save the world -- and K. His fight scene at the top of the crane with the villain, Boris the Animal, strangely reminded me of Buffy The Vampire's The Gift episode. Buffy also had to fight on a crane and to make the decision to jump/fall to her own death to save her sister -- and the world. That's the fate J was facing when he took the plunge.
As for the ending, as soon as the black military officer who helped them in Cape Canaveral 1969 said that his own first born child was there to watch the moon launch, I knew immediately who the man must be. What I didn't understand is why his life and death was kept a secret from his son (J). The officer was not one of the "Men in Black". He did not work anonymously. His job was with NASA and he performed it openly as a ranking commander. He was not responsible for hiding the existence of aliens from the public. He died in the course of helping on a top secret mission and was present when K killed the villain that would have destroyed the world, but because the officer witnessed something secret and died in the process that didn't mean they had to "erase" his memory. Couldn't they have just staged an innocent reason for his death, say he had a car accident or died during rocket testing. Surely they could have gained the government's cooperation in creating a cover up and faking whatever paperwork needed to support it. Instead, they don't explain the man's death and disappearance at all and young J grows up thinking that his father walked out on him. He just left and never returned, from what J knows. Another tragedy.
I liked the movie. Likable familiar characters in a script that not only utilizes their history, but builds and expands it. Humor with pathos.
SIDE NOTES
Nice little walk on by Will Arnett and something being done by Emma Thompson in scenes where America gathered by their tv sets to watch the moon launch. I think Emma (in a wig) played several of the women sitting in front of the tv, but by the time I realized it was her, the short scenes were over. Reminds me of the Night at the Opera rumor that Papa Marx played an extra who waved at the passengers on the departing boat, but also played one of the passengers -- waving at the people (including himself) down below on the dock. Emma seems to have played at least two extras in MIB3 and I don't know what other "in" jokes I may have missed.
The man who gave J the time machine (inherited from his father) ran out of the time he needed to explain how traveling memory worked, but J wondered why he could remember K in the present day (after Boris went back in time and killed him) but no one else could. The Time Machine man said it was because J must have been there, back in 1969. It turned out that J was, but so was O. She was involved with K back in 1969. Why didn't she remember him. Maybe the man meant that J was actually there when K died. He was present when the act happened. Maybe that's why he could remember and O couldn't, but that's kind of cheating with the plot. What time travel rules say that the people who were with you when you died in the past can remember you and how can that be explained in quantum physics in a way that isn't silly and contrived even by sci fi standards?
When J returns from the past and meets K for lunch, K, who only likes country music, is singing along to Jay-Z and Alicia Keyes Empire State of Mind. Is this a clue that something that occurred during J's time travel changed K and made him less intractable and closed than he used to be? We don't see O again, so we don't know if anything changed between the two of them, so that they're now in the present what they almost were in the past. The trip back enlightened J, but we don't know what it did to K, other than to bring him back from the dead.
The plot contains both action and sentiment and Will Smith's humor is always engaging. He is very similar, in look and manner, to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and there's not much wrong with that. It's not new, but that makes it no less charming.
Of course, Agent J (Smith) has to go back in time to save the world, but one feels that the world is actually secondary. He's really going back to save his partner's (K's) life. He loves the man. He misses him -- even though they've only been apart a day. He doesn't want him erased from his life. The universe takes second place to that very basic affection between friends. At one point, after J does return to 1969 to meet and assist a young K in killing a bad guy, K asks J if J has a girlfriend in the future. J responds, "I've got you." It's just sarcasm, but this movie shows that it's true. These men aren't partners or friends. They are family. And it feels like it. They've worked together for 14 years and even though the audience has been with them for all of that time, we do feel as if we've been part of the journey which, as it turns out, began even earlier than we think.
We meet Agent O (Emma Thompson) and discover that she and K had feelings for each other. Why they never materialized into something deeper between 1969 and today remains a mystery. Maybe that's being saved for the sequel. But it's somehow sad, just as the wall between Emma and Anthony Hopkins' characters in Remains of the Day was sad. J marvels at the moments of lightness and warmth he glimpses in the young (29 years old) K and he keeps asking, "Man, what happened to you." Young K just laughs and says, "I don't know, it hasn't happened yet." And you laugh, but you also smart a little. Whatever happens you wish it would unhappen, because you don't want K to live the next 40 years so cut off from his feelings, so alone. It's how I felt after reading Young Goodman Brown in school. Why did Goodman ever have to have that dream? It cost him so much. It cost him his Faith -- in more ways than most. Well, here, J still has people who love him 40 years later, but not in the way they could have, if something hadn't happened to change him.
I liked the fact that the psychic's words made J (and us) think that the only way that K could live is if J, himself dies. He was willing to sacrifice himself to save the world -- and K. His fight scene at the top of the crane with the villain, Boris the Animal, strangely reminded me of Buffy The Vampire's The Gift episode. Buffy also had to fight on a crane and to make the decision to jump/fall to her own death to save her sister -- and the world. That's the fate J was facing when he took the plunge.
As for the ending, as soon as the black military officer who helped them in Cape Canaveral 1969 said that his own first born child was there to watch the moon launch, I knew immediately who the man must be. What I didn't understand is why his life and death was kept a secret from his son (J). The officer was not one of the "Men in Black". He did not work anonymously. His job was with NASA and he performed it openly as a ranking commander. He was not responsible for hiding the existence of aliens from the public. He died in the course of helping on a top secret mission and was present when K killed the villain that would have destroyed the world, but because the officer witnessed something secret and died in the process that didn't mean they had to "erase" his memory. Couldn't they have just staged an innocent reason for his death, say he had a car accident or died during rocket testing. Surely they could have gained the government's cooperation in creating a cover up and faking whatever paperwork needed to support it. Instead, they don't explain the man's death and disappearance at all and young J grows up thinking that his father walked out on him. He just left and never returned, from what J knows. Another tragedy.
I liked the movie. Likable familiar characters in a script that not only utilizes their history, but builds and expands it. Humor with pathos.
SIDE NOTES
Nice little walk on by Will Arnett and something being done by Emma Thompson in scenes where America gathered by their tv sets to watch the moon launch. I think Emma (in a wig) played several of the women sitting in front of the tv, but by the time I realized it was her, the short scenes were over. Reminds me of the Night at the Opera rumor that Papa Marx played an extra who waved at the passengers on the departing boat, but also played one of the passengers -- waving at the people (including himself) down below on the dock. Emma seems to have played at least two extras in MIB3 and I don't know what other "in" jokes I may have missed.
The man who gave J the time machine (inherited from his father) ran out of the time he needed to explain how traveling memory worked, but J wondered why he could remember K in the present day (after Boris went back in time and killed him) but no one else could. The Time Machine man said it was because J must have been there, back in 1969. It turned out that J was, but so was O. She was involved with K back in 1969. Why didn't she remember him. Maybe the man meant that J was actually there when K died. He was present when the act happened. Maybe that's why he could remember and O couldn't, but that's kind of cheating with the plot. What time travel rules say that the people who were with you when you died in the past can remember you and how can that be explained in quantum physics in a way that isn't silly and contrived even by sci fi standards?
When J returns from the past and meets K for lunch, K, who only likes country music, is singing along to Jay-Z and Alicia Keyes Empire State of Mind. Is this a clue that something that occurred during J's time travel changed K and made him less intractable and closed than he used to be? We don't see O again, so we don't know if anything changed between the two of them, so that they're now in the present what they almost were in the past. The trip back enlightened J, but we don't know what it did to K, other than to bring him back from the dead.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Up in the Air (2009)
Ryan Bingham is like an inverse Willy Loman. He still has his job. It's not obsolete. In fact, in these economic times, maybe his job is more pertinent than ever, but he's going through a crisis that's similar to Willy's. Time passed Willy by. It's finally caught up to Ryan.
Ryan flies around the country firing people for a living. Companies bring him in to do it. An outside, impersonal source to handle a situation that no one actually close to it really wants to touch. Ryan has pat speeches and lines to hand the people who find that they're suddenly out of work. When we see him do it, we think he is mechanical, cold, charming, dispassionate. Processing people with the same efficient finesse that he maneuvers through airport security. He's done it so often, he's made it an art. And it fulfills him. His goal in life is to earn 10 million flying miles in the American Airlines loyalty program and learning how to use his company's expense account to maximize his airline points gives him as much pleasure as human milestones (birth, marriage, anniversaries) give other people.
Yet, we slowly see that Ryan's not all that he seems. He's more. Sure he wants to avoid his sister's call and is annoyed when she catches him on the phone to ask him to take pictures of his travels, as part of a wedding game their younger sister has concocted. She's getting married and has prepared a cutout photo of herself and her fiance for their loved ones to use to take mock photos of the couple in different locatons across the globe. Ryan doesn't see the point of photographing replicas of the couple in places they will never get to visit. He thinks photos are for people who don't have memories. He actually GOES to all of the locations. He doesn't need fake pictures of himself there. Of course, Ryan's inevitable epiphany is a predictable one. By constantly traveling, he isn't experiencing life, certainly not more than his sister and her betrothed are, who may never set foot outside of Northern Wisconsin.
Although the movie does take Ryan through the expected transition as he "realizes" how empty his world really is, watching him with that cutout of his sister and her boyfriend tells us that he was never really that much of an automaton to begin with. He packs his suitcase with precision. Traveling light to get through the airport faster. Cutting out all excess and -- you'd think -- emotion. But when he stuffs that oversized cutout into his carryon, however inconvenient taking it with him is, we learn something. He dutifully takes pictures of the cutout just as his sister asked. When the cutout falls in the water, he falls in himself, trying to fish it out. Back at the hotel, he blow drys the damp cardboard, repairing the damage. His oldest sister, Kara, described him as hating to do anything for anyone except himself, but that's not what we see. Maybe he's just better at dealing with the cutouts than with their real life counterparts.
Ryan meets another traveler in a hotel bar. Alex "only" racks up 60,000 miles a year flying on business and she and Ryan compare hotels and rental car companies. She's impressed by his priority club status that is so much higher than her own. He doesn't tell her about his 10 million mile goal. Although she would seem sure to approve, even envy, it. Maybe he doesn't want to brag. Or maybe he senses that since she has so many fewer points than he does, she's more tied to the world she travels through than he and might be put off by the thought of 10 million air miles. He doesn't call her as promised after their first rendezvous and he explains to her that he didn't know if it was appropriate. She assures him that he doesn't have to worry about what's "appropriate" with her. She is just like him, only with a vagina. If he wants to call her he should. She lets him know that she's not going to expect any more of a commitment than he would and that has the effect of making him feel freer to . . . commit.
He returns to the home office in Omaha. He was on the road for 322 days last year and that meant he had to spend 41 MISERABLE days at home. We see his barren apartment. Sparsely furnished. Undecorated. Less homey than the Hilton line of hotels he stays in. A neighbor comes to deliver a package she's been keeping for him. He asks her to come over that evening. She says she's dating someone now. Guess he'll be spending the night alone at "home."
At the office he learns that there might be many more such nights. They are trying a new system created by ingenue Natalie Keener, a new employee. They fire people through teleconferencing, saving the company vast amounts of money in travel costs. Ryan is being grounded, taken out of the air, to sit behind a desk and computer screen and fire people from a distance. His objections at the coldness of this approach ring phony, since he was never that warm when he terminated his victims in person anyway. He never related to the strangers in pain on a personal level. When they cried or became enraged, he responded by deflty handing them a pamphlet and telling them all the answers were inside, smug in the fact that once he got them to leave the room, he'd never have to see that person again. So, when he argues that firing them via tv screen is heartless and doesn't take their unexpected reactions into consideration, his words smack of hypocrisy. But then he takes Natalie on the road with him, to show her why her video-conference firings will never work in the real world and we begin to see the compassion behind Ryan's coolness.
He may use stock phrases to respond to the pain people express when they learn they're being fired, but he originated those phrases. Other people copied them from him. We begin to see that they may have originated from Ryan's genuine concern. He tells Natalie not to apologize and when they tell employees they're being let go and not to say that she knows how they feel, because her feelings don't matter compared to the person who is losing his/her job. Ryan knows that detachment can spare as much pain as it relieves. Suddenly, when Ryan equates joblessness with freedom, there's a suggestion that he's actually trying to offer the fired person hope, a lifeline to grab, rather than just giving them a snow job. It doesn't really make his words any more useful to the person losing a paycheck, but we see that his intentions are more sympathetic than they appeared in the first segment of the film. When they get to Detroit and Ryan's boss tells him that they're going to fire people there via video, Ryan resists. He says Detroit is harder, because they've been through so much and the employees there should get hands-on treatment. With those words, we see that Ryan likes his job because he cares about things other than his airline points.
As Ryan begins to look more human, Natalie remains a caricature. She was introduced as the new girl, full of ideas, but no real world experience. And ends the same way. Perky, shrill, green and judgmental. She wants to fire people by video herself, and scoffs when Ryan takes time out to photograph the cardboard cut out of his sister. Yet, she lectures Ryan about not having a heart. She envisioned a picket fence marriage for herself by the age of 23 and thinks Alex and Ryan have failed somehow because they haven't achieved it. Yet, her boyfriend dumps her in a text message, while Alex and Ryan seem to be finding true contentment in their "no strings" relationship. She's no happier chasing the partner that she's "supposed" to have by this time in her life than Ryan is never having seen the point in looking for one. She may be rooted, but she's far less grounded and giving emotionally than Ryan is. Maybe he sees no point in marriage or children, but he wouldn't have devised a Skype system for firing people, as she did.
That's why the end is rather a letdown. As Ryan sees Alex off at the airport, she casually tells him to call her if he gets lonely. He says, "I'm lonely," before she moves even two steps further to the gate. She laughs, thinking it's a joke. It's not. In the middle of one of his patented speeches when he usually advises people to cut the ties that bind them and travel light and fast, like a shark as opposed to a swan who mates for life, Ryan is suddenly struck dumb. He leaves the seminar and catches the first flight he can find to Chicago where Alex lives. He's in such a hurry to be with her that he forgets his usual protocol, fumbling at the Hertz depot, forgetting his credit card, moves that he usually practiced blindly. He gets to Alex's doorstep only to have her open it as woman of the house. She has children and a husband. Ryan leaves quickly, devastated. Later, he gets on a plane and is surprised by the announcement that he has racked up 10,000,000 miles. The flight crew serenades him. He had anticipated and rehearsed this moment for years and now he doesn't even remember what he'd planned to say so many times, when he'd imagined it happening. Back at the office, he calls the airline and donates a million of his points to his sister and her new husband. He collected those points in lieu of family and now they mean nothing. It's rather a cliched revelation. Basically, it's the same "true meaning of life" that Ebenezer Scrooge eventually learned, but Ryan was never Scrooge. He was never cruel or uncaring. He never really had to evolve.
His sister married a man who invested all of their money in a real estate venture that promised families a home by catalog order, no better than the hotel rooms that Ryan regularly passed through. He gave Ryan a spiel about his business project that was rehearsed just like the speeches Ryan was paid to give at conventions. He even tries to sell Ryan one of the cookie cutter homes, but recognizing schtick when he hears it, Ryan doesn't fall. This same guy is prepared to dump Ryan's sister at the altar, until talked out of it. Because their money is tied up in his real estate scam they have no money for a honeymoon. That's why the sister was collecting cardboard cutout photos of herself in places she would never see. Ryan's life may have been empty, but it seemed more authentic and fulfilling than the one the newlywed couple would make for themselves. Ryan had more than Natalie did. And Alex . . . she had a family. She told Ryan they were her real world and he was just her escape. She invited him to call her if he felt like being a "grown up." Natalie told Alex that she wanted to look like her in 15 years. If Natalie doesn't change her direction, that's exactly how she will look. She'll have all of the traditional accoutrements, home, spouse, 2.5 children, long-haired dog, everything that you're supposed to have attained by that point in your life, but without the happiness that you'd expect to come with it.
They all seem worse off than Ryan, not better. Sure, maybe he avoided involvement because he was afraid of getting hurt, but it also kept him from hurting others like Alex, Natalie's boyfriend and his sister's fiance have done. So, why is Ryan the one left alone, more to the point, lonely at the end? Why are we left with the sense that he has failed, where none of them have succeeded? The sister's fiance explained to Ryan that he got cold feet about his wedding because he saw his whole future unfold. He would marry, grow old and die. What's the point? What's the point indeed. There is none, so Ryan shouldn't feel that he has missed it. In that sense, the movie was disappointment because Ryan seemed to have been put in the position of belatedly learning a lesson when, from my view, he was the only one who had it right all along.
Question: Wasn't sure why Ryan told his brother-in-law that he'd given up his one bedroom apartment when he actually hadn't. Perhaps he only did it to avoid investing in the brother-in-law's building scheme, but I believed him and thought it meant he had forfeited his only semblance of playing by the "normal" rules, or pretending he had or needed a home. He hadn't given that up after all.
Ryan flies around the country firing people for a living. Companies bring him in to do it. An outside, impersonal source to handle a situation that no one actually close to it really wants to touch. Ryan has pat speeches and lines to hand the people who find that they're suddenly out of work. When we see him do it, we think he is mechanical, cold, charming, dispassionate. Processing people with the same efficient finesse that he maneuvers through airport security. He's done it so often, he's made it an art. And it fulfills him. His goal in life is to earn 10 million flying miles in the American Airlines loyalty program and learning how to use his company's expense account to maximize his airline points gives him as much pleasure as human milestones (birth, marriage, anniversaries) give other people.
Yet, we slowly see that Ryan's not all that he seems. He's more. Sure he wants to avoid his sister's call and is annoyed when she catches him on the phone to ask him to take pictures of his travels, as part of a wedding game their younger sister has concocted. She's getting married and has prepared a cutout photo of herself and her fiance for their loved ones to use to take mock photos of the couple in different locatons across the globe. Ryan doesn't see the point of photographing replicas of the couple in places they will never get to visit. He thinks photos are for people who don't have memories. He actually GOES to all of the locations. He doesn't need fake pictures of himself there. Of course, Ryan's inevitable epiphany is a predictable one. By constantly traveling, he isn't experiencing life, certainly not more than his sister and her betrothed are, who may never set foot outside of Northern Wisconsin.
Although the movie does take Ryan through the expected transition as he "realizes" how empty his world really is, watching him with that cutout of his sister and her boyfriend tells us that he was never really that much of an automaton to begin with. He packs his suitcase with precision. Traveling light to get through the airport faster. Cutting out all excess and -- you'd think -- emotion. But when he stuffs that oversized cutout into his carryon, however inconvenient taking it with him is, we learn something. He dutifully takes pictures of the cutout just as his sister asked. When the cutout falls in the water, he falls in himself, trying to fish it out. Back at the hotel, he blow drys the damp cardboard, repairing the damage. His oldest sister, Kara, described him as hating to do anything for anyone except himself, but that's not what we see. Maybe he's just better at dealing with the cutouts than with their real life counterparts.
Ryan meets another traveler in a hotel bar. Alex "only" racks up 60,000 miles a year flying on business and she and Ryan compare hotels and rental car companies. She's impressed by his priority club status that is so much higher than her own. He doesn't tell her about his 10 million mile goal. Although she would seem sure to approve, even envy, it. Maybe he doesn't want to brag. Or maybe he senses that since she has so many fewer points than he does, she's more tied to the world she travels through than he and might be put off by the thought of 10 million air miles. He doesn't call her as promised after their first rendezvous and he explains to her that he didn't know if it was appropriate. She assures him that he doesn't have to worry about what's "appropriate" with her. She is just like him, only with a vagina. If he wants to call her he should. She lets him know that she's not going to expect any more of a commitment than he would and that has the effect of making him feel freer to . . . commit.
He returns to the home office in Omaha. He was on the road for 322 days last year and that meant he had to spend 41 MISERABLE days at home. We see his barren apartment. Sparsely furnished. Undecorated. Less homey than the Hilton line of hotels he stays in. A neighbor comes to deliver a package she's been keeping for him. He asks her to come over that evening. She says she's dating someone now. Guess he'll be spending the night alone at "home."
At the office he learns that there might be many more such nights. They are trying a new system created by ingenue Natalie Keener, a new employee. They fire people through teleconferencing, saving the company vast amounts of money in travel costs. Ryan is being grounded, taken out of the air, to sit behind a desk and computer screen and fire people from a distance. His objections at the coldness of this approach ring phony, since he was never that warm when he terminated his victims in person anyway. He never related to the strangers in pain on a personal level. When they cried or became enraged, he responded by deflty handing them a pamphlet and telling them all the answers were inside, smug in the fact that once he got them to leave the room, he'd never have to see that person again. So, when he argues that firing them via tv screen is heartless and doesn't take their unexpected reactions into consideration, his words smack of hypocrisy. But then he takes Natalie on the road with him, to show her why her video-conference firings will never work in the real world and we begin to see the compassion behind Ryan's coolness.
He may use stock phrases to respond to the pain people express when they learn they're being fired, but he originated those phrases. Other people copied them from him. We begin to see that they may have originated from Ryan's genuine concern. He tells Natalie not to apologize and when they tell employees they're being let go and not to say that she knows how they feel, because her feelings don't matter compared to the person who is losing his/her job. Ryan knows that detachment can spare as much pain as it relieves. Suddenly, when Ryan equates joblessness with freedom, there's a suggestion that he's actually trying to offer the fired person hope, a lifeline to grab, rather than just giving them a snow job. It doesn't really make his words any more useful to the person losing a paycheck, but we see that his intentions are more sympathetic than they appeared in the first segment of the film. When they get to Detroit and Ryan's boss tells him that they're going to fire people there via video, Ryan resists. He says Detroit is harder, because they've been through so much and the employees there should get hands-on treatment. With those words, we see that Ryan likes his job because he cares about things other than his airline points.
As Ryan begins to look more human, Natalie remains a caricature. She was introduced as the new girl, full of ideas, but no real world experience. And ends the same way. Perky, shrill, green and judgmental. She wants to fire people by video herself, and scoffs when Ryan takes time out to photograph the cardboard cut out of his sister. Yet, she lectures Ryan about not having a heart. She envisioned a picket fence marriage for herself by the age of 23 and thinks Alex and Ryan have failed somehow because they haven't achieved it. Yet, her boyfriend dumps her in a text message, while Alex and Ryan seem to be finding true contentment in their "no strings" relationship. She's no happier chasing the partner that she's "supposed" to have by this time in her life than Ryan is never having seen the point in looking for one. She may be rooted, but she's far less grounded and giving emotionally than Ryan is. Maybe he sees no point in marriage or children, but he wouldn't have devised a Skype system for firing people, as she did.
That's why the end is rather a letdown. As Ryan sees Alex off at the airport, she casually tells him to call her if he gets lonely. He says, "I'm lonely," before she moves even two steps further to the gate. She laughs, thinking it's a joke. It's not. In the middle of one of his patented speeches when he usually advises people to cut the ties that bind them and travel light and fast, like a shark as opposed to a swan who mates for life, Ryan is suddenly struck dumb. He leaves the seminar and catches the first flight he can find to Chicago where Alex lives. He's in such a hurry to be with her that he forgets his usual protocol, fumbling at the Hertz depot, forgetting his credit card, moves that he usually practiced blindly. He gets to Alex's doorstep only to have her open it as woman of the house. She has children and a husband. Ryan leaves quickly, devastated. Later, he gets on a plane and is surprised by the announcement that he has racked up 10,000,000 miles. The flight crew serenades him. He had anticipated and rehearsed this moment for years and now he doesn't even remember what he'd planned to say so many times, when he'd imagined it happening. Back at the office, he calls the airline and donates a million of his points to his sister and her new husband. He collected those points in lieu of family and now they mean nothing. It's rather a cliched revelation. Basically, it's the same "true meaning of life" that Ebenezer Scrooge eventually learned, but Ryan was never Scrooge. He was never cruel or uncaring. He never really had to evolve.
His sister married a man who invested all of their money in a real estate venture that promised families a home by catalog order, no better than the hotel rooms that Ryan regularly passed through. He gave Ryan a spiel about his business project that was rehearsed just like the speeches Ryan was paid to give at conventions. He even tries to sell Ryan one of the cookie cutter homes, but recognizing schtick when he hears it, Ryan doesn't fall. This same guy is prepared to dump Ryan's sister at the altar, until talked out of it. Because their money is tied up in his real estate scam they have no money for a honeymoon. That's why the sister was collecting cardboard cutout photos of herself in places she would never see. Ryan's life may have been empty, but it seemed more authentic and fulfilling than the one the newlywed couple would make for themselves. Ryan had more than Natalie did. And Alex . . . she had a family. She told Ryan they were her real world and he was just her escape. She invited him to call her if he felt like being a "grown up." Natalie told Alex that she wanted to look like her in 15 years. If Natalie doesn't change her direction, that's exactly how she will look. She'll have all of the traditional accoutrements, home, spouse, 2.5 children, long-haired dog, everything that you're supposed to have attained by that point in your life, but without the happiness that you'd expect to come with it.
They all seem worse off than Ryan, not better. Sure, maybe he avoided involvement because he was afraid of getting hurt, but it also kept him from hurting others like Alex, Natalie's boyfriend and his sister's fiance have done. So, why is Ryan the one left alone, more to the point, lonely at the end? Why are we left with the sense that he has failed, where none of them have succeeded? The sister's fiance explained to Ryan that he got cold feet about his wedding because he saw his whole future unfold. He would marry, grow old and die. What's the point? What's the point indeed. There is none, so Ryan shouldn't feel that he has missed it. In that sense, the movie was disappointment because Ryan seemed to have been put in the position of belatedly learning a lesson when, from my view, he was the only one who had it right all along.
Question: Wasn't sure why Ryan told his brother-in-law that he'd given up his one bedroom apartment when he actually hadn't. Perhaps he only did it to avoid investing in the brother-in-law's building scheme, but I believed him and thought it meant he had forfeited his only semblance of playing by the "normal" rules, or pretending he had or needed a home. He hadn't given that up after all.
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