Battleship

Posted on May 17, 2012 at 9:29 pm

As if it wasn’t enough of a challenge to try to create a movie based on a board game — and a board game based on a game that is perfectly adequately played with pencil and paper — this movie has to find its way around the fact that the large armored warships that give the game and the movie its title have been out of commission as everything but museum pieces for decades, replaced by much more powerful ships called destroyers. And yet, director Peter Berg (“Friday Night Lights”) and screenwriters Eric and Jon Hoeber (“Red“) have somehow managed to add some aliens and a lot of explosions to create a good, old-fashioned summer popcorn movie that is good, old-fashioned fun.

They give us half an hour to meet the main characters. Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch, thankfully making it possible to overlook “John Carter“) is an impetuous but gallant young man. His brother Stone (“True Blood’s” Alexander Skarsgård), a naval officer frustrated with Alex’s lack of direction, insists that Alex get some discipline and join the navy. A couple of years later, Stone is a commander and Alex is a promising but still-impetuous lieutenant in love with Samantha (Brooklyn Decker), the daughter of the admiral (Liam Neeson). In the midst of an event called RIMPAC that is like an Olympics of international naval operations, just after Alex gets in trouble for a scuffle with a Japanese naval officer (Tadanobu Asano), something happens that is not part of the program. For four years, a program called the Beacon Project has been sending signals to a planet that is similar to earth and capable of supporting life in the hope of making contact. The signals have been seen as an invitation and the inhabitants of the other planet have arrived, like Columbus. And, as a character points out, if they are Columbus, we — all of humanity — are the the Indians. Except it is more like Columbus arriving with an armored brigade and bombs that slice through destroyers like bullets through tissue paper. And they operate a enormous rockets that operate like Decepticons the size of the Chrysler Building in a world with no Optimus Primes.

The Battleship board game involves trying to guess where the other player’s warships are hidden by calling out squares on a grid, and the Hoebers find a witty way to make that a part of the story, and to bring in a real battleship, too. There’s more than just bang-bang. Alex comes up with some clever, way-out-of-the box tactics and Rihanna is a hoot as a determined petty officer weapons specialist. And in a cute variation on the whole “ET phone home” thing, the aliens need to get to the Beacon Project communication center. The only people who can stop them are none other than the beautiful daughter of the admiral and a wounded warrior she happens to have been trying to inspire by taking him for a bit of a mountain climb. He is played by real-life West Point graduate Gregory D. Gadson, a double leg amputee, in a performance adding some nicely quiet dignity to the story. There is not much quiet or dignity in the rest of the movie, but Berg stages the action scenes with kinetic energy and a sure sense of fun. (And be sure to stay all the way through the credits for an extra scene.)

Parents should know that this movie has non-stop action-style violence with aliens, many explosions and military battles, characters injured and killed, and some strong language (s-words, muffled f-words).

Family discussion: How did the qualities that got Alex into trouble also help him? Would you say the same about anyone else in the story who became an unexpected hero?

If you like this, try: “Independence Day” and “Transformers” – and the board game!

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Study Guide for ‘The Grey’

Posted on January 27, 2012 at 1:18 pm

I have a very thoughtful guide for ministries and other study groups who would like to explore the spiritual and religious themes in today’s Liam Neeson release, “The Grey.” If you want a copy, just send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Grey” in the subject line and I would be glad to share it with you.

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Spiritual films

The Next Three Days

Posted on March 8, 2011 at 8:00 am

Paul Haggis loses his way in “The Next Three Days,” a labored prison escape drama that never recovers from a serious miscalculation midway through and then goes completely off the rails in the end.

Russell Crowe plays a sometimes deliberate and over-thinking professor named John Brennan who is completely devoted to his sometimes hot-tempered and impetuous wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks). After a public quarrel, Lara’s boss is murdered and Lara is arrested. She protests her innocence, but the circumstantial evidence is too persuasive, and she is found guilty. Three years later, all of her appeals exhausted, she cannot bear the thought of a life in prison, and attempts suicide. John, who teaches “Don Quixote” and knows something about righteous quests, decides he will find a way for her to escape. “I promise you, this will not be your life.” He consults an expert (a brief movie-brightening moment with Liam Neeson), watches a video on YouTube about skeleton keys, and comes up with a plan.

Every movie creates a world for us, and each of them can be plotted along the continuum between real world (a verite documentary) and movie world (flying dragons, superheroes, planets with long blue people). It does not matter at which point a movie locates itself, but once it does, it has to stay there. If you tell us horses can fly in one scene, then don’t tell us they can’t in the next. This movie tells us that justice matters, killing people is wrong, and that John is an English professor. It establishes itself as being on the drama-about-people-like-us point on the continuum. It then veers into a whole other over-the-top heist-style scenario with one of those plans where a lot of things have to go exactly right and then somehow they all do and killing people might not be such a bad thing after all. And then it insults the intelligence and goodwill of the audience with an ending that is jarringly out of place. One of the worst mistakes a movie can make is to assume greater fondness for its characters than we are willing to feel. This movie never lets us like its characters and then tries to make that seem like our fault.

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Drama Thriller

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Posted on February 17, 2011 at 6:35 pm

What would you do if everything you thought you knew about your life and your identity suddenly seemed to be untrue? If even your wife kept insisting that another man was you?

Liam Neeson plays Martin Harris, or a man who thinks he is Martin Harris, a scientist on his way to a conference in Berlin. We see him with his wife, Liz (“Mad Men’s” January Jones) as the plane is landing and they seem the picture of tender domesticity. But he is in an accident shortly afterward, when his cab goes off a bridge into the water on his way to retrieve a briefcase left behind at the airport. He wakes up after a four-day coma. “Memories get lost or fractured,” the doctor cautions him. “Most of them return.”

Even though the doctor insists that he needs time to recover, he races back to the hotel only to find that Liz does not recognize him and Martin Harris (played by Aiden Quinn) is already there.

The Spout movie site calls this plot “the right man,” a variation on the popular “wrong man” storyline. Instead of the character’s being mistaken for someone else, these films show us a man who for some reason cannot be seen as who he really is. As the man I will continue to call Martin begins to doubt himself, we also question what we have seen. Why does Liz insist that she is married to Martin #2? How can Martin #2 seem to inhabit the Martin Harris world so completely and seamlessly? He even has the identical photo in his wallet, Liz on his lap at a romantic restaurant. But the man with her is Martin #2.

And why are ruthless killers chasing our Martin? “It’s like a war between being told who you are and knowing who you are,” he says.

He tracks down the cab driver (Diane Kruger as Gina, an illegal immigrant from Bosnia) and goes to an ex-Stasi interrogator-turned detective (Bruno Ganz, the highlight of the film as JÃ¼rgen) to help him find some answers, even as he is just beginning to formulate the questions.

There are some good chases through Berlin and even twistier plot developments. JÃ¼rgen’s “proud” Stasi background and Gina’s experience with Bosnian thugs turn out to be very helpful and Frank Langella shows up in the last act for one last set of complications. For some reason I can’t figure out, thrillers always have detours into nightclubs with pulsing music (really, what is the deal with these — some sort of physical manifestation of the internal chaos?). This one is thankfully brief and insignificant. Don’t think about it too hard. The plot will unravel in your head on the drive home. But while you’re watching, Neeson, Ganz, and Langella will keep you connected to the story and hoping that Martin remembers who he is.

(more…)

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Action/Adventure Thriller

The A-Team

Posted on December 15, 2010 at 12:20 pm

I love it when a plan comes together.

And I love it when a summer movie delivers all of the chases, crashes, explosions, wisecracks, and sheer exuberant fun that we have a right to expect when the weather gets warm. “The A-Team,” based on the television series of the mid-1980’s, may be silly but it is purely enjoyable.

We get to see how the fearsome foursome first met. That’s Hannibal (Liam Neeson), the cigar-chomping leader, driver and fighting powerhouse B.A. Baracus (Ultimate Fighting Champion Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson), mentally unstable pilot Murdock (District 9‘s Sharlto Copley), and social engineer (okay, con man) Face (Bradley Cooper). As frustrated Lt. Sosa (Jessica Biel) says, eight years and 80 successful missions later, they specialize in the ridiculous. Characters hang from a helicopter. They slalom down a skyscraper. They crash many vehicles and they blow many things up. This is a movie with a flying tank. Well, technically, as one character says, not flying. It’s actually hurtling to the ground after the plane that was carrying it exploded. Why? Could that really work? Don’t ask. This is not that kind of movie. Just pass the popcorn.

There are some understated shout-outs to the original, including a clever disposition of the beloved van and BA’s knuckle tattoos — “PITY” on one hand and “FOOL” on the other. And be sure to stay to the very end of the credits for one last salute.

After the prologue, we are brought up to date. Our team has completed 80 missions in eight years, all successful. Now, American troops are packing up to leave Iraq. One piece of unfinished business is a briefcase filled with engraving plates for U.S. currency. If they get into the wrong hands, our enemies could print money and destroy our economy. And there are a lot of wrong hands out there, possibly including the mercenaries/government contractors who think they’re all that and who are assigned to the retrieval operation.

This provides opportunities for many stunts, ably directed by Joe Carnahan, who co-wrote. Co-screenwriter Brian Bloom is electrifying as Pike, the leader of the contractor team. Biel does her job: fuming or melting, she is very pretty. And the quartet of actors in the lead roles are an A-Team of their own, bringing their own screen chemistry and sense of fun to the characters they play. Neeson chomps on his cigar with panache. Copley makes Murdoch’s proficiency with accents and languages both evidence of his instability and his mastery. Jackson makes BA’s soul-searching feel real without throwing the entire movie off-kilter by making it too serious. Early on, when Face gets punched in the jaw, Cooper’s eyes widen in delight and he says, “Now it’s a party!” Yes, it is.