Metropolis-Aug-8-2014

More reviews and theater details: metropolis.co.jp/movies
BY DON MORTON
NEW
HOMEFRONT
In this wan collection
of action-movie tropes,
retired DEA agent Jason
Statham, trying to cope
with single parenthood
in rural Louisiana, runs afoul of the local creeps and
kicks some serious meth-head ass. Nothing new here,
but for those who like their thrillers old-school and free
of surprises or inspiration, it’s briskly paced and moderately
suspenseful. The macho, F-word-heavy script
is a bit clunky, written as it was by Sylvester Stallone
from a novel by Chuck Logan. The cast, which includes
a misfiring Winona Ryder, a scenery-chewing Kate
Bosworth and (yawn) James Franco, is uniformly forgettable.
(100 min)
NEW
SUNSHINE ON LEITH
Jukebox musicals are
highly subjective. This
relentlessly perky effort
bends a soapy story
around the music of the
Proclaimers, famous outside Scotland for “I’m Gonna
Be (500 Miles),” a boisterous, crowd-sourced version
of which breathes some badly needed life into the
film. Unfortunately, it’s the finale and too late. Alleged
plot has three couples dealing with mostly manufactured
bumps on the road to everlasting love. Cloying,
superficial and more than a wee bit twee. Best enjoyed,
obviously, by Scots and Proclaimers fans. The city of
Edinburgh provides some great backdrops for all the
schmaltz. (100 min)
GODZILLA
After the universally
reviled 1998 Roland
Emmerich turkey, this
time Hollywood got it
right. It’s a little slow
getting started, but once it gets up to speed, English
director Gareth Edwards’ (Monsters) creature feature
is plenty exciting. This is no SFX-driven studio factory
job; it emphasizes character and tension over mindless
and repetitive spectacle. And while it’s about battling
behemoths, it’s told from a human perspective. Aaron
Taylor-Johnson is capable if not stellar in the hero role,
and having Bryan Cranston in the cast certainly doesn’t
hurt. The post-production 3-D is useless. (123 min)
VAMPIRE ACADEMY
Cross Harry Potter with
Mean Girls and stir
in selected elements
of sanitized vampire
mythology, and you’ll
get an idea of what to expect of this lazy adaptation
of Richelle Mead’s popular YA books. To humans,
it’s all pretty lame and derivative, but ‘tweeners will
find it sporadically clever in a female-centric highschool
sort of way. And it has a breezy irreverence
that Twilight never had. Director Mark Waters made
Mean Girls and his screenwriter brother Daniel wrote
Heathers. Not really recommendable, but I’ve sat
through worse. Bad news: there are five more books.
Kill it quick! (104 min)
BLOOD TIES
Two brothers in the mid
’70s find themselves on
opposite sides of the
law. One’s a cop, the
other a robber. Their
deep fraternal loyalty, admirable as it is, could destroy
them both. It would be difficult to make a bad movie
with a cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Mila Kunis,
Zoe Saldana, James Caan and Lili Taylor in addition to
leads Clive Owen and Billy Crudup. And it’s true this
low-tension familial crime saga gets better as it slogs
along. Would that the whole film were as riveting as
the final 20 minutes. But for the most part it’s too long,
too talky and lacks momentum. Japanese title: My
Brother: Kanashimi no Judan (127 min)
ESCAPE FROM
TOMORROW
And now for something
completely different.
Stealth-shot at Disney
World, entirely without
permission, this is true guerrilla filmmaking. Director
Randy Moore’s sneakily subversive, darkly if fitfully
amusing story is about an every-schmuck family
guy losing his mind among the anthropomorphic
rodents, corporate kiddie mascots and manufactured
cheerfulness of “the happiest place on earth.” Did
you ever consider the evil side of “It’s a Small World”?
You will. At times massively erratic, at others merely
phantasmagorical. Call it Lynch-lite. Would have
benefitted from a splash of coherence. (90 min)
ENEMY
The two Jakes. Jake
Gyllenhaal plays a meek
Toronto professor who
discovers on a DVD a
bit actor who’s his exact
double. What’s going on? Long lost twin? Or something
weirder? He internet-stalks the guy, but when they
finally come face to exact-same-face, he begins
to wish he hadn’t. French Canadian director Denis
Villeneuve could have taken this in several directions
but opted for a banal erotic head-scratcher set to
florid, preposterous music. Gyllenhaal’s excellent
in both roles, but the absurdist-existentialist central
conceit becomes the film’s own worst enemy, and the
puzzle has no solution. Japanese title: Fukusei Sareta
Otoko (90 min)
FADING GIGOLO
Two broke New Yorkers
(Woody Allen & writer/
director John Turturro)
forge a profitable
pimp/gigolo business.
Things go well until John develops a platonic but
deep relationship with a sad, orthodox Jewish widow
(Vanessa Paradis). Turturro’s offbeat, oddly endearing
little rom-com is so tonally inconsistent that it seems
like two different movies. One addresses issues of
loneliness and longing, and the other’s a pretty good
Woody Allen movie that he didn’t make. They’re
both worth seeing. Could have gone terribly wrong
if not for the intelligence and sensitivity with which it
approaches its subject. Japanese title: Gigolo in New
York (90 min)
DIVERGENT
In yet another dystopian
future, society is
divided into five innate
“types.” And if you
happen, during kind
of a Harry Potter Sorting Hat ceremony, to fit more
than one category, you are a “Divergent” and hunted
down. Can’t see anything going wrong with that. As
cynical, opportunistic, exposition-heavy, overlong
and repetitive attempts at grabbing some of those YA,
sci-fi-fantasy, Hunger Games bucks go, it’s not bad.
What it lacks in originality, Shailene Woodley (The
Descendants, The Spectacular Now) makes up for in
pure watchability. Not terrible, just not memorable. Or
much fun. Two more on the way. (140 min)
THE DEVIL’S VIOLINIST
Niccolo Paganini (1782-
1840) was a pioneer
in the fiddle field.
Bold and innovative
and unimaginably
talented—a 19th-century rock star. Then there’s this
cornball German-Italian movie. It focuses on his time in
London, a visit Wikipedia barely mentions. Moreover, his
strings (sorry) are being pulled by satanic agent Jared
Harris, who stops just short of twirling his moustache.
Nya-ha-ha. German David Garrett, actually a violinist,
resembles a cover model for bodice-rippers, and his
Southern Californian, Keanu Reeves-y accent supplies
the film’s only humor. Really, really bad. Japanese title:
Paganini: Ai to Kyoki no Violinist. (122 min)
MALEFICENT
It’s a neat idea: invert
the Sleeping Beauty
yarn and tell it from the
perspective of the evil
fairy godmother. This
Maleficent is a tragic figure, wronged by an ambitious
king. She curses his newborn daughter, etc. But as
the child grows to become Elle Fanning, Maleficent
grows fond of her and even tries to reverse the curse.
The film succeeds on Angelina Jolie’s committed and
nuanced performance. I’m not saying she rates among
today’s top actresses, but I can’t imagine anyone else
giving the role such emotional punch. I was surprised
to realize what a good time I was having. Not for little
children. (98 min)
EDGE OF TOMORROW
Those not fans of Tom
Cruise will be glad to
know that he dies in this
movie. Several hundred
times. Groundhog Day
meets Starship Troopers. A smarmy army PR flack is
sent along with an invasion of alien-infested Europe.
He dies quickly but wakes up 24 hours earlier and goes
through the doomed invasion another time, and then
another, etc. It’s déjà vu all over again. He teams up
with kick-ass commando Emily Blunt, nailing the Ripley/
Sarah Connor role. It’s a fun little puzzle picture, sharply
written, imaginative, action-packed, unexpectedly funny
and thoroughly entertaining. Adapted from a Japanese
manga. Japanese title: All You Need is Kill. (113 min)
Beyond the Edge: © 2013 GFC (Everest) Ltd All Rights Reserved; Edge of Tomorrow: ©2014 VILLAGE ROADSHOW FILMS(BMI)LIMITED; Maleficent: ©2014 Disney Enterprises, Inc.; Divergent: TM ©2014 Summit Entertainment, LLC.All Rights
Reserved.; Fading Gigolo: © 2013 Zuzu Licensing, LLC.; Paganini: The Devil’s Violinist: © 2013 Summerstorm Entertainment / Dor Film / Construction Film / Bayerischer Rundfunk / Arte. All rights reserved.: Enemy: © 2013 RHOMBUS MEDIA
(ENEMY) INC. / ROXBURY PICTURES S.L. / 9232-2437 QUEBEC INC. / MECANISMO FILMS, S.L. / ROXBURY ENEMY S.L. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.; Blood Ties: © 2013 – copyright : Les Productions du Trésor – Caneo Films; Escape from Tomorrow:
©2013 MMXⅢ BY MANKURT MEDIA LLC; Godzilla: © 2014 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. & LEGENDARY PICTURES PRODUCTIONS LLC; Vampire Academy: ©2013 VA Blood Sisters All Rights Reserved; Sunshine on Leith: © DNA Films;
Homefront: ©Homefront Productions, Inc. 2013; Transformers: Age of Extinction: © 2014 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. HASBRO, TRANSFORMERS, and all related characters are trademarks of Hasbro.
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