Sleel Reviews

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (I) (2004)

Wow! This is one incredible movie.

[10/10 · 30 April 2004]

First of all, I am NOT an Anime fanboy. I have watched a fair bit of Anime, but I am as critical of those movies as I am of regular films. However, in my opinion, the animated films made in Japan are often superior to even the best live-action films. There are very few quality live-action movies in Japan, and even fewer can match good animated films in plot or substance. Of course, there is an awful lot of crap being made too. For every "Princess Mononoke," you've got at least ten "Pokemon" films. "Innocence" sets the bar so high that even good films, live or animated, will often look like crap in comparison.

This movie is not precisely a sequel to "The Ghost in the Shell" (Kokaku Kidotai). It deals with some of the same themes and features a few of the same characters, but unlike a franchise movie, the characters and situations have changed dramatically. Bateau, who was a secondary character in "Kokaku Kidotai" is the main character. This movie is a bit less action-oriented and more introspective and philosophical than "The Ghost in the Shell."

A good portion of the movie is spent in character building. Character building in an animated film? Absolutely. There are major portions that contribute to Bateau's character, though this is not done at the expense of plot. This does make the film a bit slow at points, but it is never dull. However, if you are looking for action over story, this movie is probably not for you.

Visually, "Innocence" is incredibly beautiful. The animators used multiple techniques for drawing characters and backgrounds and blended them seamlessly. Some scenes are hyper-realistic with almost an over-saturation of details. Other shots subtly highlight action, focus, or mood by blurring objects in the distance, using reflections, or even by slightly changing the color palette. Care has been lavished on every part of this movie. Even commonplace actions by characters, like driving a car or feeding the dog, are given the same treatment that makes the whole movie a pleasure to watch. Compare "Innocence" to "Titan A.E." for example and the animation of "Titan" will make you want to retch. The director, Mamoru Oshii, has obviously studied the techniques of regular film-making. He has gone one step further and combined those traditional techniques with those you can only do in the medium of animation.

The plot will take some time to understand. This movie will reward--may even require--repeated viewing to fully comprehend. Obviously, you should not take stupid friends with you to see it. I went to see it with my girlfriend (who is Japanese) and she said that even she didn't understand everything! She explained some of the references to ancient Chinese literature and Japanese poetry, but said I was on my own regarding the philosophy references. Most of the dialog I didn't understand (though my Japanese is pretty decent) was graduate-level discourse, according to my girlfriend. The translators have their work cut out for them. This movie will be an absolute nightmare to do well. I hope they get translators who are up to the task.

Unlike many Anime films, there is no silliness at all. No save the earth glurge and mysticism like in "Final Fantasy," no inexplicable jumps in time or place, no murky or even missing cause and effect, and very little unnecessary explanation. Even in "The Ghost in the Shell," which was one of the best-plotted Anime I have ever seen, there were a few infodumps to keep people up to speed. "Innocence" leaves far more for the viewer to interpret. What many people may not catch at first is the understated loneliness Bateau feels. This undercurrent runs through the whole film and makes the ending even more poignant.

This movie deserves to be in first-run theaters around the world. "Spirited Away" (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) won an Oscar for best animated film in 2003. "Innocence" is a very different kind of film, more adult and more difficult, and I fully expect it to win the recognition it deserves when it is distributed abroad. If you like good literature, well-done science fiction, or existential philosophy, see this film. If you just like really pretty animation and cool action in an SF setting, see this film. As long as you have an attention span that can handle sitting still for more than 5 minutes, see this film. It is absolutely worth the ticket price.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)

Middling, muddled, cool looking action flick

[6/10 · 20 April 2004]

While I did not think this was a particularly good movie, I am very surprised to see how low of a rating it got. The same people that gave "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" close to six stars gave this only 3.6? Ballistic was disjointed, over-edited, shallow, and cliched, but it was at least entertaining, unlike the barely-watchable "Charlie's."

Lucy Liu was the only bright point in "Charlie's," and as such is, in my opinion, completely under-utilized in this film. While she is given a chance to look great, she has few lines and little character building. She does the best she can with what she's been given. Banderas also does a good job with his stereotype character and manages to make him a bit less of a cardboard cutout than he what he started out as. Liu is very believable as a badass. She doesn't even blink when she fires a weapon and does a decent job of fighting in the non-stuntman scenes.

The blame for this movie's weak points rests mostly on the director. It seems like anything of any substance was cut in one of the "artful" cuts of current and past exposition that seem spliced and blended together almost at random. A good editor could probably fix some of this damage, dropping at least 5 minutes of run time, but another 10 to 15 minutes of footage would have to be added to give the story a hint of coherence. On the plus side, some of the photography was beautiful.

Bottom line: good action, crappy plot, looks cool, the two main character(s) are babes (depending on your gender/orientation). This is an average action movie that I probably will watch again sometime when I want something that doesn't engage my brain but has pretty things to look at. With explosions. Lots of them.

Liberty Stands Still (2002)

Preachy, slightly boring, yet still a bit interesting

[4/10 · 4 February 2004]

I watched this on video last night. It wasn't even a blip in the movie schedule in Japan, although "Bowling for Columbine" was in most theaters when it came out. There are obvious reasons for the lack of attention "Liberty Stands Still" received.

Some spoilers follow.

First, it was tedious. The drawn out disclosure of why Joe is doing this is supposed to be intriguing, but there is no tension to sustain the intrigue. Ironically, the realism of the offhand way he kills a few of the victims works against the drama of the movie by releasing some of the tension without a buildup to that release. There is another source of tension in the bombs, but since we never actually get to know Russel that well, we don't really care too much about him. He's been committing adultery with someone else's wife, so most people wouldn't have that much sympathy with him from a moral standpoint anyway. The other potential victims of the bombs are either people Skogland portrays unsympathetically or a faceless crowd. It makes it hard to care about whether the bombs go off or not.

That leads to another problem with the plot: there are no sympathetic characters. Again, this complexity is one of the things that works against it as a movie. Even Liberty, who is in the role of Joe's main victim, is shown to be unsympathetic at the beginning (she's cheating on her husband, she's indirectly responsible for gun running and so is supposedly aiding and abetting wars at home and abroad) yet we are somehow supposed to grow to like her at least a little bit by the end of the film. The only admirable things about her were that she tried to find a way out of her predicament, and kept trying to help others even if she was putting herself in danger.

A final major flaw was that the ending was anti-climactic. Obviously Kari Skogland could not make her villain into a demon without undermining her message, so some of Joe's threats are bluffs. He is made to appear serious by killing people earlier in the film, but the people he kills are people that no one could really care about--in many cases we don't know them well enough--or could not support without some ambiguity.

This movie's blatantly obvious message is anti-gun. Unfortunately Skogland displays a very poor understanding of the complexities involved in the question of gun-control. Joe states that the gun industry is huge, while in reality most manufacturers function barely in the black. Profits for the entire firearms industry in 1999 amounted to about $200 million. The CEO of a major corporation makes a median salary of $13 to $14 million and the highest paid make around $180 to $190 million. That's the amount that a single employee of the company makes versus the profits of an entire industry. Making guns is hardly the most profitable of businesses.

The line of reasoning that Joe follows is tenuous at best. By his logic, car manufacturers should be held responsible for the accidents they cause, drug manufacturers responsible for deaths from side effects, accidental overdoses, and suicides; and the power company for deaths through electrocution. I fully agree with one of Joe's statements, that Americans have forgotten about responsibility. Where he and I disagree is that I would not hold the manufacturer of a hammer responsible for a murder committed using the hammer; I would blame the murderer. In addition, we never find out for sure if the death of a loved one which he lays at Liberty's feet was intentional or accidental. He seems to think that issue is not worth considering and this allows him to skirt the issue of personal responsibility in his quest for "justice." While his blindness to the complexities of the situation could be seen as Skogland's presentation of a flawed narrator, given the overall treatment of the film it is likely that the overt message and tortured logic are the writer's own, not just the character's.

While this movie had some potential, it falls flat in many areas. The logic of the plot is forced, the characters are not developed to their full potential, and some of the virtues it does have are undermined by mistakes in pacing. If the promised complexity and ambiguity of the characters had been more fully developed, if the logic and facts of the plot had been more believable, if Skogland had built the dramatic tension in a more adept way, this could have been a better than average movie.

If you want to watch good movie about the issue of gun control, rent "Bowling for Columbine." You may not agree with Moore's message, but if you actually think about what he is saying, you have to admit that he raises some legitimate points. His approach is to ask questions to find the root causes of the problem. Moore raises more questions than he answers and by doing so invites the viewer to help find a solution for the very real problems to which he draws attention. It's not drama, but it is a decent treatment of the central issue in "Liberty Stands Still."

Liberty Stands Still (2002)

Preachy, slightly boring, yet still a bit interesting

[4/10 · 4 February 2004]

I watched this on video last night. It wasn't even a blip in the movie schedule in Japan, although "Bowling for Columbine" was in most theaters when it came out. There are obvious reasons for the lack of attention "Liberty Stands Still" received.

Some spoilers follow.

First, it was tedious. The drawn out disclosure of why Joe is doing this is supposed to be intriguing, but there is no tension to sustain the intrigue. Ironically, the realism of the offhand way he kills a few of the victims works against the drama of the movie by releasing some of the tension without a buildup to that release. There is another source of tension in the bombs, but since we never actually get to know Russel that well, we don't really care too much about him. He's been committing adultery with someone else's wife, so most people wouldn't have that much sympathy with him from a moral standpoint anyway. The other potential victims of the bombs are either people Skogland portrays unsympathetically or a faceless crowd. It makes it hard to care about whether the bombs go off or not.

That leads to another problem with the plot: there are no sympathetic characters. Again, this complexity is one of the things that works against it as a movie. Even Liberty, who is in the role of Joe's main victim, is shown to be unsympathetic at the beginning (she's cheating on her husband, she's indirectly responsible for gun running and so is supposedly aiding and abetting wars at home and abroad) yet we are somehow supposed to grow to like her at least a little bit by the end of the film. The only admirable things about her were that she tried to find a way out of her predicament, and kept trying to help others even if she was putting herself in danger.

A final major flaw was that the ending was anti-climactic. Obviously Kari Skogland could not make her villain into a demon without undermining her message, so some of Joe's threats are bluffs. He is made to appear serious by killing people earlier in the film, but the people he kills are people that no one could really care about--in many cases we don't know them well enough--or could not support without some ambiguity.

This movie's blatantly obvious message is anti-gun. Unfortunately Skogland displays a very poor understanding of the complexities involved in the question of gun-control. Joe states that the gun industry is huge, while in reality most manufacturers function barely in the black. Profits for the entire firearms industry in 1999 amounted to about $200 million. The CEO of a major corporation makes a median salary of $13 to $14 million and the highest paid make around $180 to $190 million. That's the amount that a single employee of the company makes versus the profits of an entire industry. Making guns is hardly the most profitable of businesses.

The line of reasoning that Joe follows is tenuous at best. By his logic, car manufacturers should be held responsible for the accidents they cause, drug manufacturers responsible for deaths from side effects, accidental overdoses, and suicides; and the power company for deaths through electrocution. I fully agree with one of Joe's statements, that Americans have forgotten about responsibility. Where he and I disagree is that I would not hold the manufacturer of a hammer responsible for a murder committed using the hammer; I would blame the murderer. In addition, we never find out for sure if the death he lays at Liberty's feet was intentional or accidental. He seems to think that issue is not worth considering and this allows him to skirt the issue of personal responsibility in his quest for "justice." While his blindness to the complexities of the situation could be seen as Skogland's presentation of a flawed narrator, given the overall treatment of the film it is likely that the overt message and tortured logic are the writer's own, not just the character's.

While this movie had some potential, it falls flat in many areas. The logic of the plot is forced, the characters are not developed to their full potential, and some of the virtues it does have are undermined by mistakes in pacing. If the promised complexity and ambiguity of the characters had been more fully developed, if the logic and facts of the plot had been more believable, if Skogland had built the dramatic tension in a more adept way, this could have been a better than average movie.

If you want to watch good movie about the issue of gun control, rent "Bowling for Columbine." You may not agree with Moore's message, but if you actually think about what he is saying, you have to admit that he raises some legitimate points. His approach is to ask questions to find the root causes of the problem. Moore raises more questions than he answers and by doing so invites the viewer to help find a solution for the very real problems to which he draws attention. It's not drama, but it is a decent treatment of the central issue in "Liberty Stands Still."

Swordfish (2001)

Stylish, pretentious, fun, silly

[6/10 · 4 February 2004]

I'm surprised Halle Berry would pick this movie, of all movies, in which to show us her tits. Not that I'm complaining about the actual showing--they are very nice, after all--but what was the point? Was it necessary for character development? Was it a plot point? No. Was it the money? Mmmmaybe. She seemed very uncomfortable with the whole thing, which sort of interfered with my enjoyment of the moment. Not so much that I didn't enjoy it at least a little bit.

"Swordfish" was a sort-of enjoyable movie with delusions of grandeur. It wanted to be deep, it wanted to be unpredictable, it wanted to be political, but really only succeeded in being nice eye-candy that also supplied a few cool quotes. The most interesting thing in the movie was that the relationship between Stanley (Hugh Jackman) and his daughter was fully fleshed out and believable. Gabriel's character (John Travolta) was refreshingly amoral and willing to act on his beliefs, but ultimately you feel like there's more flash than substance to him. That character was the other high point in the movie though.

There are a few stunts we haven't seen, a few really cool action shots, an interesting take on the hijacker's getaway, and lots of explosions. It's fun, it looks cool, and it spackles over the holes in the plot.

Like every other movie that deals with computers, the hacking scenes are absurd. Not that I'm such an expert, but hell, a dictionary crack would work just as well as the Swiss Army Knife, open anything anywhere tactical nuke of a program he writes. Didn't the IT guys at work tell you never to use a word or words from the dictionary as a password? It only takes him a day or two to write it too. Admittedly it's supposed to be based on code he's already put months into in the past, but give me a break. Besides, do you know any programmers who bother to write a graphical interface for their tools?

Possible (though unlikely) spoilers:

While we're on absurdities, what was with the shootout scene when the government goons come after Gabriel? If that was the best they could do, why would Gabriel even bother breaking out the heavy artillery? Maybe winning just involves having bigger guns.

I'm sure that putting a gun to someone's head is a great motivator, but it probably wouldn't do much for stimulating thinking processes. The most excellent blowjob from a gorgeous blonde wouldn't help either, though it would test how well you deal with serious distractions while you work.

Ultimately, this movie is a fun ride that doesn't take itself too seriously. It even pokes fun at a few other Joel Silver movies and the film industry in general. On the other hand, it doesn't quite deliver on the early promise of the great setup and soliloquy at the beginning of the movie. It's good for what it is, but fails at becoming more than a fairly shallow action movie. Worth watching if you don't mind feeling silly for hoping the plot might be as good as the rhetoric. Or if you want to see Halle Berry's excellent rack.

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

They actually made enough money from this POS for a sequel?

[4/10 · 24 September 2003]

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD. YE BE WARNED!

I expected stupid action, but with the emphasis on the "action" part of that phrase. The director took this movie in so many directions that I think he got lost somewhere. The <ahem> "plot" twists were stuck on at random in a misguided attempt to add depth to this puddle. Lose the undercover cop thread completely or actually do something with it, beef up the Tran rivalry or drop that too, add to the romantic interest, tone down the macho a**hole rivalry between the meat-head and the new guy (or at least make her a bit sympathetic to the poor loser who obviously has had a crush on her since they were kids), make the kid do a bit more to prove himself, add a couple more driving scenes with some turns instead of just straight-line acceleration, and you might just have a decent movie.

Of course, it would be a close copy of "Point Break" (substitute drivers for surfers, Vin Diesel for Patrick Swayze) with DriveTime(tm) special effects lifted from "Driven" and a plot that would make "Gone in 60 Seconds" look profound, but it would be more watchable. I found myself actually checking my watch several times. I made it through "Pleasantville" with only a couple of watch checks. Whoo. Yay. They hit the nitrous buttons...yet again. How thrilling.

Almost the only good scenes in the movie were due to the real street-racer extras who lent this movie some badly needed fun. Hotties and tricked-out cars as eye candy were great bonuses. The fast driving scenes were also well done, but a bit sparse. There was more driving around town than driving fast and furiously. Oh, and was I the only person who thought the method for hijacking the semis was unnecessarily complicated, dangerous, and stupid? Good driving = cool; but the harpoon gun = puuhlease! "Gee, what an excellent way to get dragged to death under a speeding semi! Where do I sign up for that?"

Monkey Shines (1988)

not your typical horror flick

[6/10 · 19 September 2003]

If you're looking for body count, blood, or bogeymen, this film is not for you. It is more of a psychological thriller than a horror film, though it was billed as horror, likely because of the pseudo-science gimmick that provides the basis for the conflict in the plot.

While the film tends to wander a bit (i.e. a sub-plot involving the research head that gets dropped 3/4 of the way through) it stays fairly well focused on the main character and his problems. Aside from the lead, the most effective acting was done by the monkey(s), but the "real" actors do a pretty good job of carrying their own. It gives you a little insight into what it's like to be quadriplegic. For a late 80's movie, the style of filming was well done, there is very little cheese, and the special effects didn't overreach.

The premise seems a bit farfetched to our currently more sophisticated and informed sense of what's possible on the genetic engineering front. After all, this movie was made 15 years ago. If Romero had gone with either a supernatural cause or a plain animal jealousy angle, it might be less dated, but then again it might have been a little less believable to begin with.

Not very horrific, not startling or scary, but worth seeing if you don't mind a slightly slow-paced thriller. I gave it a higher than average score (6 out of 10) just because it didn't make me say "oh, please!" too many times unlike other movies from that time--particularly horror films--are prone to do. For example, the pivotal moment is fully supported by plausible input earlier in the film, it's not one of those miraculous developments pulled out of nowhere in the last few seconds before the climax.

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

Almost unwatchable

[3/10 · 13 July 2003]

The plot (what there was of it) was trying to go in multiple directions at the same time. The comedy made use of hackneyed and offensive stereotypes (barbarous Mongolians, dumb blacks) or smirky in-jokes about the girls, who have a whopping one film history together, which is not nearly enough for self-referential humor.

The action scenes were horrible distortions of reality. I mean, I can suspend disbelief for most movies, but villains who can fly simply by wearing a dress with big sleeves and a full skirt, people dodging bullets by flipping away from them, a full-speed car crash (including ejection from the crash) with only a couple of scrapes to show for it, and girls jump-kicking guys who mass twice what they do to project them 5 to 10 meters away and then landing in the exact same spot they jumped from is a little too much. Being bludgeoned by such blatant unreality doesn't produce suspense or even "kewlnis", it produces laughter.

If this movie had for one second taken itself even a little bit seriously, it would have been unwatchable. The only thing that made it tolerable was that everyone involved treated the movie as one big joke. The only real humor of the movie -as opposed to a gag or the hilariously bad special effects- was the dialog sequence with Matt LeBlanc and John Cleese, where a mistaken premise by Cleese makes LeBlanc's "innocent" remarks have a double meaning. I suspect that dialog was written by Cleese as it seems to have some of the hallmarks of his style.

If you want to see a stupid "action" movie, with indestructible heroines and yet more effects-enhanced extreme sports crap thrown in to appeal to those who actually care, this is the movie for you. If you want real humor, a plot, excitement, thrills, or anything that will engage more brain cells than necessary to make your eyes track movement, see something else. It's a slightly entertaining movie that misses getting a vote of two only by virtue of its not pretending to be more than it is; dumb entertainment. 3/10

The Ring (2002)

One of the better horror movies out there

[9/10 · 13 July 2003]

My girlfriend and I saw the original in Japanese, and we both agree that the US version is much more suspenseful and scarier than the Japanese one, with the exception of some extraordinarily creepy sequences in the Japanese version. One of the small but significant changes from the original was that the Japanese version had the girl's face mostly hidden by her hair and she never makes eye contact, which I found more effective than Verbinski's treatment. The original also had one scene that I thought was a bit creepier than the remake, when the girl comes to attack the man. Other than that, the changes made were mostly positive.

Japanese plots tend to be short on causality and detail, so the story changes, which add about a half hour to the original story line, serve to make the plot coherent to Westerners. The production values in Japan make the fairly high-budget original with A-list actors look like a B-movie to people accustomed to Hollywood films. The ending shows the difference between cultures, since in the original Japanese, the woman appeals to her father for help.

There are holes in the plot, as many people have pointed out in reviews. Those that remain are either intentional, like those relating to the essentially unsolved mystery of the tapes and the girl, or were left over from the original Japanese.

The lighting and deliberately limited spectrum enhance the mood of the film greatly. The attack on the ex-boyfriend occurring during daylight hours is surprisingly effective even though it flouts the normal rules of horror films. One of the things I liked most about this movie is that it is a bit unconventional, through a combination of good director choices and some fresh ideas borrowed from Japan. People who were expecting to see a kill-em-all slasher flick were probably disappointed by the relatively slow pace in the building of the story and suspense.

Overall, I found the film to be a very good treatment of the original story and a fairly creepy horror movie too. It doesn't try to startle you into being frightened, it doesn't offer lots of gore and shocking violence, and it doesn't play down to the audience. The result is a slightly cerebral and haunting movie. There are some images and scenes that will stay with you and still give you the creeps for quite some time after you see it.

The Bourne Identity (2002)

Hooray for decent, more realistic spy films!

[8/10 · 17 March 2003]

I have grown extremely tired of the typical formula spy film like Bond, or the juvenile stunt exhibition "Triple X." There have been a bare handful of spy films that feature relatively realistic spy thrillers, especially recently with a concentration on spectacular movies that have less substance than cotton candy.

Besides "The Bourne Identity," "Ronin" is the only other recent spy movie I can think of that didn't feature skydiving, bungie jumping, skiing downhill while shooting innumerable bad guys, laser pens, cars with ejection seats, or silicone breasted women with names you'd be vaguely embarrassed to say in front of your mother. Most of the crap that passes for an espionage film has no plot or reason for existing other than to meet a quota of explosions and cleavage in order to draw the summer action film crowd.

While "Bourne" does not have a particularly deep plot, it is consistent and focused. The focus is entirely upon Bourne and how he is to deal with having no memory of his past, being hunted without knowing why. Some people have complained about being confused by the movie. I for one, do not need to have everything spelled out since in many cases this smacks of unreality in the first place; the essence of espionage is drawing conclusions from very sketchy information. If you can't handle a little of that, you probably should stick to Disney films or TV's Scooby Doo where everything is explained in the end. We never find out about what is in the case in "Ronin" and I can live without some information being filled in about Bourne's past.

To those who have moaned about the incompatibility of the book and the movie, seek help. There are probably several things that work in the book that would either be boring and take too much screen time to explain, or would be viewed as cliche to modern screen audiences. As I remember, I liked the book, and I definitely like this movie. I view any movie adaptation as an interpretation of the book rather than a translation from words to pictures anyway.

As for realism, most of the action scenes are believable, no super-gadgets are to be seen, no incredibly lovely models fall madly in bed with Bourne, and the hero shows definite signs of physical vulnerability despite a very high level of training and competance. As someone who has trained in martial arts for over 10 years, unrealistic fight scenes are a pet peeve. The fights in "Bourne" are fast, nasty, and very realistic while still being entertaining for the layman. (And yes, taking a gun away from some idiot who is standing well within your striking radius without getting shot is definitely doable, though I had serious doubts until we tested it for ourselves with plastic dart guns in the dojo several years ago).

While not being perfect, "The Bourne Identity" is, simply put, several grades above the typical spy film. Being focused on an individual level rather than involving itself huge political ramifications lends it another layer of respectability rather than detracting from it as some comments have implied since it remains a human problem on a comprehensible scale. The mysteries that are left are bigger mysteries for Bourne than us, and I think should be viewed as intentional omissions rather than loose ends. The implausibilities are kept to a minimum and the realism to as high a level as possible while still being spectacular enough to meet the expectations of the genre.