Review: 'Red' Is Pretty Much A More Watchable 'Expendables' With A Better Cast (But Still Disappointing)

As you might have guessed from our coverage leading up to the film's release, we were impressed with the trailers for "Red" and were holding out some hope that in a year populated with rag-tag-crew films like "The Losers," "The A-Team" and "The Expendables" that disappointed, this would be the film that would be late-inning saving grace. Sadly, this is not the case. Based on the DC Comic and directed by Robert Schwentke, "Red" is essentially a more watchable version of "The Expendables" with a better cast, but plagued with the same narrative and tonal problems of Sylvester Stallone's steroid and testosterone-heavy film.

The film starts off by introducing us to Frank Moses (Bruce Willis). Retired and pretty much bored by the routine of his post-career life, his only joy is a fledgling romance started over the phone with mousy Social Security telephone helpline administrator Sarah Moss (Mary-Louise Parker). Frank tears up his pension checks just to have an excuse to talk to Sarah and plans a trip to Kansas City where she works in order to try and finally meet her face to face. Aww. But, before he can probably pack his bags, a faceless group of armed gunmen attempt to kill him and destroy his home but not before Frank, whose senses from being an ex-CIA black ops agent are still in fine form, gets the drop of them first. Now aware that he's a target -- and that anyone he's spoken to might be in danger -- Frank races to Kansas City to get Sarah out of harm's way. Obviously, she's more than slightly unnerved that a man she only knows over the phone is suddenly in her apartment with a crazy story, but Frank ties her up and soon they're hitting the road, determined to find out who is behind this and why he's a target for assassination. To help him, Frank reconnects with his buddies from the old days, including the cancer-stricken Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman), the paranoid Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) and the killer-turned-Martha Stewart style homemaker Victoria (Helen Mirren).
And really, that's the story and in a film like this, it's about as simple as it needs be. Unfortunately, the script by Jon and Erich Hoeber makes the mistake of assuming the audience will actually care or be invested in the intricacies of just why Frank and his buddies are being put in the bullseye. So to service that end, the part of William Cooper (Karl Urban), the current CIA agent tasked with killing Frank and his cohorts, deviates from the strict bad guy role into a poorly drawn account of an agency foot solider who is questioning his loyalty. Rebecca Pidgeon seems like she walked in off the set of one of her husband David Mamet's films, doing the frosty, ball-crushing bitch routine that seems to be the only parts she ever takes. Throw in the mix something or another about Guatemala and the vice president and you have the makings of some very tedious scenes of people explaining to each other who did what and when and why -- all stuff that is particularly uninteresting, and gets in the way of stuff getting blowed up real good. This is a movie with James Remar for God's sake. We're not expecting "Inception" here; just give us a bad guy, some vague reasoning to drive the plot, leave it be, and let the very talented cast go wild. In short, we're never given enough reason to care about the past transgressions of a fictional government that doesn't come into the film until the very late stages of the story.
Which leads to the film's other major issue: it's not nearly as clever or as fun as it thinks it. For one, director Robert Schwentke is never really sure if he's making an over the top explosion fest or comedic espionage tale and settles uneasily between the two. The first half of the film contains the most bonkers (and fun) set pieces (which are all pretty much given away in the trailers unfortunately) that are topped by a showdown between a handgun wielding Marvin and missile launcher armed bad guy. Somewhere along the way into the second half of the film, gone are the absurd villains and we get fairly boilerplate spy movie set ups; most of which don't ignite the way we hope and are certainly a long way from being inventive or interesting. Is it cool to see Helen Mirren shooting a huge gun on tripod? Yeah, sure. It was neat in the trailer, mildly amusing in the movie but as that sequence went on it just become sort of boring. And while the cast has some fun playing against type, the real treat in the film? Mary-Louise Parker. She's essentially a surrogate for the audience, at first in total disbelief at what she's been thrown into and then sort of thrilled by it. Her turn is great and marked by some pitch perfect comedic facial expressions; someone needs to cast her in an outright comedy to see what she can do but she's tops here. Judd Apatow, get her on the phone. Seriously.
Director Robert Schwentke got a lot of heat around him in the lead up to the film but after watching "Red," it's hard to see why. The action beats in the film are hardly memorable, the comedy gets a couple of smirks and guffaws here and there and that's about it. The cast saves the film from being a total waste of time and there is some novelty to the film's premise that helps keeps things moving, but it's hardly enough. The pacing is nowhere close to that of Schwentke's "Flightplan" at the nearly two hour running time is unforgivable given how often the film lags as each minute wears on. In the film, RED stands for Retired Extremely Dangerous but for audiences, they might be warned its also Red Extremely Dull. [C+]

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Drawn Out Miramax Deal Delays John Madden's 'The Debt' & Guillermo Del Toro Produced 'Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark'

Miramax Films' lengthy, drawn out buy-out process has now affected its upcoming slate with two of its films withdrawn from their winter releases.

John Madden's part-thriller, part romantic drama, "The Debt," and Troy Nixey's Guillermo Del Toro-produced "Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark" were scheduled to hit theaters on December 29th and January 21st respectively but have now been postponed until Miramax's new owners — construction magnate Ron Tutor and Tom Barrack's Santa Monica-based Colony Capital — put together their new shingle, Filmyard.

The deal won't reportedly be completed until the year's end because of "strictly logistical reasons" with no new dates announced probably until all the i's and t's are dotted and crossed. According to a source who spoke to the LA Times Disney, who were originally going to distribute the films in exchange for a percentage of revenue, are now balking at giving full marketing campaigns to films they won't end up owning. Other Miramax films like Julie Taymor's "The Tempest" and Will Speck & Josh Gordon's "The Switch" found new homes under Disney's Touchstone shingle after the company's demise with the latter hitting theaters this past spring and the former coming in December. Filmyard will need to find a new distribution partner for the films which are now expected to hit theaters sometime in 2011.

Starring Sam Worthington, Marton Csokas and Jessica Chastain as three Mossad agents on the hunt for a Nazi war criminal, the flashback-laden part thriller, part romantic drama "The Debt" was one of the better scripts we'd read from Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn ("Kick-Ass," "Stardust") and we did have hopes for an exciting thriller at the very least; especially with the stellar cast topped off by Helen Mirren, Ciaran Hinds and Tom Wilkinson, who'll play the three protagonist's older equivalents.

Nixey's "Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark," meanwhile, stars Guy Pearce, Katie Holmes and Bailee Madison as a family who move into a derelict house, only to experience the unveiling of some terrifying creatures. Early footage has painted the picture of an unnerving, thrilling feature very much in vein of producer Del Toro's works which sounds exciting enough.

These are both promising projects and we hope they don't end up languishing on the shelf for too long.

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Watch: Passion, Treachery & Uh, Stupidity In Trailer For Julie Taymor's 'The Tempest'

Our man on the ground at the New York Film Festival certainly didn't think much of the Centerpiece Film, Julie Taymor's "The Tempest" and now that we have our first look at the latest visually dazzling take on Shakespeare from the director we are beginning to understand where he's coming from.

The gender switching take on Shakespeare's last masterpiece stars Helen Mirren as Prospera, a woman scorned after being unjustly usurped and exiled by the brother of her deceased husband so he can claim her title. Shot in Hawaii (yes, it does look very nice) the film also boasts a helluva supporting crew of actors including David Strathairn, Djimon Hounsou, Reeve Carney, Alan Cumming, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper, Felicity Jones, Ben Whishaw and Russell Brand. But while the dazzling effects are impressive nothing in the trailer particularly stirred us, not even the desperate addition of Sigur Ros in the spot's final moments to try and wrest some kind of emotion out of whomever might be watching it.

The film will open in NY/LA on December 10th before rolling out. You can watch the trailer below or in HD at Apple.

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NYFF '10': Julie Taymor Talks 'The Tempest,' & Scoring Portishead's Beth Gibbons To Sing In The Film's Conclusion

While Julie Taymor's getting geeks' panties in a bunch for her gestating "Spider-Man" Broadway show, her latest endeavor in cinema is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest," with an estimable cast that includes Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Russel Brand, and Ben Wishaw to name a few. Taymor's no stranger to Shakespeare's work, as her last cinematic foray into his oeuvre was her adaptation of "Titus Andronicus," shortened simply to "Titus" way back in 1999 with Anthony Hopkins in the title role. Adding to her experience is the fact that she had already done "The Tempest" on three difference occasions, so suffice to say, she probably knows the piece like the back of her hand.

This time, however, the director wasn't interested in completely sticking to the script, which called for what is essentially the main character of Prospero to be played by a male actor. Instead, Helen Mirren expressed interest, and the two were careful with the decision to gender swap. "We did a reading a year in advance, it was extremely critical to both Helen and myself that this not be a gimmick, that putting a woman into this role had validity for the Shakespeare play," said Taymor at the New York Film Festival press conference. Would she really turn down a performance by great thespian Mirren? It's doubtful, but the concern is understood and shows that the female filmmaker's head was in the right place during pre-production, recognizing that the change would call attention, and so it would be necessary to avoid it being a mere contrivance. The swap, in fact, gave certain scenes a different and deeper layer. She spoke of one of the final scenes, where Prospera relinquished her magic and shed her island dwelling appearance for a more regal one.

"When you watch her go from these androgynous free clothes that you'd wear on an island to be comfortable, back into that severe female corset, she's not just giving up her magic, she's giving up her freedom for her daughter's."

These visual moments were sought out by Taymor, who said, "I wanted to have certain moments of breathers from the language." And indeed, while the film version has been whittled down from a play that's roughly 4 hours in its entirety, there's still a plethora of dialogue to be digested — which she acknowledges as hard to break up because of its specific rhythm. Instead, she expounded on the newly opened doors that the film medium had presented her, such as the previously mentioned scene and the focus on the costume design. And also the environment the characters inhabit, which directly represented their feelings or the theme of a particular scene:

"When the king falls asleep," she explains, "we're in this incredible iron wood forest that we would get lost in. We're doing a conspiracy here, so we need to find a place for these actors to hide, for these actors to go. When the clowns get drunk, they're in what we call the 'Ramble Forest' and it's all gnarled and it looks like 'Hansel and Gretel' and it's like what's going inside of them."

In particular, Taymor found inspiration in the 1964 near-perfect Hiroshi Teshigahara film "Woman in the Dunes," in which an unwilling couple live in a sand-dune with no way out.

"I never lost the love for this film, where the two lovers were down in a pit and everyone was watching from above. They couldn't get out because it forced them into that incredible sexual moment. It pushes the two together, every piece of scenery was used to represent inner landscape."

Those especially familiar with the play also know that it's very musical, with the spirit Ariel, played by Ben Wishaw, performing many songs. No stranger to contemporary musicals, having directed the Beatles-inspired "Across the Universe," Taymor and her constant collaborative composer Elliot Goldenthal opted for something a little different from the norm. Goldenthal still used many instruments of the time, such as didgeridoos and wood flutes, but they spoke of blending in current styles while still keeping the atmosphere of what they would've used around the birth of the play.

"We talked about this combination of contemporary sensibility and electric guitar. 'The Tempest' does have orchestral elements, but a lot of those elements are electric guitar. He uses (these) as an orchestra. I wanted to bridge time."

Bridge time she did, as the conclucsion features the final monologue by Prospera as sung by Beth Gibbons, lead singer of the band Portishead. The closing speech was originally scrapped by Taymor, but when it came down to it, she realized it was incomplete without it. With no money left, she and her producers tried to come up with clever ideas to fit it back in, and a song by Gibbons just happened to be the idea that won. "Beth came to mind because she feels like Helen to me. She has the vulnerability and the power simultaneously." The finale song puts a proper close on things, and amusingly enough, some even thought that it actually was Mirren's voice over the music. "Some people think that it's Helen singing, but Helen will tell you that she doesn't sing."

Whether Taymor succeeds in attracting audiences to her mix of past and present elements remains to be seen, as regular joe moviegoers (and honestly, even those into the art of cinema) often find the density and general wordiness of Shakespeare films to be a bit exasperating. The director seemed to be confident with her film and very adamant about her choice, simply stating "I didn't want to update it. Shakespeare is all-time."

"The Tempest" opens December 10, 2010.

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NYFF '10: 'The Tempest' Is Much Ado About Nothing

Everything associated with Julie Taymor's "The Tempest," at least in the initial build-up of pre-release hype, has been built around the faux-provocation of Helen Mirren, distinguished British film actress, multiple award winner, Queen of England, playing Prospero, a character that has traditionally been portrayed as being male, in Shakespeare's classic play. (In the new movie, she's now called Prospera.) It's only after you've been watching the movie for a few minutes, after you take in the changes in the character (if you're a Shakespeare fan or graduated with a Literary Studies degree), that the momentary thrill subsides and then vanishes altogether. The reason all the hype is centered around this slightly oddball casting decision is because there's nothing else to sell the rest of "The Tempest" on.

Which is to say: "The Tempest" is bad. Like, really, really bad.

But it does have a nice title card: large, crisp font, taking up much of the screen, superimposed over the arresting, surreal image of a tiny sandcastle in the palm of a young girl's hand. But once this image is gone, and it's gone fairly quickly, the goofy overwrought nightmare that is "The Tempest" consumes you.

"The Tempest" is considered, at least by Taymor herself, to be one of Shakespeare's "greats." In her movie, Prospera is a would-be duchess who has been banished to an inhospitable island to live with her child (played by the apple-cheeked Felicity Jones) after charges of witchcraft are leveled against her. When the film opens, it's been 12 years since her banishment, and, using her keen mastery of both science and magic, as well as her friendship with an androgynous nature sprite named Ariel (Ben Whishaw), she maroons those who conspired against her on the same forbidding isle. Said conspirators include King of Naples Alonzo (David Strathairn) and Alonzo's brother and son (Chris Cooper and Alan Cumming). Also on the island: a pair of bumbling drunks (Alfred Molina and Russell Brand) and the island's natural inhabitant Caliban (Djimon Hounsou).

The plot is classically Shakespearean, with the three threads interweaving haphazardly throughout until they all reconcile at the end, with a message that is less about vengeance and more about forgiveness and moving on. A nice sentiment that still resonates four hundred years later. (There's also some stuff about Prospera's daughter getting involved with Ferdinand, played by Reeve Carney, but those are probably the dopiest sections of the already dopey movie.)

It's clear what a huge mess "The Tempest" is from very early on, with the titular storm bearing down on the conspirators' ship. It's well photographed by cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh, with the action being staged not unlike something from the latter "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. At this point, the score by Eliot Goldenthal hasn't gotten too overbearing. Yes, it's a bit much, but it's a couple of scenes later, when Prospera is going over the attack with Ariel, do we realize just how awful this is going to be. As Ariel recounts the storm, we see him gliding above the ship, laughing maniacally, with Goldenthal's music mutates into some kind of acid rock mutation, with gnarled electric guitars raging; the word "embarrassing" comes to mind.

But, amazingly, this is the tip of the bad-taste iceberg, as throughout the film, Taymor takes advantage of the digital visual effects she fell in love with on her borderline unwatchable Beatles jukebox musical "Across the Universe," to turn Ariel into a swarm of frogs, a giant crow, and a pack of flame-breathing dogs. The effects, supervised by the amazing title designer Kyle Cooper, have an ethereal look that doesn't conjure magical surrealism but a rather a liquidy impermanence. All the while, Ben Whishaw, a normally fine actor, does his best to look dignified, even when his face is being digitally painted into the trunk of a tree and his hair has more product in it than the entire cast of "Jersey Shore" (he looks slightly electrocuted).
As far as casting goes, Whishaw is one of the better calls. Chris Cooper seems wildly out-of-place, but then gets into a groove with his character; by the end of the film you'll be glad he was there, because he seemed to add a little bit of authenticity and humanity to a movie that seemed more concerned with its glitzy visual effects and elaborate costumes than with emotional connectivity. Mirren is wonderful, of course, but spends stretches of the movie off-camera. That was sort of a given. It should, however, be noted that there hasn't been a recent example of sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb casting as shameful as Russell Brand's. His performance, as the bumbling clown, is supposed to be a little larger than life. Every time he shows up it's like somebody has painted a yellow slash down the center of the screen; it's distracting, off-putting and awful.

Taymor keeps large sections of the text, and outfits her characters in decadent duds (we'd kill for one of those YSL-ish leather jackets) that she said were meant to symbolize timelessness. What they really symbolize is a director more comfortable with camp than with craft, and the way she shoots much of the movie, with the actors taking up the foreground of the shot while the backgrounds (the movie was shot on location in Hawaii) turn into indistinct mush, robs the movie of any sense of scope. It becomes less about the text, the amazing actors that are saying the lines, and the scale afforded by motion pictures, and more about Taymor's lackluster staging.

Bogglingly, "The Tempest" is the "Centerpiece Film" at the New York Film Festival and closed out Venice earlier this year and is being groomed by some as an Oscar heavyweight, once it opens in December. It's absolute absurd to think this, and we're quick to peg it as this year's "Nine:" a movie that seems to have prestige written all over it, until people actually see it. Or, in the words of the Bard: "the past is prologue." [D]

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Review: 'Legend Of The Guardians' A Big Pile Of Ga'Hoole

When the credits roll at the end of "Legend Of The Guardians" you might be surprised to see the credit 'Directed By Zack Snyder.' That's right, the man behind "Watchmen" and "300" has made a 3D animated children's film, and while the director is known for his highly stylized (if otherwise empty) work, none of that is in evidence here. Wheezing, lifeless and tagged with a ridiculously cumbersome title "Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga'Hoole" we left the theater with little idea about what the Guardians or the Ga'Hooles exactly were and we're pretty sure the kids in attendance at the screening were equally baffled.

Based on the novel by Kathryn Lasky, we can only presume it made more sense in her book than in the screenplay by John Orloff ("A Mighty Heart") and Emil Stern ("The Life Before Her Eyes"). The film opens with our owl protagonist Soren (Jim Sturgess) playing with his younger sister Eglatine (Adrienne deFaria) as they enact the famous battle the supposedly ancient Guardians had against somebody-or-other. It doesn't help that the entire cast of characters are given marble mouthed names (couldn't Ezylryb been changed to, we dunno, Steve or something?) but having lead characters explain (more than once) the significance of their myth and history and none of it sticking or being remotely compelling, is a problem the film faces from the first frame and never quite recovers from.

At any rate, it doesn't really matter. Soren and his brother Kludd (Ryan Kwanten) are kidnapped one day when they fall out of their tree while learning to fly, by the rogue owls of the nefarious The Pure Ones. Led by Metalbeak (Joel Edgerton) and his mate Nyra (Helen Mirren), The Pure Ones are enslaving owls and forcing them to mine through regurgitated mice to find "flecks" (that look like a cross between shrapnel and diamonds) which are being harvested to created some kind of mass owl-killing weapon that is never really explained how it works or what it does. And no, you didn't read that wrong. A major plot element of the story involves barfed up mice (how this managed to get past everybody at Warner Bros. without any flags raised is kind of miraculous). At any rate, while Soren is made to endure indentured labor, his brother finds himself getting praise as a soldier and is soon moving up the ranks of The Pure Ones. Soren soon befriends Grimble (Hugo Weaving) a kindly librarian who teaches him and Gylfie (Emily Barclay) how to fly and eventually assists them in escaping. The duo hook up with Twilight (Anthony LaPaglia) and Digger (David Wenham) who help them find their way to Great Ga'Hoole Tree so they can get help to take down The Pure Ones. Needless to say the story at the beginning is recapped, the classic Cain and Abel-esque showdown is enacted and a whole bunch of birds go into one giant, climatic, feather filled battle.

Studios often arrange press screenings of children's films with kids in attendance so we can see how it plays with the intended audience. Well, the kids we saw it with were as bored as we were. With jokes falling flat and endless exposition drawing both adults and kids into a stoic silence, it was only the film's admittedly beautiful animation (shoved in our faces via 3D) that kept our interest. One can't argue that "Legends Of The Guardian" doesn't look good, and even Zack Snyder breaks out of his anonymous work behind the camera towards the end of the film to take a couple shots in the battle scenes and give them his sort of trademark slow-motion treatment. And of course, the barn door is left wide open should there be a sequel.

But the late stage heroics aren't enough to save the film. Try as it might, "Legends Of The Guardians" simply can't establish a mythology that's easily coherent or even compelling. Though we suppose we shouldn't be surprised. This film is actually the first three books of Lansky's fifteen-strong series put into one ninety-minute film and it really shows. In an era when studios are upping their game in the animation department with original stories and unique characters, "Legends Of The Guardians" feels like a creaky relic. Everything about the project feels rote and uninspired, right down to the hire of Owl City to write the film's theme song (we're pretty sure if he was called Horse Town, he wouldn't have gotten the gig). While Warner Bros. is banking on a dearth of children-geared product in theaters right now to drive ticket sales, we'd advise parents to pocket their cash and save their sanity instead of trying to drag the little ones out to see this one. [C-]

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