Movie Review: Haywire (2011)

Genre: Action  

Director: Steven Soderbergh  

Starring: Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas  

Running Time: 93 minutes  

Synopsis: Agent Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) works for a private intelligence firm led by her ex-lover Kenneth (Ewen McGregor), conducting deniable missions for the CIA's Coblenz (Michael Douglas). After she narrowly escapes a tangle with ex-colleague Aaron (Channing Tatum), flashbacks reveal that her most recent assignments involved rescuing a Chinese national held hostage in Barcelona, and conducting surveillance in Ireland with MI6 agent Paul (Michael Fassbender). Mallory discovers that the two missions are linked and she is being set-up, triggering a quest for revenge.

What Works Well: Mixed martial artist Gina Carano infuses the frequent bone-crunching close-quarters to-the-death fight scenes with more than the usual authenticity. The supporting cast is stacked with talent, and director Steven Soderbergh maintains brisk pacing.

What Does Not Work As Well: Given the short running time, the plot is convoluted, overstuffed, dismissive of important details, and uninterested in textures. All the characters settle into stone-faced killer mode, and the late-in-the-day introduction of Mallory's father (Bill Paxton) is wasted. The multiple climactic battles ride a linear path from exciting to tiresome, Mallory's score-settling reduced to samey shorthand confrontations.

Key Quote:

Paul: I'm assuming the motives of everyone involved are strictly professional.

Kenneth: Paul... the motive is money. The motive is always money.

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Movie Review: Original Sin (2001)

Genre: Romantic Drama  

Director: Michael Cristofer  

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Antonio Banderas, Thomas Jane  

Running Time: 116 minutes  

Synopsis: In Cuba of the late 1800s, successful businessman Luis Vargas (Antonio Banderas) marries American mail-order bride Julia Russell (Angelina Jolie). He is astonished at her beauty and quickly falls in love. Letters of concern from Julia's sister are followed by the appearance of private detective Walter Downs (Thomas Jane), asking about Julia's well-being. Luis starts to suspect that Julia is hiding secrets, but he remains hopelessly infatuated.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's novel about the irresistible powers of love and lust benefits from attractive location filming (in Mexico) and an earthy if romanticized sense of time and place. Director Michael Cristofer and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto use elegant and swoopy camera movements, surrounding Luis and Julia with colourful dynamism. The couple's erotic scenes of lovemaking sizzle with the necessary passion to underpin Luis' subsequent devotion to a woman who otherwise remains an enigma.

What Does Not Work As Well: Luis' background and character traits are just assumed, and his willful dismissal of obvious signs of foul play and betrayal erode logic and credibility. Meanwhile, Julia's compelling backstory suffers from tell-but-don't-show shortcomings. The second half starts to drag with repetitive emotions and a doubling down on the same beats, prolonging the wait for the inevitable final confrontation. 

Key Quote:

Julia (to Luis): So here's to us, a short life, but an exciting one.

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Movie Review: The House Of The Spirits (1993)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Bille August  

Starring: Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Vanessa Redgrave, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas  

Running Time: 146 minutes  

Synopsis: The setting is Chile, starting in the 1920s and spanning three generations. Esteban (Jeremy Irons) works hard to earn his fortune, and after his intended bride tragically dies, he marries her psychic sister Clara (Meryl Streep). Esteban rises to become an influential landowner and then a politician, but his sexually repressed spinster sister Ferula (Glenn Close) is a source of constant irritation. With socialism threatening Esteban's conservative ruling class, his daughter Blanca (Winona Ryder) falls in love with peasant revolutionary leader Pedro (Antonio Banderas), adding strife to the household.

What Works Well: This adaptation of Isabel Allende's novel is a never-dull gallop through 50 years of a family's ups-and-downs. A country's evolution and the rise of the working class provide a crackling context for Esteban's trajectory from hardworking labourer to powerful landlord, culminating in an unexpected encounter with humility. The women in his life are a source of tragedy, love, pleasure, frustration, joy, and anger, converging into difficult-to-learn lessons about what matters. Clara's subtle supernatural abilities provide a magic sparkle in an otherwise grounded milieu, while the visuals capture both beautiful landscapes and meticulous indoor sets.

What Does Not Work As Well: The South American soul of the story is degraded by the Anglo-American dominated cast, while the packed-in incidents allow limited opportunities for reflection. The narrative flow appears initially unsure whether to place Clara or Esteban at the drama's centre.

Key Quote:

Ferula: I set my curse on you, Esteban! You will always be alone! Your body and soul will shrivel up and you'll die like a dog!



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Movie Review: Babygirl (2024)

Genre: Erotic Drama  

Director: Halina Reign  
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Antonio Banderas, Harris Dickinson  
Running Time: 115 minutes  

Synopsis: Romy (Nicole Kidman) is the CEO of a robotics company. She is interested in being sexually submissive but is not satisfied by husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas). Romy spots cocky new intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) at her company, and he selects her as his mentor. Soon they are engaged in a steamy affair despite the risk of negative consequences for both.

What Works Well: Nicole Kidman throws herself into the role, and her sex scenes with Harris Dickinson embellish eroticism with a welcome level of hesitant awkwardness. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Older woman can own their sexuality without being painfully dumb. Director Halina Reign's clunky script is littered with foundational cracks, starting with Romy's inability to think on her feet or articulate any non-scripted thought. In the real word her skills would barely qualify her for a janitorial job, let alone a CEO position. And in any functioning office, Samuel's preening toy boy would have been thrown out on his ear before the lunch hour of his first day. Elsewhere, much of Romy's quest for kinky sexual fulfilment gets bogged down in meandering repetitive scenes before escaping into an implausible faux triumphal ending. 

Key Quote:

Samuel (to Romy): I think I have power over you. Cos I could make one phone call and you would lose everything. Does that turn you on when I say that?

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Movie Review: Life Itself (2018)

Genre: Romantic Drama  

Director: Dan Fogelman  

Starring: Oscar Isaac, Annette Bening, Olivia Wilde, Antonio Banderas, Mandy Patinkin, Olivia Cooke, Samuel L. Jackson  

Running Time: 117 minutes  

Synopsis: The story is told in multiple ultimately inter-connected chapters across many time periods, all revolving around themes of love, death, and life's inherent unpredictability. 

• In New York, Will (Oscar Isaac) is grieving the loss of his wife Abby (Olivia Wilde), and reveals their love story in sessions with his therapist (Annette Bening).
• Dylan (Olivia Cooke) suffered multiple losses during her childhood and was raised by her grandfather (Mandy Patinkin). Now in her early twenties, she is a rebellious teenager angry at the world.
• In Spain, Javier (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) labours in the olive groves of land owner Saccione (Antonio Banderas). Javier marries Isabel (Laia Costa) and they have a son, but a family trip to New York undermines their happiness.
• Rodrigo (Àlex Monner) is a foreign student in New York, where he has a casual relationship with Shari (Isabel Durant) before meeting the love of his life.

What Works Well: Writer and director Dan Fogelman crafts an intricate multi-generational drama about the quirks of fate and the small moments that make a big difference across decades. A bus accident connects the stories in a split-second of joint inattention, but sorrow and loss are the seeds of birth and renewal as the human spirit carves pathways around tragedy. The fragmented structure creates an engaging puzzle-like milieu, and the impressive ensemble cast members find character depth despite sharing the screen time.

What Does Not Work As Well: The foul-mouthed prologue involving Samuel L. Jackson (as himself) is wholly unnecessary. Once the narrative settles, the intended themes lack subtlety, and the sentimentality reaches extreme levels.

Conclusion: Life's standard trajectory is a series of curves.



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Movie Review: The Laundromat (2019)

A mildly satirical comedy anthology, The Laundromat features loosely related mini-stories inspired by the murky and bizarre world of off-shore tax havens.

Lawyers Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Fonseca (Antonio Baderas) speak directly to the camera. They explain how their Panama-based law firm helps wealthy clients avoid taxes through layers of shell companies registered in tax haven countries, and run by pay-per-signature Caribbean-based "directors".

Three stories explore the industry's different angles. In New York, Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep) loses her husband in a tour boat accident that claims 21 lives. The owners of the tour boat company discover that their cheaply-purchased insurance coverage is fraudulent. Ellen learns the fraudsters are hiding beneath shell companies and impossible to track. Meanwhile, a Las Vegas condominium Ellen was hoping to purchase is snapped up by shady Russians paying in cash.

African billionaire Charles is cheating on his wife, and his daughter Simone catches him in the act. He tries to placate her by gifting her control of a shell company worth millions. But a surprise awaits both Simone and her mom.

British businessman Maywood (Matthias Schoenaerts) is in China, trying to blackmail corrupt businesswoman Gu Kailai (Rosalind Chao) into creating another shell company for his benefit. They are both in danger as China clamps down on corruption.

Inspired by real events and the Panama Papers revelations, enough spot-the-star talent features in The Laundromat to avoid a total loss. Director Steven Soderbergh can attract a quality cast, and minor roles are populated by notables like James Cromwell, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Jeffrey Wright, and David Schwimmer.

But otherwise this is a half-hearted and never convincing effort to cinematically expose the lawyers, bankers, shell companies, and shady characters helping the rich avoid taxes. While 2015's The Big Short aced the combination of explaining and exposing the mortgage crisis complexities from multiple perspectives, here writer Scott Z. Burns simply flounders with dead-ended narrative fragments.

The start is strong enough, and the boating tragedy and subsequent non-insurance debacle shows promise. But even this plot meanders into a tangential real estate sub-story before being summarily abandoned in favour of the tired soap-opera featuring Charles' family. The third story in China drops in without context or purpose. 

Soderbergh loses further focus by steering towards poorly explained links between tax shelters and the need for campaign finance reform, a topic unrelated to any of the vignettes. As the narrative thrust fizzles, The Laundromat concludes with embarrassing straight-to-the-audience preachiness, landing with a hollow clank.



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Movie Review: Pain And Glory (2019)

A portrait of a once-famous film director navigating enforced retirement, Pain And Glory is a low-key drama exploring a life of struggle and passion.

In Madrid, Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) is a once-famous film director suffering through numerous physical ailments including a bad back. The severe pain prevents him from even thinking of directing again. One of his old films is selected for a retrospective festival, prompting Salvador to reconnect with actor Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia). The two men had a falling out over artistic differences, but now older and supposedly wiser they become friends, Alberto supplying Salvador with heroin to blunt the persistent pain.

Old tensions between the two men re-emerge, and the heroin habit becomes a dependency. But Alberto insists on performing a one-man play based on one of Salvador's short stories, resulting in another unexpected emotive reunion. Meanwhile, in flashbacks, Salvador recalls his difficult upbringing, including the sacrifices of his mother Jacinta (Penélope Cruz) and his earliest awakening to physical attraction.

A semi-autobiographical effort from writer and director Pedro Almodóvar, Pain And Glory goes to the sad place where glamour and applause yield to memories and regrets. This is an intimate portrait of a man who has experienced professional highs but is now flirting with depression caused by loneliness, emptiness, and omnipresent physical pain. It's not exactly exhilarating subject matter, and the film unfolds slowly, with plenty of soul but fitful energy.

With Penélope Cruz in typically vivacious form, Salvador's childhood flashbacks are presented through a romanticized lens, Jacinta an enterprising and resourceful hero insisting her son secures an education despite financial hardship.

But the glory years are entirely missing and only inferred, and this omission handicaps the narrative. Almodóvar demands sympathy for Salvador as a celebrated artist going through a dark period, and Antonio Banderas' delicate, understated performance elicits the necessary autumnal tones. But the missing middle means the poverty of early years and the pain of advancing age bookend unstated achievements and unexplored emotions.

Better are the innovative devices used to recollect various life chapters. The flashbacks are augmented by Alberto's stage performance reliving Salvador's most passionate love affair, then a modern-day reunion marking the passage of time and divergent fortunes. More elaborate is a flashback to a more recent time with Jacinda, and a most elegantly staged fortuitous discovery at an art show.

Pain And Glory is a staid but still eloquent commentary on a life at the crossroads, buckling in agony but leaning on the past to resist surrender.



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Movie Review: Assassins (1995)

A mindless action thriller, Assassins features a decent cast but takes itself too seriously and outstays its welcome.

Robert Rath (Sylvester Stallone) is a professional assassin growing old and looking to quit the business, still haunted by having killed his mentor Nicolai Tashlinkov 15 years prior. Rath receives his missions from an anonymous online source, and cannot resist a contract to kill an ailing financier of right wing dictators. But another assassin intervenes and claims the kill, effectively stealing the contract. Rath tracks down the new assassin and identifies him as Miguel Bain (Antonio Banderas), a brash young man exhibiting psychotic behaviour. Bain wants to be the world's premier assassin, which means eliminating Rath.

Rath's next mission is to assassinate mysterious electronics thief Electra (Julianne Moore), along with four would-be buyers of information she possesses on disc. Rath again finds himself in competition with Bain to complete the mission. When Rath gets the opportunity to kill Electra he instead decides to team up with her to plan a final mission that could get him out of the business once and for all -- if they can both survive the rampaging Bain.

Directed by Richard Donner and written by the Wachowskis (who later tried to disown the script), Assassins' theme of the veteran and the wannabe carries echoes of Charles Bronson's The Mechanic. While Stallone, Banderas and Moore provide plenty of on-screen talent, the film slowly but surely surrenders to over-the-top action scenes that defy all logic, an unfortunate trademark of producer Joel Silver.

Banderas' Miguel Bain takes the brunt of the ridiculous carnage, as he survives a spectacular car crash, gets scrubbed against a large truck at highway speed for a prolonged period, is blown out of an apartment in a massive explosion, and is finally dropped several stories as half a building collapses around him. Of course he dusts himself off and comes back for more punishment after every incident.

Assassins also gets bogged down in a final chapter that takes forever, as the running time extends to a wholly unnecessary 132 minutes. Rath, Bain and Electra find themselves in Puerto Rico, where Rath knows that Bain will try to kill him. A full 35 minutes of not much happening ensues, until an interminable climax in which not one but two characters come back from the dead.

All of the ineptitude wastes a half-decent performance by Stallone, who plays within himself and is able to generate some depth to the character of a killer tired of killing. In contrast Banderas starts at an insane level of manic intensity and just escalates with every scene. Moore provides some intrigue for Electra, but her better roles are still to come.

Despite all the bullets and the bombs, Assassins is finally felled by self-inflicted bloat.

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Movie Review: Ruby Sparks (2012)

A comic drama with plenty to say about the essence of romantic relationships, Ruby Sparks delves into the interface between idealized obsession and love, and goes looking for the ingredients required for successful couplehood.

Los Angeles-based writer Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) is rich, alone, and suffering severe writer's block. At 19 Calvin was proclaimed a genius and was sitting on top of the best seller charts with his debut book. Now 10 years later, he may already be a has-been. His father recently died and his girlfriend walked out on him, and other than his dog Scottie, he mainly interacts with his brother Harry (Chris Messina) and psychiatrist Dr. Rosenthal (Elliott Gould).

Calvin starts to have vivid dream of an idealized girlfriend, and Rosenthal encourages him to write what he sees. Calvin gets a burst of creativity and creates the persona of Ruby Sparks on paper. He is then shocked when Ruby (Zoe Kazan) appears as his real, in-the-flesh perfect live-in girlfriend, representing everything he had written. Better still, Calvin can fully define Ruby's personality and behaviour by adding sentences to his manuscript. After an initial ideal period of romance, he introduces her to Harry, his mother Gertrude (Annette Bening) and her artist boyfriend Mort (Antonio Banderas). But Calvin has a dour, self-obsessed personality, and Ruby starts to withdraw from him.

An independent production co-directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris and written by Kazan (Elia's granddaughter), Ruby Sparks is a clever story of attachment and the fundamental search for happiness. Disguised as a comedy, featuring plenty of laughs and a superficial resemblance to Stranger Than Fiction, Ruby Sparks is much more interested in mastering a stunning head fake as it steers in darker directions. Calvin's story is about the distinction between loving yourself and loving another, and once Kazan shines the spotlight on her real intentions, the film delivers a devastating, soul searching blow to any facile definitions of the perfect mate.

With its brave mix of humour and unsettling intensity, Ruby Sparks received a limited release and barely found an audience. On the surface this is a comedy about an ideal perky girlfriend coming to life, an adolescent wish-fulfillment fantasy. But Kazan sprinkles the early scenes with hints of trouble ahead, the comedy laced with poison waiting to percolate. Calvin's abject loneliness is not conducive to functioning as a couple. A victim of too much too soon, he pushes away the label of genius but also hears it too often. In his visits to Dr. Rosenthal, he has to hold onto a toy bear. And his insistence on using an old fashioned typewriter is funny, but also smacks of illusions of grandeur.

Trouble starts when Ruby starts to drift away from Calvin, and he takes back to the typewriter to describe what he needs from her. In a stark demonstration of be careful what you wish for and the futile search for solutions through others to fundamental problems that reside within, Calvin cannot get it right. Whether he describes Ruby as fully attached to him or possessing an independent spirit, she can't deliver the fulfillment he craves. With the relationship on the rocks, a devastating encounter with Calvin's former girlfriend is a proverbial blow to his head.

The scene where Calvin is finally forced to confront his failings is emotionally devastating and almost agonizing to watch. The man with full control over another but no control over his narcissism has absolutely nothing to offer except the ability to deliver impassioned pain.

Paul Dano's screen persona of slightly worrisome intensity is perfectly suited to Calvin, and Dano creates a complex character, superficially nothing more than a little bit different, but churning through plenty of agony beneath the surface. Kazan has an equally difficult task and does not shy away from it. Ruby transitions from a perfect creation to a functioning woman influenced by Calvin's behaviour, and Kazan guides Ruby as she repeatedly chooses fundamental human free will anchored by the starting points set on Calvin's typewriter.

A courageously original take on the dynamics of romance, Ruby does create a blistering spark.

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Movie Review: Frida (2002)

A biopic of Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo, Frida is filled with passion and deeply-felt human emotions. Salma Hayek shines in the central role, but the script does suffer from some wayward targeting.

As a young girl in Mexico, Frida (Hayek) develops a crush on painter, communist and hopeless womanizer Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina). After getting caught up in a severe bus crash, Frida's life hangs in the balance, and she suffers severe injuries to her back and legs. After many months she eventually recovers enough to resume her life, dedicating herself to painting and reconnecting with Diego. They get married, with Frida understanding that Diego can never be faithful, but he promises to at least be loyal to her.

Frida does not hide her bisexual tendencies, and establishes close relationships with Diego's ex-wife Lupe Marín (Valeria Golino) and sultry mutual friend Tina Modotti (Ashley Judd). With Diego's star rising in the art world, the couple enjoy a stint in New York, with Diego winning a commission from Nelson Rockefeller (Edward Norton). But Frida suffers another personal tragedy, and Diego does manage to hurt his wife with his exceptional inability to resist any woman. A bizarre encounter with none other than Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush), now a fugitive from the Russian revolution that he helped to inspire, completes the inspiration for Frida's works of art.

Directed with panache by Julie Taymor, Frida is a singularly engaging film. The Latin lust for life positively jumps off the screen, and even the most secondary of characters display an ardent desire to contribute. The mix of art, politics and sexuality is captured by Taymor in an intoxicating broth, and Frida benefits from an unabashed, proud and outspoken posture. Frida, Diego and their circle have little time for apologies, justifications or requests for permission: they dive into life with purposeful commitment, and the biography buzzes with the energy of people worth knowing.

At just over two hours, the film is packed with incident and never flags as entertainment. Taymor constructs Frida's life around several tragic milestones, starting with the harrowing bus crash, and tracks her evolution from fledgling classical artist to a woman able to capture life's agonies in surreal, grotesque and captivating images. Life throws plenty of challenges Frida's way, and she navigates through them with a headstrong determination to embrace each obstacle and remain in charge, no matter what. With short but plentiful scenes the film builds and maintains momentum consistent with a woman who throws back twice as hard.

The film does steal some focus away from its main character. Although the story is recounted from Frida's perspective and her emotions remain at the core of all events, much of the second half of the film does centre on Diego, and at least as much time is invested in his character development and artistic achievements. His unwillingness to compromise his politics and his inability to refrain from casual sex dominate large segments of screen time, with Frida reduced to victim, observer or both. While her life with Diego clearly influenced Frida's art, the film tilts the balance more towards Diego as the source of inspiration and less on Frida as the artist who drew stimulation from a fascinating man.

Salma Hayek is excellent at every stage of Frida's life, and allows the character's flaws, vulnerabilities, strengths and desires to meld into a complete person. Alfred Molina matches Hayek scene for scene, and although Diego's arc is simpler, Molina is able to demonstrate that an overweight and outspoken frumpy man can exert an inexorable and long-lasting force on women. Antonio Banderas gets a small role as a member of Diego's intellectual circle.

The film's visual aesthetic is frequently inspired by Frida's paintings, and Taymor cleverly weaves the artwork into the narrative scenes without drawing attention to them, allowing the sometimes gruesome beauty to speak for itself. Life inspires art, and Frida is a worthy celebration of a fascinating artist's tumultuous journey.

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The Movies Of Antonio Banderas

All movies starring Antonio Banderas and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The House Of The Spirits (1993)

Philadelphia (1993)

Desperado (1995)

Assassins (1995)

The Mask Of Zorro (1998)

Original Sin (2001)

Frida (2002)

Once Upon A Time In Mexico (2003)

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

Haywire (2011)

Ruby Sparks (2012)

Life Itself (2018)

Pain And Glory (2019)

The Laundromat (2019)

Babygirl (2024)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

A routine Woody Allen slice-of-life comedy, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger offers typical vignettes on love, loss and transition, but little that is genuinely fresh.

In London, elderly couple Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) and Helena (Gemma Jones) have divorced after a long marriage. Helena is crushed, and turns to fortune teller Cristal (Pauline Collins) for advice. The easily impressed Helena is soon obsessed by Cristal, believing everything the fake clairvoyant tells her. Alfie, going through a full-fledged late-onset middle-age crisis and desperate to have a son, hooks up with voluptuous and trashy escort girl Charmain (Lucy Punch).

Sally (Naomi Watts) is Alfie and Helena's daughter, and she is stuck in a stagnant marriage with writer Roy (Josh Brolin), who has one bestseller and a string of subsequent failures to his name. Sally is eager to start a family but she and Roy are struggling financially and dependent on Helena's charity to survive. Roy's wandering eye soon turns to sexy neighbour Dia (Freida Pinto), an aspiring musician who is engaged to be married. Sally also finds herself growing increasingly attracted to her boss, suave art gallery owner Greg (Antonio Banderas).

Although the London setting provides a relatively original context for a Woody Allen movie, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger rarely ventures into any other new territory. Allen himself has frequently explored the themes of relationships in trouble, disintegrating marriages, winter-spring romances, and crushes among adults. The one new idea here may be Helena easily falling under the spell of Cristal and treating all her predictions as certainties, Allen probing the tendency of the elderly to more easily want to place unfounded faith in the improbable.

The film is delivered with some annoying and utterly unnecessary narration, but otherwise the style is comfortably familiar. The stories meld, the characters are connected, the behaviour is for the most part restrained and courteous. The agitations and annoyances that creep into mature relationships happily pump through the veins of all the couples, just beneath the surface and often unspoken until the rupture happens and its too late to repair the damage. Despite the various story lines and seven principal characters, the film wraps up in an efficient 100 minutes.

Allen and his cast create characters that are intriguing because of their utter normalcy. The performances are uniformly steady, with Gemma Jones and Naomi Watts the most prominent. Sideways drift driven by restlessness and causing unintended damage is the common thread, as is the desperate need for offspring as a destabilizing force. Sally and Roy initiate flirtations with Greg and Dia respectively, and both dalliances become serious fixations more due to the neglect of their marriage than any ill intent. Alfie still wants to father a son and runs away from the idea of growing old with Helena and into the arms of a gold digging slut, and it will take him some time to realize that he has turned a bad situation into something much worse.

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is one possible outcome for adults at the crossroads of a distressed romance. Left unsaid is that the stranger may also carry a ton of trouble.

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Movie Review: The Mask Of Zorro (1998)

A grand, old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure, The Mask Of Zorro entertains with a smile on its face. With a steamy chemistry between Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and the sage presence of Anthony Hopkins, this is an enjoyable romp in which the characters matter at least as much as the hyper-kinetic stunts.

With revolution sweeping across Mexico and California against the ruling Spanish, the evil governor Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson) plans his escape. He bequeaths all the California properties to powerful land barons, and makes one final attempt to capture Zorro, the legendary acrobatic master swordsman and masked hero of the people. Montero uncovers Zorro's true identity as Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins), imprisons him and abducts de la Vega's infant daughter Elena to raise as his own.

Twenty years later, Montero returns to California to ferment a movement for independence, while de la Vega finally escapes from prison. Montero's dirty work is carried out by the ruthless Captain Love (Matt Letscher), who in cleaning up the territory brutally kills one of two brothers.  The surviving brother Alejandro (Antonio Banderas) teams up with de la Vega to plot joint revenge: de la Vega against Montero and Alejandro against Love. de la Vega trains Alejandro to become the new Zorro, but before they can achieve justice, they need to reconnect with Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), now a stunning 20 year old, raised by Montero and oblivious that de la Vega is her real father.

Lavishly produced with Steven Spielberg among the backers, The Mask Of Zorro is carefully constructed to appear effortless. While there are clearly some borrowed elements from legends of the past, notably The Count of Monte Cristo and Star Wars, The Mask Of Zorro gleams with a fun attitude, a smooth cast, and an old-school emphasis on fundamentals: revolution, adventure, suffering, revenge, love, and clear battle lines between good and evil.

Director Martin Campbell twice rescued the James Bond franchise with GoldenEye and Casino Royale, and he inserts many superhero staples into The Mask Of Zorro, including training with the old master, self-depreciating humour, immediate appeal to the opposite sex, and countless escapes from impossible situations.

Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones enjoy an instant chemistry that ignites the screen with mischievous passion. They make the most of it first in a pointy sword fight then in a smoldering dance sequence, the sparks flying on both occasions.

But the centre of gravity of The Mask Of Zorro is Anthony Hopkins, all other characters and all the film's events revolving around the original Zorro. At 60 years old, Hopkins delivers an essential performance filled with mature self satisfaction and an appreciation for the role of weathered wisdom in the sweep of revolutionary history. The younger actors may have all the right moves, but they need the old guard to point them in the right direction.

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Movie Review: Philadelphia (1993)

A landmark film in the portrayal of homosexuals, AIDS, and homophobia on film, Philadelphia crashes through long-established barriers and puts a human and heroic face to the long-suffering gay community.

Lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) is a young rising star at his Philadelphia-based law firm. He is also gay and HIV positive, conditions that he withholds from his employer, including respected head of the firm Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards). When the signs of AIDS become unmistakable, Beckett is fired, purportedly for botching his preparations for a crucial case.

With no reputable attorney willing to help him, Beckett turns to ambulance-chasing lawyer Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) to represent him in a wrongful dismissal case. Initially reluctant and himself suffering from homophobic tendencies, Miller gradually moves past the labels and gets to know Becket's circle of family and friends, including lover Miguel (Antonio Banderas) and mother Sarah (Joanne Woodward). During court testimony, and with Beckett's health failing badly, Wheeler's lawyer (Mary Steenburgen) argues that Beckett was fired for growing incompetence, while Miller presents the dismissal as a pure case of discrimination against Beckett's sexual orientation.

Loosely based on a true story, Philadelphia informs without preaching, Ron Nyswaner's script focusing on the characters and not shying away from portraying harsh slurs. The movie keeps its eyes wide open in chronicling the horrors of AIDS, and succeeds in presenting snippets of gay life as routine and mundane. Miller and his wife even get to attend a gay party at Beckett's house, and the event is no more or less interesting than any other party.

Tom Hanks won a deserved Academy Award for his portrayal of Andrew Beckett. In a surprisingly physical role, Hanks frightfully wastes away from an energetic lawyer into a gaunt, diseased AIDS victim, dangerously thin, with hollow eyes and pasty skin. Washington's Joe Miller represents the era's pervasive man-in-the-street attitude towards homosexuality, at best insecure and more commonly mistrustful and ill-at-ease. Washington injects plenty of soul into the film's main journey, as Miller treads carefully into a previously mysterious world and matures into a champion of anti-discrimination.

Philadelphia's supporting cast is stacked with talent. Antonio Banderas is the passionate lover, Jason Robards the crusty old fox of a lawyer, Mary Steenburgen the icy defence counsel, and Joanne Woodward is marginally underused as Beckett's mother. They collectively make sure that Hanks and Washington have worthy foils and sharp sparring partners in every scene.

Director Jonathan Demme pays equal attention to Beckett's professional legal and personal survival battles, the common thread in both being the struggle for dignity and acceptance. While the overall pace is brisk, late on Demme does get bogged into a few prolonged scenes designed for the sole purpose of inducing tears. These overly melodramatic moments take away from the essential matter-of-factness that successfully drives the film, as well as unnecessarily dragging the running time past the two hour mark.

With his first ever song written for a movie, Bruce Springsteen also picked up an Academy Award, Streets Of Philadelphia an appropriately haunting and melancholy tune. Philadelphia may not be cinematically perfect, but it nevertheless a powerful achievement, and a milestone on the essential road to a more inclusive and more mature society.

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