Movie Review: Somewhere In Time (1980)

A romantic drama and fantasy, Somewhere In Time aims for old fashioned passion but bungles both the pacing and the central romance.

In 1972, budding playwright Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) has a surreal encounter with an old woman, who thrusts a pocket watch into his hands and whispers "come back to me".

In 1980, Collier checks into the Grand Hotel to try and overcome a case of writer's block. He is mesmerized by a displayed photo of theatrical actress Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), who was a rising star of the stage in the early 1900s. He visits Elise's former housekeeper Laura Roberts (Teresa Wright), and learns Elise's career was managed by the Svengali-like William Robinson (Christopher Plummer), and she performed at the Grand for one night in 1912.

Hopelessly in love with a picture, Collier uses a hypnosis technique and transports himself back to 1912 and the day of the performance. Despite Robinson's interference, he meets Elise and they fall in love, but sustaining a romance across time will prove a challenge.

Richard Matheson adapts his own book Bid Time Return into a screenplay, but unfortunately, and in the hands of director Jeannot Szwarc, Somewhere In Time is both languid and lacking. 

With a hackneyed time-travel-through-hypnosis premise providing a rickety foundation, the only hope for salvation resides in igniting the flame of romance between the attractive couple of Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. But somehow Szwarc contrives to keep them apart for more than an hour, the groundwork to transport Richard from the present to the past and then into the arms of Elise ballooning into a laborious odyssey with numerous irrelevant side quests.

And once the lovers are near each other, Christopher Plummer's blocking becomes the most prominent theme, again robbing the movie of any momentum. Which may be all to camouflage Matheson's inability to transform Elise from a mythical image into a real person. Jane Seymour is barely provided the opportunity to say any meaningful lines, her mere visage supposed to suffice as an object of entrancement.

The period settings and costumes are charming, the Grand Hotel exudes vintage class, and Reeve brings a welcome vulnerability mixed with nothing-to-lose determination. But with Rachmaninoff's 18th variation of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini endlessly occupying the soundtrack, Somewhere In Time is a dull loop.



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Movie Review: Wedding Crashers (2005)

A raucous comedy, Wedding Crashers thrives within a clever premise that feeds themes of friendship, growing up, and meeting your match.

In Washington DC, John and Jeremy (Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn) are best friends and colleagues at work, where they mediate between married couples going through nasty divorces. Well into adulthood but still acting like college fratboys, they get their kicks by crashing weddings, enjoying unlimited food and drink, dancing the night away and picking up women revved-up by the idea of idyllic romance for hot one-night stands.

After a hectic season of wedding crashing, John begins to question the juvenile lifestyle. But Jeremy insists on one last wedding: the daughter of William Cleary (Christopher Walken), the very wealthy Secretary of the Treasury, is getting married. Despite John's protestations they crash the wedding and a subsequent Cleary family weekend, and unexpectedly get entangled in complex relationships with two of Cleary's daughters. John falls in love with the free spirited Claire (Rachel McAdams), who is already in a relationship with the insufferable Sack Lodge (Bradley Cooper). Jeremy seduces the wild youngest daughter Gloria (Isla Fisher), not knowing exactly how much trouble he is getting into: she is more lustful than he is, and plays him like a cheap fiddle. Meanwhile, Cleary's wife Kathleen "Kitty Kat" (Jane Seymour) is prowling all available men to get her cougarish kicks.

Wedding Crashers is often hilarious. Director David Dobkin quickly establishes the unique yet rational premise, and allows his two lead actors to let loose. John and Jeremy behave like teenagers who have found the magical key to a life of unlimited partying and casual sex with beautiful women. But the film succeeds well beyond its title. After the initial montage of wild crashing, the story settles down to what's next for the two men, and the challenge of finding their way out of unevolved and circular habits to launch into something resembling adulthood.

Vaughn and Wilson make for a terrific pair of underdeveloped men, John and Jeremy unwilling to let go of their youth despite John's growing doubt that they should really be beyond immature antics. Wilson gets the more thoughtful role, and imparts sensitivity to go along with fading boyishness. Vaughn is more driven to hang on to the past, Jeremy living his life according to an arcane code of caveman behaviour developed by the legendary Chazz (Will Ferrell, who makes a late, uncredited appearance).

John is therefore more open to fundamental change and once he sets eyes on Claire he can start to see his way to a different and better future. Jeremy is generally blind to any life that compromises his instinctive need to have uncontrolled fun, and it takes a large wallop to the side of the head in the form of Gloria to knock him off his default path. The shifting dynamics between the two men is at the heart of the movie, as their deep friendship is tested by diverging expectations.

Rachel McAdams is her usual appealing girl next door, although in this case a very rich girl next door, and McAdams tends to smile too much throughout the film. More fiery is Isla Fisher who creates in Gloria a borderline nymphomaniac, an impulsive, uninhibited, and fun-loving woman, the kind who can singe Jeremy with her own afterburners.

The script by Steve Faber and Bob Fisher populates the Cleary family with weird and wonderful members, including an uncensored grandmother (Ellen Albertini Dow), a creepy artist son (Keir O'Donnell), the lustful Kitty Kat and, most troublesome for John's pursuit of Claire, her intended beau Sack Lodge. In a pre-stardom role, Bradley Cooper goes all out to make Sack a loathsome rich jock full of self-entitlement and just enough social talent to fool many people most of the time. They combine to create a madcap family with enough pitfalls to trip up the best that John and Jeremy can offer in terms of infiltrative deceit and subterfuge.

The Wedding Crashers are definitely uninvited, but prove to be spectacularly funny and successful guests.

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Movie Review: Live And Let Die (1973)

Roger Moore steps into the James Bond role, just as the blaxploitation film era hits its peak. Live And Let Die makes good use of a relatively local drug trafficking plot, but also suffers from seriously dated stereotypes and ill-advised attempts at boarish humour.

Three British agents are killed, one at the United Nations, one in New Orleans, and the third on the voodoo and snake-obsessed small (and fictional) Caribbean island of San Monique. Agent James Bond (Moore) travels to New York to investigate, and is immediately the target of an assassination attempt. With the help of the CIA's Felix Leiter (David Hedison), Bond tracks down the would-be murderers to a Harlem restaurant, where he tangles with a group of drug traffickers working for gang leader Mr. Big. Beguiling tarot card reader Solitaire (Jane Seymour) appears to be the group's resident muse.

Bond next travels to San Monique, ruled by the corrupt Prime Minister Dr. Kananga (Yaphet Kotto). The CIA's poorly trained Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry) attempts to provide some assistance, but boat owner Quarrel Jr. (Roy Stewart) proves to be a more effective ally. Bond infiltrates Kananga's secluded estate and seduces Solitaire, causing her to lose her fortune-telling powers. Bond uncovers vast poppy fields and a major heroine trafficking plot linking Dr. Kananga with Mr. Big. With the help of his henchmen, including the claw-handed Tee Hee Johnson (Julius Harris) and barrel-shaped, gravel-voiced Whisper (Earl Jolly Brown), Kananga strikes back and seeks his revenge on both Bond and Solitaire.

Live And Let Die has many moments that die a slow death. A boat chase in the Louisiana bayous takes forever, and is made much longer with the ill-conceived introduction of the idiot redneck Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James), inserted for comic relief but only providing relief when he finally exits the movie, having massively overstayed his welcome. Rosie Carver is one of the least interesting ladies ever to interact with Bond, while the blaxploitation elements, including criminalizing almost every black character and whites continuously referring to blacks as "boy", have aged quite poorly.

But the Tom Mankiewicz script also gets a lot right. The funeral procession in New Orleans is pure unnerving fun, and deserves the encore that it receives. The character of Solitaire and Jane Seymour's portrayal of the sexy but sad fortune teller are memorable, and the scenes in New York have that 1970's edgy but derelict vibe.

The generally small scale of the conspiracy tackled by Bond is welcome, as he gets down to sorting out vile drug barons rather than world-control maniacs. Yaphet Kotto portrays one of the less exaggerated Bond villains, which makes him both more authentically dangerous but also more forgettable in the context of the series. And finally there are the crocodiles, as Bond comes face to face with the gigantic and hungry reptiles, and finds a clever way to escape their toothy smiles.

Moore, already 46 years old as he makes his debut, is fit-enough and certainly suave, but lacks any dangerous edges. His style is smooth and effortless, quick with the quip and the raised eyebrow, and conveying a man enjoying himself rather than fighting for any cause. Guy Hamilton, directing his third Bond feature, settles into a functional rather than flashy mode. This is a Bond adventure with little glitz or glamour, but plenty of haphazard voodoo idols, masks, snakes and touches of the occult.

The title song by Paul McCartney and Wings is another strong entry into the Bond soundtrack catalogue, and the theme is effectively used throughout the film.

While it does not take the series in any new or exciting directions, Live And Let Die serves the purpose of surviving the transition to a new Bond actor. Bond lives on, with an intact license to let others die.

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