Movie Review: Criminal (2016)

Genre: Action Thriller  

Director: Ariel Vromen  

Starring: Kevin Costner, Gal Gadot, Gary Oldman, Ryan Reynolds, Tommy Lee Jones  

Running Time: 109 minutes  

Synopsis: In London, CIA Agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) is the only person who knows the location of a hacker who has seized control of military secrets. When Pope is killed, the CIA's London chief Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman) authorizes Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones) to transplant Pope's memories into the brain of hardened criminal Jerico (Kevin Costner). Jerico has to grapple with Pope's recollections intruding on his consciousness as he meets Pope's wife Jill (Gal Gadot) and tangles with evil anarchist Xavier Heimdahl, who is also eager to find the hacker. 

What Works Well: This B-movie enjoys an A-list cast, and although the contributions of Tommy Lee Jones (wasted) and Ryan Reynolds (dispatched early) are limited, Kevin Costner is given a complex role to navigate. Jerico starts out as an empathy-free convict (the result of childhood abuse), but the insertion of another man's thoughts awakens him to a new world of emotions, and his quiet interactions with Gal Gadot yield the best moments. Elsewhere director Ariel Vromen keeps the pacing brisk and the action scenes coherent.

What Does Not Work As Well: The premise is built on not one but two far-fetched ideas: memory transplants and a hacker gaining full control of a superpower's military capabilities through a dark web "wormhole". From there the action layers on enough improbabilities and logic gaps to sink a fleet. Gary Oldman fares worst among the many stars on display, flailing his arms and foaming at the mouth as his character makes one bad decision after another.

Conclusion: The polished veneer activates brainless enjoyment.

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Movie Review: The Proposal (2009)

Genre: Romantic Comedy  

Director: Anne Fletcher  

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Craig T. Nelson, Mary Steenburgen, Betty White, Malin Akerman  

Running Time: 108 minutes  

Synopsis: Margaret (Sandra Bullock) is a high-powered no-nonsense executive at a New York publishing house. Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) is her hard-working assistant with ambitions to become an editor. When Margaret realizes she may be deported back to Canada for a work visa infraction, she pressures Andrew into a marriage agreement. They travel to Alaska to meet his family, including his parents (Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson) and grandma (Betty White), but Margaret finds more than she bargained for.

What Works Well: The first introductory act sparkles with energy and humour. Sandra Bullock thrives as a highly-strung and cold-as-ice leader, and the office environment around her is coloured-in for maximum laughs. Ryan Reynolds is at his quietly sardonic best managing his boss, and the interplay between them is razor sharp. Director Anne Fletcher finds a peak when Margaret drops the marriage idea on Andrew, his priceless reactions matching her frazzled audacity.

What Does Not Work As Well: The rest of the film is set in Alaska, and loses the early zest. Some joys can be found in Margaret's fish-out-of-water experiences, and an exceptionally strong supporting cast brings to life Andrew's family and friends (with Betty White a treasure, if slightly overplayed), but predictable beats start to dominate and the zing is lost.

Conclusion: Thrives in the city, idles in the country.

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Movie Review: The Adam Project (2022)

A science fiction time travel adventure, The Adam Project offers lukewarm entertainment with the requisite thrills, humour, and tender moments.

In 2050, time travel is a reality. Air force pilot Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds) steals a fighter jet and travels back to 2022. He reconnects with his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell), a 6th grader frequently bullied at school. Young Adam is mouthy, and his relationship with his mother Ellie (Jennifer Garner) has been strained ever since his father Louis (Mark Ruffalo) died in a car crash. Louis was a physics researcher who developed theories enabling time travel.

The older Adam is on a personal mission to find his wife Laura Shane (Zoe Saldana), a pilot who traveled back in time to prevent the evil Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) from taking control of the time travel industry. With Sorian and her goons in hot pursuit, both Adams travel back to 2018 where they will try to convince Louis to stop the science of time travel before it starts.

Directed by Shawn Levy with four writers collaborating on the script, The Adam Project tries to be all things to all people, and the results are unsurprisingly middling. Ryan Reynolds delivers the expected snide comments, familial poignancy underpins the action, and Catherine Keener offers up the stock villain with evil ambitions to rule the world. For the easily impressed and attention-span challenged, CGI-enabled time travel thrills and bloodless combat action show up about every eight minutes. An invade-and-destroy-the-fort climax is a tired exercise in CGI excess.

None of this makes the film bad, just frustratingly manufactured and beset by whizz-bang flakiness. In the quiet moments between mashups of Star Wars, The Terminator, and Back To The Future, themes of loss, love, care, and absenteeism do break through. The cast is sufficiently talented to thrive away from the green screens, and the human-centred relationships between Adam, his parents, and his wife border on excellent. The older Adam imparting wisdom through a heartfelt chat with his unsuspecting mom represents a fine scene. The sacrifice Adam and his wife Laura are forced to confront adds soul to their adventure, hinting at the undefined yet keenly sensed bond of human familiarity transcending time and space. 

The Adam Project is noticeably numb when it mindlessly races to the next round of digital combat, and appreciably better when it pauses to reflect.

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Movie Review: Just Friends (2005)

A romantic comedy, Just Friends lacks romance and delivers a distastefully mean brand of flippancy.

At a New Jersey high school, overweight Chris (Ryan Reynolds) is good friends with cheerleader Jamie (Amy Smart) but would like to be more. She is only interested in him as a friend, and as they get ready to graduate his crush is revealed and he is humiliated. He departs to build a new life in Los Angeles.

Ten years later Chris has slimmed down and has a successful career as a record company executive. He is shepherding combustible singer Samantha James (Anna Faris) towards her first big recording when an airplane mishap lands them both in New Jersey at Christmas time. Chris reunites with his brother Mike (Christopher Marquette) and mother Carol (Julie Hagerty), and attempts to make amends and win Jamie's heart. However, he makes all the wrong moves, and discovers a rival in former high school buddy Dusty Dinkleman (Chris Klein).

Almost entirely lacking in sympathetic characters, Just Friends is a misfire. Director Roger Kumble adopts an unappealing posture of hostile sarcasm, boys and men exhibiting juvenile attitudes in an obsessive pursuit of sex, women barely defined except as out-of-control cranks (Samantha) or objects to lust after (Jamie). Rampant homophobic and fat-shaming insults are layered upon sophomoric slapstick antics (Chris and his brother Mike engage in continuous physical combat) to confirm a movie twenty years behind the times.

With Jamie devoid of personality (Amy Smart is never provided the opportunity to create a real person) and Samantha caricatured as borderline psychotic (Anna Faris at least has a blast), Chris is the last hope to save the narrative. But as an adult he is an utter douche, intent on mistreating everyone and receiving ample and well-deserved humiliation in return. Ryan Reynolds overplays his eye-rolling, everything-is-stupid persona, dragging the adventure into obnoxious territory.

A few funny moments survive, including the comprehensive destruction of a Christmas lights display, but otherwise Just Friends is just feeble.



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Movie Review: The Captive (2014)

A child abduction drama, The Captive peels away layers of secrets in frigid terrain to reveal a complex web of interconnected raw emotions.

The film is presented non-sequentially and in multiple timeframes, with all events occurring around Niagara Falls, Ontario (but also filmed in Sudbury). Chronologically, married couple Matt and Tina Lane (Ryan Reynolds and Mireille Enos) are rocked by the abduction of their young daughter Cassandra, an aspiring figure skater. Tina blames Matt, because Cass was kidnapped from his truck when he popped into a diner.

Police detectives and child abduction experts Nicole (Rosario Dawson) and Jeffrey (Scott Speedman) investigate, with Jeffrey suspecting Matt of selling his daughter for financial reasons. Years pass and the case goes cold. Tina and Matt separate but Tina maintains annual contact with Nicole. Meanwhile Cass grows up in captivity, held in a secret room by wealthy businessman and child pornographer Mika (Kevin Durand). Matt never gives up hope of finding his daughter, while the grown-up Cass (Alexia Fast) starts to exert her power over Mika to try and end her nightmare.

An intricate multi-faceted mystery, The Captive is spellbinding but also congested. Director, co-writer and co-producer Atom Egoyan weaves a fascinating multi-pronged tale of insidious evil hiding in a perpetually snow-covered small town, with the story ambitiously spanning many years of agony as Cassandra's disappearance casts a long shadow over the community.

The frequent jumps back and forth to multiple points in time are at first disconcerting, and for a movie clocking in at under two hours, there is a lot going on. But Egoyan maintains reasonable control as the narrative spreads its wings. The film is not just about grieving parents; it is also about Cassandra's burgeoning adulthood in a bewildering captivity, and the enticing but infuriating dead-ends well-intentioned detectives can be sucked into.

Still more sub-themes feature Mika deriving pleasure from torturing Tina with artefacts from her missing daughter's life while cameras secretly record her reactions, and Nicole herself becoming a target of the powerful pornographer cartel. The online luring menace, a pornographer's psychological weaknesses and a relationship between cops Nicole and Jeffrey also sneak their way into the film.

As the multiple threads intertwine The Captive inhales the icy coldness of working class desperation. The Niagara Falls are frozen in the background and stubbornly refusing to release any economic advancement. Matt struggles to run a one-man landscaping business while Tina works as a hotel room cleaner, their relationship comprehensively ruptured by her fury at what she perceives to be his carelessness in losing Cass. Ironically, the only moment of glitz is provided by two-faced slimy child porn merchants hosting a banquet.

The Captive appears to run out of either time or money, the climax rushed into an unsatisfying blur with a few threads left hanging. But the ever expanding ripples of trauma caused by one child's disappearance do leave a lasting impression.

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Movie Review: The Change-Up (2011)

A body-switch bromedy, The Change-Up finds some good laughs but also too frequently wades into vulgarity.

In Atlanta, Dave (Jason Bateman) is climbing the corporate ladder at his law firm, reasonably happily married to Jamie (Leslie Mann) and raising three kids, include newly born twins. His best friend from college days is Mitch (Ryan Reynolds), a weed-smoking generally unemployed actor drifting backwards through life while enjoying wild sexual encounters. Dave wonders if he has missed out on the fun part of being a grown-up by settling down too early, and finds Sabrina (Olivia Wilde), his paralegal at the office, extremely attractive.

One night after drinks Dave and Mitch pee into a park statue as they express mutual wishes to experience each other's lives, and they wake up the next morning with their bodies switched. They try to explain the situation to Jamie but she thinks it's a prank. With the fountain in the process of being moved and misplaced by the city, Mitch has to deal with a high stakes deal at the law firm and learning to be a domesticated dad and husband, while Dave has to adjust to having all the time in the world to catch up on all he has missed.

Directed by David Dobkin, The Change-Up applies the tried and tested formula of opposite characters experiencing life from the other side. The grass always looks greener over the fence, and here a family-and-career man changes places with a carefree live-for-the-moment guy, and the results are funny if predictable.

Dobkin and screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore manage to squeeze plenty of laughs along the way. Mitch (in Dave's body) having to deal with the duties of a father with young twin babies gives rise to excellent comic moments. Mitch also wades into the corridors of power at the law firm with a cluelessness that invites farce. Dave (in Mitch's body) has less to do in experiencing life as a jovial bachelor. His encounters with a sex-crazed woman (hiding a secret) and the sleazy underbelly of the acting industry quickly cross over into crude rather than fun territory.

The Change-Up eventually reaches the expected moments of reckoning and self-reflection, both men finding out about themselves by standing outside and experiencing what their social circle sees. But on the way to resolution, the prevailing obsession with crude humour is grinding. Dave and Mitch, in any combination of body residencies, often appear unable to converse about anything other than crass sex, intercourse and genitalia.

Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds have a blast in their respective roles, slipping into opposing personas and playing off each other with ease. Leslie Mann holds the domestic fort as the wife running out of patience with an inattentive husband, then having to navigate around the bewildering behaviour of Mitch in Dave's body. Alan Arkin gets a small role as Mitch's frequently re-marrying dad.

The Change-Up inhabits familiar territory, with the hearty laughs and tiresome juvenile antics co-existing in equal doses.

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Movie Review: Mississippi Grind (2015)

A road movie delving into the psyche of two gamblers, Mississippi Grind is a study of addiction as a way of life.

In Dubuque, Iowa, stressed-out gambling addict Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) meets lighthearted professional gambler Curtis (Ryan Reynolds) at the poker table, and the two men strike a friendship. Curtis is an expert at darts, will gamble on anything, has a good natured winning attitude and adopts "the journey is the destination" as his mantra. Always on the move, he wins more often than he loses but does not care either way. Gerry is a divorced real estate agent, deep in debt, does not know enough to quit when he's ahead and is resorting to petty theft to feed his gambling habit.

Gerry decides that Curtis is his lucky charm and the two men team up on a road trip with a big stakes poker game in New Orleans as the ultimate destination. Curtis introduces Gerry to his friends, hookers Simone (Sienna Miller) and Vanessa (Analeigh Tipton). On the trip Gerry encounters wins and losses, and Curtis learns more about himself and continuously weighs how far he can tolerate the erratic behaviour of his deeply troubled new friend.

Co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Mississippi Grind is an unofficial remake of 1974's California Split. A two-person character study, the film draws out the contrasts between two men with the same habit but completely different attitudes. Less messy and more focused in comparison to the Robert Altman film, Mississippi Grind sharply defines two well-rounded men within a classic road trip format but nevertheless suffers from a lack of originality.

The strength of the film resides in teasing out the dramatically different consequences of the same obsession. Gerry's life is on a downward spiral. He may not know it, but gambling has taken over his life, his relationships and of course his finances. He will experience some wins but no longer has control over what it takes to actually win at life, and every big windfall is an overture for a bigger loss.

Curtis is equally living the life of a gambler, but has his immediate priorities balanced. His loose attitude exudes the confidence to know when to stop, and his real enjoyment comes from befriending different people. Curtis' journey is to ask the question about the meaning of it all, and whether his carefree on-the-move lifestyle is sacrificing long term happiness for short term thrills.

Ben Mendelsohn is a revelation, injecting the film with the painful needle of potential going to waste. With unblinking intensity Mendelsohn finds the agony of a man living a life he no longer commands. He reaches a devastating depth in a sequence at the home of his ex-wife, the gambler confronting all that he has lost and still unable to stop inflicting more misery upon himself. Ryan Reynolds is more emotive than usual, Curtis a perfect fit for Reynold's often breezy screen persona.

Boden and Fleck accompany the two men through the good and the bad, alternating scenes of gambling (at the poker table, at the track, wherever there is a bet to be made) with character depth sequences providing insight into the power of addiction. Gerry's agony increases the longer he is away from a bet; Curtis' sense of unease increases whenever he is in the same place for too long. Their interests converge for the one trip that could change everything or nothing.

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Movie Review: Life (2017)

A horror-in-space thriller, Life borrows heavily from Alien, but still achieves the requisite mix of excitement, tension and some human drama.

On board the International Space Station, a six member crew is on a mission to receive and research a soil sample from Mars that may contain evidence of extraterrestrial life. The team is led by Russian Commander Kat (Olga Dihovichnaya), and includes Japanese pilot Sho (Hiroyuki Sanada) and medical officers David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson). Once the capsule containing the sample is retrieved, astrobiologist Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare) isolates and revives a single cell organism, the first proof of life beyond Earth.

Dubbed Calvin, the single cell soon multiplies and grows into a tiny creature exhibiting enormous sensory, cognitive and survival abilities. An atmospheric accident causes Calvin to go dormant; Derry awakens it with a mild electric shock, but Calvin is immediately hostile, and attacks Derry's hand, growing bigger. Calvin escapes from its isolation box, consumes a research mouse, and grows bigger again. System Engineer Roy Adams (Ryan Reynolds) fails to incinerate it, and Calvin escapes into the ISS ducts, damaging the communications system. Kat has to conduct a dangerous space walk to attempt repairs, as it becomes clear that Calvin represents a significant threat to the survival of the crew.

Directed by Daniel Espinosa, Life is full of the mounting sense of dread that something awful is going to happen at any minute. The film quickly gets into a groove, and Calvin is established as a powerful foe, stopping at nothing and growing with every gory attack. The film is almost entirely set on the claustrophobic ISS, with communications back to Earth severed early, leaving the crew on their own, tantalizingly close to home but in grave danger of never making it back.

Unlike Alien, Life is almost entirely set in a zero gravity environment, adding to the sense of realism and making movements and reactions more difficult. The crew is also more internationally diverse, although apart from a few jokes not enough is made of the United Nations in space. Within the limits of a relatively short 103 minutes, Espinosa does try and provide some backstories. Jake Gyllenhaal's Dr. Jordan receives the most attention as a long-term ISS tenant and a man who is now more comfortable in orbit rather than on Earth. The pilot Sho gets a more routine new-father-in-space treatment.

Some of the sense of realism is however compromised by the dubious decisions made by the crew. The film's constant search for the next thrill means many actions by the supposedly highly trained scientists and pilots appear rushed and ill-considered, with arguments, shouting and impetuous behaviour often trumping more careful thought.

The horror elements are otherwise well-handled, and feature the usual mix of jump-out-of-your-seat scares and carefully constructed turn-the-screws tension. Calvin emerges as a supremely intelligent and capable creature, perhaps on the edge of credibility even for a science fiction invention, but nevertheless ugly and scary enough to represent an existential threat.

The Life of one newly discovered species could mean the death of many others, and in this space no thing can be more mean.

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Movie Review: Deadpool (2016)

A superhero profane comedy, Deadpool deploys sarcasm and juvenile jokes in large doses to try and paper over the lack of content.

The story is partially told in flashback. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) takes a taxi to a freeway where he waits to ambush the motorcade of his foe, a man named Francis (Ed Skrein). As Deadpool causes carnage on the highway, he recalls his origin story. Wade Wilson (Reynolds) was a former military special forces soldier from a troubled family who became a low-level mercenary, helping low-lifes settle the score with lower-lifes. He met and fell in love with "escort" Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and they were planning to marry when Wade found out that his body was ravaged by terminal cancer.

He accepted an offer from a mysterious recruiter (Jed Rees) to undergo life-altering treatment. Francis (who prefers the name Ajax) and his sidekick Angel Dust (Gina Carano) dish out the subsequent brutal "medical" treatment that resembles a prolonged torture session, permanently disfiguring Wilson's body but also curing him and providing him with self-healing powers. He adopts the persona of Deadpool and is now seeking vengeance against Francis, and refusing the pleas of X-Men superheros Colossus (voice of Stefan Kapičić) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) to join the forces of good and resist revenge temptations.

Directed by Tim Miller, Deadpool offers panache and plenty of attitude but also tedious repetition of the genre's worst excesses. Together, the fine eye of artistry and the foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed barrage of one-liners provide some relief from an otherwise tepid experience. The story is remarkably slight and flimsy, and without the cynical narration and over-the-top humour with plenty of fourth wall breaks, the film would have very little to offer.

As it is the final act descends into the usual boring territory of mass destruction and carnage using unconstrained amounts of CGI. The stuntmen and CPUs take over, destroying virtual sets imagined against the Vancouver skyline. The twin dilemmas of whether Deadpool will re-win the love of his girl and join the good-guys of X-Men are nowhere near interesting enough to compensate for the childish action on display.

Ryan Reynolds is passable and Morena Baccarin as Vanessa matches him as they both emphasize sizzling sexual attraction over any character redeeming traits or acting talent. The supporting cast offers the usual assortment of hissing villains and interchangeable good guys and bad guys quick to unleash violence on each other.

Deadpool is rude and crude and offers moments of genuine fun, but the infusion of edgy attitude cannot mask yet another tired and formulaic genre rehash.

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Movie Review: Adventureland (2009)

A teenage romance with a mix of comedy and drama, Adventureland seeks the wistfulness of a troubled young romance. The film enjoys a few good moments but is unable to escape the limitations of quite boring central characters.

In Pittsburgh of 1987, acknowledged virgin James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) is dumped by his latest short-term girlfriend. He nevertheless graduates from high school with grand plans to spend the summer in Europe and then attend journalism school at Columbia University. But when his dad's demotion stresses the family finances, James finds himself short of money and has to accept a summer job at the Adventureland local amusement park, considered pretty much the most degrading job a local teenager can find.

The park is run by Bobby (Bill Hader) and his sister Paulette (Kristen Wiig), and James makes friends with lanky and cynical co-worker Joel (Martin Starr). James soon sets eyes on another colleague, the enigmatic Emily (Kristen Stewart), better known as Em, and they start a tentative courtship. But unknown to anyone, Em is carrying on an affair with the park's hunky maintenance technician Mike Connell (Ryan Reynolds), a married man who claims to be an almost-famous musician who once shared the stage with Lou Reed. Things do start to get serious between James and Em, although the arrival of sexpot teenager Lisa P (Margarita Levieva) to work at the park complicates matters.

Directed and written by Greg Mottola fresh from his success helming Superbad, Adventureland aims for a touch of romantic nostalgia within the confines of a quite miserable amusement park, where the games are rigged, kids' puke is part of the ambience, and immature classless men stroke their masculinity by chasing large fuzzy toys. In terms of finding a setting for a love story, Adventureland is original and Mottola sprinkles in regular doses of amusement park human yuk to keep his tale grounded.

Less successful are the central characters. Neither James nor Em offer much that is new, and they are teenagers that have been seen many times before, and in better films than this. It does not help that Mottola overplays the teenage angst angle in a fruitless search for some depth. James and Em both come from seemingly well-to-do middle class families, yet in pursuit of the requisite "troubled background" James' inability to afford a trip to Europe and Em's failure to get along with her step-mother are presented as crises of existential proportions. All the parents in the film are presented as disconnected and distant, in another area where the script falls short.

Mottola appears more interested in jamming as many 1980s songs into the film as possible, and the soundtrack is relentless, quickly tiresome (many of the music selections simply are not that good), and quite loud, often drowning out the lines of dialogue.

Jesse Eisenberg puts on his best I'm-a-bit-of-a-doofus-but-I'm-still-cool persona, and it's well suited to the movie. Kristen Stewart is all about a dark exterior hiding something that is always smoldering, whether its passion or anger at the world in general. Ryan Reynolds sleeps walks through his few scenes. The supporting cast is patchy, and includes good performances from Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, a ridiculously over-the-top sultry turn from Margarita Levieva, and a few too many forgettable hangers-on.

Adventureland features long stretches where not much happens other than standard teenage anxiety, plenty of alcohol consumption, and even more pot smoking. When in doubt and in search of a cause, break out the illicit substances.

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Movie Review: Definitely, Maybe (2008)

A romantic comedy with an amiable twist, Definitely, Maybe is a backstory of multiple romances leading to a divorce, as told by a father to his young daughter.

Will (Ryan Reynolds) is in the midst of a divorce. He is pressed by his 10 year old daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin), who has just had her first sex education class, to recount the story of all his serious relationships leading up to his marrying her Mom. Will agrees to do so, but hides the real names of his romantic partners to keep Maya guessing as to the identity of her mother.

As a young man Will was a political activist in Wisconsin, deeply in love with college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks). They remain committed to each other as Will moves to New York to work on Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign. In the big city he becomes friends with fellow campaign worker Russell (Derek Luke), and meets the sophisticated Summer (Rachel Weisz) and scrappy photocopy girl April (Isla Fisher). Summer was Emily's former roommate, and is now in a relationship with the much older pompous professor Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline). April is skeptical about politics but struggling to define what she is passionate about.

Will starts to develop feelings of genuine affection for April, but with Emily about to visit New York, Will prepares himself to remain faithful to his first love and propose marriage. But Emily has a surprise and all does not go according to plan. Will's future includes more complex relationships with Summer, April and Emily as Maya is kept guessing as to the identity of Mom and the ultimate destination of Dad's heart.

Written and directed by Adam Brooks, Definitely, Maybe does not stray far from the fundamental tenets of the romantic comedy genre but finds a fresh twist in packing three mini-romances into a charming puzzle as told to a child. The premise allows the film to neatly side-step the predictably of the preordained happy ending demanded by the genre. While it is certain that Will's tale will find an upbeat conclusion, the script is clever enough to conceal which partner will prove to be Maya's mother and the winner of Will's enduring affection.

The three-in-one format also allows the relationships to remain crisp and concise. Emily, Summer and April are provided with enough definition and quirkiness to come to life as individuals. Emily is the small-town girl struggling with her partner's big city political ambitions; Summer travels in literate circles and enjoys the company and mentorship of men like Hampton, and April is struggling to live up to her own potential and move beyond in-built sarcasm to constructive achievement.

All three are appealing and relatively well-rounded women, and it's easy to believe that Will can develop deep relationships with them. The film maintains interest by nurturing three complex affairs of the heart, rather than the typical struggle to maintain momentum with the artificial ups and downs of just one central romance. But in the final 30 minutes Brooks does start to push his concept beyond the limit, cycling through possibilities ever faster to turn a sweet romance into a more cheesy guessing game.

The performances are of the marginally above average variety, with Reynolds, Banks, Weisz and Fisher doing what is expected and a bit more. Fisher emerges with the most compelling portrayal as April, a woman who drifts in and out of Will's life, sometimes as a witness, sometimes as a participant, and always looking for something more meaningful for both of them, just as she is looking for her lost copy of Jane Eyre.

Definitely, Maybe is definitely bound by romantic comedy rules, but just may be bright enough to create some welcome and original wriggle room.

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Movie Review: Self/less (2015)

A science fiction thriller that emphasizes routine action scenes and gradually discards the science elements, Self/less enjoys its moments but lacks the ambition needed to pursue more original avenues.

Damon Hayes (Ben Kingsley) is a wealthy real estate tycoon operating in New York City. Along with his long-time business partner Martin (Victor Garber), Hayes has a lock on every big deal, and ruthlessly outmanoeuvres his opponents. But Damon is also very sick, close to death, and on very bad terms with his activist daughter Claire (Michelle Dockery). He is placed in contact with the youthful and mysterious Professor Albright (Matthew Goode), who promises Damon eternal life. For a very large fee, Albright can transfer Damon's brain into an artificially created young man's body.

Damon agrees, the procedure seems to go well, and Damon goes through rehab to get used to functioning in the body of a fit man (Ryan Reynolds). He moves to New Orleans to start a new life, befriends Anton (Derek Luke) and starts to enjoy the party privileges of a being very wealthy and eligible man. But troublesome flashes of brain-generated imagery persist, despite Albright prescribing pills to reduce their occurrence. Damon starts to investigate what his brain is trying to tell him, leading to a dangerous surprise about his new body involving grieving widow Claire (Natalie Martinez) and her once very sick daughter.

Self/less is not a cradle of originality. The science fiction themes related to body regeneration, the use of dead victims for nefarious purposes, and memory fragments surviving a supposedly clean slate have been well covered in many other films. Back in 1978, Coma explored the exploitation of human bodies for profit, as did Extreme Measures in 1996. The role of Professor Albright as the genius scientist breaking all moral rules in the name of scientific progress is particularly clichéd, and channels characters like Michael Drucker from the 2000 Schwarzenegger film The 6th Day.

Nevertheless, Self/less is a serviceable movie, delivered with a quality shine by director Tarsem Singh. The opening 30 minutes are more engaging as Damian grapples with his mortality and explores what the dark corners of science can offer. Ben Kingsley brings his unmistakable solemnity to the role of a lonely billionaire with a massive ego, weighing surrender to disease against an expensive leap into an unknown future pregnant with potentially huge returns. His relationship with daughter Claire is underdeveloped but does add a touch of human vulnerability to the character, and provides him with a failure worth remedying should he be afforded more time.

But while the film sets up the opportunity to explore issues such as immortality and the potential for high achievers to use their bonus time either wisely or otherwise, the script (by David and Àlex Pastor) subsequently steers clear of more cerebral undertakings, and settles down in rather familiar thriller territory. The action elements are at least well constructed, Tarsem building tension, deploying relatively rational editing, and using Reynolds' charisma to keep the film reasonably grounded. He even finds a somewhat clever twist for the climax of an otherwise routine car chase shoot-out.

The cast is as average as the material. Reynolds is adequate but is never quite able to project the elderly Damian. Goode cannot do much with Professor Albright other than the stereotype of a scientist convincing himself that his god-like tendencies are all for the betterment of humankind. In contrast Natalie Martinez brings edge and more steeliness than usual to the role of the puzzled widow who suddenly has to confront a new reality. Self/less borrows most of its pieces from other films, but at least makes some of them a bit better.

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Movie Review: Woman In Gold (2015)

Inspired by a true story, Woman In Gold is a drama about an Austrian woman's fight to reclaim precious family paintings seized by the Nazis during World War Two. The film is sincere and engaging, with the flashback scenes packing particular resonance.

It's 1998 in Los Angeles, and the elderly Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) lays her sister Luise to rest. Maria was born and raised by a wealthy Jewish family in Austria, but as a young bride fled to the United States to escape the Nazi occupation. In Luise's belongings Maria finds evidence to suggest that the she may be able to recover precious family paintings, including Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, now called Woman In Gold and claimed by the Austrian government after having been stolen by the Nazis. Adele was Maria's loving aunt, and Klimt a family friend.

Seeking legal advice, Maria turns to young lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds), the son of a family friend and himself the grandson of the famous Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg. Initially skeptical, Randy agrees to help upon discovering that the Klimt painting may be worth $100 million. He travels with Maria to Vienna, and they find an ally in Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Brühl), a magazine editor eager for Austria to confront her past. They take Maria's case in front of the Art Restitution board, but Woman In Gold is now considered a national treasure, and the government will make every effort to block Maria from reclaiming the painting of her aunt.

A hybrid of Philomena and what The Monuments Men was trying to be, Woman In Gold largely succeeds in its mission to juxtapose the legal battle for personal restitution with the wider background of the horror unleashed on Austria's Jewish population. Director Simon Curtis finds a harmonious balance between the sepia-toned flashback scenes in Vienna with Maria as a young woman (played with palpable fervency by Tatiana Maslany), and the more modern day legal machinations played out on two continents. The flashbacks carry the emotional punch, capturing a Vienna torn asunder, with many residents welcoming the Nazis while the intelligentsia recoil in horror and the Jews stare at annihilation.

There is less drama in the numerous but brief court scenes. This becomes more the story of lawyer Randy Schoenberg, with Maria frequently reduced to delivering quips for comic relief. Randy's passion starts with a pursuit of possible riches, but after confronting Austrian government intransigence and coming face to face with the Holocaust memorial, he adopts Maria's fight as his own personal quest for a larger justice. To liven up the otherwise staid court battles, there are moments of mild drama involving Maria having to overcome her fear of traveling back to Austria, and Randy's wife (a bright Katie Holmes performance) coming to terms with his new found commitment to a cause.

Helen Mirren sparkles as only she can, and gradually steers the film towards a very personal story of recovery from the grave injustice inflicted upon her family by an evil tide of history. Curtis allows his star free reign to dominate, but then carries the emotions a bit too far into teary eyed nostalgia territory. Reynolds is better when he is likeable and skeptical, and stumbles somewhat when he needs to convey dramatic intensity. The scenes requiring him to be angry or emotional emerge as the weakest parts of the film. The strong cast is rounded out by Charles Dance as Randy's law firm boss and Antje Traue as Adele in the flashbacks, while Elizabeth McGovern and Jonathan Pryce enjoy bit parts as sympathetic judges.

Woman In Gold may not fully glitter as intended, but it does achieve a steady shine.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Safe House (2012)

A fast-paced action thriller with substantial star power, Safe House does most things right but contributes little that is new to the Bourne-inspired ex-agent-on-the-run sub-genre.

In Cape Town, South Africa, inexperienced CIA agent Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) has little to do as the keeper for a seldom-used safe house, and keeps his real job a secret from French girlfriend Ana (Nora Arnezeder). But Cape Town is about to become a lot more exciting. Rogue ex-CIA agent Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a most wanted man, purchases a microchip with international state secrets from disgruntled MI6 agent Alec Wade (Liam Cunningham). Wade is immediately assassinated and Frost is targeted by the ruthless Vargas (Fares Fares) and his men. Frost is forced to take refuge at the US consulate.

At CIA headquarters in Langley, supervisors David Barlow (Brendan Gleeson) and Catherine Linklater (Vera Farmiga) and director Harlan Whitford (Sam Shepard) are immediately alerted to Frost's sudden appearance at a US facility. They decide to move him to Weston's safe house for interrogation. A squad headed by agent Kiefer (Robert Patrick) extracts Frost from the consulate and transfers him to the safe house, and Frost is subjected to waterboarding. But Vargas and his men invade the safe house, forcing Weston to flee with Frost, and initiating a prolonged chase as the untried Weston is suddenly plunged into a high-stakes game of brutal, take-no-prisoners international spy deception.

Directed by Daniel Espinosa, Safe House is a slick-enough thriller. The action is frequent, there are sufficient reflective scenes to grow the characters, and the presence of Washington and Reynolds with a strong supporting cast ensures a consistent level of quality. The South African setting, a relative backwater in the global spy game, introduces a fresh perspective and justifies some of the agency stumbling. But the McGuffin at the centre of the film, in the form of an abstract database of intelligence agency wrongdoings, is rather stale.

This is a post-Bourne secret agent film, and so Espinosa adopts the shaky-camera and micro-editing techniques as his defacto style to jazz up most of the action scenes. He also frequently mixes in tiny flash-backs and flash-forwards to inject a sense of energy into the quietest interludes. There are some undeniably exciting moments and even a few relatively original set-pieces, including an expertly filmed rooftop chase at a Langa shantytown.

All the flashy touches teeter on the edge of overstaying their welcome, particularly with a running length of close to two hours. In the final 40 minutes it becomes evident that every shoot-out will be followed by a brutal hand-to-hand combat showdown which will be quickly followed by another shoot-out, but Espinosa maintains just enough control to deliver a taut chase movie with more good moments than bad.

As is usually the case, the strongest scenes feature the actors actually acting rather than dodging bullets or throttling each other. Washington and Reynolds never descend into trite buddy territory, and the tension between the jaded ex-agent and the bright-eyed wannabe hero underpins the film. Farmiga, Gleeson, Shepard and Patrick have less to do, but do it well. Safe House may be riddled with a few too many bullets, but it is well worth a visit.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Ryan Reynolds

All movies starring Ryan Reynolds and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Just Friends (2005)

Smokin' Aces (2006)

Definitely Maybe (2008)

Adventureland (2009)

The Proposal (2009)

Buried (2010)

The Change-Up (2011)

Safe House (2012)

Ted (2012, uncredited cameo)

A Million Ways To Die In The West (2014, uncredited cameo)

The Captive (2014)

Mississippi Grind (2015)

Woman In Gold (2015)

Self/less (2015)

Deadpool (2016)

Criminal (2016)

Life (2017)

The Adam Project (2022)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.