Iron Man 2 {2010}

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell
Director: Jon Favreau
Screenplay: Justin Theroux
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Running-time: 124 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Country: USA




As superhero sequels go, they go darker, meaner and meatier. Think of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, which completely throws it out of the park, knocking down genre conventions and emerge as a genuine masterwork that rises up above its superhero contemporaries. That is supposedly the trend, but other Hollywood's recent superhero foster child like Iron Man tends to go the other way around. Jon Favreau's first gig of the franchise was a blast of fresh air, making Iron Man a zesty, occasionally irreverent, take on the conventional superhero movie with a central protagonist whose ego is bigger than himself. Proud, cocky and a bit of a smart-aleck, Tony Stark is something of a nutso creation - a multi-billionaire-cum-megalomaniac, lightyears away from the post-teenage spunk of Peter Parker, the father issues of Clark Kent and the moral anguish of Bruce Wayne. And in Iron Man 2, Robert Downey Jr., a Has-Been-Turned-Comeback-Superstar, now Hollywood's go-to guy, embodies Stark impeccably with a natural swagger and a tousled, I-don't-give-a-shit demeanour. But whilst Downey is notable, the rest of the film isn't. In this sequel, the spark and lustre of its predecessor are gone. And we are left with a script that's cluttered, overstuffed yet bereft of any meaty chunk to chew on.


Gone is the parable of terrorism, and instead we have a tale of revenge criss-crossing with a plot on rivalry. After a supremely dull opening montage (the sight of Mickey Rourke as the vindictive Russian Ivan Ivanko assembling a suit is tediously familiar), we are plunged into Tony Stark's world purview, being transformed into something more than just cocky - but a real cock. After the moral travails he went through the first, you'd somehow expect Stark's a changed man. But he's gone worse, pulling of a gone-off-the-rails stunt which doesn't come across as funny but very irritating. And there are a lot of other characters to deal with, some ranging from mediocre to just unnecessary. Sam Rockwell's rival weapons manufacturer Hammer delivers the quips and oiliness but suffers a lot of character stereotype. Don Cheadle (replacing Terrence Howard) as Stark's military best-bud is as dramatically stiff as his metal-cast suit. Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Pots aka the Love Interest is reduced to some nagging figure. Scarlett Johansson, whilst ultra-sexy lashing out high-kicks in a vaguely kinky outfit as Black Widow, feels inessential to the entire plot. And even Samuel L. Jackson is misplaced in this film, reminding us that this isn't much of a sequel but rather a platform to which Marvel Studios launches The Avengers. Here, characters seem like walking and talking teasers for a forthcoming franchise. So even when we're blasted through an action-packed final act, with regenerated Iron Man clashing against a host of renegade metal machines, we're left devoid of any affection or even just an iota of connection. And that's a true sign of a bad moviegoing experience.



This is exactly what you'd expect with your typical Hollywood mainstream fare - a lot of noise and little story, and if there's one, it's clunky, convoluted, cluttered and damningly clichéd. Save from the swagger of one Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man 2 is nothing but an orgy of FX metal play that's as emotionally catatonic as a junkyard.



Review by The Moviejerk © Janz

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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo {2010}

Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Screenplay: Nicolaj Arcel
Studio: Yellow Bird Films
Running-time: 152 mins
Genre: Drama/Mystery/Crime/Thriller/Foreign
Country: Sweden




Whatever the hell Hollywood is thinking, remaking Stieg Larsson's Swedish literary blockbuster The Millennium Trilogy, the word is already out - it would take a sizeable lot of Hollywood creative workforce and sheer genius to outshine this original Swedish version. As remakes now go, the American industry has lately been noticed picking up modern celluloid from the Swede home turf, no matter how exceptional they already are (the superb Let The Right One In now has a Hollywood version in the can, equipped for lazy Americans who either cannot be bothered to read or just plain illiterate). This follows that ill-advised route, and despite the David Fincher-Carey Mulligan electric combination as director-and-star partnership, there's no doubting that Fincher and Mulligan have a touchstone to live up to.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the opener of the three-part series, is an astonishingly dark cocktail of crime-mystery, whodunit detective thriller, Swedish miserablism, socio-political psychosis and psychological exploration. Above all, it has a prime protagonist who is more ingenuously fascinating than the story itself, a savagely intense heroine compelled to solve a crime only to uncover a deeper moral darkness in society whilst facing her own personal past. Not since Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs had there been a crime-film heroine so justifiably complex, and not since Nikita and Mathilda Lando in Léon: The Professional had there been a character so startlingly vengeful. Lisbeth Salander is a walking mystery herself - she's part-Goth, part-waif, dressed in black leather supposedly designed for S&M antics, as heavily pierced and tattooed as a punk-rocker and face daubed thickly with kohl that could make Marilyn Manson blush. Sexually ambiguous and a social outsider, her mind burns with rage, making use of her canny intelligence to plot vindictive revenge on her sexually abusive guardian and her resourcefulness to swipe at any motherfucker who touches her. And actress Noomi Rapace plays her compellingly that Salander is not all about simmering looks and tough biker-chick - there are incredibly poignant moments in which Rapace subtly lets vulnerability touch Salander's surface, her personal pain of her childhood past and the seemingly eternal anguish that haunts her follow through momentary flashbacks throughout the film.

For a lengthy running time for over two hours, there's never a dull scene, despite of an unfussy, flowy camerawork. Director Arden Oplev does not employ showy cinematography, although crisply shot, and makes sure this film is about story and substance. There's also another main character to deal with, exiled journalist Mikael who works for a liberal magazine called Millennium, stripping bare society's darkest evils such as corruption and political fervour, and Salander's pseudo-partner in a crime investigation of a 40-year old unsolved mystery. The plot may ring familiar at first, a vanished girl in a faraway town conjures Agatha Christie and Twin Peaks, but this has bigger resonance that touch on the origin of evils in European history, political misdirection, Nazism, misogyny, illegal prostitution and human trafficking. As you watch the mystery unfolds unhurriedly and gracefully, you'd somehow feel at the end that this abyss of society has got to be stopped and we're rooting for Lisbeth Salander to unleash her wrath on these evils.



A riveting, complex and taut crime-mystery that solidly opens the Millennium Trilogy, with a magnificently created heroine that burns into the mind long after the film ends. Rarely has there been a literary adaptation that deftly mixes blockbuster brio with a character-driven sensibility, casting an unflinching look into a dark moral abyss of our society. Consider the forthcoming Hollywood remake look like a waxwork next to this Swedish original.



Review by The Moviejerk © Janz

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ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER {1999}

Cast: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Penélope Cruz
Director: Pedro Almod.var
Screenplay: Pedro Almodóvar
Studio: El Deseo SA
Running-time: 101 mins
Genre: Drama/Foreign
Country: Spain




You've got to admire Pedro Almodóvar. There's nothing quite like his signature cinematic vision in Spanish cinema or in any film landscape in the world. He is, essentially, the Spanish apotheosis when you combine David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock and George Cukor, albeit on kinky boots and sipping a perverse cocktail. High camp, high melodrama, dark humour and a sensuous visual style, all of these are prevalent in almost any Almodóvar work, almost as recognisable as any world landmark. And in this critically-acclaimed effort All About My Mother, he does not only provide all his signature ticks but he gives what seem to be sorely lacking in many of his films - a great, big heart. Here, Almodóvar achieves a higher degree of sophistication, crafting a film of subtle nuance and purpose, dedicating this to actresses and mothers, as the title refers to.


While still maintaining liberalism in form (he brews a dazzling concoction of melodrama, tragedy, soap-opera, farce and pitch-black humour, throwing in queer-folk cultural references, with transsexuals, transvestites and other sexual ambiguity in typical Almodóvar fashion), My Mother is perhaps the most linear in narrative context in the Almodóvar oeuvre, eschewing reliance on flashbacks common to many of his films. We are drawn to the story right away, as Manuela embarks on a quest to find the exiled father of his own son, who was killed on an accident after chasing famous Huma, an actress playing Blanche DuBois in a Spanish stage revival of A Sreetcar Named Desire. In My Mother, the past isn't much shown but rather very deeply ensconced in the present, the flaws of the past ever influencing every strand of this rich, interwoven stories of human fallibility and human resilience.


You may laugh at its savage campness sometimes, but My Mother brims with a remarkable sense of compassion, humanity and heart that you'll never find yourself laughing at Manuela's loss of her son, Huma's tempestuous relationship with a lesbian junkie, Rosa's impregnated nun or at Lola's condition, the father of Esteban and Rosa's child, now a transvestite and bearer of HIV virus. Even the film's most humorous scene, La Agrado's one-woman, show-stealing romp, improvising in front of an audience on how she ended up as an operated woman, we never laugh at her. We laugh with her. It's an accomplishment of deeply felt characterisation, creating very flawed human individuals yet never drench them with self-pity. Instead, these bunch of characters are testaments to human staunchness, and it's one of Almodóvar many fine talents, to let his audience reserve their judgements and to listen and understand these characters and their lives.


At the heart of All About My Mother is, after all, a celebration of solidarity between women, femininity and most importantly, motherhood. Almodóvar deliberately reconstructs scenes from All About Eve, and pays homage to Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, Romy Schneider, to actresses, to women who act, and to mothers, whilst disposing the male species as maladroit creatures. To a degree, there is sarcasm to its representation, portraying men here as either men who dress like women or men who want some blowjob during intermissions. Nevertheless, Almodóvar emerges with dignity and a genuine compassion towards the fortitude of mothers and their legacies.



Impressively crafted, handsomely acted (especially by Roth) and emotionally satisfying, Almodóvar's All About My Mother assumes a zenith in the auteur's fascinating oeuvre. Above all, this is a heartfelt paean to motherhood and human resilience.



Review by The Moviejerk © Janz

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WINGS OF DESIRE {1987}

Cast: Bruno Ganz, Solvieg Dommartin, Otto Sander
Director: Wim Wenders
Screenplay: Peter Handke
Studio: Road Movies Filmproduktion
Running-time: 130 mins
Genre: Drama/Art
Country: Germany




There is not a film quite like Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire. This is clearly a bold statement, given that there is an entire century of celluloid-making history to contend with, and that Wenders' himself dedicates this work to "all the old angels, especially Yasujiro, François and Andrei". These are master film craftsmen, the Japanese Ozu, the French Truffaut and Russian Tarkovsky, whose cinematic influences have left a profound presence in Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin or The Skies over Berlin, as a literal German translation of the film's original title). The quiet grace of human observations is clearly an Ozu legacy, the humanism and magical realism is Truffaut-esque, and the sweeping cinematography and contemplation of history and human existence have long been deeply ingrained in the works of Tarkovsky. But instead of resulting into a postmodern pastiche, Wenders' work soars above its own cinematic sphere of influence and emerge as a truly original, elegiac, graceful and beautifully profound work of modern art.


A million light-years away from any Hollywood narrative convention, Wenders' approach is that of a European art-film sensibility. It is contemplative in mood, evocative in its visuals and evades narrative and plot for spatial musings and meditation on human existence - this is more cinematic poetry rather than your typical mainstream movie classification. The first half roves around a war-ravaged, post-Nazi Berlin, all crumbling walls, decaying urbanities and banalities of life, and amongst these torn human creatures are unseen celestial bodies, angels drifting around the city, listening to every pain, hurt, emotional yearnings of every citizen. Wenders' ditch the common ideal image of angels in haloes and wings, except at the beginning where we see Bruno Ganz' Damiel standing atop a church's spire with wings fading into the light, but instead wearing long overcoats like existential, sombre-looking noir detectives hearing the inner voices of the populace, their deepest thoughts and desire, and even casually touching humans for reassurance. This is familiar to mainstream as City of Angels, the crooningly mawkish Hollywood remake with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan, where angels pretty much wear the same thing. So here, there are two central characters, Damiel and Cassiel, two angels whose immortalities allowed them to observe more-than-enough earthbound human experiences. Desire does not preachify over religiosity and spiritualism, but it portrays a form of magical realism, of deities existing amongst and inbetween physical matters unknown to humankind.


A narrative emerges when Damiel (an emphatic, soulful-eyed Bruno Ganz) forfeits his immortality when he falls in love with a lonely trapeze artist Marion (a beautiful Solvieg Dommartin), whose existential anguish and solace has captivated Damiel. It's an unabashedly romantic projection, that loneliness is as beautiful as beauty itself and as truthful as life, and Damiel knows this in an enchanting scene where he declares his yearning to experience earthbound pleasures, as simple as warming his hands to a cup of coffee, to be able to physically touch somebody, to love and be desired. Wenders offers here a life-affirming, hopeful palette amid the black-and-white angel's POV, intriguingly shifting into full colour at the perspective of humans. And when Damiel finally gets to become human, he sees blood in dark red, and is wonderfully rapturous about the sight of it, the implication of human mortality, of transience, pain and uncertainty.



Here is a film that wraps you up and never lets you go. Wings of Desire transcends conventional film form into a haunting, lyrical, elegiac, beautifully profound cinematic poetry about earthbound existence. For a film about angels, Wim Wenders provides a very humanist philosophy here, a deeply touching love-letter to the simple pleasures of human life. An enriching, stunning work of art.



Review by The Moviejerk © Janz

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