Back to the bread and butter....

Movie reviews.

Around the Christmas season, movie studios start releasing good movies again. For the most part, Autumn is a wasteland, sandwiched between the summer blockbuster season and the last minute, end of the year push for Oscar contention. So, when we hit Decemeber, the quality of films seems to start picking up again. Speaking for myself, I have a pretty good sized list of movies I still want to see that involves oil, young Japanese girls, and gay cowboys.

So, Saturday afternoon found me stating to chip away at my list with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Based upon the book of the same name, written by C. S. Lewis. I was surprised to find out my cousin didn't know this film was from a book, as I just figured everyone who was a child had read of the exploits of and in Narnia. I had thought you would not be allowed to become a teenage without reading these books. Maybe my point of view is skewed, however, since these were much beloved classics of my childhood. I still own 5 of the 7 original copies of the book I did when I was young.

So, there's a history here, a lot of high expectations. The initial trailers looked promising. I went into this film with a fair amount of excitment. And for the most part, I wasn't disappointed.

The story is of four children, (two brothers and two sisters), staying in the country house of an old and eccentric professor to escape the blitz of WWII England. They encounter a magic wardrobe that leads them into another world: Narnia, where they are prophesized to be heroes, kings and queens, that will come to end the reign of the White Witch and end the 100 year old winter that she has imposed over the land. Many fantasy hijinks and battles ensue. With the help of Aslan (read: Jesus; more on this later), a mythical lion, and the "ruler", of sorts, of Narnia, they eventually come to the climactic last battle, win the day, spread happiness and good cheer, etc. Lions: 1, White Witch: 0

Few notes on the acting. There's really only a few worth mentioning. When I first saw Tilda Swinton as the White Witch in the previews, my thought was: "Yeah, that's right on." And it was. Liam Neeson as the voice of Aslan...is Liam Neeson regurgitating the wise, mentor Liam Neeson thing. Not that this is bad, but you know he can do it in his sleep by now. The four children that play the four Pevensie siblings? Well, I don't know any of their names, so I'll just think of them as the four remaining British child actors that AREN'T in Harry Potter. They all did decent jobs, even the girl that played Susan, who is a pretty useless character. (Although, to her credit, she did well, considering she had not much to work with; Susan is a pretty useless character in the book as well.)

The film was very faithful to the book, and the effect of seeing it on the big screen made me think about the tone of the story in a different way. When it's something with so much history to you, such as a treasured book from childhood, your perception is always colored by what your initial impressions might have been, even if they're so far in the past that you can't actively remember those impressions. My impressions of the book are those of fantasy for young people. But watching the film I realized that there is a wide range of tone in this story. Although still good for children, it's actually quite dark at times: the White Witch's propensity for freezing people alive, Aslan's sacrifice for Edmund. Therefore, the tone of the film was at times surprisingly adult.

Much has been made, especially recently about the Christian and biblical allegory that occurs in the story, which I will avoid mentioning instances of because they include spoilers (but they are there), and I don't know why. I'm not the most religious person; in fact I fall closer to the "least" end of that particular scale. But for that, there are two factors to consider. One: Stories and parables from the bible, when read as fiction, make for some damn good and entertaining stories, and well worth borrowing from. And two, and more to the point of the religious aspect: I have no real problem with religions on paper, just in reality, and these allegories deal more with that ideal aspect of it, and fantasy being specifically, and by definition, "not reality" is a good forum for it. It's not overly preachy in a Left Behind sort of sense, but by the actions of some of the cahracters (Aslan, specifically) it's merely more suggestive of some decent ways to live and carry yourself. I don't find anything wrong with that, because you can take from it or not, as you wish. In a later book in the series, there is an exchange between Aslan and someone that basically shaped my impression of how religions should work (and oddly enough my dismissals of organized religions because they don't.)

But back to the movie, for my final point. TLTW&TW is a book that translates well to the big screen as a self contained film. However, there are six more Narnia books, and even as far back as the trailers, it is stated: "The chronicles begin." Implying that more of the books will be made into films. However, the problem is, past the first book, I don't really feel the later books have the same cinematic validity. Although others of the books share the same characters, they're not a flowing, continuous series like say a Harry Potter. I'm not sure ANY of the remaining books would make successful major releases. Perhaps, more a direct to video style release, if at all.

That being said, the ending bothers me slightly, although it is the same ending as in the book. After defeating the White Witch in the final battle, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy go on to rule Narnia for many years, until one day, while hunting in the woods they come upon where they entered Narnia and manage to sumble back into the Wardrobe and out of Narnia and back into our world. Now, the thing about Narnia is no matter how much time you spend there, no time at all passes here. So they stumble out of the wardrobe, back into the professor's countryside home and are children again. The end. Now, I don't know about you, but if I were ruler of a mythical land, had kicked some major bad guy (girl) ass to get there, I'd be pretty pissed if I accidentally stumbled back to my own world and found out I was back to the point where I hadn't even hit puberty yet. However, even though it was quite abrupt, it didn't even seem to phase the Pevensie children at all. Now, in the books, it doesn't bother me much, beucase I know they get back to Narnia, but with my concerns that the other books won't translate as well if they get made into films, I like the ending less in the film. Although it would have been a bit of the idyllic "...and they lived happily ever after", I would have preferred the movie end 5 minutes earlier in Narnia.
...
Wow, that was long, and I'm only half done. Because Sunday night, since the Cowboys were getting trounced 35-0 just after halftime, I decided to go out and see King Kong. Because Christmas time is Peter Jackson time.

I don't suppose I really have to go into detail on the plot of this one, since who doesn't know it already. Giant ape meets girl. Giant ape falls in love with girl. Giant ape trounces New York City. Let's face it, I didn't really care about any of the other aspects of the story.

Carl Denham's (Jack Black) movie? Nope, didn't care. Except that it was like the cupid plot device for Kong and the girl. Although Black did a better job here than I expected. I never really saw him as a leading actor. I ahven't much liked anything he's done where he's been one. And although he's not here, it is a big role. Jack Driscoll's (Adrien Brody) love for Ann? Nope. He's definitely NOT the alpha male in this love triangle.

No, all that I really cared about was Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and King Kong. And judging by the development of the other characters, it seems that Peter Jackson feels the same. That's the ehart of the film right there, without which, it would be so much eye candy. And not even great eye candy at that (More on that later.)

Kong himself, for being a CGI creation, is the best and most fully recognized character in the movie. He's old (judging by the cracked teeth, big belly, and numerous scars), and he's lonely. There's a scene on Skull Island (Kong's home) where we see his cave, and the skeletons of other Kongs. His family? Loved ones? You never find out, but it's obvious he's the last. Living on a dangerous island where battling dinosaurs is apparently part of the routine, as shown when Kong proves he is the king, when he totally owns three T. Rexs at once. There was no skimping when developing Kong in this movie. Andy Serkis, who worked with Jackson in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in developing the facial expressions and movements of Gollum (another entirely CGI character) also did the work on Kong. And for as good as Gollum was, Kong is better. For a character who's only verbal expression is a grunt or a roar, you never have a problem understanding what it is Kong is expressing, whether it be anger, humor, sadness, or anything in between.

While Kong is the best realized CGI in the film (and rightfully so), the rest varies between pretty bad (the dinosaur stampede) to average. The problem with blockbuster films (and this goes for Narnia as well) is the overdependence on CGI. I've come to accept bad CGI as a standard in the blockbuster film. As long as it's not totally horrendous, I can usually ignore it. But in fantasy films especially, it's going to be used, and overused. The one thing that can mask it pretty well, and Jackson did, is to make the look of the film a bit more cartoony in general. Hell, I barely consider the Star Wars prequels to be "live-action" movies. There's only so much realism you can imbue CGI with at our current level of technology, especially when it is so prevelant. Because that stuff ain't cheap to do. There are a couple of commercials floating around that feature a car or a jet "transforming" into something else. It looks spectacular. Amazing. Gives me much hope for the live action Transformers movie in the works. But I fear it will prove my point. A thirty second commercial can spend a lot of time on getting it right and making it look real. Transfer that into a two hour movie, and the quality is going to suffer.

King Kong is three hours long, and there is a LOT of CGI on Skull Island and when Kong gets back to NYC. And as a result, it often is average at best.

However, since the most important part of the story is that love story between an ape and his girl, it matters less. There actually IS a story there that the action and CGI is wrapped around, which makes that eye candy a little sweeter going down. The T-Rex battle, although looking not so great, is still awesome because it is Kong fighting to keep Ann from becoming a dino-snack. Kong looking for Ann on the streets of New York, although presented humorously, is really quite touching. His anger at Jack at being the other man, is realistic. For those who don't know the story, I won't ruin it for you, but there's also a good healthy dose of sadness in the film, based around this love story. Let me just say that if you don't feel something when you walk out of the theater then you have no heart whatsoever.

While it's not nearly a perfect movie, King Kong does get it right where it counts: in the heart of the matter.