The Happening

2008 // USA - India - France // M. Night Shyalaman // July 7, 2008 // Theatrical Print

D - After Unbreakable seduced me with its empathic, gorgeous take on the superhero origin story, I came away an admirer of M. Night Shyalaman's ability to repackage well-worn stories with a fresh dose of pained humanity and absolute sincerity. Signs confirmed my assessment, as well as the writer-director's instincts for chills. The Village was... less great. Lady in the Water arrived as a sweet and embarrassing jumble, a vanity project with a sour aftertaste. And now we have The Happening, and given the public nature of Shyalaman's descent from artistic grace, how can this film be anything but a Rorschach test on how far the former wunderkind of genre filmmaking has fallen? To be sure, The Happening has a germ of the director's flair for compelling concepts and attractive composition. However, the film is so aggressively bad in so many ways, I came away wondering whether Shyalaman has always been a covertly poor filmmaker, or one who just matured into ineptitude.

The story is fairly straightforward, and in its outlines it shows some of Shyalaman's old grit for tantalizing hooks. Beginning in New York City's Central Park, some sort of silent, widespread biological or chemical attack elicits a horrifying change in people. First come the disorientation and the garbled speech, then an overwhelming compulsion for self-destruction. This might have come off as half-baked, but one of the film's rare strengths is the grim, gut-wrenching quality to the mass suicide set pieces. Construction workers casually walk off building girders. A man starts a lawnmower and languidly watches it circle around the yard before lying down in front of it. A policeman pulls out his handgun and shoots himself, and then a bystander retrieves the weapon and does likewise, followed by another...

There's a hint of nihilism in the glib, generally awful nature of the deaths that Shyalaman shows us. Fortunately, the filmmaker finds a handhold that prevents The Happening from descending into outright suicide pornography. Unfortunately, that handhold is high school teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanal), who just might be the most uninteresting science fiction protagonists in memory. It's not that they're morons, although Alma has the moral development of a six-year-old. Elliot is a pretty competent guy, and his responses under pressure vary from admirably collected to all-too-understandable. Yet both Elliot and Alma are both about as exciting as buckets of dirty mop water, which is pretty unforgivable in a film allegedly about the awful human tragedy of unexplained mass suicides. I couldn't care less about whether this pair survived the mysterious attacks.

Elliot and Alma, however, didn't ask for my opinion, and they attempt to flee into rural Pennsylvania with fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) and his young daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). The biological attacks, you see, seem to be focused on population centers, although they are swiftly moving into more lightly peopled areas. I really shouldn't say more, because I would be ruining the... Oh, who cares. It's the plants, okay? The world's plants are apparently spreading a gaseous chemical into the air that triggers suicidal behavior in humans.

Now, I'm a scientist by profession, and this doesn't bother me as much as it seems to be bother some folks. Bad science is par for the course in science fiction. If a filmmaker can construct a forceful and humane story around a shaky factual foundation, I'm very forgiving. I was prepared to accept that ITSTHEPLANTS, because Shyalaman uses the conceit to set up some creative and wonderfully nasty plot elements. There's not a lot of cinematic terror to be had in undetectable crazy gas, so the sight of a sudden breeze blowing through the trees or the grass becomes a proxy for the biological menace. This leads to some improbable but oddly effectual scenes of characters attempting to outrun the wind, calling to mind The Day After Tomorrow's racing frost snap. Shyalaman also gets some nice mileage out of the notion that large numbers of humans seem to catalyze the plants' attacks, resulting in some fiendish sequences where splitting up is the wisest strategy.

However, The Happening's occasional moments of real horror don't make up for all the missteps, all the terrible decisions, or the sheer badness of the thing. It's tricky for me to put my finger on any single feature that dooms the enterprise. The killer plants don't bother me, and the plot is fairly unobjectionable. Yet Shyalaman just fumbles again and again. There's the tone-deaf approach to nearly every human interaction in the film, and the generally wretched performances all around. This goes for even the usually exciting Wahlberg and especially for Deschanal, who spends most of the film in a goggle-eyed, whiny trance, like a television-addled toddler. She's admittedly gorgeous and I know she can act, but Christ Almighty what is she doing here?

The performances might be where the rubber meets the road, but The Happening's teeth-gritting awkwardness extends deep into its direction and screenplay. You can almost see Wahlberg trying his mightiest, his gears grinding relentlessly during every oddly scored, jarring closeup as he tries to find something resembling a real human emotion in his character. But Shyalaman isn't having it. It's almost like the whole enterprise has to be as unpleasant as possible. I'm not sure what possessed the writer-director to render almost the entire supporting cast of characters as a pack of colossally unsympathetic oddballs (with the occasional shrieking lunatic) but damn if that isn't exactly what he does. It seems inconceivable that the cunning of Unbreakable's solitary weirdo—the supervillain hiding in plain sight, complete with purple monologues—has mutated into a gaggle of "colorful" people who don't act much like people at all, and serve no purpose but to perish without eliciting a flicker of regret from the audience.

What else is there? How about the endless, lingering shots that are intended to convey dread but only had me thinking, "I get it. You can cut away now." How about the unpleasantness of disposing of two young teenage characters in an unspeakably brutal fashion? How about a script that trades the ungainly stilted qualities of The Village and hokey earnestness of Lady in the Water for unintentional goofiness? How about story continuity errors that provide characters with knowledge they could not possibly have? How about Shyalaman shamelessly cribbing from one of the scariest moments in Signs, and thereby diminishing it? How about a falsely "ominous" ending that contributes exactly nothing to the film's blunt, damning environmental and psychiatric subtext?

I could got on and on. I won't, because I prefer not think about this wasteful disappointment of a film.

The Incredible Hulk

​2008 // USA // Louis Leterrier // July 7, 2008 // Theatrical Print

B - The Incredible Hulk surprised me. It is a superhero film that wallows in its genre conventions with almost no joy, a kind of Twelve Steps out of Hell served up as popcorn entertainment. Perhaps this shouldn’t be so unexpected. The Hulk, after all, is one of Marvel’s darkest heroes. Lacking Spider-Man’s humor or the X-Men’s warmth, the Hulk comics principally offer rage, anxiety, and the peculiar kind of fatalistic despair. Louis Leterrier’s sequel-slash-reboot of Ang Lee’s gloriously overreaching Hulk never really rises to any kind of greatness. Indeed, it often feels overly familiar. (The thickly applied nods to the Bill Bixby television series might be partly to blame for this.) Yet The Incredible Hulk gives this year’s best superhero film to date, Iron Man, a run for its money. It does this not with mesmerizing performances or thematic heft, but with a precise awareness of how a Hulk film should be realized, and in particular how to balance the terror and empathy for the big green lug.

Leterrier picks up where Lee left off, but also dramatically revises what has come before. The Incredible Hulk opens with a rapid-fire credit sequence that takes us through the re-imagined origin of the creature lurking inside Bruce Banner. Leterrier’s version cribs from the Bixby series, right down to the iconic image of Bruce (Edward Norton) with those menacing crosshairs of light sliding over his face. Fortunately, this opening sequence is a fine example of breakneck storytelling, a visual debriefing to bring the whole audience up to speed—regardless of whether they have seen Lee’s film or the television series, or read any Hulk comics. Those of us in the geekier set already know the score: Banner’s experiments in radiation resistance led to an accident that transformed him into a ferocious green ogre. The effect was temporary, but the fugitive Banner now risks the terrifying change whenever he becomes agitated.

The Incredible Hulk reunites us with Banner in a Brazilian slum, where he is laying low, working menial jobs, and practicing meditative techniques to control his transformations. He is also collaborating with an Internet pal named Mr. Blue—by means of a battered laptop and crude laboratory equipment—to try to perfect an outright cure for his condition. However, the United States military finally catches up to Banner, in the form of General Thaddeus Ross (a distractingly mustachioed William Hurt) and Special Forces tough Emil Blonsky (a stubbly, oily Tim Roth). This sets off the first of the film’s three major action set pieces, all of which are extraordinarily fun. The Incredible Hulk’s finest achievement is how deftly the filmmakers execute the mayhem, which, in any Hulk blockbuster worth its salt, should be the centerpiece, after all. There’s nothing particularly innovative about how the action is realized, but it’s done with a remarkable intelligence and precision of tone.

Each of the major set pieces, for example, raises the stakes in elementary but crucial ways. In the first showdown between the Hulk and the military, the green beast is only glimpsed through shadow and smoke. During the second round, Leterrier gives us a brutal confrontation in a wide-open space and full sunlight. The climax pits the Hulk against an equally powerful but more monstrous foe, the Abomination, on the streets of New York City. This is action storycraft at its most elegant, yet an all-too-rare thing in the age of big-budget excess.

Most vitally, The Incredible Hulk summons exactly the right sensation of seat-gripping tension with its action. It offers a richly satisfying blend of sheer free-fall terror and sympathetic fear for Banner’s fate, a gestalt thrill that fuses two distinct anxieties: A) “Can the Hulk be stopped?”; and B) “I hope the Hulk doesn’t get hurt.” By nailing this tricky balance, Leterrier lets us slip into Banner’s psychological space, and that of his erstwhile girlfriend, Betsy (Liv Tyler). Will the film’s action be as stirring on a second viewing? Hard to say.

In most other respects, The Incredible Hulk is passable summer entertainment. The script is mostly content to stick to an overly grave B-movie tone, and none of the performers—alas, even Norton—bring much to the table. If the action sequences are marvelously unpredictable, everything in between suffers from the usual blockbuster triteness. To be fair, the film never veers into stupidity, or even (most of the time) boredom. Leterrier and the actors keep the material sufficiently smart and snappy to engage. There’s just not much that’s surprising. Roth gets the best scenery-chewing—Why do none of the other characters seem to sense that he is a sociopath?—and Tim Blake Nelson has an amusing but oddly dissonant role as a scientist who aids Banner.

For Marvel-philes, the filmmakers sneak in plenty of tempting tidbits. There are references to the research program that created Captain America, and a possible origin for Hulk’s hyper-intelligent nemesis, The Leader. The film also provides a connection to Iron Man that comes as a pleasant surprise, another thread pulling the cinematic Marvelverse together.

The challenge of The Incredible Hulk is that it may be too bleak for some viewers. It’s not especially bloody or gruesome, and hardly the most existential superhero film to come along in recent years. Yet what Leterrier and screenwriter Zak Penn deliver is a relatively thin story, a mere chapter in the life of a man struggling for control. There is little revelation or redemption to be had in The Incredible Hulk. Norton’s Banner, like Bixby’s, must keep hiding and keep moving. This film is just one stop on his long, never-ending flight.

Mongol

2007 // Russia - Germany - Kazakhstan // Sergei Bodrov // July 6, 2008 // Theatrical Print

C - Mongol is far too mediocre a film, given its ambitions. It purports to be "The Untold Story of the Genghis Khan's Rise to Power". Whether this tale of the man who would be Genghis—here still called Temudjin—was truly "untold" until now or just unfamiliar to Western audiences, I can't say. Regardless, it's clear that director Sergei Bodrov wants his film to be a grandiose period epic in the vein of Braveheart or Gladiator, with all the cheesy mythologizing that entails. Yet even in this, Mongol stumbles. The film's luscious look and generally warm, mature treatment of its characters can't conceal the incoherence or tedium of its story. Furthermore, Mongol delivers almost no fresh insight into one of history's Great Men, a nagging flaw in light of how forcefully the film trumpets its "untold" character.

In the opening scenes of Mongol, we are permitted a brief glimpse of an adult Temudjin (Tadanobu Asano) as a haggard prisoner, before we whipsaw back to the Khan's childhood. The young Temudjin (Odnyam Odsuren) and his father (Ba Sen) journey to meet with a rival clan, from which the boy is supposed to select his future bride and seal a sorely needed alliance. While under the hospitality of a weaker clan, however, Temudjin jumps the gun and chooses a local girl, Börtee (Bayertsetseg Erdenebat), who incidentally egged the boy into his hasty bit of defiance. This decision echoes throughout the rest of the film, but of more urgent concern is yet another clan's fatal poisoning of Temudjin's father. A kinsmen uses the opportunity to seize power and Temudjin's herds. Mongol tradition apparently forbids the traitor from slaying the boy outright, so he enslaves Temudjin and vows to execute him when he reaches adulthood.

This pretty much sets up the rest of the film, which is one, long, exhausting, disjointed succession of escapes, chases, imprisonments, skirmishes, battles, reunions, reversals, and so forth. I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, the whole enterprise is skillfully shot, and certainly entertaining in the moment. The film delivers the minimal requirements for an historical epic: melodrama, action, and period detail. The problem is that Mongol is entirely forgettable—not because it's a bad film, but because it doesn't have much interest in being memorable. Sure, the romantic storyline between Temudjin and the adult Börte (Khulan Chuluun) is bittersweet and touching, and the action sequences are suitably swift and savage. However, I have trouble recalling one genuinely outstanding moment in the film.

This seems at odds with Mongol's apparent aspirations for penetrating historic revelation. The banality of the film's genre furnishings might have been less disappointing if the filmmakers had given the audience something else to work with. I was hoping for some insight into the conqueror that Temudjin would one day become. No such luck. To be sure, Asano glares with unsettling calm, and he effectively portrays the Khan as a wolfish outcast with a clinging whiff of destiny. Indeed, all of Mongol's performers shine, narrowly evading the camp indulgences that usually bedevil the genre. Yet there's a sense of lost opportunity in the film's treatment of Temudjin. Through Mongol's lens, we learn of the man's cool individualism and his ambivalence about others' opinions. We witness his dogged loyalty to his pledged bride, and his often irrational pursuit of an idealized family life even as he gathers loyal horsemen for his horde. There are all sorts of contradictions at work in the portrayal, but Bodrov fumbles them, settling for ambiguity and mistaking it for complexity. Meanwhile, the film is always straining with awkward hindsight to meet up with the notorious Khan of history. The overall impression is: "Huh. That Genghis was one odd badass." It's not exactly Lawrence of Arabia.

I don't want to undersell the satisfaction of seeing a neatly executed Mongol epic. The film engages on its own (paper-thin) terms. Surprisingly, its most affecting sequences are also its quietest. Witnessing Temudjin's friendship with another warlord slowly sour and boil into violence is one of Mongol's chief pleasures, especially because its tragedy seems to rest solely on the incompatibility of the two men's ambitions. In its best moments, the film almost succeeds in painting Temudjin as an alien rebel, whose greatness was less a product of destiny than of his peculiar, unbowed personality. Sadly, the distractions of vaguely sketched motivations and generally confused storytelling scuttle Mongol's potential for greatness. The gorgeous steppe landscapes and somber throat singing on the film's soundtrack emerge as mere Mongolian trimmings on a fairly typical exercise in big-budget epic sameness.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

2008 // USA // Chris Bell // July 3, 2008 // Theatrical Print

B - Perhaps I wouldn't be so impressed with Chris Bell's documentary about steroid use in America if I hadn't been mistaken about what I was getting into. I expected something akin to a television magazine exposé ("Americans use steroids! Oh noes!"), albeit served up in a wry, punchy package. Instead, Bigger, Stronger, Faster* is a genuinely stunning feature documentary debut. Bell doesn't demonstrate a particularly cinematic sensibility, but he boasts an amazing ability to find the right tone and deftly juggle a deceptively complex controversy. Admittedly, his style owes something to the Moore-Spurlock school of gee-whiz credulity. He asks the occasional sharp question, but mostly nods along while athletes, doctors, advocates, and family members offer their expertise and pour their hearts out. However, his narration absolutely nails a young American male's strange blend of confusion and cynicism about steroids. Bell takes an empathic and deeply personal approach to the material, looking at it from every angle, never satisfied with conventional wisdom or easy answers. For this reason, BSF* is profoundly satisfying. If Bell can maintain his balance of pithy insight and authentic middle class hope, he might someday unseat Michael Moore as America's marquee Big Issues documentarian.

Surfwise

2007 // USA // Doug Pray // June 30, 2008 // Theatrical Print

B - The story of the nomadic, surfing Pascowitz clan—"Doc" Dorian, Juliette, and their nine children traversing the continent in a cramped RV—is essentially the tale of the Pascowitz patriarch's fierce philosophy of Right Living, and how he imposes his worldview on the family with an tanned fist. It's fortunate, then, that Doug Pray's new documentary about the Pascowitzes, Surfwise, employs an evenhanded approach. The film features both wondering admiration for Doc's uncompromising moral vision and a keen skepticism for its effects on his own family. Pray gleans much of latter from interviews with the adult children, who are at once nostalgic, bemused, and deeply pained about their years in the camper. Using rapid, sure-footed editing, the filmmakers demonstrate good instincts for the material, and a sharp awareness for the late twentieth-century surfing vibe. On occasion, Pray breaks with this style to daring effect, such as when he holds his gaze on son David singing the bitter metal ballad he composed for his father; the scene evolves from touching to embarrassing and back to touching. Although it toys with contrived sentimentalism in its final scenes, Surfwise sketches a compelling portrait of an abnormal-yet-normal American family with poise and passion.

Kung Fu Panda

2008 // USA // Mark Osborne and John Stevenson // June 12, 2008 // IMAX Theatrical Print

B - It's tempting to damn Kung Fu Panda with faint praise. In some respects, it's a fairly middling film in the pantheon of animated children's fare. However, Panda is blissfully uncorrupted by the pervasive sins of recent kiddie cinema. It's a completely linear and uncluttered approach to the genre that even adults—parents and non-parents alike—will likely appreciate. In place of pandering, pop culture references, and potty humor, Panda focuses its energy on sparkling visual design, engaging characters, and, since this is twenty-first century computer animation, eye popping action set pieces. I can forgive its creaky, shallow message, and even its shrink-wrapped Daoist-Buddhist pearls of wisdom, for one simple, delightful reason: It's an utterly pleasurable bit of digital escapism, executed with martial arts precision. Oh, and it's about a panda who knows kung fu. And he wears little shorts. If I have to explain why this is appealing, there's no hope for you.

Po (Jack Black) is a rotund panda—Are there svelte pandas?—who works in his father's noodle shop in a rural Chinese village. Po's dad, Ping (the great James Hong,) is singularly devoted to his gastronomic trade. Ping is also a goose, which raises a zoological problem that the film acknowledges but never resolves. ("Sometimes I think I'm not your son," Po mumbles.) Po is less than enthusiastic about a future in noodle-peddling. His obsession is kung fu, and in particular the exploits of the Furious Five, a band of fearless warriors who dwell in the Jade Temple high above the village. He even has their action figures! Po is, in short, a fanboy.

The masters of the Jade Temple are a venerable tortoise named Oogway (Randall Duk Kim), and his old student, Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), who now trains the Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Mantis (Seth Rogan), Crane (David Cross), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Monkey (Jackie Chan). Oogway informs Shifu that the time has come to choose the Dragon Warrior, a legendary kung fu master who will defend the village and temple. Oogway has had a vision that the evil kung fu warrior Tai Lung (Ian McShane) will escape from prison, and the Dragon Warrior must be granted the power of the temple's Dragon Scroll to defeat him. Tai Lung is, naturally, Shifu's adopted son and former student, and upon hearing the prophecy the alarmed master sends a messenger to request a doubling of the prison guards.

It's fairly obvious where this is going, even if you haven't seen the trailers. During a ceremony, Oogway accidentally selects Po, rather than one of the Furious Five, as the Dragon Warrior. Of course, Oogway keeps reminding Shifu, there are no accidents. Meanwhile, despite Shifu's warning, Tai Lung escapes from prison in one of the film's most breathless, marvelous sequences, and then sets off for the Jade Temple. For better or worse, Po is the village's champion, and Shifu must find a way to forge him into a warrior.

Kung Fu Panda owes as much to sports films as to martial arts films. Certainly, it boasts the trappings of the martial arts action genre: an unlikely hero, the intervention of fate, a focus on the master and student relationship, and plenty of pseudo-profound Eastern platitudes. However, Panda is most essentially a straightforward sports underdog tale, and as such it also hits the familiar features of that archetype. Muttering skeptics? Check. Training montage? Check. Personal crisis followed by revelation? Check. Final showdown where the hero seems outmatched? Check. It might be a tired pattern, but Panda does it very well, and without any pointless subplots or digressions. Where it deviates (refreshingly) from the formula is in the ambiguity or outright reluctance of its protagonist. Po is obsessed with kung fu, and he might fantasize about standing alongside the Furious Five, but he knows that he's no warrior. His main—ahem—ssets are his ample belly and posterior. Destiny might have chosen him, but Po knows it has to be a mistake. Right? (Shades of The Matrix there.)

From an aesthetic perspective, Kung Fu Panda represents a leap forward for Dreamworks Animation. The most memorable aspect of the Shrek films was their acid wit and sly fairy tale send-ups. Excepting Donkey's expressive mug, the characters and settings were mostly unimaginative and the animation lifeless. In contrast, Panda is a beautiful and vibrant film. The mythical China setting is gorgeously realized, down to the steaming dumplings and pink peach tree bottoms. The character designs are distinctive and detailed. Anthropomorphic animals might be a staple of animated children's films, but Panda at least ups the ante. It shows us not just animals that walk and talk, but animals that fight, in full-throttle wuxia glory. Dreamworks asks an intriguing question: How would a tiger, a preying mantis, or (yes) a panda fight if they were martial arts masters? As an answer, they serve up a genuine animation achievement: one thrilling, fantastical inter-species fight sequence after another. (Slow motion CGI has rarely looked so good.)

Panda's performances fulfill that irritating, interminable Hollywood animation requirement of being vaguely recognizable without being colorful. The success of the film's characters lies much more with the artists than the actors. That said, the performances are serviceable and not distracting, and that's about the bare minimum I ask of an animated film. Jack Black in particular tones down his sweaty, manic edge to good effect. Normally, Black has a reckless, goofy comic style that misfires (King Kong) as often as it succeeds (School of Rock). Here, he just delivers Po with the requisite pathos and gentle humor, and without shtick. In a wonderful, traditionally animated introductory sequence, he even has a vehicle to show off the triumphant, adolescent muscles that he flexes in Tenacious D.

The Kung Fu Panda message—"Ya just gotta believe!"—is uncomplicated stuff, earnestly presented but ultimately not much deeper than a kiddie pool. Occasionally, the film strains towards weightier matters, often couched as fortune cookie wisdom from the mouths of Oogway or Shifu. However, the filmmakers misplay their hand a bit; the film's genuinely sharp instincts for humor and thrills make these "deep" moments seem perfunctory. In contrast, the film's subtler thematic elements and mythical nods are also some of its nicest touches. An elderly character vanishes in a cloud of flower petals and sparkling motes, not dying but ascending like a Bodhisattva or Immortal. Shifu's messenger is unintentionally responsible for Tai Lung's prison break, which begs the question: Would the evil warrior have escaped at all if Shifu hadn't been so intent on stopping him? (More Matrix echoes...)

There's a bit of mean-spiritedness in the film's treatment of Po's girth. When Shifu discovers that the secret to training his corpulent student is through his stomach, it's played for laughs (and cleverly so, thanks to the animators). Yet I can't help but wonder whether treating an obese character as a freak who never "legitimately" learns kung fu—and can always safely be mocked, even after his victories—is the best message for younger viewers.

That aside, Kung Fu Panda is the best children's film I've seen this year, and worthy of an adult's time as well. More than a treat for the eyes, it's exciting and endearing without falling into the crass cultural sewers where most kiddie fare wallows. In the age of Alvin and the Chipmunks, that counts for a lot.