*Retro Review: Nights in Rodanthe

Paul Flanner (Richard Gere) is a surgeon whose life starts to unravel when his wife divorces him and a patient of his has an unexpected fatal reaction to anesthetics and dies on the operating table, while being operated on by Paul. The deceased's husband, Mr. Torrelson (Scott Glenn), files a lawsuit against Paul -- blaming him for his wife's death -- and later writes a letter to Paul, inviting him to his home, so that he may explain what actually took place during the operation and hopefully assuage his pain and give him closure. Paul flies out to the town where the Torrelsons live and while there he stays at a beachside inn that looks like something out of a fairytale. It is here that he meets the equally troubled Adrienne Willis (Diane Lane), who's temporarily in charge of the inn, while its owner, a very close friend, is out of town on vacation. It's just Paul and Adrienne at the inn, since business has markedly decreased, and it is during their stay together that they come to learn each other's problems.

Paul learns that Adrienne is a recent divorcee, that her former husband would like to give it another try and that her children aren't coping with the separation. Adrienne learns that Paul is divorced, is largely absent from his son's life and is tormented by having a patient die under his charge. So Paul and Adrienne, alone in a picturesque house, in a picturesque locale, gradually warm to each other and (spoilers ahead) eventually fall in love, thereby giving each other a new lease on life. And therein lies the story.

There was nothing new about this take on romance, other than that one of the characters dies -- which isn't new per se, just rare. The acting was fair, but Lane's is the only performance that engaged me. When Adrienne tells her daughter of her extraordinary relationship with the recently deceased Paul, Lane's performance is so moving that I actually shed a tear. Gere was adequate. Glenn's salt-and-pepper mop of hair, angular features and steely gaze, lent some weight to his sombre performance. I omitted noting the young and talented actress's name, whose turn as Adrienne's daughter was fairly impressive.

In one scene, Adrienne mentions how her son is always in his own world and how his solitude will produce great things one day. I liked this line because it sounded somewhat like a description of myself. Paul and Adrienne had beautiful costumes -- I wished I had a wardrobe like Paul's and Adrienne's exquisite blues and rustics suited her and blended well with the surroundings. The beautiful score melded well with the picturesque locale and the widescreen photography effectively captured its natural beauty.

All in all, a very paint-by-number film that is, despite this, somewhat appealing. I suppose it deserves at least one viewing, but if one chooses to pass, they won't have missed much, if anything.


*Written about 2 years ago and left to languish in a dusty drawer, until now.

*Retro Review: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Trevor (Brendan Fraser) is a passionate scientist whose funding has been cut, following his unsuccessful research on volcanic and seismic activity. While in Iceland, doggedly following a new lead in his now jeopardised research, with his gadget-loving nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) in tow, Trevor, with the help of a gutsy Icelandic mountain guide, Hanna (Anita Briem), makes his way into the mountains to locate an electronic device that records seismic activity. After locating the device, Trevor, Sean and Hanna find shelter from a storm (no pun intended), in a mountain cave. While there, the ground beneath them caves in and they fall down a seemingly bottomless hole that leads to the center of the earth.

This film, which is supposed to be full of adventure, wonder and excitement, unfortunately, is not. Being a 3-D film meant to be viewed with 3-D goggles, perhaps I found it unexciting because I watched the 2-D version. Or maybe my mind is saturated with computer-generated imagery, because I found nothing revolutionary or appealing about the visual effects and animation. I felt like I'd seen it all too many times before. The side stories of a brother losing a brother, an uncle bonding with his nephew and a son losing a father, did not offer anything to sink one's teeth into, because they were poorly told. Fraser's poor acting was especially disappointing, considering that he was the lead. Despite this, I give him credit for making bearable a film without a story, because if it hadn't been for his efforts, almost ineffective though they were, this would have turned out much, much worse.

I found it unfortunate for Andrew Lockington's fine score to be wasted on such banal material. There were moments when this film seemed to be picking up, moments that were almost exciting -- almost -- but they were few and far between, such that they didn't count for anything. I wouldn't recommend this film, not even moderately.


*Written about 2 years ago and left to languish in a dusty drawer, until now.

Review: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) wants to avenge the death of her lover, James, at the hands of Edward (Robert Pattinson), by killing Edward's one and only love, Bella (Kristen Stewart). To achieve this, Victoria raises an army of vampires, a savage pack of voracious new bloods. To defeat said army, the Cullens must form an uneasy alliance with Jacob (Taylor Lautner) and the rest of the werewolves.

Overall, the acting was good, but for me, Pattinson's performance took the cake. Being uninitiated, I didn't expect much from Mr. Pattinson, but the man can actually act. He imbues the character of Edward with a great deal of nuance, appeal and likability. One of the scenes that impressed me, is one where Edward, Jacob and Bella are in a tent very high up in the mountains. Bella is about to freeze from the sub-zero temperatures, Edward, being "cold-blooded", can't hold her to keep her warm, so he grudgingly lets the warm-blooded Jacob get under the flimsy covers with the shivering Bella, to keep her warm. With Bella asleep or seemingly asleep, Jacob and Edward get to talking, it is in this conversation about how if certain things were different, perhaps they'd like each other, that the bucket-loads of appeal and nuance that Pattinson gives Edward, are most apparent. Pattinson's performance in this scene is pure magic. To me, anyway.

Claude Debussy's classic piano solo, "Claire de Lune", was used quite nicely in the scene where Bella enters the Cullens' posh abode to spend the night with Edward. It added appeal to the scene. "Claire de Lune" was also used quite nicely in the brilliant "Man on Fire". It's such a beautifully emotional piece of music. Also in this scene, Sia's immensely beautiful song, "My Love", was used to great effect when Edward and Bella are kissing and Edward being the gentleman that he is, politely refuses to go further. Sia's song enhances the beauty and importance of Edward and Bella's relationship. And then there's the score by accomplished composer Howard Shore. Mr. Shore provided the jingles quite effectively. I couldn't help noticing the strong similarities between the score for "Eclipse" and that for "The Lord of the Rings Trilogy", which was also scored by Shore. Did he merely recycle the themes he created for LOTR? I don't know.

The visual effects and animation were well done. There's a scene where Bella is standing next to Jacob in wolf form and there's contact between her and the wolf's fur -- nice. This image of Bella standing next to the abnormally huge wolf, reminded me of Hayao Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke". An ecological tale, where there are wolves just as large, on whose backs the titular character rides, albeit, not at the same time. And then there were the fights, the gore was tempered, but there was enough to give the fights impact. The editing, choreography and camerawork were impressive -- you could actually see what was taking place.

The dialogue was fairly interesting, Jacob said something interesting about "imprinting" -- something to do with falling deeply in love. I'd quote him if I could remember what he said.

If this film has a fault, it's that it gets a bit monotonous and repetitive to see Jacob and Edward jostling for first place in Bella's heart -- just a tad drawn-out, nothing major. Watching Edward and Jacob fighting over Bella, I couldn't help asking myself, "Do people agonize this much over love in real life?"

"The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" is definitely worth a look.

Review: Who Am I?

Who Am I (Jackie Chan) is a Chinese special forces soldier who is sent as part of a team of several members of different nationalities, to South Africa (I think) to steal a meteorite fragment (I think), that is so powerful an energy source that it can provide a whole city and then some, with electricity (I think). After the mission is completed, Who Am I and his team are betrayed by their superiors and left to plummet to their death in a pilotless helicopter (I think) that crash lands, killing all onboard, except Who Am I. Who Am I awakens an amnesiac in an ancient-Africa-style Southern African desert village whose inhabitants wear headdresses and loincloths. Thus begins his language-barrier-gag-peppered journey to recover his memory, the fragment and avenge the death of his teammates. And I must add, the language-barrier gags will have you rolling in the aisles.

This film has beautiful scenery and photography. There's a scene where Who Am I, having left the village and dressed like some kind of Sino-African desert tribesman, with a spear no less, chances upon a brother-and-sister team of rally drivers whose vehicle has broken down in a Dakar Rally-style race through the desert, and assists the lady whose brother has been incapacitated by a nasty snakebite, to fix their vehicle and get back in the race, albeit with him (Who Am I) now in the driver's seat. What ensues when Who Am I sets the rally vehicle in motion -- the lady navigating and the brother convalescing in the back -- is a scene with driving, scenery and aerial photography so brilliant, it would make participants of the real Dakar Rally, quite green with envy.

Also in this scene, it's quite funny how when Who Am I arrives at the stationary vehicle -- with his unusual appearance and spear remember -- sees the man lying on the ground semi-conscious, with the snakebite visible on his arm, finds antidote in the form of some green herb which he puts in his mouth and proceeds to chew in order to place on the bite -- whilst kneeling beside the man -- is then mistaken for a man-eating savage that's chewing the man's arm, by the lady driver standing on elevated ground in the distance, flailing her arms for help from vehicles whizzing by. The humor in this scene is absolutely fantastic -- a fine comedy of misunderstanding -- as the lady confronts Who Am I and threatens the seemingly savage man with Karate and tries to fool him into thinking that a battery-run torch is a fire-breathing weapon -- a gun. Who Am I, rendered temporarily speechless by the herb that he chewed, has difficulty explaining himself.

Also in this scene, having convinced the lady that he means them no harm, Who Am I displays some impressive ingenuity, by improvising an IV drip, for the snakebitten man, from coconuts, rubber tubing and pieces of metal sharpened on the spinning, wheelless axle of a car. I'm sure the screenwriter(s) was impressed by his own cleverness. Another scene with impressive ingenuity, is when Who Am I makes his way down the side of a very tall building by wrapping tough cable around himself, jumping off the edge and unspooling like a yo-yo or cable on a winch, until he gently hits the ground far below -- pure genius. Jackie Chan is a stunts whiz.

There's a scene where Who Am I is still at the village and everyone is gathered for some ceremony, and there's dancing. The way the villagers were dancing, didn't seem to me like bona fide traditional African dance. It was just too contemporary, considering this was a traditional African village, it looked like something out of a Broadway musical or the stage version of "The Lion King". I know next to nothing about traditional Southern African dance, but this was too -- for lack of a better word -- orderly. It was more like contemporary South African gumboot dancing -- without the gumboots. Not that this has a direct link, but it reminded me of something that Benin-born model-turned-actor Djimon Hounsou, said about Africans having to portray themselves as parodies of themselves in mainstream American cinema.

It was fun to see the juxtaposing of disparate cultures: Jackie Chan, whom we all know is Chinese, playing an English-speaker without a clue as to what the, I think, Zulu-speaking villagers were saying and vice versa. Suffering from memory loss, Jackie Chan's character asks the villagers who he is and they mistake the question for his name and from then on he is known as "Who Am I" -- nice. It was interesting to see Jackie Chan in Africa, speaking a few lines of Zulu. I got the impression that he's an open-minded filmmaker who's willing to explore and felt a great deal of respect and admiration for him, as a filmmaker.

The elaborate fights and stunts were top-notch, as one would expect from a Jackie Chan film, but I often find myself wishing that Mr. Chan would tone down the acrobatics and goofiness and be a real badass -- infuse the fights with gore and death. And then it hits me -- that way he'd just be like everybody else.

Review: Knight and Day

Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) is a highly skilled spy who gets framed for the theft of the "zef" -- a perpetual energy source that can power a whole city and is about the size of 3-volt battery -- and kidnapping its inventor, Simon Feck (Paul Dano), who's barely out of high school, by fellow agent Fitzgerald (Peter Sarsgaard) and his cronies.

While on the run from Fitzgerald, Miller unintentionally recruits hapless ingenue, June Havens (Cameron Diaz), who grudgingly enters Miller's cloak-and-dagger world and eventually aids him in his quest to clear his name and protect Simon and his invention.

Having watched the highly enjoyable "Kate and Leopold", one of several films directed by James Mangold, I went into his latest offering (at time of writing) with high expectations which, unfortunately, were not met. Not by a long shot. I found "Knight and Day" to be unnecessarily long. I think, if the copious amounts of time spent on fleshing out the two main characters -- Miller and June's relationship and Miller's backstory -- had been enjoyable and genuinely enhanced the story, perhaps I wouldn't have noticed the long running time. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for well-developed characters as long as the journey is enjoyable, moving and/or thought-provoking, and relevant. But here I felt most of the scenarios that Miller and June found themselves in and most of their interactions, were just meant to generate cheap laughs and no more. I'd give examples if I remembered any. There was a fair bit of chemistry between Cruise and Diaz and they're performances were adequate, but I feel Miller and June could have been so much better.

Unconventional beauty, Viola Davis, who played an FBI director here, kind of stood out, although her role was all too similar to the one she played in "Law Abiding Citizen" -- an iron maiden yelling at subordinates to get their act together and deal with the problem. Paul Dano was just a nervous mass being led this way and that, grossly underused I think.

I found the visual effects somewhat dodgy. An example is when Miller and June are fleeing a herd of stampeding bulls on a snazzy motorcycle, on the cobbled streets of Spain -- when the camera cuts to a close-up of Miller and June on the bike, one can too easily tell that they're not on location and that the background is fake. And when a vehicle is overturned by the stampeding bulls, it's quite clear that the bulls aren't real, that they're computer-generated. I'm not sure whether the overturned car was CG too. The stampede sequence could have been far more convincing -- a wasted opportunity.

The action sequences, whether it be a gunfight or car-chase or whatever, were all noise and no "art" -- there was no intricacy and ingenuity of staging of say, the action in a John Woo film (I'm not saying that everyone has to be like Mr. Woo, but it's nice to see a bit of ambition and imagination), and no real excitement.

It is interesting to note that "M:I:II", which starred Tom Cruise and other notables, has scenes set in Spain, during a festival where the Saints are commemorated -- by burning effigies of them no less -- and here in "Knight and Day", Cruise finds himself in Spain again, during another prominent festival, this time of a bovine nature.

Film composer, John Powell, whose best composition to date, in my opinion, is the music in John Woo's 1997 baroque action opus "FACE/OFF", created a snazzy score for this film. It's ironically and comically relaxed and soft, in action sequences that would normally be punctuated by tense, pounding percussion. And in the aforementioned stampede, the score quite appealingly takes on the flavor of Spain -- it has a beautiful flamenco-esque feel.

"Knight and Day" is very flawed, but it has its good points too; like the score, Miss Diaz in a sexy red bikini, some of the dialogue, Cruise doing some of his own stunts; particularly his driving, the postcard-worthy imagery of the ending etc. But these are, unfortunately, overshadowed by the former, for me anyway.

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