COMING SOON...

Oh my Mamma Mia!!!

The movie musical is a rather tricky thing. Cinema tends to deal with a certain level of realism. Many people will never be able to accept characters breaking into song, especially when they’re dealing with serious matters. Mamma Mia! succeeds because it doesn’t deal with serious matters, letting the sheer campy joy of the songs do most of work. 

Twenty year-old Sophie is about to get married, and she’s determined to have her father give her away at the wedding. The problem is that she doesn’t know who her father is. After reading her mother’s diary, she narrows it down to three suspects. She invites all three of them to the wedding without telling her mother, believing that she’ll know her father when she sees him. But when all three show up, and Sophie can’t tell, the wedding becomes a little more than all of them can handle. 

The plot, if we’re being generous about it, is really thin. The original musical wasn’t really a narrative force to begin with, but the film trims it down even further, just barely maintaining enough story elements to keep some semblance of plot. But let’s be honest: this is a story based on the music of ABBA, and for the most part, it works. It works because the film is so adamantly cheesy, so free from pretension that you just start letting things go. You start to forgive the film for things like a lack of character development, broad, easy humor, and flat dialogue, because it never pretends to be anything more than it is. It doesn’t quibble with themes, doesn’t pretend that it’s giving us a timeless love story, or a grand meditation on life. It is unabashedly frivolous and lacking in gravity. At its core, it’s just people singing ABBA songs, and that’s okay. 

Unless you don’t like ABBA, of course. Then it’s not okay at all. The film’s not going to change your mind about them. On the filmmaking side of things, there isn’t really much to say. Director Phyllida Lloyd clearly doesn’t have much experience with film. Her scenes mostly play out like they were still on stage. Some pretty scenery perks up a couple of frames, but a lot of it is remarkably flat. Lloyd relies solely on the production design to keep her film visually interesting, and it isn’t really enough. She does make up for a lot of her filmmaking deficiencies by injecting the film with a ton of unbridled joy, and for some people, it would be easy enough to just get caught up in all of it. 

Is there really anything left to say about Meryl Streep? I will say that in this film, she attacks every song with enough gusto that she manages to make The Winner Takes It All work. Amanda Seyfried, who plays Sophie, is just stunning, and this movie might finally make her the star that she deserves to be. Pierce Brosnan may want to retire from acting and just spend the rest of his days singing Disco hits, because he looks like he’s having a lot of fun here. Colin Firth spends the movie being Colin Firth, which people seem to find charming. 

Mamma Mia! isn’t really great cinema, but it doesn’t need to be. A good bunch of movie musicals get caught up with trying to be epic love stories or having some sort of profound insight, and they fall flat because all the singing inevitably clashes with the gravity of what they’re trying to address, and you just can’t solve life’s mysteries by singing pop songs. Mamma Mia! seems terribly aware of this fact, and skips the inevitable dash of pretension in favor of the outright cheesy camp flavor that only ABBA can bring. The production, for all its flaws, succeeds in bringing a lot of unmitigated nostalgic joy to the screen. It’s probably not for everyone, but joy is hardly ever a bad thing.

Journey to the Wonders of the Earth...

Journey to the Center of the Earth as a normal, run-of-the-mill 2D picture, isn’t a particularly interesting one. The story is blindingly simple, the characters lack any depth, and the effects aren’t anything we haven’t seen before. But Journey to the Center of the Earth isn’t meant to be seen as a normal, run-of-the-mill 2D picture. When this film enters the third dimensions, things start to get interesting. 

The film is sort of an update to the Jules Verne classic sci-fi story. Trevor Anderson is a professor of volcanology. A little over ten years ago, his brother, Max, didn’t return from an expedition, under mysterious circumstances. Trevor, studying his brother’s notes, heads out to Iceland with Max’s thirteen year old son, Sean. There, they hook up with Hannah, a local mountain guide. They travel through the Icelandic mountains to retrieve some of Max’s research materials, but get caught in a cave-in along the way. As they try to find a way out of the cave, they inadvertently stumble into a deep chasm that takes them all the way to a hidden underground world at the center of the Earth. 

There isn’t much to the plot. It’s pretty clear that the filmmakers wrote this script by first thinking about the action sequences they wanted to produce, and then just kind of filling in the blanks. The characters aren’t really fleshed out all that well, despite only really having three of them to focus on. Aside from a pretty large plot hole, however, there’s nothing particularly offensive about how this film tells its tale. It’s dead simple, just enough to keep it from becoming a random sequence of vignettes. That may be just enough, because any more, and it might start getting in the way of the main attraction. 

If you don’t see this film in 3D, you’re missing out. It’s that simple. The third dimension defines this film, making it something more than your generic family adventure film. It becomes your connection to the film. The characters and the story are a little too simple to really grab you, but the 3D makes the film experience immersive. It’s a gimmick, all right, but it’s a terribly fun gimmick, one that has you dodging in your seat and grabbing at things that aren’t there. Kids will certainly love it. 

The acting in the film isn’t exceptional, but it gets the job done. Brendan Fraser isn’t the world’s greatest actor, but he knows what he’s doing. He’s goofy and quippy and you can’t really hate him, no matter how cheesy he gets. Josh Hutcherson, who’s really become a staple of American family films, is always pretty good, and he’s no different in this film. He’s no Freddie Highmore, but that’s all right. Few kids are. Anita Breim has pretty decent chemistry with both of the boys, and that’s enough to get her through the film. 

It’s all about the 3D with this film. Without it, I would probably knock half a star (or maybe more) from the final rating, because it just isn’t as exciting or as fun an experience. I know it’s a lot more expensive, and having only one cinema showing it in that format is a problem, but really, 3D’s the way to go. Get a seat closer to the screen so you can just barely see the edges of the frame, and it’s even better. And maybe if enough people see it in 3D, it’ll convince other cinemas to invest in digital projection. And then we’ll all be better for it.

Onecock, that's Hancock!!!

Hancock could've really been something. The superhero genre, despite its popularity (and my own personal fondness for it), has not exactly been a venue for complex characters. The movies just go larger than life, painting good and evil in wide swaths that leave no room for quibbling. Hancock had a chance to turn everything around by deconstructing the superhero myth, demystifying it and bringing it closer to the real world. And for the first third of this film, it felt like we were going to get that. Unfortunately, there was an hour left in the picture, and old habits die hard. 

Hancock is the world's only superhero, but he's not a particularly nice guy. He's an alcoholic, and often, when he's saving the day, he causes more damage than he prevents. The people of L.A. hate him for this. Then one day, he saves the life of Ray Embrey, an idealistic P.R. man who spends his time trying to convince corporations to give aid to poor countries. Ray offers Hancock his services, believing that he can help Hancock become the superhero that people want. But as all this is happening, Hancock finds himself inexplicably drawn to Ray's wife, Mary, and an earth-shattering secret between them threatens to change everything in their lives. 

The first thirty minutes or so of this film are great. It's just a great set-up, and the Hancock character offers up tons of intriguing possibilities. He's a hero, but he's also a tremendous jerk. Unfettered with origin stories or distinct motivations, Hancock starts out as something more than your prototypical superhero. He didn't see his parents murdered, or have his dying uncle tell him "with great power comes great responsibility." He's just a guy trying to cope with being alone in the world, be it through superheroics or a bottle of bourbon. It's quite a character, and one that just had tons of potential. But then the first act ends, and the script takes a hard left turn, letting go of all its potential and dragging the film into typical blockbuster fare. There are still some good scenes, but it feels like the film just never takes it to the next step, content with mucking about with a muddled mythology that never really manages to make sense. 

Peter Berg's shaky cam style makes its way into a blockbuster, and it mostly works. It doesn't always make the action easy to follow, but it adds incredible urgency to his scenes. But Berg is really at his best when shooting simple things, his camera picking up little nuances that tell us so much. Berg likes to draw in close to his actors, letting them reveal their characters with things as small as an eye twitch. It doesn't all work, however. Berg isn't great at showing us the fantastic, and the style doesn't lend itself well to the typical big blockbuster musical score. It just doesn't mesh well, and a couple of scenes come off awkward because of it. 

The performances in the film are all really solid. Will Smith doesn't really get enough credit for his acting abilities. As Hancock, Smith is terribly compelling, a remarkably strong portrait of loneliness. Smith is at his best when he goes smaller, when he's not trying to chew up the scenery. He gets to do that here, and it's good stuff to watch. Jason Bateman plays the everyman really well, and he's the heart of this picture. Charlize Theron is always really good, and this film just continues the trend. 

There is word that there is an R-rated director's cut of Hancock floating around somewhere that is thirty minutes longer and features a good deal more complexity. That sounds like a version worth waiting for, and hopefully, something we'll eventually see on DVD. This current version of the film has its strengths, but in the end, it becomes little more than your average summer blockbuster, falling into the same old bad habits that these movies tend to have. Which isn't to say it's bad, really, since there's still lots of fun to be had watching an inebriated Will Smith breaking things. It just isn't everything it could be.