THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU
Richard's Review: 3 ½ stars
"The Adjustment Bureau," a new film starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt as star crossed lovers, is a hard film to categorize. It's a sci-fi movie, with some action, romance and even a bit of metaphysical drama about two people who run afoul of The Adjustment Bureau, a shadowy group of men whose job it is to tweak or adjust people's lives to make sure the overall plan for their life stays on track.
"The Adjustment Bureau's" story exists at the intersection of chance and fate, exploring the nature of destiny and the role that free will plays in people's lives. Key concepts imported from the Phillip K. Dick short story that forms the backbone of the movie include questions about humanity's ability to truly do the right thing for themselves and the planet and whether or not we have free will or simply the appearance of free will.
Heady stuff. But like the best sci-fi it's not simply about the ideas, it puts a human face on its theories. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are David and Elsie. He's a charismatic but impulsive politician whose frat boy behaviour just cost him an election. She's an up-and-coming ballerina with a wild side. It's love at first sight for both of them, but somehow, for years, they are kept apart. When they have a second chance meeting David is determined not to let her go, but the mysterious men from the Adjustment Bureau are just as determined to keep them apart. Will David be able to accept his predestined path and let her go, or will he try and create his own free will?
Much of the success of "The Adjustment Bureau" is due to its cast. Damon and Blunt have great chemistry and are completely believable as a couple. The sparks that fly off the pair as they meet for the second time on a New York City bus light up the screen and provide a very human edge to a weird but quite wonderful story. Without that the idea of a group of fedora-wearing men who control every aspect of humanity's interactions would feel overreaching, but put a human face-well, two faces as appealing as Damon and Blunt's-on it and you get a story that transcends genre.
Add to that some situational humor, some interesting supporting actors like John "Mad Men" Slattery, Anthony Mackie and Zod... er, I mean Terence Stamp in full-on metaphysical mode and you have a strange, but strangely appealing look at humanity.
RANGO
Richard's Review: 3 ½ stars
If Michelangelo Antonioni and Sergio Leone had a love child and that love child directed a movie the result might be something like "Rango," the new animated not-only-for-kids movie starring the voice of Johnny Depp.
Depp plays a theatrical chameleon with a big imagination and a host of imaginary friends who finds himself stranded in the desert. Following his shadow he lands in the town of Dirt, a miniature town inhabited by small creatures that look like they just crawled out of a John Ford movie. The town is short of water, in fact, it's so dry cactus die of thirst. Creating the persona of Rango, a Wild West gunslinger, the lizard hero becomes sheriff and tries to get to the bottom of the water problem.
It's possible that "Rango" is a movie that only the money-making team of Depp and "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski could get made. It's a big budget animated film that must have cost a fortune, but instead of playing it safe they have turned in a surreal family film complete with a cameo from gonzo journalist (and Depp mentor) Hunter S. Thompson. It may be a new kind of kid's flick -- existential comedy for kids.
Like many heroes before him Rango grapples with the big questions -- Who am I? What is my destiny? -- as he convinces the townsfolk to put their trust in him and "tango with the Rango." Not sure if the young ones will get it, or if they'll care about the story, which has more than a whiff of "Chinatown" about it but the animation by George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic -- it's their first fully animated movie in 35 years -- will definitely capture their eye.
The movie truly looks fantastic -- who knew lizards could have such expressive eyes -- but takes a little too long to get to the good stuff. A self indulgent -- and bizarre -- intro gets things off to a slow start but soon the film finds its own unique rhythm, revealing its own bizarre charms.
BEASTLY
Richard's Review: 2 stars
"Beauty and the Beast" has been adapted many times. There's the famous Disney animated account, a Viking version and even a werewolf retelling but the new Vanessa Hudgens film, "Beastly," places the story of not judging a book by its cover where it belongs, in the most judgmental place on earth—high school.
Based on Alex Flinn's 2007 teen romance novel of the same name, "Beastly" stars Brit heartthrob Alex Pettyfer as Kyle Kingson, a wealthy high school senior with a nasty streak. When he disses a teen witch (billionaire fashionista Mary Kate Olsen) at a school function she casts a spell on him that makes him "as aggressively unattractive on the outside as he is on the inside." Transformed into a half-human, half-"Enemy Mine" looking creature with Mike Tyson-esque facial tattoos, beastly Kyle is given one year to find his beauty, a true love, or he will look that way forever. Enter Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens), a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who might be able to help him break the spell.
The early 2000s may go down as the heyday of the human – supernatural teen romance movie. Vampires, werewolves, aliens and, well, whatever Kyle is, as the otherworldly Casanovas in movies like "Twilight," "I Am Number Four," and now "Beastly," are perfect analogies for the way that many disaffected teens feel in high school, but honestly, what happened to girls who fell for the school's quarterback? Catching a ball isn't angsty enough anymore I guess.
"Beastly," however, has a corner on the teen angst that makes up much of young adult entertainment these days. In one scene Kyle deactivates a social networking site with the words, "I am no more." It isn't until he takes guidance from a flamboyant tutor (Neil Patrick Harris) who leaves the readin', writin' and ‘rithmatic to the eggheads and focuses on teaching his student about being a decent human being that Kyle begins to understand that life "isn't about how others see you, it's about how you see yourself."
Good messages in an uneven movie that has some very effective moments early on but gets more ridiculous as the credits approach.
Hudgens is a likeable leading lady and Neil Patrick Harris tries to insert some spark into the proceedings, but the Beast's new tribal make-up is rather silly and his transformation from Alex Pettyfer to Alex Prettyfer isn't a big enough payoff to have any real emotional impact.
