Time Travel Gets Thrown for a Loop

 

Looper is a film unlike any other I have seen in quite some time.  Written and directed by Rian Johnson, it’s a highly original science-fiction thriller that makes a human connection to its audience.  

The year is 2044 and Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) makes his living as a “looper.”  Enemies of the crime syndicate to which he is under contract are sent via time travel from the future and arrive before him.  His task is to assassinate them, collect his payment in the form of silver bars strapped to the body, and dispose of the remains, thus eliminating all evidence of their existence.  Joe normally kills without question, but things get muddled when his future self (Bruce Willis) appears as his next victim, and he finds himself unable to pull the trigger.

Sci-fi films often have a certain inaccessibility because they are too far-removed from reality.  Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) features bioengineered humans, flying cars, and off-Earth colonies, even though it takes place only thirty-seven years into the future.  As splendid and visually-stunning as such films are, we can’t help but feel somewhat detached from the characters, who inhabit worlds that have vast differences with our own daily experiences.

Looper overcomes this problem by making its future rather similar to the present-day.  Whereas movies like Blade Runner assume an explosion of scientific advancement over a relatively short timespan, Johnson’s film treats the process as a more natural evolution.  There are clear progressions, but there’s nothing that seems like too far a leap from what we have today.  Instead of becoming preoccupied with dazzling technological wizardry, we are more wired-in to the human stories that are the movie’s focus.   

Of course there is the development of the time machine (invented in 2074), but while it may give rise to the events that unfold, beyond that it doesn’t play a very central role in the film.  There is no pontification about how the process works, leaving more room for the story itself.  “I don’t want to talk about time travel,” Joe is told by his older counterpart, “because if we start talking about it then we’re going to be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws.”

The inner-workings and limitations of time machines themselves are usually an important part of the plot of time travel films.  The  DeLorean DMC-12 of the Back to the Future trilogy (Robert Zemeckis, 1985, 1989, 1990) needs to reach a speed of 88 mph before it will work.  Looper breaks with such conventions by stripping down the element of time travel to the bare minimum: It’s been invented, criminals use it, don’t worry about how it works.  The technology is used as a catalyst to explore moral and ethical quandaries.

And there are plenty of those to go around.  Early on, Young Joe sells out a friend and fellow looper who has gone rogue in order to keep his stash of silver.  His mentality of self-preservation at all costs is turned upside-down when his older version becomes the target.  He knows he has to kill Old Joe, or else he will be hunted down by his boss’ henchmen.  

But Old Joe has a much harder dual responsibility.  The first is protecting his own life.  The second, infinitely more difficult burden, is to make sure that Young Joe doesn’t die, which would lead to Old Joe vanishing from existence.  Both find themselves caught in impossible situations.

Making it believable that two actors were the same man thirty years apart was key.  Looper could have very easily used the time-tested method of split-screen photography, having a single performer play both roles.  But it would have come off as a distracting contrivance.  Instead of falling back on this, the film relies on impeccable casting and makeup.  Willis is just shy of twenty-six years older than his co-star, a gap that is roughly the same as that of their characters.  The two have similar facial features, which are enhanced by prosthetics worn by Gordon-Levitt.

As Young Joe, Gordon-Levitt is the hotshot blazing through life in the fast lane.  A loner who puts himself in front of all others, he never cares about the consequences of his actions.  Willis plays Old Joe as a man that has become tired of these fly-by-night habits and whose only desire is to live out the remainder of his life in peace.  Ideologically the two are worlds apart, and yet they are one and the same.  Their differences show that a man can and will truly change over the course of his lifetime.

Looper does a whole lot more with its $30 million budget than most other films have accomplished with quadruple the funding.  It’s a brilliantly refreshing departure from the predictable action and sci-fi vehicles that have seemed to become the norm as of late. 

"Taken 2" Does What it Does Best

If someone were to tell me five years ago that Liam Neeson would be an action hero, I never would have believed it.  I’d always held him in high regard as an exceptional actor who brought a unique presence to his roles.  From his Oscar-nominated turn as the title character in Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1994), to the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999), he had also proved himself to be incredibly versatile.  Even so, it was hard to imagine him as an action star.

But in 2008, I was gladly proven wrong.  That’s when he starred in Taken (Pierre Morel) as Brian Mills, an ex-CIA operative who must single-handedly rescue his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) when she is kidnapped by Albanian sex-traffickers in Paris.  The gritty, hyperkinetic thriller was a breakout hit, adding a new facet to Neeson’s already impressive resume.  Over the next few years he would have starring roles in The A-Team (Joe Carnahan, 2010), Unknown (Jaume Collett-Serra, 2011), and The Grey (Carnahan, 2011), cementing himself as one of the most bankable action superstars in cinema.

In Taken 2 (Oliver Megaton), Neeson returns to the role that redefined his career.  While vacationing in Istanbul, Brian and his family are thrown back into the waking nightmare when  Murad Krasniqi (Rade Serbedzija) – the father of a kidnapper whom Brian killed in the process of tracking Kim down – aims to get retribution by abducting the family, including Brian’s ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen).

The focus of the first film was about a man’s solitary quest to recover his daughter.  It was an allegory for the lengths that a parent will go to in order to protect their child.  The only drawback to this was that Kim was one-dimensional.  Her kidnapping was the catalyst for the action, but beyond this her character didn’t serve very much purpose.  We never really got to see how she reacted to the situation.  It’s all about how the abduction affected Brian, who became a singularly-driven killing machine to save her life.

Taken 2 could have very easily rehashed the plot of its predecessor, with Brian again springing into action as a one-man-show to recover his loved ones.  Thankfully the sequel takes a different approach, focusing on how a family deals with such a terrifying ordeal.

This is mainly accomplished by upgrading Kim to a full-blown supporting character, as opposed to her previous role as a prize that must be reclaimed.  When her parents are taken captive she makes the decision to take action, in the process evading the men sent to kidnap her.  With help from her father, she does things she never thought herself capable of.  Her increased volition is a welcome addition to the story.

There’s a bit less room for the hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners tactics that drove the first film.  A gritty visual style is retained, but what we get here is more large-scale action, including an exceptional car chase that is a vast improvement over that of its forerunner.  The brutal fight and torture scenes are still there, albeit in a diminished capacity.

The film’s rapid-fire editing may prove a bit too frenetic for some.  However, unlike lesser pictures whose quick cuts make certain scenes incomprehensible, the action here never suffers this problem.  It’s enough to give the movie a jolting punch, but not so much that it becomes an exercise in sensory bombardment.  

Like the first movie, Taken 2 understands what kind of film it is, never overreaching.  Its simplicity is its strong suit.  The plot isn’t muddled up by having Brian try to bring down the criminal organization behind the kidnappings.  He seeks to save his family, nothing more and nothing less.  This keeps the story tight and focused, which draws us into the sordid underworld that Brian and his family are forced into.  

We never do feel the same thrill as we did in the original.  It isn't a strictly formulaic exercise in futility, though it's far from the thinking man's action film.  In the end, we can be grateful that Taken 2 is a movie that delivers exactly what it promises.

You Look Smashing for Fifty, Mr. Bond: A Half-Century of 007

On October 5, 1962, Dr. No had its world premiere at the London Pavilion Theatre, marking the first big-screen appearance of James Bond.  The secret agent, codenamed 007, had been featured in a series of novels by Ian Fleming, an ex-British Naval Intelligence Officer who took the name of his protagonist from the author of a book on Caribbean birds.  The low-budget film was the first of twenty-three movies that would become the most popular cinematic franchise of all-time.

In celebration of the series' longevity, today has been dubbed "Global James Bond Day," with a series of events around the world commemorating the films' fiftieth anniversary.  The new single by Adele that will accompany the opening credits of Skyfall – the latest installment that will have its world premiere in London on October 23 – was released earlier today.  Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007 (Stevan Riley, 2012), a new documentary chronicling the franchise's history hit UK cinemas.  And tomorrow night James Bond himself, Daniel Craig will host Saturday Night Live in Manhattan. 

With a movie being released about every two to three years, 007 has been one of the most consistent presences in cinema, and also one of its most durable and relevant characters.  This success has come amidst a wide range of quality and difference in style across the franchise, which has run the gamut from superb, tightly-plotted thrillers to pandering, utterly embarrassing farces.  The official EON Productions movies can be separated into seven eras, each with their own distinguishable characteristics.

Of these, none have come close to the original three films, beginning with Dr. No (Terence Young, 1962), that make up the early Sean Connery era, which is unquestionably the golden age of Bond.  Their hand-to-hand action, dry humor, and comparatively small-scale plot-lines have allowed them to hold up incredibly well over the decades.  From Russia with Love (Young, 1963) transitions perfectly from one scene into the next, and features the series’ most intriguing espionage.  And then there is Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964), which has everything that one could ask for in a Bond film, and is the franchise’s best entry.  Connery is at the top of his game in this era; he is wholly convincing as a man who kills for a living and his Bond seems to get a sadistic pleasure out of doing so.

For the three films that followed in the late Connery era, Bond’s witty euphemisms and brutality remain to a certain degree.  However, these movies’ main preoccupation is spectacle.  Thunderball (Young, 1965) and You Only Live Twice (Lewis Gilbert, 1967) introduced more large-scale action, with plots centered around world domination.  The massive, technologically-advanced Ken Adam-designed volcanic lair of the latter film – which pushed Bond’s exploits into the realm of science-fiction – stands as the most impressive set piece of the franchise.  

But this era’s best film is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Peter R. Hunt, 1969), even though the subpar George Lazenby (who seems to function as a stand-in for Connery) takes over the role of 007.  A fantastic supporting cast, along with impressive alpine action sequences, makes up for Lazenby’s flaws and what results is one of the most compelling entries in the series.  Unfortunately, it would be the last Bond film that could truly stand on its own for quite some time.

A trio of Guy Hamilton-directed films would comprise the early Roger Moore era, which neglected the biting humor that had epitomized the series to that point in favor of a more campy, comedic feel.  The clearly-aged Sean Connery returns for one more go-around in the unexciting, blatant cash-grab that is Diamonds Are Forever (1971).  With his first appearance in the blaxploitation-themed Live and Let Die (1973), Moore brings a less brutal, more romantic feel to the character of Bond.  This initial outing would be his best, but regrettably it was directly followed by The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), whose trite humor ranks it among the worst films of the entire series.

The late Moore era would be rife with lowest-common-denominator humor, and rely far too heavily on the formula of global peril.  The first two entries, The Spy Who Loved Me (Gilbert, 1977) and Moonraker (Gilbert, 1979) are virtually the same movie.  In the former, a megalomaniac attempts to wipe out humanity in order to start a master race in an undersea colony; the latter features a similarly-inclined villain who desires to repopulate the planet from a space station.    

A toned-down, revenge focused story in For Your Eyes Only (John Glen, 1981) would provide momentary respite, but the series quickly reverted to its over-the-top corniness with Octopussy (Glen, 1983).   The low point of the franchise comes during the opening sequence of A View to a Kill (Glen, 1985), wherein the Beach Boys’ “California Girls” plays as Bond evades his attackers on a snowboard fashioned from a snowmobile rudder.  Like Connery before him, Moore – who at fifty-seven could pass for the grandfather of his female co-stars – had overstayed his welcome, and the Bond films became a stale and tired shell of their former glory.

EON Productions took a radical left turn with its move into the Timothy Dalton era.  The two films brought things back down to earth, featuring more scaled-back, personally-driven storylines and action that was more realistic.  The Living Daylights (Glen, 1987) was the freshest Bond film in nearly two decades, having no patience for the hokey gimmickry of the Moore eras.  Dalton was a far less suave, more cold-blooded James Bond than his predecessors, and in Licence to Kill (Glen, 1989) he explored a darker side of the character that hadn't yet been seen in the movies.

The six-year hiatus that followed was an uncertain time for Bond.  A series of legal disputes repeatedly delayed production on a new movie, leading Dalton to walk away from the role in 1994.  Albert R. Broccoli – who had co-produced all but one of the previous sixteen films – was in failing health.  But most important was the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, which led to murmurs that James Bond would be an outmoded and irrelevant character in the new geopolitical landscape.  A revival of the Bond films seemed like a long shot.

As it turned out, the fall of communism was the best thing that could have happened to 007.  With GoldenEye (Martin Campbell, 1995) the series was transitioned beautifully into a post-Cold War world, ushering in the Pierce Brosnan era.  The film’s high-stakes action and scathing, self-deprecating humor made it the finest installment in decades.  Though Tomorrow Never Dies (Roger Spottiswoode, 1997) features one of the series’ most impressive car chase scenes, neither it nor The World is Not Enough (Michael Apted, 1999) would live up to Brosnan’s first outing.

The Brosnan era concluded with Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori, 2002), a ridiculously over-the-top, CGI-laden debacle with characters who are merely cardboard cutouts in front of needlessly bloated action.  Brosnan– who is at once ruthless and romantic, combining the best qualities of the four actors that came before him – had played an exceptional Bond but his performances were ruined by EON’s obsession with continually upping the ante, making each film “bigger and better” than the last, which only led to mediocrity.  The franchise had lost its way, and it was time for a 180-degree turnaround.

It got just that with the current Daniel Craig era, which has been defined by its gritty action and focus on Bond’s personal demons and character flaws.  Craig, who was a highly controversial casting choice, silenced the critics in Casino Royale (Campbell, 2006), which reboots the franchise and follows Bond on his first mission as 007.  The second-best film in the series, it is not only a great Bond movie, but an excellent film in its own right, something the franchise hadn’t seen in decades.  

Craig – who returned in the revenge-themed Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster, 2008) – plays Bond as a broken man who uses violence, sex and alcohol as a shell to protect the highly vulnerable psyche that lies inside, and his portrayal is the closest to the “anonymous blunt instrument” that Fleming had imagined.  His run will continue later this autumn with Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012), which should benefit from the four-year layoff that resulted from co-distributor MGM’s financial troubles.

More time has always seemed to bode well for the franchise; GoldenEye and Casino Royale came after six and four-year gaps, respectively, and both were vast improvements over the films that had come directly before them.  As is tradition, Skyfall's plot is a closely-guarded secret, and only shreds of the story can be gleaned from trailers and promotional material.  Craig is set to star in two more films, which EON has said will return to a two-year production cycle.  It could be difficult to keep the quality up within a tighter timeframe, but the Craig era has yet to disappoint so it’s not something to worry about just yet.

Though not all of them have been cinematic masterpieces, the Bond films have been successful for half a century because of their chameleonic nature.  Their plots have always adapted to reflect the zeitgeist of their respective times, and the vastly different interpretations of James Bond by the six men who have portrayed him have  kept the series fresh.  Bond may step out of the limelight every now and again, but the franchise will continue in perpetuity, with new iterations of Bond facing the dangers of the future.  Amongst all the upheavals and uncertainty that the world may go through, one thing has been and will remain inevitable:

JAMES BOND WILL RETURN

Is There an Indy for Our Generation?

As we exited the theater where we had just seen the IMAX version of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, a special one-week run to promote yesterday's release of the complete Indiana Jones series on Blu-Ray, my friend Rohit posed an intriguing question.  “Does our generation have a movie like that?”  In the last decade, had there been a film that could match its explosive popularity?

My first instinct was to take a look at the numbers.  During its initial run in 1981, plus re-releases in the two subsequent years, Raiders earned over $242 million at the domestic box office, making it the 75th highest-grossing film of all time.  This seems anemic when compared to a contemporary hit like Marvel’s The Avengers (Joss Whedon), which raked in $207 million in its opening weekend alone en route to a total of over $621 million.

But raw dollars provide an inferior way to compare films that were released decades apart.  Ticket prices, like any other commodity, are subject to the forces of inflation and any legitimate comparison must take this into account.  Translated into 2012 dollars Raiders’ adjusted domestic gross is over $706 million, which is nineteenth all-time.  Since its release merely six films have surpassed it and only one of these – James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) – came out in the twenty-first century.

Hollywood isn’t necessarily putting out a product that’s vastly inferior to its older films (a complaint that I hear from audiences of all ages).  Of course there is a good share of crap, but if we look back through cinematic history we find that that’s always been the case. So why is it so difficult for more recent films to rack up gaudy box office numbers?  

It has to do in part with the accessibility of home theater systems (a concept that was, until recently, reserved for the wealthy) which mimic the cinematic experience in the comfort of one’s own living room.  And of course the advances in cable, satellite, and streaming services have given us access to a massive selection of channels and on-demand content.  There’s less of an incentive to actually go see a movie at the theater when there is all this entertainment available anytime the mood strikes.

However, people don’t seem to be shutting themselves inside with their flat screens; going to the movies is still an American pastime.  Compared to 1981, twenty percent more tickets were sold in 2011.  But whereas 1981 saw 173 movies get released, in 2011 there were 601 releases.    

The sheer volume of movies coming out in theaters has made it an arduous task for contemporary films to rival the all-time greats.   Movies with broad appeal just aren’t getting made anymore.  Market segmentation is the norm, and films are mostly tailor-made to attract particular demographics.

In my generation, there are a few blockbuster films that could contend with the appeal, drawing power, and sheer quality of Raiders.  Peter Jackson’s epic Lord of the Rings trilogy earned a Best Picture Oscar for its final installment.  The Harry Potter series maintained impressively high standards across eight films.  And with his Batman trilogy, Christopher Nolan elevated the superhero film to an art form.         

Taking nothing away from their artistic and aesthetic value, these films are all based on well-established, already popular stories from comic books and literature.  Fans of the source material want to see how Hollywood will interpret the characters they have loved for years, if not decades.  And bingo, there’s the built-in audience I mentioned before.  It’s become a safer financial bet for studios to rely on recognizable characters rather than creating films that are genuinely original. 

That isn’t to say that Raiders came out of a vacuum; George Lucas and Steven Spielberg admittedly were inspired by classic cinema.  But their genius lied in their ability to resurrect the thrilling elements of the 1930s and 40s film serials and combine them with the dazzling techniques of modern moviemaking in an original way.  

Their film also spoke to multiple generations.  Older viewers who fondly recalled weekend afternoons spent in movie houses would come for the nostalgia, and their younger counterparts would line up to see Harrison Ford, who was fast becoming one of the biggest superstars of the 1980s.  And, let's face it, who doesn't want to see Nazis get the snot kicked out of them?  The combination of these elements made for an unforgettable cinematic experience.  Quite simply, one cannot ask for anything more out of a movie.  

When I consider the films that I grew up with in the 2000s decade I'm reminded of Marcus Brody, who has just informed Indy that he'll be sent to find the Ark of the Covenant.  "Nothing else has come close," he says.  And indeed, Raiders of the Lost Ark has a universal appeal that hasn't been approached by any film since, and certainly none from my generation.


(Box office data obtained from boxofficemojo.com)

Is Documentary Television Doomed by The Reality Show?

The documentary genre is currently experiencing a renaissance on television.  However, there is a rift that is occurring between legitimate documentaries and the travesty that is the reality show, a sub-genre that technically falls under the documentary umbrella but in fact bears little resemblance to it.

The network or cable channel that a television documentary is aired on will have a strong influence on both its content and narrative technique.  In the same way that an automaker like BMW creates signature design elements that run through their entire model line, channels aim to distinguish themselves from one another by having a distinctive programming style for most, if not all, of their shows.  

For example, an historical documentary produced for broadcast on the History Channel will be approached differently than one for the National Geographic Channel, even if they cover the same subject matter.  In this way, brand image is strengthened so that viewers can immediately recognize shows as being part of a specific channel’s lineup.

From the outset, makers of documentary television know what is expected of a final product based upon what channel is ordering the program.  The standards are laid out beforehand, providing a blueprint upon which to work, which can make production run more smoothly.  

With television documentaries, conformity is the key, as viewers rely on the fact that they can sit themselves down on the couch and know what’s coming on their favorite channel.  This approach stomps out much of the creative control of producers and directors, turning their jobs into positions in an assembly line.  

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule.  The brilliant nature documentary Planet Earth, produced by the BBC (U.K) through an international partnership with Discovery Channel (U.S.), NHK (Japan), and CBC (Canada), is one of the finest examples of the medium, serving as justification for high-definition television. 

But Planet Earth is an outlier, because the BBC is a non-commercial public service broadcaster.  Commercial television is a medium where at least a quarter of programming is devoted to advertisements.  Because of this, the makers of documentary television must oftentimes tread lightly on certain issues, for fear of losing valuable advertising dollars that keep the channel in business.  Advertisers market their products and services to certain demographics, and they want to ensure that the content of a particular show is in line with who they want to sell to.

Ultimately, television documentaries are harmed by these restrictions.  The familiarity with which a channel produces its shows does a great service to audience ratings, but largely saps the creators of making programming that is outside the box.  On the other hand, the makers of cinematic documentaries have a greater degree of flexibility to tell their stories the way that they see fit.  Directors and producers of documentary film have more freedom to think creatively.  

Now, of course, film is a business that is still beholden to turning a profit.  After all, we live in a capitalist society.  But since film doesn’t have to rely on funding from advertisements in the same way that television does, creativity isn’t as suffocated.  This is an issue of budget as well.  Whereas a television show has to spread out its resources across multiple episodes, a film can pour all of its money into producing one to two hours.  So the finished product of the big screen is usually superior to that of the small screen.

Most contemporary documentary television has descended into the realm of reality programming, wherein the everyday lives of “normal” people are followed.  These shows are little more than loosely scripted farces designed to exploit anyone and anything that lies on the fringes of society.

The undisputed giant of this arena is TLC.  Its current lineup is almost exclusively devoted to reality programming, including series such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Extreme Couponing, Hoarding: Buried Alive, and Toddlers and Tiaras.  The irony of their success lies in the fact that a network formerly marketed as “The Learning Channel” now features no educational programming whatsoever.

The issue with the reality television genre is whether or not it can be considered as part of the documentary genre.  On the surface, it can be argued that these are documentaries, because their basic style involves following subjects around with cameras for days at a time.  But this is where the comparison ends.

Let’s take a series such as MTV’s Jersey Shore (which, thankfully, is entering its final season but will all but certainly spawn a litany of spin-offs).  Like any other show on television, be it scripted or unscripted, it has its own conventions to follow.  Its viewers expect that the characters are going to get caught up in wildly dramatic situations at nightclubs and bars on a regular basis, so the producers either suggest certain activities, or stage events altogether.  Anyone who sincerely believes that they are simply watching the everyday lives of these people unfold is a dunce.

The fact that most people’s interaction with the documentary medium comes through reality television is alarming, mainly because these series are, at best, pseudo-documentaries.  Viewers’ tastes have changed for the worse, and while some are able to correctly identify reality television as the semi-scripted diversion that it is, there are too many people who actually consider such programs as authentic.

Reality shows don’t seem to be going anywhere, and it’s likely going to be a while before the trend changes.  But there are still legitimate documentaries, in both film and television, and that is a hopeful sign for the future of the genre.


(This article is adapted from a piece originally written for 'Documentary Film & Television,' a Master's course in Communication Arts at the New York Institute of Technology)

In Manhattan, Nothing Beats a Bike: "Premium Rush"

Over the years, there’s certainly been a fair share of fine bike-related movies spanning numerous genres.  Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio de Sica’s 1948 classic of the Italian neorealist movement, is widely considered one of the best films ever made.  In 1985, Tim Burton made his directorial debut with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which features possibly the most pimped-out pedal-powered ride the world has ever seen.  But there’s one place that the bicycle has never gone: into the realm of the action picture.

That is, until now.  Premium Rush, the new film from director David Koepp, takes us into the high-speed world of urban bicycle messengers.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Wilee, a hotshot New York messenger who accepts one final job to close out a long day: the transport of an envelope from the Upper West Side to Chinatown.  He quickly regrets the decision when he finds himself pursued by Bobby Monday, (Michael Shannon) a crooked policeman who badly wants to get at the contents of the delivery.

Premium Rush conveys a truism about New York: riding a bicycle can be a bitch.  Cyclists are quite often considered as a nuisance, invading the sacred space that has supposedly been reserved for the automobile.  These messengers are outsiders, forced to squeeze their way through dense traffic to make their appointed rounds, sometimes bending the rules of the road.  The film makes no apologies for the sometimes harsh actions of Wilee and his colleagues, who blow red lights and smash the side-view mirrors off offending taxicabs.  It’s a war between cars and bikes, and the messengers take no prisoners.

For all their brazen antics the messengers aren’t portrayed as the menace to society that many New Yorkers see them as.  At several points in the film, Wilee finds himself at a densely packed intersection that he must cross swiftly without causing injury to himself or passers-by.  His lightning-quick thought process is visualized through CGI arrows that chart his options, each of which has various consequences that unfold before our eyes.  Wilee will put his own body on the line if it means keeping others out of harm’s way.

The cycling of Premium Rush is compelling and authentic; at no point do we roll our eyes or question what we see.  There’s nothing here that couldn’t conceivably be done in the real world, which keeps us engaged in the action.  Wilee uses the urban landscape to his advantage, slipping through narrow streets and alleyways on his bike that motorists would find intractable.  

Threading his way through the columns of an elevated rail line, Wilee is able to evade Monday and momentarily slip out of harm’s way, in a nod to William Friedkin’s The French Connection (1971).  Paying homage to one of the greatest chases in cinema is a gutsy move, but Premium Rush has the goods to back it up.

This includes a crack performance by Gordon-Levitt, who is coming into his own as a legitimate and highly versatile leading man.   As the high-strung, emotionally unstable Monday, Shannon turns in a delightfully over the top portrayal that provides a perfect foil for the cool, devil-may-care attitude of Wilee.  

Dania Ramirez plays Vanessa, Wilee’s on-again, off-again messenger girlfriend, who disapproves of his risky riding style.  Wole´ Parks rounds out the cast as Manny, a rival messenger who aims to take advantage of the rift between Wilee and Vanessa.  The love triangle that ensues occurs on the fly, with heated phone conversations taking place between the characters as they zip through the city on separate missions.

Koepp’s film doesn’t rely on shootouts or explosions for its thrills, but rather the surge of adrenaline that comes with zipping inches away from rush hour traffic on nothing but a frame and two wheels.  Even though it may be a distant memory for many, the sense of freedom and possibility of riding a bike is something that we’ve all shared.  Premium Rush captures these sensations, and takes us on a ride we won’t soon forget.

Still Clunking Along: "The Expendables 2"

The past decade has seen a steady stream of intelligent action films.  Doug Liman started the movement with The Bourne Identity (2002), based on Robert Ludlum’s bestselling novels about an amnesiac black-ops assassin.  Martin Campbell reinvented James Bond with Casino Royale (2006), which did away with the excess that had plagued the franchise.  And Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (2008) proved that a major studio could produce a fun, loud superhero film without sacrificing quality.

Yet there is always room for excess.  In 2010, Sylvester Stallone bucked the trend of character-driven action pictures with The Expendables, a smash-mouth movie that paid homage to and featured many of the stars of the 1980s and early 1990s musclebound blockbusters.  Two things were clear: the film wouldn’t challenge the intellect in any way, and, if it was even mildly successful, would be the basis for a new franchise.  Its worldwide box office gross topped $274 million and, just like the film itself, the prospect of a sequel was a no-brainer.

For The Expendables 2, this time directed by Simon West, our friendly mercenaries have returned, led by Barney Ross (Stallone) and his right-hand man Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), this time going up against a new enemy: the dastardly Jean Vilain (yes, that’s really the bad guy’s name), played by Jean-Claude Van Damme.  With a small army at his command, Vilain steals a device from our guys that indicates the whereabouts of a cache of weapons-grade plutonium which he plans to recover and sell to the highest bidder.  

It may not be the densest or most clever of plots but, to be honest, how much are we really expecting here?  This movie is about two things: one-liners and violence.

Expendables 2 has the former in spades.  Terry Crews, as barrel-weapons expert Hale Caesar, provides a slew of boisterous, mostly monosyllabic outbursts that are almost as entertaining as those from the series of Old Spice commercials he has starred in.  One would think that a man continuously screaming “What!” and “Oh!” at the top of his lungs would wear on the nerves, but Crews’ antics are consistently delightful.

Perhaps the film’s best moment comes courtesy of Chuck Norris as Booker, a veritable one-man army who swoops in from out of nowhere to save our pinned-down team.  “I heard you got bitten by a King Cobra,” Ross tells him.  “Yeah,” Booker replies, “and after five long, painful days...the cobra died.”  The perfectly delivered line, a reference to the ‘Chuck Norris Facts’ that have been circulating around the web for years, elicited a huge reaction from the audience, whio erupted in raucous laughter.

Yet where it really counts, there has been no improvement.  The sequel still suffers the same problem as the first installment: a disappointingly minimal amount of violence.  The opening sequence is quite satisfying, with our team compiling an impressive body count during a rescue mission in Nepal.  But what follows is a whole lot of nothing, with combat sequences that are mediocre at best.  Everybody knows that most of these guys are well past their primes, but even so there’s far less action than advertised, which leaves us wondering what the point of it all was.

The Expendables franchise will eventually come to a point where people will become so tired of its empty promises that they’ll simply refuse to buy a ticket anymore.  Yet Stallone seems determined to continually produce these movies until he ticks every conceivable action star off his list.

As gaudy as the casts of the first two installments have been, there’s still a slew of superstars that we could see in the future.  There will be talk of Steven Seagal, Wesley Snipes, and Nicolas Cage, all of whom would be solid additions, but I’m thinking bigger.  

If we are going to be submitted to more sequels, let’s at least see something different. What about bringing in more international talent, such as Hong Kong action veteran Chow Yun-fat, or Abhishek Bachchan (right), the leading man of Bollywood’s high-octane Dhoom series?  Going outside Hollywood would be a welcome departure, not to mention a potential boon for overseas box office receipts.  And, while they’re at it, the series could get more women involved, like Angelina Jolie, Milla Jovovich, or Kate Beckinsale, all of whom have proven their mettle as action superstars.

Though the film hardly delivers on the action front, it’s still a blast to watch these guys pal around with each other.  Thankfully, The Expendables 2 takes itself far less seriously than its predecessor, which makes it a hell of a lot more enjoyable to watch.  But just how much longer will we put up with these mostly hollow movies?  It all depends on who decides to show up next.     

The Monster in their Midst: "Jaws" and the Penn State Scandal

The belief in an institution can drive men towards unspeakable deeds.  Over the past several months, the world found out just how true this could be as it was revealed that top officials at Pennsylvania State University conspired to conceal, and in some cases enabled, the crimes of a child sexual predator.  Under their watch, they allowed evil to roam free on the campus, all in an effort to prevent damage to the university’s storied football program, which had been a financial juggernaut for decades.

Like the great white shark that was allowed to keep feeding on bathers in Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s 1975 thriller, the danger was exponentially increased by the inaction on the part of those who could have confronted and vanquished the monster in their midst.  The scandal is the quintessential example of life imitating art, and the similarities between the fictional Amity Island of Jaws and the real life “Happy Valley” of State College, Pennsylvania are striking.   

The man that was being protected at Penn State was Jerry Sandusky, who served as an assistant football coach from 1969-99, with access to campus athletic facilities long after his retirement.  On June 22, 2012, Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of 48 counts of sexual abuse involving eight young victims. The crimes occurred from 1994-2009, including the anal rape of a ten-year-old boy in a locker room shower.  At age 68, Sandusky’s sixty-year sentence virtually guarantees that he will never again breathe free air.

Sandusky is a despicable man who got what he deserved.  But nearly as disturbing as his crimes were the results of an internal investigation led by former FBI director Louis Freeh.  Released less than a month after Sandusky’s verdict was handed down, the report found that head football coach Joe Paterno, university president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley, and senior vice president Gary Schultz knew of the molestations as early as 1998.  These four men continuously suppressed the crimes from the school’s board of trustees, the university community, and local authorities.

“I feel betrayed,” laments Theo Drivas, a 2008 Penn State graduate.  During his time at the university, it was always stressed that the school’s football program played by the rules, engaged in fair recruiting practices, and maintained rigorous academic standards for its players.  This, Drivas says, was a fraud, as behind this sham of integrity they were harboring a man who posed far more danger to the community than a cheating athletic team.

Sandusky had exhibited a long-term pattern of abuse that was willfully ignored.  “You don’t suddenly wake up one morning,” Drivas says, “and decide, ‘I’m going to rape a boy today.’  They knew about him for years, and did nothing about it.”  At the very least, Sandusky could have been permanently banned from the university, but even this most basic responsibility was neglected.

The prime concerns of the leaders of both Amity Island and Penn State were twofold: the avoidance of bad press, and the need to keep money flowing.  Their greatest fear was not for the safety of potential victims, but for the potential despoiling of their institutions if they were to publicly acknowledge the existence of danger.  Both communities revolved around a single point that its inhabitants would do anything to protect.  

For Amity, this was the summer tourist season which brought in the cash that kept its businesses thriving.  At Penn State, it was the football program that raked in millions of dollars, and where Paterno had become the most powerful and revered figure at the university.  There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to run a successful motel, or coaching a team to a winning record, but when these desires begin to overrule logic and safety, there are bound to be catastrophic ramifications. 

In Jaws, when Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) moves to immediately shutter the island’s beaches following the first shark attack, he is overruled by Mayor Vaughn, (Murray Hamilton) who tells him that, “Amity is a summer town.  We need summer dollars...You yell ‘shark,’ we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.”  Like the four men who guarded the Penn State football program against bad publicity, Vaughn repeatedly has the chance to step up and do the right thing, trading momentary agitation for the long-term safety of the community.  But the preoccupation with the avoidance of fallout and the drop in business that may follow robs the men of the conviction to make the tough, though necessary, choice.

It wasn’t only the people in charge who behaved shamefully.  Marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) arrives on Amity Island and finds himself violently berated by a group of local fisherman for presenting evidence that a tiger shark they caught may not be the animal behind the two attacks.  This mirrors what happened in the aftermath of Paterno’s firing in November 2011, when thousands of Penn State students took to the streets to riot in protest, throwing rocks and, at one point, overturning a news van.

In the eyes of many at State College, Paterno was a god who could do no wrong, and this belief was the catalyst to such an aggressive and irrational outburst.  Their actions were not only disgraceful to themselves and the university but, more importantly, enormously insensitive to Sandusky’s victims.  The loss of a football coach, even one who had risen to such lofty heights, was nothing in comparison to what Sandusky took from those boys.

For both Amity Island and Penn State, an insular culture led to a skewing of priorities that made a dangerous situation much worse.  Jerry Sandusky was a real-life monster.  His superiors had the power to ensure that he wouldn’t have any more chances to cause harm to a single child.  But the danger wasn’t stopped when it could have been, and the lives of eight children were ruined.  

The scandal at Penn State is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident.  We are living in a society where, time after time, the allure of money and prestige outweighs the responsibility to do what is right.  From the financial crises of the last few years, to the doping by professional ballplayers, there are countless individuals who will protect their own interests above all else.  It is an unacceptable state of affairs that needs to change.  

The words of Mrs. Kintner, the mother of an attack victim in Jaws, poignantly reminds us of the price that has been paid by these repeated lapses in morality.  “You knew there was a shark out there.  You knew it was dangerous, but you let people go swimming anyway.  You knew all those things, but still my boy is dead now.  And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Does Renner Tarnish "The Bourne Legacy"?

“A Bourne film without Jason Bourne?”

This was the question on filmgoers’ lips when The Bourne Legacy, the fourth installment in the spy franchise, was announced.  For Universal, the hardest task wouldn’t be producing the film without Matt Damon, but rather clearing up the confusion of audiences when they learned that Jason Bourne himself would not appear in the film.  Was the part being recast?  Would the series be sent back to the drawing board as part of Hollywood’s recent reboot-obsessed culture?

A well-executed marketing campaign cleared up these matters quite nicely: Legacy would be a sequel to 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass), focusing on a new character who must deal with the consequences of Bourne’s actions.  For a critically and financially successful franchise that had been driven by Damon’s performance, it would be a huge gamble.

Rolling the dice here is Tony Gilroy, who takes over as director after writing or co-writing the screenplays of the three previous films.  Legacy posed a unique challenge as Gilroy, who along with his brother Dan served as screenwriter once again, had to take the series in a new direction while remaining mindful of the original story.

The film’s opening, occurring simultaneous to the events at the close of Ultimatum, introduces us to our new protagonist, Aaron Cross, (Jeremy Renner) as he takes part in a training assignment deep in the Alaska bush for Operation Outcome, a Department of Defense black-ops program whose agents are administered daily doses of experimental medication designed to enhance their mental and physical abilities.  Cross, like Bourne, is a freak of nature: he leaps from cliffs, dives deep into icy cold water, and possesses rifle skills that would make an Old West gunslinger’s jaw drop.

Spawned from Treadstone and Blackbriar, the illegal CIA assassination squads from which Bourne has leaked classified documentation in, Outcome is thrown into jeopardy of public exposure.  Rather than have this happen, program director Eric Byer (Edward Norton) gives the order to terminate all of its international field agents and medical scientists, including Dr. Marta Shearing, (Rachel Weisz) thus burying any evidence of its existence.  Able to dodge assassination but left sans medication, Cross seeks out Shearing, who has also narrowly avoided death, the only person who can help him get the fix that will avert a crash of his system.

Amidst the escapes of Cross and Shearing, the strategizing of the government officials looking to cover their backsides, and the transition from Bourne’s storyline, there is a lot going on here, as there should be.  But while the original trilogy handled the interweaving of their respectively dense plots and subplots with style and fluidity, the first half of Legacy comes across as muddled and scattershot, seemingly struggling under its own weight.  

The lean, crisp dialogue that had become a hallmark of the franchise is nearly gone, replaced by a screenplay rife with exposition.  Too much time is spent explaining things, and while this may in part be intended as a service to first-timers who are uninitiated in the Bourne universe, there are far too many moments that feel needlessly dragged out.

Fortunately, when the film finally does get on with it, the audience is treated to some riveting action sequences, including the series’ signature teeth-shattering, fast-paced, hand-to-hand combat.  Director of Photography Robert Elswit, who dazzled with his work on last year’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird), does not disappoint, as an extended chase scene barrels over the rooftops and through the dense streets of Manila, packed with ingenious shots from virtually every conceivable angle.

This is, without a doubt, the highest-profile role to date for Renner, who hasn’t had to carry a film since his superb portrayal of Sergeant First Class William James in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2008), which earned him a best actor Oscar nomination.  Since then, Renner has turned in a series of fantastic supporting performances, ranging from a bank robber in The Town (Ben Affleck, 2010), to the superhero Hawkeye in Joss Whedon’s mega-blockbuster, Marvel’s The Avengers, released earlier this year.  

There was certainly no question about Renner’s chops coming into such a demanding role, but Matt Damon is a tough act to follow, as he had created in Jason Bourne one of the most sympathetic and relatable cinematic action heroes.  While Bourne’s exploits provide the framework for this film, Gilroy makes the right decision in letting Cross’ story stand on its own.  Once the connection between the three top-secret programs is established, the focus shifts entirely towards Byer’s manhunt for Cross and Shearing, and the clunky first half gives way to a more free and easy conclusion.

Thankfully, Cross’ story never gets bogged down by Bourne’s.  This bodes well for Renner, as it allows him to create a distinctive character.  Cross is inquisitive and personable.  He tries, albeit unsuccessfully, to form relationships with others in the program, making small talk with another field agent who he bunks with during his training.  And while Bourne’s aim is to take down his superiors, Cross’ motivation is firmly rooted in self-preservation.    

Alongside Renner’s adept performance as Cross, it is ultimately Weisz’s Dr. Shearing who is the most compelling character.  Shocked into awareness by the attempt on her life, she comes to realize the full implications of her research, and is transformed by Weisz, who pulls off an utterly convincing American accent to boot, from a coolly detached professional to an emotionally invested fugitive from justice.  This is where production designer Kevin Thompson makes his mark, as the orderly, sterile, almost blindingly white environment of Shearing’s suburban laboratory is gradually traded for the dark disorder of the urban underworld to which she must accompany Cross.

As in all of the Bourne films, we are left with unfinished business, which begs the question of what lies in the future.  While Legacy never matches the lofty heights of its predecessors, the fall-off is much less than can be expected of the fourth film in a series that is without its star player, and the result is a capable, if innocuous, action picture that doesn’t sully a proud tradition.  This is a franchise that still has legs, and may yet see the return of Jason Bourne.