When you consider that
old-fashioned tearjerkers are
an endangered species in
Hollywood, a movie like The
Notebook can be embraced
without apology. Yes, it's
syrupy sweet and clogged with
clichés, and one can only
marvel at the irony of Nick
Cassavetes directing a weeper
that his late father
John--whose own films were
devoid of saccharine
sentiment--would have sneered
at. Still, this touchingly
impassioned and great-looking
adaptation of the popular
Nicholas Sparks novel has much
to recommend, including
appealing young costars (Ryan
Gosling and Rachel McAdams)
and appealing old costars
(James Garner and Gena
Rowlands, the director's
mother) playing the same
loving couple in
(respectively) early 1940s and
present-day North Carolina. He
was poor, she was rich, and
you can guess the rest;
decades later, he's
unabashedly devoted, and she's
drifting into the memory-loss
of senile dementia. How their
love endured is the story
preserved in the titular
notebook that he reads to her
in their twilight years. The
movie's open to ridicule, but
as a delicate tearjerker it
works just fine. Message in a
Bottle and A Walk to Remember
were also based on Sparks
novels, suggesting a
triple-feature that hopeless
romantics will cherish. --Jeff
Shannon
Tim Burton was born to bring
Alice in Wonderland to the big
screen. Ironically, his
version of the Victorian text
plays more like The Wizard of
Oz than a Lewis Carroll
adaptation. On the day of her
engagement party, the
19-year-old Alice (a nicely
understated Mia Wasikowska) is
lead by a white-gloved rabbit
to an alternate reality that
looks strangely
familiar--she's been dreaming
about it since she was 6 years
old. Stranded in a hall of
doors, she sips from a potion
that makes her shrink and
nibbles on a cake that makes
her grow. Once she gets the
balance right, she walks
through the door that leads
her to Tweedledum and
Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), the
Dormouse (Barbara Windsor),
the Blue Caterpillar (Alan
Rickman), and the Cheshire Cat
(a delightful Stephen Fry),
who inform her that only she
can free them from the wrath
of the Red Queen (Helena
Bonham Carter channeling Bette
Davis) by slaying the
Jabberwocky. To pull off the
feat, she teams up with the
Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp in
glam-rock garb), rebel
bloodhound Bayard (Timothy
Spall), and Red's sweet
sister, the White Queen (Anne
Hathaway in goth-rock makeup).
While Red welcomes Alice with
open arms, she plans an
execution for the hat-maker
when he displeases her ("Off
with his head!"). Drawing from
Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland and Through the
Looking-Glass, Burton creates
a candy-colored
action-adventure tale with a
feminist twist. If it drags
towards the end, his 3-D
extravaganza still offers a
trippy good time with a
poignant aftertaste.
--Kathleen C. Fennessy
At a time when too many
animated films consist of
anthropomorphized animals
cracking sitcom one-liners and
flatulence jokes, the warmth,
originality, humor, and
unflagging imagination of Up
feel as welcome as rain in a
desert. Carl Fredericksen
(voice by Ed Asner) ranks
among the most unlikely heroes
in recent animation history. A
78-year-old curmudgeon, he
enjoyed his modest life as a
balloon seller because he
shared it with his adventurous
wife Ellie (Ellie Docter). But
she died, leaving him with
memories and the awareness
that they never made their
dream journey to Paradise
Falls in South America. When
well-meaning officials consign
Carl to Shady Oaks Retirement
Home, he rigs thousands of
helium balloons to his house
and floats to South America.
The journey's scarcely begun
when he discovers a stowaway:
Russell (Jordan Nagai), a
chubby, maladroit Wilderness
Explorer Scout who's out to
earn his Elderly Assistance
Badge. In the tropical jungle,
Carl and Russell find more
than they bargained for:
Charles Muntz (Christopher
Plummer), a crazed explorer
whose newsreels once inspired
Carl and Ellie; Kevin, an
exotic bird with a weakness
for chocolate; and Dug (Bob
Peterson), an endearingly dim
golden retriever fitted with a
voice box. More importantly,
the travelers discover they
need each other: Russell needs
a (grand)father figure; Carl
needs someone to enliven his
life without Ellie. Together,
they learn that sharing
ice-cream cones and counting
the passing cars can be more
meaningful than feats of
daring-do and distant
horizons. Pete Docter
(Monsters, Inc.) and Bob
Peterson direct the film with
consummate skill and taste,
allowing the poignant moments
to unfold without dialogue to
Michael Giacchnio's vibrant
score. Building on their work
in The Incredibles and
Ratatouille, the Pixar crew
offers nuanced animation of
the stylized characters. Even
by Pixar's elevated standards,
Up is an exceptional film that
will appeal of audiences of
all ages. Rated PG for some
peril and action. --Charles
Solomon
Rightly attracting major
awards attention, The Hurt
Locker is a supreme, tense and
gripping piece of drama. And
it grabs your attention from
the stunning opening scene,
which perfectly gets across
the dangers faced by the
specialist bomb disposal squad
that we spend the rest of the
film following. Chief among
them is Jeremy Renner’s
Sergeant William James, who is
the focal point for much of
The Hurt Locker. The film
spends some time digging into
his head and why he does what
he does, and his approach
doesn’t always leave him
eye-to-eye with the rest of
his squad. Renner, in surely a
star-making performance,
delivers a rounded,
three-dimensional portrayal of
a man you could easily write
off as a maverick, and the
film is significantly enriched
as a result. But then with
director Kathryn Bigelow
behind the camera delivering
her best film to date, The
Hurt Locker excels still
further. Her gritty, haunting
visuals look superb in high
definition too, evoking the
down-to-earth shooting style
Bigelow employs, and making
the most of the assorted
set-pieces she puts on film.
It’s the sound that really
gets you too, cleverly eating
up the full breadth of a good
surround-sound set-up, and
carefully teasing you more and
more into the film. Not that
you’re likely to need much
persuading. The Hurt Locker is
a terrific war movie, and a
very human one. It’s also
packaged on a quality Blu-ray
that matches up strong
presentation with interesting
extra feature. It comes very
highly recommended. --Jon
Foster
Now this is how you destroy
the world. Roland Emmerich's
2012 pounces on a
Nostradamus-style loophole in
the Mayan calendar and rams
the apocalypse through it,
gleefully conjuring up an
enormous amount of
Saturday-matinee fun in the
process. A scientist (Chiwetel
Ejiofor) detects shifting
continental plates and sun
flares and realizes that this
foretells the imminent
destruction of the planet.
Just as the molten lava is
about to hit the fan, a
novelist (John Cusack) takes
his kids on a trip to
Yellowstone; later he'll hook
up with his ex (Amanda Peet)
and her new boyfriend (Tom
McCarthy) in a global journey
toward safety. If there is any
safety. The suitably
hair-raising plot lines are
punctuated--frequently,
people, frequently--by visions
of mayhem around the globe:
the Vatican falls over, the
White House is clobbered
(Emmerich's Independence Day
was not enough on that score),
and the California coastline
dives into the Pacific Ocean.
Unlike other action directors
we could name, Emmerich
actually understands how to
let you see and drink in these
vast special-effects
vistas--and they are
incredible. He also honors the
old Irwin Allen disaster-movie
tradition by actually shelling
out for good actors. Cusack
and Ejiofor are convincing
even in the cheesiest
material; toss in Danny Glover
(the U.S. president), Woody
Harrelson (a nut-bar
conspiracy-theorising radio
host), Thandie Newton, and
Oliver Platt, and you've got a
very watchable batch of
people. Emmerich hasn't
developed an ear for dialogue,
even at this stage in his
career, and the final act goes
on a bit too long. This is a
very silly movie, but if
you've got a weakness for
B-movie energy and hairbreadth
escapes, 2012 delivers quite a
bit of both. --Robert Horton
The sixth installment of the
Harry Potter series begins
right where The Order of the
Phoenix left off. The
wizarding world is rocked by
the news that "He Who Must Not
Be Named" has truly returned,
and the audience finally knows
that Harry is "the Chosen
One"--the only wizard who can
defeat Lord Voldemort in the
end. Dark forces loom around
every corner, and now
regularly attempt to penetrate
the protected walls of
Hogwarts School. This is no
longer the fun and fascinating
world of magic from the first
few books—it's dark,
dangerous, and scary. Harry
(Daniel Radcliffe) suspects
Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) to
be a new Death Eater recruit
on a special mission for the
Dark Lord. In the meantime,
Professor Dumbledore (Michael
Gambon) seems to have finally
removed the shroud of secrecy
from Harry about the dark path
that lies ahead, and instead
provides private lessons to
get him prepared. It's in
these intriguing scenes that
the dark past of Tom Riddle
(a.k.a. Voldemort) is finally
revealed. The actors cast as
the different young versions
of Riddle (Hero Fiennes-Tiffin
and Frank Dillane) do an
eerily fantastic job of
portraying the villain as a
child. While the previous
movies' many new characters
could be slightly
overwhelming, only one new key
character is introduced this
time: Professor Horace
Slughorn (with a spot-on
performance by Jim Broadbent).
Within his mind he holds a key
secret in the battle to defeat
the Dark Lord, and Harry is
tasked by Dumbledore to
uncover a memory about
Voldemort's darkest
weapon--the Horcrux. Despite
the long list of distractions,
Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint), and
Hermione (Emma Watson) still
try to focus on being
teenagers, and audiences will
enjoy the budding awkward
romances. All of the actors
have developed nicely, giving
their most convincing
performances to date. More
dramatic and significant
things go down in this movie
than any of its predecessors,
and the stakes are higher than
ever. The creators have been
tasked with a practically
impossible challenge, as fans
of the beloved J.K. Rowling
book series desperately want
the movies to capture the
magic of the books as closely
as possible. Alas, the point
at which one accepts that
these two mediums are very
different is the point at
which one can truly enjoy
these brilliant adaptations.
Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince is no
exception: it may be the best
film yet. For those who have
not read the book, nail-biting
entertainment is guaranteed.
For those who have, the movie
does it justice. The key
dramatic scenes, including the
cave and the shocking twist in
the final chapter, are
executed very well. It does a
perfect job of setting up the
two-part grand finale that is
to follow. --Jordan Thompson
