NO STRINGS ATTACHED Blu-ray Review

When we saw the trailers for Ivan Reitman’s No Strings Attached, we all had the same basic reaction:  “Oh, boy, Natalie Portman in a sex comedy!”, a thought that was immediately followed by:  “Oh, no, Ashton Kutcher.”  Yes, over the past decade, Kutcher has found more success as a “personality”, camera salesman, and a reality TV producer than he seems to have found as an actor:  despite a few middle-of-the-road successes at the box office, his filmography has left film geeks cold.  Would No Strings Attached be the first film that breaks away from that sad truth?  Or would No Strings Attached be more Killers-level crap?  Read on for our full review after the jump to find out, folks….

Let’s say you’re like millions of Americans, and you just don’t want to see Ashton Kutcher in your movies.  It’s understandable.

Kutcher was reasonably good on FOX’s highly successful That 70′s Show (y’know, if you’re the type that enjoys sitcoms) and he enjoyed another lucrative run on MTV’s Punk’d, but in the years since those series came and went, he’s divided his time into three different ventures:  producing (he does a fair amount of reality TV), being married to Demi Moore (which we can only assume is its own full-time job), and starring in films like Killers (which no one should ever be forced to see).  Kutcher’s films– which also include Spread and Guess Who– have run the gamut from “moderately successful” to “not successful”, and so it would seem that Kutcher has had better luck with his TV work than in his film career.

While it’s true that Kutcher can be blamed– at least in part– for the horrific (and mercifully fleeting) popularity of “Trucker-style hats”, and while it’s also true that he does come off as a bit of a frat-boy d-bag in all those camera commercials he stars in, he does have a sort-of understandable likability to him, and it’d be disingenuous not to admit that he’s easy on the eyes (for ladies and discerning gentlemen).  But as far as having an on-screen presence that’s genuinely compelling or entertaining, he has– for my money, anyway– fallen short time and time again.  I simply don’t want to see movies with Ashton Kutcher in them.

For example: I simply refused to see No Strings Attached when it hit theaters, despite the fact that the trailers indicated that Natalie Portman would also be featured in the film in various states of undress.  As far as I was concerned, “Natalie Portman” was cancelled out by “Ashton Kutcher”, and once you factored in the fact that No Strings Attached  is– above all things– a romantic-comedy, there didn’t seem to be any reason for me to waste my time with the film.  Chances were, I wouldn’t like it, and further chances were that I’d have my opinion of Natalie Portman somewhat tarnished.  And no one wants to have their opinion of Natalie Portman tarnished.  As such, I steered clear of the film until the Blu-ray arrived on my porch, and it took every ounce of willpower in my body to sit myself down on the couch to watch it unfold.  I expected Yogi Bear levels of disaster.

So, imagine my surprise when I discovered No Strings Attached to be a slightly above-average, highly-likable, gleefully-raunchy-in-places rom-com (wow, that’s a whole bunch of dashes).  No Strings Attached isn’t the best romantic comedy you’ll ever see, and it probably won’t convince you that Ashton Kutcher’s the best on-screen presence since Christoph Waltz, but it will make you laugh (infrequently, yes, but moreso than you might expect), and if you’re being suckered into a “chick flick” night with your lady-friend, there are far worse ways to spend your time (Killers, I name-drop you again).

In Strings, Adam (Kutcher) and Emma (Portman) meet-cute when they’re very young, in a prologue that takes place fifteen years before the movie begins in earnest.  Even then, Emma’s withdrawn, unemotional, and not-too-thrilled with the idea of emotional connections.  Adam, on the other hand, is almost relentlessly positive, sees the power in love, and seems destined to have some sort of relationship with Emma going forward:  they reunite again ten years later at a college party, hook-up, and then don’t see one another again until the present.  In that time, Adam has become an unpaid writer/producer-of-some-sort on a Glee-like TV show, while Emma has become a nurse/doctor-type (y’know:  works insane hours in a hospital, lives with a crew of other med students, hangs out in places with a lot of sailboats).

After learning something disturbing (and hilarious) about his father, Adam goes on a drunken rampage that ends with him waking up the morning after in Emma’s apartment.  The two begin a relationship based entirely upon using one another for sex, with the agreement being that neither will get emotionally attached.  Adam seems convinced that it’s Emma who’ll break this rule first, but we already know that he’s the one that’s in trouble.  For the most part, Strings deals with these two characters in a largely predictable– but still very entertaining– way.  You know they’re gonna end up together, it’s just a matter of how it’ll happen and how many misunderstandings there’ll be along the way.  Y’know:  just like every other romantic comedy.

The film shines in its writing, which is uncommonly good for this sub-genre.  It’s also surprisingly dirty in places, but never so much so that it becomes a “raunchy comedy”.  Making the really dirty moments infrequent also guarantees that they’re going to pack more of a punch, and I really appreciated the way that screenwriter Elizabeth Meriweather handled this balancing act.  There were a few lines that actually made me (and the person I watched the film with) belly-laugh, and that’s…surprising, all things considered.  If you’d told me a week ago that I’d watch and kinda-sorta-pretty-much enjoy an Ashton Kutcher rom-com, I would have laughed just before spitting into your lying face.  But there I sat, watching, kinda-laughing from time to time (the line that Ashton’s competition for Emma gets about “using big words around her” was particularly solid), not hating my existence as the Blu-ray spun through its course inside my PS3.  No one’s more surprised about this than I am.

Let’s be clear, though:  the film has its faults.  There’s no small amount of predictability going on here (which has more to do with the genre itself than the script), there’s the required series of tedious events playing out only in service of keeping the two leads apart, and there’s an overall aura that I can only describe as “extremely white-people-ish”.   But these things are outweighed by Reitman’s unusually sharp direction, Meriweather’s sometimes-hilarious script, and the charming work turned in by both Portman and Kutcher (the actors in smallers roles– the always-luminous Greta Gerwig, Jake Johnson, and Ludacris– also shine here).

So, what’s the bottom line here?  Rent?  Absolutely.  Buy?  Eh, let’s not get hysterical.  The Blu-ray I received comes with a smattering of extras, none of which will make the film worth a purchase, but some of which might entertain your girlfriend if she really, really liked the movie.  There’s a collection of deleted scenes (all of which were deleted with good reason), a commentary by director Ivan Reitman, a “Do’s and Don’ts” on Modern Love (because that’s what you need to be doing:  taking relationship advice from an Ashton Kutcher Blu-ray), an “inside look” at the faux-Glee show that Adam works on in the film, something I refused to watch called “Sex Friends: Getting Together” (for those in the audience that don’t understand what a “booty call” is, apparently), and– according to the Blu-ray box– “More!”.  There may have been a gag reel in there, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to watch another gag reel.  Screw ‘em, they stopped being funny about three years ago.

If you don’t normally like romantic comedies, I’d still recommend No Strings Attached.  It has just enough funniness to make it watchable, and just enough predictability to satiate fans of this genre.  Absolutely rent this movie.

The King’s Speech Review

Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech won the Academy Award for Best Picture this year, but that’s not to say that it was the most popular film at the box office in 2010.  In fact, of the films nominated in that category at this year’s Oscar’s, it’d probably be fair to say that The King’s Speech wasn’t amongst the top three or four most-seen films.  The problem is that The King’s Speech looks like it might be a chore to sit through:  you’ve got stuffy British people, an “underdog beats the odds” plotline that many of us have already seen, and a lead actor that isn’t known for being the most electric on-screen presence in Hollywood.  All of this may have kept people from checking the film out when it hit theaters.  But now that it’s won the “Best Picture” Oscar and landed on store shelves, should you give The King’s Speech a chance?  Find out after the jump, folks…

If you’re anything like me, you saw the trailers for The King’s Speech and thought, “Oh, Jesus, here we go again:  another Oscar-bait movie built around British high-society types and their champagne problems.”  When I saw the trailers for Tom Hooper’s film, I knew instantly that I wouldn’t bother seeing the film in theaters– it looked like about a dozen other movies I’d already seen (and only few of those were ones I’d enjoyed)– but months later, when the film started gaining traction as a contender at this year’s Academy Awards, I was forced to rethink my position.  Was it possible that The King’s Speech really was more entertaining than I suspected it’d be?  Was it possible that the trailers simply didn’t do Hooper’s film justice?  I remained suspicious, mindful of a similar situation the year before with Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker:  in 2009, that was the film that critics fell all over themselves to praise, and I’d only find it to be above-average.  Then again, I’d resisted seeing The Fighter for over a year, only to discover that I loved the film upon giving in and checking it out.

When The King’s Speech won the Oscar (and a whole bunch of other Oscars, for the record), that made the decision for me:  I’d give the film a shot when it hit Blu-ray, and then I’d know for sure which category The King’s Speech fell into:  the one filled with films that received an inexplicable amount of praise…and the ones I’d underestimated.  Now that I’ve seen the film, I’m amused to report that I’m actually still undecided:  The King’s Speech was definitely more entertaining than I suspected it’d be, but I have a hard time agreeing with the idea that Hooper’s film is better than David Fincher’s The Social Network (which I was rooting for at this year’s Academy Awards), and I don’t necessarily agree that The King’s Speech was even amongst the top five films I saw last year.  Maybe not even the top ten.  But it’s still very, very good.

More importantly: we’re not here to compare the merits of the film against everything else that arrived in theaters in 2010.  We’re here to judge the film as its own entity, and when we look at it from that angle, The King’s Speech is an enormously successful, extremely charming, beautifully-made little movie.  I had more fun watching it than I expected to, and I’d wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone that loves film.  It won’t be for the genre-freaks and the Michael Bay fans of the world, but for those of us that enjoy a respite from gratuitous nudity and explosions every once in awhile, The King’s Speech is a very satisfying movie.

So.  The King’s Speech tells the story of the Duke of York, Albert “Berty” George (Colin Firth).  The film opens in 1925, when the Duke was asked by King George V (Harry Potter‘s Michael Gambon) to speak on his behalf at Wembley Stadium.  Before Berty’s even stepped up to the mic, we can see that he’s terrified of speaking publicly, but only after he starts talking does it become apparent just how terrified he is:  Berty stammers his way through the speech, the crowd looking awkwardly down at their feet and stiffening their already-stiff upper-lips in embarrassment.  Having a massive speech impediment would be a problem for anyone in public office, but a member of the Royal Family?  Beyond embarrassing.

As such, Berty’s determined to get over the impediment, and he works his way through a variety of quack doctors before finally ending up in the offices of one Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, God amongst men), speech therapist.  Logues’ got some pretty bizarre methods, comparatively speaking, and though the first meeting between these two strong-willed men doesn’t go as well as either would have hoped, it starts up a friendship– and a doctor/patient relationship– that will end up stretching decades.  But will Logue be able to cure Berty of his stammer?  Will Logue’s techniques (or, perhaps more importantly, his friendship) be enough to get the Duke to deliver a flawless speech?  And what would happen if something terrible happened and the Duke ended up acting as King:  what would he do then?  And what will Berty’s advisors think when they find out he’s been palling around with a commoner?

The King’s Speech answers all these questions, and while they might not sound like the most dynamic, cinematic plot points you’ve ever heard, I can assure you that Hooper does a marvelous job of keeping things interesting.  A lot of The King’s Speech‘s success can be ascribed to the jaw-droppingly beautiful sets and costumes that Hooper put onscreen:  this thing really looks like it was filmed in the mid-20′s and 30′s.  Hooper’s attention to detail is, in fact, one of the best reasons to see this film.

Other reasons to see the film include:  David Seidler’s excellent script (it’s razor-sharp, and much funnier than I expected it to be), Geoffrey Rush’s performance (he’s flawless, and seeing his work here inspired me to dig up my copy of The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, which all of you should watch immediately), Colin Firth’s performance (how difficult it must have been for him to master that faux-stammer:  if you have any doubt that he deserved the Oscar over The Social Network‘s Jessie Eisenberg, it’ll be put to rest about half an hour into this film), and the supporting work from Guy Pierce, Helena Bonham Carter (though she is looking a little rough these days), and Timothy Spall (who plays Winston Churchill)(!!!).  All of these people make The King’s Speech worth watching, and under Hooper’s direction, they truly turn out something special.

A side-note for the Social Networkenthusiasts out there:  I admit that I remain unconvinced that The King’s Speech is a better film than The Social Network– that feels a lot like Forrest Gump unjustly beating Pulp Fiction to me, or Shakespeare in Love beatingSaving Private Ryan– but it’d be stupid to hold that against Hooper’s film.  The Oscars are, after all, a popularity contest, and we’ve seen films that didn’t deserve to win the top prize take home the gold again and again.  The good news is, even though I don’t think that The King’s Speech deserved to win the “Big Prize” this year, it’s not a complete upset:  this isn’t like when Crash won a few years ago (remember Crash?  Yeah, neither does anyone else).  The King’s Speech is an uplifting, beautifully-constructed film, and it’s got a timeless quality that will ensure that it won’t be one of the Academy’s embarrassing mistakes a few years down the road (like Crash.  Remember Crash?  You’ve already forgotten it again, haven’t you?).   I guess what I’m saying is:  it sucks that Fincher didn’t win the Oscar this year with The Social Network, but if he was gonna lose, there are a lot crappier movies than he could’ve lost to than Hooper’s film.

The King’s Speech Blu-ray comes packaged with a few of Berty’s old speeches (one of which is on film, and it’s kind of fascinating to watch), a documentary about the making of the film, a little featurette put together by the Society of Stutterers (or whatever they’re calling themselves), an interview with the grandson of the real Lionel Logue (which, sadly, doesn’t feature a single photo of the real Logue, which is what I really wanted to see), and a commentary by Hooper.  I admit that I haven’t yet listened to Hooper’s commentary, but I’m interested in giving it a spin at some point.  I don’t know that I loved The King’s Speech so much that I’d watch it again and again, but I’d certainly watch it one more time with Hooper’s audio-track just to learn a little more about the making of the film and the history behind it.   Furthermore, Blu-ray enthusiasts should be aware the the audio/video here is crystal-clear, and while the film isn’t snazzy enough to be used as a “demo disc” for your entertainment center, it’ll certainly please those of you that– like me– really get off on razor-sharp video quality.  Some of the sets here look breathtaking.

So, should you pick up The King’s Speech?  I wouldn’t recommend purchasing this one sight unseen (it’s simply not rewatchable enough for me to make that recommendation), but I’d certainly recommend that you rent the film and give it a shot.  If you didn’t see the film in theaters because you thought it’d be “boring” or “stuffy” or “lame”, rest assured that The King’s Speech is none of those things.  It’s quite funny, moving, and provides a quick-and-dirty (if not entirely accurate) history lesson along with some really amazing sets, costumes, and performances.  It’s definitely less boring than you might expect it to be.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES Review

As a fan of the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, it’s going to be tough to find a bigger disappointment in 2011 than Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  While it would be reasonable to expect that the sequel may not be as good as the original trilogy, the extent to which the film misunderstands story, pacing, action scenes, its own history, and its main characters, is mind-boggling.  The film does almost nothing right and it’s a tedious chore that sails through gigantic plotholes, lazy screenwriting, poor characterization, and reduces the scale and creativity of the previous films.  I would rather be cursed by the Aztecs, spend 100 years before the mast serving aboard the Flying Dutchman, and get devoured by a kraken than endure another viewing of On Stranger Tides.

The film makes a serious misstep by spending the majority of its first act not on the high seas, but stuck in London.  It’s an interesting idea on the page, but it makes the story and scope feel constrained.  Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), having come to London to kind-of rescue his friend Mr. Gibbs (Kevin McNally), instead falls in with former flame Angelica (Penelope Cruz) and is forced onto the ship of Blackbeard (Ian McShane).  It’s been prophesized that Blackbeard will be killed by a one-legged man and he’s hoping to get to the Fountain of Youth so he can avoid that fate.  Meanwhile, the English are also racing against the Spanish to get to the Fountain.  The one-legged Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) has gone from pirate to privateer in the King’s navy and is leading the British expedition.  Barbossa has taken Gibbs along for the ride since Gibbs memorized the map before destroying it.  The two ships (three if you count the mostly irrelevant Spanish expedition) begin a tedious and ill-defined race to the fountain that lack any excitement, cleverness, or joy.

I’m baffled at how screenwriters Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott could so deeply misunderstand how Jack Sparrow fits into a movie.  Yes, he’s always been the star, but he can’t work inside a vacuum.  Sparrow needs the proper dynamic to be effective and the first three movies provided him with that dynamic by playing him off Will and Elizabeth.  On his own, Jack is a static character.  He can’t grow because he’s so carefully defined by his many idiosyncrasies that changing him risks ruining the character.  Instead, it’s better to set him against characters who do develop and his presence becomes crucial in their development as he seeks to obtain his own goals.

On Stranger Tides doesn’t provide Jack with the supporting characters that he needs to function.  The movie tries to provide a competent foil with Angelica, but she’s not a developing character either.  No one in this movie has an arc.  Everyone is the exact same person they were at the beginning of the movie and so everyone is rendered inert.  No one has to adapt, compromise their values, or rise to the occasion.  It doesn’t help that Angelica, the character closest to Jack other than Barbossa, is the bland tough-gal chick you’ve seen a billion times before and the movie almost drops her entirely in the second half anyway.

It’s tough to blame Cruz or any of the cast when the characters are so poorly written.  In previousPirates films, the villain at least engendered our sympathies.  Barbossa and his crew of undead pirates were bad guys, but they were also damned souls whose punishment of spending cursed treasure was in excess of their crime.  When Barbossa laments that he no longer feels the spray of the sea or the wind in his face, you pity him even if you can’t condone his actions.  In the sequels, Davy Jones is also a cursed man whose broken heart turned him into a horrible monster.  But there’s no sympathy for Blackbeard.  Even when the film tries to build up the father-daughter relationship between him and Angelica, it undermines it with one of the worst scenes I’ve ever seen.

Here’s what happpens: Jack, Angelica, and Blackbeard have reached the island where the Fountain of Youth is located.  They reach a chasm and the bridge has been destroyed so Blackbeard tells Jack to jump in below and reach the other side so he can obtain a pair of silver chalices needed to complete the extended-life ritual.  Keep in mind that Jack is being carted along because they need him to find the fountain.  Earlier in the story, Blackbeard compels Jack by using a Jack Sparrow voodoo doll.  And yet when they reach the chasm, Jack refuses.  The logical recourse for Blackbeard would be to use the doll and torture Jack until he jumps.  Instead, there’s a stupid roundabout scene where Blackbeard does long-form Russian roulette with Angelica, Jack tries to stop Blackbeard by asking the party’s clairvoyant zombie pirate if he’ll survive the jump, the zombie pirate chucks the voodoo doll over the cliff, it survives, and so Jack jumps.  Keep in mind: the entire time, Blackbeard needs Jack alive.  Sparrow is neither expendable nor is he trustworthy but he’s the one who has to get the chalices.  The stupidity of this entire scene punched my brain into a semi-coma.

And On Stranger Tides had been pulverizing my brain for a good hour and a half before this scene even happens.  The screenwriting is excruciatingly lazy by relying too heavily on coincidence.  Twice in the first hour does Jack end up where no one could have predicted and is either saved (by his father who randomly appears and disappears with no explanation for either) or drugged (by zombie pirate) because those character just happened to be where he showed up.

I could go on and on about the story problems.  A mermaid’s tear is required for the Fountain ritual, but Barbossa and his crew don’t get one, and carry on anyway.  There’s a romance between a missionary (Sam Claflin) and a mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) that is so anemic it’s pretty much irrelevant.  If Blackbeard has the power to zombify his crew to make them more compliant, then why doesn’t he do it to everyone?

Even if you want to say “Well I don’t go into a Pirates movie expecting good characters or a solid story!  I just want to have fun!”* You’re still going to be screwed.  While not everything in thePirates sequels work, they at least have the audacity to go big.  There’s a kraken, a long sword fight on a giant wheel, and an intense ship battle inside a massive whirlpool.  Nothing in On Stranger Tides comes anywhere close to that scope.  Rob Marshall is a competent director, but the film illustrates the tremendous contributions that previous director Gore Verbinski brought to the series.  Verbinski knew when to make the scenes operatic, lighthearted, and knew how to pace a set piece.  The chase through the streets of London is lifeless, the fight against the mermaids is too brutal to be enjoyable, and the swordfight between Jack and Angelica is pointless.

That swordfight also makes the grave error of calling back the first sword fight between Jack and Will in Curse of the Black Pearl.  In Black Pearl, we already had an idea of who Will was and his personality.  In On Stranger Tides, Angelica is impersonating Jack and kept entirely in shadow so it looks like Jack is just fighting himself, but that decision keeps the personality of the swordfight one-sided.  In Black Pearl, the reason Jack and Will fight is because Jack wants to escape and Will wants to make sure that doesn’t happen.  There’s barely any provocation for the swordfight in On Stranger Tides.  In Black Pearl, there’s fantastic choreography and pacing to the fight where it begins slowly, builds to incorporate more elements from the workshop, adds fun banter between Jack and Will, and then ends in a way where there’s a clear victor and we also get a hint about Jack’s pistol with one shot.  The fight between Jack and Angelica is just two swords clanging against each other and then she throws barrels at him like Donkey Kong.  And then they fight with the British army who show up for no particular reason.  And then Jack and Angelica escape through a convenient trap door.  And then they happen to wash up right where zombie pirate is waiting to put a blow dart in Jack’s neck.  And then I checked my watch and saw there was still 100 minutes of movie left.  And then I cried a little.

There are some occasional good jokes in On Stranger Tides and Geoffrey Rush continues to have a grand time playing Barbossa.  But everything else fails miserably.  The movie is a soulless, hollow mess that assumes that if it just throws a bunch of interesting ideas at you (Blackbeard! Zombies! Mermaids! More Jack Sparrow!) it will all add up to a great film.  Instead, the result an absolute disaster that fails to understand how the individual parts of a film need to function together in order to provide a working whole.  Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides may try to walk and talk like Pirates film, but it’s a shambling imposter that even the most notorious scalawag would find reprehensible.