City of Lies (2021)

Score: 2 / 5

It just feels like too little too late. Even if it hadn't been shelved for so long, it would have felt late had it been released in 2016 when it was shot. This is partly due to the news specials, documentaries, shows (Unsolved), and movies (All Eyez on Me) that have already covered so much of the same ground: the murders of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, The Notorious B.I.G. This movie doesn't add much to the conversation, but I suppose it could act as a reasonably diverting entering point for younger audiences. Unfortunately, it's also not interesting or entertaining enough to make much of a splash, no doubt further hindered by public opinion around its lead actor.

Much like the crime procedurals we're all familiar with by now, Brad Furman's City of Lies (he has also directed The Lincoln Lawyer and The Infiltrator) is arguably more interested in the detective than in the victim or even the mystery. We start with a grizzled Russell Poole (Johnny Depp), a disgraced former LAPD detective still musing over the case that was never solved, meeting with LA Times reporter Jack Jackson (Forest Whitaker). Most of the meat of this movie takes place during flashbacks, as Poole spins his yarn about the initial investigation into Biggie's murder and his actions that led to resigning and losing both his pension and his family.

These flashbacks flesh out a younger Poole as he is first summoned to investigate the fatal shooting of an off-duty Black cop by another white detective. He's pressured to be sensitive, given the LA climate of the decade with Rodney King's murder and the OJ Simpson trial. But evidence arises quickly that the murdered cop had Bloods affiliation; moreover, he was on the payroll of Suge Knight, the head of Death Row Records. It becomes clear that Knight is Poole's primary suspect, and the investigation launches. Its twists and turns lead Poole, burdened too by pressure from oversight, to the brink of a mental breakdown; the case, in his mind, can't be solved because to do so would bring down the entire LAPD. Too many high-level officials have their hands in dirty money and dangerous circles.

The frame story ends, notably, with similar tragedy. Poole, whose ongoing friendship with Biggie's mother Voletta Wallace has seemingly kept him afloat, is reinvigorated, even going to the LA Sheriff's office to reopen the investigation. But a sudden heart attack kills him in a poetically ironic twist. Jackson publishes an article lionizing Poole before resigning what he sees as a hypocritical system of injustice and corruption. After all, almost two decades had passed, and the murders were still officially unsolved. Their seemingly dual obsessions converge on solving the murder, which the titular city is determined to forget about, and they both fail, because ultimately even worthy men can't always beat the system. For a movie that could have had an axe to grind -- and should have, a la Zodiac, perhaps -- this one is just really sad.

Even for someone only marginally familiar with the case specifics, I found the film largely uninteresting, thanks to lackluster and even downright confused direction and writing. Over-written, contrived dialogue causes the actors to gargle on exposition and repeated phrases like "you're off this case" and "unless we're not meant to solve it." Depp is really solid in his role, but almost everyone else feels bewildered or at least phoning it in, and I suspect that big names like Whitaker and Shea Whigham only appear badly due to misdirection. This ineptitude exists on the scene level, but also for the whole picture, as shapeless storytelling blurs the lines between past and present without apparent desire to shed new light, make any argument, or even really honor the characters. It worked hard to appear to be a murder mystery before dovetailing as a police procedural and character study, and finally ends up like a watered down PSA about police corruption and unjust murderous police behavior against people of color. Maybe if the screenplay had chosen a style or focus that would have helped.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Score: 3 / 5

Everyone may be a suspect, but guilt may lie with the filmmakers here.

As if another Murder on the Orient Express was necessary or even really wanted, Kenneth Branagh helms this stylish whodunit with panache if not passion. He and his team do some fun and interesting things with the familiar tale, but its overall effect is cheapened by stuffy sentimentality, repeated attempts at superfluous spectacle, and a surprisingly unfocused screenplay by Michael Green (whose amazing breakout year has included American Gods, Logan, Alien: Covenant, and Blade Runner 2049).

It all starts with a strange opening scene at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, one that introduces not only Branagh's own Poirot (who I had more than a little trouble believing, but that's just my own taste) but the film's forced efforts at leaping into the twenty-first century. It's a bizarre little plea for interfaith harmony disguised as an introduction to Poirot, as he wryly solves a silly but consequential little mystery for a rabbi, a priest, and an imam. Unfortunately, the modern social commentary doesn't stop there. While the presences of Penelope Cruz, Leslie Odom, Jr., and Manuel Garcia Rulfo are a lovely addition, they do change the texture of the story in dramatic and unnecessary ways. If we're going to change the source material, can we please have a better reason than publicity?

Regardless, it doesn't take too long and our hero has boarded the titular train on his fateful journey. A particularly dour Johnny Depp plays Ratchett, a businessman afraid for his life, who unsuccessfully bullies Poirot into protecting him. Poirot is a man of apparently unshakable morals, it seems, and as he says early in the film, there is right and there is wrong. His opinion of Mr. Ratchett doesn't change for the better when the latter is found murdered in his bed. The thirteen passengers of that coach are all suspects, and as Poirot interrogates them and collects evidence, lies and trickery pile up into one of Agatha Christie's most beloved works. It's certainly one of my favorites, with a killer ending that, in my opinion, is one of the most satisfying and disturbing in all mystery literature.

Unfortunately, this film doesn't measure up to previous incarnations by a long shot. Sidney Lumet's 1974 version, though it too changed a few character names, is one of my favorite movies of all time. This film, like that, features no small amount of grandeur and style, in extravagant costumes and sets as well as in really dynamic camerawork by Haris Zambarloukos (Eye in the Sky, Sleuth, Mamma Mia!, Thor, Locke). His long tracking shots and attention to fabulous lighting are worthy of admiration. And while a feast for the eyes should be enough for a twisty mystery like this, Branagh and Green seem to think they need to add an irritating amount of spectacle. Swooping vistas of eastern Europe are grand in the 65mm film, but the extreme close-ups on actors' faces are a shallow attempt at intimacy and claustrophobia. Similarly, a few other camera gimmicks didn't work as well as Branagh may have hoped, such as the crime scene investigation, which all takes place overhead; cool, I suppose, but we are unable to see any faces or their emotion. Ratchett brandishes a gun at Poirot; one woman gets stabbed in the shoulder; a strangely Romantic lightning strike that causes an avalanche doesn't just stop the Orient Express from proceeding, but literally knocks it off its tracks. The film avoids any possible claustrophobia (a poor decision, I say) by having Poirot interrogate the suspects in various places around the train at various times, including one "picnic" as he calls it outside in the snow, as if he would do such a thing, much less expect it of a strong-willed British lady.

Irritated yet? Just wait. The film includes two ludicrous action scenes, which I would have laughed aloud during had I not been so anxious about what would happen. In one, a man attempts to burn incriminating evidence; he does so by inexplicably going outside the train, into the scaffolding under the bridge, and almost dying in the process. Why couldn't he have simply tossed the documents out a window? They're on a bridge in a snowy mountain range! Or burned it in the train, and scattered the ashes? It's just a cheap ploy by the filmmakers, who seem to think a good mystery has to have action sequences. In the other scene, another man shoots Poirot in the arm as he claims responsibility for the crime and the scene proceeds to turn into a fight between Poirot and the man. I could have accepted the scene, except of course that it is absurd and ends with no transition to the climax. Poirot wouldn't be caught dead fighting like a street thug, and more importantly, he'd never have to.

Speaking of characters, for the most part the cast is solid. The script does not allow for much characterization of anyone but Poirot, a sad fact for those of us who like character-based mysteries. Each interrogation of the suspects is interrupted either by (you guessed it!) spectacle or bewildering editing, which results in our inability to fully understand the criminal timeline and evidence amassed -- even those of us who know the story intimately. There are a few gems in the cast, mostly the A-listers who get the lion's share of screen time, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, and Daisy Ridley. Most of the rest of the cast gets severely limited exposure, especially Derek Jacobi, Lucy Boynton, and Olivia Colman. Judi Dench does her brief thing of scowling imperiously over everyone else, and Penelope Cruz turns the role that won Ingrid Bergman another Oscar into a bitter, shallow wretch of a Spanish missionary (wait, I thought this was supposed to be more culturally sensitive?). Whereas Christie and Lumet made their insular, claustrophobic stories to examine issues of human rationalization and projection, deception and delusion, and awful guilt, Branagh here mostly attempts spectacle and pleasure for a modern audience in focusing on celebrities in a more or less period film.

Apart from the film's reliance on spectacle, its greatest failing lies in its dripping sentiment. Nary a shot isn't Romantic or romantic, and while I like some eye candy like Branagh strutting along the roof of the snow-covered train for literally no reason, it doesn't mesh well with what is one of Christie's most disturbing and enchanting mysteries. We don't need to see Poirot fawning over a photo of his lover and repeating her name ad nauseam to have sympathy for his character. We don't need to see, at the climax, the suspects arranged in the mouth of a tunnel like the Last Supper to understand what's happening (and as if Princess Dragomiroff would deign to march through snow drifts!). And then there's the one-line groaners like Poirot's "There is right, there is wrong, and now there is you." There's a suspect's almost gleeful inability to maintain a lie during questioning, as he changes accents and behaviors on a whim without even attempting to look desperate, embarrassed, or ashamed. There's the revealed mastermind's "You are a clever man" before sobbing hysterically. And, worst of all, there's the flashback scene that depicts the murder in black-and-white; over the drama (which Lumet filmed as a straight-up horror scene to awesome effect) is played a romantic piano ballad that sounds like something from Twilight. It's not creepy, it's not warm and symphonic, it's not even a grandiose "AHA! It is solved!" Instead it's a sickly love song that makes no sense overlaying a gruesome murder and served only to irreparably rip me from the moment.

What else is there to say? It's an entertaining film -- until that climax -- and handsomely shot. I was disappointed more often than not, but if that's what it takes to keep Christie alive in the public eye, maybe it will be worth it. The ending suggests pretty overtly that the door to a sequel is wide open, but I certainly hope if Death on the Nile is green-lit, the filmmakers do it some justice. And, honey, do something about that mustache.

IMDb: Murder on the Orient Express

Tusk (2014)

Score: 0 / 5

Wallace hosts a podcast that showcases and humiliates viral videos and what we might call "epic fails". He and his partner Teddy learn of one particularly famous one in Canada, and he goes to interview the guy. Upon arriving and learning of his suicide, Wallace seeks out a place to stay for the night and collect a new story. Traveling to a remote location, he finds a reclusive old seaman named Howard Howe, who promises to tell him stories. Howard, though, drugs and incapacitates Wallace and reveals his intent to dehumanize and torture him. Teddy and Wallace's girlfriend Ally (yes, she is in a relationship with both young men) go looking for him, and do indeed find him with the help of eccentric detective Guy LaPointe.

I hated this movie. Hated it. Hated the characters, hated the special effects. hated the script. Hated most of the running time, hated the flashbacks, hated the direction.  I hated the confused, ambiguous correlation between child abuse and misanthropy in Howard, whose identity as a Duplessis orphan supposedly dictates his activities as a serial killer. I hated his grotesque secondary motive for mutilating the bodies he abducts: Once, while at sea, he was rescued by a walrus that he eventually named Mr. Tusk before eating him to survive. Now he seeks to re-create Mr. Tusk so that it may have a fighting chance at life again. To that end, he tortures and dismembers his victims to physically make them into walruses. I hated the overused comparison between the verbal barbarism of the podcasts and the physical barbarism of the podcaster's body. I hated the lazy challenges to a human-animal dichotomy. I hated the humorless attempts at comedy and the insipid images of horror.

It's sick. A twisted Frankenstein of horror comedies, director Kevin Smith tries to combine the freaky weirdness of The Fly with Silence of the Lambs with a knowing sense of humor. He fails. It's never funny or scary and only occasionally disturbing. I had to get out of my chair and leave twice during the viewing because I just couldn't take it anymore. About halfway through the movie, Wallace gets his tongue cut out (or something to that effect), rendering his dialogue for the remainder to be nothing more than gargling screams. The only sense offended worse than hearing, however, is sight. Robert Kurtzman's disgusting walrus bodysuit fits perfectly into the film, that is, a disgusting centerpiece to a cinematic garbage dump.

The only thing I liked in the film was Johnny Depp in his uncredited role as Guy LaPointe. His accent, facial hair, mannerisms are worth a watch. But do yourself a favor and Youtube his scenes. It's not that the movie is just a waste of time. You'll actually wish you could un-see it.

IMDb: Tusk

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

Score: 3 / 5

I loved this movie. I love pirates, I love Geoffrey Rush, I love the swashbuckling action and high-seas fantasy. It's become cool to hate the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise for reasons I cannot comprehend; it remains one of my favorite series of any media. Yet for all my enthusiasm and affection for this movie, Dead Men Tell No Tales is a bloated, waterlogged disappointment.

It's safe, in this instance, to squarely blame the script. We can only bitterly wonder what was in Jeff Nathanson's mind as he wrote this mess of a tale. The brilliance of Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal is nowhere to be found here. Instead we get a haphazard tale that takes intriguing ideas and enchanting mythology and butchers them into a collage of weirdness that is left unexplained and, worse, underappreciated. The basic premise of the film makes almost no sense as timelines are made arbitrary and characters don't age as they should. And, perhaps worst of all, the dialogue is laughably banal, using frequent and lazy sexual innuendo to offset the occasional expository hooey that feels like an elementary book's back-cover summary. Even casual interactions between characters reveal nothing beyond the comparable shallowness of each. One can only hope that Nathanson's upcoming work on The Lion King remake can see him return to some sort of form.

Have I lambasted it enough yet? Perhaps not, as I consider the direction under Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg. The relative unknowns have their moments of style and flair, notably in one scene when Jack Sparrow faces the guillotine leaves you feeling particularly elated. But their slipshod sense of characters, incoherent pacing, and bizarre tendency to randomly break into slow motion are bewildering more often than not. They want to tie in too many threads, keep the focus on too many people doing too many things, and answer questions that were never asked.

**SPOILER ALERT**

The film takes place almost twenty years after At World's End, making Henry Turner about 19 years old. Having searched his entire young life for a way to save his father from his cursed fate aboard the Flying Dutchman, he embarks on a quest to find the Trident of Poseidon, which can apparently control the sea and break marine curses. He teams up with young astronomer and scientist Carina, an orphaned girl wrongfully accused of witchcraft, before the two join Captain Jack Sparrow's escape from the law to the open ocean. Concurrent with all this, Captain Salazar and his ghostly crew of pirate-killers escape from the Bermuda Triangle hell-bent on finding and murdering Jack, the pirate who entrapped them there.

While trying to acclimate myself to this new adventure and its new faces, I found myself annoyed that there was no mention of Angelica the lovely pirate whom Jack left on a cay with a voodoo doll of himself. We still don't know what became of Syrena the mermaid or Philip the missionary. We do, thankfully, see a wealthy and powerful Barbossa as captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge and his restoration of the Black Pearl from Blackbeard's bottle. And, of course, we get a couple brief scenes featuring Will and Elizabeth Turner, though their presence is woefully short-lived.

With the exception of some spectacular ghost soldiers (essentially pirates, but not by name), an island of stars, and the show-stopping but sadly brief presence of predatory ghost sharks (GHOST. SHARKS.), the film has little in the way of novelty or awe. I'm glad something in this series finally mentioned the Bermuda Triangle, and it's pretty cool, but the mythology is underwritten and confused, linking it to Jack's compass in a nonsensical manner. Worse, and unforgivably in my opinion, the climax comes with the revelation that Carina the astronomer is actually Barbossa's long-lost daughter, not long before he dies to save everyone from Salazar. Why the film felt the need to kill off the best character and actor in the franchise is far beyond me. While he's already been brought back from the dead once and presumably could again, the witch-goddess Tia Dalma is long out of the picture. This film tries to re-do her in the form of Shansa, another tattooed witch persecuted by a naval officer (in the form of David Wenham, no less), but she's in it so sparsely I wonder if she wasn't just a fever dream.

The film ends rather firmly, thank heaven, and even eked out a little tear from me in the last scene. But stick around after the credits: we see Will Turner, free of the Dutchman and sleeping with a radiant Keira Knightley in her second scene in the movie, having nightmares of his curse. The shadow of Davy Jones falls across his bed and we see a crab claw snap before he awakens, horrified. As he falls asleep again, safe in the arms of his love, the camera pans down to see wet barnacles on the ground, suggesting his nightmare wasn't only in his head. Should Disney dive in for another swashbuckling adventure, could they resurrect Bill Nighy as the devilish fish-man? I certainly hope not, but the possibilities of Will's post-traumatic stress from the curse are at least intriguing.

This franchise, which could go on forever considering the endless ideas of mythic adventures in the Caribbean, will probably not see another installment. If it does, as I dearly pray it will, Disney desperately needs to double- and triple-check who it hires to write and direct. This bunch of flotsam and jetsam should have had to walk the plank.

IMDb: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Black Mass (2015)

Score: 3.5 / 5

I guess it's officially Oscar season. Johnny Depp ushers us in with an early grab for Best Actor that is easily his best performance in years. Depp plays Whitey Bulger, infamous gangster lord of South Boston, with a monstrous intensity that transforms the character into a devilish force of nature. He disappears into the role, aided by excellent makeup, and transcends the film around him. If nothing else, see this movie for Depp. His chilling, bulbous blue glare is entrancing on screen, and he injects venom into every word he speaks.

The rest of the film is a solid crime thriller, to be sure, but not one I found to be very palatable. We are given precious little insight into Bulger's character, and indeed we are given only shallow and fleeting peeks into the plethora of other characters. Rather than appreciating the scope of the story, I was having trouble keeping tabs on everyone (not helped by the fact that they are all white men in business suits with thick accents discussing a lot of proper nouns that hadn't yet been established visually). The script is immense, spanning several years, locations across the country, and tons of characters; handled well, this type of script can be effective (remember David Fincher's Zodiac?), but here it buries itself in details and names and motives. Whole subplots come and go with seemingly little logic (whether the fault of the writer or the director), and the editing occasionally feels forced and awkward.

That's not to say there aren't shining moments. The performances are solid all around, notably in Joel Edgerton, who has to share several intense scenes with Depp, and in Julianne Nicholson, who shares only one scene with Depp that will probably give me nightmares tonight. Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard, Corey Stoll, and Juno Temple all pop in for a few scenes, which is fun if nothing else. And the lengthy, expository dialogue sometimes gives way to brutal gems, usually delivered by Depp, that often tore me out of my reverie.

Speaking of reverie, I should mention that Masanobu Takayanagi's cinematography is really excellent (he also helped shoot Babel, Eat Pray Love, Silver Linings Playbook, and State of Play), alternating between closeups of our lead actors' faces and grand stillshots of larger, usually remote locations. Though most images are in stark grayscale and in bleak lighting, Takayanagi frames his shots so that even an abandoned alley or the muddy underside of a bridge look as important as a cathedral. I think someone decided to pay attention to the title. Elegant and almost Gothic, his camerawork gives an engaging and hypnotic energy to the film that I found endlessly intriguing.

It doesn't have the heart of The Town, the sweeping grandeur of an epic like The Godfather, or even commentary on politics or violence like we might see in The Drop or Public Enemies. And watching it, I didn't really care what happened to these people because director Scott Cooper didn't seem to either. But as the last ten minutes came to a strange sort of climax (underscored by a haunting symphonic melody), I realized that the movie works in levels beyond those conventions. It's just an examination of a man's life. Gritty and bleak, the film makes us intimate with a gangster and his methods, including his liaisons with the FBI, and then leaves us with the weight of his sins (and ours, by extension) to contemplate as we leave. If the filmmakers wanted to undermine the cathartic and spiritual (confession/redemption) convention of recent crime dramas, they did so, and this black mass consistently piles on the heavy stuff with no hope for absolution.

IMDb: Black Mass

Mortdecai (2015)

Score: 4 / 5

Everyone seems to hate Mortdecai -- this year's first big comedy -- but I didn't. In fact, being someone who categorically avoids comedies, I was surprised to enjoy it as much as I did. I laughed out loud through most of the film, which doesn't make it great by any measure, but it certainly claimed my favor. A lot of factors play into its apparent failure: it plays off stereotyped Britishisms so heavily that that seems to be its central theme, its crime and action sequences are few and far between (and simply not very good), and there is little real plot or character development. So why did I like it?

Mortdecai, featuring an A-list cast of Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, and Paul Bettany, bounces off hilarious characterizations and sharply intelligent performances with infectious speed and fervor. Depp feels plucked straight out of a period farce and dropped into a modern world that could never quite embrace him; this is also perfect for his character, who in one scene repeats his concern that a Los Angeles hotel is in fact the set of a porno film. Paltrow and McGregor balance Depp's wild turn as solid caricatures, one a domineering and resourceful woman, the other an officer smitten with puppy love. Paul Bettany mirrors Depp's every move with a stoic, sexually voracious bodyguard/manservant who literally takes shot after shot for his boss (and some delivered by his boss). Director David Koepp (who also directed Secret Window, 2004) keeps the visuals bright and clean, heightening the world into a farcical fantasy, where even the silly animated transitions between continents are strangely entertaining (perhaps not quite so much as the dotted maps in Indiana Jones, but that shit's just genius).

It's not the sleuth/caper/action film I expected, but it certainly has some shining moments of comedy and style that are simply rare in modern comedies (though I say this having little real experience with such films). Depp's scene-stealing mannerisms as the posh, prissy art dealer are mesmerizing, and his constant banter about his Poirot-like mustache is at once absurd, redundant, and hilarious. True, he spends most of his time on screen mugging for the camera, but that's sometimes what works best for an actor of his peculiar talents. Besides the great chemistry between Depp, Paltrow, and Bettany, all the cast shares an uncanny knack for perfect comedic timing, from Depp's nervously mumbled warblings to the sympathetic gagging between husband and wife over the former's shiny little mustache. Unfortunately, we see precious little of Olivia Munn and Jeff Goldblum, though their moments are also lovely.

If you're looking for a zany absurdist comedy to enjoy after this year's whirlwind of an awards season, you could do much worse than Mortdecai. In fact, for a genre that's been largely extinct in America for a few decades now, this film rocks at achieving its own larger-than-life agenda. No, the script won't have you digging for information or clues, and no, the car chases and shoot-outs aren't anything to remember later on. But for sharp wit, bizarre style, and utterly madcap performances, Mortdecai gives us its all.

IMDb: Mortdecai

Into the Woods (2014)

Score: 5 / 5

If you recall, I often limit my consideration of a film in terms of its source material (be it history, literature, or both) because adaptations and changes in medium render such comparisons useless. But because I am more sympathetic to theatrical purists than to pretentious readers who expect other people to share their vision of a work, I will concern a large part of the following with the effects of the changes made to this film adaptation from its staged roots. Why? Partly because theatre is far more collaborative than literature, and partly because so much of this film's material is directly translated from the stage. Are we all okay with that? Very well -- let's journey on. "Into the woods and out of the woods and home before dark!"

Starting from the top, Rob Marshall directs this fantastic excursion with surprising novelty, perhaps one of the film's greatest strengths. He finds subtle moments (in a slightly altered screenplay by James Lapine) and fleshes them out into juxtaposed moments of dark humor, tragedy, slapstick, and romance, all framed with so much fantasy atmosphere that the film itself feels like a dream. This film is surprisingly dark, and not just in tone, so don't be expecting a fabulous turn in the theater this holiday season. The fluid and versatile cinematography (by longtime Marshall co-visionary Dion Beebe) almost always works for me, and the lighting is simply perfect, often featuring a lone light peering through the branches and thickets of the shadowy woods. Though using similar narrative devices from his previous movie-musicals, Marshall does not go for glitz and glamour in this picture; here, he dazzles us with atmosphere and emotionally charged visuals, effects, and close-ups on his actors. Celebrated costumer Colleen Atwood dresses everyone beautifully, and though it's an obvious favorite, she really outdoes herself on the Witch's blue and sheer dress in the second act. Stephen Sondheim's phenomenal music is brought into stunning character in the film, where we can hear nuanced sound and more delicate instrumentals than in many a live theatre. Instrumental versions of cut songs keep the emotional pace of the film in step with the stage show, appeasing fans (or at least me) with beats that few (if any) average moviegoers will appreciate.

Okay, let's just dive right in, and we'll talk about scenes, actors, and the like as they come up. The Intro is a fourteen-ish-minute thrill ride, and the editor nails the fast scene changes and follows quirky lyric with adept skill and understanding of the material. Marshall and his team had their work cut out for them -- establishing character, plot, setting, and musical coherence -- and they excel, allowing the humor of moments (Cinderella and her birds), the atmosphere of an imposing forest (Red Riding Hood skipping into a dark tunnel), and emotional foundation (Jack and his mother) to combine and explore themselves before the movie really begins. "Hello Little Girl" is rather nice, featuring Johnny Depp (and his awkward vocals) in a slightly furry zoot suit, with enhanced wolfish growls and glowing eyes. Red Riding Hood, nailed by little Lilla Crawford and her great voice, charms with "I Know Things Now", in which we see a trippy but effective sequence of her looking like Alice as she falls down a purple rabbit hole and finding her grandmother in the Wolf's belly. Sadly, we do not get "Maybe They're Really Magic", but that doesn't stop James Corden and Emily Blunt from owning their roles as the Baker and his Wife. Their interaction and dynamic emotional journey hits a high point in "It Takes Two", which is staged more appropriately and intelligently than I've ever seen on stage.

"Agony", featuring the hunky and slightly campy Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen, is incredible. Climbing atop a waterfall, splashing themselves with water, and tearing open their shirts, the two men are endlessly charming (ha?). Sadly, we don't get to see them reprise the song in the second act, which greatly shortens their screen time. Daniel Huttlestone's voice doesn't quite appeal to me -- though he does earn the character as poor dumb Jack -- but his tree-climbing physicality in "Giants in the Sky" worked really well, especially since on stage the number is usually fairly spotlighted and movement-less. Anna Kendrick shines as sweet Cinderella, and her slightly altered "On the Steps of the Palace", wisely changed to present-tense, is lovely. Moving into the second act before we talk about the more complicated bits, "Witch's Lament" is sadly only one-third of its proper length. I don't know why they cut it down, and it makes me sad to not hear the whole thing. But the change in Rapunzel's fate struck me as decidedly more tragic than on stage, and though I won't spoil it here, I think it fits in a lot better with Marshall's central theme for the picture (which we'll discuss later). Meryl Streep is the star here, and her every moment on screen steals the movie anew. I don't know how she does it, but she puts an astounding amount of energy and heart into her role as the Witch. The staging for "Last Midnight" makes the scene the best in the film; besides Meryl's award-worthy performance in that single song, the whirling camera, lighting, and special effects combine in the most dazzling musical theatre number I've ever seen on film except perhaps "All That Jazz" in Chicago.

We lack the sung transition pieces that mark each midnight as they pass, but moments like that (and, later, the characters sharing their learned lessons) just wouldn't work as well in a film. I believe that is also why the Mysterious Man/Narrator has been cut, mostly because the magic of that character revolves around his physical presence on screen and the duality of his role. That tension finally peaks in the second-act song "No More", which is also omitted in this film for the same reason. It's a beautiful moment on stage, but Marshall and Lapine very dangerously and, I think, wisely sacrificed it to bring greater strength to other moments. Let's face it, even on stage, there is no much happening in the script that the show can be overwhelming and start to languish in its own dense rhetoric. Omitting the Narrator and including more references to the Witch's mother and Cinderella's parents make one of the show's more interesting themes rise to exciting new levels (and influence the finale, as we will discuss later). Elements like the Narrator can work well when we can see them live, but would become confusing in a film that is not divided into acts and that does not allow characters to walk on and directly address the audience. Similarly, I'm okay with omitting "Ever After", a lovely transition number that would only really work well if we had the other numbers that revealed character lessons, and that satirizes fairytale rhetoric in preparation of the second act (so it wouldn't make sense without an intermission).

The ending works perfectly for me as a film. I understand that people will be upset: non-previous-fans because it's not a typical "happy ever after", and stage-show fans because it doesn't have the theatrical wink and giddy, bouncy ending that makes audiences feel less disturbed as they exit the auditorium. But the slow pan across the forest and onto the cloudy, almost-sunlight sky as Streep sings the ever familiar "Children Will Listen" is one of the most emotionally honest and transcendent moments on film we've seen this year. The ending features a dreamy confluence of narrator voices that draw from a pool of characters, including the Baker, his father, his wife, and even the Witch; I believe this is done partly to round out their variously tragic stories and bring them back to some sort of "life", and also to again emphasize the unspoken central theme in this movie of the emotional dynamics between absent parents and their children. That's a theme that isn't really central to the stage show, and frankly Marshall's meditation on it here is one of the most moving elements to this film due to its relative novelty. Marshall also repeatedly pushes the lesser themes of moral confusion ("Moments in the Woods", "No One is Alone"), the importance (and dangers) of decision-making ("Your Fault/Last Midnight"), and a certain inevitability about entering the woods ("Into the Woods").

With these ideas, the final shot perhaps works better than a smash-bang chorus finale, because we are left with our survivors joining together in the sunlight, hoping (more than wishing) for a bright future, though they are still deep in the forest. Melancholy as it may be, it doesn't leave us untouched. Rather than telling us how to feel, or leading us on a rote moral path, Into the Woods claims its place as one of the most engaging, provocative, beautiful, and intelligent films I've ever seen. Go watch it, and don't be afraid to get a little lost.

IMDb: Into the Woods

Sweeney Todd (2007)

Score: 2.5 / 5

I'm going to admit my bias right away: I hate this film. As a fan of the stage musical, I can't say that Tim Burton's adaptation is even representative of Sondheim and Wheeler's work. But, as I have said before -- and to avoid hypocrisy -- I hope here to objectively view the 2007 film on its own merits and not by comparing it to incomparable media (a book or stage show), and certainly not by comparing it to my expectations of what the film should be. Shall we stroll down Fleet Street together, then? Tuck in, lads.

Since the film is a musical, let's start with the adapted score. The instrumental theme thunderously succeeds, raucously inviting us into a hellish 1846 London. Other slightly tweaked moments, such as Judge Turpin's masquerade ball, sound beautiful and rich onscreen. I find unbalanced, however, the rousing orchestrations and the singers. None of the vocalists (with the exception of young Ed Sanders) are powerful singers, and their voices don't quite fit the operatic scope of the music. Rather, many of the songs are performed clipped and conversational, as if they were stylized dialogue; this would work for "The Worst Pies in London", but not necessarily for "Wait", for example.

Though the singing doesn't always match the score, it arguably does match the style. Tim Burton typically heavily relies on stylized costumes, lighting, acting, camerawork, and visual effects to achieve a specific impression for an audience, and Sweeney Todd is no exception. In fact, his devotion to thick atmosphere, dark wit, and caustic theatricality is admirable and makes this film notably compelling. I find his weighty style in this film a tad damaging, because it occasionally works against the story; he highlights spectacle, which feels redundant since the material is already so spectacular. By the end, it feels so unrealistic that I have little interest in any of the characters or their problems. A big reason for this is Burton's focus on splatter. The deaths of the characters are icky and fun but also distancing. Sometimes this works -- a combination of giggling and shrieking that comes from complementary nastiness -- but when splashed across an otherwise grim and brooding world, I have a hard time accepting any seriousness in the tale.

Pardon a little lecture: Musicals are a lot like Shakespeare. In Shakespeare's plays, there are precious few stage directions, but as scholars will tell you, almost all the dialogue implies some amount of stage direction if you know the signs. Similarly, musicals (more specifically, the music and lyric of musicals) imply a lot of stylistic and acting advice. Having seen this film, I'm not sure Tim Burton or Johnny Depp (among others, no doubt) understand how to "do" a musical, because they ignore a lot of potentially effective moments, while rendering others redundant or oxymoronic. Consider "My Friends", which feels unnecessary because the camera repeats images that mirror (literally) the lyrics, or "The Worst Pies in London", when the editor ignores potentially comedic beats on Mrs. Lovett in favor of showing Sweeney's disgust at the pies (that she's already telling us are disgusting).

A last thought on musical productions: The great paradox of musicals is that, though "realistically" we do not break out into song and dance, in the theatre we burst out into song and the audience automatically believes us. Hopefully they believe us and empathize with us by the power of the music and our vulnerability in the moment. But in this film, I often feel distanced from the characters and the material because the singing is awkward and the style overwrought. That said, "Epiphany" has a great idea in entering Sweeney's mind as he hunts his victims. And I like the visual fantasy in "By the Sea", but its contrast to the rest of the film makes the whole movie feel just that more surreal and contrived, more like an animated picture.

Moving on to the cast. Helena Bonham Carter soars as Mrs. Lovett, and her remarkable strength in humanizing a crazed character makes up for her sometimes shaky vocals. Johnny Depp is an interesting Sweeney: He's somewhat introverted, surprisingly young (I don't believe for an instant that the apparently older Pirelli worked for him as a boy), and apparently can't sing with proper technique though his tone weirdly works in context. Depp and Carter have some nice moments together, but especially shine in "Little Priest". Ed Sanders steals the show as Toby, and his beautiful, powerhouse voice amazes me. Young boys who can sing the part are rare enough (I've seen it convincingly played as an older, handicapped boy), and it seems a little odd that a child would need a "miracle elixir" to grow hair, but Sanders nails it.

Jamie Campbell Bower's vocals are nice, but I don't particularly buy that as Antony he is an experienced sailor. His facials leave a lot to be desired; for example, he can't quite decide what to do with his eyebrows at the end of "Johanna" and I laugh aloud every time (not the proper reaction, mind). Alan Rickman is a wonderful Judge Turpin, his added dialogue is very welcome, and his vocals are a fine supplement to his character work. Timothy Spall delights as Beadle Bamford, and his awkward singing style is fortunately kept to a minimum. Sacha Baron Cohen's attempts at singing are similarly kept short, and his acting is disconnected, vague, and ultimately inconsequential.

Neither Johanna nor the Beggar Woman are given enough screen time to garner our interest, and so the potential romantic and tragic elements of the story are largely discarded. Even Sweeney occasionally loses our interest: his spoken "Forget my face" and sparing of Johanna in the final scene is laughably stupid and wildly uncharacteristic. In conclusion, I find that this film limits its revenge-narrative scope to vague social commentary, stereotype-laden tropes of mental disorders, and a reinforcement of our culture's revulsion of bodily fluids. Do yourself a favor and watch the filmed national tour, with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury, or the recent concert production with Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson.

IMDb: Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street