Review: Terminator Salvation

The fourth entry in the Terminator franchise suffers from a lack of humanity.

For a film nakedly intent on repeating elements of its preceding installments, director McG’s Terminator Salvation lacks the emotional complexity that elevated the franchise’s earlier films above the standard action exercise. The shabby result is a boilerplate genre piece bulging with sound and fury that eschews humanity in favor of tedious summer blockbuster sturm and drang. Sound, especially – between the incessant gunfire, explosions and crashes, this may well be the single loudest film released in years.

Going back to the beginning by way of a sequel, the film depicts the post-apocalyptic war hinted at in its predecessors, a conflict between oppressive machines and a straggling human resistance led by legendary soldier John Connor (Christian Bale). Amidst Connor’s difficult rise to prominence as mankind’s savior, an executed felon from 2003 named Marcus Wright (imminent next big thing Sam Worthington) awakens to this nightmarish new world. Revealed to be a human heart and brain inside the body of one of the titular robots, Marcus joins forces with Connor to rescue a nest of human prisoners that includes Kyle Reese, the young man who paradoxically will travel back in time and become Connor’s father (Anton Yelchin, Star Trek).

Bale enforces the helicopters-only parking policy.

For a film ostensibly about the triumph of humanity over technology, the script by Terminator 3scribes John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris (and reportedly doctored by The Dark Knight co-writer Jonathan Nolan), focuses instead on effects-laden set pieces at the expense of characterization. And that’s where the film starts to really malfunction. Even though they were essentially chase movies, the first two Terminator installments remain classics thanks to inordinately character-driven moments between the tentpole action sequences. There are certainly enough clues in Terminator Salvation to suggest a similar depth to its leads: Marcus briefly describes his guilt over the death of his brother, which presumably drives him to take the young, overeager Reese under his wing; likewise the persistent image of John Connor’s very pregnant wife Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard) implies that Connor’s preoccupation with rescuing the man destined to become his father stems from his anxiety over his own impending fatherhood.

But such hints of motivation and subtext are never completely explored, whereas the elaborate battles and chases are staged with a slavish adherence to bombast. McG’s (Charlie’s Angels) priorities seem inverted – the overcooked action sequences obviously received far more attention than the humanistic story elements that might have resonated with audiences or grounded the film’s stakes. At other times, you have to wonder if the screenwriters understand their characters at all, as evidenced by the completely out-of-character decision that Connor makes in the film’s final moments.

Come with him if you want to live: Yelchin

To be fair, Bale and Yelchin do their level best to create some palpable empathy, and their compelling performances are almost enough to salvage the film. Bale portrays the adult John Connor as the stoically noble leader that audiences have waited to see since the original Terminator some twenty-five years ago. Unlike the hero of another film series who was likewise a temperamental mama’s boy of messianic importance, Bale does not disappoint. It is young Reese, however, who provides the film’s emotional keystone: unconcerned with abstractions like fate or free will, he simply wants to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Yelchin effectively conveys this altruism through a combination of earnest enthusiasm and carefully controlled fear, and in so doing shows a maturity and a craftsmanship beyond his young age.

Unfortunately Worthington fails to bring the same level of charisma to Wright. The character is intended to be a tough guy with a human heart of gold, but Worthington shallowly coasts on swagger and stature without showing credible vulnerability. That worked fine for Arnold Schwarzenegger – his role was that of machine, after all – but for a character that’s supposed to be redeeming his humanity, Wright appears that much more mechanical by comparison. Considering Wright’s status as a new character alongside the more famous Connor and Reese, Worthington should work twice as hard to earn his character’s keep in the story. As it is, his scenes amount to little more than a tedious diversion from the main event starring Bale and Yelchin.

Bloodgood terminating a shrub

And as if to further distance itself from the other films of the series, the women are equally uninspired and uninspiring. Moon Bloodgood’s (Journeyman) Blair Williams shows the most potential for a strong female character, but despite the actress’ best efforts the character devolves into a damsel in distress orbiting Wright. There’s also precious little explanation for why a battle-hardened soldier like Blair would ultimately betray everything she knows for a man she only just met. Admittedly, her character arc could be an intentional echo of Sarah Connor’s relationship with Kyle Reese in the 1984 original, but that film at least laid groundwork to explain why such a nice, lonely girl would fall for a perceived lunatic. Reese’s child sidekick Star (Jadagrace) doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t need to – she’s only there as an adorable accessory meant to spotlight Reese’s selflessness.

Bryce Dallas Howard’s stunningly bland Kate Connor proves most distracting. Unlike Claire Danes’ feisty portrayal of the same character only six years ago, Howard’s doe-eyed and boring Kate shows no indication of being Connor’s mental and spiritual equal, let alone able to remind either Connor (or the audience) of his mother. Along with Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor is the matriarch of independent action heroines, and that makes it all the more disappointing to see the character’s sci-fi proto-feminism discarded in favor of more lackluster fare.

At least in terms of spectacle, the film lives up to its pedigree even if the numerous actions sequences recycle elements of the other Terminator films. It’s also odd that no one realized that Connor crashes two different helicopters in exactly the same manner over the course of one film. For that matter, the digital reconstruction of a familiar face in the final act is not only technically stunning, but also provides the film’s singular moment of genuine terror. Still, actual non-digital sets and scenery appear painfully fake, which perhaps sums up the film’s flaws – meticulous attention to the artificial, sloppy disinterest in the corporeal. Truly, the machines have won.

- Stephen Kabel
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Miscellaneous Debris, May Edition

Our monthly miscellany of news we like to talk about.

Happy Memorial Day! The weather’s far too nice here to sit in a move theatre, so we’ll likely be heading to the theatres only to check out Terminator: Salvation, and then most likely a late show. (We don’t have to get up.)

With the summer movie season already well under way and the networks presenting their upfronts, there’s a lot going on worth talking about. Especially for television, with at least one network debuting a record number of shows in the fall, the news is thick and deep. The following list only represents some of the news items popping up around the Intertube this week, so we’re sure there’s plenty more to report. Still, this stuff caught our eye, and anyway you’ll have more fun getting outside and enjoying the fresh air and sunshine anyway. The Internet in all its time-wasting glory will be here when you get back.

Coming soon to theatres?

1. Steven Spielberg announced plans this week to produce a biopic based on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Some King family members are already up in arms about the deal, saying they weren’t consulted on the negotiations. In the meantime, we’ll also continue waiting for Spielberg’s long-awaited bio of Abraham Lincoln, starring Liam Neeson in the role of the Great Emancipator. Rumors of that film have circled since Dreamworks got the rights back in 2001. Neeson, having pulled off the sleeper hit of the year with Taken, says he’s still eager to get into the role.

2. On a completely different subject, we have to repeat how much we’re looking forward to Moon, July’s indie sci-fi effort about an astronaut miner (Sam Rockwell) facing replacement just as his long, lonely tour on the lunar surface draws to a close. There’s never a bad time for smart science fiction, especially those rooted in near-future concepts and especially character-driven performances like this one. (We can’t help but think of Stanislaw Lem’s novel Peace On Earth every time we watch the trailer.) At any rate, we’re hoping the small-scale effort, directed by newcomer Duncan Jones, isn’t completely overshadowed online by the already-percolating hype surrounding New Moon, the sequel to Twilight, set for release this November. We previewed Moon last month, but here’s the trailer once again.

Raise the Green Lantern: Trucco

3. Good news and no-news (which is still good news, according to an old saying) for fans of comic book movies. This week reports swirled that Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige and Thor director Kenneth Branagh had selected Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek) to play the titular Norse god of thunder. The next day reports circulated that British actor Tom Hiddleston (Wallander) will play his villainous half-brother Loki. Over on the DC Comics side of things, there’s still no word on casting for the Green Lantern movie, despite filming scheduled to begin in September. As a suggestion to help speed things along, we suggest Michael Trucco (Battlestar Galactica) to play Green Lantern Hal Jordan. He’s a good actor and he looks the part, for whatever such virtues factor into how those decisions are made.

4. One of the (count ‘em) ten new shows announced by ABC for their 2009-10 season this week, Flash Forward has Next Big Thing written all over its expensive-looking trailer. Based on a novel by Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer and developed for television by screenwriters David Goyer (Batman Begins) and Brannon Braga (Star Trek: Enterprise), the network hopes the ensemble drama will serve as a “companion” series – and eventual successor, no doubt – to Lost,which begins its final season starting next January. Flash Forward depicts the aftermath of a mysterious event that causes the world’s population to black out for two minutes and 17 seconds, during which everyone gets a glimpse of their future. The ensemble cast includes Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare In Love), Courtney B. Vance (Law & Order: Criminal Intent), Sonya Walger (Lost), John Cho (Star Trek), and Peyton List (Mad Men).

5. Since we’ve championed the film at least once before for release on DVD and/or Blu-Ray, we’re very excited to announce the Peter Yates’ 1973 crime classic The Friends of Eddie Coyle saw its home video premiere this week – as a Criterion Edition, no less. Among the cool extra features is a reprint of Rolling Stone magazine’s profile of star Robert Mitchum, from the time of the film’s shooting. Apparently Mitchum, already a legendary Hollywood rebel, researched his role as a desperate low-level gunrunner by hanging out with Boston ganglord Whitey Bulger, the inspiration for Jack Nicholson’s character in The Departed thirty-three years later.

Stone Age tools: Black, Cera

6. Have you seen the latest ads for the Judd Apatow-produced, Harold Ramis-directed Year One? So much of this film demonstrates so much of what annoys us most about modern American cinema. A full decade after his distracting turn in the otherwise charming High Fidelity, Jack Black is still doing the same cocky buffoon shtick he’s done in virtually every role since. Likewise co-star Cera, bringing George-Michael Bluth’s amiable timidity to yet another paycheck. Because we know Ramis co-starred in Stripes that same year, we know he’s old enough to remember History of The World Part I and Caveman, both 1981 efforts that covered the exact same lowbrow ground. Here’s hoping that Ramis’ upcoming Ghostbusters 3 will offer better comedy. Failing that, his remake of Meatballs. Yes, Hollywood is remaking Meatballs. You’ve been warned.

7. It’s been a while since we’ve heard from the Skeet Ulrich contingent of our readership, so as a shout to them we want to mention Armored, the September release directed by Nimrod Antal (Vacancy) about a group of armored truck drivers attempting to steal $42 million from one of their own vehicles. Columbus Short (Cadillac Records) leads a cast full of man’s men, including Ulrich as well as Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Jean Reno (The Professional), Matt Dillon (The Outsiders) and Fred Ward (Tremors). Nothing closes out summer like a good, gritty neo-noir, and this one, with hints of both Criss Cross and Reservior Dogs, looks to fill that position this year.  A second film with an almost-identical concept is also currently in production, this one starring Eric Bana (Munich) and directed by F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job).

8. Finally, we were saddened this week to learn of the passing of Wayne Allwine, who supplied the voice of Mickey Mouse for thirty two years, from complications of diabetes. He was 62. A lifelong Disney employee, Allwine was only the third voice actor, after Walt Disney and his mentor Jimmy MacDonald, to portray the mouse in movies, television shows, and at the various Disney theme parks. A native of the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, Allwine joined the Disney corporation in 1966, starting in the company mail room before working his way up to sound editing such films as Splash and Three Men And A Baby.  His widow, Russi Taylor, has provided the voice of Mickey’s sweetheart Minnie Mouse since 1986.

We’ll return next Wednesday with a review of Terminator: Salvation. Have a great holiday weekend and be careful on the roads.

- Michael Kabel
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Preview: Sherlock Holmes

Guy Ritchie’s adventure stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as a younger, fiercer Holmes and Watson.

Following the successful reboots of Batman, James Bond, and now Star Trek, December’s Sherlock Holmes takes a back-to-basics approach to the venerable Sherlock Holmes, the master detective of Arthur Conan Doyle’s 19th Century fiction. The resurgent Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man) stars as a younger, more physical Holmes along with Jude Law (Cold Mountain) as a markedly different Dr. John Watson than the well-meaning buffoon traditionally popularized in films and television series. Together they’re a younger, meaner vision of the famous team living in a meaner, more realistic world, as the film’s steampunk production design aggressively suggests. And it’s not a great mystery why.

Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels) directs, meaning the emphasis will most likely be on attitude and atmosphere more than intellectual discourse, an approach he asserts stays truer to Doyle’s original stories more than most adaptations. That reorientation could lure in new audiences even as it alienates purists, many of whom have come to imagine their Holmes as something more effete than the bohemian rake Downey presents in the trailer below. But credit Ritchie and fellow screenwriters Anthony Peckham and Michael Johnson for fashioning a story worthy of not just Doyle’s atmospheric mysteries but that also pays homage to Victorian England’s creepiest genre sagas, including Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday.

Following Holmes’ capture of Satanic cult leader Lord Blackpool (Mark Strong, Syriana), the villain swears revenge from beyond the grave as he’s led to his execution. In time his oath seems to take shape, even as Watson and Holmes’ relationship strains under the pressure of Watson’s impending wedding to governess Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly, The Libertine). Blackpool’s plot threatens not just the crime-fighting duo but all of England itself – though just how the filmmakers haven’t revealed as yet. But over the course of the film Holmes and Watson both reveal a previously-unexplored fighting prowess, including during the bare-knuckle boxing scene shown in publicity photos.

It’s actually that scene, with its trademark slow-than-fast Ritchie editing, that seems the most incongruous with its subject matter. Downey isn’t as convincing stripped to the waist and muddy as he was in gleaming, high-tech armor, though faded star Law seems more comfortable than usual behind a bushy cop’s mustache. The filmmakers reportedly based Lord Blackpool on notorious occultist Alistair Crowley, making him a timely and intriguing match for Holmes – and saving the detective’s true archnemesis, Professor Moriarty, for a sequel. Fan favorite American femme fatale Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams, State of Play), Holmes’ adversary in the story “A Scandal In Bohemia,” appears in the film despite having possibly been killed in her single printed appearance. She returns needing Holmes’ and Watson’s help in stopping Blackpool.

All of which sounds great – and no offense to Mr. Ritchie, who while never entirely realizing the promise of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels has nonetheless had a productive, if erratic, career - but action films set in the Victorian period have had a rough go in the last decade, with big-budget offerings ranging from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, Van Helsing, and Around The World In 80 Days all failing to generate any box office heat. They all also, to a film, pretty much stank up their theatres. But Ritchie is adept at creating mood and texture, and the sweat-falling-on-iron London labyrinth he’s apparently created is both sumptuous and immediately convincing.

Sherlock Holmes opens nationwide December 25th.

- Michael Kabel
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DVD Review: Valkyrie

The underwhelming adaptation of a thrilling true story arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray tomorrow.

Valkyrie is a movie that tempts you to think more of it than it deserves. Handsomely shot in precise but non-obtrusive period detail, deliberately and intelligently structured with fine performances all around, the entire production seems worthy of its compelling subject matter. So why isn’t it better than just good?

Upon its theatrical release last December Critics commented that Tom Cruise’s outsized screen persona dominates the film, so that the character of Nazi Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg disappears inside the audience’s expectations of what happens in a typical Tom Cruise movie. To a point, that’s a fair gripe: following the Cruise film formula (explained in greater detail in our Valkyrie preview), Stauffenberg is a star in his chosen profession (in this case killing Allied soldiers) until something happens that sends his life spiraling out of his control. Valkyrie breaks ranks from the Cruise routine in that Von Stauffenberg’s change of heart is only the beginning of his character arc.

At first on campaign in North Africa, Stauffenberg is sent to Berlin to convalesce after a Royal Air Force attack on his tank patrol leaves him wounded and maimed. Once in the Reich capital, he’s recruited into a cabal of Nazi military officers determined to assassinate German prime minister Adolf Hitler. The group, codenamed Operation: Valkyrie, hopes to save lives and ameliorate German shame in the eyes of the world. One of the more surprising twists in the film is the reality of the group’s ambition: killing Hitler in 1944 and suing the Allies for peace seems, in the cast’s capable hands, completely within reach. But, and in staying true to the real-life story, small indecisions and mundane twists of fate, combined with poorly short-sighted decisions, combine to undermine their efforts.

The SBR complaint department always welcomes your feedback.

Director Bryan Singer wisely stages the ill-fated assassination attempt as a set piece that centers the whole film. Stauffenberg manages to place a bomb beneath a table where Hitler meets with his staff to discuss the collapsing Eastern Front. Though the bomb detonates, the Fuhrer escapes the blast with only minor injuries. The cabal’s plan goes on as planned, however, using a civil defense program to briefly overthrow the Nazi regime and corral the SS secret police. Perhaps unwiesely, most of the film’s final third or so details the insurrection’s demise and fall, paced in a way that invites sympathy for the conspirators but whose mounting tension feels oddly winded. Despite the lived-in performances of the ace supporting cast – Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard, among others – there is seldom a sense that the events are bearing down upon the characters. Given that they’ve tried to kill freaking Hitler, you’d expect more feeling that doom is imminent.

This lag comes largely from a problem with staging: the scenes in which the coup unravels should be the stuff of nailbiting suspense, but Singer chooses to almost only show Cruise talking on the phone a lot or a somewhat anonymous looking group of Nazi militiamen standing around in a square. Surely, there was more to a Nazi Berlin swallowed by an insurrectionist crisis than what’s displayed here. There are glimmers of promise, as when a militia soldier arrives to arrest Dr. Joseph Goebbels. The mad doctor already has the cyanide capsule in his mouth as the militia officer is told to stand down via a telephone call from no less than Hitler himself. In that case alone, the film stops and lets the situation speak for itself. More such moments would have immensely helped move the film along and draw the audience into its developments.

The Reichstag chapter of the Hair Club for Men show off their membership cards.

Cruise brings exactly the same level of intensity to playing the doomed, honorable Stauffenberg that he’s brought to every one of his films since Jerry Maguire. Like popcorn or Junior Mints from the snack bar, he’s a rigidly dependable theatrical commodity. It’s become somewhat fashionable to lambaste the man, and quite a bit of that ridicule is righteous backlash. But his performance should almost only be ancillary to seeing the accomplished supporting players take on such weighty subject matter. If only that were the case. This being a Tom Cruise Movie, they’re never given free room to work: Branagh especially is noticeably absent for much of the film’s narrative. To be fair, Cruise’s involvement is likely the difference in budget and production scale between the film as it is and a critically-acclaimed and little-watched HBO original movie.

Which perhaps it should have been in the first place, in that its shortcomings of plot and tension would be more readily excused or its dragging pace easier to overlook. Disappointing for its faults and maddening for its potential, Valkyrie emerges at last as neither a great film nor a terrible one. If it disappoints, to see such a fascinating story presented capably at all almost provides compensation enough for its eventual collapse. And of course, there’s Cruise. Come for the movie star, stay for the history.

- Michael Kabel

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 (Note: An earlier version of this review originally appeared for the film’s theatrical release.)

Goodbye to Life, Life On Mars, The Unusuals

A last look back at three recent television series cancelled before their time.

As the 2008-2009 television series ends with a whimper, it’s hard not to feel a sense of relief spiked nevertheless with frustration. For months we’d followed the efforts of three very good shows to find their audience, hit their creative strides, and sometimes to accomplish both at the same time. Even as formerly reliable and exciting shows collapsed around themselves – most notably NBC’s The Office and Heroes – the lesser known weeklies Life, Life On Mars, and the late season replacement The Unusuals foundered beneath increasingly merciless ratings thresholds.

All three shows had promise, all three sometimes fell short of their potential, and each one offered something more intelligent and ambitious than the sludge pool of reality-TV and cop procedurals that still lay, like a wet tarpaulin, over most of the network playing field. Like CBS’s Swingtown, which misses inclusion in the group only by virtue of its summertime airdates, they all deserved longer and better fates.

Of the three, only Life survived past its inaugural season, airing eleven episodes before the 2007-2008 writer’s strike. The intricate, melancholy story of police detective Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis, Band of Brothers), returning to the LAPD after serving twelve years in prison for a gruesome double homicide he didn’t commit, the show used veracious documentary-style interviews with its supporting characters to paint a sketchy, emerging back story of conspiracy and paranoia. Surrounding Crews were his recovering addict partner Danni Reese (The L Word’s Sarah Shahi), skeptical police lieutenant Karen Davis (Robin Weigert, Deadwood), and cellmate-turned-housemate Ted Earley (the terrific Adam Arkin, Chicago Hope). The conspiracy subplot gave an X-Files-like dread to each episode that intrigued without remaining deliberately opaque, so that each revelation begged for more information without necessitating it.

The Season 2 cast of Life.

NBC, in what must be the cruelest act of generosity in recent memory, renewed the ratings-challenged show for a second season but scheduled it during the Friday night wasteland. The show correspondingly took a tremendous dip in quality, downplaying Crews’  Zen ethos, the conspiracy side story, and Crews’ illicit love affair with his attorney (Brooke Langdon, Melrose Place) in favor of a far blander romance with his married ex-wife. The episode scripts languished, too, often involving more gimmick than substance and sex appeal over innovation or suspense. Four episodes into its second chance, the show teetered on the verge of becoming yet another network crime show, indistinguishable from the rest.

Worn down by Life: Lewis

A scheduling shift to Wednesdays brought a return to quality but didn’t significantly help ratings, even as the characters grew and the cast settled into working with one another. Donal Logue’s (The Tao of Steve) Captain Brian Tidwell, replacing Weigert as boss, was a charming romantic interest for Reese, while the show amplified first-season antagonist Roman Nevikov (Garret Dillahunt, No Country For Old Men) into the hub of the resurgent conspiracy backstory. A second-season finale brought satisfactory, if rushed, conclusions to its major storylines without taking narrative shortcuts. As a result the show has a definite beginning, middle, and (premature) end. Ultimately, the show makes ideal fare for marathons on DVD or on NBC’s undernourished Sleuth cable network.

In retrospect, considering its pedigree, film-worthy ensemble cast and mind-blowing premise, ABC’s remake of the BBC series Life On Mars should probably have hit the ground running as a better show than it ever actually became. Struck by a car in 2008, NYPD detective Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara, In Justice) awakes in 1973 to find himself a just-transferred detective assigned to the crumbling 125th precinct, a sweaty fiefdom of crime and corruption dominated by bitter, lupine Lieutenant Gene Hunt (Harvey Keitel) and his overbearing henchman Ray Carling (Michael Imperioli, Goodfellas). Tyler found solace in the friendship of fledgling policewoman Annie Norris (Gretchen Mol, 3:10 to Yuma) while trying to determine if he was dead, comatose, or actually a time traveler.

The Life On Mars cast

Early episodes excelled thanks to the strong chemistry of the various cast members and plot points that were hard not to envy: the chance to meet one’s parents, to see oneself in early childhood, to capitalize on knowledge of the future. Unfortunately, it also went to the well of stranger-in-a-strange land pop culture references too often and sometimes didn’t carry its plots through to their conclusion. An early episode revealing corruption among Hunt and his cronies was dropped too soon, and a storyline involving the criminal activities of Tyler’s father (Dean Winters, Rescue Me) never got the attention it demanded.

Feathered, leathered: Mol and O'Mara

Ultimately, Life On Mars may never have been too much of one thing or another to draw in fans of science-fiction television or the cop procedural audience, both of which typically have very defined sets of expectations and demands. Underachieving in its Thursday night time slot, ABC moved the program to Wednesdays after Lost. The show dramatically matured in quality as the season went on, though, and episodes including a hospital hostage standoff and the death of a newspaper reporter who may have been a fellow time traveler were both series standouts.

The film is a saddening bore: the LOM finale

ABC cancelled the series well enough in advance to allow the show’s creators to give it a conclusion, and while their solution wasn’t very good it was nevertheless memorable. Departing wildly from the British series’ melancholy resolution, Tyler awakes to find he’s an astronaut en route to the planet Mars itself, and that his time in the 70s was a malfunctioning virtual reality dream during his suspended animation. A bold and clumsy middle finger held up to the show’s small but devoted audience, it’s a case study in the dangers of television done not well but quickly.

Finally, while no official notice of its cancellation shows up on search engine queries, its ratings and expert speculation alike suggest that ABC’s The Unusuals won’t survive past its original ten episode order. A dark serio-comedy that proudly held M*A*S*H as a primary influence that applied that show’s light on top/dark beneath texture to a seemingly normal “cops on the beat procedural,” often to stunning effect. Critics didn’t get it, and with a late-season starting date the show still hasn’t found its audience.

The cast of The Unusuals

It’s hard not to think of The Unusuals as the best cable drama on network television. The dark subject matter and characterizations – Detective Eric Delahoy (Adam Goldberg, The Hebrew Hammer) lives in denial of his brain tumor diagnosis, while his partner Leo Banks (Harold Perrineau, Lost) suffers a constant fear of death at any minute – takes a certain mindset to quickly embrace. Likewise its plots, which included a “zombie” hospice patient walking across New York to the site of his childhood home or the “crime slut” who romanced men to help her commit brutal robberies.

The show worked best based on the strengths of its ensemble cast, including neophyte detective Amber Tamblyn (Joan of Aracadia) as neophyte detective Casey Shraeger and Jeremy Renner (28 Weeks Later) as disgraced baseball player Jason Walsh, her possibly-corrupt partner. As good as they, Perrineau, and Goldberg were, the show was finding its standout in Kai Lennox (Yes Man) as Detective Eddie Alvarez. The spiritual descendant of M*A*S*H’s Major Frank Burns but hobbled by such low self-esteem that he only speaks of himself in the third person, the multilingual Alvarez was the wet blanket to all the strangeness surrounding the group’s Second Precinct, even as Renner’s detective was its brains and Goldberg and Perrineau its sadsack heart.

As with Life On Mars, from which it inhabited the post-Lost death slot, The Unusuals may not have been one-thing-or-another-enough to find its audience. Saddled with a series title that could win a MacArthur grant for blandness, audiences likely couldn’t figure out what it was about or why it was different. Too, there’s something to be said for the twilight of cop shows theory predicted for some time now, as years of Law & Order’s and CSI’s have worn out the public’s welcome or nailed down their time slots past the point of usurpation. Or possibly the public reflexively looks to cable for offbeat fare now – USA regularly mines quirk for most of its original programming, and AMC’s Breaking Bad is one of the best shows anywhere on the dial. So The Unusuals, like the other two shows fading into DVD releases and likely cable network spotlights, was possibly just too unusual for where it found itself.

- Michael Kabel
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DVD Review: Taken

An extended version of action maestro Luc Besson’s sleeper hit arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray this week.

Debuting on DVD and Blu-Ray this week in an extended (and presumably more violent) version, Taken is a gourmet popcorn movie that rewards its audience for following a carefully constructed plot. Its breakneck paced story is packed with thrilling action scenes and set pieces that, thanks to star Liam Neeson, carry an emotional resonance that lesser action films never quite figure out. Neeson, a genuine movie star in a time of  studio mass-produced automatons, finally emerges as the action hero for grownups that his last decade of work has only hinted at his becoming. It’s his show, and he carries it effortlessly.

Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a slightly world-weary divorced father attempting to reconnect with a teenage daughter (Maggie Grace) from whom he’s grown increasingly distant. Mills was for many years a spy for the CIA, it seems, a “preventer” who traveled the world on clandestine missions that kept him away for most of her childhood. Now both doting parent and someone deeply familiar with the hazards of overseas travel, he’s skeptical when Kim wants to vacation in Paris, warning her and his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) about conditions in Europe especially.

Of course, he’s completely right: Kim and her vapid girlfriend (Katie Cassidy) have barely landed before a cab ride with a charming stranger gets them taken captive by an Albanian sex trafficking ring. The harrowing scene in which Kim is abducted while Bryan guides her, over the phone, through the attack is precisely staged by screenwriters Luc Besson (Leon), Robert Mark Kamen (The Fifth Element) and director Pierre Morel. The entire exhausting sequence takes place largely either from Kim’s or Mills’ perspective, with Mills’ subdued terror growing in counterpoint as each space around the terrified girl growing progressively smaller. The guidance Mills delivers is so coldly rational, so meticulous in its pragmatism, that its very difficult not to take at face value, even despite the pain and anguish that inevitably ensue. Also credible is his articulate threat to the kidnappers, as well as the implacable drive he displays from that moment forward to get his daughter back safe.

The film’s second act is devoted to Mills’ swath of destruction through the Parisian underworld. Amid action sequences and two car chases (probably, to be honest, one too many) the film is careful to continue developing character depth and texture. Neeson invests Mills with equal parts rage and quiet self-loahing, parts that drive his conviction. “I’ll tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to,” he tells an old police acquaintance. You believe him when he says it, and for the well-staged action already seen you kind of hope he will. Ruthless and efficient but also capable of compassion, Mills goes back and forth between father and killer like a lightswitch, again thanks to Neeson’s assured performance.

All that energy has to lead somewhere, and the connect-the-horrifying-dots Mills follows leads him into a bizarre race to protect not just his daughter’s life but her innocence as well. It’s a grim, literal iteration of the idea of father as protector of the daughter’s  virtue, made almost surreal by its decadent but ultra-luxurious setting. Unfortunately an odd flaw arrives just at the moment that Kim becomes safe: their reunion is oddly underwhelming, given the chaos that’s swirled around the rest of the film. It’s not for lack of performance or pacing; Grace and Neeson are more than up to that task, and Morel doesn’t try to fancy the moment up with artifice. Maybe having gone through their different hells, I expected the point of climax to be more satisfying, or emotional for them both.

But action movies aren’t watched for their resolutions any more than romantic comedies are watched for their special effects. And maybe denouements aren’t Besson’s thing: Leon, still his best film, similarly ended with a puff of smoke after the rich character work done by Jean Reno and Nathalie Portman; the ending of The Fifth Element was its sketchiest moment (and that’s saying something.) With Taken the ending is more emotionally substantial, but also possibly tacked-on. There’s a moment that comes when Bryan delivers Kim to her mother and step-father that somewhat feels like the right ending for the family, arriving just before the very last scene. It’s a downer moment, but also probably in keeping with Mills’ sense of sorrow. Still, you’re grateful for the extra scene that follows, if only for that reason. For a popcorn movie that gets everything it needs to do right while still impressing with style and smarts, that’s only a minor quibble.

 - Michael Kabel

(Note: Much of this review originally appeared for the film’s theatrical release.)

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Review: Star Trek

J.J. Abrams’ re-imagining packs the final frontier with action. That’s not entirely a good thing.

After months of delays that only fueled the expectations of both old-school Trekkers and newcomers alike, J.J. Abram’s (Lost, Mission: Impossible 3) re-imagining and re-energizing take on the Star Trek franchise roared into theatres this weekend, taking in a franchise-record setting $74 million. Expect that number to grow quickly on the crest of great word of mouth: the film is a built-for-entertainment joyride that’s virtually wall-to-wall action. It’s a hell of an action movie, and though explicit comparisons to franchise rival Star Wars aren’t entirely accurate this new Trek has the same sense of dizzying momentum.

But that’s also it’s biggest problem. The Star Trek TV franchises and films have never been preoccupied with stunts and pyrotechnics, often proudly wearing their cerebral ambitions on their multi-colored sleeves. While Abrams and company have jettisoned such a restrained attitude in favor of adventure, the new film’s bravado often sometimes drags it down or lets it skip over important plot clarification. Also noticeably missing is the Utopian optimism that, at its best, let the original series and its various children transcend their budgets as well as the usual genre pitfalls.

The story’s basics are familiar but made vividly fresh. Centuries into the future, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine, Bottle Shock) spends his childhood in the shadows of the Iowa shipyards that construct massive starships used to patrol the galaxy. An orphan whose father died saving the U.S.S. Kelvin from an attack by the belligerent Romulans, young Kirk is recruited into Starfleet by veteran officer Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood, The Sweet Hereafter) on the strength of his natural aptitude and his father’s heroic legacy.

From left: Quinto, chair, Pine

Jump ahead three years and Kirk has breezed through San Francisco’s Starfleet Academy, even rigging a no-win mission simulation test (which veteran Trek fans will recognize as the Kobayashi Maru from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan) in his favor. A disciplinary hearing, spearheaded by Academy instructor Spock (Zachary Quinto), is interrupted by a distress signal from Spock’s home planet of Vulcan. With the rest of Starfleet’s armada preoccupied elsewhere, it’s up to the Starfleet cadets to respond in seven brand new starships, including the venerable U.S.S. Enterprise. The Romulan craft that destroyed the Kelvin has returned again, and with help from his friend “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban, The Bourne Supremacy) Kirk stows away beneath Captain Pike’s notice to help out.

The action that follows includes time travel, black holes, the destruction of planets, parachuting from low-Earth orbit, sword fights… it often seems as if frequent Abrams collaborators Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman threw everything they could devise into the chain-of-set-pieces script, leaving no idea discarded. Thanks to state of the art special effects and a production design that’s almost always nothing short of dazzling, for the most part that damn-the-torpedoes strategy works. Other times, including a tedious man vs. monster chase sequence on an ice moon (itself too derivative by half of The Empire Strikes Back), all that action instead feels superfluous and distracting from the main story thread.

Not Hoth. Not even Rura Penthe.

And it’s a very, very linear thread. One thing happens and then another, sequences building on the one before rather than happening from circumstance. Abrams et. al. have a lot to accomplish in the film’s two hours, yet despite the diversions, repetitious stunts and sometimes glaring holes the story makes sense without seeming simplistic; it’s easy to see where the plot might’ve dissolved into chaos instead. The stakes, thanks to the Romulan commander Nero (Eric Bana, Munich), are demonstrably high enough that the rapid pitch continuously seems justified. Add that to Kirk and company’s relative inexperience and you feel justified in believing the danger.

What’s missing most is backstory, and context. We are told that the Federation is a worthy cause but not of its origins, or why Earth and other alien races remain devoted to its purpose. The time-travel elements are explained but not developed, so that depending on your familiarity with that trope’s mental contortions the ensuring plot details will seem opaque at best and frustrating at worst. Kirk’s childhood is given only the barest amount of details, likewise the motivations of bad guy Nero or the Romulans in general. Extant Trek continuity is apparently filled with details on almost all of the above (we’ve just scratched the surface ourselves), so there was no shortage of source material from which to draw. Maybe Abrams and company have deferred such embellishments until the already-announced sequel? Whatever the case, the story needed greater depth to bring the film’s setting into a completely coherent focus.

Luckily the cast is up to the script’s ambitious challenges. Pine, given the task of bringing the famously pre-politically correct Kirk to the modern age, finds his character not in the swagger but rather in the relentless self-confidence that made William Shatner’s Kirk legendary. Quinto, a talented actor not given much to do on Heroes anymore except beckon or arch his formidable eyebrows, builds Spock from barely-restrained and seething… emotion. Urban is underused as the crusty Dr. McCoy, as is Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz) as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott. Playing the heavy, Bana makes the most of a perfunctory role. In origin movies like this it’s enough for the villain to simply be menacing, but thanks again to impeccable costuming and production design a large part of that work is already accomplished. Still, he makes the most of each line of dialogue allowed him.

They'll pick you up.

Speaking of design, the new Enterprise vessel looks great most of the time. This latest interpretation of the classic shape is sleek and detailed, keeping the recognizable form while incorporating new elements including a dynamic new electrical effect to the warp nacelles. The bridge is a swirl of translucent display screens and fluorescent lights, selling the movie’s futuristic setting all by itself.  Less impressive, unfortunately, are a generic-looking medical bay and an engineering section that looks as anonymous as any petrochemical refinery. For such a classic and famous ship you’d expect a bold new vision of its engine room to be just as impressive and well-thought out. It’s something to be considered as Abrams and his group boldly go into plans for the sequel, plans most likely underway even as you read this.

- Michael Kabel
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DVD Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Overcooked, under-realized fantasy arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray this week.

David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button never lives up to its clever premise, becoming instead what might be the biggest major studio disappointment of last year. Now an unworthy entry into Criterion’s prestigious DVD library, it’s an overheated and under-thought excess of style over substance, a melodrama that save for its gorgeous cast and that intriguing gimmick might be any middling romance. Expanded from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lark of  a short story by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) and Robin Swicord (The Jane Austen Book Club), the film sometimes wants to be a fairy tale about the ephemeral nature of youth and the privilege of life itself.  If only it could get out of its own myopic way to say something – anything – on those worthwhile subjects. In three glacier-paced hours, that never once happens.

Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is born on Armistice Day 1918, as his home city of New Orleans celebrates the end of the First World War. A wheezing, arthritic infant, after his mother dies in childbirth his father (Jason Flemyng) abandons him to an old-age home where he’s raised by the home’s kindly caretaker Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) and her Shakespeare-quoting suitor (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali). But Benjamin is a special child, growing younger with each passing day.

In time, he befriends the granddaughter of one of the other residents, a young woman named Daisy (Cate Blanchett) who’s precocious and charming in the way that only fictitious Southern girls in movies named Daisy ever are. As Benjamin reaches adulthood (though appearing to be in his late 60s), he signs on to work on a tugboat led by Captain Mike, a slurring, tattooed braggart who takes the young/old Benjamin under his wing. This gives Benjamin the chance to see the world and the script a second act.

Much of the film’s second hour is devoted to showing Benjamin’s travels around the world, including a tragic clash with a German U-Boat during World War II and a love affair with the wife of a British diplomat (Tilda Swinton.) But despite the rich material for reflection, the rambling script never arrives at context for the formative events of Benjamin’s life. One thing happens and then another, in a straight and derivative line, with little sense of suspense. Pitt never communicates anything to the audience – somewhat understandable, considering the strata of makeup he carries – but the events themselves are seldom shown as particularly consequential. He does narrate the events in a serviceable if not completely authentic New Orleans drawl, but a last-minute reminiscence isn’t enough to put the previous marathon of scenes into complete perspective – nor should it have to do as much.

Where plot and story fail, the movie attempts to pack scenes with a broad assembly of characters – in fact that’s largely the reason so much of the film comes away feeling mannered and pretentious: the relentless parade of capital-C characters that never quite earn their worth in the story. Was Captain Mike a surrogate father figure? Who was the unnamed woman that taught Benjamin to love the piano? Why was Daisy so taken with the strange “old” man that roomed with her grandmother? Whereas some insight into their lives might have offered counterpoint to Benjamin’s own strange fate, there is simply a procession of oddballs wandering around as Pitt stares in wonder at their colorful personalities.

Pitt and Blanchett, as the time-crossed lovers who “meet in the middle” during their 40s, are appealing enough, often bringing dignity to scenes that otherwise would prove almost laughably implausible. The late-night, moodily lit scene in at the concert pavilion, in which Daisy flings herself at Benjamin only to find rejection, is one such contrivance. It’s the kind of preposterous, contrived episode commonly found in overheated romance novels and faux-literary historic fiction. Not a crucial flaw in and out itself (not every scene in three hours needs to be a winner), but it’s indicative of one of the film’s biggest problems: plot tediously triumphs over character time and again, so that each character’s own motivations remain doggedly opaque. 

 The film was famously shot in New Orleans, and the framing sequence depicting a dying Daisy relating her life with Benjamin to their daughter (Julia Ormond) includes a subplot dramatizing Hurricane Katrina’s cataclysmic march towards the city. Unfortunately the filmmakers’ understanding of New Orleans’  history and culture is only four blocks wide and one half-inch deep. New Orleans to them, as so typically happens in Hollywood movies, consists only of the same musty street in the French Quarter and a few blocks close to the bend of the Mississippi River, the intersections of Carrolton and St. Charles Avenues seen in the city’s faintly desperate tourism commercials. That the film manages to set much of its action in the 1960s but avoids even a single mention of the Civil Rights Movement (or its aftermath of  ”white flight” and middle-class abandonment, slow-burning events which in their way devastated the city just as much as Katrina) despite Benjamin’s racially blended upbringing is also glaringly dubious.

Fincher has made a career of challenging himself with his films, especially 2006’s masterful Zodiac, so it’s doubly problematic to see such an unfocused and ultimately pointless exercise in star vehicling bear his name. Moreover, there are none of the themes of identity and the elusive nature of truth present here as exist in Zodiac as well as Fight Club and even The Game. Normally a meticulous craftsman, his work here is loose, unfocused, indifferent. Perhaps the subject material was too much to convey on film – Benjamin’s reverse-ageing prods many more questions then the film provides explanation – or the top-heavy dimensions of the script were too shaky to use as the foundations of a cohesive work. But for a story about time itself, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button doesn’t reward its audience for its investment of such. Unlike Benjamin, none of us walk away from it younger than we were before.

We’ll be back Monday with a review of Star Trek. Have a good weekend.

-Michael Kabel
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(Note: Much of this review originally appeared for the film’s theatrical release.)

Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

The fan-favorite mutant superhero’s beginnings get a sluggish and unconvincing film treatment.

Since his introduction as an adversary for the Incredible Hulk thirty-five years ago, the Marvel Comics character Wolverine has come to symbolize not just that comics company but a particular type of comics storytelling. Far from the gifted aliens, self-improving millionaires or brilliant scientists who make up the bulk of comics’ protagonists, the mutant known simply as “Logan” had powers thrust upon him, not once but twice: he was born a mutant and later subjected to military experiments that enhanced his abilities even further. His adventures are violent, uncomplicated, and thick on the spy/military tropes found in drugstore paperbacks and B-movie combat actioners.

Wolverine as a superhero is not a genius, not a strategist and not even much of a thinker, really. He’s a brute force of nature and a scrapper with no end of machismo. So if X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not an especially well-thought movie, if it places its expensive emphasis on action over clarity of plot and characterization, in a mean sense it’s true to its subject. Does that make it a good movie? No, though its vast array of flaws and mistakes make it a bad one.

Jackman, Shreiber compare mutton chops

Directed by Gavin Hood (Rendition), the film opens with a visually and narratively murky prologue that shows Logan (Hugh Jackman) as a young boy escaping the murder of a man who may be his father. He’s abetted by his playmate Victor (Lieve Shreiber), who may or may not be his brother. Possessed of special healing powers that make them more or less immortal, the two go on to serve in every major conflict of the next 130 years, depicted in the film as a thrilling opening credits sequence. In time they’re recruited into a special military unit composed of mutant soldiers and led by a Colonel Stryker (Danny Huston) who encourages their bloodlust. Logan quits the group when their – and Victor’s especially – savagery pushes him to his ethical threshold.

Hello! Collins as Silverfox

In time Logan finds serenity working in Canada’s logging industry while romancing a local school teacher (Lynn Collins). Her apparent murder at Victor’s hands drives Logan back into Stryker’s influence, where he volunteers for a special experiment to coat his bones with a special alien metal called “adamantium,” making him all but indestructible. The rest of the film is Logan seeking revenge against his Victor as well as Stryker, and liberating Stryker’s gulag of mutant prisoners on Three Mile Island.

As their most popular character, Marvel has revised and re-imagined their hero’s origin story multiple times over the years, the better with which to entice audiences with “now it can be told…” comics events. As a result, the script by David Benioff (Troy) and Skip Woods (Swordfish) has a lot of complicated and tangled ground to explain and cover. But like the recent Watchmen, their screenplay puts action above narrative, so that fight scenes (or, more frequently, Victor’s cruel execution of his targets) are constant and prolonged. That’s true to the genre: the basics of the superhero story has always boiled down to “come for the action, stay for the pathos.” Comic books are by design a visual medium, and character depth is actually a fairly recent development in their history.

Still, for an action movie the special effects should be better – really, they have to be for the film to be worth the audience’s time and money. And for a film both prefacing and expanding on the already profitable X-Men movie franchise (composed so far of two good movies by Bryan Singer and one terrible one by Brett Ratner), they should be better still. Instead the fight sequences – and there are many - are redundant and blurred, with CGI that’s convincing only about half the time. It’s hard not to think that with such an expansive cast, many of whom also have super powers, the money was spread too thin. A scene in which Logan toys with his new metal claws while at a bathroom counter is especially unconvincing. Likewise many of Shreiber’s leaps and twists as the feral Victor and Will.i.Am’s blinking teleporting  as soldier John Wraith. Most unconvincing, given the carnage, is the lack of blood onscreen, obviously removed for the sake of that crucial PG-13 rating.

Jackman, making his fourth screen appearance as the hirsute and claw-brandishing mutant hero, is serviceable as always, but he’s seldom given anything to do except respond to events surrounding him. For an action hero he’s curiously passive until circumstances demand his attention. He’s also never entirely sympathetic as a character, as there’s no explanation for why he fought in so many wars or why he feels repulsed by his “brother’s” violence in the first place. After 150 or years together, you’d think he’d know his constant companion better. Jackman is also given to striking outlandish poses before running at his enemies, throwing his arms and legs into weird Tai Chi-like contortions that sometimes look mannered.

Bonjour! Kitsch as Gambit

Shreiber, playing the borderline feral Victor as a method exercise in animal snarl and pent-up menace, nevertheless shows again why he’s possibly the most underrated American actor working right now. Ryan Reynold’s (Definitely, Maybe) charm is underused as the wisecracking ninja Wade, while the normally wooden Kevin Durand (3:10 To Yuma) is effective buried beneath layers of fat suit padding as the Blob. Collins (True Blood) as Logan’s doomed love Kayla Silverfox does the best she can with a stock role that begs for further development. Despite an intermittent gumbo drawl, Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights) overachieves as the fan favorite mutant Gambit, a character whose appearance in a Bourbon Street nightclub is one of the film’s few truly suspenseful moments.

On the other hand, David Fincher and Brad Pitt can take comfort that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button no longer represents the most superficial treatment of New Orleans in recent cinema history. The French Quarter club and alleyway look fake and modeled, provoking a realization (for me, anyway) of how many of the other sets and set pieces also looked inauthentic. It’s hard to set wirework indoors, but sets don’t have to look like sets, and they shouldn’t look fake.

The film debuted at the top of the box office with a strong $87 million U.S. haul, and anyway it’s the kind of release that on many levels is only a preview of the expanded director’s cut version that’s inevitably released on DVD and Blu-Ray. But word of mouth is everything with comic book films, and if fans don’t warm to the liberties taken with the larger X-Men mythology they’ll likey stay away. Wolverine is not a good film, but perhaps more importantly it is not even a good film for the kind of movie it is. Logan may not be a genius, but his long-awaited solo feature shouldn’t be so dumb.

-Michael Kabel
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Preview: Julie and Julia

Meryl Streep and Amy Adams team for Nora Ephron’s summer confection about Julia Child.

Offering something like a visit to a franchise restaurant after a summer of junk food, August’s Julie & Julia stars Meryl Streep as legendary television chef Julia Child and Amy Adams (Sunshine Cleaning) as the woman attempting to make 524 of Child’s recipes in a single year. Written and directed by Nora Ephron (Sleepless In Seattle), the film draws its ingredients from blogger-turned-author Julie Powell’s chronicle of her endeavor as well as from Child’s own memoir My Life In France. As a historical footnote, it’s the first major motion picture to take its source material from a blog, an idea that sounds great to us.

That’s all good news wrapped in a flowery shell of “wait, but…” Child’s fascinating life could fill a Hollywood picture all on its own, thanks in no small part to the grand dame’s elegant but self-deprecating charm and gentle-giant personality. Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep, and Adams is one of the best emerging actresses working right now. The trouble isn’t the main course but what’s arrayed around it, and as with the art of cooking presentation also counts.

Judging by the trailer below, the film has all the chick flick touches that have become synonymous with girl-underdog-finding-her-bliss light comedies since at least Ephron’s own When Harry Met Sally twenty years ago: the clique of overachieving friends, the vaguely douchey husband, the soul-deadening job, the pressure to reach her dreams, ad nauseam. Customer service phone operator Julie Powell (Adams, looking a lot like Cynthia Nixon with her red hair shorn and washed out) aspires to get out of the tedium of her comfortable but dull big-city life. One of her friends, it seems, has just had her blog optioned by a cable TV network for use as a mini-series (That happens all the time, by the way. Look for Screaming Blue Reviews: The Movie, starring Jon Hamm, Jenna Fischer and Paul Rudd, arriving in theatres Summer 2011.). Powell imagines she can make her own voice heard by blogging about her journey through Child’s Mastering The Art of French Cooking.

The suspense, if that’s not too strong a word, comes from the challenge of completing hundreds of  recipes – more than one a day – without losing perspective on everything else. Powell’s struggle is counterpointed, through flashback, with Child’s own underdog ascent through Paris’ Le Cordon Bleu cooking academy, a travail that ultimately led to a long career in television and publishing. Child was the TV gourmet of choice long before today’s stream of culinary personalities, first appearing on public television in Boston but eventually reaching out worldwide to millions of fans. We wish the movie contained more of her life as a World War II spy, too, including her time trying to reduce the threat of German submarines to Allied vessels.

Streep is an unlikely choice for summer box office star, but she’s two for three in summer box office releases after the successes of  The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and last summer’s Mamma Mia, so the curious will likely turn out to see her inhabit the personality of the beloved chef. Dubbed by Time magazine as “Our Lady of the Ladle”, Child is something of an institution, with her kitchen studio on display at the Smithsonian and her nineteen cookbooks selling millions of copies the world over. Playing her husband is the mighty Stanley Tucci, who knows something about cooking movies himself after co-writing and co-directing the 1996 mini-classic Big Night. The chemistry between he and Streep is palpable in even the briefest of scenes.

Adams, meanwhile, has the more difficult task of bringing new resonance to the film’s familiar lightweight tropes. She’s got a great supporting cast to back her up, including the hilarious Jane Lynch (The 40 Year Old Virgin), Mary Lynn Rajskub (24) and Casey Wilson (Saturday Night Live). Still, the feel of cliches abounding permeates the trailer below, right down to the uplifting music and too-shiny-to-believe city skylines and streets. Ephron wrote, directed, and co-produced the film, her first since 2005’s abominable Bewitched and only her second film since the underperforming Hanging Up and Lucky Numbers in 2000. You can’t judge a book by its cover or a film by its trailer, but you can get a sense of each by the creative talent behind them. Given the rich ingredients, we hope Julia & Julia isn’t served undercooked.

The film opens nationwide August 7.

- Michael Kabel

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