WALL·E

“WALL·E”

USA. 2008. Directed by Andrew Stanton. Screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon. Story by Pete Docter and Andrew Stanton. Starring: the voices of Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Kim Kopf, Kathy Najimy, John Ratzenberger and Sigourney Weaver, and Fred Willard.

Rating: ★★★★

The word, wondrous was invented for movies like WALL·E, which is more than perfectly fitting for a movie all about wonder and curiosity. Many great Pixar movies from the Toy Story movies to Ratatouille have presented the trait of inquisitiveness as a virtue (though often resulting in a perilous but valuable journey) and in this film, it now becomes the key central subject. Exploring that subject through the eyes of a robot, the animators at Pixar stake their trademark of visual splendor in the sci-fi genre.

Telling a good story is something the Pixar folks have never lost sight of and it is all the more remarkable here that it is done with so little dialogue. The first third of this movie is just a masterpiece of pure visual character-driven storytelling as we meet WALL·E (a Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-class) who is apparently left all alone on earth compacting and piling trash. He also has that little quality called curiosity as he has collected various items from the garbage from Christmas lights to a video tape of his favorite musical, Hello, Dolly! in his little home that is just an old storage place. At night, he “sleeps” by taking off his wheels and resting and lowering his head into his cubical body.

WALL·E’s only companion on earth so far has been a small cockroach but his rather lonely routine changes when he follows a red beacon that leads him to the site of a docking spaceship (which he barely avoids getting crushed by via vigorously digging his way into the ground). Out of the spaceship comes another robot, EVE (an Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) who is looking around for any signs of plant life. WALL·E is instantly smitten with her though she unfortunately has the tendency to shoot her laser first before asking questions. But after EVE bonds with WALL·E’s pet cockroach, he is finally able to introduce himself to her and show Hello, Dolly! to her (from which he desperately gets a longing to hold hands just like Michael Crawford holds Marianne McAndrew’s).

After he placed fish into a touching father-son adventure in Finding Nemo, it does not come as a huge surprise that director Andrew Stanton, with his co-writer, Jim Reardon, effortlessly brings such tangible human emotions to these animated robotic beings so that the above story description can even be written. Just WALL·E’s eyes alone seem to carry all the emotions the character expresses from joy and awe to loneliness and tears. When EVE then enters the picture and he eventually turns her narrowing digital eyes to rounder, loving ones, forget all the recent, inane live-action romantic comedies you have seen. This film, with Thomas Newman’s subtly mesmerizing score and simply a series of electronic purrs and one-word dialogue exchanges between WALL·E and EVE (voiced by Ben Burtt and Elissa Knight, respectively), becomes one of the most delightful love stories I have seen in at least the last five years. I will certainly have to watch the movie again (and I will, maybe even with the sound off) to closely see all the crisp visual details that convince that WALL·E is a he and EVE is a beautiful-looking robot.

Amidst all this, through a series of complications that I will leave you to discover, a plot finally takes shape after WALL·E stows away on a rocket that lands on a gigantic spaceship inhabited by humans. We learn that Earth has been abandoned for 700 years and that the low-gravity atmosphere inside has turned people into fat and lazy beings who ride around in vehicles resembling large shopping carts, avoid any human contact and stare blankly at their monitors spoon-feeding information everyday. The ship’s captain (Jeff Garlin) is not even properly manning his ship because everything is being controlled by artificially intelligent robots. Everything changes, however, when the captain himself starts to relearn about this long-lost planet called Earth and WALL·E and EVE must aid him to revive the human race.

At this point, I realize that I have grown so enchanted with the story and the visual invention that I forgot to mention that this is supposed to be a family film, too. It is just that it is a family film made with the imagination of a true dreamer and the patience of a skilled storyteller. What is most ennobling is the way Stanton and the animators refuse to cater to the ADD-styled mindset of children these days and really challenge and engage the young viewers with bigger and even starker ideas. And the movie, besides being a moving love story between robots as aforementioned, presents a highly effective cautionary warning not only for children but also for adults on not letting the world reach the state where an apathetic consumerist culture has turned Earth into just a big dump site and the humans have become a slothful culture (although I guess the WALL·E tie-in toys will probably sell big time).

While digital animation has now become so commercially ingrained that the other studios have produced more mediocre efforts, the original innovators that are Pixar have continued to provide great family films that entertain children as well as adults into tapping into their own childhood selves. Then there was last year’s Ratatouille, which showed Pixar's curiosity to transcend the label of “a family film” and explore more mature themes. Now, by even following the great tradition of classical science fiction of creating fantastical worlds to comment on the human condition, WALL·E brings into focus what all the previous Pixar movies have hinted at within their stories and the animators' invention: that curiosity must remain an unalienable human trait because, without it, we will lose our ability to look beyond ourselves like WALL·E does.

Kung Fu Panda

“Kung Fu Panda”

USA. 2008. Directed by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson. Story by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris. Screenplay by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. Starring: the voices of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Randall Duk Kim, James Hong, Dan Fogler, Michael Clarke Duncan, Wayne Knight, Kyle Gass and JR Reed.

Rating: ★★★½

Kung Fu Panda. Either you love that title for seeming to be the paradox of paradoxes or hate it with utter disbelief. You also know that it will follow the outline of a classic underdog story because, well, pandas are not the most nimble animals and are not usually associated with kung fu. What is very surprising is how vibrant and refreshing the film is in its delivery of the durable formula.

The first thing the movie gets right is casting Jack Black in the lead role. From the opening scene as Po the Panda sees himself as a formidable warrior, we hear him narrating his exuberant martial arts using the words “pure awesomeness” as only Black can say them. His trademark voice instantly tells us this panda would make a truly funny, one-of-a-kind warrior and not because of his figure.

That opening sequence is all a dream, of course, as Po really works with his father and noodle restaurant owner, Mr. Ping (James Hong). When he is not following his father's orders and laboriously waiting tables though, he admiringly looks to the Jade Palace and dreams of martial arts glory. Understandably, he conceals this from his dad fearing that he will never see through his pipe dreams.

One day, he heads over to the Jade Palace to witness the announcement of the new Dragon Warrior, which would presumably be one of the Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross). It is there that, after he literally rides on a rocket trajectory to get past the walls and plummets back down to the ground, he has been shockingly chosen by Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) as the new Dragon Warrior to defeat the nefarious snow leopard, Tai Lung (Ian McShane). The training master of the Furious Five, Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) is flabbergasted at this seemingly accidental choice to which Oogway replies, “There are no accidents.”

Shifu and the Furious Five initially mockingly doubt that he is the chosen one to potentially beat Tai Lung, who has just escaped out of his prison fortress, but we know the master will inevitably see through Po’s perseverance and come around to train him (particularly after Oogway convinces him to believe while dispersing some deeper, family-friendly lessons). Where the movie really impresses is in its level of detail of the animation of the kung fu training. Those who are intimately familiar with martial arts and its movie genre will instantly recognize that screenwriters, Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris and directors, Mark Osborne and John Stevenson have really done their homework (including having each of the Furious Five be animals who have a mimicking kung fu style). The animators pay such great attention to the intricate fighting techniques from the Shaw Brothers to the more recent Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies that I almost wondered whether famed choreographer Yuen Wo Ping was called in to draw the animation. It is no wonder Jackie Chan himself agreed to show his support by voicing a character.

The filmmakers additionally go a little further to surprise in the finer storytelling details. Po does persist throughout but has moments of doubt when he literally shouts out asking, “How are you going to turn me into a dragon warrior?” Shifu’s eventual strategy to this leads to an exuberant sequence in which he and Po battle fiercely over the last remaining dumpling and Po finally has his moment of clarity. Also, the finale avoids merely striking the typical crowd-cheering note (although it certainly has that) but ends with an intimate and very funny dialogue exchange.

Indeed, funny is something this film is frequently for children and adults alike and much of the credit goes to Jack Black, whose simple comedic voice puts a new spin to the martial arts on display (his delivery of the phrase, “Skidoosh” will have kids repeating it like crazy). It may sound like of oblique praise to say this but Black was practically born to voice this panda. Dustin Hoffman is also an ideal choice to voice Shifu as he brings some real gravitas to the story (even though I couldn’t help noticing that since Shifu means “master” in Chinese, it would make him Shifu Shifu). On the villainous side, Ian McShane from Deadwood brings some juicy ferocity while Angelina Jolie convincingly dials herself down to a more serious presence as Shifu’s most trusted disciple.

If one really stops to think about it, there are not that many high concept movies that really sell themselves instantly at the title like Kung Fu Panda does. And not many of them end up being very good as they lazily depend on stock clichés to pass as entertainment. The one thing Kung Fu Panda is not, from its filmmakers to ultimately its titular character, is lazy and their enthusiasm goes a long way to turn a time-tested premise into a fresh, skillful entertainment and silence the naysayers.

The Happening

“The Happening”

USA. 2008. Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez, Betty Buckley, Spencer Breslin, Robert Bailey, Jr., Frank Collison, Jeremy Strong, Alan Ruck, Victoria Clark, Alison Folland, Kristen Connolly and Cornell Womack.

Rating: ★★½

I have not had as mixed a reaction towards a film as I have had for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening for quite a long time. If the people in the movie are fighting against some kind of serious force of nature, so do the scenes of Hitchcockian suspense with moments that head straight into camp. The end results are not completely uninteresting and it is far from deserving the scorched earth reactions the film has already elicited.

The Shyamalan haters would think that this movie is now strike three for him after 2004’s The Village and 2006’s Lady in the Water. I certainly had disdain myself for the former’s nonsensical payoff but, after seeing Lady in the Water, I started to sense a kind of adamantly loopy determination from Shyamalan to just charge ahead no matter the scorn he would receive from people in his storytelling (and there is no denying that movie also had some gaping story lapses). That is certainly true with his latest film, The Happening as well and, though the film is finally a little too undisciplined and disorganized to be completely successful, one has got to admire his sheer narcissistic chutzpah as well as his ability to stage some very good scares.

The movie’s concept is certainly an unsettling one and the opening of the movie is quite a jolt. An unseen force is causing people to suddenly become disorientated, lose the ability to speak and then commit suicide in creatively gruesome ways that richly deserve the first R rating Shyamalan has garnered. The fact that it first happens in New York City causes people to think initially that it is a terrorist attack. As the invisible “plague” spreads through other cities in the Northeast, that possibility becomes less likely.

We are introduced to Philadelphia high school teacher, Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), who is baffled and confused by how all of his school’s classes are being promptly dismissed and evacuated. Since the plague seems to be attacking cities, however, he, his wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and fellow high school teacher, Julian (John Leguizamo) deem it a good idea to leave the city. But the train they get on suddenly stops as it has seemingly lost all communication with nearby train stations.

One would expect the usual mass shouting and hysteria at this point but it is a cliché this movie avoids as Elliot and Alma are entrusted with Julian’s daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) after Julian decides to risk his life to find his wife in the possibly already affected Princeton, NJ. On the other hand, there are a handful of moments that do seem to veer off suddenly into silly camp territory. Deschanel, in particular, acts a little too wide-eyed and childlike at certain points and Wahlberg, in his opening class lecture, goes overboard in his Socratic teaching method of his belief that there are inexplicable phenomena that scientists can only make theories about (albeit the actors eventually settle into their parts somewhat as Wahlberg becomes sort of a de-facto leader).

Much of this is probably more intentional by Shyamalan than people give credit for, however, since Shyamalan himself said that this is his attempt at making a “B-movie” of sorts. The fact that he does not go for the obvious doom and gloom, I think, shows that he acknowledges the scenario is truly absurd, especially considering the final explanation of the event. He does not quite find the solid balance in tone between the camp value and the much graver nature of the suicides but it is at least a change of pace from watching the actors just merely be somber all the time and the eventual plunge into hysteria is saved until the very end when Betty Buckley enters as a mad hermit survivalist.

In depicting the suicides themselves, Shyamalan shows his genuine gift for staging and directing horrific scenes for primal mood and effect. Just looking at the trailer, I thought the ground-level POV shot of various NYC construction workers jumping off a building was haunting and the scene in full is even scarier (in part due to its echoes of 9/11). He is even careful and methodical enough to show the goriest scene of a man purposely standing in the middle of a lion’s den through a cell phone camera. Another sequence of a gun being transferred as a suicidal weapon of choice is effectively and creepily reminiscent of the passing of an evil spirit in the vastly underrated 1998 Denzel Washington thriller, Fallen.

Of course, where the film would potentially get the worst flack is in the ultimate rationale for “the happening,” which, despite that it is really explained early on and not left to the end, I will try to discuss while tiptoeing around the details. Again, I don’t reject it in concept since, if one actually thinks about it, the ultimate force of nature presented in this story is no more plausible than Hitchcock’s birds suddenly attacking humans without warning. The weakness in his storytelling is not in the concept, which is daring and staged properly as a threat (particularly in a scene where sounds of various suicidal gunshots go off in the distance). It is really in how he has a farmer character conveniently just spout it off as simplistic exposition just to propel the plot forward. The story would have been more engaging if Shyamalan had Elliot somehow use his science teacher’s imagination to figure out the cause for himself. That would have also allowed a scene where Wahlberg talks to a certain inanimate object to be more fully intentionally funny than somewhat laughable and the ultimate resolution more mysteriously moving.

So the film overall is a bit of a mess but it is unfair for so many to compare every other Shyamalan movie again and again to his first smash hit, The Sixth Sense. He is certainly no longer trying to replicate that shocking big “twist” that audiences were so enthralled by in that film so we shouldn’t judge him as such either. The Happening may indicate that it is time for Shyamalan to streamline his story ideas better next time to match his innate filmmaking craft but, in the meantime, people should make amends for grossly overlooking the real movie where his rich story masterfully came alive, Unbreakable.

The Visitor

“The Visitor”

USA. 2008. Written and directed by Thomas McCarthy. Starring: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Jekesai Gurira, Hiam Abbass, Marian Seldes, Maggie Moore, Michael Cumpsty, Bill McHenry, Richard Kind, Tzahi Moskovitz, Amir Arison, Neal Lerner, Ramon Fernandez and Waleed Zuaiter.

Rating: ★★★★

Many may regard Thomas McCarthy’s The Visitor as a parable or even a humanistic fantasy but I would like to think that it is more than that. I want to believe that somewhere a buttoned-down, emotionally shut down scholar could re-awaken when he decides against merely throwing out two immigrants who have been illegally staying in his apartment that he has not lived in for years. Indeed, not only does he reawaken in the movie, he builds a friendship that becomes intimately close to familial.

That connection is all the power in the movie, which singularly paints a most humanistic face to a political problem. Much like he did in The Station Agent in which he soulfully tackled the issue of differences in interacting with a dwarf man, writer/director Thomas McCarthy, who reportedly devoted extensive personal research and friendship into the immigration experience, gives us rich, vivid characters who find profound camaraderie in unlikely situations – this time across cultures and nationalities rather than external physical stature. It is also about a man who blasts free of years of emotional and spiritual paralysis by embracing his capacity for generosity he thought lay dormant for so long.

The man is Walter Vale, who is played by Richard Jenkins in a remarkably understated performance that shows that perhaps he would have been a more ideal choice than Jack Nicholson to play the titular role in About Schmidt. He is a 62-year old, Connecticut College economics professor who teaches only one class and claims to be working on finishing his great novel though his sad, crinkled face and his aimless piano lessons suggest his life as a whole is going nowhere. In the beginning, he hardly seems to be open to any kindness, as he even refuses to hear the reason one of his students turned in a paper late.

One day, he travels to New York to present a paper he co-authored at a conference. He hasn’t been in his apartment there for 25 years and is stunned to find when he arrives at night that it has been illegally sublet to a Syrian immigrant, Tarek Khalil (Haaz Sleiman) and his Senegalese girlfriend, Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira). After a brief confrontation, the couple willingly agrees to leave immediately. Upon seeing a framed picture the couple left behind, he seeks them out and asks whether they have a place to stay.

Thus begins a friendship between Walter and Tarek, and McCarthy, as he did with The Station Agent, makes sure that he builds it patiently in the lowest and subtlest key. The turning point when they bond as Tarek teaches Walter to play the African drum could have been made soppy with needless gestures of “a-ha” realization but is handled with masterfully restrained direction with as little and simple dialogue as possible. Soon thereafter, in a scene that transitions from being gently humorous to genuinely affecting, Walter finds himself drumming alongside African immigrants in Central Park.

Right after though, the movie hits its thematic and emotional shift when Tarek is arrested in the subway in front of Walter and locked away in a detention center. It is here the film becomes more issue-oriented and, though it asks hard questions like how people like Tarek are whisked away to detention without a proper reading of rights or notice to family members, the story does not overdraw either the government officials and lawyers that Walter desperately seeks out as merely cold-hearted or the immigrants necessarily as unassuming victims. The movie’s sole focus is on showing the reverberating emotional and psychological costs of the unforgiving laws built in the wounding aftermath of 9/11.

Carrying through the heartfelt and heartbreaking traversals is Richard Jenkins who, with the slightest facial gestures, proves that he can hold the screen like a vice for a whole movie rather than just the select few scenes he usually does in so many films (look him up on IMDb to match his name and extensive filmography to his face). It is astonishing to think of the number of character actors whom we take for granted in building a convincing surrounding universe in the movies and it is a joy to watch Jenkins fill this flesh-and-blood character as a quietly towering emotional center. McCarthy, a character actor himself in numerous films, let Peter Dinklage do just that in The Station Agent and he just may guide Jenkins this time to a leading Oscar® nomination come next year.

The characters are all so perfectly cast that one can only admire how McCarthy and his casting directors, Kerry Barden, Stephane Foenkinos, Billy Hopkins and Suzanne Smith find such rich talent without looking for stardom. Sleiman, as Walter’s source of renewal of sorts, makes his inherent sense of joy infectious until he shares to grow the desperation that Gurira’s Zainab has feared all along. Another distinctive standout is Hiam Abbass (Paradise Now, The Nativity Story) as Tarek’s mother, Mouna who comes in the second half and adds another touching layer of companionship for Walter that McCarthy sensitively avoids overreaching or, more importantly, vulgarizing.

The Visitor is the kind of movie that I crave for more of because, right down to the choice of actors, it believes in a sense of goodness and humanity that society as a whole seems to frown upon. Perhaps it ironically makes sense that a man like Walter who has been cut off from the real world is so willing to rediscover the profound joy and heartbreak of a full-blooded friendship again. Someone who has been part of the world for so long might have been too jaded to be so gracious.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”

USA. 2008. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson. Screenplay by David Koepp. Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, Igor Jijikine, Dimitri Diatchenko, Ilia Volokh, and Alan Dale.

Rating: ★★

There is a distinct difference between revisiting a franchise and just mooching off one and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is sadly a textbook example of the latter. A revisit would have required the recognition of the passage of time from The Last Crusade in 1989. Despite having many of the trademark ingredients from the past films, the ultimate folly of this fourth film is that it acts like a man in a midlife crisis – one who strains to recapture his youth without admitting his true age.

Before people bark at me saying that I am not a true fan of Indiana Jones, I will first clarify that I admire all of the first three Indiana Jones films and believe that Raiders of the Lost Ark in particular is a goofy action masterpiece (with The Last Crusade coming pretty close). Although I questioned the clamoring need to make yet another one, I was certainly game for another chance to see Harrison Ford cracking the whip, evading his paralyzing fear of snakes and decoding more indecipherable clues. It is just disheartening that director Steven Spielberg and writer George Lucas cannot provide enough of a distinctive joyride here to turn the answer to that question into a resounding yes.

In this fourth film, following the Nazis, Chinese gangsters and an ancient terrorist cult in India, the Russians get their turn to face off against Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Cold War 1957. True to its predecessors, of course, the title already gives away the crucial, elusive object both parties are looking for. The head of the villains, Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), a former hire of Stalin and now an elite KGB agent, apparently believes that the crystal skull will grant infinite knowledge and paranormal powers to whoever retrieves it, which she believes will help her presumably win the Cold War.

Indiana Jones barely escapes the first extended attempt on his life after a close friend of his has betrayed him and even manages to avoid the effects of a nuclear blast by locking himself in a refrigerator (I am not sure that would necessarily help but it goes without saying that logic is never warranted in an Indy film). He returns to teaching but is suddenly given an indefinite leave of absence after his friend’s betrayal leads the police to suspect that he may also be a communist sympathizer. Soon thereafter, he is approached by a young hotshot biker, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) who shares his own interest and knowledge in the crystal skull and informs Indy that a close professor friend, Harold Oxley (John Hurt) has been kidnapped. Along the way, he also runs into a past flame, Marion (Karen Allen, from the first film).

This story is, needless to say, just as outrageous as the others and relies on puzzles that would remain forever unsolved if it were not for Indiana Jones. What the film lacks is the sense of sweeping joy throughout in its goofiness. Spielberg shows that he is still an old-fashioned, seasoned pro when it comes to staging action scenes and he throws in everything from left-field as he can, including some truly random, swinging monkeys (and Mutt becoming just like one out of the blue). Other than a truly nifty motorbike chase scene with Mutt and Indy through a campus library, however, much of the choreography here seems too workmanlike and feels like it is just piling on one stunt or special effect after another.

A larger problem is that the film and all of its characters fail to acknowledge their years. Yes, it is certainly welcome to see Karen Allen as Indy’s past flame from Raiders and I don't expect true realism in their relationship for sure. But wouldn’t they have more to say to each other after he has been in absentia for 27 years? There is a bit of squabbling in the beginning when they first meet but the film does not reignite much of a spark or sizzle, whether romantic or abrasive.

Also, the film sets its time almost 20 years since the last film acknowledging a few other characters from earlier films. Yet, beyond the opening scene where he complains about missing a truck to which he was aiming to swing, Indiana Jones in his 60s seems even more agile and nimble than he was before. I don’t want to be ageist but since LaBeouf is obviously placed there to be a young protégé/successor for Indy, how about really going that direction by having Indiana Jones acting like his age and needing to be rescued from time to time by Mutt? Think of Clint Eastwood who has enjoyed greater success in his films because he paid attention to his years instead of getting stuck in a Dirty Harry time-warp.

Then there is the ending, which reveals the nature of the crystal skull and is, in all honesty, quite lame. I won’t say what it is but it leads the franchise into a territory it should have steered clear of. It is also disappointingly simplistic from a cultural and historical standpoint and may indicate how Spielberg and his writers, Lucas, Jeff Nathanson and David Koepp are really starting to run out of ideas.

In the middle of all this, Ford, of course, exudes his usual charisma in the definitive role of his career (and no, it is not Han Solo, Star Wars fans) and is an actor who can make just about anything halfway believable. LaBeouf also shows that he is a rising star and I wish that Spielberg and Ford trusted his star potential more as aforementioned. The big miscasting, however, is the usually excellent Cate Blanchett, who sports a terribly caricatured accent and thus never truly becomes menacing.

I asked myself after seeing this film whether my disenchantment with the film is because it just didn’t live up to the original franchise. Many of the reviews I have read seem to like it simply because they embrace seeing Ford back as Indy. I enjoyed seeing him, too, and some of the nostalgic charm from the originals that was based off of Saturday matinee serials. But then, why should I have another movie reminisce the first three films for me instead of being its own film when I can just see the real thing myself again?