(Marc Webb, 2014)
Here's a dumb move too many super-hero movies try to pull: make the villain sympathetic.
The source material rarely bothers. Oh, there are many sympathetic (or at least rounded, human) super-villains. But then there are also hundreds of thousands of super-hero comics from which they come. O the few dozen high-profile movies in the super-hero sub-genre, it is staggering how many attempt to make the super-villain somebody we can relate to. But who wants to relate to a villain? We can admire their energy, wit, style, intelligence, efficiency, combat acumen...but relate to them as people?
Partly it's to attract actors. They want interesting characters to play, with layers and emotional beats and moments. But they should know better. The truly memorable villains aren't memorable because they are sympathetic. Heath Ledger's Joker? Terence Stamp's General Zod?
In Marc Webb's sequel to his vaguely redundant Amazing Spider-Man, Jamie Foxx's Electro suffers from just this problem. Introduced as a humble electrical engineer at Oscorp (the Evil Corporation at the heart of this particular reading of the Spider-Man mythos) named Max, he stutters with a bad haircut, unappreciated, exploited and ignored. A chance encounter with Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) makes him an uber-fan, and soon afterwards he is given electricity powers by a pretty familiar accident at work. His second encounter with Spidey leaves him feeling betrayed, and out for revenge on the wallcrawler and the world.
Here's another common super-hero movie issue: too many villains. Webb stuffs in the Green Goblin (Dane De Haan) and the Rhino (Paul Giamatti in what is effectively a hammy cameo, or a hammeo if you will) on top of Electro. They all face our hero in an overstuffed last act, and all this on top of a subplot about the disappearance of Peter Parker's parents when he was a child, the return of his boyhood friend, Harry Osborn, and his ongoing difficulties in terms of his relationship with Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone).
That is where Webb's real focus lies, and as is the case with each of the Spider-Man films, the material with Peter's private life is far more compelling than any of the cgi super-hero battles. Gwen is the love of his life, but having promised her dying father that he would keep away from her, lest she come into danger, he is in constant conflict with himself. Stone and Garfield are the best things here, and their genuine chemistry brings each of the scenes they share to life in a way the rest of the film struggles to match. Their relationship feels complicated and warm in a real, human way, giving the events of the last reel surprising emotional punch.
Aside from that, its a middling super-hero movie. Some good gags, a few nifty action scenes, a great evocation of what it might be like to web-sling through Manhattan, and far too much time devoted to dull villains and their back stories and nefarious planning. Webb's style is the very definition of emptily stylish, but he spends what feels like an awful lot of time creating effects suited to 3D screenings.
Stone and Garfield make it just about worthwhile, but really, this is no better than the worst Raimi Spier-Man film, the third. And that is a problem.
Showing posts with label Sally Field. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sally Field. Show all posts
Monday, 21 April 2014
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
LINCOLN
(Steven Spielberg, 2012)
There's always something with Spielberg, in his later work at least. Some issue, some error of judgement, something too conspicuous to be ignored. Think of the little girl in red, in Schindlers List. Or the intercutting of sex and murder in Munich. Or the framing device in Saving Private Ryan. Or the last shot in Minority Report. Always something, some distracting misstep.
For the most part, Lincoln doesn't even really feel like a Spielberg film. It seems to owe more of its personality to screenwriter Tony Kushner. Thats another way of saying that it feels somewhat like a play for long stretches; for this is a long procedural focused on political manoeuvring, on schmoozing and strategising, on persuasion and argument. This is a long procedural focused, most intently, sometimes tediously, often magnificently, on talking.
The story follows Lincoln in the weeks before the crucial House of Representatives vote on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery once and for all. The Civil War is near an end, and the President, so loved by his people, must balance the desire to end the war with the need to ensure that slavery is done with the conflict's end. He is surrounded by forceful personalities with their own agendas and styles, from his wife, still suffocating on her grief for their dead son (Sally Field) and his politically clever Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) to the various figures fighting for control of the Republican party, most notably the radical Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and founder Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook). Then there are various Democrats (Lee Pace, for example), Lincoln's older son, desperate to enlist (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), General Ulysses Grant (Jared Harris), not to mention the swirl of minor politicians, military men and civil servants never far away. There are so many familiar faces on show here, most of them in tiny parts, that it is almost a distraction from the story. That story basically comes down, as so many political dramas do, to the struggles of lobbyists for a few crucial votes before the bill is before the house. The most memorable lobbyist here is a bloated, quite brilliant James Spader, as one of the few men not awed by the presence of Lincoln.
Much of Kushner's writing here is tremendous; long dazzling speeches clashing and intertwining, and Spielberg, working with his regular Director of Photography, Janusz Kaminski, makes it all look beautiful in a slightly-too-neatly-art-directed kind of way. But if you aren't interested in the period, or the subject matter, then this may well be a struggle.
The worst material is the scenes meant to humanise the lead; Lincoln and his relationships with his wife and sons is over-familiar, dull and uninspired. The best are the scenes depicting the President when he brushes against normal people and his genius for finding common ground and the right word is revealed. His habit of launching into long tangential stories and his own delight in those tales is an appealing side of his character, and one which Day-Lewis illuminates with a happy grin and a rolling pleasure in language and its power. He is typically fantastic here, transformed and utterly convincing, suggesting both the iconic image and the human being underneath. He is so calm and clever, so good-humoured, that his few flashes of fire are all the more powerful for it.
He is only really rivalled by Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens, spectacularly insulting his opponents in the house, his hard carapace concealing a sense of morality and honour that provides perhaps the films most moving moment near its climax.
That climax is where Spielberg missteps. Lincoln reaches an emotional high point when the Amendment is passed. There is celebration in the streets. Lincoln and his son listen to bells ringing from a window of the White House.
And then the film keeps going. We see Lincoln meet with Southern delegates. We see him dress to go to the theatre. We see him walk away from the camera to his death, in a shot upon which Spielberg lingers just so we know what it means. It is a moment redolent of the other Spielberg, the sentimental family entertainer, not the adult filmmaker who has been responsible for most of what has preceded it in this film. That other Spielberg peeks through a few times over the course of Lincoln - mainly whenever John Williams' score swells - but generally he is kept at bay by Kushner's literate, wordy script and the intensity of focus upon the actors here.
There's always something with Spielberg, in his later work at least. Some issue, some error of judgement, something too conspicuous to be ignored. Think of the little girl in red, in Schindlers List. Or the intercutting of sex and murder in Munich. Or the framing device in Saving Private Ryan. Or the last shot in Minority Report. Always something, some distracting misstep.
For the most part, Lincoln doesn't even really feel like a Spielberg film. It seems to owe more of its personality to screenwriter Tony Kushner. Thats another way of saying that it feels somewhat like a play for long stretches; for this is a long procedural focused on political manoeuvring, on schmoozing and strategising, on persuasion and argument. This is a long procedural focused, most intently, sometimes tediously, often magnificently, on talking.
The story follows Lincoln in the weeks before the crucial House of Representatives vote on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery once and for all. The Civil War is near an end, and the President, so loved by his people, must balance the desire to end the war with the need to ensure that slavery is done with the conflict's end. He is surrounded by forceful personalities with their own agendas and styles, from his wife, still suffocating on her grief for their dead son (Sally Field) and his politically clever Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) to the various figures fighting for control of the Republican party, most notably the radical Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and founder Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook). Then there are various Democrats (Lee Pace, for example), Lincoln's older son, desperate to enlist (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), General Ulysses Grant (Jared Harris), not to mention the swirl of minor politicians, military men and civil servants never far away. There are so many familiar faces on show here, most of them in tiny parts, that it is almost a distraction from the story. That story basically comes down, as so many political dramas do, to the struggles of lobbyists for a few crucial votes before the bill is before the house. The most memorable lobbyist here is a bloated, quite brilliant James Spader, as one of the few men not awed by the presence of Lincoln.
Much of Kushner's writing here is tremendous; long dazzling speeches clashing and intertwining, and Spielberg, working with his regular Director of Photography, Janusz Kaminski, makes it all look beautiful in a slightly-too-neatly-art-directed kind of way. But if you aren't interested in the period, or the subject matter, then this may well be a struggle.
The worst material is the scenes meant to humanise the lead; Lincoln and his relationships with his wife and sons is over-familiar, dull and uninspired. The best are the scenes depicting the President when he brushes against normal people and his genius for finding common ground and the right word is revealed. His habit of launching into long tangential stories and his own delight in those tales is an appealing side of his character, and one which Day-Lewis illuminates with a happy grin and a rolling pleasure in language and its power. He is typically fantastic here, transformed and utterly convincing, suggesting both the iconic image and the human being underneath. He is so calm and clever, so good-humoured, that his few flashes of fire are all the more powerful for it.
He is only really rivalled by Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens, spectacularly insulting his opponents in the house, his hard carapace concealing a sense of morality and honour that provides perhaps the films most moving moment near its climax.
That climax is where Spielberg missteps. Lincoln reaches an emotional high point when the Amendment is passed. There is celebration in the streets. Lincoln and his son listen to bells ringing from a window of the White House.
And then the film keeps going. We see Lincoln meet with Southern delegates. We see him dress to go to the theatre. We see him walk away from the camera to his death, in a shot upon which Spielberg lingers just so we know what it means. It is a moment redolent of the other Spielberg, the sentimental family entertainer, not the adult filmmaker who has been responsible for most of what has preceded it in this film. That other Spielberg peeks through a few times over the course of Lincoln - mainly whenever John Williams' score swells - but generally he is kept at bay by Kushner's literate, wordy script and the intensity of focus upon the actors here.
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