fine whine

Between last night and tonight I watched some or all of four movies. Wow.

21 grams is more complicated than it needs to be, and less gripping than it thinks it is. Nowhere had I been told that the film was going to be non-linear, though it was easy enough to figure out before too long. "Too long" is a fitting phrase for this, by the way, as it felt like it dragged out far too long. Then again, it might just be the fact that I didn't really care about any of the characters on screen. I realize that movies like this are made with well-known stars (like Benicio and Naomi) to generate some interest and sympathy for uninteresting or unsympathetic characters, but it doesn't work that well. I just didn't care what happened to any of them (though I do have to admit it was nice to see Homicide's Melissa Leo acting again) and wasn't as compelled as I probably should have been. Everybody turned in a good performance, but somewhere between the jarring chronology and the heaps of despair I just didn't care enough. I guess I'll stick to action movies, or something.

For a sequel, X2: X-men united was quite good. I probably shouldn't even say "for a sequel" since it was obvious that this will be the second in a long series of installments of a long-lived series, unless somebody at Fox really screws up. Seen that way, it's a solid installment, and provides encouragement for the inevitably forthcoming follow-ups. I'm not always so tolerant of sequels (like, oh, The Matrix reloaded) but this time around I found the whole take-what-worked-before-and-crank-it-to-11 thing to work pretty much everywhere, except for the scenes with "lady deathshade" or whatever the new mutant secretary's name was (since it was never said onscreen to my memory), particularly the rather drawn-out and utterly unsurprising battle with Wolverine at the end. The movie stopped. Completely. Also seemingly out of place was Storm's rage against humans (or whatever she meant by being "like, sooo done with pity, you know"). Brian Cox was great, as usual, and pretty much everybody put in a good turn. Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler was surprisingly good, but I have low expectations for the actor and know little more than ancillary video game information about the character. So, score one for the good guys, and bring on X3. Soon.

As for comic movies, X2 entertained me more than Hellboy did. I hate to say that, but the movie just didn't do it for me. I'm marginally familiar with Mignola and his creation and am intrigued by them, but the movie just didn't push me over the fan fence. The special effects are great, the characterizations well done, but the plot was a bit overreaching for my tastes. I realize that the movie was likely made with grim prospects of starting a franchise or spawning sequels, but throwing an end-of-the-world scenario in with superhuman/undead Nazis and pyrokinesis just seemed like more than one movie could contain. Unanswered questions abound, but I'll leave them unasked as well. I'll reserve full judgment until I see the Director's Cut, I suppose, but I'm in no rush.

On an unrelated note, one role in which I'd like to see Harvey Keitel is the geniunely nice guy (or for a real challenge, the gay best friend). I think that it would be such a stretch that he'd need to put forth a great effort to distance himself from the hard-talking tough guys he usually plays. Perhaps a supermarket clerk, even, or how about a friendly crossing guard. There may well be a movie in which he plays against type; I just haven't looked for it yet. He plays his usual brute in the overlooked City of industry (incidently also featuring Famke Janssen), and on the whole it works. It's another entry for the "determined crook bent on revenge" genre but the performances make it relatively decent, if not too noteworthy. I knew about it years ago because the soundtrack's a decent selection of trip-hop music, but it wasn't until I was trying to figure out why Famke looked familiar to Jessica (which we still couldn't tell) that I stumbled across the movie again, and lo, the library had a copy. So I watched it.

In other news, I'm happy to hear that there's a Director's Cut of Donnie Darko soon to be released.