The New World

RATED: PG-13 for some intense battle sequences.
RUNNING TIME: 150 MINUTES
PLOT: The New World tells the tale of the British arrival on the shores of North America, the founding of Jamestown and the romance between Captain John Smith and the native princess Pocahontas.
STARS: Colin Farrell (Captain John Smith), Q’Orianka Kilcher (Pocahontas), Christopher Plummer (Capt. Newport), Christian Bale (John Rolfe).

Gord Burt 3 Stars

The New World is based on the first permanent colony in the United States at Jamestown. A lot of the film draws from historical records and delves into the writings of many of the explorers and colonialists in early Virginia to create voice-over monologues by John Smith and others. The colonization of Jamestown feels so static that occasionally you get the sense of a photo essay rather than a film.

Colin Farrell stars as Smith in a one-note performance, mostly looking lovesick and helpless. He also looks uncomfortable in the role, seldom changing expression. Q’Orianka Kilcher is a beautiful 15-year-old, and the camera falls in love with her Pocahontas, as does Smith. It is here the movie enters a dreamlike state, a nearly dialogue-free montage set in the Virginian wilderness circa 1607.

While the Pocahontas story has been worn thin by overuse, don’t be too concerned about having to watch a repetitive, cheesy love story because the movie deals with the bare facts: Smith and Pocahontas fall in love; she brings food to save the starving settlers of Jamestown, and eventually she is brought to England.

The filmmakers try and make it as realistic as possible by removing a lot of the Disneyfication of the romance, but what we are left with is long sequences where all is quiet except for bird cries, buzzing insects and the wind. Sadly those natural sounds are preferable to the pretentious narrative musings spewed by many of the characters.

Though the visuals are spectacular, director Terrence Malick almost stops the story’s flow several times to show wind-swept fields of grass or flying birds. The ponderous narrative lacks so much focus that it will likely leave most viewers squirming in their seats with boredom. The movie has a meandering camera and alternating points of view, which may lose viewer interest because of the agonizingly slow nature of the film. Think art film with a big studio budget.

In the end, the majority of viewers will have lost patience with its refusal to engage in basic narrative structure, and will walk away thinking the whole thing a pretentious bore. A loud minority will proclaim this a work of genius, pointing to the cinematography and imagery as a cinematic masterpiece without compare. It’s up to you to decide where to stand.

Erin Harde 3 Stars

Whether by mistake or on purpose, The New World is so obscure and elusive, it’s impossible to enjoy. While it’s a beautiful movie with beautiful scenery and actors, the creators went overboard trying to make it an artsy film. Every scene seems half finished, as if the writers just gave up or got bored before moving to the next scene.

Whether it’s a love scene between Pocahontas and John Smith, or a fight between the Brits and natives, each shot quietly fades out like a fuzzy dream disappearing in the morning. It’s not only frustrating, but lazy and uncommitted.

Newcomer Q’Orianka Kilcher, on the other hand, energizes the movie as much as she can. Her bright eyes light up each scene and draw us in as much as every man who meets her. She is admired, coveted and even worshipped. Even when her father exiles her from the tribe because she gives the white men seeds, food and supplies, she is still revered and taken into Jamestown, the British settlement, as the princess she was. Kilcher pulls off each phase of Pocahontas’s life with a mature grace, but also with the curiosity and innocence of a child.

When she first meets Smith, they tell each other simple words in each other’s language. It’s impossible not to love this character who is so peaceful and open. Even when Smith leaves her for a mission to the West Indies, her spirit cannot be broken, though it is temporarily stayed.

As Smith, Collin Farrell spends most of his time looking completely stunned; it might be a tactical move to show his awe at the Indian princess, but it might just be that he wasn’t sure how to unfold the character, especially because many of his lines happen off camera.

The best moments happen when we get to look at the world through her eyes. Although the title and opening scenes point to America as the new world, it actually refers to her new world, that being the white men, the British culture, and finally Britain itself when she sails there with her husband, a handsome, but sombre Christian Bale, and becomes a part of this society.

In the end, The New World doesn’t exist to provide a history lesson, but a perspective of how Pocahontas might have lived her life. It’s vague, but at least improves upon the Disney version.

Underworld: Evolution

RATED: R for pervasive strong violence and gore, some sexuality/nudity and language.
RUNNING TIME: 106 MINUTES
PLOT: Underworld: Evolution continues the saga of war between the aristocratic death dealers and the barbaric Lycans (werewolves). Caught in the middle are vampire Selene and lycan/vampire hybrid Michael. The tale of action, intrigue and forbidden love takes them into the battle to end all wars as the immortals must finally face their retribution.
STARS: Kate Beckinsale (Selene), Scott Speedman (Michael), Tony Curran (Marcus), Sir Derek Jacobi (Corvinus), Bill Nighy (Viktor).

Gord Burt 4 Stars

When I reviewed the first Underworld movie I said: "Kate Beckinsale struts around Underworld in the sexiest, tightest, blackest leather catsuit you’ve seen this side of Michelle Pfeiffer" and in the sequel Underworld: Evolution, the same applies. She’s by far the hottest vampire since Monica Bellucci (if not ever). And in one steamy love scene, Beckinsale even peels out of the leather.

This film picks up where the last one left off, with Selene and her half-werewolf/half-vampire lover, Michael, on the run after having disposed of the big bad guy, Viktor. But since there wouldn’t be a movie without a villain, we’re introduced to big bad guy number two, Marcus, an older vampire than Viktor.

The film traces the beginnings of the ancient feud between lycans and vampires as Selene and Michael try to unlock the secrets of their bloodlines. This film is darker and gorier than the original and the acting is less stiff and much improved. For a movie with such a linear storyline, Underworld: Evolution has a surprisingly dense narrative.

This is a more visually inspired, muscularly made movie than its predecessor and contains several lengthy fights, which are more ambitious than anything attempted in the original.
Len Wiseman (aka Mr. Kate Beckinsale) returns as director and the filmmaking is more confident. Think Anne Rice-meets-The Matrix. Visually, the second Underworld replicates the first in tone and colour. Everything is gray and grimy, and there’s a monochromatic, metallic look to each scene. The film could also use some more wit and humour (where’s Buffy when you need a sarcastic pun?)

The continuity between films is enjoyable as well. The first movie took place over several nights; this one picks up right where the first left off and continues for another couple of nights answering many of the questions that were asked in the first movie.
Like the first one, this one ends with a segway to another sequel, and the thought of more Beckinsale ought to be enough to guarantee it.

Erin Harde 2 Stars

Underworld: Evolution undoes itself not ten minutes into the movie by showing us that a good movie might have been possible rather than this two-hour excuse to put Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight leather.

It takes us back to the beginning of the Underworld saga, when vampires and lycans (werewolves), entered existence, and how the millennium-spanning blood feud between the clans began. This is actually pretty interesting and provides a nice bit of fiction, but as soon as we are intrigued, it speeds through time to pick up exactly where the last movie ended, and where our intrigue will soon end.

If you missed the original, the premise is that Beckinsale, a vampire who kills lycans, falls for a beefy medical intern who carries some uber-gene that allows for the mutation of vampire cells with lycan cells. By the end of it, she has betrayed her coven to protect him, while he is now a gross monstrosity of two breeds.

The plot of the movie? It’s hard to pick it out between the blood, body parts, decapitations, brain matter and so on. Somehow, this one manages twice the gore and weaponry of the first movie. Sure, vampires and werewolves should evolve but why does it have to be the same way man has evolved - with an itchy trigger finger. Now, the story is about Marcus who, if you remember, is one of the first vampires, and the last of the three old ones. He awakes from a decades-long slumber on the wrong side of the coffin and emerges very grouchy. This is bad news for Selene and Michael, who unknowingly are keeping secrets from him.

There is also a mysterious old gentleman whose identity isn’t revealed until the end. It’s actually his story that is the most interesting and which ties in with the first scenes. A real winner would have been a full length Underworld prequel about both clans’ origins, before machine guns were invented, and more importantly, before leather bustiers were invented.

Munich

RATED: R for strong graphic violence, some sexual content, nudity and language.
RUNNING TIME: 167 MINUTES
STARS: Eric Bana (Avner), Daniel Craig (Steve), Ciaran Hinds (Carl), Hanns Zischler (Hans), Geoffrey Rush (Ephraim), Mathieu Amalric (Louis).
PLOT: Set in the aftermath of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, Munich follows the secret plot of Israel to exact revenge on the Arab men who had a hand in plotting the assassinations.

Gord Burt 4.5 Stars

Director Steven Spielberg’s spectacularly gripping and unsettling new thriller is the least commercial, most sombrely heartfelt movie ever made by cinema’s most commercially successful filmmaker. He did, after, all give us Jaws and Jurassic Park, but Munich has more in common with Schindler’s List.

Munich begins with an event that shook the world, and that arguably remade it: the September 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics by a Palestinian terrorist group called Black September. A long and harrowing re-enactment brings the whole sordid and unfortunate spectacle back to life, including the infuriating ease with which the terrorists pulled it off and the pathetic, disorganized German response. To add authenticity to the movie, grainy film stock, vintage news footage, still photos and radio broadcasts of the hostage crisis are used, which enhances the movie and sends the viewer back in time.

Surprisingly, the Olympic massacre gets relatively little screen time as the film mostly concerns the aftermath of the terrifying murders and follows the efforts of a secret team of five Israelis assigned to track down and kill 11 Palestinians suspected of planning the Munich attack. Munich follows the assassination team’s long campaign, as they track the Black September terrorists from one European city to another. The results of this campaign are verifiable by historical fact; one man was killed by a bomb in his telephone and another by a booby-trapped mattress, but Israel has kept the details of that mission secret ever since, and the movie, by necessity, fuses fact and speculation.

While Munich never explicitly questions the validity of Israel’s right to assassinate the Palestinians, it also never wavers from showing the devilish effects of what the campaign does to the men who wage it. We can’t predict what’s going to happen any more than they can.
This is a film that leads you in loops without feeding you the answers. Just as you start to wonder about the necessity of this mission, Spielberg cuts back to the Olympics massacre which reinforces the decision. Then, just as you may be getting too comfortable with it, he introduces a Palestinian character to argue with Avner about the plight of the Arab people. There’s no action without reaction, no cause without effect, no easy answers after the pulling of a trigger or the refusal to pull it.

Erin Harde 4.5 Stars

For those that were around to watch the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Steven Spielberg’s latest masterpiece will shake the dust off those memories and violently bring them back into public consciousness with a fiery vengeance. The hurt and anguish so many felt when innocent Israeli athletes were slaughtered in the village and at the airport is renewed in Munich, but the movie goes beyond the pain of those deaths and seeks revenge upon the Arabs who orchestrated and carried out those assassinations.

Perhaps shamefully, it provides a glorious sense of satisfaction that Israeli sympathizers were denied at the time because nobody knew about the plot to fight back. Indeed, Spielberg stirs the audience’s anger so quickly that all of the hits on the assassins seem justified; it’s not hard to imagine how Avner could so easily have accepted his mission to kill all those men without question. Spielberg can’t bring himself to be fair; he’s not interested in the Arab side of the story only that of the Jews, and it’s hard not to be swept up in his rage.

Eric Bana is amazing as the tortured Avner, which is surprising given his performance in Hulk. He is heroic in his devotion to his country, his people and the task at hand. Moreover, people are not disposable to him. He has his targets, and risks everything to make there aren’t civilian casualties. For every man he must kill, there is a gut-wrenching scene in which we must wait and sweat it out with him, and every murder has its tense moments whether it’s an unaccounted for daughter answering the phone bomb, or a bomb that blows up most of a hotel instead of one room.

Bana is also flanked by high-calibre actors, all of whom bring something special to Munich be it humour, compassion or cold, hard reason. Mathieu Amalric’s Louis stands out as the most intriguing of the bunch. Avner pays him big bucks for information, but Louis likes to toy with the group, placing them in dangerous situations that could be deemed sociology experiments.
Munich feeds our hatred and vengeance, and it can hardly end on a happy note, given the current climate in the Middle East. Spielberg’s not so gentle reminder of that slaps us in the face, as it does Avner who is surely destined to feel the blood of both Israelis and Arabs on his hands for the rest of his life.

Grandma’s Boy

PLOT: A 36-year-old slacker video game tester has to move in with his grandmother and her roommates after getting kicked out of his apartment, which leads to more chores for him and wild parties for them.
RATED: R for drug use, strong language throughout, strong crude and sexual humour, and nudity.
RUNNING TIME: 96 MINUTES
STARS: Allen Covert (Alex), Linda Cardellini (Samantha), Peter Dante (Dante), Doris Roberts (Grandma Lily), Shirley Jones (Grace), Joel David Moore (J.P.), Kevin Nealon (Mr. Cheezle).

Gord Burt 2 Stars

For those who think reviewing films is all fun and games, I offer Grandma’s Boy as a rebuttal. That’s 96 minutes (plus travel time) of my life gone never to come back, no matter what is written here.

The characters, especially Alex the video game-addicted, reefer-mad couch potato, do not apologize for their immature, irresponsible ways, nor does the film try and force them to grow up or learn any valuable lessons. Instead, it cheerfully invites the audience to descend to their level of debauchery, where no joke is too raunchy, and the plot is just a way of passing time between game levels and drugs.

The filmmakers got one thing right: they cast Linda Cardellini. She’s cute enough to take some of the sting out of watching the movie and steals the show with a slutty, drunken karaoke version of Salt-N-Pepa’s Push It.

Besides looking like a Lethal Weapon era Mel Gibson, Allen Covert is odd leading man material. He’s not a great actor, but he’s got an engaging smile and a nice sense of comic timing.

Unfortunately there is nothing new in the gross-out vein to entice viewers. There are some other disturbing images though: a random woman who pops up at a party just to let a fat geek nuzzle her fake breasts for 13 hours, the ghoulish spectre of Ma Partridge getting naughty and an inexplicable multilingual witch doctor.

The sloppiness of the script for Grandma’s Boy offers a stinging commentary on the current state of popular culture: the characters in this film would never tolerate such chaos and incoherence in a video game, which suggests that movies these days are held to a lower standard.

The picture’s mockery of young male game geeks is mostly accurate, but also affectionate and sometimes filled with venom. All in all, Grandma’s Boy is a neanderthal picture. It’s funny, but so lowbrow you’ll actually feel your brain cells dying.

Erin Harde 1 Star

There are a lot of questions that arise upon the conclusion of Grandma’s Boy. For instance, can people really get so stoned they think it’s Christmas in July or that a lion is better than a guard dog for protecting the stash? Do grown men really masturbate to superhero figurines and sleep in beds shaped like cars? Could a zen-master wannabe, wheat grass guzzling hippie operate a successful video game company?

But here are the more important questions. Why have Everybody loves Raymond’s Doris Roberts and Tony winner Shirley Jones lowered themselves to a movie that is so stupid and so wrong in so many ways? And finally, how do movies like this get made? Did a couple of potheads sit down one day and say ‘let’s make a movie version of our very screwed up lives, have some B-actors plays us, add some naked chicks, some B-actors (Allen Covert, Linda Cardellini) and more drugs than anyone can handle’?

Basically, this movie is the culmination of fantasies from 20-something virgins, gamers, and stoners. Here is the main message: you can be a total loser, live in your parents’ house, smoke as much dope as you want, but still land a dream job, seduce drunken executives with model good looks, and live life with no repercussions whatsoever.

But, Grandma’s Boy is not without its laughs. They’re usually a result of something incredibly disgusting (Alex ejaculating on his co-worker’s mom) or ridiculous (Grandma and friends getting high after drinking weed tea), but elicit a chuckle all the same. Somehow the creators manage to pick about half a dozen laugh-out-loud scenes and string them together in what sort of passes for a linear plot line.

It’s watchable only if you go in with zero expectations and check your brain at the door, but why pay for that kind of entertainment, if you can call it that.