Review: "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" is Strange, But Fun Star Wars

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 34 (of 2008) by Leroy Douresseaux

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
Running time: 98 minutes (1 hour, 38 minutes)
MPAA – PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language, and momentary smoking
DIRECTOR: Dave Filoni
WRITERS: Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, and Scott Murphy; from a story by George Lucas (based on the characters and universe created by George Lucas)
PRODUCERS: Catherine Winder
EDITOR: Jason Tucker
Razzie Award nominee

ANIMATION/SCI-FI/FANTASY/ACTION/ADVENTURE

Starring: (voices) Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, James Arnold Taylor, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kane, Nika Futterman, Ian Abercrombie, Corey Burton, Matthew Wood, Catherine Taber, Kevin Michael Richardson, David Acord, Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Daniels, and Christopher Lee

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is the seventh Star Wars theatrical feature film and the first animated Star Wars movie. This film takes place between the live action Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005). According to advertisements for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, it recounts an untold tale of the Clone Wars – the central conflict that begins in Episode II and ends in Episode III. In spite of its ties to two recent Star Wars film, Star Wars: The Clone Wars isn’t getting the love the other Star Wars films have, when one considers early reviews and fan response. While this new film is by no means without its flaws, its light-hearted approach and lack of pompous seriousness make Star Wars: The Clone Wars the most fun Star Wars flick since the original trilogy.

As the film opens, the Clone Wars sweep through the galaxy, and the Jedi Knights are struggling to maintain order and restore peace, as more and more systems side with the Separatists. Darth Sidious (Ian Abercrombie) and his Sith partner, Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), continue to ferment dissension in the Republic; they are the puppet masters behind the Separatist movement and its Droid army.

Count Dooku and his assassin, Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman), have orchestrated the kidnapping of the infant son of crime lord Jabba the Hutt (Kevin Michael Richardson). Desperate to have access to the shipping lanes on the galaxy’s Outer Rim, which Jabba controls, the Jedi Council pledges to rescue Jabba’s kid, Rotta the Huttlet (David Acord). This mission with its far-reaching consequences is passed off to Jedi Knights, Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor) and Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter), who are on the frontlines of the Clone Wars.

These two Jedi already have their hands full battling a seemingly endless droid army, with only a small, valiant contingent of clone troops, led by Captain Rex (Dee Bradley Baker), on their side. It’s more than enough that Obi-Wan and Anakin find themselves both fighting the droid army and launching a rescue mission, so when Anakin learns that Master Yoda (Tom Kane) has assigned him a padawan learner, a young female named Ahsoka Tona (Ashley Eckstein), he’s not happy. Meanwhile, Dooku and his agents will stop at nothing to foil the Jedi and their desperate, multi-faceted mission.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a computer-animated (or 3D animated) film, and its animation certainly looks wanting when compared to the work of such 3D animation studios as Pixar (Toy Story), DreamWorks Animation (Shrek), and Blue Sky (Ice Age). Early in the movie, The Clone Wars’ animation looks stiff, chunky, and even clunky, but as soon as my mind adjusted to the unusual look of this style of 3D animation, it actually began to look charmingly distinctive.

The look of the animation aside, what makes Star Wars: The Clone Wars such a winning film is, honestly, the action. The screenplay fashions a fast-paced narrative that constantly moves the viewer from one end of the galaxy to the next, with the capitol at Coruscant being the anchor (and there’s big action going on there, too). We’re treated to lively battle scenes and heady duels, and while the film lacks strong characterization and personality development of its characters, the film keeps them too busy fighting for their lives and their cause for us to really care.

This is also the first film that really allows Anakin Skywalker to stretch his wings and actually show (rather than tell) us how good a pilot and what a capable Jedi he is (which Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke Skywalker way back in the original Star Wars). In a lot of ways and unlike any of the prequel trilogies, this is Anakin’s film. The character, after seeming mostly wooden in the prequel trilogy, is charismatic, bold, and brazen in Star Wars: The Clone Wars – a pointed contrast to the mannequin-like performances of the two human actors who played Anakin in the prequel films.

Back in 1999, Ewan McGregor, who portrayed Obi-Wan, described Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace as being like a fairy tale about a group of heroes flying from one end of the galaxy to another and having adventures. That’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars; it’s a little sci-fi fairy tale adventure – a Saturday morning cartoon version of Star Wars. This is indeed an imperfect flick, but it happily takes the dark out of Star Wars and replaces it with fun.

7 of 10
B+

Sunday, August 17, 2008

NOTES:
2009 Razzie Awards: 1 nomination: “Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel”

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Time Runs Out for Blade; Snipes Must Report to Prison

E! Online has reported that Wesley Snipes has been ordered to report to prison immediately to begin serving his 3 year sentence on charges of federal tax evasion.

Review: "Predators" Rocks Except When It Sucks

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 94 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

Predators (2010)
Running time: 107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong creature violence and gore, and pervasive language
DIRECTOR: Nimród Antal
WRITERS: Alex Litvak and Michael Finch (from Jim Thomas and John Thomas)
PRODUCERS: Elizabeth Avellan, John Davis, and Robert Rodriguez
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Gyula Pados
EDITOR: Dan Zimmerman

SCI-FI/ACTION with elements of horror

Starring: Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Oleg Taktarov, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo, Louis Ozawa Changchien, and Mahershalahashbaz Ali

In the 1987 movie, Predator, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch led a Special Forces team into the Guatemalan jungle. There, they encountered an alien hunter (called “the Predator”) that picked them off one by one. The 2010 movie, Predators, is a direct sequel to the original film, and follows a ruthless mercenary, as he leads a group of trained and untrained killers through a jungle on another planet.

In Predators, Royce (Adrien Brody), an ex-American military turned mercenary, awakens to find himself falling from the sky into a vast, unknown jungle. He soon meets seven other people that arrived there in the same manner. They include Isabelle (Alice Braga), a sniper and black operations soldier; Edwin (Topher Grace), a doctor; Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a Yakuza, and Stans (Walton Goggins), a death row inmate; among others. They are killers without a conscience.

The group soon learns that they are not on Earth. After a pack of alien beasts attacks them, Royce deduces that the planet is a game preserve and that they are the game and the prey. When the hunters stalking them finally attack, the humans discover just how formidable they are. Their only hope – to get off the planet – is seemingly an impossible one, but they may get help from the unlikeliest sources.

I found Predators to be immensely entertaining, and this is also one time that I can certainly give credit to the director the film, in this case, Nimród Antal. He works action movie magic out of a script filled with inane characters and inconsistencies. Some of the characters are extraneous and pointless (a Yakuza!) or defy common sense (a death row inmate!). Some of the good ones disappear too early in the film, Danny Trejo’s Cuchillo, a drug cartel enforcer, and Mahershalahashbaz Ali’s Mombasa, a death squad soldier. The audience doesn’t get to know the characters that well, if at all, and they often come across as cardboard cutouts. However, Laurence Fishburne’s Noland is a delight; Fishburne plays him as so deranged that the character is both scary and alluring.

Meanwhile, the director took advantage of a new setting for the Predator franchise (an alien world) and special effects, CGI, and production design talent, improved from the original, to make a movie that looks cool, especially when the Predators attack. The moment the viewer stops and tries to make sense of the plot, story, and concept, Predators begins to fall apart. When the viewer focuses on the chasing and the killing, Predators is just plain fun – so much fun that I didn’t want it to end. So let’s go with this formula for a future film: more Predator action and fewer crappy characters.

6 of 10
B

Saturday, November 20, 2010

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Russell Crowe and The RZA, Again

Both Russell Crowe and The RZA were in American Gangster.  They reunite in Crowe's just-came-out-flick, The Next Three Days.  The duo give a joint interview to BV on Movies.

Review: Disney's "The Three Musketeers" - Because She Loved Mickey Mouse (In Memory of M.A.D.)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 245 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers (2004) – (straight to video release)
Running time: 68 minutes (1 hour, 28 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Donovan Cook
WRITERS: David M. Evans and Evan Spiliotopoulos
PRODUCER: Margot Pipkin
EDITOR: Bret Marnell

ANIMATION/COMEDY/ADVENTURE and FAMILY/MUSICAL

Starring: (voice) Wayne Allwine, Tony Anselmo, Bill Farmer, Russi Taylor, Tress MacNeille, Jim Cummings, April Winchell, Rob Paulsen, Maurice LaMarche, and Jeff Bennett

Best buddies Mickey Mouse (Wayne Allwine), Donald Duck (Tony Anselmo), and Goofy (Bill Farmer) are small-time janitors, handymen, and clothes washers with big time dreams of become Musketeers, who are their employers. Peg-Leg Pete (Jim Cummings), their boss and captain of the Musketeers, is dismissive of them and their dreams because (as he rudely points out) Mickey is short, Donald is a coward, and Goofy is a dimwit. However, Pete comes upon a plan to use the trio, anyway.

 

Princess Minnie (Russi Taylor) demands Musketeer bodyguards after assassins nearly drop a safe on her. What she doesn’t know is that the assassins are a trio of Beagle Boys (Maurice LaMarche and Jeff Bennett) have been ordered by Pete to remove Princess Minnie so that he can be king. He makes Mickey, Donald, and Goofy Musketeers because he believes their incompetence will make them ineffectual bodyguards and allow the Beagle Boys (who steal virtually every scene they’re in) to easily spirit the Princess and her lady-in-waiting, Daisy (Tressie MacNeille), away to a hidden tower, all part of his plan to usurp the throne. What Pete doesn’t count on is the heroic trio rising to the challenge… and Princess Minnie falling in love with Mickey.

According to director Donovan Cook, The Walt Disney Company originally ordered his animated film Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers to be produced as an animated feature film for theatrical release. For the foreseeable future, Disney doesn’t plan on releasing 2-D or hand-drawn animated films.  [That policy has changed since this review was written.] Ultimately in spite of his public pleas for support from the Internet community and pleas to Disney, the film was sold as a straight to video release. After watching the film, I can imagine that Disney didn’t think this film would make enough in box office receipts to justify advertising and print costs (not to mention logistics) for a theatrical release.

It’s no big loss for this film to be released straight to video, except that the filmmakers don’t get credit for making a theatrical film. However, Disney fans will still get to see an excellent family friendly animated movie, and while it is nowhere as good as Disney’s best full-length feature films, it is actually quite entertaining.

The figure animation and movement in Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers is better than the animation produced for Disney’s animated TV programs, though it pales in comparison even to second tier Disney animated feature films like Alice in Wonderland (a personal favorite). The character motion is fluid and energetic, perfect for this film’s physical and gag comedy, and this is a funny film. The background art for this film is actually quite good – fine enough to be eye candy. The quality of Princess Minnie’s palace, the Musketeer’s lair, the countryside, and other locations and settings verify that this must have been considered for theatrical release at one time.

The story uses Alexandre Dumas’ (1802-1870) classic novel, The Three Musketeers (1844), as a launching point. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are not the Three Musketeers (although a Disney funny animal version of them appears very early in the film), so this film is not a remake, but a sequel of sorts, which might disappoint some. The writers use the Musketeers concept to create a winning tale of friendship, teamwork, and perseverance. The boys have to believe in one another, and each friend has to help another overcome obstacles. In the end, it’s about being there for a friend even when you’re scared, and this movie both sells that idea and is truly good entertainment.

7 of 10
B+

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Sequel to "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D" Now in Production

Press release:

Production Underway on New Line Cinema’s 3D Family Adventure “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island”

Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine, Josh Hutcherson, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzman and Kristin Davis to Star

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Filming has begun on location in Oahu, Hawaii, for the 3D family adventure “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island,” directed by Brad Peyton (“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore”).

Josh Hutcherson will reprise his role as young adventurer Sean Anderson in this exciting follow-up to the 2008 worldwide hit “Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D,” the first live-action film ever to be shot in digital 3D. Dwayne Johnson stars as Sean’s stepfather, Hank Parsons; Michael Caine as Sean’s grandfather, Alexander Anderson; Vanessa Hudgens and Luis Guzman as a father-daughter tour guide team; and Kristin Davis as Sean’s mom, Liz Anderson.

The new journey begins when Sean receives a coded distress signal from a mysterious island where no island should exist — a place of strange life forms, mountains of gold, deadly volcanoes, and more than one astonishing secret. Unable to stop him from going, Sean’s new stepfather joins the quest. Together with a helicopter pilot and his beautiful, strong-willed daughter, they set out to find the island, rescue its lone inhabitant and escape before seismic shockwaves force the island under the sea and bury its treasures forever.

“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” is being produced by Beau Flynn & Tripp Vinson, and Charlotte Huggins from a screenplay by Mark Gunn & Brian Gunn, story by Richard Outten. Serving as executive producers are Michael Bostick, Evan Turner, Marcus Viscidi, Richard Brener, Samuel J. Brown and Michael Disco.

The creative filmmaking team includes director of photography David Tattersall (“Gulliver’s Travels”), production designer Bill Boes (“Fantastic Four”), costume designer Denise Wingate (“Wedding Crashers”) and Academy Award© nominated visual effects supervisor Boyd Shermis (“Poseidon”).

Beginning in January 2011, production will move to Wilmington, North Carolina, to finish shooting after the holiday hiatus, and is scheduled to wrap principal photography in February 2011.

“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” is a New Line Cinema presentation, a Walden Media and Contrafilm production and will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.


ABOUT NEW LINE CINEMA:
New Line Cinema continues to be one of the most successful independent film companies. For more than 40 years, its mission has been to produce innovative, popular, profitable entertainment in the best creative environment. A pioneer in franchise filmmaking, New Line produced the Oscar®-winning “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which is a landmark in the history of film franchises. New Line Cinema is a division of Warner Bros.

Review: "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is a Lean and Mean Movie

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 108 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Running time: 138 minutes (2 hours, 18 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images
DIRECTOR: David Yates
WRITER: Michael Goldenberg (based upon the book by J.K. Rowling)
PRODUCERS: David Barron and David Heyman
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Slawomir Idziak (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Mark Day
BAFTA Awards nominee

FANTASY/DRAMA/ACTION/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Imelda Staunton, Robbie Coltrane, Jason Isaacs, Matthew Lewis, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Bonnie Wright, Katie Leung, and George Harris

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) enters his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with something of a bad attitude. He’s spent another miserable summer with his sour and despicable relatives, the Dursleys, and none of his friends, especially Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), had the decency to contact him. Feeling hungry and edgy for news from the magic world, Harry discovers that his friends have been keeping secrets from him, and Harry’s anxious to know if there is any news about the activities of the recently revived Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).

Returning to Hogwarts isn’t any relief. The new “Defense against the Dark Arts” instructor, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) is a notorious busybody intent on bending both faculty and staff to her iron will. She does her best to discourage spell-casting and any discussion of Voldemort, who is often referred to as “He who must not be named.” Harry, however, gathers a small, loyal group of classmates and trains them to be his secret army for when (not if) Voldemort strikes. Harry also meets the remnants of the Order of the Phoenix, an organization founded by Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) to counter Voldemort. Still, most of the magic community is willfully blind to the signs that Voldemort is rebuilding his army, and Harry isn’t sure that his own small army will be up to the task of stopping the Dark Lord.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is darker than the other Potter films. It’s darker even than 2005’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but Order of the Phoenix is much less expansive than Goblet of Fire or 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, both of which were large, elegant films with high production values and epic stories. Order of the Phoenix is leaner and meaner. David Yates directs some of this film as if it were a TV movie, but the Potter magic shines through Yates determination to make a terse drama. The costumes are darker, and the art direction and set decoration is mostly spare.

The film’s opening act is fast paced and edgy, and the last act is killer. In between are some truly exciting and thrilling moments, but most of the middle involves the tiresome subplot which sees Dolores Umbridge take on the status quo at Hogwarts. The Umbridge character as portrayed in the film is annoying, and not always in an entertaining manner. When Voldemort attacks in the last act, the appearance of the dark lord almost makes me forget the dour Hogwarts segment… almost.

6 of 10
B

Friday, July 27, 2007

NOTES:
2008 BAFTA Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Production Design” (Stuart Craig and Stephanie McMillan) and “Best Special Visual Effects” (Tim Burke, John Richardson, Emma Norton, and Chris Shaw)

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