Brave

Pixar has been one of the most brilliantly run studios in Hollywood for some time.  They churned out movie after movie which grossed them over 100 million dollars, sold more in toys, garnered critical acclaim, and won awards.   Their last endeavor Cars 2 was the only blemish on an otherwise perfect record.  It seemed that everyone who worked there was passionate about their projects and wanted to be there. The only complaint really being that it was considered kind of a boys club, so what do they do, with their 13th movie they put in a strong female protagonist that's central issue deals with the relationship between mother and daughter.  From the outset Brave looked like a home-run but a major plot point in the second half changes this movie's fate and it becomes something different entirely.

Any of the first teasers that came out made it seem like it was going to be an intense mixture of adventure and magic.  But then those behind the scenes decided to not use any of the footage from the trailer in the movie.  Despite that even the first sequence laid the groundwork for an epic adventure tale.  The visuals are absolutely stunning in this movie and the music is enchanting.  It places you in the exact mood you need to be in for a movie that is all about a princess who changes her fate.

Nothing about the plot is all that ingenious when it comes to daughter being forced to marry against her will (On a side-note: I have been seeing a lot of female empowerment movies recently, you go girls).  Merida is an independent girl with the heart of a warrior and does not want to be married off just because of some tradition, while her mother has been training her to be queen her whole life.  Merida would much rather explore the outdoors and practice her archery on horseback all day.  From here the movie still has all the potential in the world to be something great and could very well be.

But then something happens, about halfway through the movie a major plot point occurs and throws any credibility the movie was building towards into the water.  I don't want to give the plot point away, as it is supposed to be a twist I think, but if you would like a hint please click here for everyone else just move on.  All of a sudden the movie moves away from female empowerment into a slapstick session, which was completely unnecessary as there are plenty of laughs everywhere else in the movie.  The toughest part about the plot point is it becomes the main focus of the story, so while I can say I liked everything about this movie except this one detail it becomes a MAJOR detail.  From here on to the end it seems that everything the movie was building to is forgotten in order to wrap the story up.

It almost feels as if Pixar doesn't care anymore.  Whether it is giving Larry The Cable Guy a whole movie, finding out where Sully and Mike matriculated from, or frankly giving the boys club a story about female empowerment. It seems there is less effort being put in at the studio to come up with groundbreaking ideas.  All of Pixar's movies before this have been about guys and boys and growing up and been told from that point of view.  Pixar's movies have been great in the past because they were writing from somewhere they know; you could feel a personal investment in the story.  While Brenda Chapman wrote the story and helped direct, the rest of her main staff are men.  So a story about a mother-daughter relationship being told from the perspective of boys may have been one of the problems with developing the full potential of the story.

The movie does come back around and the climax of the movie features some very touching scenes.  Plus I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up just a little bit with the Scottish music playing in the background and a little girl coming over to give her Mom a big hug and tell her that she loves her.  There is a beautiful movie in here somewhere evidenced by these last moments, the sweeping Irish landscape, and the beautiful music, but that one moment really turned off any momentum the movie built towards.  Even the plot points that occur following the twist are more believable.  It really is just frustrating they took the movie in that direction.  And after that there was no coming back for Brave.  B-

Rock of Ages

For those of you who were live blogging the TONY awards the other night I imagine Rock of Ages  is a movie for you.  If you can't get enough "Back to the Eighties with Joe Cortese" you are going to LOVE this movie.  If you do not feel passionately about either you may want to sit this one out.  Rock of Ages brings all the music of the eighties back to life, and at times you may find yourself singing along with the music.  But the movie has trouble deciding if it wants to be campy fun or be taken seriously.  If you still find yourself excited about Def Leppard, Foreigner, and Journey going on tour then get prepared to rock out and have a great time at the movies.

The movie opens up on a distinct note as we see Julianne Houghas who plays Sherrie traveling on a bus to LA to become rich and famous.  All of a sudden she starts singing "Sister Christian" and the bus joins in with her.  It is a surreal moment that makes the audience laugh and believe that this is what can be expected the rest of the way.  But the movie is all over the place and jumps around from scene to scene.  Director Adam Shankman, who also did Hairspray, seems to be a little bitout of his comfort zone in this one.  Where as Hairspray was intended for people who loved the show, Rock of Ages also has crossover appeal to an entire decade of music lovers.  So he seems to divide his interest. In fact it is split down the middle in terms of moment of hilarity and tense moments of drama.  But fans of the Broadway show may notice that it doesn't quite develop the same way the original show did.  But let's not lie you are here for the songs, not the story.

There are a couple of numbers that stand out, one of them being the performance that has been on all the promotional videos and that's Tom Cruise doing "Wanted."  He actually does a surprisingly good job.  Now don't mistake that for it being anywhere near as good as the original, but he certainly holds his own and they do a great job with the scene.  There is also a mash-up in the opening 15 minutes of "Just Like Paradise" and "Nothin But A Good Time" which shows just why Diego Boneta gets his feature film debut as the male lead.  But the show stealing may go to Alec Baldwin and Russel Brand for their duet in the latter half of the movie.

But just as there were good numbers there are also ones that fell flat.  Haven't we all had enough of "Don't Stop Believing" yet?  It is the movies final song and is written as the ultimate rock song but when I think of rock, Steve Perry is not the first man to come to mind.  With shows like "Family Guy," "The Sopranos" and "Glee" all using this song can't we all hold hands and agree this song has jumped the shark.  However the song that sticks out the most is Catherine Zeta-Jones doing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot."  It stands out because of just how out of place it seemed, as the characters broke out into dance during the number which didn't really happen the rest of the movie unless there was already dancing going on.  In fact the inclusion of Zeta-Jones and Bryan Cranston seemed unnecessary to the movie and probably detracted from the main plot, which is unfortunate as she has clearly proven herself as a Broadway babe before in the likes of Chicago and A Little Night Music. The movie also slows down a lot during the second act of the movie, and not that I don't appreciate the power ballads of the eighties, it probably would have served the story better if it didn't ruin the pacing of the movie.

While perhaps Catherine Zeta Jones character wasn't necessary to the quality of the story the other supporting characters were pretty good.  Alec Baldwin and Russel Brand were fantastic in their roles supplying some much needed comic relief.  As soon as Mary J. Blidge popped on the screen I kept wishing for more of her. I'm sure she had a much deeper story and better connection with Sherrie but we never see it developed.  A lot of the story focuses on Paul Giamatti as the slimy band manager and Malin Akerman as a Rolling Stone reporter who was never in the play but plays an important part to the development of Stacee Jaxx.  Jaxx as you no doubt know is played by Tom Cruise, and if there is one thing Cruise knows how to play is out of touch crazy.  To date his best role may be Magnolia and is a prime example of just how crazy he can play, but more recently he was awesome in Tropic Thunder.  I expected very little out of him in this Broadway hit, but he actually does really well and even worked with Bret Michaels and Axel Rose's vocal coach to nail the part.  You may also want to keep a look out for the numerous cameos in this movie as eighties rock stars can be seen throwing their support behind rock and roll.

It is good they had a strong supporting cast of veteran actors because the lead characters are relative newbies.  Julianne Hough has been in other movie musicals, namely Burlesque and Footloose, but may be best known for her work on "Dancing With The Stars." She is a natural on camera on stands as an equal to the other actors she performs with.  She has a fantastic voice and is a great dancer and fits the part well.  Diego Boneta as Drew Boley struggles though, while a perfect pick for the songs that were selected, namely songs similar to Journey, it would have been nice to see someone with a little more rock to his voice.  He also doesn't quite have the same presence as those around him which is why it is so important for him to have a quality ensemble to work with.  I would have loved to see Constantine Maroulis from American Idol and the original Broadway lead get the part, but at the age of 36 he may have been too old for the producer's taste.

Fans of the show may object to the changes made to the movie, and they certainly have grounds to the objection.  The movie takes all the characters in complete different directions.  But it was Chris D'Arienzo who made the changes to the movie and since he wrote the book for the musical the changes he makes still fit, they all just end up in different spots than where the musical took them.  And for those who have not seen the musical they may actually prefer the changes as they fit the medium better.  Overall this is a fun, campy movie and fans of the music will walk away with a smile on their face and a tune on their lips.  The rest of you, well at least you get to walk away. C (For my eighties fans B)

Prometheus

It is tough to tell what, if anything anyone has heard about Prometheus going into it.  The biggest talking point of the movie though is that Prometheus is a prequel to Alien.  But I suggest you get that idea out from your head.  Any fan of the original will remember how beautiful and spine chilling that movie was.  Alien deserves to go down as one of the best science fiction movies of all time.  Prometheus really isn't anywhere near that level of excellence but it certainly stands on its own as a really good movie.  Ridley Scott make his return to science fiction in his latest movie Prometheus as one space crew attempts to go and meet its maker.

Of course there are nods and references to the original movie, but this truly is its own movie.  One of the biggest differences being the way the scares come at you.  In the original Alien, the movie was steeped in silence and that is where the terror came from, the feeling of isolation while fearing for your life.  Where the original movie thrived in the silence, Prometheus relies more on action. In this movie Scott has adapted to the times and includes monsters popping out of nowhere, grissley violence and true to the franchise one moment sickeningly similar to the original (and actually a better made sequence).  You can hardly blame Ridley Scott for the shift in tone from the original movie, a film like Alien probably would not be as successful as it was then because the audience demands certain level of pacing.  You need to hook an audience quickly or they could just as easily go to their phones and start trying to find out whats happening after the movie.  While it would be unfair to expect an outcome like Alien when the movie needed to be made to appeal to modern audiences, it does a wonderful job telling its own story.

Visually the movie is striking.  Scott uses 3-D well here and enhances his project and really makes his visuals pop.  He doesn't appear to be throwing it in there just to add to the weekend gross, he uses it effectively and seamlessly to  enhance his project.  In fact all of the technical aspect of the movie are stunning.  Nothing seems out of place and it is hard to think that even the wildest imagination could have crated a more fitting landscape to the movie.  And while some of the movie needs to be computer generated he films as much as he can using live action, and using this technique always allows the movie to come to life, even if it is taking place trillions of miles from Earth.

True to the franchise Scott gives us two strong female leads in Noomi Rapace, from the Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series, and Charlize Theron who will be competing against herself in Snow White and the Huntsman.  Rapace plays Elizabeth Shaw, one of the scientists who discover alien drawings and believe they will help answer man's greatest questions, where did we come from?  She does all that is asked of her and is a completely believable hero.  Backing her research is Meredith Vickers, played by Theron, who has her own agenda on this space trip.  She is cold and calculating in this movie, and leaves nothing to chance, and much like Snow White plays in intimidating force very well.  The other stand out character in the movie is David played by Michael Fassbender who reminded me more of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey  than anything else.  Another perfect piece of casting, despite his character having no emotion he is able to play every feeling perfectly from dry humor to the subtle threat.

Independent of anything else this is a really good movie.  In fact some of the weaker parts of the movie come towards the end when they try and tie the movie back to its 1979 counterpart. But had the movie not had the backing of the original I doubt there would be so much excitement surrounding this project.  Prometheus does a better job standing alone as an independent movie, than any prequel has done recently.  B+