Neeson stars as John Ottway, a stellar marksman hired to work at the edge of the world to protect oil riggers from wolves looking for a tasty snack.  He’s floating through his existence with little purpose after his wife leaves him (we’re not given the details until later). Then, a traumatic plane crash in the Alaskan tundra suddenly makes the listless Ottway instrumental in keeping the survivors warm, fed, and out of the bellies of hungry wolves.

Where The Grey truly excels is within the inner space of its characters, particularly Ottway.  Our introduction to the man is haunting, both in the handheld, grainy shots with which Carnahan frames Ottway, as well as Marc Steitenfeld’s mythic score enunciating our hero’s melancholy.  Brooding and handy with a rifle, Ottway could easily become a caricature, but his ability to ease another character’s mind early in the film speaks to the man’s depth.  By the closing moments, the film is able to reconnect its emotional tissue, and leave you with a holy moment you’ll find it difficult to forget.

Neeson isn’t alone in making The Grey engaging.  The powerful sound design stresses the isolation of the wintry hellscape with howling, disorienting wind, only later to scare the bejesus out of you as we’re yanked from dreamland to harrowing reality.  The Grey isn’t only dramatic, it’s freakin’ terrifying at times.

Where it barely functions is the “Run from the wolves!” second act, which causes the film to lose its emotional focus.  You can’t merely show an image of a monster to induce fear, they have to be just as properly developed characters to be equal antagonists equal to their protagonists (the Joker).  Considering the themes of life and death, man vs. nature, it’s unfortunate the ever present wolves weren’t able to enhance the thematic material – they were annoying plot devices.

Despite the wolves, a literal leap of logic (“We have to jump off this cliff to escape the wolves!”), some structural glitches in the story, and the occasional step into shit dialogue, it’s a damn shame that other disaster/survivalist films can’t be as rich as this one.  The Grey‘s bookended emotional peaks make it worth recommending and you have to respect a film with the cojones to end where most people would kill to see the rest.  That’s where The Grey shows its hand: despite the wolf wankery for much of the feature, the ending stresses that it’s the battle within that matters most.

If you were a fan of John Hillcoat’s film adaptation of The Road, The Grey should be your cup of hard-boiled tea.

-Remington Smith

Gina Carano plays Mallory, a mercenary for a shadowy organization that’s helping the U.S. government resolve situations that need to be handled with discretion.  Of course, working just outside the boundaries of traditional legal arenas has its drawbacks, particularly when bullets and betrayal become bed-fellows.

Haywire is ultimately an action vehicle for mixed martial arts fighter turned actress, Gina Carano.  A majority of action films hide their stunts behind cuts.  Someone throws a punch, then it cuts to the stunt double who falls back on a mat out of screen.

In Haywire, there are few cuts.  There are no discernible stunt doubles.  When Carano is slammed into a wall, we’re feeling the pain in our gut.  Whether she’s crossing blows with Channing Tatum or Michael Fassbender, it’s a terrifying ballet.  Ballet being the operative phrase, because despite our horror, we marvel at the athleticism of these brawls.  Carano gets in close like a spider monkey, crawling, wrapping, twisting around her opponent to take him down.  It has the best fight choreography from a U.S. film since The Matrix, with enough grace and purpose that it would make Jason Bourne blush.  A rarity in action cinema, the woman is truly the superior of the men.

When Carano’s Mallory isn’t kicking the asses of the opposite sex, we get to see the intelligence that landed her this line of work in the first place.  Despite being caught in a trap with dozens of SWAT team members hunting her down, her acrobatics and clever maneuvers get her out of harms way, not a Schwarzenegger showdown with a mini-gun.

Director Stephen Soderbergh is obviously wanting to rectify the way women are able to kick ass in cinema (aka, do it believably), but there’s also an affection for the spy thrillers of the 1970′s produced in the U.S. (The Conversation).  Paranoia, quiet tension, groovy soundtracks, governments working with shadowy paramilitary organizations to “fix things”, they’re all staples of the genre.  Haywire is only the latest to revisit that era of U.S. filmmaking, with last year’s Hanna and The American kicking off the trend, and it’s a quieter departure from the similarly spy themed, but increasingly manic Bourne franchise.

About the only thing that does harm Haywire is the sound.  Carano’s lines are delivered with robotic emotion, the human cousin of Apple’s Siri.  Whether this has something to do with modifying Carano’s voice in post-production to sound deeper, the perfect example of ADR ruining an actor’s performance, or Carano’s weaknesses as an actress, only Soderbergh could say, but it’s distracting.  There’s also the sound mix of the fights themselves.  We’re seeing some truly amazing and painful battles, but the sounds do not support the visuals, distancing us.  Considering Soderbergh’s imdb page lists three films directed in 2011, maybe the man just ran out of time to finish his mix.

Though Haywire may not fashion an emotional connection to any of the characters, that’s not really the point.  This is Soderbergh’s Woman-On-A-Mission film and unlike that other Woman-On-A-Mission film Kill Bill, Mallory doesn’t need cinema’s “Waif Fu” to help her accomplish her task.

It will still require a cold day in hell before a female action star is allowed to be decidedly unpretty.  One success at a time, I suppose.

-Remington Smith

The Artist is one of a handful of love letters to cinema this year (the others include Hugo, The Strange Case of Angelica, Drive, Paul, Super 8), but its approach is a little more direct: it is made (almost) entirely in the style of a silent film, specifically one from 1920’s Hollywood.  A mix of Singin in the Rain and Sunset Boulevard, The Artist is in practice what Hugo only was in theory – evidence that silent films live.

The Artist centers around George Valentin, one of the biggest stars in silent Hollywood, who is forced to speak or die in the burgeoning world of sound. It’s hard to imagine what a revolution the sound picture was at the time, except to compare it to the wave of 3-D films in our present.  “Talkies” began as a gimmick, only later becoming an art. Sound would only sully the perfection of the image, or so many silent artists believed. In that light, Valentin’s stubborn refusal to change becomes a signifier of his commitment to his work.

On the set of what would be his last completed film, Valentin meets Peppy Miller, a comely nobody, with whom he shares a certain attraction after a red carpet mishap.  After a momentary piece of advice, they do not meet again for a few years, and their paths diverge considerably: her star waxing as his wanes.

What follows is surprising somewhat for a movie consistently billed as a silent comedy.  Jean Dujardin as Valentin is at his best here as he depicts a man deprived of his raison d’etre, a man who has fallen from grace, both in the eyes of his fans and in his own.

I have no intentions of convincing you that this film is anything other than a comedy, though. It revels in the slapstick and absurd, but in a way that is defiantly “silent.” At first we even laugh at the (authentic) mannerisms that come with silent film acting – which is half the point.  It seduces us into letting it be silent, by being utterly silly, and then once it has us, it never lets go.

I’m a guy who likes silent films, so perhaps I have a predisposition to a film like this.  As I was leaving, though, I realized that the thing I loved most about the film was not the spot on acting; it wasn’t the cinematography or the obscure movie references.  Rather, the greatest part about watching this was actually watching The Artist with an audience who loved it as much as I did.

I have always scoffed at critics who mention in their review of a certain movie that it “restores their faith in movies.”  The way I figure, if they have lost their faith, they have no business writing reviews.  But in a year that I have found endlessly surprising, consistently incredible, and somewhat dizzying with regard to the sheer number of great films released, The Artist is proof that people actually do like to watch good movies.  I realized almost at the same time that I absolutely loved every minute of this film and that everyone else did, too. I feel lucky to have been a part of that brief community.  For something under two hours we lived and loved, we laughed and cried, we cheered, all of it together. And you know what? It honestly restored my faith in movies.

-Ben Creech

Sam is on her way home from work in South London when she is mugged by Moses, leader of a band of ruffian youths.  The mugging is interrupted by the crash landing of something from outer space.  Forgetting Sam, Moses and his crew chase the invader and kill it.  Triumphantly parading around the block with their trophy, they get the local drug dealer to hold onto the body till they sell it to the tabloids.  However, it’s not the only creature in town, and they soon find themselves dealing with a much bigger invasion.

One of the most overlooked demographics in cinema are children, cropping up merely when the hero needs to save someone, and rarely granted their own agency.  There are too few films that remind you of yourself as a kid (or at least how you perceived yourself) and Attack the Block taps into that arrogant swagger we all had as teenagers.  The kids are bigger than life, with director Joe Cornish keeping the camera angles looking up (never down) as they walk their streets like the gods they are, and with an equally badass-enhancing soundtrack from Basement Jaxx.

As the kids tool up to fight the opaque monsters from outer space, it’s all fun and games until someone gets their head chomped on.  The perils of the sci-fi variety mix well with the real life socio-political forces the kids are stuck between.  Poverty, the hint of racism, and drug dealers in the block keep the film from being a staid monster flick, and inject a degree of social commentary the best sci-fi/horror films always included.

Social commentary aside, it’s Joe Cornish hilarious script and casting decisions that makes Attack the Block such a great ride.  The kids all have a natural rhythm to their interactions that speaks their history and Nick Frost as a leather fanny-pack-wearing pothead has some delightful commentary.

It’s also imperative to mention that Cornish demonstrates how to use slow-motion for dramatic effect in the final act (instead of mere visual titillation like most directors) and offers an ending appropriate for Attack the Block‘s heroes, one that doesn’t betray itself with sentimentality.

A weak soundtrack can leave a film feeling flat, but a soundtrack that doesn’t have the visuals to support it will feel forced.  Attack the Block is the second-coolest film of the year, just behind the much-lauded Drive, as both have awe-inspiring visuals that back up their musical selections.

A mix of Seven Samurai and Assault on Precinct 13, Attack the Block is a comedy/horror/sci-fi film every fan should see.  Believe.

-Remington Smith

The plots to these spy films rarely vary, and this one is no exception: Tom Cruise is busted out of a Russian prison in order stop a Russian nuclear scientist from starting a nuclear holocaust that he believes will help advance human evolution.

Though I’ve mentioned Cruise’s age, you’ve got to give the man some serious credit for pulling off all of his stunts – and none of them are easy.  Playing Spider-Man on the exterior of the world’s tallest building, Cruise’s high wire act is stunning, even if you’ve seen the behind the scenes video of the stunt’s production.  Closing out with an elaborate, industrial-accident-waiting-to-happen, horrifying fight scene in a vending machines for cars, the film leaves on a great high note, even if its epilogue softens the afterglow.

All credit is due to Brad Bird, whose camera placements transform the skyscraper stunt from potentially gimmicky to a vertigo-inducing sense of stunning wonder (mixed with a dash of terror).  Given the 60′s spy swagger of his previous film The Incredibles, Brad Bird seemed destined to direct this film and his giddy enthusiasm for the material is evident.

Simon Pegg’s extra screen time since the third outing and the addition of Jeremy Renner enhance Ethan’s dour disposition and the overall film, giving it some comedic spice and a tone that’s not unwilling to laugh at itself.

Though the plot isn’t inspired and the film features not one, but two! shots of Tom Cruise running away from CGI somethings looming behind him, the action and laughter vault Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol past ho-hum to decidedly silly-grin inducing heights.

The trailer for Wrath of the Titans preceded the film and prompted my brother-in-law to wonder aloud, “Why do they keep making these?!”  The answer of course, is because however dumb, if it’s packed with enough uninspired CGI, it will make beaucoup bucks.  Going against such a dismal tide is what makes Mission Impossible 4 such a breath of fresh air.

-Remington Smith

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

An American re-make of a popular Swedish film trilogy (itself based on a best-selling book series), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is part mystery, part techno-thriller, with a smattering of sex and violence.  Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), an elderly gent who gives Blomkvist the task of investigating the disappearance of his niece Harriet, now forty years gone.  Vanger gives Blomkvist a tour of the neighborhood, pointing to nearby houses that accommodate the occasional Nazi family member.  Vanger’s distaste for his family is made clear, but in a whodunnit, just because a guy decries his Nazi family members doesn’t mean he’s not a suspect…

As Blomkvist dives into photo archives and has the perfunctory “Aha!” moments, his investigation intersects with the hacker-for-hire Lisbeth Salandar (Rooney Mara).  Pierced, tattooed, and decked out in grubby shades of black, she’s not a part of the respected world of Vanger and Blomkvist’s European sophistication.  The pair make an unlikely partnership, connected by their desire to catch a serial killer of women.

Unfortunately, though, there’s too much plot and not enough connective tissue to keep this story sailing.  The first half maintains segregated storylines for Salandar and Blomkvist, leaving Salandar’s story prior to investigating Harriet superfluous.  The bisexual hacker’s motivation for helping the straight-laced journalist seems to stem from her own experiences, but Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zaillian don’t seem to grasp that a woman doesn’t need to be raped by a fat asshole to want to catch a killer who rapes and mutilates other women.

Closing the picture without the emotional pitch of Fight Club or the sober thoughtfulness of Se7en, Fincher feels too removed from the volatile material he’s working with, which leaves the representation of Salandar particularly suspect.  The vicious, gag-inducing rape scene (followed by an equally repulsive act of revenge) fails to play a central role in the film’s plot, which makes you wonder why it was put there in the first place.  Was it filmed merely to shock, and thereby titillate, during a slow patch in the film?  Similarly, Salandar randomly mounts Blomkvist in an act that you think holds some strategic purpose, but a motive never materializes.  Is it just an excuse to get Rooney Mara naked again, this time allowing us to take pleasure in her nudity, as opposed to our disgust during the rape scene?

The whole thing calls back to the 1903 Thomas Edison film wherein he infamously electrocuted Topsy the elephant in a campaign to show the alleged “dangers” of alternating current.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo taps into this same sense of macabre curiosity, allowing (or subjecting?) the audience to lurid events with little artistic pretense.

When you talk about a director you like, you almost speak about them like a dear friend, giving them the benefit of the doubt should people question their actions.  If Fincher were removed from the credits, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would stand as an irresponsible narrative, allowing the audience to take varying forms of pleasure in types violence that our protagonists are investigating.  Had Fincher invested more of himself in the film, offered some meditation on sexual violence, and gotten a better screenwriter to connect scenes that feel marooned from the overall narrative it wouldn’t prove so problematic and stale.

Want a happy meal with your forced fellatio?  Because icing on the cake is the flagrant product placement throughout the film.  Do these brands think the association with such problematic depictions of sex and violence will help sell more goods?  The displays of such crass advertising in such a dark film speak to the careless exploitation present in other areas.

Films like Machete don’t have to justify their violence since the whole point is exaggerated machismo, and Fincher’s depiction of bare-knuckle brawls in Fight Club spoke to the emotional disconnect the men feel from others, themselves, and the world.  People shouldn’t automatically shy away from sexuality and violence since it’s a part of the human experience.  The sex and violence in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, however, feels too prurient and emotionally disconnected to be worth your time.

-Remington Smith

Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, a ghost writer for a once-popular young adult book series who is in a life funk.  She drinks herself to sleep and grimaces when she sees her latest one night stand in the light of day and without the alcohol-induced haze.  Mavis thus decides it’s a grand idea to chase her old high school flame Buddy Slade, who is now married and has a baby.  Back in her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, she bumps into high school acquaintance Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt), who tries to steer the tunnel-visioned Mavis away from disaster.  Mavis slathers herself in makeup, slips into dresses befitting an outing to the club for lunch at a sports bar with Slade, and practically huffs the scent of her high school honey when they hug.  No man, woman, or child is going to get in the way of her nostalgic fantasy.

Unlike the previous Reitman pictures, the protagonist here is her own antagonist.  Mavis Gary regularly proves herself to be a terrible human being as she waxes on about getting Buddy to divorce his wife and never fails to keep her nose up when interacting with anyone in Mercury.  It’s to Charlize Theron’s credit that Mavis remains amusing enough that we don’t immediately reject her snotty, primped character; Theron soft-pedals the mean girl vibe so we’re not overwhelmed with simmering spite.  Patton Oswalt is an important balancing element, regularly injecting rationality and humanity to counteract Mavis’s flaming trainwreck mentality.  Considering he’s just “a fat geek”, the man steals Theron’s thunder via naked earnestness.

Should anyone be concerned that the Diablo Cody credit means they’ll be subjected to over-the-top “I’m so cool!” dialogue à la her previous hit Juno, rest easy, since Cody’s script lobs laughs through the mundane insanity of Mavis and her reality.  Cody’s script, Reitman’s quiet direction, and Theron and Oswalt all grant it a surprising degree of reality.

SPOILERS ABOUT ENDING, SKIP PARAGRAPHS

What pushes the film off kilter, though, is its conclusion.  Despite Mavis hitting bottom and heading for her “life lesson learned” moment, she’s steered off course by Matt’s sister who reminds her that Mercury sucks, she’s awesome, fuck this place.  This speech erases any soul-searching Mavis might have performed in the wake of an embarrassing scene at Buddy Slade’s house.

None of this would be troublesome if Reitman himself didn’t seem to support this character’s decision to continue to be a self-absorbed alcoholic. The film ends with a lively, upbeat soundtrack as she goes back to “The Mini-Apple” as the same brat she was when she left.  Remove the soundtrack and her departure from Mercury would mirror her trip to the town at the film’s beginning: as a sad lonely woman with delusions spinning in her mind.  The musical choice for the closing feels like studio intervention, forcing us to emotionally consider her decision an uplifting one despite all the evidence to the contrary, and it’s a volcanic zit on a largely flawless drama.

SPOILERS OVER

Of all of Reitman’s films (Thank You For Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air), this might rank the lowest, but despite issues with the conclusion and grotesque product placement, it’s a funny drama that speaks to the power of home, nostalgia, and the upsides to growing up – even if some of us refuse to do so.

-Remington Smith

Hugo Cabret is a young orphan  living in the walls of a Paris train station, invisibly traversing the station’s secret pathways to maintain the guts of the station’s clocks.  Hugo’s home is a steampunk jungle of hanging pipes and clock gears that a clumsy Terminator could lose an arm in.  Hugo doesn’t only steal food from the station’s shops to stave off hunger: Before Hugo was orphaned by a tragic fire, he and his father were working on a metal automaton they’d found in a museum.  Hugo has been swiping delicate gears from toy maker Georges in order to fix the automaton on his own.  When the boy is caught red-handed by the elaborately mustachioed toy shop owner, he and Georges find their lives increasingly connected as Hugo and Georges’ goddaughter, Isabelle, unearth clues about Georges’ past.

Unlike the harsh plasticine colors of Tim Burton’s sugar pop world (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland), Hugo‘s practical sets and CGI enhancements offer a lush vibrancy that retains its human intimacy.  The lively production design and color palette harmonize with the film’s amorphous setting between World War I and World War II, making it one of the most inviting historical environments depicted on screen.

Scorsese’s virtuosity behind 3D cameras plays the biggest role in making the world of Hugo inviting. The hustle and bustle of a train station offers Scorsese plenty of opportunities to use the 3D technology to demonstrate the depth of the space, as well as exploring Hugo’s hidden world behind the station’s walls. As the boy races through either of these spaces, the sense of depth adds an extra thrill to the chase, but even simple shots of Hugo cranking the clocks are enhanced by gears crowding the frame at varying depths.  The technology would be superfluous without the rich environment and Scorsese’s keen eye for naturally integrating the space for 3D moments.  It’s definitely to Scorsese’s credit that despite never previously tackling a family film or any movie in 3D, he has demonstrated a mastery of both formats.

Despite benefiting from Scorsese at the helm and a wonderful cast (Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee, Asa Butterfield), ultimately Hugo has enough ingredients for two films.  The initial story of an orphan with an automaton quickly gets subsumed by the discovery of Georges Méliès, early cinema and special effects/sci-fi pioneer, and there’s not enough narrative linkage to excuse the transition.  It’s not as if either narrative isn’t enjoyable: Hugo’s secret world in the train station is the perfect stuff of childhood fantasy, and it ascends to a whole new level when we’re flashback-ed to the production of Méliès films in the making.  Tampering with depth of field, elaborate sets, pyrotechnics, and trick edits, Méliès’ film studio is the physical manifestation of the imaginative mind, a playhouse any child (or adult) would love to visit.

If Scorsese had given way to popular, garish uses of CGI for more of the film, the spectacle wouldn’t buttress the film so well, but given the stunning world Scorsese invites us to tour, too much plot is a forgivable flaw.

-Remington Smith

Anton Yelchin plays Charley Brewster, a recent nerd turned popular after securing the affections of blond hottie Amy Peterson.  Of course, Charley’s quick rise to power leaves some dorkier friends behind. One of them is “Evil” Ed Lee, a geeky kid who warns Charlie that his new neighbor-that-oozes-sex Jerry Dandrige is a vampire.

Director Craig Gillespie’s last film was the quiet yet moving drama Lars and the Real Girl, and he brings a similar sensitivity to what could have been a mindless monster film.  The man lets the film breathe, with quiet shots of characters lost to the horror just witnessed or shots of the cookie cutter suburbia that plays a central figure to the film.  He also gets some aid from Buffy the Vampire Slayer scribe Marti Noxon, whose taut and amusing script offers some levity to match Gillespie’s visual pathos.

Fright Night of course would not be such a success were it not for the excellent cast:  Anton Yelchin’s version of Brewster draws the audience’s empathy better than his 80′s counterpart; Christopher Mintz-Plasse as “Evil” Ed is slowly but surely moving out of the shadow of his McLovin in Superbad; Colin Farrell’s animalistic intensity is the definition of “creepy”; and David Tennant as the Criss Angel-esque goof Peter Vincent takes the film to higher levels of hilarity as he tries to loosen his junk from leather pants or displays flagrant cowardice.

Even if there are problems with the Fright Night re-make (a terrible CGI car chase sequence; last second unnecessary character development for Peter Vincent; awkward fluff epilogue; useless 3D), the film has too many stellar moments to call it a bad film:  The simple scene of Charley getting Jerry some beer is like witnessing a diplomatic exchange with nuclear holocaust on the line, and Charley’s hide-and-seek venture to save a neighbor may almost rank with Jurassic Park‘s kitchen scene.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS, SKIP PARAGRAPH

One of the film’s best moments, which speaks to the talents of Gillespie, comes when Charley is snooping around Jerry’s house. He opens a closet, finds several different types of uniforms (delivery man, cop, etc.) and then proceeds to discover a holding area for victims–several doors with delicate keys hanging from all but one door knob.  We’re shown, not told these things, mind you, and as they are revealed we’re horrified at the serial killer-like premeditation that Jerry has carried out (as opposed to the traditional “catch you in a dark alley” randomness of other vampire killings).  It’s classic monster movie structure (show things related to the monster before revealing it) and it works with a vengeance.

SPOILERS OVER

Finally, it’s also worth mentioning that the women of Fright Night are not fenced off from notions of agency like they are in the original. Charley gets his ass saved twice by the women in his life (his mother and Amy), though it’s still up to Charley to save Amy in the final act (you take what you can get I suppose).  Neither Amy or his mother are complete imbeciles and though they don’t get a lot of screen time, they feel like full characters, not just tools for plot points.

Though the Twilight films are so bad even cast members slam them, it’s worth putting up with the sparkle vamps since they have given rise to a resurgence of interesting American vampire films (Stake Land, Let Me In). Horror fans are better off with this Fright Night re-make.

-Remington Smith

As per the traditional hero’s journey, lowly-bastard-who-happens-to-have-scrappy-fighting skills Theseus is compelled to stop the evil King Hyperion.  Driven mad with grief that the gods would not hear his prayers, Hyperion seeks the Bow of Epirius, which will free the god-killing Titans.   Theseus and his band of misfits (some fighters and an oracle) attempt to stop Hyperion from releasing the Krakens Titans, but not without a little literal deus ex machina.

Immortals has two considerable strengths: Mickey Rourke as King Hyperion, and Tarsem’s stunning visual aesthetic.  Rourke’s Hyperion is a mash-up of previous Rourke roles, blending the brutish, R-rated violent tendencies of Sin City‘s Marv with the sinister griminess of Iron Man 2‘s Whiplash.  When Rourke says to four female oracles, “You will experience pain specific to your gender” you want to fling the slime from your flesh.

Tarsem’s amazing crew of production and costume designers put the fantastic in this fantasy epic.  More Grimm’s fairytale than a Spartacus sword and sandals picture, Tarsem’s first shots and slow camera movements across beautifully decked out sets and actors is like a potent visual perfume – you’ll be hard pressed not to swoon.

What starts great, however, limps to the finish line.

Henry Cavill as Theseus, though not given a lot to work with, merely fulfills the “looking good” requirement, never coming close to the acting virtuosity of his nemesis, Mr. Rourke.  His motivations are never as crystallized as Hyperion’s, leading to lackluster character development: Theseus’ love connection with oracle Phaedra (Freida Pinto) serves merely to offset the heavy homosexual overtones and is about as heartfelt as a drunk dialed booty call.  His journey from zero to hero is barely held together by the forced theme of immorality, culminating in a poorly setup “speech to the troops before the insane battle” scene.

Immortals repeats the same mistakes of 300, failing to build effective tension and momentum. Instead, it’s derailed by spectacles of bodily destruction in the form of literal god-mode moments of head-popping whack-a-mole carnage that seems more apt for Hobo with a Shotgun than a film taking itself so seriously.  Cavill gets to show off his action chops in a small fight scene at the beginning, but it’s all for naught, as it simply teases at what could have been as the fights get grander and goofier with CGI enhancements.

One would think that almost ten years after The Matrix Reloaded made audiences roll their eyes in exasperation as fight scenes devolved into Hollywood versions of Dragon Ball Z battles, filmmakers would learn how to pace their action so they don’t get stuck trying to outdo the undoable.  All glitter and gloss, Tarsem’s visuals and 300-like slow-mo fight scenes with complimentary tracking shots foreclose any possibility of emotional connection.

All of which contrasts to this year’s previous artiste meets Hollywood picture, Drive.  Unlike Immortals, Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn’s poetic eye for visuals enhance the emotions on screen and its graphic action never becomes laughable; instead, it actually says something about the character.  Further, Drive at least has enough self-awareness to complicate the narrative of the white male hero instead of Immortals‘ glorification of the re-assertment of white male patriarchy.

Given the three films we’ve seen from Tarsem since 2000, it’s obvious that the man and his crew are visual wizards, creating unforgettable imagery few can challenge.  As with the works of Guillermo del Toro, when you see a film by Tarsem, you know it’s a Tarsem picture.  Unlike del Toro however, Tarsem is not a great storyteller.  All of his films, even the much-lauded The Fall, lack an emotional core to equal the pulsing aesthetics.

Tarsem’s bigger budget only magnifies his shortcomings as a story teller.  Just like with people, being pretty doesn’t make up for being pretty dumb.

-Remington Smith