Any film remake fairly or unfairly invites comparison to the original. Are the new filmmakers finding different and engaging things to explore in the material or are they simply going through a rote rehash of the original story? Does the new version adhere too closely to its progenitor, never finding its own life, or does it veer too far from the source material, leaving one to wonder if the filmmakers really understand what made the original film work?

The new version of A Nightmare On Elm Street is a bit of all these approaches. Its basic story and many of its scares are familiar to those who have seen director Wes Craven’s 1984 original. But the variations this new version introduces fall flat, never letting the film become its own piece, never escaping out of the long-cast shadow of its forerunner.

On it’s surface, the plot of Nightmare version 2010 is roughly the same as the 1984 part. Several high school students discover that they are all having the same dreams about a man with a burned face and a glove with steak-knife claws stalking them through various grungy, industrial settings. It soon becomes apparent that if the mysterious figure is far more than a figment of dreamtime and he wants these teens dead.

This new version of A Nightmare On Elm Street is a movie whose idea of characterization is placing a protagonist in a Joy Division t-shirt. It’s this kind of lazy shorthand that hobbles whatever good intentions the filmmakers may have had when they embarked on this project. But instead, we are left with the teens that Freddy terrorizes through the film being fairly nondescript cannon fodder for a script that doesn’t really give us a reason to care whether or not they survive to the final credits or cheer if they do. The original film played with the idea of the disconnect between teenagers and their parents. Here, however, the parents are drawn just a flatly as their children and we just don’t care about them either.

The script does no great service to franchise villain Freddy Kruger. It’s mutation of pre-supernatural transformation Kruger from serial child murderer to a pedophiliac day care center worker who succumbs to the brutal mob justice of outraged parents feels like an attempt to be edgy, but comes across as just plain lurid. It creates an “ick” factor that causes one to pull back from their engagement in the story at a time when the movie should be further reeling in the audience’s attention. The movie does try to float a “Was he really a pedophile or wasn’t he?” mystery at one point, but it is introduced out of left field, goes absolutely nowhere and is just as summarily dismissed before the climax.

Perhaps thinking that fans were expecting them to recreate some of its scares verbatim, the filmmakers stage several scenes familiar to anyone who has scene the original Nightmare, occasionally trying to put a different twist on them, subverting expectations. But each and every time they try this, the attempt falls flat. The famous sequence where Freddy tries to drown the film’s heroine in a bath tub gets a nod. The scene plays out as a bit of feint against your expectations, but does it so badly that it comes off as laughable. Early in the original, there’s a moment where Freddy seems to be pushing through a wall, stretching it like rubber, above an unsuspecting teen’s head. The new version replicates this scene, but uses CGI to realize what had been done as a practical effect by Craven in 1984. Amazingly, the newer version looks worse than the original in terms of just being a special effect! Peter Jackson had a similar sequence also created through CGI in his horror comedy The Frighteners made a decade and a half earlier that looked markedly better.

But it is not just when it tries to echo the original film that this new iteration of Nightmare fails. The movie restructures its beginning somewhat for a more Psycho-like bait and switch. But let’s face it, director Samuel Bayer is no Hitchcock and no one in his cast approaches the level of an actor like Janet Leigh. In fact, the film is so blandly directed – the only time the movie makes you jump is when a sudden, loud noise thunders across the soundtrack – that it is a little sad that the most ominous camera work is devoted to a scene where Nancy’s mother is asked to sign a “consent to treat” form at a hospital. When you’re trying to make a clipboard seem scary, you really should be re-thinking your career goals.

Many of the current spate of comic book films have had various levels of serious explorations of their subject matter mixed in with their action and thrills. But The Losers doesn’t make any pre-text towards serious character analysis. Its sole aim is to entertain, and it does so reasonably well.

A group of black-ops agents in Bolivia tries to call of a covert air strike on a drug lord after they see a group of children being brought into the drug lord’s compound to be used as couriers for his product. The strike still goes ahead and the team, lead by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, barely manage to rescue the children before the missiles rain in. However, their victory is short-lived, for when they load the children on to the evacuation chopper that was supposed to take them back to the United States, it is shot down, killing all aboard. Knowing that they are marked for death and can’t return home, the group hides out in Central America until they are approached by a mysterious woman (Zoe Saldana) who tells them that they were set up by a man named Max and she can help them get their revenge on him.

With a couple of direct to video movies and just one theatrical feature film, Stomp The Yard, on his resume, Sylvain White seems like an unlikely choice to helm an action film, but he manages to turn in a solid picture. The character work among the Losers is strong. They have a breezy camaraderie of men who have faced down death together on multiple occasions and the script affords them each a couple of nice character moments. White’s action work is fast paced, yet never lets it get too frenetic that one loses track of exactly what is happening. He also pays homage to the movie’s comic book roots by having the colors on the film have a bit of pop to them without ever over emphasizing the look.

The film roughly adapts the first six of the 32 issues of the comic that DC Comics published through their Vertigo imprint from 2003 to 2006. Fans of the series, and I count myself among them, will note that some plot points and revelations have been shifted and changed a bit to allow for certain levels of narrative completeness required by a movie. That doesn’t mean that the film has a pat resolution. Its ending is satisfactory, yet open-ended enough that the filmmakers could go back and mine the remaining 26 issues of the series for more material if a sequel were to materialize.

The biggest change to the comics unfortunately becomes the film’s weakest point, though not necessarily because of the change itself. Jason Patrick’s performance as Max, the shadowy operative who seems to have incredible power in the espionage world, is a bit too over the top, even for the film’s less than deadly serious tone. His hyper delivery comes off as more of a distraction and certainly doesn’t exude the kind of menace that the part calls for. Fortunately, the rest of the cast manages to overcome the old saying about heroes only being as good as their villains to make the film a fun, diverting pop corn flick.

Kick-Ass introduces itself as a movie that wants to deconstruct super heroes and, by extension, super hero movies. By placing non-super-powered, costumed vigilantes into the real world, it explores, with a dash of humor, the ridiculousness and the dangers inherent in the concept. But even though it gleefully tosses its own thesis out the window quite literally by the final reel, Kick-Ass is no less entertaining for it.

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), high school comic book fan, one day innocently asks his friends why no one has ever actually put on a costume and gone out to fight crime on the streets. He quickly finds out exactly why not when, after putting on a wetsuit and some common kitchen rubber gloves and anointing himself “Kick-Ass”, he sets out to stop some car thieves and gets knifed and then hit by a car when stumbling in to traffic. But the near death experience doesn’t deter him from venturing out on to the streets again once he gets out of the hospital. On his second attempt at being hero, he manages to do better and some video of his exploits quickly become an internet viral sensation. He soon meets the gun-totting vigilante Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and his young sidekick/daughter, the lethal Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz), and is drawn in to their much more deadly crusade against a crime boss (Mark Strong).

Dave/Kick-Ass has no real motivation to put on a suit and fight crime other than his desire to help people. Of course, without any kind of training it does not go well for him. Even as he gets better at it, he still manages to get beaten pretty hard. But where Dave’s character is used to explore the practicality of putting on a costume and patrolling the streets, Big Daddy and Hit Girl are used to see what would happen if it a revenge-driven character like Batman or Punisher actually existed in the real world, and the results aren’t pretty. Some may argue that Christopher Nolan’s two recent Batman films – Batman Begins and The Dark Knight – also explore similar territory, but Nolan’s films still have an element of fantasy about them. Here, though, the approach is done slightly tongue-in-cheek, as evidenced by such things as Cage’s dead on Adam West-impersonation when in his Big Daddy armor. But the point is made just the same.

Although the kid sidekick has been a standard comic book trope for some seven decades now, the way that Kick-Ass looks at them has drawn criticism unseen since the 1950s. But those who have decried the heavy level of violence being meted out by the pint-sized Hit Girl have missed the point that director Matthew Vaughn and comics creators Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., are making. Hit Girl is a critique of those carefree young characters who launch themselves into life-threatening situations with little more than a glib quip. And let’s face it, if Gotham City’s police Commissioner Gordon was more competent, he would have had Batman arrested years ago for child endangerment. Interestingly, this is actually the first comic book film that actually has a young sidekick character, so possibly some are reacting to the satire without a strong grasp of what was being satirized. (For the two Batman films in the 1990s in which Robin did appear, the filmmakers side-stepped the issue by making the Boy Wonder in his late teens/early 20s.) Hit Girl is no more a glamorization of youth-perpetrated violence than Trainspotting is an endorsement of heroin use or Thomas Payne’s “A Modest Proposal” actually encourages cannibalism.

But the film manages a few mis-steps. The character of Hit Girl is so strong compared to the rest of the main cast that she steals the focus away from Kick-Ass much in the same way that Jack Nicholson stole 1989’s Batman away from Michael Keaton. The storyline between Dave and his new found girlfriend seems perfunctory and doesn’t add much to the overall story. Her mistaken belief that he is gay and his refusal to tell her the truth feels like the setup for a punchline that never comes. Had it been excised from the script, it would never have been missed.

In the future, long after Hollywood has broken free of its ouroboros-like cycle of pointless and needless remakes, I feel certain that director Louis Letterier‘s 2010 remake of Clash Of The Titans will be held as the epitome of everything wrong with the trend. Loud, abrasive and charmless, this new iteration of some classic Greek myths misses everything that made the original film, which featured the last work of visual effects maestro Ray Harryhausen, a minor classic.

In the 1981 original, we had Perseus, son of the Greek god Zeus and a mortal woman, questing and slaying monsters in order to save his beloved Andromeda from being sacrificed to the terrifying Kraken. Thirty years later, we have a hero (Sam Worthington) seemingly motivated by daddy issues who apparently thinks that running hither and yon killing things is a good substitute for an anger management course.

After his adoptive parents and younger sister are killed in the crossfire between the gods and mortals in the opening salvos of what could be all out war, Perseus vows to defend the city of Argos from its appointed meeting with the monstrous Kraken. Although his half-divine parentage grants him special powers, Perseus refuses to use them. In a gross miscalculation of our attention spans on the part of the filmmakers, Perseus repeatedly tells everyone within earshot that he will meet these challenges “as a man.” Although raised as a fisherman and allegedly not drawing on his divine advantages, Perseus manages to battle his way through a host of giant scorpions, the Medusa and a host of other perils with a band of soldiers many of whom, despite having far more experience at this sort of thing, don’t make it to the final reel.

Surprisingly, what should be a story about gods and men is surprisingly short on the gods side of things. The jealousy that lord of the underworld Hades feels towards Zeus and the other gods who get to reside on the far snazzier Mount Olympus and the rivalry between them would have made a great storyline for the movie, if it had been developed more. Instead it is more plot than plot device. And outside of Zeus and Hades, the remaining pantheon is woefully underused. Apollo and Hermes get about a line each while the rest stand around like nicely-dressed props.

Sam Worthington has certainly been making a name for himself recently headlining high profile genre films like Avatar and Terminator: Salvation. Unfortunately, this is the least of these films. The part of Perseus is barely written and what is on the page leaves Worthington no option but to growl and snarl all his lines.

But the film’s main problem is that it takes itself as seriously as a film like 300 or Gladiator when there is no call for it in the material. This affects the action to the point where it becomes more of an exercise in executing something visually challenging to create rather sequences that are fun or thrilling to watch. Clash Of The Titans also becomes yet another film to make the mistake in thinking that fast, frantic editing is more exciting, when it is usually dreadfully confusing and dull. This is a pity as I greatly enjoyed Leterrier’s work on The Incredible Hulk just two summers ago.

Letterier does manage to squeeze in a nod to the original film, but not is it only cringe-inducing, it comes off as snide and condescending. Perhaps someone should have reminded them that if it weren’t for the original, no one involved would have been collecting a paycheck for this cinematic catastrophe.

Alice In Wonderland is not an adaptation of either of Lewis Carroll’s novels Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland nor Alice Through The Looking Glass, but is, in fact, a sequel. But you don’t need to be familiar with the books to follow the story. Quite possibly the filmmakers may be hoping that you are not familiar as they have taken some liberties with the material. On paper, having a director known for his striking and unique visual style like Tim Burton bring to the screen the classic tale of Alice and what she discovered after falling down a rabbit hole seems like a great idea. But the execution leaves much to be desired.

In order to preserve her deceased father’s shipping company, a barely out of her teens Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) is being forced into a marriage with the son of one of his former partners. But at the garden party to announce their engagement, Alice spies a peculiarly dressed white rabbit and following, finds herself tumbling down a hole to a strange and dark land called “Underland” by its inhabitants. And what strange inhabitants they are, talking animals and a demented haberdasher who rightfully calls himself the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp). It seems that they all know Alice from a previous visit, one that she barely remembers and had long written off as a little girl’s flight of fancy. The residents of Underland have been waiting for Alice’s return, as a prophecy foretells that she will slay the monstrous jabberwocky and overthrow the rule of the tyrannical Red Queen. Of course, the Queen is aware of the prophecy as well, and will do everything she can to stop Alice.

Johnny Depp has always been dependable for bringing a certain level of eccentricity to a role. But as the Mad Hatter, the only thing dependable about his performance is that it is consistently awful and quite possibly the worst of his career. With the worst case of shifting accent since Kevin Costner’s in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and line readings punctuated by a high-pitched giggle on loan from Tom Hulce’s performance in Amadeus, Depp is visibly flailing about, trying to get a handle on a character written to function solely at the whim of the plot.

Just as Alice believes she is dreaming, Mia Wasikowska appears to be sleepwalking through large segments of the film. It is hard to determine if it is because she didn’t receive sufficient direction in how to react to the computer generated insanity of Underland created after the fact or if she is just not that good an actress. At any rate, one is left with the impression that she was hired more for her resemblance to John Tenniel’s classic illustrations more than anything else.

Linda Wolverton’s script seems to treat Carroll’s work as a smorgasbord from which she piles elements on her plate willy-nilly. The poem was called “Jabberwocky” and the beast was a “jabberwock.” In the poem, “frabjous” was a nonsense adjective describing “day,” not the name of a specific holiday. The Queen of Hearts from Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland has somehow become merged with the Red Queen from Alice Through The Looking Glass. But to belabor this casual disregard for the material would be to miss out on where the movie truly missteps thematically.

If we go by the bookend segments of the film set in the “Real World” of Victorian England, the movie wants us to think that the arc of Alice’s character is her rebellion against the idea of the world defining who she will be using its own terms by asserting and defining herself for the world based on her own terms. However, while Alice defies the prophecy of the scrolls for a while, she ultimately embraces it, in effect allowing Underland and its inhabitants to define her. Basically, the movie wants us to believe that Alice charts her own destiny by doing what everyone else wants her to do.

Disney is presenting Alice In Wonderland in 3D, but director Burton did not shoot it that way. Instead the film was quickly converted via a special computer process over a several week period during the film’s post-production. The process was either rushed or doesn’t seem to be fully perfected though. While some of the more fully computer-rendered special effects sequences look passable, much of the predominately live-action elements, like Alice and her mother’s conversation in a carriage at the beginning of the film or the garden party that they arrive at in the following scene, look flat out (no pun intended) awful.

Although we reviewed District 13: Ultimatum when it screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival last fall, we republish it today as the film is going into a limited theatrical release from Magnolia Pictures today.

At the end of the French 2004 action film District 13, promises are made to the film’s two heroes that politicians were listening and that the walls surrounding the titular slum section of Paris in the near-future would be torn down. But politician promises being what they generally are, conditions have worsened, not gotten better over the ensuing three years. Leiot (David Belle) has decided to stop waiting on action from elected officials and bureaucrats and has started working at fulfilling their promises for them. With explosives. When it appears that District 13 gang members have murdered two police officers, Leito discovers that the gang members have been framed. But his friend on the police force detective Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli) can be no help as he has been framed and imprisoned. Breaking Damien out of prison, the tow discover that the two incidents are connected and do not bode well for the future of the residents of District 13.

Released two years before the James Bond revamp Casino Royale utilized it in its opening sequence, District 13 introduced the amazing sport of parkour to audiences, with one of its biggest practitioners and developers, Belle, in a starring role. The film followed him as he ran pell mell through the crumbling slums of District 13 , using every conceivable surface as a springboard to change direction. Director Pierre Morel’s camera could scarcely keep up and audiences were left breathless.

But where District 13 focused on Belle’s parkour skills, this sequel seems to emphasize the equally impressive martial arts skills of Raffaelli. One impressive sequence set in the back of a shady nightclub featuring him disposing of several opponents with a Van Gogh painting recalls the playfulness and precision of Jackie Chan at the height of his Hong Kong career. The sequence also features the quick repetition of certain difficult stunts from multiple angles to show the audience that it is Raffaelli’s prowess at work, not visual effects trickery. This is a recurring technique of Chan’s as well.

Keeping with the original’s style, incoming director Patrick Alessandrin’s direction is fluid, moving around the action, never getting in its way. For those who have not seen the first District 13 – And it is recommended in and of itself, though you don’t need to have seen it to enjoy this sequel – he opens the film by zooming through the walled in slums, highlighting the various ethnic factions that Leiot and Damien will have to unite. And while the movie doesn’t quite have the element of surprise that the first one did with its presentation of parkour, Alessandrin keeps things moving along at a good pace.

The characters of District 13: Ultimatum aren’t deeply drawn, but we know enough about them to make the movie work. No one is striving for redemption or some high-minded ideal that often seems artificially grafted on to Hollywood action heroes. Shot on a budget that would probably barely cover the catering bill on the latest bloated Michael Bay epic. District 13: Ultimatum is a sheer popcorn movie delight, packing more excitement and flair than much of what Hollywood has thrown into multiplexes over the past several years.

The Book Of Eli starts off like many other post-apocalyptic films. A lone protagonist moves through a blasted, oft-times monochromatic landscape, scavenging for whatever will help them survive for another day in this hellish world. Their journey is mostly silent, except for brief moments where they talk to themselves. Eli (Denzel Washington) is such a traveler, but we will learn that he has a mission that is just more than survival.

Once we get past this pro-forma beginning, The Book Of Eli does manage to distinguish itself by actually becoming a treatise on the power of religion to inspire hope in people and how that power of religion to inspire hope in people and how that power can be used or misused. Eli comes across a small town where others of the unspecified apocalypse scratch out a living. Ruling over the town is Carnegie (Gary Oldman), one of the few people old enough to have learned how to read before the collapse of civilization. (Anyone born after the cataclysm three decades prior hasn’t had too much time for schooling.) He is searching for a specific book which he believes can solidify his power base in the town and expand it out into the surrounding territory. It is no spoiler that the book in question is The Bible and Eli happens to be carrying one of the last copies known to exist. (Most were destroyed by the survivors of the left unexplained apocalypse.) Needless to say, Eli isn’t about to hand it over and leaves town in the company of the step-daughter that Carnegie pimps out (Mila Kunis) with Carnegie and his gang of thugs in pursuit.

Directors Albert and Allen Hughes do a good job in balancing the film’s action text against its thematic subtext. Many of the gun battles between Eli and his various opponents are stylishly done. There’s one such scene where the camera circles back and forth between Eli and a couple of other defenders in a house and Carnegie’s forces outside in what appears to be a seamless, continuous shot.

Washington and Oldman likewise do admirable jobs in allowing their characters to embody the film’s theme. Eli is a calm man trying his best to live by what he has read in the Bible, though in order to finish his mission to deliver the book westward, he will need to do something more proactive than turning the other cheek. Carnegie, on the other hand, simply sees the words in the Bible as a tool to manipulate people to his own ends. At once, the film is a critique of organized religion and an endorsement of the power of faith. An interesting mixture, given Hollywood’s general shying away from any religious these lest they offend potential ticket buyers. Screenwriter Gary Whitta manages to pull it off well, making this that very rare breed, a thinking man’s action film.

Unfortunately, The Book Of Eli stumbles right at the finish line, going on for about five minutes too long. The job that Eli set out to do is completed in an interesting, though not entirely unsurprising, way. But rather than fade to black and roll credits at this moment, the movie feels compelled to revisit some of the supporting characters one more time, to tie up each of their storylines in a nice neat bow, while we receive a final voiceover from Eli. The character resolutions are nothing unexpected and the movie already gives us enough to surmise what is in store for them without having to explicitly spell it out for us with these little codas. Additionally, Eli’s voiceover needlessly reiterates some inner workings of his own character that are implied through the final part of the story. It seems sadly ironic that a film about faith would suddenly loose its own in the audience in its final moments.

Ryan Bingham is what is called a road warrior. He spends most of the year in the cabin of an airplane, travelling for his work. What is his job? He works for a company that is hired out by other businesses to fire their employees. And he is good at his job.

Bingham lives a life of solitary existence. He is estranged from his family, his only relationships with women are of the carnal kind, and his one main goal in life is to earn 10 million frequent flier miles at American Airlines. And this is all by choice. He even has a side job as motivational speaker advising other people to let go of their emotional attachments.

Two things cause changes to Bingham’s perfectly ordered life. First, he meets a female road warrior named Alex Goran with whom he develops a sexual relationship, one that he might wish to develop into something more. Second, his employer is about to adopt a new policy proposed by a recent hire fresh out of college by the name of Natalie Keener where, instead of flying to the location, firings would be done by Web conferencing. Essentially, Bingham would be grounded.

Up in the Air is a “dramedy” where the drama is heart wrenchingly poignant and the comedy is laugh-out-loud funny. It is one of the best films not only of this year but one of the best of all time.

The acting is superb from top to bottom. It might seem like typecasting to  cast George Clooney as the charming yet aging bachelor, but that might be why he brings an easy confidence to the role. You want to hate him because of his job, but you can’t help feeling for him. That’s all Clooney’s doing.

Vera Farmiga provides a strong performance as Alex. Her character remains consistent throughout. Farmiga is sexy and seductive, coy and mysterious in the role, which helps the character ring true as the film progresses.

But out of the three main characters, Anna Kendrick is a revelation as Natalie. Her young, know-it-all character could very well have stereotypical and annoying in lesser hands. Kendrick finds the layers in the character and makes her more than just one-dimensional.

Great performance are also to be had by Amy Morton and Melanie Lynskey as Ryan’s sisters, Danny McBride as his soon to be brother-in-law, and Reitman regulars Jason Bateman and J.K. Simmons as Ryan’s boss and firee respectively.

The topic is timely to discuss in today’s downsizing-happy economy, and you can compare Bingham’s plight to that of the laid-off worker and the uncertain battle plans of the corporations that fired them. But it also works as an emotional journey of change and discovery for a man who thought he had it all figured out.

It is not a perfect film. There are parts that are predictable. As the writing maxinm goes, if you show a gun in the first act, you’d better have used by the third. Well, there are a lot of “guns” in the film, and savvy film goers should know exactly when and where they would be fired. But this predictability is minor compared to all the elegantly crafted scenes that ring true and make this film something truly special. All due credit for this should go to Jason Reitman for his direction and his co-writing of the script with Sheldon Turner.

Up in the Air has been getting a lot of Oscar buzz. Often times, this kind of hype is overrated. That is not the case for this film. Expect to hear this film’s name on February 2nd.

A handsome cab clatters through the cobblestone streets of Victorian London at night. Inside, renowned detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his faithful assistant Dr. Watson (Jude Law) prepare to bring another case to a close. In this instance, they apprehend Lord Blackwood (Marc Strong) for the occult-fueled murders of four women, rescuing a fifth before a sacrificial knife is plunged in to her. Following his trial and death sentence, Blackwood promises to return from the dead, a claim that Holmes and Watson scoff at, especially when Watson, as attending physician at Blackwood’s hanging, pronounces him dead. Months later, Blackwood has apparently risen from his grave and Holmes and Watson must race to discover how he managed such a feat and what his resurrection portends.

I don’t claim to be conversant in the complete canon of Sherlock Holmes stories penned by Arthur Conan Doyle. But I have seen a majority of the Great Detective’s English-speaking cinematic adventures and I would say that the ones that work best are the ones that attempt to flesh out the character of Holmes a bit further than the seemingly emotionless, calculating detective as present by Doyle. Some fans decry some of these films for veering too far from Doyle’s original intent, but I think a case could be made that since the stories are written in the first person by Holmes’s close friend, Dr. J. Watson (James or John, Doyle never had that detail satisfactorily nailed down), he could be considered an unreliable narrator, glossing over details about Holmes that he may have felt did not present him in the best of light to his Victorian readers.

Granted there will be some fans who will decry the film’s portrayal of Holmes as someone who will occasional resort to brawn in addition to brains. However, film is a visual medium and much better suited to illuminating the side of Holmes that even Conan Doyle/Watson described in “A Study In Scarlet” as an “expert boxer and swordsman.” There is not much great cinema to be found in long shots of a brow-furrowed Holmes pondering long and hard over a “three-pipe problem.” That is not to say that the intellectual side of Holmes is neglected here. Director Guy Ritchie, who cut his teeth on the visually stylish crime dramas Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, uses his signatory visual flourishes of sudden slow-motion and speed ramps to illustrate Holmes’s powers of observation and deduction. This works better than having Holmes explaining things to Watson or some other convenient person standing by after the fact.

Robert Downey Jr. turns in an exciting and full-formed performance as Holmes, capturing both the single-minded focus of the detective when he is on a case and the near panic and depression that grip him between cases when he has no puzzle to which he can turn his intellect. As his counter-balance, right-hand man and best friend, Jude Law does an equally good job in the role of Dr. Watson. Thankfully, the script has written the doctor with intelligence, hopefully finally ridding the public of the image of Watson-as-bumbler as portrayed by Nigel Bruce when he played the role opposite Basil Rathbone’s Holmes in the 1930s and `40s. To accentuate the importance of their friendship, the script has it at a crisis point. After years of sharing quarters at the famous 221B Baker Street, Watson has become engaged to be married and is preparing to move out. This has thrown Holmes for a loop, as he has come to depend on Watson’s help during his cases and perhaps to keep him sane between them. There’s definitely a bromance between the two and Holmes is jealous of Watson’s fiancé coming between them and the possibility of sharing future adventures together. Downey and Law play the scenes for all their worth, finding just the right light-hearted tone.

If the movie is guilty of anything, it is for trying to do too much. In the original stories, Irene Adler was the one woman who could engage Holmes on an intellectual level, the only level on which he could be engaged. Here, the film suggests that there was much more to that relationship – again, Watson has been an unreliable, though discreet, narrator – and her return does throw Holmes for a bit of a loop. Irene, however, is working at cross-purposes to Holmes and the revelations as to why and for whom is clearly a set-up for a sequel. While Rachel MacAdams does good work making the interplay between her character and Downey’s Holmes flirty and fun, but since there’s no ultimate payoff to her story arc, it only can be seen as something that clutters the movie to a degree, especially during the film’s middle third.

False Tension, Bland Drama, Banal Inspiration And The Unforgivable Transformation Of Nelson Mandela Into A Yoda-like Character Mouthing Embarrassing Platitudes

I recently celebrated a milestone birthday. As I reflected upon the day, I thought about the sheer number of unlikely things that have occurred in my lifetime.

On the negative side, I have witnessed the single worst airplane crash (in Tenerife in 1977), the single worst nuclear disaster (Chernobyl in 1986), the worst environmental disaster (the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989), the worst industrial disaster (the 1984 methyl-isocyanate leak in Bhopal), the worst natural disaster (the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004) and the worst terrorist attack on US soil on September 11, 2001.

But on the positive side, back when I was ten, the idea that Great Britain and the IRA would ever achieve a ceasefire in their hostilities was, at best, a dim prospect. Likewise, no one thought the USSR would ever dissolve or that the Berlin Wall would be dismantled and the idea that a black man would one day, in my lifetime get elected President of the United States was given about as much a chance of happening as finding two identical snowflakes.

Therefore, the very thought that South Africa, a county where racism WAS the official government policy would ever end its evil apartheid ways was almost inconceivable. And that those same South African citizens would also elect themselves a black president was an almost unbelievable turn of events.

But it did happen.

Then, in move that truly astounded almost everyone, President Nelson Mandela, a man who personally had plenty of justification for seeking revenge on the previous Caucasian administrations who treated the black citizens of South Africa with such cruelty and disdain, was determined to unify his country and keep the people from devolving into anarchic resentment and revenge. To achieve this almost impossible goal, President Mandela (a believer in the power of forgiveness) established the Truth And Reconciliation Commission wherein the South African people, if they honestly admitted their past racist misdeeds and were sincerely remorseful, they would then be publicly forgiven. It is never an easy thing to forgive those who have trespassed against you.  This is why almost every culture considers true forgiveness to be one of the most important virtues you can ever attain.

It’s because forgiveness is such a hard thing to do that made the fact that South Africa was doing it such a newsworthy event and let’s be realistic, it could have failed miserably. The fact it didn’t showed me that the people of South Africa, both black and white, have achieved a level of grace and civility that we Americans can only dream about.

Don’t believe me? Have you heard Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh recently? For that matter, just listen to any Teabagger or wingnut religious conservative on contemporary talk radio; you won’t hear more foolish hateful nonsense this side of a fascist dictator. Our airwaves reek from the opinions of the aggressively lowbrow and the militantly stupid, all cheered on by equally ignorant TV commentators and lunatic fringe politicians cynically manipulating the public discourse for their own petty power games. It’s enough to make a grown man cry.

However, what the real Nelson Mandela did to help South Africa avoid the potential revenge and recriminations of the people is a truly inspiring story that gives me hope for mankind.

So how come Invictus proved to be one of the most annoying experiences I have spent in a movie theater in a long time? Was it because director Clint Eastwood has reduced Nelson Mandela to a supporting player in his own life and instead focused his film on a white rugby team? Was it because he turned the truly inspirational Nelson Mandela into a Yoda-like character sputtering out banal philosophy that would embarrass even the flightiest of New Age nit-wits, or even a serious New Age nit-wit like Deepak Chopra?

I haven’t been this disappointed in a film since last year when I saw the ludicrous Changeling and the dismal Gran Torino.  I have to ask this question; what has happened to Clint Eastwood? I have generally been a fan of Eastwood in his acting roles in westerns and cop dramas, including the ones he directed. As an actor, Clint Eastwood is capable of eliciting a sense of macho vulnerability that other action stars of his generation were not capable of doing.

Consider Clint Eastwood in the Wolfgang Petersen film In The Line Of Fire, Eastwood showed a sense of human frailty and self-doubt that added subtle dimensions to the film. One of Clint Eastwood’s better qualities is he has always had a slightly mocking sense of humor regarding his screen persona. Indeed, Eastwood had no trouble playing second banana to an orangutan in the films Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can, something you could never expect from a notorious sour puss like Steve McQueen.

As a director though, Clint Eastwood has never shown anything like subtlety. This is perfectly OK when you are making utilitarian action pics like Heartbreak Ridge, western revenge fantasies like High Plains Drifter or Dirty Harry sequels. But projects like Bird, a bio-pic of the jazz musician Charlie Parker, or a complex murder in high society drama like Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil or even a simple romance film like The Bridges Of Madison County require a level of directorial sophistication that Eastwood simply does not possess. And the problem seems to be that Clint Eastwood doesn’t realize it and no one is brave enough to tell him.

I know Eastwood prefers to shoot his films fast, but how else can you explain the fact that after directing about 30+ feature films, Clint Eastwood still has not developed any kind of engaging camera sense? I find it hard to accept the consistent sloppy choice of camera angles and coverage in Eastwood directed films, especially since he usually works with very competent cinematographers and editors. I am not being disingenuous. I know that telling a story via the film medium is a very difficult task. I myself have written and directed numerous short films and two feature length films so I am aware of the dichotomy between what a director wants to achieve, and what can actually be achieved within the constraints of time and budget. But none of that enters into the choice of what story you wish to tell. So it is perfectly fair to ask, why did Clint Eastwood decide to tell this story as opposed to the countless other scripts that have no doubt piled up in his Malpaso Productions office?

I could have told Eastwood that he was embarking on a fool’s errand if he was specifically trying to make an “inspirational” movie. That’s like trying to make a “cult” film on purpose. You can’t. If an audience derives inspiration from your film, that’s great, but they will have to do that on their own, you can’t help them. Because if you try to impose an inspirational feeling onto an unsuspecting audience, you will just end up sounding preachy and scolding. Consider some of the films that people have called “inspirational” in the past like Rocky or It’s A Wonderful Life and you will see that being inspirational was not the intention of the filmmakers. Believe me, the only thing worse than false sincerity is false inspiration.

But Invictus compounds every inspirational felony by telegraphing every poignant plot point well in advance, so even the thickest audience member will get it. The downside to that is that any chance of a narrative surprise or character insight is completely muffled. Is this what Eastwood’s vast experience in the film industry has taught him? That it is better to bludgeon an audience into submission than to allow them to figure things out on their own?

Clint Eastwood has spoken with admiration for some of the directors he has worked with in the past, like the studio trained minimalist Don Siegel and the operatic Italian stylist Sergio Leone, in fact, he’s even dedicated films to those two masters. Why Clint Eastwood now desires to direct films like a Ron Howard clone is a true mystery. But there are a couple of things in Invictus that even the anemically talented Ron Howard would have vetoed. For instance, what’s with all the musical montages that serve no purpose but to add length to what is already an over-long film?

And more than once, Clint Eastwood tries to make us fear that Nelson Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman) will be assassinated. Early in the film, Eastwood counterpoints Nelson Mandela’s brisk early morning walk with the movement of a speeding van with dark tinted windows heading towards a sinister rendezvous with the oblivious new President. As it turns out, the van is simply delivering stacks of newspapers, much to the relief of Mandela’s security detail. Later in the film, we are shown a very suspicious looking white man surveying the rugby stadium where the World Cup game will be played and then, when the game has begun and Nelson Mandela is in attendance, we cut to this white man and we discover him in the cockpit of a jumbo jet. With malevolent foreboding, he creepily assumes control of the plane from the other pilot and aims it directly at the rugby stadium, his eyes radiating with a psychotic glee. One (and only one) of Mandela’s security team notices the distant jumbo jet heading towards the stadium, coming in way too low and there is a panicky walkie-talkie discussion about what to do to save Mandela, but there is no time to do anything before the huge jet buzzes over the stadium rattling the windows of the Presidential skybox, knocking over drink glasses and booze bottles. But the plane is carrying nothing more dangerous than a friendly message to the South African rugby team painted on the bottom of the fuselage. The surprised stadium audience erupts into applause.

I find this scene totally unforgivable, even though it actually happened. Yes, a real jumbo jet did buzz the stadium during the World Cup game and I can only hope the pilot had his license revoked for the dangerous stunt because there are some things you just don’t do. But the reason this is unforgivable in Invictus is because Clint Eastwood is not using this incident for the reason it actually happened, as a demonstration of how the citizens of South Africa became a more unified people through the exploits of their national rugby team. No, Clint Eastwood is using this incident as a way to instantly tap into our post 9/11 awareness of planes flying into buildings for terror purposes to make us think we are about to witness the assassination of Nelson Mandela by 747 jumbo jet. But all it does is create a false and inept feeling of tension. For the record, although he is older now and not quite as vigorous as he once was, as of this writing, Nelson Mandela is very much alive.

Who was Clint Eastwood hoping to fool? I mean, even the most xenophobic American who cares not one whit about what happens outside the borders of the continental United States would have at least heard about a jumbo jet crashing into a rugby stadium in South Africa during the World Cup game, which, by the way, is actually played for by teams from around the world, most unlike our own masturbatory baseball World Series where we even celebrate the lunacy of two teams from the same city competing with each other, as if this were something culturally significant.
Invictus is nothing more than a two hour plus scolding lesson full of inspirational haranguing that has the ultimate effect of pummeling you into brain dead, but laudatory submission. When I looked around and saw that the whole damn fool audience was cheering at some of the most cliché of sport movie banalities, I found it a lot easier to just turn off my brain and simply go with vapid emotions of this undiscerning crowd.

Although it’s not explained very clearly, the title Invictus is Latin for “unconquered” and is also the title of a famous poem by William Ernest Hensly that ends with the lines “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

Apparently, Nelson Mandela used to recite the poem to himself during his long imprisonment on Robben Island to help keep himself sane. But there is a more recent use of the poem Invictus that deserves to be mentioned.

It seems that when Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed on June 11, 2001, he used the Hensley poem Invictus as his final statement to the world. Proving once and for all that you never can tell what another person is going to find inspirational. Why do I find Timothy McVeigh’s selection of Invictus much more interesting to contemplate than Nelson Mandela’s?