by Jack Garcia
I haven’t posted a movie review in a really long time and I’m really sorry! Please forgive me! I’ve been busy with school and work and writing a novel… but I’m sure nobody cares to hear my excuses. I will say, however, that I might make more of an effort to go see movies if the movies were a bit more exciting. Oh well.
In Time AVERAGE
Justin Timberlake—who I may or may not be in love with—stars as Will Salas in this fun sci-fi flick written and directed by Andrew Niccol. The premise is a world where time is literally money and nobody physically ages past 25. Will is poor, therefore meaning that he lives day by day. That is, until he meets a man who’s got centuries of time left and gives it all to Will. With all the time in the world, Will leaves the ghetto and meets Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), the daughter of a wealthy man with eons of time. Together, the two of them become anarchists intent on disrupting the system, stealing time from the wealthy and giving it the poor.
Cillian Murphy plays a “time keeper” intent on stopping Will, and he’s probably the most fascinating to watch. He really is a very talented actor. Timberlake and Seyfried are decent but I feel like I’ve seen them do better work in other pictures. While the premise is very interesting and some of the action sequences are cool and even nerve-wracking, the dialogue gets to be a little too clichéd for the majority of the movie. There are way too many time puns! However, I still found myself enjoying the movie, even if the execution never quite lived up to the idea in Andrew Niccol’s head.
The Rum Diary AVERAGE
Johnny Depp plays American journalist Paul Kemp in this Bruce Robinson film based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson. Kemp takes a job in Puerto Rico writing for a dying newspaper in the 1950s and quickly becomes fond of rum. While there he meets Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), a shady real estate developer, and his girl Chenault (Amber Heard) who eventually help him to discover his own morals. Or something like that. There’s also his pal Sala (Michael Rispoli) and a very strange man named Moburg (Giovanni Ribisi).
In my opinion, the film suffers from a lack of focus. Several storylines and characters come and go into Kemp’s life without any real weight or purpose. Some of the characters are very colorful and the locations are vibrant even when dirty and disgusting, but overall the movie just doesn’t have any emotional relevance or punch. Not even Johnny Depp could save this one…
Puss in Boots AVERAGE
Antonio Banderas is back as the voice of Puss in Boots who the world first met in Shrek 2. And while Dreamworks may have gotten the hint that four Shrek movies is one or two too many, that doesn’t seem to have stopped them from doing a Shrek spin-off by giving Puss his very own movie without the big green ogre. And while it’s not the greatest thing to come out of their animation studio, it was enjoyable enough.
Puss runs into Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) who happens to be working for his old friend Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis) who is obsessed with finding the magic beans that will take them to the giant’s castle where the mythical golden goose resides. Putting their checkered past behind them, they work together against the murderous Jack and Jill (voiced by Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris) to steal the beans, climb the beanstalk and embark on the adventure of a lifetime. And just as to be expected with Dreamworks, true character development is shortchanged for adult low-brow humor and the outcome is a movie that’s ultimately forgettable and never quite as magical as it could have been.
J. Edgar AWESOME!
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as the fascinating historical figure J. Edgar Hoover in this biopic by director Clint Eastwood. The film cuts back and forth between an aged Hoover dictating a book on the FBI’s history and the younger Hoover starting the organization from scratch. We see the initial opposition to the bureau, some of its early successes including the Lindbergh kidnapping, and some of the drastic measures Hoover took to ensure the ultimate success of the bureau and to protect his image. The film also explores J. Edgar Hoover’s closeted homosexuality by beautifully depicting his relationship with his mother Annie (Judi Dench), his secretary Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) and most importantly the close relationship he had with his friend and protégé Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) with whom J. Edgar dined both lunch and dinner every day of his life.
I absolutely loved this movie and found it to be a fascinating portrayal of such an important player in American history. Dustin Lance Black wrote a terrific screenplay and Clint Eastwood is a superb director and I found they both handled the subject matter with care and precision. Of course the cast was superb, including the renowned Judi Dench who seems to be the perfect choice for any role. Leonardo DiCaprio continues to be one of the greatest American actors in our day and age, embodying Hoover with a great underlying vulnerability beneath the passionate leadership. Armie Hammer is relatively new to the acting scene and proves with this movie that he is one to keep an eye on.
