There are two other films that I have seen, one last Sunday and the other tonight. Those films would be Predators and Inception. The first a good old fashioned action sci-fi hybrid that helps restore some credibility and excitement to what seemed a dead franchise that should have never become a franchise in the first place. Heed what I say, the original Predator may quite possibly be the greatest action film ever made so don't think for a second that I'm bashing the whole Predator concept. All I'm saying is that up until last Sunday I was viewing that concept as a one trick pony. A great film that spawned a few bastard children like most great popular movies. There are some who believe the second Predator is a great film and was unfairly bashed simply by suffering the major handi-cap of trying to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger with Danny Glover. Admittedly its been a little too long since I've seen it to voice an opinion but I can tell you I wasn't much of a fan when I saw it as a kid. The less said about the Alien vs. Predator films the better.
So that brings us to Hollywood's newfound favorite trend, the gritty reboot. Sometimes its a ploy to remake a once beloved film so that a whole new generation can waste their time and money and decide it sucks (I'm so looking forward to Tron failing miserably), the other times its a creative "re-launching" which should read as a way not to offend fans of the original. Christopher Nolan (who we'll get to soon) made the prototypical gritty reboot with Batman Begins, which made no effort to remake Tim Burton's 1989 film, simply charted out a new course and helped revive a franchise that was severely damaged by Joel Schumacher run amuck. For the record I think Batman and Robin is one of the greatest camp films ever made, but certainly the worst Batman movie. Turn it into a drinking game and its golden, but I'm starting to get distracted.
Predators is something different. It makes no reference whatsoever to the AVP films thankfully but it does reference the original Arnold classic. In this way maybe it could be called "Predator 3" but Predators has a much better ring to it. This is neither a re-launching or a sequel, just an offshoot of the franchise taken to a new place but with a firm grounding in the things that made that 1987 film so beloved. At times Predators caters to fans of the original too much, I expected Adrian Brody to say "You're one ugly motherfucker" at one point, but that shows just how many references were made. The film is successful in having some good action, a worthwhile plot structure, and a near note for note score but fails in one noticeable area. Either the characters are uninteresting or the people playing them aren't. The original Predator gave distinct personalities to everyone involved, whether that was giant pussy jokes, shaving sweat, chewing tobacco, or cinema's greatest hand shake there was a whole heck of a lot to like about the first one. Not just that but the larger than life actors who inhabited the roles made you care when one of them was shot down. Here the "we are the world" cast that drops from the sky literally seems to be dropped upon us the viewer. There is no long standing camaraderie and no one has a personality except as being a supposed bad ass in their respective country, and how they can all speak English is never really explained. Aside from Brody, Danny Trejo, and Topher Grace the cast is largely unknown. Sure there's a random appearance by Laurence Fishburne who seems slightly wasted here and is more of a plot device than a character and doesn't seem terribly convincing as a man who could survive on that planet for so long, but that's another story.
Now Trejo is a bad ass of repute in modern action films and most of my friends are eagerly awaiting him to be in Machete, but he seems wasted here. Topher Grace has been many things, bad ass isn't one of them. Even though Adrien Brody packed on 25 pounds of muscle for the role and already has an Oscar to his name, he is no Arnold, but then again no one is Arnold, not even Arnold anymore. He was a once in a lifetime action star that will probably never be replaced, just as no martial arts star will ever be Bruce Lee. We can speculate on some dream casting for this, but I guess most of those guys are appearing in Stallone's The Expendables which is coming out in about 4 weeks. Alice Braga is the voice of reason and helps dilute ever so slightly the testosterone, but truth be told this film isn't exactly boiling over with testosterone. These guys aren't the roided out super heroes we believed were the "best of the best" in 1987, they're just a string of random people designed to be too generic and universal to be real.
The Predators themselves get some screen time and we get to see more into their own social structure and character traits. They live to hunt this we know, but their rules and code of conduct get much more screen time here. In one of the movies best moments we actually get a sword fight with our Yakuza and a Predator in a grassy field that I'm sure is a direct reference to a memorable battle in Seven Samurai. There is even a bigger, stronger Predator that seems to dominate the normal ugly predators that we're familiar with. I'm not one to over analyze these types of movies and suggest some sort of universal allegory about the nature of war so lets just accept it as what it is, an action film and a better than average one at that.
Inception
I've been excited to see this film for awhile now. I saw a brief teaser trailer for it awhile ago back when it was just "Summer 2010". I had no idea what the hell it was about, and even with a host of trailers and commercials I didn't know much more. The less I know about a movie before going into it the better I feel, all too often everything is given away in a trailer. Since this was from Christopher Nolan who was following the best film of 2008 with this, I had faith. Although not all of his films are "masterpieces" his track record is good enough that I can at least expect something interesting from him. From the few unexplainable images I had seen I knew this wasn't going to be entirely ordinary.
Inception fits the bill of what can be called a "mind bender". Perhaps Lonardo DiCaprio is drawn to these considering Shutter Island could also be considered something of a mind bender. That said it's been decades since simply blowing people's minds equaled box office success. Still amazing to think that 2001 could have been a hit, even if it is one of the greatest films of all time. Drawing comparisons to all time masterpieces is always troublesome water, especially on opening day so I won't necessarily draw it into such prestigious company. This film isn't nearly as complex as 2001 was and honestly its rather easy to follow. I'm not saying that in a "I'm smarter than everyone" sort of way but the dream within a dream within a dream, etc concept isn't too hard to grasp. It appears as though Nolan got the disjointed narratives out of his system after his first couple of films, which would have made this movie a ridiculous labyrinth so thanks for keeping it chronological aside from the opening, but it all makes sense.
Perhaps there are some clues to be uncovered, some glitches we wouldn't notice unless we were looking for them, and if all goes well I'll take another look at the film and see just what I may have missed/taken for granted. Nolan avoids having a "twist" so there isn't a moment where the rug is pulled out from under you so to speak which is good because that typically makes films of that nature fade fast once the cat is let out of the bag. Although I have read that the film follows something of a heist structure. That may be over simplifying it considering that this team is attempting to plant an idea in someone's subconscious, it does involve some safe cracking however. To me calling it a heist film seems almost to insult it. Christopher Nolan is not trying to be James Cameron and make a really simple film blown out of proportion. Instead its something of a daring original idea that most likely was only made because The Dark Knight made a billion dollars.
It's easy to tell that a good majority of the effects in the film weren't the result of never ending CGI. Nowadays computer animation will even give you moonlight (Wolf Man anyone?), this film resorted to a lot of the more tried and true old school methods of roto-scoping, wire work and a revolving room that Fred Astaire used to dance on the ceiling back in the 50s. I'm sure there's plenty of computer animation to go around so don't think the film was all stop motion animation and model sets. However the film looks so much better than most films that go the 100% digital route which is funny because most of the film takes place within a dream of some kind which could give you license to get as silly as you want with CGI. Perhaps Nolan recognizes its a means to an end and not some self indulgent toy that must be used to bludgeon poor unsuspecting viewers at all times.
The film will get you thinking for sure. Maybe for a few minutes afterwards you could even question your own reality. Like the best films though it did leave an impression with me. I didn't walk out of the theater wondering what I was going to eat or where I was going to go. I left thinking about the film and all its wonderful layers. Long as it is we don't get a great deal of reason to really jump into the mission at hand. At times it seems like it might just be an excuse to get things rolling. Nolan instead chooses to let us get a little deeper into the motivation behind everyone's actions as the film progresses rather than just bore us to tears with too much exposition. Of course the idea of constructing dreams and designing them has to be explained to some point because there's a lot that can't be so easily described.
The Dark Knight was easily my favorite film of 2008, and I must say half way into the year, Inception is by far the best film I've seen this year. Granted I haven't seen a lot, but this is now the measuring point that all films will have to go up against for the rest of the year. I know surrealism might seem almost commonplace today but it felt so good to hand over that outrageous sum for my ticket to see something that looked and felt original without being based on some film or show from the 80s, or some crappy book about sparkling vampires, or with the words "Walt Disney Presents" attached to it. I hope its successful and maybe just maybe there could be a future for original ideas once again, but we'll see.
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