Only One Part, Deathly Hallows, Part 1 Needs Editing

(My apologies to any of you out there who read this blog and have been waiting for this review to actually appear for months and months. For whatever reason, I just haven't gotten around to this review sooner. Finally, I have sat down and written it. Better do it before the final film is released, no?)

Let me preface this review with a warning that this review is probably less about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 than it is as a sounding board for me concerning the one issues with today's films in general, of which this film just happens to be an example - length, and more specifically editing and pacing.

First, the vitals about the film itself. One thing is for sure – the Harry Potter franchise of films has been pretty darn entertaining stuff from the get go. There have a been a few different directors who have helmed, two Dumbledores in Richard Harris and Michael Gambon and a excellently cast group of young actors who have grown up with their characters on screen. OK, maybe a little faster in the case of Rupert Grint. Despite the scope of the franchise and the fact that a key character has been portrayed by two different actors, as a whole the series is very entertaining! There has been ample opportunity for things to really go awry, but it hasn't, and despite some stylistic differences from film to film, with this series you basically have a seamless “whole”. It is an impressive feat!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 represents the first part of the final chapter of the story of young wizard Harry Potter and his companions at Hogwarts. Much like the children who grew up with the books, the films have also matured over the past decade, getting more serious and certainly darker in tone. Never has it been darker than in this, the final chapter. For Harry and his cohorts, the situation certainly is bleak and often seems to be without any hope at all.

This film see Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Harmione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) on the run and on their own. Voldemort's agents are everywhere and have infiltrated even the inner workings of the Ministry of Magic. Our heroic trio must prepare themselves for the final showdown with the forces of evil and in doing so must face their own doubts and fears. Needless to say, the tone is heavy and dark.

Did I mention that Harry, Harmione and Ron are on the run? They are... for the whole movie. And while that is in keeping with the story, with the film clocking in at 146 minutes, by the end I couldn't wait to get out of the theater. It felt like an eternity had passed!

The film itself is fine. Radcliffe, Watson and Grint once again do a great job with their performances and the action that there is was good stuff. Without a doubt it is another solid entry in the franchise, if only the first part of the final chapter.

And that is where my beef comes in. Why was this movie 146 minutes long when a solid third of it was nothing more than Harry, Harmione and Ron sulking amongst themselves and wallowing in their own self-pity and loneliness? How much can they possibly drive home the point that, yes, they are on the run, they are on their own and they are riddled with their own doubts? If I had to spend one more minute at their makeshift camp in the wilderness I might have had to slit my wrists. GET ON WITH IT!

What is even worse is that you can pretty much rest assured that the final film will be nothing but action from the open frame to the rolling of the credits, so why did we have to endure a two and a half hour precursor wherein very little of anything with any real substance actually happened? To make more more money with two films? (BINGO!) Because they thought it was necessary to tell the story? Both?

I have the same beef with the Lord of the Rings films. With every subsequent viewing they just seem to get longer and longer. I actually have trouble sitting down and watching them now (definitely require a break in the middle) and I don't own them. Don't get me wrong, that trilogy is great, but they are really long, arguably too long. Yes, they have great action sequences and are epic stories, but other movies like Clerks II make great fun of them by accurately pointing out how much filler they actually contain that contributes nothing substantial to the end product. (Randall: "The first film - walking. The second film - walking. The third film - walking... toss the ring into the volcano. Hell, even the trees walked!")

I tend to give the Lord of the Rings films a pass because they were the first of this current generation of film making to really push the two and a half hour mark. They are that long without the “extended edition” cuts and with the fact that they cut a lot out from the books. But that is the difference – the source material is a book and these are films. Practically speaking, the film medium demands more editing, because in a theater you cannot just put down the film and pick it back up at your leisure like you can with a book. Hell, as much as I love it, even The Dark Knight is probably a tad bit too long.

So there I was sitting in the theater, watching Deathly Hallows, Part 1 and wondering when the hell it was going to end, knowing that this wasn't even the final film. The film needed to cut down because they definitely could have conveyed the despair of Harry, Harmione and Ron in much less time than they took.

I could even understand if they wanted to do one three hour final film to wrap up the series. Yes, it would have been VERY long, but it would have been a grand finale and the action heavy story would have made it bearable. You could also save substantial running time by making use of the editing that should have happened with Part 1. However, by having two films as they are and dragging the first one out as long as they did just seems excessive to me. Needless to say, regardless of the fact that this was not a bad film, I won't be watching it on DVD very often (or any time soon) because it is just too long for what it is. It isn't the book. If you want the book, then read the book. It's a matter of knowing how to use the medium.

So the bottom line from me is this – the Harry Potter franchise has another solid entry to it, but it is just too damn long and for that I must dock it a few points. 7/10

Living Up to Its Name, X-Men: First Class Delivers

Summer 2011 is one filled with heavily anticipated super-hero movies – Thor, X-Men: First Class, Captain America and Green Lantern. Just like the last few “comic book” summers, this one has plenty of hype and scrutiny headed its way, perhaps even a little more than before. You could say that 2011 is the first summer of the second decade of the comic book movie era, an era that began with X-Men way back in 2000. In its wake we've received a pantheon of comic book movies – both good and bad – that have seen the successes and failures of the genre discussed, debated and dissected ad nauseum, with many comic and film fans growing weary of what they see as sub-standard realizations of comics, especially super-heroes on screen. So with X-Men: First Class going back to the beginning (both literally and figuratively), how does it play? Well, let me give you my take.

I've never been a big reader of the X-Men comics, but I've more or less enjoyed the films to date, although X3 didn't do much of anything for me. X-Men was OK, especially considering it was the first of its kind (I do personally find it a bit boring), but X2: X-Men United was great! My initial reaction to First Class is that I enjoyed it more than X-Men and certainly X3, but maybe not quite as much as X2. And who know, maybe my impression will change with time.

First Class is a prequel and takes us back to the beginning of the mutant story which is in the 1960s (or 1940's if we're being very precise). This movie feels like it's own story in almost every way which I really appreciated. I never felt like the creators were going out of their way to setup something specifically for the movies that already exist, so it was free to be its own story. That said, I also never felt like this story created any conflict with the existing installments either, so kudos to director Matthew Vaughn and the writers.

The stage for the story is the Cuban Missile Crisis, wherein the United States and Soviet Union stood on the brink of all-out nuclear war. According to this story, history was not all it seemed. A powerful mutant named Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) was actually manipulating the situation with the help of his beautiful femme fatale Emma Frost (January Jones) and associated mutants known collectively as the Hellfire Club. Shaw wants nuclear exchange because his mutation allows him to absorb kinetic energy and thus grow more powerful. You guessed it – Shaw wants to rule the world.

The CIA is onto to Shaw and his gang (somewhat) but they don't fully understand what is going on until agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) observes the mutants using their powers while spying on them. Feeling they have no choice but to fight fire with fire, the CIA seeks out a mutant expert. Enter newly-titled "professor" Charles Xavier (a powerful telepath) (James McAvoy) and his longtime childhood friend Raven Darkholme (a shapeshifter) (Jennifer Lawrence) who join with the CIA to locate mutants and help stop the Hellfire Club.

In the meantime, Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) is on a personal mission of vengeance against Shaw because it turns out that Shaw was helping the Nazis at the concentration camp Erik and his family were imprisoned at during the Holocaust. Erik uses his power (magnetism) to aid him in his quest. Both hot on Shaw's tail, Erik and Charles run into each other and Charles convinces Erik to join them. The problem is that Charles and Erik have very different views on mutants – Charles wants peaceful co-existence with humans and Erik wants humans to take their place beneath mutants, aka homo-superior.

Long story short, the two do become friends and work together to locate and train mutants but ultimately take different paths during the final confrontation with Shaw, thus setting the stage for all X-Men stories to follow, including the movies we already know. Again, I appreciated that First Class never felt tied-down by the existing movies and yet didn't conflict with them either.

As an origin story I thought the story worked quite well. The audience gets the origins of Professor X and Magneto in entertaining fashion and those of the greater collection of X-Men without all the “teenaged angst” as other reviews have pointed out. The characters weren't whiny and self-loathing as the younger mutants seemed to be in the other films, but rather more conflicted as to what their place in the world was, especially Raven/Mystique and Hank/Beast (Nicholas Hoult) who are on a journey of self-acceptance, more-so than Charles and Erik because their mutations are visible to the naked eye.

The movie also presented a good balance between action, drama and humor, preventing it from being just a slap-stick affair, a CGI expo or just plain boring. Additionally, I felt the film was well cast top to bottom. McAvoy and Fassbender make the characters their own but they don't conflict with the characters as we already know them. They also gave some depth to the Professor X/Magneto relationship without getting bogged down and slowing the overall pace of the movie.

Some reviews have taken issue with Kevin Bacon's “over-acting”, but let's keep perspective here – Kevin Bacon has a game named after him and is partly famous just for being himself. Considering that he in no way distracted from the film, you'll get no complaints from me.

After the disappointment of X3, the X-Men franchise had a lot to lose with X-Men: First Class. Thankfully Vaughn and his talented cast delivered a well-made and entertaining installment to the franchise which has me on board for future installments. Have no fear - X-Men: First Class lives up to its name. 8/10

Black Swan is a Top-Notch Psychological Thriller

Darren Aronofsky doesn't do normal. In the span of his career as a director, he has distinguished himself as a creator of controlled chaos. With Black Swan, he one again demonstrates that he has mastered his craft.

Often times with films, the credit for success tends to be thrown in one direction or the other; the director was a visionary or the actors were at the top of their game or the cinematography was revolutionary. Taking time to step back and reflect on Black Swan, it strikes me that this film was the sum of its parts – Aronofsky knew what he wanted and lucky for him he had the cast and crew that could deliver his vision to its full potential!

The film explores the world of the ballet, but more to the heart, it explores ambition and obsession, forces for both creation and destruction. The main character Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a ballet dancer who, despite being a dedicated and talented ballerina with her company, has never taken that next step to true stardom. She wants to ascend to the top, that place of prominence, but can she step beyond the technical and truly become her craft? It is the challenge her director (Vincent Cassel) issues to her, but the pressures of the profession take their heavy toll on Nina. Cast as the “swan queen” for the a re-envisioned Swan Lake, Nina is forced to push herself beyond her limits to realize her full potential at the risk of losing herself.

Aronofsky's skill is on full display as he presents the audience with a reality that we aren't quite sure of from the very first scene. As a psychological thriller, Black Swan works through subtlety. We are constantly fed little hints of paranoia and dreamlike segments of incongruity so that, like Nina, we are never sure what is entirely real. Those elements of herself that Nina is required to use to allow her to give the performance she wants and that her director demands are creative forces that eat away at her psyche. Nina is told from the beginning that she is the white swan but that she needs to channel the black swan within herself. In this way, the story of Swan Lake mirrors Nina's own journey – both the themes of transformation and ultimate self destruction.

Very often psychological thrillers spend at least some time trying to examine those elements which seem out of place as a way to help make sense of what is happening. With Black Swan, Aronofsky doesn't give the audience the luxury of those moments to help us stop and catch our breath. He used this to excellent effect! The film is relatively short with a run time of only 108 minutes. The pace of the story is brisk and somewhat frantic, mirroring the hectic pace with which Nina must prepare for the role she has always wanted. This heightens the effects of the paranoia she experiences – there is no time to stop and try to make sense of anything. As a result there is seemingly no line between what is real and what is not giving the film an added punch and genuinely frightened (Nina) feel. It is like watching self-destruction at break neck speed!

This film also benefits from the excellent performances from Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel as Nina's director. Even Winona Ryder gave a good supporting performance as the jilted and discarded lead ballerina. For her performance as the tormented Nina, Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Black Swan is yet another excellent film from Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler) and a must see for any fan of the psychological thriller genre. It doesn't disappoint. 10/10

Your Highness is a Satisfying, Silly Romp

Some movies are low brow. When you see the trailers for these movies online or during a trip to the theater you laugh and probably groan a little, and sometimes you still want to see them anyway because all it will be is dumb, mindless humor or mindless, eye popping action. Your Highness is one of these movies. I wanted to see it because I thought it looked like a fun time at the movies. Good news – I was right!

I don't have to tell you that some movies are great because they aren't heavy or serious. Hell, I'll never stop loving Baseketball (a high school favorite) and it is gutter humor and cheap gags all the way! I can confidently say the same for Your Highness. It is exactly what you would expect from the trailer – an age-old premise populated by cheap gags and dick jokes that didn't try to be anything more. The end result was a great time at the movies! If only more movies could understand this principle – just be what you are, because sometimes that all we want and nothing more.

Your Highness is a movie that you can tell everyone involved was just having a good time. James Franco (Prince Fabious) and Danny McBride (Prince Thadeous) team up once again with Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green for a very silly affair that involves an evil warlock, a mysterious warrior-woman (Natalie Portman) and an epic quest to rescue a maiden in distress (Zooey Deschanel). Oh, and a ton of sex jokes! For Franco and Portman, who were an Oscar nominee and Oscar winner respectively in 2011, they don't have anything to prove, so this was probably a nice “fluff” picture to work on following their efforts in 127 Hours and Black Swan.

Even so this movie is not high art, that is not to say it wasn't handled well. It was. The story was well done and even the CG wasn't bad. When the end credits rolled, I didn't feel like I wanted my money back. I paid for a fun time at the movies and it delivered. It certainly isn't for everyone, but if you like the swords and spells genre and are in the mood for a silly, albeit juvenile romp, you need only call for Your Highness. 7/10

Latest Green Lantern Footage

Obviously with every new comic book movie there is a ton of skepticism and it very much deserved given a lot of the absolute garbage that has come out. I really enjoy the Green Lantern and even after watching this latest footage, I am still very wary. Still, there is a bit of promise to it. Anyway, I thought I would share it.

PS - I'm still not sold on the CG costume, and more specifically the mask. It just doesn't look completely passable as "real".