Well. This happened.
Honestly, I’m only bringing myself to share this because it actually made me laugh out loud and hate myself at the same time. What else on the Internet can do that?
Let’s all take a moment of silence and thank Pixar for choosing Peter Docter (not Michael Bay) to direct Up. Also, was that Linkin Park playing in the trailer? Well done MrStratman7 for making this.
I rarely delve into negative articles about avoiding movies. I usually like to talk about all of the things I love and find interesting about movies, both good and bad. And then movies like Lucy pop up.
The film, starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman, is about a woman who is accidentally exposed to a street drug that allows her to “transcend” her brain’s normal limitations. This gives her incredible psychic powers that eventually progress to become capable of bending reality itself.
There are some cool things the movie has going for it. Scarlett Johansson is a fun actor. I won’t say she’s great, because I hesitated when I considered that (which is a sign that an actor probably isn’t that great).
I’ll say that I enjoy her performances for the most part, especially in Woody Allen movies. Seriously, have you seen Match Point?
Another positive for Lucy is that even though the film is yet another superhero movie coming out in a year crowded with superhero movies, it at least seems fresh because it’s a French film directed by Luc Besson (The Fifth Element). It’s not Marvel. It’s not DC.
But then we get to what the movie is actually about. And it’s terrible. For the millionth time in the history of pop culture, people are trying to tell us that we would gain superpowers if we could just gain access to 100% of our brain’s “potential,” but we’re cursed with only being able to use 10%.
Great TV shows and movies have gone down this road, including Fringe and Limitless. But before we get into it, here’s the trailer (in case you haven’t seen it yet or need a refresher):
The entire premise is a laughably dumb fallacy, and the trailer flaunts it, giving us progress reports of where the main character falls on the brain percentage scale. Johannson at one point actually says something along the lines of, “I just hit blah blah percent” like it’s her Twitter feed.
The worst offense of all? They dared to involve the great Morgan Freeman in this mess. Hearing him give a lecture in a college about this actually caused me emotional pain.
Because no, you don’t only use 10% of your brain. The weird thing is plenty of people know that this is a false concept, but it’s still purported like it’s true, anyway.
To be more accurate, you’re only using around 10% of your brain’s functions at any one time. It’s like how you don’t use the full capacity of all of your muscles at any one time. Because you don’t need to. Using 100% of your brain’s functions goes by another name: a seizure.
But not according to Lucy. It causes you to have wicket hand multiplication powers.
Plenty of people have given a pass to shows and movies that try to shove this misconception down our throats. I’m one of them. I still enjoyed Limitless, mostly because the movie didn’t base its entire story around the idea. Unlike Lucy, it was more about the main character. At least in the trailer.
And even though Limitless was a silly premise, we had a good time watching it.
Movies are about escapism, after all. They don’t have to be scientifically accurate in order for us to enjoy them. But I’m going to point out that there’s a line. When you have a movie that’s being this blatant about its flawed premise, I just can’t get behind it. I’m going to pass on Lucy.
Could I change my mind? Maybe if it looked like a better movie. Maybe if it wasn’t another superhero movie that would push me further to a state of mind in which I’m actually sick of this genre (which I really hope won’t happen).
To be clear, I don’t discourage anyone else from going out and enjoying this film. I’m sure it will make plenty of money and entertain millions. I just know I wouldn’t be one of them. I’d rather watch a movie about talking apes.
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Information and updates surrounding Pixar’s next big movie, Inside Out, have been so scarce, people have resorted to repackaging the same news about the film in an attempt to reassure us that yes, the movie is definitely happening (but not until 2015, unfortunately).
That all changed recently at the Annecy Film Festival, where director Pete Docter (Monster’s Inc, Wall-E, Up) finally opened up about the film.
Sadly, I didn’t have the chance to attend the festival myself, but I was still able to hear various reports and descriptions of the event via the folks who did attend.
Before we go further, it’s important for you to know the premise behind the movie for the sake of avoiding confusion. Simply put, Inside Out is a story that takes place within the mind of a 12-year-old girl named Riley.
We see Riley’s emotions personified within the “world” of her brain. Think Osmosis Jones, but without Bill Murray. Here is a rundown of the first five minutes of the film, described by one of the attendees for the event (via Pixartimes):
Then they showed us the first five minutes of the film – some was still animatic and some blocking, but the animation they have done is beautiful. It opens on Riley as a baby.
Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) is her first emotion. Joy seems happy on her own, but then Sadness (Phyllis Smith) appears. When Riley is being fed broccoli, Disgust (Mindy Kaling) appears. When her father threatens no dessert without eating her broccoli, Anger (Lewis Black) makes an appearance. Fear (Bill Hader) has a great introduction – she looks at a cable on the floor cautiously and then steps over – the comedic timing in that is better than I could explain.
We also see the emotions watching her first important memory appear. Memories can be called up for Riley to recall on a sort of projection in Headquarters. Then we see her growing up, and saw some of how her emotions cope with that. It’s very much a Pete Docter opening to the film.
I found myself completely empathizing with the situation, just like in Up and it caused me to get a bit teary. It’s another heartfelt opening which Docter is obviously really good at.
The story of the film is about how she experiences moving from the country to a smaller house in the city. Sadness tries to make her cry on her first day at the new school, but Joy tries to stop her. They fight and fall out of Headquarters into the depths of Riley’s consciousness (not quite sure if that’s the appropriate word?). The film explains how imagination and déjà vu work, along with other things the brain experiences. It’s not set in the brain – there’s no blood vessels or stuff like that, but the design has taken influence from how brains look.
As you can see, Inside Out is one of the boldest concepts ever taken on by Pixar, but it also looks like it could be the most personal and relatable for audiences to grab ahold of.
And as Peter Debruge put it in his article outlining the event on Variety, “Inside Out will forever change the way people think about the way people think.”
According to Pete Docter, the movie is based on a lot of his experiences watching his own daughter “grow up,” citing how preteens tend to become “moody and withdrawn” as they get older. “There is something that is lost when you grow up,” he says, and I can definitely see how people will connect with this theme.
Pete Docter also pointed out, “In truth, Riley is not our main character; she is our setting.”
The job of Riley’s emotions is to manage her experiences and turn them into memories (which look like “translucent bath-bubble balls” according to Debruge). One of the central conflicts to the story takes place between Joy and Sadness, as Joy as a hard time figuring out why Sadness even exists.
Joy and Sadness embark on a “road trip” throughout Riley’s mind, leaving Fear, Anger and Disgust to run Riley’s emotions. The road trip takes them through “Imagination Land,” which is an amusement park filled with everything Riley has ever daydreamed about.
Other locations in Riley’s mind include a movie studio where her nightmares are stored, a “Train of Thought” visualized by a real train and finally, the “Abstract Thought” zone.
As you can see, Inside Out is poised to be another Pixar film that challenges the way we view ourselves and the world around us, and I’m excited to watch the studio captivate audiences once again.
Of course, I can already note how the movie will fit within the Pixar universe as a whole in relation to my Pixar Theory. If you’ve read it, then you may recall how I believe imagination powers the toys of Toy Story and helps animals like Remy from Ratatouille become the greatest chef in Paris. With Inside Out, we’ll finally be able to see how it all really works.
“Inside Out” opens in theaters June 19, 2015!
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Jafar is the primary villain of the Disney animated classic, Aladdin, which magic carpeted its way into our hearts back in 1992.
I’m sure many of you agree that the film is easily one of Disney’s best offerings of all time, and a lot of that has to do with its complex “good and evil” narrative, as well as some fantastic music.
Rather than leave the movie alone, however, I’ve decided that it requires a little over-analyzing, and you can thank the recent live-action Disney film, Maleficent, for my mischief.
Maleficient is a modern retelling of the classic story, Sleeping Beauty, which you may fondly remember as a VHS box tape that sat next to Cinderella, Snow White and maybe even Peter Pan. In this new version of Sleeping Beauty, Disney decided to turn the narrative on its head by making Maleficient a misunderstood villain.
Much like Broadway did with the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz in “Wicked,” Disney retold the classic story with Maleficient actually being justifiable in her actions, though I won’t say much more for fear of ruining the film for anyone else.
At any rate, I found it valuable to do the same with Jafar from Aladdin, and I think you’ll find I have a decent case on my hands.
Right now, you’re probably remembering all of the awful things Jafar did in both Aladdin and its somewhat unofficial sequel, Return of Jafar. For the sake of keeping things simple, we’ll stick with just talking about Aladdin.
In the movie, Jafar betrays Aladdin after hiring him to do a job, tries to kill him later on, hypnotizes the sultan, tries to kill Aladdin again and then uses his power to usurp the title of sultan and force Jasmine and the real sultan to do his bidding.
After all of that, how could we possibly perceive Jafar as a good guy? Case closed, right?
Well, not necessarily. The problem here is that we have an unreliable narrator that could change the way we really watch the movie. The narrator I’m referring to is the merchant from the very beginning of the film.
If you recall, the movie starts with an unnamed merchant who is trying to sell his wares to us, the audience. To be clear, he’s as sleazy as they come, and it’s not long before he tries to sell us the magic lamp that once belonged to Aladdin.
In other words, the entire movie is a sales pitch.
The merchant is trying to prove to us (in his words) that the lamp is important because it “changed the course of one man’s life.” He then goes on to tell us the “story” of Aladdin.
The main problem here is that in order for us to want the lamp, he would have to position the main character, Aladdin, as the good guy. Even if he’s telling a “true” story, we as the audience have no idea how far he may be straying from the truth in order to convince us that having a magic lamp is a good idea.
(I’m sure what I just said has raised a lot of questions for those of you who remember how the movie ends, but stay with me for now).
To be fair, even the merchant’s telling of the story raises a lot of doubts for me that Jafar is that bad of a guy. So before we go any further, let’s go through the “Case for Jafar.”
This is probably the most important piece of evidence we have to work with. The root of Jafar’s motivation is to replace the sultan, but why do you think he is lusting for this power in the first place?
There’s a three-pronged answer to that question:
All of these are reasons for why the Grand Vizier would be so incredibly frustrated with the current affairs of Agrabah. As we see in the opening sequence with Aladdin and Abu running from the guards, poverty and homelessness is a huge problem.
This is likely because every time we run into the sultan, he’s goofing off or playing with toys. Jafar has to hypnotize the sultan just to get him to do his job.
Jafar himself is not a sorcerer until the end of the movie, but he does have a wide array of magical tools and instruments, which includes his cobra staff, the sands of time, etc. So why does he need a lamp to make himself sultan?
We’re led to believe that Iago (his parrot) convinced Jafar that he should just get the sultan to make Jafar a suitor for the princess. But if Jafar was really as cruel as the merchant portrays him, then Jafar could have simply hypnotized the sultan to concede his title.
Instead, Jafar wants to become sultan by either “wishing” himself sultan or marrying into it, which would both occur without hurting anyone (except Jasmine’s feelings).
You could argue that Jafar isn’t powerful enough to hypnotize the sultan in this way, but he seems to have plenty of other tools at his disposal. It seems unlikely that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish this without the lamp unless he was trying to do this without bloodshed.
Let’s review. We have a Grand Vizier named Jafar who is fed up with how the sultan is refusing to take his job seriously. Poverty and homelessness run rampant, the princess is antagonizing her suitors and the sultan is just standing by.
The law says Jasmine has to marry within the next few days, but she refuses because she wants love. So Jafar decides he needs to take matters in his own hands.
He’s been hypnotizing the sultan so far to keep things running, but that’s not enough anymore. Jafar decides he needs to become sultan himself and right what the sultan has wronged, while also allowing Jasmine to marry whomever she wants.
Meanwhile, Jasmine runs away and falls for a homeless thief who only likes her for her looks (as evidenced by how he describes her to the genie).
Of course, the sultan is old and could die soon. If Jasmine, his only heir, doesn’t marry in time, then the city will fall into turmoil. But Jasmine selfishly neglects her responsibility until the guards finally find her.
Jafar discovers with the sands of time that Aladdin is the key to getting into the Cave of Wonders, where the lamp resides. He hires him to get the lamp, but his stupid monkey touches something and the whole thing is collapsing. Deciding not to take any chances, Jafar takes the lamp and lets Aladdin suffer the consequences of his actions, but Abu steals the lamp back as they become trapped.
Jafar then has no choice but to save the city by hypnotizing the sultan into arranging a marriage between him and Jasmine.
But then some random prince no one has ever heard of (from a place no one has ever heard of) bombards the palace with a parade. The guy certainly doesn’t act or talk like a prince, but the sultan doesn’t care at all about how shady the situation is.
Of course, the “prince” is Aladdin, who tricked the genie into breaking him out of the cave without wishing for it and then made the promise that he’d free the genie later (even though he apparently didn’t intend to keep that promise).
Aladdin sneaks into Jasmine’s chambers (at night) and whisks her away across the world. Oh, and he lies to her again about who he really is by claiming he was a prince all along.
Jafar knows that the “prince” is a fraud, so he arranges to have him disposed of before he ruins the entire kingdom. But Aladdin escapes thanks to the genie, whom he betrays by going back on his promise to free him. Aladdin decides it’s more important to keep the genie around in order to keep the “prince” act up.
But Jafar realizes that the “prince” is actually Aladdin, so he steals his lamp back and commands the genie to make him sultan.
He also wishes for power, hoping that it will protect Agrabah from the country that just found out their prince they sent to marry Jasmine was attacked by a tiger. Jafar even places the kingdom on a hill to make it a more secure stronghold.
Alas, Aladdin returns and tricks Jafar into becoming a genie, thus imprisoning him.
We could also talk about Return of Jafar (which starts with the same merchant singing “Arabian Nights” by the way), but it’s pretty much the same story.
Oh, and I’m not the only person to argue for the case of Jafar. In fact, there is an entire musical based on this concept called Twisted, which you can watch in its entirety below:
(Warning: contains material not suitable for children)
The obvious question here is, why would the merchant tell us that the lamp is essentially useless? At the end of Aladdin, the merchant tells us that the genie is freed. That definitely explains how the merchant would have his hands on it without just using it himself.
The only answer I can think of is that he wants to sell the lamp because it is rare. It’s no ordinary lamp! This is the lamp that Aladdin used to defeat the evil Jafar! Hear the tale of the magical Genie would can summon entire parades that disappear without any explanation!
Can you see how his hyperbole and twisting of the story would convince someone that the lamp would be cool to have? Even if the story isn’t accurate? This is the same sales tactic that people make even today, but especially during those times when street merchants would shout extravagant sales pitches from the corner.
Am I over-thinking this? Of course. But I didn’t get into this because I want to prove something is true. Rather, I recognize the value in turning a story on its head to learn a new lesson.
The message here is that sometimes, things aren’t all what they seem. Sure, Aladdin is probably a cool guy and Jafar was a jerk, but my article may have made you doubt that a little. And that’s just because it’s easy to twist a story and blur the lines between good and evil (even though they are clearly distinct at the same time).
That said, which version of Jafar do you prefer?
So yesterday, I shared a fun genre-bending movie trailer that turned X-Men: First Class into a High School comedy. Today, I thought it would be fun to extend that idea to 2013 new classic, Frozen.
Surprisingly, the film actually lends itself really well to being…well, creepy. The trailer actually had me fooled, even though I was aware of what it really was the entire time. Take a look for yourself (if you dare):
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You know how we’ve always wanted X-Men: First Class to be more like a mid-2000’s teen comedy about getting through high school with a few laughs along the way? No?
Go on…If ‘X-Men: First Class’ Was A High School Comedy, This Would Be The Trailer
As I sat down to write this review, I quickly remembered that I also reviewed the first Amazing Spider-Man on this site two years ago, and it’s fascinating to me how little I had to say about it.
Seriously, I basically came to the conclusion that it’s barely worth watching on the basis that it has some decent effects and a mediocre story that may pay off in the long-run.
Of course, I (along with most of the Spider-Man fandom) was sorely disappointed with several directions Sony took with the origin story, especially when it came to Ben Parker’s death. I understood then and now that this would be underwhelming for moviegoers like me who are still fondly remembering the original Spider-Man in 2002.
Two years and one two-hour movie later, we have The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which is undoubtedly a bigger, better version of the movie that came before it. Everything about this sequel tries incredibly hard to outdo the original, from the acting and character development to the carefully crafted action scenes.
Even the soundtrack seems to have more thought put into it this time (with dubstep tracks being carefully placed only in sequences that feature the film’s central villain: Jamie Foxx’s Electro)
In the months leading up to this film’s release, I was obsessed with staying up-to-date with all of the featurettes, promos, interviews and trailers that did their darndest to convince us that they’d fix what went wrong with the original (which still made them plenty of money).
The first thing to note, and the film’s biggest improvement, is that Sony at least has a powerful agenda behind this film aside from their obligation to make a Spider-Man movie before their contract to the character’s rights fall back to Marvel (which most of us want to happen, ironically).
The first film felt forced, basically, because we knew Sony was only doing it to hang on to their film rights. But this time around, there’s more to Sony’s madness. Thanks to Marvels grand Avengers experiment, Sony is in the business of franchise-building, and they’re now setting up a richer universe that can branch off into numerous spin-offs, which include a film devoted to both Venom and the Sinister Six.
So that’s one point for the movie so far. There’s something to it this time.
But is the movie any good?
Yes. In fact, I’m going to say it’s great.
I know, I know. The consensus so far among Spider-Man fanatics like myself has been that this sequel is essentially an abomination. Bob Chipman, one of my favorite movie critics, nearly quit reviewing movies out of frustration over this film.
But I politely disagree with Chipman and many other naysayers, and here’s why.
First, they finally got the costume right. I was pretty indifferent to the Sam Raimi costume version, despite its toned down color and melancholic feel. But The Amazing Spider-Man proved that you can definitely mess up his costume, with laughable blinking lights and a look that doesn’t look at all like the Spider-Man we’ve gotten to love over the better half of the last century.
This time around, however, the costume is pretty much perfect, capturing the look of Spider-Man in a way that pays homage to the original without looking dated.
Next, the action scenes and special effects were fantastic, and I applaud Dave Schaub for his hard work and dedication to crafting a movie that lets Spider-Man be the web slinging daredevil he is, stealing every scene he’s in when donning the costume.
(I even wrote a piece on how Schaub and his team set out to nail the physics of web slinging in this awesome interview you can read here.)
Adding to the action was a devotion to revealing what I call little moments throughout the story. Yes, you had big themes and character plots controlling the drive of the story, but that didn’t prevent director Marc Webb from giving Spider-Man some time to just be a hero. For the first time since Spider-Man 2, audiences were allowed to see Spider-Man foil petty crimes in creative ways, without the plot keeping him too busy.
These moments consisted of Spidey’s varied conversations with the citizens he would save, along with entire scenes devoted to heroic crime fighting that didn’t even contribute heavily to the plot. I think that some critics were possibly annoyed at these little moments because they might seem pointless to some, but appreciated the care put into differentiating Spider-Man from his real identity, Peter Parker.
Spider-Man is a superhero who is always cracking jokes and keeping things light because he has a mask on. Peter Parker is less confident and a little more nerdy, and that’s a theme that is far more faithful here to the comics.
And it made the film fun. I found myself laughing out loud during the film many times, and kudos to Garfield for letting himself over-act for this role, because it definitely worked.
There were two main villains in this film: Max Dillon (AKA Electro) and Harry Osborn (AKA Green Goblin). My biggest complaint for this film lies in how they handled these two, both as characters and how they fit into the plot.
To be fair, I liked both of these villains early on, especially Max Dillon’s incredibly awkward transition from bumbling electrician to full-on psychopath. But as the film trudged along, we lost what made Dillon interesting as he became a ruthless villain. In other words, his character arc was a bit clumsy.
Dane DeHaan’s take on Green Goblin committed the same sins, and I hate how they handled the origin of this villain. I spent the entire film hoping that we’d find out that Harry’s father, Norman Osborn, would end up being the “real” Goblin, using his son as a pawn, but no such twist came to fruition.
The film had a lot of great moments, but it was a bit lopsided, as it would spend huge chunks focusing on one of its many story threads. They handled the progression of Gwen and Peter’s story quite well, at the very least, and I was satisfied with how the film answered the question of what happened to Peter’s parents.
Still, the pacing just felt a bit off and the film could have used some strategic trimming. It was a bit long, but I certainly didn’t look at my watch.
I’d like to talk more on how I felt about the film toward the third act, which was its strongest (at least in regards to the last 15-20 minutes). But I’ll leave you with this:
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is worth watching. It’s a well-made film that presents a decent take on the webhead, unless you’re firmly against Sony’s new version already. My advice is to just go with the flow and let yourself be amazed by the plenty of good things this sequel has to offer.
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