There's a moment in Prince Caspian towards the end of the first act when Lucy, the youngest Pevensie sibling, dreams she's walking through Narnia as it once was -- lush and green, with dancing trees and bright flower petals that swirl in humanoid shapes. She sees Aslan, the heroic lion, and asks why he doesn't swoop in and save Narnia once more from the darkness it's fallen under. "Nothing ever happens the same way twice," he tells her. It's arguably the most beautiful scene in the whole film, and also a fitting description for this, the second chapter in The Chronicles of Narnia series.

Prince Caspian opens as ominously as the first film -- instead of the Blitz bombing of London, however, we're given the birth of a child. He is the son of Miraz (Sergio Castellitto), the sinister brother of the late King. Having dispatched his sibling and created an heir, Miraz is ready to seize the throne -- but for his nephew Caspian. If you're thinking this sounds suspiciously like a certain Shakespearean tragedy, you wouldn't be alone. In any event, Narnia is not the place it once was: 1,300 years have passed, and a vicious race of man known as the Telmarines have taken over. They believe the land's history of magical talking animals and mythical creatures mere folklore. But Caspian's flight from certain execution reawakens the forest, and recalls the Pevensies from London -- for whom only a year has passed -- to once again defend the land.

Yes, The Chronicles of Narnia has aged and matured with its stars -- Caspian is darker, with a richer plot and more nuanced performances from the fledgling actors. But the maturation is relative. Instead of a children's story like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, this chapter is unmistakably aimed at Tweens. Almost no time is wasted on subtleties like plausible exposition -- How do we know these are the ruins of the castle Cair Paravel? Well look, here, resting pristinely on the ground, is a piece from my chess set that has managed not to tarnish or bury in over a millennium. Instead the film focuses primarily on hormone-driven eye candy: Caspian (Ben Barnes) and a wholly improbable romance between him and Susan (Anna Popplewell). Puh-leaze.

Continue reading "Prince Caspian Review - Narnia Is Not the Place It Once Was" »

Larry and Andy Wachowski are fans as well as filmmakers; their movies, homages to the genres they love. The Matrix, along with being a mainstream and critical success, is also such a pitch-perfect example of cyberpunk that university professors now teach alongside William Gibson's Neuromancer. V for Vendetta, their much-maligned follow-up, tackled one of Alan Moore's more convoluted graphic novels and managed not to end up like The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. And now there's Speed Racer, an esthetically marvelous and totally preposterous film that reproduces every nuance of Saturday morning Japanimation, and refuses to apologize for an ounce of it.

In a way, Speed Racer is both a natural follow-up to and the antithesis of The Matrix. While the latter revels in the goth darkness, the former is blindingly colorful. Speed Racer is not just based on anime -- it is anime, and neither a more realistic cartoon nor a more caricatured live-action film have you ever seen. Emile Hirsch somehow manages to purse his lips when he's speaking so that Speed's mouth movements are as rigid as the cartoon's; Christina Ricci's coquettish Trixie is played with just the right amount of Betty Boop; Matthew Fox even manages to lose his Lost persona portraying the enigmatic -- and totally badass -- Racer X. (Who else can flip a car going 400 milers per hour and punch another driver in the head at the same time?) And that's what ultimately makes the film so much fun. Cars rip through the screen at breakneck speed through constantly changing, meticulously detailed landscapes, and all you can do is hold on.

Continue reading "Speed Racer Review - Anime Comes to Life at 400 MPH" »

With Iron Man, Marvel Studios has quite literally thrown down the gauntlet: This is Iron Man; this is Marvel; and this is how to make a comic book movie. No movie before this -- not Spider-Man, not X-Men, not Batman Begins -- has ever captured the vital components necessary to translate a four-color story into film as well as Jon Favreau now does in this masterful adaptation.

Granted, Favreau has a massive secret weapon on his side in Robert Downey Jr. But for the first time in history, a character has literally walked off the comic book page and onto the big screen. Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne came close, but Robert Downey Jr. is millionaire playboy Tony Stark come to life, right down to the devilish goatee and devilish wit.

He's not alone. Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts is radiant. Jeff Bridges is delightfully evil as Obidiah Stane. And Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes is... Well, Howard doesn't get a whole lot to do but mope and whine, but he does get to deliver the movie's best line.

Continue reading "Iron Man Review - This Is How to Make a Comic Book Movie" »

As you know, Hollywood got together last night in order to pay tribute to itself in a multi-million dollar orgy of celebrity egos. It seems like only yesterday that the WGA Strike threatened to put an end to it by refusing to write the quips Jon Stewart would read on-stage as Hollywood snapped both arms off at the elbow patting itself on the back. But it all worked out on the end, and viewers around the world huddled close to the television to bask in the cathode glow of Christmas in Xanadu.

Yet curiously, now that the winners are in, genre films were surprisingly underrepresented, despite it being a banner year for fantasy and science-fiction. In fact, only one genre film won an Oscar: The Golden Compass, based on the first novel in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, for Best Visual Effects.

Continue reading "Hollywood Celebrates Its Own, But Not Sci-Fi" »

Cloverfield was a pretty good giant monster movie, but the Cloverfield monster was a pretty crappy monster. Pale, non-memorable, and evolutionarily-impossible (especially considering its deep sea origins), it only succeeds on-screen thanks to the first person cameraman's grim determination to never actually get a good shot. It seems impossible that Hollywood, with all the technology of CGI behind it, can't come up with a cooler monster than the rubber suits some Toho monster designer dreamed up 30 years ago, but Cloverfield proves it.

Now io9 has posted an interview with Cloverfield monster designer Neville Page. They astutely avoid asking Page the question on everyone's minds: "Why does the Cloverfield monster look so stupid?" But he does sort of address it in a roundabout way...

Continue reading "Cloverfield Monster Designer: "Not A Godzilla Movie"" »

Jumper, Doug Liman's much anticipated teleporters-vs.-religious-fanatics superhero blockbuster, hits theaters today. After all the hype, you're probably asking yourself whether or not you should waste the time and money to go see it. For that answer, we turn to Rotten Tomatoes' constabulary of critics, after the jump...

Continue reading "Jumper Bad Review Revue" »

From a kaiju theorist's point-of-view, the giant rubbery Toho monsters -- the Godzillas and Gameras who fire-breath and belly-flop their way through downtown Tokyo -- represent vengeful gods punishing humanity for their sins.

In kaiju movies, these sins are usually pollution and war. But what about Cloverfield? Does the same theory apply? What are the sins of the small human insects in the path of the tripodal Cloverfield monster?

A fascinating piece over at the Religion Dispatches website (of all places!) dissects the sins of the Cloverfield protagonists:

The focus of Gamera 3 is on the human impact of this sort of tragedy, and Cloverfield, shot in shaky, first-person video, is all about human impact. But what is the sin for which the monster is punishment? In a word, it's self-absorption: the characters in this film search for cell phone chargers while the world falls down around them. In one key scene -- which appears in the trailer -- the monster hurls the head of the Statue of Liberty, which crashes down a few feet from the POV camera. Within seconds, people have lined up in front of it to take pictures with their cell phones. They're distanced from what's happening around them, oblivious to what it really means.

I'm really not sure that much thought went into Cloverfield, even subconsciously, but it's a fascinating take on both kaiju movies and Cloverfield nonetheless. Read the whole thing.

Cloverfield: Sin & Redemption, With Monsters [Religion Dispatches]

Richard Kelly's latest sci-fi film, The Box, is an unexpected delights, one of those fantastic, small sci-fi films that somehow escape notice.

I haven't seen Kelly's previous film, the post-apocalyptic Southland Tales, but The Box is based on one of my favorite Richard Matheson stories. Starring Cameron Diaz (ugh), James Marsden (okay) and Frank Langella (yes!), The Box is about a couple who receive the titular box, which grants wishes -- but takes human lives as fuel.

It's the Matheson connection that has me hooked. Sure, Hollywood's made some poor stabs at Matheson's genius lately, mainly through their adaptation of I Am Legend. But Matheson was also one of the formative visionaries behind The Twilight Zone and one of the greatest writers the genre has to offer. Even a bad adaptation is worth my interest.

Kelly Wraps The Box [SciFi Wire]

Even though Ang Lee's The Hulk was generally trashed by critics, it made $135 million at the box office. That's probably why Universal is releasing The Incredible Hulk this June with Ed Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, and William Hurt as stars. It reminds me of the Entourage episodes in which Vince Chase is goaded into playing Aquaman. The payday may be big, but where's the art?

Still, Norton seems quite enthused about the movie, telling Total Film, "The fun of Hulk is the ass-kicking. That's the whole point." Norton, who actually penned the last draft of the script, also feels that this one's the first chapter in an ongoing franchise. What do you think? Will Norton's nuked green monster be believable? And will he bulk up for the role? 

Kevin assembles a team of SciFi/Fantasy movie experts to compare The Golden Compass against their own favorites.

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