Haywire

HAYWIRE : Close, but not close enough.

Soderbergh, as a Director, has a special place in my heart. One of the classes I took while at Maryland University was “Soderbergh and the New Film”, and it with that class I was able to appreciate not only what Soderbegh does to make his films different, but the influences that affected his film making along the way. It was an interesting, holistic take on modern cinema and rubbed my face into all his foibles and triumphs, from Schizopolis (1996) to Contagion (2011).

                           This is the face I made when I heard Soderbergh was doing an action movie...

 

Now, me being a hug action movie fan, I was a little worried about Haywire (2011). Sure, from the preview (and hype) it looked like it had all the makings of a great action film. Car chases, a stellar cast (no, a REALLY stellar cast), lot’s of shooting, and the amazing Gina Carano. The real deal MMA fighter knock out Gina Carano. Nuff said right there. But here’s Soderberghs dirty little secret as a filmmaker. He doesn’t like giving audiences what they want. Or what they “expect”, or whatever. He spends a lot of time trying to figure out a new way to cross the street, if you will. While from a film history perspective that makes him more of an “artist” than the next guy it doesn’t always add up to an enthralling movie experience. Heartfelt maybe. Endearing. But it’s not going to give you that action fix you need.

 

So I went into this tongue in check, expecting Soderbergh to tease and juke when he should jive. Sadly, he did not surprise me with a straight up action film. He pulled his artsy stuff. But first, I want to talk about the good stuff.

 

This Gina Carano chick….I’ll be honest, I never heard about her before this movie, but I am head over heels now. She can kick ass with the best of them and her character Mallory makes Jason Bourne look like a bubbling little bi%^$. Every scene where she is fighting is butter. It’s the anti Bourne movie in that sense, which is almost why I almost love it. The fight scenes are played straight, and you get to see all the kick ass glory with no cheap editing tricks and gimmickry. This is hardcore cinematic fighting at its best. Oh, and she’s stunning. By the way, did I mention that she is stunning?

 

The cinematography of the film is similarly stunning. From the shots of various European cities all the way to New Mexican vistas, this is one of the most beautiful movies I’ve seen in a long time. What’s even better is that some of the fight scenes towards the end incorporate some of those same elements, and again, it’s hard to describe just what Soderbergh is able to capture with his camera.

                                                                     Lucky Bastard. 

 

The rest of the cast is All Star.  Michael Douglas, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Benderas, Michael Angarano (who is in there, but for some reason I could not decipher), and Ewan McGregor all play major roles in the movie. They all do an excellent job.

 

But, things are not all well in Haywire land. There are three things that drag the movie down and manage to make it unexciting, or even worse, uninteresting along the way. The first and foremost is the story itself. It’s just too simple. Typical spy vs. spy, double cross stuff, but if you look deeper than that there simply isn’t much there. Hush hush conversations, people looking at wringing phones, typing on computers, blah blah blah but at the end of the day it really sticks to a recipe that’s been done to death.

 

Also, the music is completely wrong. It’s got this jazzy, fruity score that simply doesn’t belong in this movie. Oceans Eleven (2011)? Sure, put all the Jazz ensembles you want, but not it some supposedly hardcore action thriller. He should have taken a lesson from RONIN (1997) here. It’s simply a huge let down that takes you out of the moment.

 

Last, but certainly not least, is that for all the acting talent in this movie everything is played so straight it’s just not fun. This last point could’ve helped the first one, but unfortunately there are no peaks and valleys, just monotone conversations. Gina, for all her action sense, is too unbending throughout, and everyone else just looks uninterested. Playing it understated is great when the situation calls for it but it also has a tendency to suck the life out of the picture.

So what’s the verdict? I would say go see it. It’s a beautiful, hard hitting film with a step in the right direction for women in action films. It’s not one of the best, however. And I'm pretty sure the whole movie is simply a metaphor for the inherent violence and hatred involved in male/female relationships. But it’s not a bad movie, no, it just doesn’t manage to hit the right notes. 

P.S GINA CARANO GINA CARANO GINE CARANO GINA CARANO GINA CARANO!!!!!!!

Sherlock Holmes 2 Game of Shadows : It’s A Lot More Than Elementary My Dear Watson…

I’ve got a problem with rehashing characters that have been rehashed a million times. It’s boring. Plain and simple. For instance, you know what I didn’t want to see this year? A Three Musketeers movie. Why? It’s literally going to be the same as all of the other Three Musketeers movies out there, and not illuminate anything new about European history, or what it meant to be a Musketeer, or anything else. So, you can imagine how skeptical I was that the second Sherlock Holmes would be any good. I didn’t see the first one in theatres, but caught it on the T.V and thought it was an okay film. It was Guy Ritchie gimmicky, and the acting was good, but it just didn’t impress me. Now, I’ve seen everything else worth watching this year, and we’re going to put some effort into Action A Go Go movie of the year poll, so I felt like I needed to make an effort to give those last few movies out the gate one last shot. That left me with a dilemma, should I watch Tin Tin or SH 2? Troy said SH2, so here we are.

What works about the movie? It melds very well. With the first movie, everything was odd, and thrown in, and it worked because Guy Ritchie is able to drive a movie forward with a mad mixture of great characterizations and flashy, laser cut images that take you there no questions asked. He can just do that sort of thing. With this movie (as with all good sequels) they know what worked, what didn’t and turned up the heat where necessary. The action doesn’t feel so pretentious. Important characters (not just faceless victims) actually die. Holmes isn’t quite so SUPER, and actually meets his mental and physical match in Moriarty (played excellently by Jared Harris of MAD MEN fame). Noomi Rapace (original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2009) is Madam Sizma Heron, an excellent addition to the cast who holds her own throughout. Watson (Jude Law) is still whiney in this one, but now it actually serves the plot, and surprisingly enough so does Watson’s wife, Mary Watson (Kelly Reilly) is also a bit more important this time around.

My favorite new edition to the cast is Mycroft Holmes (Played by an always affable Stephen Fry). What do I like about this new character? He is just so damn old school, nose in the air British. He was great, and if there is a third (Which I now strangely hope there is) I hope he'll play a bigger role.

Also, the forest firefight is wicked awesome.

Anything wrong with the movie? The story isn’t that great, and Moriarty is all that great of a bad guy. He’s better than the last bad guy, that’s for sure, he just doesn't come off that smart, he just set’s up a bunch of ambushes and that’s about it.

Like the first movie, Game of Shadows manages to take a character with a lot of baggage and manages to do something fun and original. If it had even more Steampunk and was not called Sherlock Holmes it could be a totally different movie. Maybe even a better one. That being said, it was good, and I recommend it if you are in the mood for some shooting and explosions with a distinctly British accent.