Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: B

I know I’m probably going to get a lot of flack from friends and critics for this review. Why did I enjoy Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief despite it taking 5 minutes to say the entire title? Because it’s one word that seldom enters the vocabulary of those who analytically contemplate the merits of modern cinema. FUN. It’s entertainment, and it revels in its buttery popcorness. It’s a kids fantasy film that doesn’t start with “Harry” or “Chronicles” and yet manages to remain fast paced and enjoyable throughout. It may not end up being the better of the Greek God films released in the next few months, but it could very well be the start of another major franchise. Christopher Columbus did, after all, direct the first two films about a certain boy wizard, so if anybody can start a children’s fantasy saga off on a strong foundation, he’s certainly the man for the job.

I’d have to say that the biggest early success of the film was in the casting department. The film’s star, Logan Lerman, could very well be the next young actor to break into the big-time. His first film role was in The Butterfly Effect, but if you recognize the face, it’s from his great work as Christian Bale’s son in 3:10 to Yuma. He makes the hero likable but also avoids the pitfalls of the annoying/whiny variety that plague so many of his contemporaries. Kevin McKidd, one time television lead on the late, great Journeyman, plays Percy’s father Poseidon and is probably the most convincing of all the gods. Sean Bean isn’t quite as believable as Zeus (maybe because he’s played so many bad guys during his career) but he’s certainly not the worst choice. I’m of the opinion that the only living actor who could truly play the king of Olympus is Liam Neeson, and that is more than enough to ensure that I go and see Clash of the Titans. Pierce Brosnan also puts in some wonderful work here, and I’d love to see him do more non-tuxedo acting.

It’s a shame that the film will inevitably and extensively be compared to the Warnerbros. epic starring Sam Worthington. That film had a far larger budget, and has the benefit of a PG-13 rating to improve the battle sequences and general epic nature of its canvas. For a film directed at children, Percy Jackson does go out of its way to provide reasons to watch for the older crowd, but it still can’t have bloody fight scenes or realistic language (if a hydra was about to breathe fire at you, I don’t care who you are, you’d probably utter a large variety of obscenities). I guess, because of all that, it sortve cheapens the experience to a certain extent glazing everything with a candy sort of texture. Nobody ever seems to be in real danger, nothing ever has powerful consequences, and the scares don’t come across as anything you’d find terrifying if you’ve progressed past wetting your bed at night.

All those comments aside, the story is a great coming of age, reconnecting with a father figure, learning about yourself, magic and fantasy in the real world sort of yarn that, when done well, will never get old. It’s got all the elements you’ve come to expect, and a charm that makes you forgive certain logical missteps. It’s a good time at the movies, and gives you something to look at while chomping down popcorn. There are also plenty of great cameos spread throughout (I won’t spoil them, even though the opening credits do) that will make even a regular admission ticket worth your while. Do I think the film will be a giant success? Very likely. Will it be the movie that finally kicks Avatar out of the top spot at the box office. I’d put money on it. Am I looking forward to the inevitable sequel. Pleasantly, I am, though I also think Lerman might make a pretty good Peter Parker for the new Spiderman reboot that Sony’s been throwing around lately. I hope he and his agent can pull a Ryan Reynolds and get him 2 major franchises in simultaneous development because I think the kid has real talent. Don’t bother trying to remember the whole title, just tell the lady at the counter that you want to see Percy Jackson and that you also need a bucket of popcorn and a large soda. You don’t even need to thank me.

11) Fantastic Mr. Fox

This is a match made in cinematic heaven. Not unlike the recent pairing of Spike Jonze and Maurice Sendak, to mixed results, Wes Anderson’s wonderfully quirky sensibility seems as though it came into being in order to adapt Roald Dahl’s deliberately twisted words. Fantastic Mr. Fox is both an amalgamation of everything that Anderson has been examining and perfecting through his years as a writer as well as all of the visual excellence and pitch-perfect timing that he is known for in his direction. If there’s any person who should have attributed their style to animation earlier, it is Anderson, as his live action films play on a level of absurdly cartoonish characterization just as realistically as an animal puppet in an underground lair. The jump couldn’t be more natural, and I look forward to seeing him continue down the road he has built for himself here with future projects.

10) Sherlock Holmes

I know what you’re thinking. What’s with all the fisticuffs involving the world’s most famous detective in Guy Ritchie’s new Sherlock Holmes movie? Is this even a Sherlock Holmes movie, thinking, I guess, that such a film has to be boring and brain teasing as opposed to brawny and energetic? Since when does Watson not look like an overweight simpleton, pawing at Holmes’s coat and waiting for the sleuth to expertly deduce the next stage in the case? The answer to all these questions involves a creative team that knows what it takes to make a wonderfully fun an inventive piece of cinema, and a lot of that happens to do with sprucing up and, dare I say it, improving on the shadows of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes which have appeared in adaptation after adaptation over the years. Make no mistake, this is a Sherlock Holmes movie, and the modern sensibility may just be the thing that pushes this one into the status of the “Best Sherlock Holmes Movie” Hollywood has ever produced.

9) The Hurt Locker

This movie is everything Jarhead could have been but wasn’t. A story that has a plot, albeit a loosely structured one, characters that are worth audience sympathy instead of entitled it, and intense, gut-wrenching cinematography that brings the Iraq war more in focus than any film before it. It’s not flawless by any means, but it’s certainly a hell of a lot more powerful than Stop-Loss or Home of the Brave. Credit goes out to the brilliant screenwriting and arresting sound design that augment the handheld visuals and pull you in far more than you would ever want to be. This is not a creation designed for the casual moviegoer. This is not disposable entertainment. This may be the closest you ever get to going to war, and my respect for members of the armed forces has been elevated accordingly.

8 ) District 9

Neil Blomkamp has done the seemingly impossible. He has created an original, visceral, and engrossing science fiction universe that isn’t an adaptation of anything that has come before it. He’s done it with style, he’s done it with heart, and he’s made a believer out of me. From the opening documentary style montage to the emotional closing action beats, every part of the film carries a level of honesty and fidelity that is brutally refreshing. The film doesn’t go down easy either. At this level of intensity, it is understandable why some people may have found portions of the film hard to take. The style itself is very kinetic, and the handheld camera integrates the special effects at a base level, keeping the whole exercise very grounded. Sharlto Copley’s performance should get an Oscar nomination if there’s any sense to the way the world works, but he’ll inevitably get overlooked because of the genre of the film he’s acting in. This is one of the biggest breakthrough performances in years, and it’s hard to believe that only a week prior to shooting, he was just a television producer in South Africa with a childhood connection to Blomkamp.

7) The Hangover

What a ride. I honestly don’t remember the last time I laughed that hard in a movie theater. For Superbad I was mostly too shocked to do anything. This time it was hearty, painful, eye tearing laughter and I enjoyed every raunchy, off-color, ridiculous minute of it. Todd Philips has been waiting for his due for a long time, and after the success of Old School, we assumed he had made it big as a comedy director. Then the sequel never materialized, and Starsky and Hutch left a lot to be desired. I’m happy to report that he is back in fighting form here, and he’s got just the group he needed to make this an instant comedy classic. Who knew that combining Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis would result in the highest grossing rated R comedy of all time? This trio play off of each other so well that they could spend an entire 2 hours sitting at a bar watching people play pool, and I’d be completely entertained. Not to mention poor Justin Bartha who’s reduced to a cameo part because his disappearance is so important to the plot. I want to see these guys take a road trip somewhere else, like now, and I can’t even begin to describe my excitement for Hangover 2.

6) The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

If you’ve ever seen a Terry Gilliam movie, you know that there’s something about his perspective on the world that sets him apart. His projects often suffer from thematic and visual excess, the kind of overzealous creativity that pushes far beyond the subject matter at hand and often overwhelms the story he’s trying to tell. Pretty much since his failed Don Quixote movie with Johnny Depp, Gilliam hasn’t been able to find his past success, in part because he hasn’t had the kind of story concept that can absorb his vision. Luckily for him, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is just the kind of story he was born to tell. It’s an epic yet subtle film, supportive of its subject matter while simultaneously relishing in the quiet character moments that had all but vanished from his recent work. The cast is uniformly wonderful, and the visuals, though occasionally cheesy, have an otherworldly brilliance to them that will make you forget that you’re watching a movie.

5) The Road

The Road is one of those films which you need to decide to watch when you’re already of a lighthearted disposition. The movie itself is so draining and so demoralizing that trying to watch it while depressed may lead to disastrous results. That isn’t a detriment to the film, but more an evaluation of its potency as a story and as an adaptation. Based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, the movie stands above and beyond the scope of what the average post-apocalyptic drama can say about human behavior and the reconciliation of a world where society and culture is but a distant memory. It doesn’t re-invent the wheel, and borrows a little bit too heavily in its cinematography and color palette from the myriad of similar films that have emerged in recent years, but not unlike Children of Men, it invokes the kind of deeper thought and reflection which pushes the medium in a new direction.

4) Up

Pixar can do no wrong. Seriously, it’s getting out of hand. Their new film, Up, proves that these guys won’t settle for anything less than brilliant filmmaking, and I’m starting to believe that they never will. You’d think with a senior citizen for a main character, possibly the earliest animation cliché of talking dogs, a residence in flight due to large amounts of helium, and a roly-poly “Wilderness Explorer” who comments on almost anything, that they’d finally created a story that would be impossible to enjoy or resolve in a satisfactory manner. Wrong. Up is easily among Pixar’s best and follows a lot of the stylistic choices of its most recent predecessor, Wall-E, in its pacing and main story arc. Sure the characters talk more than they did in that film but there’s ample use of stillness and silence to calm even the most figgidy toddler. The movie takes its time, something of a lost art in Hollywood today, and it makes the experience feel even more inspired.

3) Star Trek

This film will make Star Trek cool, it’s true, but not through destroying anything that was great about it before, just by opening it up and telling a story that will emotionally affect a greater number of people. This is the movie that will validate all those years of fans saying, “No really, you should check it out, it’s really cool” and replace that with “Yeah, I’m a real fan, not one of you bandwagoners.” I think that alone is worth the price of admission. Hats off to Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman for doing the seemingly impossible and rebooting the greatest sci-fi franchise of all time in spectacular fashion. I figure they’ve got at least two more fantastic movies left in them, and then we’ll see what happens. Will these be the continuing voyages of a new generation of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy? Who knows? All we can say for sure is that as the U.S.S. Enterprise warps off on its next voyage into the unknown, the future of this franchise looks bright indeed.

2) Up In The Air

There are times in our lives when certain aspects of how we feel, who we are, and what we believe in, hinge implicitly on our emotional state. Days seem brighter when we feel alive and happy, and it always seems to rain when we’re particularly sad. In these moments, we are hyper sensitive to everything going on around us. A well-timed joke, a playful activity, an ingenious piece of storytelling can affect us in ways far and beyond what we’d expect from the medium in question. I’d like to think that the power that Up In The Air has stems from its impeccable filmmaking quality. But with a film this good, there is always a secondary reaction, a motivational lightning rod if you will, that will be defined within the mind of every person who makes the choice to view the film. When everything works together this well, from the screenplay, to the art direction, to the acting and the lighting, a certain intangible quality arises from the interaction, a product which rises far and beyond the scope of its individual parts. When a movie “feels” this right, for its entire runtime, you know you’re witnessing something truly special.

1) Avatar

I have never been the kind of person who is prone to use of hyperbole. Sure, something will be “awesome” or “fantastic” or “terrific” but I never think anything is so great as to be crowned “best ever”, “most innovative”, or “phenomenal.” Today I was proven wrong. Today I saw the future of cinema, and its name is Avatar. The kind of movie that defines not only the time period of its release, but an entire generation of moviegoers. An experience the likes of which I have never had before, with any movie, and I can only theoretically compare to what it must have been like to see the original Star Wars back in 1977. To walk out of a theater and know, as strongly as I do now, that there is an almost limitless possibility resting just beyond our grasp, is not something I can find words for. James Cameron has seized the curtain and thrown it wide, letting the light pour in upon the unsuspecting masses. My only regret is that it will be another 2-3 years before anyone else has the confidence to attempt to follow in his footsteps.

Honorable Mentions

Zombieland

The Messenger

The Boat That Rocked

Where the Wild Things Are

Inglourious Basterds

The Brothers Bloom

State of Play

]]> http://www.climbinghigherpictures.com/index.php/2010/01/07/uncategorized/that-was-one-for-the-record-books-a-look-back-at-2009-in-top-11-form/feed/ 0 http://www.climbinghigherpictures.com/index.php/2009/12/23/featured/a-modern-update-to-a-classic-icon-you-say-sherlock-holmes-reviewed/ http://www.climbinghigherpictures.com/index.php/2009/12/23/featured/a-modern-update-to-a-classic-icon-you-say-sherlock-holmes-reviewed/#comments Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:08:04 +0000 ghm101 http://www.climbinghigherpictures.com/?p=275 There was a time when a modern retelling of a classic literary figure wouldn’t spark quite as much controversy as it does now. From a series of action and fighting oriented trailers, the marketing team has attempted to convince contemporary America that a boxing, swordfighting, and drinking Sherlock Holmes is the man behind the legend. Tack on Guy Ritchie, British director of such modern crime and gangster fare as Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and you have, what could be, a recipe for disaster. Don’t be too quick to discount the considerable talents of Robert Downey Jr. as the titular slueth and the always charismatic Jude Law as his trusty companion though, as both have plenty of star power to raise a mediocre project into the stratosphere. So which is it? The Sherlock Holmes movie you’ve been waiting for, or a pale imitation of the once great mastermind? Find out below:

Sherlock Holmes Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: A-

I know what you’re thinking. What’s with all the fisticuffs involving the world’s most famous detective in Guy Ritchie’s new Sherlock Holmes movie? Is this even a Sherlock Holmes movie, thinking, I guess, that such a film has to be boring and brain teasing as opposed to brawny and energetic? Since when does Watson not look like an overweight simpleton, pawing at Holmes’s coat and waiting for the sleuth to expertly deduce the next stage in the case? The answer to all these questions involves a creative team that knows what it takes to make a wonderfully fun an inventive piece of cinema, and a lot of that happens to do with sprucing up and, dare I say it, improving on the shadows of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes which have appeared in adaptation after adaptation over the years. Make no mistake, this is a Sherlock Holmes movie, and the modern sensibility may just be the thing that pushes this one into the status of the “Best Sherlock Holmes Movie” Hollywood has ever produced. What works you ask? Let me count the ways.

Firstly, casting. Robert Downey Jr. is a phenomenal character actor, the only type of performer who could nail the spirit of Doyle’s original flawed mastermind while still proving himself charming enough to carry a film as a leading man. Jude Law is having a blast as Watson, and apart from a lack of physical continuity to the classic image of Holmes’s sidekick you’re used to, brings a level of depth and empathy to the dynamic duo that keeps Robert Downey Jr.’s off-the-wall performance grounded. Rachel McAdams does great work as the master thief Irene Adler, and despite being far younger in relation to Holmes than would appear to work, shares a great chemistry with Downey that also manages to balance the scales of their scenes together. Watching Downey play off of the two of them is half the fun of the film, and luckily they avoid spending too long separated, allowing the lighting fast dialogue to ramp up from sequence to sequence. Mark Strong is also great in his villainous role of Lord Blackwood, but I’ll get back to him in a moment.

Secondly, script. Cracking the nut which is a Sherlock Holmes adaptation is no mean feat, and it starts with one of the ballsier moves I’ve seen a writing team make with a big franchise to date, it’s not an origin story. That’s right, this isn’t a How-Watson-Met-Sherlock-And-Went-On-Their-First-Adventure lark, and the opening throws you right into the thick of it, the way a good story should. In other news, the dialogue is delivered at a mile a minute. This is disorienting at first, and you may miss the first few minutes out of sheer shock, but the fact that these two characters know each other so well means the lines fly fast and furiously. The accents are serviceable as well, nothing to write home about, but nothing that’ll take you out of the film either. The clichéd scenes know they’re cliché and have fun with the concept, using the classical narrative structure as a jumping off point for plenty of unexpected high jinx.

The kicker, and the most impressive part of the entire script, is the handling of the exposition. Moments when a character explains the plot can be the death knell of a film, and when you’re making a Sherlock Holmes movie, you have to be prepared to handle such sequences with gusto. Luckily they do, and the dialogue is particularly impressive in these moments of intense exposition, as they end up being just as enjoyable as the action-oriented stuff which preceded it. While not an origin story, the narrative does leave a lot of room free for future chapters, namely in the form of a certain arch-nemesis, the chalk-on-the-collar, (he’s a professor, you see) darkness enshrouded Moriarty. A big cameo reveal of him in this film would have certainly kicked the ending up a notch, but as far as I know he remains uncast, despite rumors of Brad Pitt’s involvement to the contrary. The problem is that you spend much of the movie hoping that he’ll factor in somehow, and the tease almost undermines the villainy of Mark Strong, who would have made a great Moriarty, but has to be content with an amalgamation of several other Holmes adversaries.

The flair for the theatrical within Lord Blackwood feels awfully inspired by the director himself, Mr. Guy Ritchie, who hadn’t made a decent movie in a long while before returning to form with 08’s Rock’N’Rolla. Should this franchise take off, which I have no doubt it will, the big question will be who they manage to get for the bad guy role, and whether he’ll be able to hold his own against Downey with a whole movie of set-up between them. For an opening salvo, this is quite the auspicious start, and between Holmes and Avatar, you’ll be loving fun Hollywood spectacle all over again by the time Christmas is over. Pure entertainment ladies and gentlemen, it’s not nearly as elementary as one might think.

Avatar Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: A+

Robert Zemeckis, eat your heart out. I have never been the kind of person who is prone to the use of hyperbole. Sure, something will be “awesome” or “fantastic” or “terrific” but I never think anything is so great as to be crowned “best ever”, “most innovative”, or “phenomenal.” Today I was proven wrong. Today I saw the future of cinema, and its name is Avatar. The kind of movie that defines not only the time period of its release, but an entire generation of moviegoers. An experience the likes of which I have never had before, with any movie, and I can only theoretically compare to what it must have been like to see the original Star Wars back in 1977. To walk out of a theater and know, as strongly as I do now, that there is an almost limitless possibility resting just beyond our grasp, is not something I can find words for. James Cameron has seized the curtain and thrown it wide, letting the light pour in upon the unsuspecting masses. My only regret is that it will be another 2-3 years before anyone else has the confidence to attempt to follow in his footsteps.

For the first time, the concept of a 3D movie has a worthwhile reason to exist. The world that Cameron has created here is unparalleled by anything celluloid has presented before, from the dark recesses of the jungle to the blinding cloud cover in the mystical floating mountain ranges. It’s all beautiful, and completely realistic, despite your brain attempting to process that everything you are seeing was manufactured as a series of zeros and ones. The first few minutes are a bit of an adjustment period, and Cameron knows this, concentrating on grounded and emotional beats that bring the dimensionality of the 3D to an appropriately relevant level. As everything settles down, you feel yourself letting go of your own reality, sliding seamlessly into the universe in front of you.

And what an amazing place Pandora is. From the countless animals to the gorgeous plant life as far as the eye can see, this is a planet which could only exist in the mind of a true visionary. We are all guests to Cameron’s imagination, and I look forward to snatching as many tickets back as I can get my hands on. It’s a living and breathing world, and you cannot see where the lines meet. The virtual and the real have become forever blurred through a combination of incredibly detailed art design and a dedication to performance which puts all other “motion-capture” exercises to shame. I hate to hold this film up to something like A Christmas Carol because they’re not even playing the same sport at this point. If Spielberg intends to utilize these techniques for his Tintin film, that particular project will have jumped to the top of my Most Anticipated list.

The actors are all wonderful. Sam Worthington has officially earned his place as Hollywood’s newest powerhouse lead, and Zoe Saldana is a treat to watch, even if we never see her in the flesh. Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi have an incredible chemistry in their few scenes together, and there is no doubt in my mind that the film could never have worked to begin with were it not for the acting talent on hand. When so much detail is captured by a computer, it makes the animation team’s jobs undeniably easier, and you can tell from the results that every frame has been lovingly composed to recreate the original actor’s performance. The story works in much the same way, retaining a wholly classic framework with all the necessary narrative beats while rearranging and reorganizing the sequencing of those scenes so as to appear spontaneous and surprising at almost every turn. You won’t know what will happen next, but as soon as it does happen, it will feel perfectly right on every level and you’ll wonder how else anyone would have thought of writing it. The script is that good. After almost a decade in development, we’d rather hope it would be.

Avatar is the real deal, the kind of epic advancement in filmmaking that only happens when an amazing creative team is paired with an equally talented and driven group of researchers and technicians who work around the clock to bring the dream to life. As Cameron is fond of saying “we pushed the envelope, and the envelope pushed back.” The film is a testament to that final success, a wonder of storytelling and special effects wizardry that will leave you feeling transported, elated, and in love with movies all over again. It’s been a long time coming, but the next great movie masterpiece has finally arrived.

2012 Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: B+

Thank god. After the emotional rollercoaster that never made its way back to the station with The Box (I’ll get to that review in a bit), I was dreadfully worried that Roland Emmerich’s theme park ride of a film would disappoint in similar fashion. It’s not that I particularly hated The Day After Tomorrow (the less that is said about 10,000 B.C. the better), but the spark that brought the audience to its feet in Independence Day has managed to elude the maestro of disaster in the intervening years. Just having “Roland Emmerich” and “disaster” in the same sentence has gotten cliché, and I’m happy to say that with his grandest and most destructive film yet, he has reached the pinnacle of the scope and scale that you can fit into a 2-hour motion picture.

It doesn’t get any bigger than this, and I’d like to believe that the misfires since Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum saved the planet in terrifically entertaining fashion have been experiments on the part of Emmerich, looking at the genre from different perspectives, as preparation for this movie. Whatever you think 2012 is going to be when you enter the theater, this is a movie that manages to deliver the goods on virtually every level, even if the quality level of those goods isn’t enough to make it a “great” piece of filmmaking. It is perfectly happy with the type of film it sets out to be, and the fact that it knows its boundaries so well means that it wrings every last bit of action and emotion from each scene, flowing effortlessly from massive special effects to interpersonal drama. I was shocked at how personal the movie was at times, with a story painted on such a broad canvas that has more than enough heart to see the audience through the darkness.

Big props go to the casting people behind this behemoth, as they found literally the only people I can think of who could give us believable emotion when faced with overwhelming amounts of green screen and SFX laden material. I will believe John Cusack is staring at a volcano exploding as he runs for a plane in mid take-off, I will believe Amanda Peet as his estranged wife who is juggling responsibility for her family and a desire to reconcile what is happening to the world around her, I will believe Chiwetel Ejiofor as almost anything, especially a scientist who becomes a key part of the cabinet, and I will believe that America would elect Danny Glover as president of the United States over just about every actor who has played a president in the last 20 years. I save the best for last, as special recognition has to go to Oliver Platt’s terrific performance as senator turned advisor turned leader who imbues the other side of each debate with enough gravitas and charisma that you know he believes every line he’s delivering. Between Cusack and Platt, the audience is swept up on this journey and feels each horrific event through the cast, including a handful of wonderful cameos I won’t spoil here. I wasn’t expecting anything close to strong writing or strong character work from this one, and it elevated the whole movie well above my expectation level.

The effects are… well… you need to see this on as big a screen as humanly possible. I’m not sure if they’re offering any IMAX prints, but if they aren’t, they are wasting a phenomenal opportunity. The special effects work here is akin to a national geographic special about the end of the world, and to say that many of the sequences will have you holding onto the arms of you chair is a gigantic understatement. Part of me doesn’t ever want to see another disaster movie again, as this would be the perfect cap on a legacy that goes back to the original The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. This level of production and special effects research is the culmination of everything movies have been working towards since the first computer generated effect, and though I trust in James Cameron to bring things to a whole new level with Avatar, this is like the end of a generational era in blockbuster filmmaking. They don’t make movies like this anymore and they probably won’t try to again. If this is going to be the nail in the disaster genre’s coffin, I can’t think of a better swan song. Perfect it certainly is not, camp is always waiting in the wings, and it doesn’t try to be more than a B-movie because that would lose the charm that keeps us engaged. Bravo Mr. Emmerich, you may well have crafted your masterpiece.

A Christmas Carol Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: A-

Well that sure wasn’t the movie I was expecting to see when I walked into the theater. Granted, I didn’t have very high hopes of Robert Zemeckis’s retelling of the single most adapted story ever written, and I’m still not a hundred percent behind his belief in motion capture as the future of the medium, but for the first time he’s actually provided me with solid evidence of what the technology has under the hood and it is truly breathtaking. Not Avatar breathtaking to be fair, but far beyond anything you saw in The Polar Express or Beowulf.

Lets begin with the good. The 3D transfer is subtle enough to avoid pandering to the classic tropes of children’s fare where things pop out of the picture obnoxiously or characters push themselves through the screen and into the audience. The depth exists, but isn’t forced on the viewer, and has more of a living painting aesthetic than something out of a creepy wax museum diorama. The flying sequences, and there are several, are among the best uses of 3D I’ve witnessed, really harnessing the sensation of hurtling through the air to an almost unsettling degree. My bet is that it will be just as beautiful in 2D, just without the added rush.

Jim Carrey’s Scrooge is undeniably a perfect fit from both a casting and conceptual level. You can see every facet of the performance emanating through the character, and for an actor like Carrey who thrives on his lack of subtlety, the honesty and simplicity of the acting here is the foundation of the believability of the entire world. Everything hinges on us indentifying with old Ebenezer, and thanks to the artists working overtime behind the scenes, we are able to do so like never before.

The script itself is also a wonderful adaptation of the source material, drawing heavily on the kind of dialogue that feels as though it was imprinted in our cultural upbringing since birth. There is a definite comfort level at work here, and even when the film strays from the beaten path on occasion, we never get the sense that the tangents aren’t serving the story, unlike many sequences in Zemeckis’s previous Christmas themed exploit. He serves as both writer and director here, and the loving care behind every shot is a wonder to behold. Sure we have one unnecessary chase sequence involving a transformation of physical size, but it can be forgiven in an otherwise wonderful retelling.

The bad here is never truly awful, but is just enough to slide this one out of contention for the greatest production the story has ever known. The aforementioned chase sequence not withstanding, there are plenty of moments where the motion-capture just doesn’t work very well. It’s surely more hits than misses this time around, and it can be so incredibly lifelike, but at its worst it still looks like some variation on the Play-doh your younger relatives may be busying themselves with during the film’s darker moments. It doesn’t skimp on the creep factor either, and is faithful to a lot of the scarier elements of the original story. In some cases, it may be too dark for extremely young kids, but at the same time, parents really need to grow a pair in regards to sheltering their sons and daughters. Of all the things your kids could be watching, at least A Christmas Carol is a terrific story, and the frightening scenes work to make the conclusion all the brighter. It’s a timeless tale, and this is one version which will surely be around for years to come.