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Low expectations are good; failing that, it helps to be awesome.
Wanted is that mythical film, even though this is a fairly hyped vehicle with big names, a movie with no buzz that pretty much shows up and kicks the shit out of the competition. Trailers or TV spots may have made your wary or made you think that this film is going to be a somewhat fun but mediocre film. Even the critics will have you believe that this film is fun, but they give backhanded complements while warning you away with claims that the movie is too dumb, too vulgar, too violent, too brutal to really be any good. The condescension rolls off the media in waves and the audiences may or may not keep showing up in droves. But this movie is fun. Fuckloads of fun.
The critics will often remind you it's a stupid story because it's based on a comic. Some critics will go so far as to say it's stupid because it's not enough like the comic. Having followed up the movie by reading the comic, I can tell you for a fact that the film and the comic have about as much in common as Green Eggs & Ham and Citizen Kane. I mean, I know that both of them are in English and feature characters, but that's about it. All that's left of the semi-retarded tale of supervillains at war with each other is a few lines of dialogue and a framing element of backstory for our lead, who is instead enlisted into a league of assassins tasked with doing the murderous work of Fate.
Now, the film could go really badly and be even more stupid than the comic whose name it borrowed. Especially given its direction by Timur Bekmambetov, responsible for the adaptation and direction of the stylish but not very sensible Night Watch and Day Watch, who I'm still angry with for Day Watch. But the film is savvy, vulgar, and straight up fucking awesome. It cracks open your skull and shits Awesome onto your brain for a full two hours. If you don't like that, I don't think there's hope for you. The only people who won't like this are A.) people offended by vulgarity, B.) people squeamish with violence, and C.) fucking pussy-ass haters who just want to complain about good things while jerking off over mindless bullshit like the latest Indiana Jones movie. If you fall into Category C, please spend the next ten minutes slamming your dick in a car door. I'll wait.
If you can handle your carnage and dark humor with a happy grin, then this movie is the new high-water mark for film-making. As far as summer films go in this year of big names and even bigger hype, it blows away even the likes of Iron Man, who's left sitting miles behind it, wondering what the fuck just happened. It's not Shakespeare, but never claims to be more than amusing and stunningly good-looking headshot of adrenaline and bloodshed. Avoid seeing it only at your own peril. You don't want to miss it in the theater.
If you're going to try a David Ayer movie, this is the one to try. Lesser known for his more conventional work like U-571, The Fast And The Furious, and S.W.A.T., Ayer came to fame when he penned Training Day, not the most revolutionary film, but one whose acting heralded acclaim and allowed him to start directing his own films. His second directoral effort, Street Kings wasn't even written by Ayer, instead being penned by the forces of his buddy, former co-writer, and crime novelist James Ellroy, along with the writer/director of Equilibrium, Kurt Wimmer, and unknown Jamie Moss.
Street Kings is pure Ellroy, set in the modern day: a crime drama full of police corruption, death, and human suffering. But aren't all the good tales? A decently-coarse and dark mystery, it smacks of the plot of the L.A. Confidential film: a not-quite-bright cop decides that he can't live with the corruption after losing a former partner, looks where he shouldn't, and finds a plot that he wasn't smart enough to put together on his own. Good people die at the hands of those who should serve the public trust. Those bad people suffer the necessary revenge. Really, it does follow the flow of L.A. Confidential's beats, without the acting power of Crowe, Spacey, and Pearce and dropping the gleam of period trappings. But it has a certain dark and modern visceral nature that the more staid Confidential lacked.
The cast is, all around, good and even the Wooden Boy That Could, Keanu Reeves, manages to emote something. Hugh Laurie shows up in a minor role and manages more character than most of the other actors in the movie, which should really come to be expected at this point. Forest Whitaker does a bit of his overacting; a few of his roles tend towards the subtle, like Ghost Dog, but this falls in with fare like Battlefield Earth in its level of scenery-chewing. The other Ayers staples appear in the film, including a variety of his favorite bit players who appeared in Training Day and Harsh Times, his first directorial effort. The biggest surprise that probably shouldn't be was Chris Evans, who, as usual, hands in one of the best performances in the film and is completely solid. You always feel for him, no matter what role he's in and this is yet another example of why he is one of the best and brightest of a new generation of young actors. And he's outpacing Reeves quickly, not that it takes much.
Street Kings is also a good opportunity for Ayers to show off his directoral talent, a more visually-stimulating and atmospheric film than the simpler Harsh Times. The dark tones, flashier camera angles, and action are all handled well and show a good eye for stylistic and dark noir action. Even if the film isn't the sharpest plot, it has you wanting to come back and watch it again to see the visuals combined with the dark character portrayals.
It's fortunate that people like Ayer and Narc and Smokin' Aces director Joe Carnahan are bringing back hard-boiled noir through modern crime epics like these. Hopefully it'll continue to keep the landscape of cinema interesting over the coming years.
Michael presents his first ever pro interview. This week Views is very happy to present a conversation with Michael Eury, former editor at both DC and Dark Horse and current editor of TwoMorrows’ Back IssueMagazine. Mr. Eury talks about how Adam West got him into comics, his time at DC, the Who’s Who Binder Edition (covered last episode oddly enough), his stint at Dark Horse, his opinion of the Barb Wire film and how Captain Action brought him back to comics publishing. The audio quality of the interview is not spectacular, but should improve if you throw on some headphones. And keep an ear out for a guest appearance by Michael Bailey’s wife Rachel, who, for a variety of reasons, all justified, was a little annoyed with the host at the time.
Already one of the most hyped and heavily-advertised shows of the Fox fall season (even though it won't premiere for at least another three months), "Fringe" is a product of J.J. Abrams and "the writers of Transformers" if you believe the commercials. Abrams is still riding high on being the man behind "Felicity", "Alias" and "Lost" (even though he directed the reprehensibly bad Mission: Impossible III) and this new show for Fox is reminding us hard of that fact. Oh, how Fox would like to segue this pilot into a "Lost"-level success for their network, but, if the pilot is any indication, all they'll be recreating is their own history.
A biological disaster on a plane segues into a weak and somewhat incoherent tale of an FBI agent trying to cure her boyfriend of some science-fiction ailment that turns his body clear, exposing the inner workings to look "cool". She recruits Joshua Jackson of "Dawson's Creek" to get his father out of the looney bin, as he was a secret government scientist who used to work on all manner of sci-fi bullshit.
Well, as quick as you can say X-Files, you're up to your balls in weirdness, nebulous conspiracies that exist only to make the viewers tune in to find out more, and flimsy plotting. The whole thing in fact reeks of the early 90's Fox era, including all the old hits like "The X-Files", "VR.5" and "Strange Luck". It's like one of the huge failures of generic Friday night sci-fi Fox televison was cracked out of cyrofreeze and had modern effects slapped all over it to make it seem like more than just another rehashing of the "government dabbles in pseudoscience and keeps it secret with the help of shadowy conspiracy figures so that they can control the world" type crap that at this point just stinks of cliche.
The plot is desperately slim, providing very little of interesting substance for its fairly two-dimensional characters. In fact, you'll be lucky if you even catch most of their names. And if you're surprised by the ending, well then I have a series of children's books you'll surely enjoy. The lead, Anna Torv, is yet another import, pulling off a not-entirely-natural American accent and character, but is more or less decent, though not one of the more charasmatic or interesting leads of the past many years. Joshua Jackson, on the other hand, is and it's good to see him again after only catching him in fare like Cursed, The Skulls, Cruel Intentions, and Urban Legend. While some of those films were enjoyable (definitely not talking about The Skulls), Jackson has been severely underused, as he's a very amusing, amiable, and charasmatic actor and this kind of lead suits him. Unfortunately, the show might not be up to the snuff that would be beneficial to Jackson's career. Most of the acting is decent, but it's not the kind of character-driven writing that will really give any of the actors anything much to do.
The visuals take a step to be cinematic and give an above-standard appearance, but in this day and age nothing about the whole thing is impressive and it's all about 5 years behind the times and badly in need of much better writing if it hopes to make it through the fall. And knowing Fox's predilictions for destroying sci-fi shows with bad ratings, not even the "Lost" buzz and the Abrams name can keep it afloat if it's just a snore-worthy "X-Files" riff that brings nothing new or interesting to the table. In fact, it could stand to step up to the bar set by "The X-Files", a show I don't even really like, as it's still not there yet. Hopefully Abrams and his team will think long and hard about these things over the coming months, otherwise it'll probably be cancelled in six months.
Low expectations are good; failing that, it helps to be awesome.
If you're going to try a David Ayer movie, this is the one to try. Lesser known for his more conventional work like U-571, The Fast And The Furious, and S.W.A.T., Ayer came to fame when he penned Training Day, not the most revolutionary film, but one whose acting heralded acclaim and allowed him to start directing his own films. His second directoral effort, Street Kings wasn't even written by Ayer, instead being penned by the forces of his buddy, former co-writer, and crime novelist James Ellroy, along with the writer/director of Equilibrium, Kurt Wimmer, and unknown Jamie Moss.
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Already one of the most hyped and heavily-advertised shows of the Fox fall season (even though it won't premiere for at least another three months), "Fringe" is a product of J.J. Abrams and "the writers of Transformers" if you believe the commercials. Abrams is still riding high on being the man behind "Felicity", "Alias" and "Lost" (even though he directed the reprehensibly bad Mission: Impossible III) and this new show for Fox is reminding us hard of that fact. Oh, how Fox would like to segue this pilot into a "Lost"-level success for their network, but, if the pilot is any indication, all they'll be recreating is their own history.