Red Lights

The man who provided the better-than-it-should-be film Buried returns.

Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her assistant Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) work at a college and specialize in debunking paranormal activity. When renowned psychic Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) returns from a 30 year hiatus, both Margaret and Tom feel he is the ultimate challenge to debunk.

This film has been on my must-see list since it was announced. The idea of persons who feel it the ultimate challenge to debunk someone who may be more than he seems is a very intriguing idea. Most reviewers feel that this film falls apart in the third act, but I disagree. I feel this film falls apart at about the halfway point.

What starts out as a very intriguing idea falls apart when one of the main protagonists leaves the film. Once that occurs, what we have is a film that abandons the ideas they have put in place and becomes more about one person's obsession with debunking Silver and provides some cheap scares.

The first half of the film is thoroughly entertaining. We meet Margaret and Tom meeting up with people claiming to suffer from unexplained phenomena. They go about it logically and the conversations between them are fairly entertaining. We find out that Margaret had attempted to investigate Silver 30 years before and she has no intention of doing so again. Tom, not knowing what Silver is about, feels they should try and investigate him again.

Silver draws large-scale audiences for his performances in town and strange things begin to happen, including the bending of spoons, which Silver does so often. Margaret's reluctance and Tom's pushing of investigating Silver provide a great dynamic as Silver is used sparingly for the first half of the film.

Once the second half of the film kicks in, however, the film flies off the rails. As stated, once one protagonist leaves the film, we are left with Silver and one of the investigators. That protagonist and their reluctance to leave Silver alone results in leaving the more grounded portions of the story behind and goes full bore into a supernatural thriller.

As stated, this film starts well, with lots of potential, but by the end turned into a completely different movie that was nowhere near as good as the one that started the film. I think I liked the film more than the rating will show, but the rating is so low because of how disappointing the film became. A big disappointment in my opinion.

3.0/10

The Cold Light of Day

The Cold Light of Day... or as I like to call it, how Bruce Willis got a free vacation to Spain.

Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) arrives in Spain, distracted by his small business in financial trouble (which never materializes into a plot point), to meet with his family for a vacation. Will and his father Martin (Bruce Willis) do not always see eye to eye and when a small accident on Martin's boat happens, Will goes to town for medicine. Upon returning, Will finds the boat abandoned and in disarray.

Back on land, Will speaks with the local police department. The police officers go to the boat where Will meets with a man who knows what happened to Will's family and is willing to show him. Will escapes and in the process meets up with Martin.

Martin informs Will that he has been hiding his true work from Will, that he is a CIA agent (shocking, I know). Martin spits out enough plot; the people who took his family are after a briefcase that Martin took and gave to his superiors, before meeting with villain partner, Jean (Sigourney Weaver). As soon as they end their conversation, Martin exits stage left and Will goes on the run with the brief knowledge that Martin dispensed.

Along the way, Will teams up with a local, Lucia (Veronica Echegui) who holds a not too surprising secret. They are chased all throughout Madrid by various bad guys including Jean's number 1 henchman, Gorman (Joseph Mawle), before the inevitable climax where Will and Jean must face off.

I was on board with this film for about the first half hour or so. I was not watching a film that was re-inventing the wheel, but I didn't hate myself for watching it. As the second half of the film kicked in, though, the plot becomes overly complicated with various needless bad guys. This could have been a standard on the run-type film, but then with a gang of Mossad agents join the fray and the plot gets very murky. After a while, my interest in this film waned and I really didn't care anymore about the briefcase (or MacGuffin, as my dear friend Karina perfectly called it) or what happened to Will's family.

Besides the overly-complicated plot, the biggest issue with this film lies within the acting. Henry Cavill might be a star in the making with the Superman reboot scheduled to launch next year, but his performance in this film is pretty laughable. One scene in particular that made me laugh involved Will being on a bus and getting a phone call. His performance in this supposed emotion-filled scene was very wooden and I ended up laughing. Besides his lack of conveying a proper level of emotion, Henry Cavill never really invests himself into the character, except when he has to be shirtless. Sorry, but he is supposed to be the son of Bruce Willis, and when I see the son of Bruce Willis, I expect someone who can handle themselves somewhat more competently.

Speaking of Bruce Willis, he has no more than an extended cameo. As I said in the beginning, I felt Bruce Willis took this film to hang out in Spain for about a week. Bruce Willis shows up, says his lines of exposition and leaves. Beyond that, he is really there to have his face and name slapped onto the poster and trailer to help sell extra movie tickets. And judging by the box office, that didn't help much.

The other big name in the film is Sigourney Weaver. She doesn't try to hide that she is evil and just chews up her scenery. Sigourney Weaver's Jean just goes through the motions as a government agent doing all she can to "protect America" from terrorists. Sigourney Weaver sits on the other side of the fence as her performance goes over the top without any rhyme or reason as she spouts out one-liners during gunfights and  casually strolls through gunfights as if knowing she wont get hurt. Again, I think she just wanted to hang out in Spain for a while.

The Cold Light of Day is directed by Mabrouk El Mechri who directed the, much better than it should have been, JCVD. In JCVD that film had style with good performances and a solid script. Unfortunately all of those aspects are missing from this film. With the exception of some nice panoramic views of Madrid, there is nothing that El Mechri brought to this film worth seeing.

As an overall experience, this is a really bad film. The stars appeared to have taken this for a paycheck and/or a nice trip to Spain. With the talent involved, this should have been better, but from the acting to writing and to directing, this was a total losing effort. And everyone was on the same page with making this a bad film.

And what was the point of Colm Meaney?

2.5/10

From The Vault: Ghostbusters

A new review thread that I have decided to create is called From The Vault. This will consist of a review for a movie that has been out for some time and I am now revisiting the film in the form of a review. For my first dip into my vault, I have to go with my favorite film of all time: Ghostbusters.

Released in the Summer of 1984, Ghostbusters stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis as scientists who find themselves down on their luck. Out of desperation after being denied further teachings and moved off campus, the three men decide to take a chance on a ghost busting business.

After initially struggling to find enough of a business to continue their venture, they then become overwhelmed with ghost busting that they have to hire another ghostbuster, Winston, (Ernie Hudson) while also employing their receptionist Janine Melnitz, (Annie Potts) full time as well.

During their spike in business, Dr. Peter Venkman (Murray) finds love with a client, Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver). Dana, when not having to avoid the advances of her neighbor, Louis Tully, (Rick Moranis) swears that she saw a devil dog in her refrigerator which called out the name Zuul. During this time, Dr. Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler and Winston Zeddemore (Aykroyd, Ramis and Hudson) determine that Zuul is a demigod that serves for Gozer.

With all this information, the Ghostbusters must save Dana, Louis and New York City from the destruction brought forth by Gozer the Destructor.

Ghostbusters is one of those rare films where you have a high-concept idea and everyone involved is at the top of their game. Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis wrote a great screenplay that mixes over the top science with broad humor and brought those into a grounded reality where this situation feels like it could happen. The screenplay provides loads of technical mumbo jumbo, usually spoken in the film by Aykroyd and Ramis, that seems to make no sense, yet can be believable.

Regarding the top of their game, all the actors in this film were cast perfect. Everyone from Bill Murray as the smart-ass Dr. Venkman to William Atherton as the antagonistic EPA Agent Walter Peck. All the actors were brought together with the right material at the right time to create a rare film where everything clicks and works perfectly.

There is not enough high praise that I can heap onto this film. You have a bunch of great comedic talent in front and behind the camera. A smart and funny script is combined with great sets and (dated, but adds to the charm) special effects.

There is a sequel that was created 5 years later, Ghostbusters 2. Though I enjoy the film, you can tell all the returning parties tried too hard to recapture the magic of the first film. Ghostbusters 2 certainly isn't awful, but when compared to the brilliance of the first film, it is dwarfed in all ways possible. And because of how Ghostbusters 2 turned out, I truly dread if Ghostbusters 3 ever gets released.

One is all you need.