Snow White & The Huntsman

Snow White and the Huntsman is infused with fairytale spirit and
charming characters, but faltering editing toward the end and a lack
of tight focus keeps it from being as powerful as it could be.

-Major Spoilers-

I wasn't sure what to expect when I went to see Snow White and the
Huntsman. Although the twist in the title was intriguing, I have been
suffering from the glut of fairytale movies on the market. The Shrek
series, Hoodwinked, Tangled, etc. It just seemed like one more movie
we didn't need.

I was very pleasantly surprised, however. The script would have done
Walt Disney proud; it steered away from slapstick or crude humor,
instead going to the heart in each character and telling the story
visually, without a burden of expository dialogue. When the Huntsman
helps Snow White across the rocks in the stream, her childhood friend
Will following behind a few paces, you can tell from Will is worrying,
"Has another man taken my place while I was absent? Have I lost her
heart?" Simply from how he trails behind and watches her holding the
huntsman's hand.

As far as story goes, it follows the Disney version of the fairy tale
roughly, but fleshes it out. We see a more 3-dimensional relationship
than in the cartoon, as Snow White knows the "prince" from her youth
and has fond memories of him, as opposed to meeting him once and then
dreaming of him for the rest of her life until she can elope. This
doesn't rob things from the dwarves, as they are three-dimensional
characters as well.

I was overjoyed that the dwarves were great characters, and not
plagued by making jokes at their expense about their physical stature.
I was, however, horrified to learn that real dwarves had not been
cast--instead, normal-sized people were digitally changed. This is
not right, in my opinion, taking work away from shorter people already
at a disadvantage. I was very disappointed in that.

As one of the people watching the movie with me said, "Don't take your
kids to this movie!" It just does not pull punches when it comes to
fear and fighting. The battle scenes in the beginning and end bookend
the story with dark violence, medieval-style fighting of arrows,
swords, including horses getting felled.

This is balanced out with
the more "fairy tale" side, when I saw the fairy land I was amazed.
So beautiful, with animals and fairies and plants, it felt and seemed
so mystical and thriving in life.

But there were deeper and as intriguing elements to the story, not
just the visuals, the action of the characters. Rather than focusing
on the Queen's obsession with being the most beautiful, the film spun
it out into her fear of aging. This is a very powerful fear for a lot
of women, their feeling that beauty is equal to power, and this seemed
to be a parable for that in a way. She could use magic, but it made
her age and she was in terrible situations where she had to choose
between healing or helping her brother, or keeping herself beautiful
and young.

Turns out when she was little, the Queen's mother put a spell on her
that she would live forever, but one who was beautiful in spirit
would undo the curse, and that person was Snow White. The Queen must
have known this as she wed Snow White's widower father; she looked
down at the then-small girl and said she was a "kind child," to be
accepting to a woman taking her mother's place. As she goes to the
wedding procession, you can see the fear and knowledge begin to bloom
on the woman s she know Snow White is her born enemy.

However, this theme was not handled as well as it could have been.
For instance, in the movie supposedly Snow White is the bringer of
life, as well as the Queen is the bringer of death. One of the
dwarves says, "Can't you feel healthier now that she is here?" But,
then why did one of the dwarves remain blind, and one of the other
dwarves die by an arrow? This seemed like a big plot hole, and it's
not like Snow White pulled a Neo and came into "full knowledge" of her
power at the end. They have the camera linger on her for an awkwardly
long time in the last few minutes, as she is crowned queen. It would
have been more interesting and less awkward if she drew on her powers
to make flowering vines climb up the castle walls.

Just a thought.

Another thought: Kristen Stewart is playing Snow White, and there are
two male co-stars, the huntsman and her childhood pal. Uh-oh, I was
thinking it would be a Bella, Jacob and Edward repeat, with the boys fighting for the girl.  I got over that fear, however, as it seemed that since they had been separated for years, Will and Snow would just be good friends with happy memories.  And, the Huntsman only agreed to hunt Snow because he was promised his dead wife back.  His whole character arc revolved around his beloved wife, and I felt "safe" from a romance...it really seemed that he was too old for her and was just her guardian.  He learned from her, and she from him.

What do I mean about this "learning"?  Well, Snow is against killing.  She is prophesied to be the embodiment of life itself, the polar opposite of the life-sucking queen who literally steals peoples' life to make herself younger.  Snow refused to fight, but the Huntsman showed her how to fight.  He taught her to look straight into your enemies' eyes and kill them when you had no choice.  IN tern, Snow taught him that there can be magic in connecting with other living beings.  When a monster knocked the Huntsman unconscious and threatened to kill him, Snow walked to him calmly and stood without fear, using her powers to calm the beast and make him simply walk away.  Snow and the Huntsman learned from each other's philosophies, and when the time came and Snow was in a mortal battle with the queen, she used the exact fighting technique, looked the queen straight in the eyes and killed her. 

I was disappointed at that scene, though, since it could have been so much more impactful of Snow had sat by the dying queen and held her hand, and said something like, "I'm sorry I had to kill you."  Instead, she just says blandly, "You can't have my heart," and walks away.  This was one of the ultimate plot points, good vs. evil, life vs. death, Snow's facing down her revulsion of killing, and...she just walks away?  It's like the moment trails off into a whimpering ending and transition to the next scene.

Another disappointment: the refreshing downplay of the romance plot turned soggy and confusing when she seemed to take both men as her beloved.  She kissed Will (albeit it was the queen disguised as Will) and the Huntsman told her, "You look fetching in that armor," after his kissed her on the lips as she lay "dead."  That made me feel a bit sick, the lip-kiss.  It felt very wrong.  He was older, had a wife...the who9le movie had set up their relationship as platonic, even daughter-father as he'd taken the knife originally saying, "Give that to me before you cut your fingers."  It felt forced and left Will dangling--like the writers had no idea what they wanted to do with romance now.

At the end, too, the Huntsman just looks at her being crowned, with a hopeful-moved-anxious expression.  Is he going to tell her he kissed her?  Does that kiss mean he's "Destined" to be her lover?  What about Will, is he jealous?  Is Snow going to go back to her pacifist ways?  Does she forgive the queen of has she now been corrupted, her sweet spirit turned to bitterness?

Too many unanswered questions and not enough focus on the main themes.  A frustration and disappointment at the end.  2.5/5 stars

2. BATTLESHIP.  SPOILERS!!!

I was going to be too lazy to review Battleship, but after I saw that it did supposedly poorly at the box office and that Robert Brians, the chairman of Comcast, said he made a misjudgment and seemed to be regretting the movie, I wanted to write about it.

Because I really, really enjoyed it.

Right off the bat I want to say one of the main reasons I enjoyed it: it was able to bring in expected and sensible aspects of a Naval movie, without being cliché.  The movie opens with the main character shown as a “wild child,” or, more like wild teen.  He’s lazing on his brother’s sofa, mooching and drinking, chasing skirts and wearing his hair like a mop.  His brother forces him to join the Navy, like him, to get structure.

But here’s how I find it different than a cliché “send the wild man to get discipline in the military,” it’s because it’s the brother, who’s obviously very close to him and uses it as a last resort.  At first he spoils him, letting him crash at his place and only giving him gentle hints to get out of the nest.  As they toast to his birthday, the brother lightly hopes for a future with a job for his brother, which the brother brushes off.

So it’s just as much about the brother changing and getting stricter, as it is about the main character getting his wake up call to life.

Hopper may have a crew cut but his spirit is still rogue, and the film shows this in scrappy fights in the ship and tardiness.  As a viewer, though, I didn’t say, “meh.  Navy’s not for him, he’ll get kicked out, who cares.”  I was invested because Hopper did have something at stake—his admiral’s daughter, who he was ready to take as his bride.

So there is intrinsic tension and interest in this plot now—he is fighting between changing as a person, or losing his girlfriend. 

Hopper’s not the only one on the ship, of course—there’s his brother, who is pushing him to mature.  Then there’s the admiral, played by Liam Neeson.  Another hot name is Rhianna, who played a sailor.  She has some annoying “on and off” banter with a curly-haired sailor, that interaction feels forced and dumb to me, I will freely confess.  Also a geeky scientist plays devil’s advocate for the idea of “contacting aliens,” he thinks it’s a dumb and dangerous idea, using a pointed metaphor: “It’s like Columbus finding the natives, only this time we’re the colonies and we’re going to get wiped out.”

The girlfriend isn’t just a cardboard cutout, either—she plays a major role, and anchors the viewer in the plot points that take place on land, while Hopper is at sea in the battle.  His girl works in physical therapy, which is a second time that the movie avoids clichés while bringing up interesting aspects of the military.

I was so refreshed that this action movie didn’t sidestep the reality that war brings, as it showed injured and disabled soldiers in their therapy.  One solider who has an artificial leg becomes a minor character in the cast.  While there is a mini arc with him working with the therapist to get his spirit and hope back, this arc blends with him helping the girlfriend and the geeky scientist to disable some important technology that will impair the aliens.

As a total sidenote, I was amazed at how much the geek looked like a young George Lucas.  Did he play as George in “Lucas in Love”?

Well, anyway.  To get right down to it, putting aside the supporting cast, the point of the movie is the “coming of age” of Hopper.  He is getting his testing by fire, but more like by metal when the strange robotic aliens land in water and shoot out a dome barrier, locking in the battleships so they can pick them off like flies.

Hopper’s brother is killed in a dramatic scene of flames that really had me sitting up.  I knew this was definitely not a “happy” Disney movie where everything is okay.  I kept hoping the brother would somehow be alive, but the writers didn’t cheat death.  Hopper is left in charge, which I felt wasn’t realistic.  I doubt such a rookie would be slotted second in command, so this point felt a little bit forced.

Still, what was completely natural and wonderful was the mentor Hopper had.  Since the Naval Exercise had been an international one, during a conference of many countries, there was a Japanese Naval officer who was middle-aged, very seasoned and wise.  He took over and Hopper looked up to him in tense but realistic scenes as the frantic sailors had to decide who they were going to trust and listen to.  Eventually they offered the officer the seat and symbolized they were respecting him.

I felt let down though, that the writers felt they had to make Hopper “tops” and pass up his mentor.  I completely agree with the saying, “He is a poor teacher who is not surpassed by his pupil,” but not this fast!  It was like 2 days and then Hopper took control.  When they had to abandon ship, the mentor was dripping wet and sagging in the lifeboat saying, “What do you want us to do, Hopper?  We have no boat.”  That felt unfair and forced.  It was against his character to give in like that, and was obviously written just so Hopper could really steal the spotlight.

Still, what followed next was one of the best scenes in the movie: they went to a battleship that was being used as a museum, and they recruited all the retired sailors who had fought in WWII, to help them outfit the ship and take her to the water.  It was so moving to see these old men, and see them come to life again as their skills were needed—I just felt a strong respect in the movie for the older generation who have many skills and hard-won knowledge.

Again, Hopper seems to know too much and pull things off too easily for a rookie sailor.  It really bothered me, as you can tell, because one of the main plots of the movie was his character arc, and I feel the writers crippled it a little by making him rocket to ease and glory. 

Still, not all hope was lost.  There is a great moment near the end where Hopper quotes a saying from an ancient Chinese war text triumphantly, thinking he’s used it to win a strike.  “But that’s not what it means,” the mentor says, completely straight delivery.  “It’s not?” A baffled Hopper asks.  “Not even close.”  Hopper isn’t quite as cool as he thinks he’s become.

The admiral and his fleet don’t play as large a part as I’d like; felt like I forgot about them as they merely floated and bobbed in the water, waiting for the shield to come down a la Lando Calrissian in Return of the Jedi.  Still he was a strong character and a good addition to the film, and the scene with him and Hopper at the closing of the movie, as Hopper asks for the girlfriend’s hand in marriage, is satisfyingly serious-comic, though the dialogue is a trifle corny for me.  This scene comes after a grave scene honoring Hopper’s fallen brother, and I felt the film did an admirable job balancing out the mood of the intense story.

I really do feel that there were themes in this movie such as finding purpose in life and becoming a leader.  I’m a big fan of movies that have leadership themes, since leadership is such a complex and demanding role.  Another movie that showed that theme was “Battle L.A.,” maybe I’ll review that one sometime too.

Although some of the scenes were forced and played too earnestly for laughs, much of the film had a “street photography” feel—like these things were just happening, and a camera happened to catch it.  Rather than using expository dialogue, the film had creative and informative camera cuts.  For instance it’s never said in the movie, “the aliens only sense metal, not humans.”  But we know it as we see from the alien’s point of view, and see that only metal or machines light up red, everything else is green and ignored, even when they are right next to the human.

Overall a great film, 3.5/5 stars.

Big Change

So I've decided to switch the focus of this blog from art, to...movie and book reviews.  Yup, big change.  I love reading books and watching movies, and I'm very analytical and what I take in, so I thought I would share my opinions.

Most of the reviews will be filled with spoilers, and meant to be read after you've watched/read and formed your ideas already--not as reviews that you use to decide whether you want to pick up the book or DVD.

FIRST REVIEW-- the Animanted, adult-audience movie (R) Felidae, featuring sentient, talking pet cats.  If the combination of adult and animation is odd for you, just think of, for instance, Animal Farm.  Cartoons tend to be of a childish medium, but they can deliver the grit when they want to.  Roger Rabbit is another good example.

1. Felidae, 1994 film, made in Germany.  Based on the novel of the same name.

-This review discusses subjects that might bother people, including sex and aspects of sex. -

I’m not sure why I took such a long time to get around to watching this movie.  I think the warnings of violence and sex were off-putting, but I’m a big girl now.

A brief note about the language—I watched the English dub, so I don’t know if it’s fair to rate the voice actors.  But for English voice actors, I found Francis’s voice interested.  It sounded geeky and scholarly, well mannered and intelligent, yet with a raw edge of boyish, youthful impetuousness.  Bluebeard was good as well, rough and rough yet with a brain in his skull, and Felicity was especially enchanting.  Kong was a little bit silly, but he was animated silly too, with those thin circles around his pupils denoting “crazy,” so maybe that’s fair.  My brother watched the movie with the original German voices, and he said from what he could tell the English dub was pretty decent in matching the characters.

So now to the story, the plot of Francis as detective in the string of murders.  Francis’ role as detective is a little startling, as he seems to have an impressive vocabulary such as “stiffs,” and he just jumps into the role, with quips such as, “We’ll need more information if we’re going to crack this case.”  This is still believable because his owner, Gus, is a pulp writer.  Still it would be more convincing if he had specified that Gus wrote mystery pulps.  I also wish there had been a bit of explanation of how Gus transitioned from an Egyptologist to a pulp writer.

As Francis explores his new neighborhood and neighbors with his somewhat friend Bluebeard, the audience is introduced to a satisfying assortment of neighbors/suspects.  The neighborhood “scumbags,” which are clearly only comic relief, and Felicity is a charming and sympathetic creature.  It is genuinely shocking when she is killed and beheaded.  The characters become more ambiguous when we meet a cat cult who experiments with electrocution, and when Francis finds a tape recording of a mad scientist’s video diary.  It is the most chilling moment of the film for me, as he grows progressively drunker, wilder and crueler, and the graphic scenes of splitting skulls and seeing brains squirt out was sobering.

At the end of the recording, when Francis has had enough, he paws the machine off.  This is but one example of cats showing high intelligence; in other scenes it’s shown that cats can read, speak to humans if they choose, and even learn to work computers.  This was unsettling for me, because there was no “Secret of NIMH” moment or back-story showing how the cats gained their intelligence.  I had to conclude for myself that in this movie, it is assumed that cats are smarter than they care to show, and the viewer must assume and accept this to understand the story.

As any superb mystery will, the movie pulls off the act of having the murderer being the one character you would least suspect: Pascal, the aging and cancer-stricken scholar who has taken Francis under his paw to guide him in learning about Felidae.  The way the twist works so well is that Pascal shares his schemes with Francis…but only to a point.  For instance, Pascal is compiling a computer database of cat breeds in the neighborhood, so he can kill any cat who refuses to participate in “breeding back” to their roots of a wild cat.  He shows his computer database to Francis, but only the part where he is cataloging the neighborhood cats.  He says he is doing that to “try to find the murderer,” and he plays dumb at how the program could be used further.

As Francs begins to dialogue with him about how the grogram could be used further, Pascal appears to be expounding and adding to the database, but he is actually just revealing more and more of what he’s already learned, and pretending he doesn’t know the full context of the information.  So, for instance, when Francis suggests that they calculate what the breeds have been of all the slain cats, Pascal does so, and remarks casually, “well, none of them came from high breeding,” even though Pascal already knew this, since he probably marked them to be killed because of their low race.

The movie uses great cinema tricks for showing their budding relationship, such as one shot where Pascal is sitting on a chair and Francis is on the floor before him, a devoted student.  Ultimately when they fight their final battle, their shadows are thrown upon the giant portrait of Gregor Mendel, whose knowledge of genetics played a large role in the movie.

I am doubtful that Pascal “gave” nightmares to Francis to lead him closer to the answers.  This is a fairly science-based story, so where this mind control came from is unexplained and weird and, frankly, not believable. 

What's believable to me is how the cats’ natural behaviors are incorporated into the story.  They speak frankly of sex, without embarrassment or any kind of coyness.  This may partially come from the European origin of the film.  Bluebeard spray-marks houses several times, and there is an overt sex scene between Francis and an exotic Egyptian cat; the felines candidly discuss erectile disorder, castration, sexual excitement and “sex gone too far.”  The one problem this presented to me is that if felines have such a superb sense of smell, why couldn’t Francis recognize Pascal’s scent at the crime scenes?

It’s possible it has something to do with the medical experiments he suffered, for Pascal was the mad scientist’s “mascot” and had some special physical characteristic that allowed the tissue-bonding glue to work on his skin, while burning other cats like acid.

I do wish that the cat cult had been more fleshed out.  It’s unclear how Francis divined that they worshipped the legendary Claudicas, who had been tortured to death, and though Joker’s granddaughter knew Claudicas/Pascal was still alive, I wonder why this was not more well-known and celebrated, instead of being a small fact that chanced to be discovered.  Overall, the cult was more of a distraction and red herring, when it really could have been more integrated.  I also wonder why Pascal chose to follow the footsteps of his torturer.  It really seems like the opposite should have happened.  A cat, tortured by a mad scientist, decides to go all eugenics on his cat brothers?  Where does that come from?  A brain-washing flashback would have been nice.

The ending is abrupt, with a few threads left unwound.  How much of a part did the “fashion designer” cats play, and was Pascal telling the truth or goading Francis when he said they came from natural selection, not human breeding programs?  Was Pascal alone in killing the hundreds of cats in the neighborhood, and how could so many cats have been killed without the human authorities being alerted?  What happened to the mad scientist’s body after Pascal killed him?  Why wasn’t his laboratory cleared out by the police, his videotape collected as evidence?  Did some of those hundreds of cat bodies come from the scientist, not Pascal?

Though I am disappointed not to get all the answers, I think the film is somewhat deliberate in holding back.  This is best shown in the one and only scene Francis and Felicity share.  Felicity intrigues and delights, saying, “I’m not blind…I just can’t see.”  She says she has been blind from birth, yet has pictures in her mind of humans surrounded her, showing something glittering..and then pain.  Francis divines that she has been tormented by humans who stole her sight, but Felicity says that’s impossible because humans are so kind.  Five minutes later she is dead, and her past is never unraveled.  Felidae is like life: you are not meant to know all the answers.  Be content with what you know, and use it as you see fit.

Overall it was a satisfying story, with nod-worthy animation—the dramatically colored backgrounds were especially lush, and I paused once to note the thin slice of a red highlight on a lamp post.  Great stuff.  I liked most of the character models, although I found Kong’s body too bulky, over the top caricature where he looked more like a bulldog or a small child on all fours.  Felicty’s eyes were pale green with tiny pupils, perfectly suggesting her blindness.  Some of the cats, such as the Guardian of the Dead, had long mustache-like pendulums of fur which was distracting and overly-humanized, and all of the cat’s muzzles seemed ever so slightly elongated, but that was probably done for speech animation ease.

As a final note the credit song by Boy George is surprisingly basic in lyrics but charming in sound.  I give this movie 3/5 stars.

DVD can be found on amazon here, along with other viewer's reviews.  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/181-6309914-8596134?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=felidae