Someone or something, be it the Founding Fathers or merely our lucky stars, deserves thanks for dissent and the freedom we have to express it. In particular Ben Stein should be thanked for making Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I say this as a very firm Evolutionist who is not at all impressed with the arguments coming from ID proponents. I say this because however much I have accepted Evolution, I am a thousand times more a libertarian who believes that no solid theory need worry about dissent, and no uncertain theory should be free of it.

As a piece of entertainment, Ben Stein’s documentary can be quickly summed up: it is engrossing, uses music effectively to underscore a mood, proceeds logically from point to point and from interview to interview, discovers new avenues and takes us in interesting and unexpected directions while never straying far from nor losing focus of the main point, provokes our passions, heightens our sustained interest with a suitable third act showdown and is generally well done. Its principle defect is that it leans on the audience a bit heavily at times when it makes its points, but it is never what I would call ham-handed. Though documentaries always seem to garner more approbation from critics, and one must therefore conclude that they are easier to make well, this should not detract from the fine work that Ben Stein has labored to produce, no matter the relative advantages which the format afforded him.

There are a number of very memorable and very effective moments dispersed throughout the project. The startled stuttering and nervous backtracking of an astronomer who, having in the taped interview professed conciliatory admiration for an embattled colleague who dared to say he saw design in the universe, is presented with his own email in which he calls the man an idiot, gives one the sense of satisfaction that a modicum of retribution can bring. The chill of subterranean gas chambers where genetic undesirables were put to death in Nazi Germany haunts one with a terrible solemnity. Perhaps best of all is when Ben Stein, directly following the visit to the gas chambers, goes to the Darwin Museum and contemplates the statue of Charles Darwin in a moment whose tranquil profundity and soft contemplation, though admittedly inferior and employed towards a very different end, is reminiscent of the sublime scene from Orson Welles’ F for Fake.

But to analyze the movie as nothing but an entertaining piece is to miss its most important aspects as social commentary and admonition. Through interviews Mr. Stein details how a number of scientists and journalists have been blacklisted by the Darwinian Establishment for crimes as minor as mentioning Intelligent Design in a class, or writing an article about the debate and remaining neutral. This sort of thing makes me nervous, seeing it coming from my own camp. I have long held that, without investigating the details of a debate, one can pick out who is right and who is wrong with a fair amount of confidence merely by seeing who is debating and who is hurling libel. I myself do not feel any real pressure from the Intelligent Design crowd because their arguments, such as I have read, are unconvincing. But when I see professors and scientists in the establishment, men and women who know far more about Evolution than I do, responding as if provoked by secret fears, it makes me wonder if I should be less confident in Evolution’s explanatory power. I have yet to see a solid line of reasoning leading to Intelligent Design, at least not after a counter argument revealed its blemishes, but such dogmatic and retributive behavior from Evolutionists is curious given that no one bothers to expend such energy on fighting Flat-Earthers. While it is true that no respectable university or publication would tolerate a Flat-Earther, it must be conceded that Evolution has not yet been filled in enough to extend all the way to life’s origins, and while this gap persists we should be less doctrinaire in our treatment of competing ideas.

A word of warning must go along with this, because together an editor and narrator wield a power that can distort truth rather than elucidate it, and it could very well turn out that the stories of the blacklisted ID proponents have a lot more to them than what was presented. Indeed, there were certain interviews whose brevity and clipped editing are suggestive of just such power at work. Penn and Teller, in their show Bullshit, are often at some pains to establish that they are not using the editor to give their arguments more weight than they deserve, and they go so far as, for example, to present an entire interview without any editing in order to show that nothing of importance has been omitted. Whatever time constraints Ben Stein was under, some of the interviews, as they are presented, strike one as small bits plucked from a greater context, a context which, if revealed, could well alter our perception.

Whether or not the blacklisting of the people in question is fairly represented in the film, it is certain that Evolution is not. Furthermore, assertions are made that Evolutionists, after their third or fourth beer, will admit in private that Evolution has some problems that could well be insurmountable, but this is most likely nonsense. It is one thing for an evolutionary biologist to kvetch about a conundrum that he has yet to figure out, it is quite another for him to admit that his theory is in real trouble. The difference between the two, however, is easily spanned by a third party portrayal with an agenda.

But just as it is wrong and unhelpful to misrepresent Evolution, so too is it wrong for Evolutionists to misrepresent ID and its proponents. All too often ID proponents are cast as Creationists in disguise, trying to slip religion into schools through the back door. While there is no doubt in my mind that this is often the case, even usually the case, to so broadly cast such an aspersion is to engage in just the sort of tactic that a confident debater should eschew, the libel hurling mentioned above that makes me so nervous. My eyes are sensitive enough to different shades of gray to be able to distinguish a religious zealot in disguise from a genuinely curious individual with no agenda other than to understand and who has yet to be sold on Evolution. I have yet to hear a potential observation that could falsify Intelligent Design, and lacking this potential, ID is, by definition, unscientific and therefore does not belong in a science class. But this does not mean it is not true, merely that it is not science. Just as a theory is accepted with more and more confidence in proportion as it withstands attempts to falsify it, other ideas become more attractive in proportion as a theory continues to fail to explain certain phenomena. While I am quite satisfied with how Evolution has advanced, I recognize that each individual must decide for himself where his limits are. I think it entirely too premature to turn from Evolution as the explanation for how simple elements come to form self replicating molecules which eventually lead to life, but if someone else is unimpressed with the idea I am not going to automatically accuse them of religious zealotry.

It would also be a mistake to accuse Mr. Stein of hysterics for his linkage of Darwinism and Nazism, a charge which, it is not hard to imagine, might be thrown at him. While he spends much time showing how Darwinian thought, perverted, guided the thinking of Nazis and eugenicists and similar vermin, he stops well short of claiming that Darwinian thought itself is responsible for such atrocities. Rather, it is the unthinking passion and unyielding dogmatism, which can corrupt any idea, that leads to such disasters. The close-minded intransigence which got a journalist fired for reviewing ID, or which denied tenure to a respected astronomer for mentioning that he saw design in the nature of the universe, is the embryonic form of a future atrocity. A doctor is lauded when he reacts with aggressive determination against the most incipient of cancers; let us not ridicule Ben Stein’s manner and purpose for doing the same thing.

Most of all, let us praise dissent and dissenters. As Thomas Jefferson said, whoever knew the Truth put to the worse in a free and open debate? Without people who are willing to engage orthodoxy and challenge its ideas, how are we to be sure what the Truth is? I do not recommend Intelligent Design as a likely explanation for Life’s beginning, but I do recommend Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed both for its entertainment value as well as its important lessons, which have little to do with science.

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Even an experienced and circumspect moviegoer cannot completely inoculate himself from heartbreak and letdown, for the artful editor, in selecting certain shots and moments that run no more than a couple minutes out of a movie that may last hours, has fashioned a deceptive trailer. In all but the most lopsided of football games, a losing team is yet able to cobble together intermittent moments of competence and even artistry. The losing team nearly always scores, and only rarely does the winning team never punt the ball, or at least fumble or suffer a sack. The difference is that the football fan of the losing team has not been shown these bright moments beforehand to the exclusion of everything else, whereas the wretched cinephile, no matter his cynicism, must yield at least a little to the enticements of a trailer. These repeated disappointments are exacerbated by the fact that when a movie disappoints, the entire theater suffers, whereas when a football team underachieves the other contingent of fans is happy. There is a guarantee of balance in football, but in cinema, when a movie is a disaster, only the director’s ex-wife rejoices.

Which brings us to Vantage Point. Advertisements for this particular flick have been around for a very long time by the standards of the industry. We have seen a solid cast assembled and the premise is alluring. The shots we have glimpsed were competently taken. No big name director was at the helm but the project, having passed through the filter of a trailer, had come out looking as if it had originated from a good movie. It is your humble blogger’s duty, as critic, to slice away the mendacity of advertising and expose what could not pass through the filter.

Set in the current political climate but linked to no specific year or administration, the story takes place in Salamanca, Spain, on the occasion of a visit by the president of the United States. As Secret Servicemen take the scene and news crews record it, the president arrives at the Plaza Mayor to give a speech, but an assassination attempt followed by bomb explosions derail the proceedings. From the vantage point of several different characters, we view and review the event nearly to the limits of human endurance.

If a single flaw in the movie were to be cited which no amount of excellence in other aspects of filmmaking could overcome, it would be the very structure of the story. No fewer than seven times that I can recall, a storyline progressed to the threshold of the climax only to freeze, rewind, and finally start again at the beginning from a different vantage point. This very soon grows tedious and quickly passes from tediousness to a point where the viewer simply stares in tumescent disbelief that the filmmakers are going to make us sit through the same scene yet again.

Sadly, the structure of the film is not its only impediment to pleasure. It suffers from such an earnest proclivity for the dramatic that it sweeps aside realism in its pursuit, crossing characters with improbable coincidence, or giving them absurd behavior in order to place them in more precarious circumstances. Sometimes realism is eschewed for no better excuse than what I take to be rank laziness, and sometimes for no discernible reason at all. The procedures and protocols of the Secret Service, for instance, do not strike one as thoroughly fleshed out and genuine. In the Line of Fire, whether or not it was well researched, at least convinced one ignorant of such matters that it had been. Vantage Point does no such convincing. The crowd in the Plaza Mayor is full of faces that seem suspiciously New World, lacking the classic Castilian features, and the bits of Spanish that are tossed about often have a decidedly Latin American accent, excepting, of course, actor Eduardo Noriega. One character is magically teleported to a distant part of the city so that a scene of poignant reuniting may take place. The worst of it is to be witnessed in the president’s hotel suite, where the commander in chief and his advisers carry on in such a juvenile manner that one marvels at the puerility of the mind that conceived it.

When the seemingly interminable rewinds and replays are finally finished, ninety percent of the climactic scene is taken up by a car chase. It is the same car chase that the good reader saw last week, which was the same car chase he saw the week before and the week before that. But for the quicker cuts and more mobile camera it was the same car chase he saw in 1985. I have reached a point where, no matter its incongruity with the established character of the villain, rather than lead the hero on another dull, high velocity/multiple impact car chase, if no fresh and interesting perspective on vehicular pursuit can be found, I would prefer that he simply hand over the keys, turn himself in and end the movie a few minutes sooner. If the hero is the one being pursued, then he should allow himself to be shot and his offspring can catch the villain in the sequel.

One last flaw I will expound and then leave off, with the understanding that the enumeration of certain defects in the movie shall not be construed as denying or disparaging other defects contained in it. This last shortcoming is the entire terrorist enterprise, which is so grand in scale, so intricate in execution and so dependent upon a variety of players from a myriad of backgrounds that a credible explanation for how such an endeavor could be undertaken is quite simply an obligation on the part of the storytellers. There is nothing wrong with a fantastic conspiracy, even if it breaks through the bounds of what could reasonably occur in real life, so long as the filmmakers demonstrate how it might plausibly be put together. Such a demonstration would not only alleviate incredulity but could prove quite interesting in and of itself. Failing that, leave it in mystery. Don’t show us who carried it out, or at least not all of them. Don’t fill in all the details; leave the audience with the chill of unfulfilled suspicion. Make the investigation only a partial victory or, better yet, no victory at all. I merely offer some suggestions for when the movie is remade in 2032.

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Set in Spain, the movie is about a couple and their adopted son who move back to the orphanage where the heroine spent much of her youth. Laura (Belén Rueda) and her spouse Carlos (Fernando Cayo) have plans to take in a few orphans at some point in the future, but a horror movie’s plot will not permit such idyllic dreams without protest. First, Laura’s son begins talking to invisible friends and insists they are real. Next, like clockwork, strange occurrences beset the family, occurrences which become increasingly harder to explain through rational means. The heroine eventually, of course, becomes convinced that there is a supernatural explanation and her spouse, of course, stubbornly refuses to countenance such nonsense. She throws herself into an investigation and he begins to withdraw from the affair.

There is never any question in the moviegoer’s mind that supernatural events are indeed transpiring. This does not give anything away that is not felt almost immediately and confirmed soon thereafter. Rare is the ghost story which wraps up with a perfectly natural explanation, or at least leaves us with an ambiguous ending, but it seems to me that The Orphanage could have left us with a bit of doubt through Act I at least. Instead, there are obvious clues which leave no room for a natural cause. Perhaps I have simply seen too many of this sort of movie, but the moments that are supposed to give us goose bumps feel expected and habitual. Naturally she will see footprints where none should be found; of course objects will be moved when none but one of the invisible friends could have done it. I haven’t read the manual of horror writing, but I have seen enough of its products to be able to turn out a close approximation.

Though The Orphanage does not revolutionize the genre, it does manage to achieve some authentic thrills. There is a séance – there must be a séance! – but at least the ceremony is reasonably unique and the filmmakers are judicious in what they show us and what they leave to our imagination. And the moment when the heroine makes contact with some of the spirits through a children’s game is effective enough to chill even when we know exactly what is going to happen.

The actors perform well as forgettable characters in undistinguished roles. But for a bit of back story, the heroine is interchangeable with characters from the majority of other horror movies (truly exceptional roles have always been less abundant than actors capable of filling them). The other characters are flat and cliché: for instance the man who introduces the heroine to the medium Balaban (Edgar Vivar) and the medium herself speak with foreign accents. Apparently, in Spain, like America, arcane knowledge of another world must come from another country. With what accent do vampires speak in Romania?

The movie is too formulaic to be truly great, but it is competently filmed and well acted. Even some of the scares you see coming from a mile off manage to have an effect. It doesn’t make you love the characters or grab you and hold you in its world, but it is modestly entertaining. If you like the genre I would recommend it as worth seeing.

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Centuries ago, as the story tells it, a Danish king was beset by a demon named Grendel who ravaged his kingdom. He offered half his gold to the warrior who could kill the demon, and the proud and boastful Beowulf shows up to do exactly that. He successfully kills Grendel, only to be confronted with a more powerful demon: Grendel’s mother. He returns to the hall of the Danish king Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins), claiming to have ended their problems. Hrothgar names Beowulf his heir and Beowulf assumes the throne upon his death. But years later, when Beowulf is well past his prime, a secret from his past comes back to haunt him.

Though the technology of CGI is continually improving, I must confess I do not understand the fascination with it. In my opinion, cartoons are for South Park or Family Guy. The closer and closer a cartoon or CGI comes to looking real, the more irritating are the differences. CGI still does not faithfully represent real life: the characters still look a little funny, and their movements do not ring true. This problem may very well be completely solved in the near future, as Steven Spielberg predicts, but then we are left wondering what the point is. Why spend so much time making a CGI movie look as real as possible when you can just film a real movie? I certainly understand using CGI to make a dragon look real in an otherwise live action movie, but why make CGI humans when there are six and a half billion of the real things running about the planet?

Still, however awkward the characters look on screen, a movie, whether cartoon or live action, is still about story, character, acting, photography, sound, direction… all the standard elements. On this count, Beowulf is a surprisingly decent flick. Though at first it is filled with self-conscious shots that are there to highlight the fact that we are watching a 3D movie, Zemeckis eventually settles down and spins a fine tale.

One thing I very much appreciated about the movie was its subtlety. Though not an ultra-subtle piece on the order of Antonioni’s The Passenger, there were no uncomfortable and unrealistic lines of dialogue that were clearly included to make sure the audience was following along well. The finer points are understood through a look, or the inflection in Hopkins’ voice. We are shown things instead of told things.

Another strong point is that the characters eventually become interesting. Though Beowulf arrives on the scene as a boastful ubermensch singing the glory of battle and honor in death, he becomes more nuanced, as does the story itself. Zemeckis is responsible for what is perhaps the most underrated film of the decade in What Lies Beneath. With Beowulf he demonstrates that he has lost none of his edge and cunning as a director.

I sincerely wish this movie had been filmed as live action, but I’m not going to dwell on it. As they say (in the tradition of Ayn Rand): it is what it is. For the limitations of CGI, Zemeckis and crew have managed to fashion a satisfying tale with all sorts of solid elements: the story, the acting, the sound track, the sound effects… the list could go on. It’s not the best film of the year, but it was definitely better than most.

Grade: B

Release Date: November 16, 2007 Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sexual material and nudity. Running Time: 113 min. Cast: Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover Director: Robert Zemeckis Screenplay: Neil Gaiman, Roger Avary, Anonymous (epic poem) Studio: Paramount Pictures Official Website: Click Here

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It has been nearly a decade since the Coen brothers have done anything worth remembering. Most of their recent efforts have been silly little films that tried too hard to be cutesy, or artsy or both. The Man Who Wasn’t There was a serious piece, but it bogged down in an effort to be too abstrusely artistic and mystical; the rest of their recent offerings have bordered on ridiculous. But the trailers to No Country for Old Men suggested a return to greatness, to that tight editing and thrilling story telling that made a few of their earlier films some of the best ever made. The first three quarters of the film seemed to confirm that presentiment. The last quarter is the most unexpected and tragic conclusion I can recall.

No Country for Old Men, based on the book by Cormack McCarthy, is a simple tale. Lewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a hunter in Texas and a man of few words, comes across a large drug deal gone wrong. With none of the dealers left alive, he makes off with the money he finds. An expert assassin, Anton Chiguhr (Javier Bardem) who seems to represent the callousness of chance and fate, comes looking to kill him and get the loot back. That pretty much sums up the important parts… at least I think it does. The movie’s ending makes me think I might have missed something.

Perhaps that something is the character of Ed Tom Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Though Jones’ performance is nothing to complain about, I found his character to be superfluous. He opens the movie with a voice over, and then figures prominently in the ending that so misfires. In between it is difficult to see why he appears in the movie at all; ditto for Woody Harrelson’s Carson Wells whose absence wouldn’t hurt the movie in the slightest.

The movie works best when Lewellyn Moss and Anton Chiguhr are pitted one against the other. Everything else feels extraneous, even though all the characters are well portrayed (in particular I was impressed with Kelly Macdonald, whose role was also unimportant but extremely well portrayed). When the movie is about these two, it enraptures its audience. When it strays from this storyline, it loses momentum.

The Coen brothers waste little time in getting the action started, but they don’t rush things. In their careful, methodical way they draw you deeper and deeper into a story filled with paranoia and tense expectation as the footsteps of unseen figures creak in a hallway, as shadows and silhouettes reveal only enough to titillate the imagination. The best word to describe it all is “gripping”.

One is left in the merciless grip of the movie for just about the entire first three quarters. And then disaster strikes. Just when we can feel an exhilarating climax drawing near, we get blindsided by the most unfathomable development and the movie proceeds in the most unexpected and unsatisfying direction imaginable. It feels like the ending to another movie, which just happens to have some of the same characters, has been nailed onto the body of No Country. One first experiences a great shock, and then a worry that the directors are going to let all the movie’s momentum fade away, and then a dawning fear that there will be no attempt to reclaim that momentum, that the credits are just going to start to roll. And indeed they do roll, suddenly, at a point that feels arbitrarily chosen, as if the movie had reached some predetermined time limit and it must languish unfinished for eternity.

Though I never saw it coming, a bit of sober reflection leads me to believe that the nature of the ending is tied to the nature of Bardem’s character. Perhaps it is a commentary on chance and fate. Why this commentary must be made at the expense of the movie’s entertainment value I cannot figure. If the Coen brothers wish to explore the theme of random chance, and if they feel they cannot do this while following the pillars of storytelling, then I suggest they write an essay on the subject. When they feel like they want to tell a fine story and not disappoint they may pick up the camera again.

The spectacular failure that such a promising movie became leads me to wonder if cinema itself is dying. Artists prefer to seek their own unique vision, to be trailblazers. But how much room is left on which to blaze new trails? Music went through its own crisis from which it never recovered. Composers like Bach established it as a great art form; men like Mozart and then Beethoven took it to new heights; Mahler and others like him started to chafe under restrictions and began to explore some radical territory; and finally men like Schoenberg killed music, having apparently been left with so little room to innovate that with his twelve-tone music he ripped apart everything that music was about rather than continue to make pale imitations of what had already been done.

Does No Country point to similar problems? Of course the fun popcorn movies with ever improving special effects will continue to draw in great crowds, but what about the truly artistic films which are the foundation for the art form? It seems like the Coen brothers disdained to make a predictable ending such as has been done thousands of times. But could they not find a unique way to conclude that doesn’t ruin what they set up? Did Shyamalan mine the last of the surprise endings? Have we reached and passed Peak Cinema? Has it all been done before so many times that Schoenberg’s evil specter has come to haunt movies?

Or am I making way too much of this? It does seem that the last decade has been a poor one for movies, but maybe we are just in a slow spot while we wait for the next great idea that revitalizes the art. Perhaps No Country is nothing more than an exasperating movie that should have been better. Only time will tell, but in my mind one thing is certain: I have never been so frustrated with a movie as I was with No Country for Old Men. I hope I never am again.

Grade: A movie like this defies standard scores. Grade withheld.

Release Date: November 21, 2007 Rated: R for strong graphic violence and some language. Running Time: 122 min. Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Screenplay: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Cormac McCarthy (novel) Studio: Miramax Official Website: Click Here

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There are many characters who figure prominently in the story and it would be difficult to name one as the lead character. My nomination would go to Jake Gyllenhaal’s Douglas Freeman, whose difficult choice at the end of the movie makes him the most compelling character. Douglas is a new agent stationed somewhere in the Arab world. When a terrorist attack kills one of his partners, he must fill in his fallen comrade’s role. This includes the interrogation of an Egyptian born American resident who is suspected of complicity in various terrorist plots. The inhumanity of the interrogation, coupled with Douglas’ growing suspicion that the suspect, Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), is innocent begin to gnaw on Douglas’ conscious.

The story also involves Anwar’s wife Isabella, played by Reese Witherspoon, as she desperately searches for her missing husband. Anwar is kidnapped by government officials upon landing in the US on a flight from South Africa. They attempt to erase all record of his being on the flight, but Isabella’s investigations reveal that he must have been on the flight. She turns to an old friend who works for a US senator, begging him to help her navigate the treacherous waters in which she finds herself.

And then there is the family of the chief investigator Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor), whose daughter Fatima (Zineb Oukach) he has decided shall marry a young man of his choosing, but she has already fallen in love with another. She runs away from home to be with her love, but perhaps the young man is not all that he seems.

It shall no doubt come as no surprise that the movie takes a stand against the practice of rendition. I find myself in agreement with the creators, but I am still relieved that, other than a comment here and there, the film does not get too preachy. It does not, however, flinch from showing what rendition is reputed to be. If the movie goer is familiar with the standard civil-libertarian arguments against rendition and torture, most of the plot will be predictable. Not in a boring way, but the first 90% of the movie holds few real surprises.

The end, however, is another matter. I must admit that I did not see it coming and even found myself momentarily confused before I was able to get oriented. The climax is inspired creativity and improves on an already solid effort.

The strongest aspect of the movie is the acting, and it’s a good thing, because the weakest aspect is the development of characters. There is little in the script, and perhaps even less in the direction, to flesh out the characters and make them endearing and memorable. The actors are asked to create characters, and fortunately they do a nice job. Led by, surprise surprise!, Meryl Streep’s exceptional performance as Senator Corrine Whitman, the movie will be a delight for those who admire a fine performance by a thespian.

As for the director, he does a very nice job of composing photographs. The locations were well chosen, the D.P. certainly knew what he was doing and many of the shots are interesting to see. Less impressive is how the director uses the camera and actors to make a unique vision, like Spielberg habitually does, but the overall effort is still solid. Between this and Michael Clayton, it looks like we’ve finally entered that time of year when a few directors might take a shot at equaling or even surpassing Zodiac. Rendition doesn’t achieve it, but it was a nice time at the theater, and a timely issue as well.

Grade: B

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The saga of Jason Bourne continues with The Bourne Ultimatum, the third installment of the trilogy based on a series of books. Any moderately successful flick is, in today’s movie world, an instant candidate for a sequel, and The Bourne Identity was just that: a moderately successful spy action/mystery vehicle helmed by David Liman and starring Matt Damon. But when the adventures continued, this time under the guidance of a different director, the outcome was less satisfying. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. The third movie of the series is able to improve on some of the weaker points of the second and, though it falls short of the original (a phrase I have typed so many times that my fingers make the necessary movements for it even when I sleep), it was certainly stronger than The Bourne Supremacy.

Jason Bourne, the highly trained super agent who cannot remember his past nor even his true name, reappears on the grid in Moscow. Injured, he is fleeing from the police and, after a brief fight, is able to sneak away again. But his brief emergence has the CIA back in Langley, Virginia nervous and once again the hunt is on. Bourne next appears in London to have a sneaky meeting with a journalist who has a secret source feeding him information that Bourne believes is connected to his own past.

After the sneaky meeting, and some more fighting, Bourne goes to Madrid where some more fighting and sneaking around commence after which some vital information is obtained. Thence to North Africa where we are treated to more of the same. Finally, the stage is set for Bourne’s last stop, a location at which he will do a great deal of fighting and sneaking around. It is sort of like the Grand Finale of a fireworks display: you know you are going to get more of the same (and indeed would be disappointed if you did not), just to a greater extent.

To a large degree, The Bourne Ultimatum reminds me of my childhood playing in the countryside with my friends. There was a lot of sneaking around, followed by fighting (generally pretend and amicable fighting), followed by more sneaking around and more fighting. It’s what boys do when the landscape around them gives them three options: corn fields, soybean fields and small woods. It also happens to be what super agents do when their former employer is trying to assassinate them. If I have made the movie seem repetitive, it’s because it is. There are precious few other ingredients besides the two which I have named too many times already to bear repeating. Like any work of art with such little diversity of elements it suffers for it.

But what it does do it does well enough. Hardly a landmark in modern cinema, it nevertheless is a competently filmed and choreographed spy and fight movie. Production values are high, and though there are some flaws in the way it was filmed, I kept comparing it to its predecessor and it came out better off for the contrast. Specifically, it has a relatively more sedate camera that permits the viewer to actually observe the images on the screen before him. This is a luxury which Supremacy did not afford us, its camera having been possessed by some sort of hyperactive demon which, even in the quietest of scenes, so agitated the camera that a character’s nose would suddenly shoot to the upper right corner of the screen, wiggle there for a moment, and it was anyone’s guess in which corner it would appear next. It is not clear to me why a simple conversation between two seated individuals should be filmed as if they were on the lip of Mt. Vesuvius, but at least Ultimatum settles down somewhat. Having failed to exorcize the camera demon they at least managed to make it groggy.

A bit of character drama, something like the burgeoning love story in the first movie, would have been a welcome addition, and indeed the opportunity was there. Julia Stiles‘ character made a couple subtle hints that she was a possibility for Mr. Bourne, but no substantial steps are taken in that direction. Perhaps it was decided that such a subplot would have necessitated the elimination of a fight scene. However, I insist that it would have made the movie stronger because…well… it would have necessitated the elimination of a fight scene.

All in all, Ultimatum is very much a typical sequel. It focuses on a lot of what the first was renowned for while neglecting any contrasting elements and variety which were actually responsible for making those more famous parts as successful as they were. Been there, done that. It also elects to pack a whole bunch of said element into the script and tries to make up for the loss of quality of detail and development of each individual scene with a greater quantity of glossed over and underdeveloped hide, sneak and fight sequences. Been there and done that as well.

It’s not going in my collection, and I won’t cry if I am forbidden to ever see it again, but I did enjoy it while it lasted. It is technically well done, artistically bearable and it had a nice, anti-rogue-government-agency message that, while lacking subtlety, I definitely connected with. A movie of this quality can make the months between Zodiac and whatever the next good flick is going to be pass more smoothly.

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In the latest version of the adventures of Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and Co., Al Pacino plays the bad guy, Willie Bank. He forces long time Ocean co-conspirator and financier Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) out of a business deal and thereby gains the enmity of the entire Ocean crew. While Reuben recovers from his physical and emotional injuries, Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) design a plan to ruin Bank’s latest enterprise.

The plan is grandiose, intricate, far reaching… far more so than the original heist from the first film. In the course of their trickery the team members engage in all manner of operations and are faced with every type of setback requiring last minute fixes. But the movie does not concern itself with details. As far fetched as the first movie was, it managed to make the entire affair seem believable by carefully showing how each feat, no matter how difficult, was accomplished. And it didn’t leave loose ends lying around demanding an explanation.

This third movie strained my credulity farther than I was willing to let it go. Examples abound: Virgil Malloy (Casey Affleck) infiltrates a Mexican dice factory so as to be able to mix a special substance into the die which will later allow them to control how they fall. When he complains about the working conditions in Mexico he incites a workers’ rebellion which jeopardizes the project. His brother Turk (Scott Caan) is sent down to try and quell the strike and get the dice made but winds up joining the rebellion. Eventually, Team Ocean simply pays the extra wages the workers are demanding and ends the strike.

The entire episode probably takes up less than 15 minutes of screen time. Like the other side plots in the movie it is quite fantastic and under explained. Leaving alone the idea that an American worker complaining about the long days on the job while drinking in a tavern with a couple co-workers could incite a huge labor dispute, there had to have been all sorts of logistics problems to overcome merely to get Virgil the job in a Mexican factory (work permits, for example). The movie declines to deal with any of these problems. We are simply shown that Virgil is working there and are expected to accept this.

Likewise, when Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) needs to drill a tunnel under the city we are just expected to accept this without question. How he can do this and evade detection by the authorities, how they manage to get the drill that dug the Chunnel from the English side, or how, when that breaks down, they manage to get the one that dug the Chunnel from the French side is left to our imagination. The movie is littered with similar side plots, all fantastic and all under explained. When all is said and done so much has occurred, at such a pace and with such little attention to detail, that the viewer has few other recourses than to roll his eyes and hope for better things in the future.

Of course, with all the extra tricks and subterfuge being crammed into a movie of approximately the same length as the original, something else must be cut. That something is drama and character development. There is very little in Ocean’s Thirteen besides wise cracks and scheming con men. Absent is any interesting drama such as George Clooney, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts provide in Ocean’s Eleven. Absent also, at least in the first part of the movie, is any sense of forward movement as Ocean and Ryan sit around talking about the tricks they have planned, tricks which are shown to the audience in the multitude of cutaways in which the story gets mired.

There are some very fine shots taken in Ocean’s Thirteen as well as a few mild chuckles to be had. The movie has obviously been pieced together by competent professionals, but overall it fails to deliver like the first. By focusing on the showy elements and forgetting the pillars of filmmaking, Soderbergh falls into the same kind of trap that caught the Wachowski brothers with The Matrix trilogy, or Gore Verbinski with Pirates, or George Lucas with Star Wars. But I suppose that as long as we keep giving sequels 90 million dollar opening weekends, they have little reason to think they are doing something wrong.

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As to whether the music is hot or not, that depends on one’s tastes. For my part, I found it to be interesting but nothing that I saw myself running out to buy. But it is definitely different from music on the contemporary American pop scene. Much of it is very ambient-like, with a hint of metal or hard rock running underneath. And there is a great variety of instruments, many of which I think were probably invented by the bands that use them.

All in all, it is an interesting documentary. Clips of the bands performing are mixed with interviews as well as some shots of the Icelandic landscape and some views of Reykjavik, the capital and largest city, and several smaller towns. The commentary delves into the history and culture of Iceland, with many artists searching to define themselves as Icelanders and express what that means. For my part, I came away impressed by how much music was produced and how many bands and orchestras and choral groups thrive in this nation of merely 300,000 people. Wisely, the documentary does not run too long, because despite the effort put into the editing, the repetition would make a longer piece harder to endure.

Documentaries always seem to get high grades on Rotten Tomatoes; perhaps they are easier to make interesting. That’s as may be, but it is still interesting. Anyone with an interest in Iceland, music and/or Vikings might just want to give it a try.

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One of the biggest problems the movie has is that there is simply too much story to tell. Many have complained about the convoluted alliances and betrayals and murky motivations being hard to follow, and I agree, but far more problematic is the sheer volume of story to tell in under three hours. This is a theme to which my reviews seem always to return whenever I see a big budget action film, especially a sequel, and frankly I am tired of coming up with metaphors for it so I’ll just say it plainly: the optimal amount of anything in a story, whether it be adventures, side plots or sex scenes, depends on how much the director and screenwriter can competently develop given time constraints.

I would rather have a POTC with only one well developed adventure rather than the jumble of different stories which are crammed into the movie and which run like Cliff Notes versions of superior and more carefully crafted originals. Back when Gerald Ford was president and George Lucas knew how to make movies, Mr. Lucas developed a story that would eventually become the entire trilogy of Star Wars episodes IV-VI. However, exercising a good judgment which has since become scarce in Hollywood, he opted not to film the entire thing as one movie. Instead, he took one third and turned it into the magisterial Episode IV: A New Hope. If you can imagine what Star Wars would have been like if the entire first trilogy had been packed into one nearly three hour movie you have an idea of what it is like to sit through POTC: At World’s End.

There are so many characters with so many plots and goals and who set out on so many adventures it’s a wonder a projector can hold all the reels without buckling under its gargantuan mass. Of course, with this much adventuring not only are the various stories lacking development, but space is conserved by cutting personal drama which might make us care more about the outcomes of the sundry and copious fights which are constantly breaking out. This is particularly disappointing because there is some real potential for some gripping drama. Love stories, broken hearts, betrayals, misunderstandings and all manner of intrigue are there in the story, but the film only infrequently and reluctantly pauses to take note of this, and it never delves deeply into any of it.

With the character drama nearly entirely out of the way, the movie has plenty of room to deliver its action sequences and my, what a spectacle it is. No, not a spectacle in the sense of the word that gave rise to the adjective spectacular; more like spectacle the way your grandmother means it when she tells you not to make a spectacle of yourself. The fighting scenes are so cartoonish, so outlandish, so over the top that I think it would be quite impossible to make a parody of them. Yes, the movie is riddled with humorous moments (although many of them are a bit forced) but I am quite sure it was not intended as a farce. And yet it is so outrageous it leaves no room for parody. Instead of sword fights, men hold on to ropes and swing high in the air around main masts while performing stunts no acrobat could hope to copy. If a character needs a quick escape it is a simple matter of a couple slices with his sword to a sail and, when the character grabs the corners he has cut off, the wind catches and carries him neatly away with his new parachute. In any given five minute stretch, as many as seven laws of physics are violated and a further twenty pushed to their limits. Can anyone watch such overkill and honestly claim to be exhilarated by it?

Raiders of the Lost Ark was a thrill ride, probably the best that ever was made. And part of the reason it was so thrilling was because the action drew you into the movie. Yes, the stunts were fantastic, but there was a realism and a consistent and coherent internal logic to them. Contrast this with POTC, wherein characters perform shocking and supernatural feats, and yet, when the script requires them to be captured or killed, their strange powers suddenly desert them and they are bested by a simple maneuver at which only moments ago they cavalierly would have scoffed.

There are good points about the movie. Like the second one, the opening images are quite arresting and immediately grab one’s attention, a tribute to Verbinski’s skill with a camera. There are some excellent images along the way too. The actors do well enough, though most of the work that went in to making their characters was done in the first movie. And there are some good dramatic elements waiting to be exploited, as I mentioned, along with an ending that was gutsy enough not to be all sweet and happy.

No doubt the movie will make a billion worldwide. For my part, I grow tired of the same offal being dumped on celluloid every time Hollywood thinks it has to go over the top to outdo itself. Since Hollywood insists on following its CGI formula for all its action flicks, why should I put more effort into reviewing them? From now on, I shall use a Summer Blockbuster Template for this sort of movie. I am being quite serious. I already know exactly how good they are going to be and exactly what the problems will be. I can leave blank spaces to fill in the gaps according to the particular movie in question when the time comes. This system will make my job considerably easier without sacrificing any accuracy. Bring on Transformers.

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Ted Crawford is a rich and successful designer of airplanes whose wife, played by Embeth Davidtz, is having an affair with Detective Rob Nunally (Billy Burke). Crawford kills his wife and prosecutor Willy Beachum, about to make a move to a successful private firm and thinking that with a signed confession and the murder weapon the case will be open and shut in short order, agrees to take the case as his last for the city. But of course things cannot be so simple, for it turns out that Crawford has cunningly planned far in advance. He manipulates the system and the people in it until Beachum is left with a case lacking admissible evidence. With his career inexplicably hanging in the balance of one single case, Beachum must try to outwit the alleged murderer and secure a conviction.

As mentioned above, when Fracture works it is because of the interaction between Hopkins, who plays a deliciously devious and taunting criminal, and Gosling, who does acceptably well as a cocky lawyer with a mild southern drawl. That alone is enough to make the movie entertaining, which is fortunate because that along with some thoughtful cinematography is about all the movie has to offer. Other elements which should support and flesh out the project are disappointingly weak or absent.

For instance, the script never takes the time to explore the characters. Crawford is an extraordinarily cold and cunning criminal, but we never get to know much about him. The investigation could have spent many fruitful scenes delving into his past, a past which should have had important repercussions for the present, but no step in this direction is ever taken.

The details of the crime itself are too simplistic to carry us through a satisfying beginning, middle and end. The two pieces of evidence on which Beachum plans to rest his case unravel far too quickly. Instead of a captivating game of cat and mouse which evolves with unexpected twists and turns, we get a very sudden turn when the evidence proves faulty and we go no further down that avenue. To be sure, Beachum does try to make the failed evidence work, but this itself is a story which should have its own arc with a beginning, middle and end, but it does little other than fiddle around and waste time.  All this would be fine if the movie were really about something else, but it most definitely is not. Crawford’s manipulation of the system and Beachum’s frantic attempt to thwart him are the central pillars of the story, and when all that these have to offer is so quickly expended we are left with unimportant filler scenes, many of them having to do with an unconvincing romance between Beachum and his soon-to-be boss at the private firm.

The only times these filler scenes are not unremarkably routine is when the characters’ actions and motivations strain credulity. The romance between Rosamund Pike’s Nikki Gardner and Willy Beachum is, in very typical fashion, not believable. It’s not just the lack of chemistry on screen: it is also the way they swiftly move from exchanging glances to exchanging fluids and then to arguing like a dysfunctional couple with a long history. Also mystifying is Beachum’s behavior towards the victim. The details might reveal too much of the story, but suffice it to say that he becomes too attached too easily and for no apparent reason. When Crawford brings this side story to a climax late in the movie, Beachum’s response is almost comical in its silliness, the slow motion cinematography and score’s insistence in its gripping drama notwithstanding.

As a last complaint, I was disturbed by some insinuations in the movie. On more than one occasion, private defense law was painted as a corrupt endeavor while prosecution (lower paid prosecution of course!), was noble and the place for people with integrity. I find this objectionable in a host of different ways, and anyone who has bothered to follow the Duke Lacrosse Rape (sic) Case and the unpardonable actions of state prosecutor Michael Nifong (to cite just one example of prosecutorial misconduct) must surely be laughing at this idea. For every Johnny Cochrane there is at least one Rudy Giuliani.

Stepping back and looking at the project as a whole, I have to say it wasn’t bad, with the first half being significantly stronger than the second. It is a meager script, but the filming was done well, despite the occasional odd angle shot which seemed to serve little purpose and did not fit well with the rest of the cinematography. Also good were some of the performances, and worth highlighting despite the paltry screen time he gets is head prosecutor Joe Lobruto, played with confidence and gravitas by David Straithairn. Along with some very nice scenes between Gosling and Hopkins, these aspects of the film are strong enough to carry it along and make it worth a viewing. It won’t be going into my DVD collection, but I don’t feel like I want those two hours of my life back either.

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It apparently can. Whether deliberately or through a sudden mystifying incompetence, Sam Raimi did to a great comic book story what my intestines do to a great steak on the grill, except that I don’t get angry when my intestines do this and I can flush the resultant product away. Gone, apparently, are the eminently ordinary powers of this once proudly middling film director. He who yesterday was acceptable is now embarrassingly inept.

I am not going to waste a penetrating analysis on the problems with this movie any more than I am going to spend an hour contemplating Piss Christ, but a quick run down might give the good reader an idea of what he is walking into should he find himself with no option but to watch the film…

1) The movie tries to do way too much in the time allotted to it, forcing it to cut down to a laughably bare minimum certain important sequences and scenes which should have had far more planning and development. For instance, late in the movie Venom and The Sand Man meet and agree to gang up on Spiderman all in the space of about eight seconds.

2) As is increasingly typical with modern movies, potentially arresting parts such as when a newly minted villain discovers and learns to master his powers are glossed over in a single scene so that we can get to an explosion or destruction of some sort (contrast this with The Matrix, wherein Neo spends the entire movie learning to master his powers which made every fight interesting quite apart from the special effects involved).

3) The dramatic scenes have all the deftness of touch and subtlety of dialogue of a third grade Christmas play. Characters enter, deliver their lines directly and to the point in as efficient a manner as possible, let slip a tear or two, and then we cut to another scene with an explosion. In Orwell’s 1984, pornography was mass produced based on one of four templates which kept getting recycled with only minor changes to superficial details. I do believe the dramatic scenes in Spiderman 3 came from a similar cookie cutter template.

4) Characters say and do things at all the wrong times and in unbelievable situations so that all sense of real motivation and believability is destroyed. While the Police Captain’s daughter is hanging from the side of a skyscraper, and while her father is watching his daughter in such a predicament, her boyfriend, about as unconcerned by the situation as I would be if my son stubbed his toe, introduces himself to his girlfriend’s father and lets slip that he is dating her.

5) Tobey Maguire, an actor of very limited depth and scope to begin with, turns the film into a parody of itself when he is asked to go beyond the sweet innocence of the Peter Parker we all know. The result is tragically comic.

6) Every action sequence is rife with the most absurdly implausible circumstances. It is not enough for a crane to crash into a building, it has to crash twice, once just above and once just below a section of the building so that one floor partially collapses, leaving a young lady hanging off the side for dear life. Every single action sequence becomes so far-fetched that I don’t see how it could possibly draw someone into the story.

This is hardly a comprehensive list, but it is all I can bring myself to do for the moment. Rather than expound on the flaws, it might be more interesting to investigate how this movie happened, because there must have been copious opportunities to abort, or at least substantially rework the project. Of all the chances for intervention, the last was the most obvious. Surely the director and producers saw the final cut. Did they honestly believe they had a hit on their hands? Was it not painfully obvious that the movie was atrocious? Or did it not really matter, because they knew that everyone would go see a special effects-laden Spiderman movie no matter how bad the reviews?

Do me a favor and make me feel like this review matters a little: don’t go see Spiderman 3. Or at least wait until the dollar theater. As long as we continue to allow special effects to entice us to part with our money, moviemakers will keep making the same drivel, keep putting in the minimum effort and allow the computer geeks to sell the product with their CGI. Even Sam Raimi is capable of better things than the offal I recently witnessed. Let’s demand more of him.

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It doesn’t suffer from a lack of potentially appealing elements, but it does fail to utilize them properly. For instance, the discovery of what the magical items do is interesting enough, and we later find out that their powers are needed for something of tremendous scope and importance. That would fall under the category of “upping the ante”, which means it belongs in the second act. Unfortunately, this vital piece of information is saved for the very last bit, during the actual climax itself, and so any thrilling effect it might have had earlier in the movie is lost. Instead, the movie focuses on the children getting familiar with the magic objects, which is fine for the beginning, but never gives us the urgency that could have come with revealing said information earlier.

Another area where the movie misfires is with respect to the antagonist. We must assume that this role is filled by Michael Clarke Duncan’s Nathanial Broadman, though he never completely rises to the challenge of chief villain and antagonist. In his first scene, we learn from some very tedious dialogue that is painfully obviously meant for the audience’s sake that Nathanial has recently accepted a high post in the Department of Homeland Security (sic). The rudiments of some character development are presented, but like so many other roles in the movie we are denied a complete and satisfying character arc. Indeed, multiple characters move in and out of the story, often leading one to believe that they are there for some purpose and will provide some kind of effect or meaning to the story, but very few actually do. One is tempted to think they should be cut altogether, but doing so would leave the movie with precious few characters at all. What is needed, rather, is some more development, and a reworking of the story to better fit them in.

Apart from the misused and underdeveloped elements, the director proves himself unready to helm a feature film. The camera work and shot coverage is little better than one would expect from a Soap Opera, with the occasional and jarring Dutch angle thrown in for no discernible purpose. Furthermore, there is too much forced drama in scenes which cannot bear such dramatic weight. A tense conversation that slowly escalates until erupting into a tearful shouting match might be good drama, but only if the script can support it. A character cannot suddenly grow angry, or break down into frustrated tears at moments which just don’t call for it. The Last Mimzy is full of such odd reactions and curious behavior and one suspects that it was demanded by the director merely to give the appearance of real drama.

The movie is not a complete failure. The central idea is neat, it fits in well with every child’s dream of being an important figure in a magical story and kids probably won’t care about the finer points of drama and plot management. But adults may be left wishing they had just rented E.T. instead.

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Zodiac, a reputedly very faithful version of two books by Robert Graysmith, is the sixth film to bear the Fincher label, and the Fincher label means quality. Whether as a first time director working without a completed script (Alien 3), or a veteran with one of the most singular stories ever told (Fight Club), David Fincher has always delivered the most exquisite craftsmanship. His most recent opus is no exception.

The Zodiac killer of California is one of the most infamous serial killers in history. Never apprehended, he claimed credit for as many as 37 slayings, though there are a mere five canonical victims. He was active in the late 1960’s to early 1970’s (and perhaps for longer than that), during which time he taunted police with letters sent to newspapers, letters filled with bravado, dire threats and purposely misspelled words. There were suspects, but never enough evidence to put anyone away. When the prime suspect died in 1992, long after the last killings and letters, the case was closed for all intents and purposes, though the file remains active to this day in certain police precincts.

The movie follows four main characters as they become involved in the murders committed by the Zodiac. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist and author of the source material who becomes more and more obsessed with finding the identity of the killer. Mark Ruffalo plays David Toschi, inspiration for the Dirty Harry character and detective assigned to track down the killer. Anthony Edwards plays William Armstrong, Toschi’s partner, and Robert Downey Jr. plays Paul Avery, fellow journalist of Graysmith who covers the crime beat for their newspaper.

The four men deliver solid performances, especially Downey Jr., and the various relationships between them keep the energy level of the movie running high and our interest hooked. Even the minor characters shine with the help of the director who has always displayed an ability to get a scene to feel right. One prime example is the opening scene where a man and woman are parked together in the middle of nowhere and wind up Zodiac victims. A clumsier director might choose to fill the scene with appalling schmaltz to get us to feel sorry for the characters when they are killed. Anyone who has seen a movie where the protagonist’s family has died and we get a flashback to a time when the protagonist was playing with his children and wife and everyone was just impossibly happy knows what I am talking about. Even otherwise solid endeavors fall prey to this trap, but Fincher adroitly avoids it. The characters are not ridiculously happy caricatures; they feel like real people in a real situation. This is an indispensable element for Zodiac, because it has some hurdles to overcome, not least of these being that the very element which makes the Zodiac killer so fascinating, the fact that it remains unsolved, is the very element which threatens to leave us feeling unsatisfied when the movie is over.

Another difficulty for Zodiac arises from its scrupulous adherence to the story the way it happened, or at least the way Robert Graysmith portrayed it to happen. Real life is not concerned with the requirements of a movie’s rise in action or its climax. Real life doesn’t care if the first act runs long, the second act fails to up the ante and the last act falls flat. For this reason the term ‘artistic license’ was invented for when storytellers remolded a true tale to better conform to the necessities of a story. Most movies based on real events and people take liberties with the facts (witness Braveheart, The Lodger, The Hurricane, Titanic, Cinderella Man, Serpico, Spartacus, Paths of Glory, any movie based on the Bible and, I feel quite confident, 300). That Zodiac leaves itself at the mercy of the facts means we are likely to see a tale that strays from the orthodox story structure.

This would not be new territory for Mr. Fincher, and indeed it is exactly what happens. The first part of the movie switches back and forth between brutal killings, taunting letters in the newsroom and police procedure in the precincts. It’s enthralling, as it must have been when it actually happened, but it comes to an end with no real conclusion and the movie transforms into a different entity. When the killings stop and the letters become scarce, we are left with Robert Graysmith’s obsession as he refuses to give up the search for the killer.

During this next phase we see Graysmith pursuing many different leads and suspects. There are moments when the film threatens to run out of steam, but at just the right moment a new clue is turned up, or a new perspective sends a bit of a chill down your spine, or whatever is needed to capture interest. But for a movie that turns into a look at a man’s fixation with a murderer, there is only the most cursory attention given to Graysmith’s deteriorating relationship with his wife, an aspect that would be of interest for such a subject.

But that is the problem with the story: it is manifestly not about a man’s obsession with the Zodiac killer. There are too many other characters with ample screen time, too many scenes where Graysmith is absent, too much interest in other facets of the situation. Graysmith’s obsession is one theme of many. The movie is about the entire Zodiac phenomenon, but the Zodiac phenomenon itself did not wrap up nicely for the sake of a Hollywood flick. It starts as a murder mystery and a murder mystery it must remain, but shackled to the facts as David Fincher and screenwriter James Vanderbilt choose to make it, it cannot help but lose some focus when the actual investigation itself did. Left with no more murders, no arrests and the bulk of the plot already behind it, the movie of necessity doles out its plot points more sparsely and fills in the gaps with the one yarn left to it: Graysmith’s perseverance.

This resolve of the cartoonist turned amateur sleuth is a fascinating aspect of his character, but the movie works best when it is a mystery being solved and his fixation a single ingredient of a larger recipe. Even in the second part, after other characters have dropped out of the race and nearly everything that transpires has to do with Graysmith’s unflagging efforts, it is still the little clues and new ideas about the case itself which keep us going along. Graysmith’s obsession explains his actions and colors the picture, but does not itself become the main point of interest of the movie. It remains inexorably a murder mystery, as it must. Some transitions are beyond the prowess of even an artist like David Fincher. For a movie to begin as a tantalizing investigation into murder and wind up a study in the psychology of obsession would be a disaster. With all allowances made for hyperbole, it would be akin to seeing the first half of Terminator II and finishing with the second half of The Passenger. Fincher avoids this disaster by keeping the movie an investigation, however much that investigation comes to be influenced by a single man’s passion. Hence the focus on the dead ends and lack of focus on his marital stress.

It is beyond the scope of this article to address whether Zodiac should have remained so faithful to its source or whether more artistic license should have been taken. Fincher chose an accurate telling, and he did it with the deftness of touch, the uniqueness of vision and the proficiency of composition that has characterized all his work without exception. The challenges posed by the story’s structure is adversity overcome. Like John Stossel rising above his stuttering problem to become a renowned television journalist, Zodiac rises above its handicap to be a better movie than the vast majority of those which suffered no such impediments.

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Apart from the visuals, which are indeed well done and screaming for a fitter story to fill the world they create, 300 excels at battle sequences. All the modern tricks are employed, from Matrix-like physical exploits to slow motion photography; from intense physical training for the actors to a host of computerized special effects. These scenes are an adrenaline rush and constitute the better parts of the movie.

But we are missing a good story, or rather we have the makings of a good story which needs a lot more attention to fill in the gaps. Part of the difficulty is that the scenes themselves are shot as if a comic book were in mind (and indeed the source material is Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name). By this I mean that only the scantest coverage is given to many scenes. A comic book is like a Cliff Notes version of a movie, limiting it’s visuals to the highlights. A movie provides much more and, if it is well made, gives the viewer a better sense of its world.

The best movies based on comic books are the ones which do not lose their sense of themselves as movies. Batman and Superman come to mind. Even Ang Lee’s Hulk, for all its creative flourishes meant to remind us of a comic book, pulled off these unique touches without betraying the medium it was a part of. 300, on the other hand, all too often breezes through scenes as if it were on permanent flashback mode. Because of this, for all the brilliance of some of the shots, and some of the shots are brilliant, the movie is not the sensory delight that it could be, and we wind up feeling like the story was neglected.

And that is a shame, because the outline of the story holds promise. The Emperor of the Persian Empire issues an ultimatum to the Greek City-States to bow before him. Due to quaint traditions, Leonidas (Gerard Butler), the King of Sparta, cannot take his army to war. He therefore goes on an “extended walk” with 300 personal body guards and just happens to confront the seemingly endless Persian hordes. Meanwhile, back at home, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) tries to navigate the world of politics to garner support for her king. There is plenty there with which to fashion a dynamite story, and there are plenty of interesting smaller bits too: a deformed man whose parents left Sparta so as not to have to leave their child to the elements returns and wants to join the army to prove himself; King Leonidas climbs a mountain to consult with seers and oracles about defending his city; along the way, the 300 Spartans happen upon a village which the Persians have destroyed; a great storm comes to deal a blow to the Persian fleet; the Queen is tempted to adultery in order to gather enough support to save the man she might have to cheat on… there are ingredients aplenty here, it just was not realized as it should have been.

Considering Zack Snyder’s first effort, the well told Dawn of the Dead remake, 300 has to go down as a disappointment even though it is not a bad movie. The director just got caught up in certain facets of moviemaking which have, like a siren at sea, lured other good directors to their doom (think George Lucas). 300 certainly is no disaster, but the movie would be immeasurably improved with more attention to the pillars of directing.

As if to underscore the lack of real directing, David Wenham, he of the eternally plugged up nose, narrates the very life out of the movie. There is very little new information that the narration provides, and absolutely nothing that could not have been provided visually or within the context of the story as it should be. It is very rare for narration to be done well and appropriately… almost as rare as a much hyped movie meeting expectations.

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• Early Reader Review: Witless Protection
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