Salt in the Wound

Generic action thriller’s only saving grace is Jolie’s toughness
By
Morgan P Salvo

Jolie Kicks ass! Jolie chucks hand grenades!! Jolie doesn’t adopt any kids or grimace with Brad Pitt! Apparently Tom Cruise dropped out of the project and the filmmakers rewrote this Salt thing for Angelina Jolie. Too bad, when a movie is this awful you sort of expect someone like Cruise to be in it. It used to be that when a plot was so luridly far-fetched that it was a bad thing, but now we’ve been subjected to so much pedestrian crap that expectations have shifted. Opening up the potential flood gates with a PG-13 rating, mainstream filmmakers churn this stuff out and people unquestioningly accept it.
The opening scene of North Korean torture bestowed on a scantily clad Jolie showed some promise. Then cut to two years later joining the film's key concept that Russian sleeper spies still exist in the U.S. long after the fall of the Soviet Union, and are waiting for their day of attack. These sleeper cells are going to kill the president of US and Russia. CIA Agent Salt (Jolie) is implicated and goes on the run, bringing her guilt or innocence into question. Her hi-tech escape is eminent as the film’s long winded chase and wannabe chess game does its darndest to keep us guessing about her status till the end, but by the finale I was past caring. Bullets fly, people get shot, moles are exposed, shit blows up, and Salt jumps off overpasses and bounces off semi trucks. I figure I have seen this movie either seven or 750 times, I can’t remember… the list to choose from is endless: Mission Impossible, Patriot Games, Bourne Identity, Manchurian Candidate, Taken, all the James Bonds and Die Hards and all things espionage and lame, including a very similar yet dark and serious take on Cruise’s recent Knight and Day.
One explanation for the déjà vu is that Director Phillip Noyce has helmed past excursions into action filmmaking, most notably the clearly present and dangerous-Harrison Ford-as-Jack Ryan flicks. To his credit, as preposterous as the action was, Noyce keeps the stunts and car crashes real using minimal CGI gimmickry. Problem was it looked like boring slow motion. The oomph in any action scene is a cushiony blow to the chin because we’ve seen at all before. Salt gives us the requisite predictable dialogue, hackneyed plot, myriad of disguises and leg-revealing outfits. The dialogue was as lame as it gets including a tepid screenplay with a meaningless twist and no time spent developing any characters.
We know thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Wanted that Jolie is the go-to girl for tough chick ass kicking. But this movie is too lackadaisical and immature to have such prolific talent doing the chores. I’m sure most audiences will give it a pass because of Jolie’s bad girl antics. Sure they’re all there, with her lips and legs in full swing, but she should’ve reconsidered as should Chiwetel Ejiofor, because they actually can act. It’s disappointing to see actors of caliber chewing on unbelievable words with the possible exception of Liev Schreiber who seems to be picking progressively worse parts with each new flick.
Although blatantly impossible to accept on almost any level Salt had some funny moments exhibiting lazy filmmaking. Such as a knife-in-the-shoe scene that was so stupid it belonged in a Get Smart episode. In a “blink-and-miss-it” scene, you can actually see a male Salt body double with sunglasses on a motorcycle, before it cuts to Jolie sans eyewear at a different speed. Salt does a quick gallop through a biker bar called “Jugs and Stroker’s” that that made me laugh. And in one stroke of ingenuity, during a car chase the handcuffed-in-the back seat Salt gratuitously tasers an unconscious cop at the wheel of the police car to keep jerking his foot to the accelerator.
As ridiculous as this movie is, here’s no doubt that the female action genre belongs to Jolie. Now if the tabloids would leave her alone and she could just stop adopting children in real life that persona would come off without a hitch. The groundwork was laid for the sequel but I think I’ll be cutting down on my sodium.


Salt
Starring Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Directed by Phillip Noyce
1 ½ stars

Boy-Man Problems

Cyrus provides a touching emotional battle of the wills
by
Morgan P Salvo

Mark and Jay Duplass, the directing/writing team of the Puffy Chair (winner of Bend Film’s Jury Prize in ’05) and the off-beat horror comedy Baghead venture out of super indie mumble-core mode to semi-mainstream mumble-core mode in their newest flick Cyrus. The signature style of the Duplass bros is kind of mesmerizing because it hasn’t progressed; it just has more recognizable actors.

John (John C. Reilly) is a big, goofy, disheveled, middle-aged loser who meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. Breaking all the dating rules, things move too fast and hit a wall when John encounters Cyrus (Jonah Hill), Molly’s 21 year old son still living at home. Cyrus exudes heartfelt yet bogus politeness undermining his hostility resulting in an escalating war of wills with John.

Cyrus stays home casting his deadpan bird-like stare, composing really bad ambient spaced-out techno pop. He tugs on Molly's heartstrings with manipulative childish behavior mixed with adult intellect. Several early scenes tease the squirming possibility of incest, and the suspense of such ambiguity with John snooping around has the feel as of a creepy horror movie.
John, who knows that he's lucky to be with a woman this attractive, is vulnerable but gradually gains his power, constituting a journey that's more touching than vengeful.

This wickedly ambiguous, yet strangely tender story has the actors improvising off a skeletal script that adds authenticity to their stories. Hill shows acting skills in a rarely seen demanding, perverse, poignant yet captivating screen presence. Shot with nifty hand-held camerawork, there’s still too much distracting “documentary-zoom”.
Cyrus is almost painful to watch in the same way that its embarrassing to witness people you know really well having an argument…not knowing which side to take, you sit back powerless to do anything but feel uncomfortable. Cyrus makes us feel awkward and yet drawn to the dilemma of all three characters, never investing in anyone fully but caring for all of them equally.
The best part of this movie was its simplicity and ability to suck you in by watching people go through resilient emotions. That’s a hard thing to accomplish these days, and Cyrus does it brilliantly.
Cyrus
Starring John C Reilley, Marissa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener
Directed/written by the Duplass Brothers
3 stars

Predators vs. Predators

The latest laser-shooting alien flick is just a rehashing of a tired old genre
by
Morgan P Salvo

There’s a scene in the preview for Predators that was not in the movie that shows Adrien Brody getting not one… but a gazillion laser beam lights on his body from what logically would be hoards of predators. In a movie where there aren’t that many good scenes it just not acceptable to leave out one of the teasers in the trailer you were waiting for. That’s frustrating, which is also the word that best describes Predators, the newest installment in the dreadlocked- camouflaged-laser-shooting, lizard-mantis-space-beasts franchise. The combo of the Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Planet Terror) produced and Nimrod Antal (Kontroll, Vacancy) helmed action packed jungle epic sounded promising. Or did it? Having already clocked in two features, two Alien crossovers, and countless novels, videogames, and comic-book spin-offs a real spicy version seemed necessary. What we get is a watered down redux of the 1987 Schwarzenegger version with just a hint of twists. Actually the best part of the movie experience was the preview for Rodriguez’s new flick Machete.
Beginning with black-ops mercenary Royce (Adrien Brody) in a terror ridden free fall through the sky and hurtling down toward the jungle terrain with a faulty parachute pack, things certainly get off to a great start. It turns out he's not the only one to have fallen from the sky. Plopping down on what turns out to be an alien planet, are a bunch of elite killers, including an Israeli sniper (Alice Braga), Russian Special forces fighter (Oleg Taktarov), a soldier from Sierra Leone (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), a Yakuza (Louis Ozawa Changchien), Mexican drug enforcer (Danny Trejo), and American death row killer (Walton Goggins).but it quickly becomes apparent that the terrain onto which they've been deposited is a sort of game preserve and they're the intended fresh meat. It’s another example of a good cast with nowhere to go.
I wonder what happens to directors who come from their native land to make it big in Hollywood. Hungary's Antal’s Kontroll was a fascinating film and now he barely squeaks by with clunkers like Armored. I excepted to see a lot more fast cuts and dizzying edits with Rodriguez pulling the strings but this movie meanders into “what next” mode after and interminable amount of time for the characters to yak it up and try to figure out where they are and what they’re e dealing with. Problem with that is that we already know what to expect because we haven’t been dropped out of an airplane... we’ve been to the movies. OK some of the bad/good points worthy of mentioning due to the humor involved are: the cool Predator dog-wolves that are relentlessly slaughtered, the word help is used a lot more than ever necessary, surprisingly the dialogue remains fairly wise crack free, the first Schwarzenegger ‘87 Predator is explained in unnecessary histrionic detail, Academy award winner beanpole Brody is now a buff, glaring, growling-voiced half covered in mud fighting machine, and finally big headed Laurence Fishburne as crazy man scavenger. Then there’s the Predator himself. Still looking cool with so much going for him, I mean he can camouflage himself into thin air, beam down into any place as in Star Trek shoot lasers from his shoulder, hack your head off with his gigantic knife, tear you from limb to limb with his mighty biceps and talons scream so loud you have to double over, and still you can knock him over with a tree branch…? C’mon people …Destructible or indestructible…? Make up your mind.
John Debney's jarring score lays it on thick, working overtime to add more dramatic overtones to this already overworked snarl-fest and the use of Little Richard’s fast paced ditty “Long Tall Sally” for the credits after a supremely sober rendering of this big game hunt saga is just beyond comprehension.
After the Predators became plural they did battle with Danny Glover and Gary Busey in 1990's L.A, fought against Aliens (also now plural) in Antarctica in 2004 and had a rematch in small-town Colorado in 2007. "Predators" serves up enough frantic chases, explosions and slugfests but it's also somewhat monotonous, with stilted yakking, no memorable thrills, and a bad fadeout ending that provides little reward for the characters and audience alike. Predators felt like it had the right intentions for the first half but then rested on its laurels skating by for the remainder. It seems the franchise has been recycled and re-imagined more times than does a movie-goer good. With such a concept ingrained in our movie viewing psyche why not take it further than have it feel like rehashing all the stuff we’ve seen before.

Predators
Starring Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Sophia Braga,Walter Goggins, Danny Trejo
2 stars
Directed by Nimrod Antal

On a Bender

One Down three to go: The Elements go Haywire
By Morgan P Salvo

Director M. Night Shyamalan became a Hollywood success with his haunting films of the supernatural before stumbling badly with critical disappointments (Village/Happening). The Last Airbender veers far from his 1999 blockbuster The Sixth Sense. Expect no creepy aura or twist ending. This fantasy-adventure-family-friendly flick is based on the successful Nickelodeon’s animated TV series and begins the saga of Aang and his struggle to survive the elements: Air, Water, Earth, and Fire and of course bend them.
Airbender veers far from the 1999 blockbuster "The Sixth Sense” Expect no creepy aura or twist ending. The fantasy adventure is family friendly and all kid’s stuff. It seems sellout makes M Night happy. The filmmaker said this project interested him because it lent itself to "long-form storytelling”. Airbender is the first film Shyamalan has made that wasn't his own idea
The plot rages when the Fire Nation launches a brutal war. Caught between combat and courage, Aang (Noah Ringer) discovers he is the lone yet inexperienced Avatar(Not the big blue blockbuster James Cameron or those cute cartoon-characters on your computer but the manifestation-of-a deity kind)with the power to manipulate all four elements. Aang teams up with Katara (Nicola Peltz) a Waterbender, and her brother, Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) who carries a bone, and a behemoth that flies and looks like a big sheep crossed with one of the “Goonies” to restore balance to their war-torn world.
Airbender is really dark and hard to see. Most of the stuff looks cool but nothing spectacular. The evil ship, gigantic monitor lizards, hoards of showering ice and water, plumes of fire and gushing winds all collide in deafening thuds but mainly stays pretty bland and cute. The three lead kids all talk like they are suburban white kids playing in their backyard. With overblown phantasmal mysticism, spirituality mixing with martial arts and the fantasy genre it gets tiresome. Every single character at one time gets all “Kung-fu-ey” and then some form of elements shoots out of their hands
The 3–D came close to headache inducing and is not necessary or cool: it only hinders and distracts. After a ½ hr when nothing shot out at me from the screen I knew the 3-D was a bust.
Although the good parts were limited a couple of funny things stood out .when the little bender gets all hopped up on the elements his arrow tattoo on his head lights up into a neon Mohawk. There are a confusing total of three different villains in Bender; a super evil king (Cliff Curtis), a menacingly evil commander (The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi) and the conflicted prince (Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel) whose path of evil comes and goes.
Airbender opens against tough competition with Twilight’s Eclipse, yet Shyamalan seems optimistic, " I'm hoping after they see 'Eclipse,' they'll come see our movie." I say good luck with that. Airbender is convoluted silly kid’s stuff. This will be the first and last Airbender for me

The Last Airbender
Starring: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Jessica Jade Andres, Dev Patel
Aasif Mandvi, Cliff Curtis
Directed/written by M. Night Shyamalan
½ star

The Cruise Identity

More Celluloid Proof That Movie Stars Suck
by
Morgan P salvo

Let’s talk star power. Fame is fickle and once achieved it comes and goes. Tom Cruise movies won’t pack houses like they used to and Cameron Diaz won’t get recognition until she wiggles her ass in the next Charlie’s Angels movie. But where both have become so much of “themselves” that they're all we see, not the characters they portray. Alas the combo of beauty and pearly white wears thin. Cruise has not the star power or any talent of yesteryear. When he worked with Newman, Hoffman and Nicholson he upped his game. As soon as he starred in and produced gazillion dollar action flicks, spewed scientology and danced on Oprah’s chair his credibility lost momentum Diaz on the other hand had moments of real talent and indie greatness but then fell apart into ditzy blithering giggling idiot roles. We get what’s left of their shtick as this tedious piece of fluff is not amusing or entertaining. An endlessly cute, incoherent and ridiculous espionage action-comedy, Knight and Day stars Cruise (Roy Miller), and Diaz (June Havens) as a pair of cartoony humans hopping around the globe, from plane crash to car chase to helicopter to trains and then a motorcycle chase involving stampeding bulls.. Director James Mangold (Cop Land /Walk the Line) demonstrates no flair for rapid action choreography. Instead, the stars blatantly over-enunciate lines from a lame script by first-timer Patrick O’Neill in front of a green screen onto which computer-generated action crap emanates. Never have I seen a more predictable story and dialogue. Miller has Jason Bourne-like problems as a relentless killing machine with a heart of gold and wants to help a damsel on the way to better mankind. Tom plays it straight which almost works although that Risky Business ray ban look was laughable and unforgivable .On the other hand Diaz’s turn as an innocent stuck in the middle of spy-games is never believable as she “adorably” talks to herself attempting to let you know how she feels and fill in the audience as to what plot is unfolding .I had a hard time looking at her face as I kept coming up with “Manly Pekinese”. With each subpar quip delivered with a cocksure grin from Cruise or pseudo wide-eyed bewilderment for Diaz their idiotic romantic comedy banter is stale and their silly star power makes it all the less believable.
Knight and Day has a running theme wherein Miller drugs June to save her from her dangerous surroundings. They should’ve handed out some of that stuff along with the tickets so I could’ve saved my memory from this god-awful 2hr torture fest...

Knight and Day
Starring Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis, Paul Dano

 zero stars