Rotten to the Core

Total Recall Picks and lifts form the original but goes nowhere fast, really fast

by Morgan P Salvo

Just like main hero Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) Total Recall has a ton of problems. Quaid has a boring rut of a life and wants a change...some action. This flick is all about the action but has no substance and subsequently gives a boring take on a really cool idea. But the film’s main flaw lies in the filmmakers’ public announcement that this not a remake but a version that is more true to the story by Philip K. Dick.

Dick was around to help write the original screenplay based on his short story “We can remember it for you wholesale”. NOW I have to read it because of the two diverse treatments of this tale of a factory worker bored with his life who goes to the mind-bending world of REKAL where they give you any scenario fantasy you want, to take your mind off things and perhaps entertain yourself for a few days with some awesome memories. What could possibly go wrong? Quaid goes for the double agent spy fantasy and bam before the treatment is complete something goes awry and faster than you can say Schwarzenegger he is embroiled in murder, espionage, suspense double crosses, hailing bullets and car chases. You know… spy stuff.

We all know going in that this film is all about the special effects and the mind twisting adventure that is bestowed upon our hero. The Google Earth beginning shows us what’s left of population is in Great Britain and The Colony (Australia). Plot wise Recall is the same big mess that director Paul Verhoeven gave us in 1990. Mars as fantasyland has just been replaced by “the future” where workers toil away at earth’s core which I guess is just as hot and maddening as the angry red planet.

And like the original throughout the whole movie we are supposed to be guessing if we’re viewing the fantasy or reality. The original did a nice job bouncing that concept around but perhaps because of my knowledge the old version ruined most of the fun of the twists and turns but the ending is where it really falters. A weak hint at deciphering your own interpretation is not as much fun as the blatant ridiculousness of the first. The Blade Runner looking world is cool at least. It really looked like we just got transported to the Ridley Scott masterpiece. Recall is in the red light district and an upgraded three breasted hooker is back if only for a glimpse. Where most of the problem of this movie is that while a great looking generic action flick, it retains none of the K Dick wit and insight nor the roller coaster ride of Verhoeven’s flick.

Director Len Wiseman‘s credits include Live Free or Die Hard, Underworld and Underworld: Evolution. He starts his flick at madcap pursuit and quickly falls short while the antagonist is  running and jumping acrobatically to verandas landings and rooftops to stand utterly still in stagnation only to regurgitate stereo typical formulaic drivel. The best part by far is the hover cars. I saw an impressive special on how they did that and it was far more compelling than this flick. The Fast and Furious stunt team basically did all the driving in real cars as technicians green-screened the rest out. Wiseman wisely uses Kate Beckinsale’s action movie prowess again here. And I must say, I could watch two hours of almost anything starring Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel even when they offer no skimpy outfits.

This version is much more like how they took Deathrace 2000, a superb campy hilarious colorful grade z drive-in movie classic and turned it into DEATHRACE staring Jason Statham. This Total Recall strips away the psychedelic romp in Mars that was Verhoeven’s   genius. Guilty of being too generic this flick is absolutely devoid of humor. While there are some intentional and not-so-intentional laughs throughout, like a stash of futuristic Obama money and Bryan Cranston spewing poorly written villain lines while sporting a really bad hair-hat. Even with the metal detector scene as the exact same plump woman homage from the original only serves as an in-joke for cinephiles like me. I knew I was going to miss Michael Ironside’s character, the military leader in botched pursuit of Quaid. Here he has been replaced by a slew of robotic Star War Troopers.

The main problem with making a “based on” is causing curiosity as to its intentions. Is it emulation or sacrilege? Like the recent “non-remake” of Straw Dogs if I hadn’t seen the first would I like the second? Now that two movies have posed this question the answer is easy…no I don’t.

And like the “it’s-not-a-remake” fantasy world the filmmakers live in they also steal lines straight from the first one which is a dead give away that they are blatantly ripping off the original merely  masking their attempt by high tech wizardry. Which brings me to another question; this is the supersonic future, why are they shooting bullets? Where are the damn lasers?

When all the futuristic smoke clears we are left with the memory of a decaying society and planet with a couple of heroes and hope. Meanwhile I shall return to my newly envisioned corporation called “Selektive Memory” and have all elements of Total Recall wiped clean except for hover cars Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale. 

 

Total Recall

Starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Bokeem Woodbine, Bryan Cranston, Jessica Biel

Directed by Len Wiseman

Rated PG-13

2 stars

Love Him or Hate Him...

 Here's three must-see Oliver Stone flicks

  U-Turn 

Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Billy Bob Thornton Powers Booth and Nick Nolte

.A dark comedy with badass soap opera tendencies, U-turn tells the tale of one mishap after another. A corrupt sheriff, in a dysfunctional little town keeps drifter Penn stuck in psychotic limbo. He kills time enticed by the alluring femme fatale in this Twilight Zone-like messed up little flick that’s like a combination of the Postman Always Rings Twice and Red Rock West.  This one of Stone’s most overlooked flicks. A perfect desert film noir boasting some of the best cameos ever! Check out Billy Bob’s grease monkey. This flick is also famous for driving a wedge between Stone and Penn’s relationship that is vile to put it mildly. Neither has a kind word for each other to this day

Natural Born Killers   

Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones and Tom Sizemore

The quintessential commentary of violence in the media as serial killers Mickey and Mallory Knox become folk heroes and legends thanks to reality TV and the media’s warped overblown power. Written by Quentin Tarantino, Stone’s psychedelic onslaught of sex, violence and the media’s propaganda machine is satirized to the point of desensitization and overload. Stone’s vision uses every camera trick in the book, different film stock, quadruple soundtracks and insanely paced editing. Through Stone’s never-ending adherence to Native American mysticism he skewers consumerism, superficiality, mediocrity, and banality within the media and pop culture.  Plus every single actor chews up the scenery every chance they get.

 Scarface

 Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer 
Who hasn’t seen this expletive laden masterpiece? Scarface is the all-encompassing saga of Cuban immigrant Tony Montana who takes over a drug cartel while succumbing to greed. This Stone penned cult classic directed by Brian DePalma is the ultimate sprawling violent gangster movie. Scarface almost reinvents the “so bad it’s good” category from the bloody chainsaw scene to the riveting shoot outs to the terrible Cuban accents unevenly spewed by Al Pacino, Stephen Bauer and Robert Loggia while coke sniffing Michelle Pfeiffer looks nice and wrecked…a laugh riot from beginning to end. One of the most quoted movies of all times--do I really have to say “Say hello to my little friend” here? Point of interest: as I left the theater the first time, I was like “who wrote this, a ten year old kid?” Nope, just the always immature Oliver Stone and that’s when he’s the most fun

.

Natural Stoned Killers

 Stoners versus cartel in fragmented cartoon

By Morgan P Salvo

Just because Oliver Stone makes movies look cool doesn’t mean he always makes cool movies. Savages falls somewhere in between cool and ludicrous. Okay let’s just say it has it moments. Depicting overtly dark secrecy to over-the-top camp, Savages delivers a cartoonish vision of a deadly violent subject matter.

When Stone isn’t making some valiant statement in a lavish production (JFK or Wall Street) he tears his style down to fit his concept of bare minimum. Here he dishes out a pretty standard story about drug dealing and a hostage situation, but doesn’t make us believe much of anything through the black and white to color storytelling, non linear editing and different film stock.

The plot focuses on a pair of drug dealers: two stoners who have been friends forever. One’s a botanist genius Ben (Aaron Johnson) the other a military dude Chon (Taylor Kitsch) doing tour after tour in Afghanistan. They make the best weed on the planet (smuggled in from Afghanistan) and have built up an empire that on one hand does good deeds like helping out Africa and supplying medical marijuana but on the other hand supports dirty drug dealers. They both love and live with “O” (Blake Lively) the chick who loves them both right back and whose story we get to hear recanted. They all reside in Laguna Beach CA in a blissful love triangle made in heaven, that is until the evil drug cartel in Mexico wants a piece of the action. O is kidnapped to get Ben and Chon to comply with their demands.What they are asking for is equivalent to having a Ben and Jerry aisle in Wal-Mart  It’s easy to comprehend the bad guys won’t play fair. The stoners do not go for the plan and the cartel reciprocates by resorting to… umm… savagery and violence.

There’s no doubt as to why Stone made this pic as it centers on the ramifications of cannabis, a favorite indulgence of his. Stone has a way to suck you in with mood and color but he’s frustrating because just when you think his morality is going one way he stumps you. This happened with his bio-pics W and Nixon: you expected him to ream them a new one from his political leanings but instead he was sympathetic to their plights. In this case with blood spewing ultra-violence Stone paints his easel with stupidity instead of insight. There are a ton of messages to read into this mess of a movie, like while a war rages in the Middle East there’s an even bigger one at home, and the war on drugs isn’t a war at all it’s just police and political corruption, but the main implication is no one can be trusted as evidenced by the double dealing, backstabbing and requisite graphic depiction of blood guts torture and mayhem. We’re all familiar with the term “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” and yet that’s all the characters in this movie seem to do.

The best thing to say about Stone is he gets great performances out of his actors (he even got one out of Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July), and Savages is no exception.

Performance wise it’s a gold mine and the best reason to watch this flick.  Benicio Del Toro takes on one of his more entertainingly funny roles as a crazed hit-man who runs a Mexican landscaping cleanup crew, and should change his last name to Del Evil or Del Knucklehead depending on the scene. It’s hard to look at the portly Travolta the same since the tabloid massage accusations but he’s a great whiny slime-ball. Selma Hayek is at her diabolical nuttiest as the wicked witch with a black heart of gold. Then there’s Kitsch, who besides having a really bad last name, is unrecognizable from his last outing as John Carter. Blake Lively is, well, Blake Lively and finally gets a lot of screen time even if she doesn’t take off her top. But Aaron Johnson is the guy to watch in all movies from now on. I didn’t even put it together till way later that this is the same guy from Kick-Ass! and Nowhere Boy (playing John Lennon) - this dude is a true chameleon.

Savages’ underlying message of “If you can’t beat ’em join ’em” is clear but the generic storyline and ending is a huge let down even though there are three finales, which lets the first one off the hook and that’s a good thing because it was god-awful.  But never fear, stick with it as the film ends on a high note—pun intended. After all the smoke clears in this never confusing, easily established flick we are left pondering “was that good or just about the worst thing I’ve ever seen?” Maybe it’s implied to smoke a strong strain of weed similar what the dealers grow and forget this movie ever happened. 

 

Savages

Starring Aaron Johnson, Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch, Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro
Directed by Oliver Stone

Rated R

2 ½ stars

The South Shall Rise Again

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter mixes History and fantasy and fails miserably

 

By Morgan P Salvo

The craziest thing about this movie is the film doesn’t live up to the campiness conveyed by the title. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is so deadly serious that it should be absolutely ashamed of itself. It’s as if the history channel morphed with a bad action movie and the now standard Matrix-like effects. Sure there’s blood spraying and wild wire work acrobatic fight choreography but this dang kung fu kickery in the hands of a huge influential and total historical figure is a trend that has got to stop. The “what if” theory requires so much suspending of disbelief, that it literally defies description. What’s with this Hollywood trend to rewrite history by putting real people of influence in completely farfetched scenarios like the recent Raven where Edgar Allan Poe helps fight crime? I just don’t get it.

In case you haven’t guessed, this move would like you to believe (really believe) that while Honest Abe (Benjamin Walker) was out there learning the law and stumping for politics he was also hacking, slicing and dicing evil bloodsuckers.

According to a dairy left by Lincoln, his mom was killed by a vampire and he swore revenge. Luckily a vampire Guardian angel (Dominic Cooper) mentors him in a kind of Obi-Wan Kenobi meets Karate Kid in a True Blood kind of way. We are also treated to Rocky-like training including an axe spinning montage and nuggets of wisdom dished out like “real powers comes from truth not hatred”. This is possibly one of the biggest travesties ever to hit the big screen. The only problem is that it’s kind of fun to watch thanks to director Timur Bekmambetov.

So what we get is a boring rendition of Lincoln’s life with all the elementary school trimmings including meeting wife Mary Todd (Elizabeth Winstead hot off The Thing remake) the Lincoln/Douglass debates, slavery, his presidency, The Civil War and finally the ending of Mary beckoning “Come Abraham  we’ll be late for the theater”. While Abe is struggling with his dark secret of being a fierce killer of dark undead entities, the filmmakers are busy trying to intertwine slave trading with vampire evil.  It’s as if the filmmakers decided to spruce up Redford’s just as dumb and lifeless tale of Lincoln’s assassination conspiracy (The Conspirator) by adding the juicy concept that perhaps there was more than meets the gouged out eye.

Then there’s the vampire thing. This part stretches the imagination to the snapping point. Without any explanation, vampire hunting involves killing not by staking but decapitation. Firewood-splitting Abe goes on an axe wielding mission to rid the world of vampires, one by one, sometimes ten by ten. The legend of Paul Bunyan & the Blue Ox is more believable. Plus anyone who knows anything about vampires will be aghast at the liberties taken with their legend. Like why the hell do they survive in daylight and why on earth would they ride horses around when they can easily fly in fast motion wherever they want?

Even more ludicrously, through weird sepia tones and washed out colors to convey the saga more “historically” like the film is faded from time, the serious tone employed is even more mind numbing. This flick plays out all wrong. Culminating in Gettysburg ALVH thinks it is pulling out all the stops by cramming Roadrunner cartoons, Buster Keaton antics and good old fashioned serial cliff hangers into one movie. It’s like taking one hyper creative idea and making mincemeat out of it. This flick just becomes more indulgent in absurdity. Just when I say to myself at least they’re not depicting the South as bloodthirsty bloodsucking ghouls, BAM there are confederate soldiers baring bloody fangs.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a highly original idea that falls prey to unoriginal conventions. Unfortunately producer Tim Burton and director Bekmambetov clearly had a vision of what they wanted to convey but somehow the delivery is overwrought with loopholes and mishaps. Far too serious for its own good, this movie screams out for cheesy laughs of which it is totally devoid.. So much for history…

 

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Starring Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Rufus Sewell, Anthony Mackie Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov

Rated R

In Better Hands

 Poorly conceived Hysteria still proves necessity is the mother of invention

By

Morgan P Salvo

Sometimes a filmmaker’s lofty ideas get in the way of execution. Such is the case with Hysteria, a flick that just scratches the surface of the never-ending fun and/or pathos that should be derived from such a touchy subject matter. Director Tanya Wexler tells the story of the invention of the first vibrator with quaintness and cuteness instead of the raging satire it so richly deserves. The opening prologue of “based on a true story” is followed by the smug … “really,” leading us to believe that this might be a flick with wit and vigor, but what we get instead is a romantic comedy period piece with the vibrator saga as backdrop. Personally I feel the Victorian period is boring unless a werewolf gnaws on someone’s neck.

The plot of the first female massage gizmo is that women are diagnosed with hysteria and bad thoughts stemming from lack of love or attention so they are treated by vaginal stimulation to orgasm as treatment. The specialist in charge of this method, Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Price), concludes that hysteria stems from an overactive uterus. He employs a young intern, Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy), to help with the overload of clientele.  Granville’s success in manually stimulate patients results in him getting a sore wrist, hand and cramped fingers so his wacky inventor friend (Rupert Everett) and he come up with the first electronic massage unit, or as we today know it, vibrator. Needless to say the device scores a bull’s-eye.

We also follow Granville’s medical career at the orgasm clinic and his relationship with two sisters vying for his attention. We know exactly where this movie is going as Mortimer is first smitten by the more conventional daughter and daddy’s little girl Emily Dalrymple (Felicity Jones) then the feisty rebellious Charlotte Dalrymple (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who defies all logic and operates a shelter on the wrong side of town. Let’s see…in true formulaic movie convention will he go for the safe choice or take a chance and cast all lube by the wayside? And what about all that darn vaginal stimulation - what’s to become of the masses of unsatisfied hysterical women? Well, all these questions arise and everything is dropped like a gently aroused hot potato to hone in on the romantic comedy aspect of this trite and extremely unsatisfying flick.

The portrayal of orgasms vary in degree of silliness (and not believable in the least) avoiding any form of eroticism. The Vibrator stimulation scenes are beyond stupid (as though someone would really sing opera in the saddle). An interesting highlight is that the examination room (or “pleasure cage”) doesn’t have gynecological stirrups of a clinic bed, but rather is more like a velvet-curtained puppet stage shrouded in mystery.

 As though coming direct from the Women’s Channel there are jabs at chauvinism while upholding women’s rights but in the end it’s all about the phony fairy tale idea of doing the right thing and falling in love with the right person. The sub-plot of Maggie running a shelter to tug at our hearts strings is just another phony manipulation of Rom-Com ideology. In the hands of a more seasoned filmmaker, Hysteria could have hit all its high notes and really delivered on what is a very intriguing story. Instead we get the glossed-over and dreadfully serious fact that in its day hysterectomy was essentially a woman’s lobotomy.

The flick’s last third involves a super stagey, unbelievable courtroom scene and the ending is sewn up way too happily with a hard-to-tolerate kiss. Sadly Wexler’s vision for Hysteria is just a tepid telling of what could be a hilarious or deeply serious (not to mention erotically charged) story choosing instead to suck the life out any hopes under its own pretentions. This movie is all touchy feely (pun intended) but in all the wrong places. Credits include a history of vibrators from hybrid feather duster to pocket rockets

Hysteria

Starring Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones, Rupert Everett, Directed by Tanya Wexler

Rated R

2 stars

Model Citizen

Blind Faith reveals more than meets the blind eye 

By Morgan P Salvo

Bernie has a trifecta of actors I usually can’t stand (Jack Black, Mathew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine) and a director who has never impressed me. More importantly Richard Linklater has perturbed me in a way no other director has with his fingernails-on-a-blackboard over-wordy agendas and use of mostly bad acting to deliver the goods. All this has changed, at least for the most part, with Bernie.

The film is based on the true story of Carthage Texas’ Bernie Tiede, (Black) who was an assistant funeral director (“they don’t call them morticians anymore”), singer for the church choir, director/actor for the town’s community theater and all around nice guy seeking acceptance. Without giving too much away Bernie befriends the town’s meanest widow, Mrs. Nugent (MacLaine), who’s rolling in dough. They start taking trips together and hanging out way too much, sparking the gossip machine in the small town but mainly everyone just thinks its fine. That is all except Lloyd the accountant (Richard Robichaux) and DA Danny Buck (McConaughey) who both smell a rat. Mrs. Nugent becomes more demanding of Bernie’s attentions and, as this is a story being told in the past tense, we get the feeling that something is not going to go well for at least one of the main characters. The shape of things to come takes on a crime mystery feel for that last third. Bernie also morphs into a reminder of political rhetoric that if you keep on saying something it must be true... a term used for sociopaths as well.

 This is Linklater’s tribute to his home state fusing interviews with real people (happy to talk to the camera) and real actors, all very believable. Bernie reads a lot like the Errol Morris documentary Vernon Florida but with a plot. Witty and to the point Linklater, finally restrained, redeems himself by sticking to telling the story, including only small doses of wordy prose-like dialogue.

Even though all the actors were fine I would’ve liked to have seen all three main characters played by relatively unknowns, that might have allowed for them to shine and we become more vested in their plight and stories. That said, MacLaine exhibits her finely honed cantankerous spirit with her standard frowning “ bitch-from-hell” old lady role but actually has a little bit of an arc before retreating back to devil woman status. MacLaine has come a long way from the days as a leggy showgirl. McConaughey, sporting a funny haircut, actually made me laugh but over the years he seems an enigma of few great choices overshadowed by wretched movies. Black does a fairly mesmerizing job for a while then falls back on merely posing and there was way too much of him singing, although very lyrical, beautiful and poignant, it was overkill. Plus Black has gotten so fat it’s downright creepy to see his tubby girth paired with MacLaine’s withered freckled flesh--- yeesh!

 Focusing on only seeing the good and turning a blind eye to facts the result is that people will believe what they want, no matter what. Linklater pulls off a slick flick incorporating a great world view of Texas that while entertaining, lacks emphasis. Suffering from no real dynamics there’s an absence of high drama or suspense thanks to the director’s laid back even keeled approach. This leaves us with nothing but warm-hearted sentimentality which is great to an extent but ends up a prime example of less is not more it’s just less.

Highlights of this flick are seeing the resurgence of Sonny Davis (Last night at the Alamo) and ending credits with real footage including the real imprisoned Bernie talking to Black.

Bernie

Starring Jack Black, Mathew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine, Richard Robichaux, Sonny Davis, Rick Dial

Directed by Richard Linklater

Rated PG-13

2 ½ stars

Trickery and Deceit

 Snow White and the Huntsman is too Grimm for it’s own good

By Morgan P Salvo

June brings us Snow White and the Huntsman, the second Show White movie installment of the year. Unlike its earlier counterpart Mirror Mirror the actual line of “who is the fairest of them all” is uttered and unlike Mirror’s attempt at wit and coming off like a bad cartoon, Snow White and the Huntsman comes off like a combo of Lord of the Rings, Time Bandits and Apocalypse Now (okay, maybe one scene).

The reinventing of the familiar plot has the evil queen (Charlize Theron) holed up in her castle fighting age off with a frenzy, sucking air out of young maidens or plucking life out of handsome stable boys hearts with her talons. Then there’s a mirror (looking like a big Zildjan cymbal) that tells her she’s still the fairest. That is until the mirror designates an imprisoned Snow White (Kristen Stewart). Snow escapes, the Queen’s sadistic brother (Sam Spruell) is dispatched to find her, a brave yet drunken Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) protects her, along with despicable hobo-like dwarves found along the way. Then it’s a journey back to the land where Snow comes from, rally up the banished troops to takeover the evil castle. All the while the Queen doth age and uses all her evil sorcery to thwart Snow White’s efforts. We all know how this will end, with good triumphant over evil, but its fun to see how the fable is either distilled or ramped up. However this flick is merely a boring quest saga peppered with adventure and at times meant to please Twilight fans and worshippers of Hemsworth’s hunkdom.

First time Director Sanders shuns his past of making commercials, creating a vision like Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood or Game of Thrones with a non-stop onslaught of different lands and sets of CGI greatness. There’s an impressive Dark Forest with its twisting gnarled branches, nasty monstrous troll and clams that ooze motor oil. The Enchanted Forest is something altogether spectacular with its fairies, mushrooms-with-bulging- eyeballs and a stag-like creature with tree branches for horns. This is a psychedelic Disney-like fairyland that’s looks like H.R. Pufnstuf on acid. 

Trickery and deceit is at the base of this movie and following suit the PG-13 doesn’t work for cinematic battle scenes. We need to see at least one spray of blood or a lopped off head. Wisely to overcome this burden some of the black army are just a weird conglomeration of obsidian meshed together to form fighting soldiers that when sliced by sword shatter and explode.

Another similarity between the two flicks is that both have Academy Award winning actresses to play the wicked Queen: coincidence or challenge? Wherein Julia Roberts was scurrying about spouting ineffective one-liners, Theron holds her ground and emanates evil from her various perches. Although both actresses have a field day with this role, Theron, is betrayed by some unworthy dialogue rendering her merely adequate. Stewart’s rallying of the troops monologue is also laughably weak, but to Stewart’s credit she actually smiles and only bites her lip once (that I noticed). Hemsworth, trading his Thor hammer for an axe, didn’t bother me so much as he is perfectly cast. But he has to do something about that permanent scowl. Spruell (sporting an evil blonde Prince Valiant haircut) is a formidable villain wreaking havoc on the sojourn.

As with Mirror, the seven dwarves are the best thing. Drawing heavily from the Lord Of The Rings influence the dwarves are played by a slew of barely recognizable actors in flawless CGI fitted dwarf bodies. It’s a laugh riot to discern British actors like Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones and Eddie Marsan through this CGI extravaganza. Still, I liked that Mirror actually used little people.

Using some of the original Grimm ideology with the poison apple signifying temptation and the relationship between queen and brother might be more that just sibling love, this flick tells a decent story that’s still good for the kids, though there were WAY more kids at Mirror than this.

Thankfully the love story isn’t handled all mushy and corny as in Mirror, in fact SWATH keeps the love interest at bay which is refreshing. It’s actually about more important things like storming the castle than “let’s make out”. Yet... This flick is Way too deadly serious  there is a lot of crying in this movie--- you know the kind where you watch someone’s sad face until a tear or two slide down their face. I think Denzel started all this in Glory. Hell there’s more crying in this movie than the first Spiderman, and that’s a lot.

Where Mirror was a slow-paced dimwitted waste of time Huntsman’s slow moving speed is deliberate with its storytelling. Even though there are moments of greatness in this flick, it still lacked oomph. I think there’s an even greater film within these intentions still waiting to be made.

In the end this flick is a more adult version than the cute predecessor, and Grimm’s mythology is messed with more clearly. Still Snow and Huntsman lacks the punch to send it into the heights of memorable. I’m already getting hazy on the memory except for the acidy flashback of The Enchanted Forest.

 

Snow White and the Huntsman

Starring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Spruell

Directed by Rupert Sanders

Rated PG-13

2 stars