Crunching the Numbers (Bloodsport Vol. 5: The Bloodening)

[Ezen Baklattan]

Thanks for the great review! Hopefully it can snag a few big Oscar noms.

[4815162342]

The Next Dimension

The Elastic Pokemon

Nature: Flexible

Special Ability: Phasing (Can cover great distances in short times by blinking forward in intervals)

Trainer: Uekacreator

The Next Dimension was 1 hour 53 minutes long, and it was close to being the longest hour 53 of my entire life so far. The film tries to cram so much into a sub-2 hour running time that the whole thing gets stretched out like an accordion and causes some of the scenes to have almost glacial pacing. The worst example of this is the back-to-back-to-back interrogation scenes a little ways before the film's midpoint. The film tries to cram as much dialogue and themes and character into a trio of scenes that really don't move the story forward at all, instead rooting it in one place for a gigantic catching of breath. The second worst example is when suddenly in the final act the film tries to introduce a significant character and expand even more on the movie's backstory and character motivations. There simply is not enough time for the film to squeeze all this in without making everything feel stretched and thin. It's a shame too since Kevin Spacey turns in a strong lead performance and Aaron Eckhart brings the right amount of smirk and malice to a ambitious scientist turned terror magnate. The Next Dimension wants to take audiences to a whole new playing field, but it doesn't manage that. It instead smashes them over the head while throwing images and screaming exposition at them in rapid fashion.

[4815162342]

Dawn of Oblivion

The James Cameron Pokemon

Nature: Cameronesque

Ability: Cameronize (Add $50 million to budget, +15 visual display, +15 audience eyeball popping, -10 subtlety)

Trainer: Uekacreator

Dawn of Oblivion is BIG, really, really BIG. Our good friend Ueka, though his proxy James Cameron, threw the GDP of a few small countries into the making of this film and oh boy did all that money pay off. Dawn of Oblivion is one of the most visually stunning films of the year, with the most advanced special effects money can buy and a collection of many superb money shots. It's probably the lock to win Best Visual Effects and certainly will be a strong contender in the sound categories as well. Like every James Cameron film it is a technical marvel and a feast for the senses. So what about the rest of the film?

Dawn of the Oblivion is the second film in a two month span about the world ending and spaceships going off to save humanity's remnants, though both films are presented quite different. In traditional Cameron style the film is framed around a epic tale of romance and troubled love, with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett turning in earnest, emotional performances as spouses torn apart by civil war, political intrigue, and scientific expeditions throughout the course of several years, finding one another on occasion only to be torn apart yet again. It's quite moving and very attuned to playing on audience feelings. So the visuals are great, the emotional center of the story is great, the entire film must be great then right? Well...it has some problems:

* The priest involved in the quasi-love triangle with Pitt and Blanchett is called Christian. Christian. Classic Cameron Lack of Subtlety.

* James Franco is miscast as the President of the United States. The film tries to explain having such a young president away but it can't hide that Franco just is not presidential at all.

* Everyone, everyone, EVERYONE (except the bitch doctor woman) is earnest and true and well-meaning and selfless and naive and OH MY GOD JAMES CAMERON WE GET IT THESE ARE THE PARAGONS OF VIRTUE IN AN OTHERWISE CORRUPT AND VIOLENT SOCIETY! Seriously, aside from bitch doctor, all of the characters are morally perfect and do the morally sound thing every single time and try to do everything they can to help everyone and be pure and therefore, especially in the President's case, act as naive and stupid as they possibly can. The world is ending Mr. President, and you can tell the whole world that and cause massive panic and shitstorms that could scuttle the whole thing, or you can work with what you can to save as many as you can with as little in the way of complications as possible. Guess which option President Franco chooses? The upstanding, noble, selfless, virtuous, completely boneheaded one.

* Speaking of Franco and company, he gets shot, we're told he survives, his two advisors promise they will continue on with his plans...and then nothing, they completely disappear from the film. We have no idea if they're dead, if they were put onto an escaping ship, or if they're somewhere shielded on the scorched Earth. There's 3 major storylines intertwined in the plot and the film decides to go "eh, forget this one" as the third act starts to build to the climax. It's poor storytelling at its most obvious.

So, Dawn of Oblivion is a technical genius, features two great leading performances who drive the film's emotion, and then has a bundle of problems that weigh it down a lot. Is it still good? Kinda, but it should have been a hell of a lot better.

[riczhang]

I'm actually quite worried for my films now that Creator's two films didn't get brilliant reviews.

Edited November 18, 2012 by riczhang

[Blankments]

* Speaking of Franco and company, he gets shot, we're told he survives, his two advisors promise they will continue on with his plans...and then nothing, they completely disappear from the film. We have no idea if they're dead, if they were put onto an escaping ship, or if they're somewhere shielded on the scorched Earth. There's 3 major storylines intertwined in the plot and the film decides to go "eh, forget this one" as the third act starts to build to the climax. It's poor storytelling at its most obvious.

Although I stick by my score, I was thinking about this when I was reading Next Dimension... I chalked it up to Cameron writing.

[riczhang]

Although I stick by my score, I was thinking about this when I was reading Next Dimension... I chalked it up to Cameron writing.

Next Dimension isn't Cameron.....

[The Creator]

Although I stick by my score, I was thinking about this when I was reading Next Dimension... I chalked it up to Cameron writing.

Exactly.

[4815162342]

I'm actually quite worried for my films now that Creator's two films didn't get brilliant reviews.

This thread is subtitled "The Bloodening" for a reason.

[Water Bottle]

This thread is subtitled "The Bloodening" for a reason.

I thought it was called the Bloodening because you felt like making up a word.

[The Creator]

I'm actually quite worried for my films now that Creator's two films didn't get brilliant reviews.

To ease your worry, I don't think Numbers cared for them much in the original CAYOM either, so it's not unexpected.

[4815162342]

I thought it was called the Bloodening because you felt like making up a word.

It's like Highlander 2: The Quickening, only with lots more blood and actual quality.

[4815162342]

Empty Hearth

The Capitalist Pokemon

Nature: Greedy

Special Ability: I Drink Your Milkshake (+10 Internet Immortality, +1 milkshake consumption, -1 Paul Dano in the world)

Trainer: riczhang

Empty Hearth is the Coen brothers reimagining There Will Be Blood in the California Gold Rush context as Water Bottle astutely pointed out. I find the same in my observations. However, while our fellow critic WB was tentative and hesitant to give more than lukewarm approval to this film, I think I can go a bit farther out into the field. Daniel Day-Lewis does what Daniel Day-Lewis does because Daniel Day-Lewis is Daniel Day-Lewis and the result is classic Daniel Day-Lewis. Marion Cotillard gives a smooth, sensual performance as a woman out to win over our gold baron's heart for motives that slowly bubble to the surface. Tommy Lee Jones is solid, but he's not in the film enough to make much of an impression and the third act twist about his character is kinda superfluous and only there really to add another level on context to the film's events. The film is slowly paced but a period drama like this can afford to take its time and build the atmosphere and while a few of its scenes are close to carbon copies of events from TWBB as WB also noted, it's only a few and the rest of the film makes up for it by focusing more on the ability of a capitalist scammer to fall in love and find worth in something beyond money and self, something that was never explored in TWBB beyond the most cursory attempt. So Empty Hearth is a strong film, albeit one that has some minor plot issues and some deductions for unoriginality, but still, a film worth seeing for sure.

[Blankments]

Next Dimension isn't Cameron.....

As I was reading Next Dimension, my mind wandered at one point to Dawn of Oblivion, and then I thought about that plot point.

[4815162342]

Catharsis

The Leaves Blowing in the Wind Pokemon

Nature: Ambient

Special Ability: Landscaping (Craft montage of beautiful/violent nature scenes, +5 cinematographic skill, +5 "avant garde" value, -10 narrative)

Trainer: riczhang

The big disclaimer in front of Catharis given by riczhang is "think The Thin Red Line Malick." The fact he had to give such a disclaimer shows that he knew exactly the risks he was taking the trouble he was walking into when making this film. Modern Malick and me do not get along. The Thin Red Line was good in spite of Malick's efforts to butcher it into an incoherent slobber. Catharsis is in many ways riczhang remaking last year's Wenan, only with Malick instead of PTA and Rome dysfunction in place of Australia immigration tales. The problem with this is that Malick lacks PTA's precision and self-control, so whereas the quasi-narrative in Wenan was crafted to fit the right tone and moment exactly, in Catharsis things just bubble along with a kinda-sorta-maybe relevance. The three plot streams in Wenan, for all their stylistic approach, still moved forward towards meaning. Malick throws in references to Caesar, Romulus Augustulus, and Hadrian for no reason other than "Roman leaders! Rise of Rome! Height of Rome! Fall of Rome!" and they just flit around looking bombastic or depressed and contribute zilch. We have Alexander Borgia wandering around pretty much praying most of the time with no understanding of who he is, his true nature, and his defining actions. The modern-day storyline could pack some punch if the characters were bothered to be developed more than just the most superficial depiction of martial discord and infidelity. The film just throws stuff out there to say "THIS IS IMPORTANT AND MEANINGFUL" but never bothers to give context or actual meaning for it all. It's simply just another example of Malick regurgitating onto a canvas and fingerpainting with the vomitus at random and occasionally scooping some up and throwing it aside for the hell of it to leave an even lesser glop of slime there to be watched.

[4815162342]

Worlds Apart

The Fatalistic Pokemon

Nature: Dreary

Special Ability: Kamikaze (Activate End of World Storyline, +10 audience emotion, -5 competitor box office success, -15 character rationality)

Trainer: riczhang

Most of the first half of Worlds Apart is a very good film. There's a few iffy spots here and there but we have an energetic if spastic at times dystopian war film with political intrigues and brothers-in-arms manly feelings. Then the second half, after George and Daniel make it to the UK safely, hits like a anvil of insubtlety and things shift into almost pure melodrama. You see, the quasi-Russian leader is a sore loser and figures he might as well blow up the world if he can be the ruler of it all, so there's that. However the single most godawful decision the film makes is to turn Meryl Streep's U.S. President Snowdon into a stark raving lunatic who grabs the Idiot Ball and makes every terrible decision a leader in her position could make. There's no reason for it, there's no motive for it, she just goes fucking bonkers and has more overacting than Keira Knightley from A Dangerous Method, jaw thrusting and vocal screeching and body flailing and everything. Seriously, the climax of the film is the President of the United States with a single bodyguard fucking invading London and shooting people and taking the main characters hostage and yelling and shrieking and babbling and OH MY FUCKING GOD RIDLEY SCOTT WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR FILM. Seriously, Meryl Streep's performance in the second half alone turns the film from very good into mediocre, it's just that bad and you have to blame the writing for that. Aside from her antics, the mood of the film just shifts so somberly, so overburdening melancholy, that it just doesn't feel right at all. What makes it fall flat even more is that we have suddenly spaceships appearing in the final act like "oh yeah we can whip interstellar travel together like that." For all its problems, at least Dawn of Oblivion from early on laid out the stakes for the planet and the plans for keeping things going. Worlds Apart Falls Apart.

Edited November 18, 2012 by 4815162342

[4815162342]

Hindenburg

The Gassy Pokemon

Nature: Revisiting

Special Ability: Be Kind, Rewind (Replay same event from different perspective, +6 artistic vision, -4 audience patience)

Trainer: Alfred

Hindenburg set itself up in trailers as the sweeping disaster epic of the year. In reality though it's not that epic at all, even with its sizeable running time, because of how the film is composed. Instead of presenting us with a narrative, the film instead is broken up into several episodes that replay the chronology of the film over and over again, with a different group of characters in the forefront each time. The film's rationale is that this way it can show us as much as it possibly can, as many people as it possibly can, etc. The problem with this is that by breaking the film down into 6 segments with an average length in the mid-20s minutes you really have a huge tradeoff where you get to show lots and lots of stuff, but the result is that you have almost zero character development because everything is rushed to get to the disaster portion of the episode and when that hits we get fire and explosions and screams and running and jumping all over the place. The "action" part of the episodes is well-choreographed and visually a treat, but by spreading it out over several different episodes it feels tired and stale when we see it for a 6th time. A episodic style works great for certain films, but a film like Hindenburg it does little for since it neuters several of the elements that a major disaster epic would rely upon to make audiences swoon.

[Ezen Baklattan]

Dayum, you weren't lying when you talked about bloodshed. I'm surprised that EM had an essentially clean getaway.

[4815162342]

You guys so far have mostly been picking the wrong films for me to review I guess, since there's a handful of films I liked a good bunch that were not selected for consideration.

[riczhang]

You guys so far have mostly been picking the wrong films for me to review I guess, since there's a handful of films I liked a good bunch that were not selected for consideration.

Really? Because the films requested take up about half of my top 25. And 7/10 of my top 10. Edited November 18, 2012 by riczhang

[4815162342]

Oro

The Conquistador Pokemon

Nature: Adventurous

Special Ability: Jungle Trek (+10 exotic locale, +5 energy, -5 direction)

Trainer: riczhang

Oro is Spielberg sitting back in his chair and effortlessly crafting an ol' time adventure flick. I say effortlessly in both a positive and negative way. In the positive, Spielberg can craft a competent adventure film in his sleep. In the negative, if he had strived to put get more effort put into the writing and acting, this would likely have been a Top 10 film.

Instead Oro is competent, entertaining, and a generally good time, but it never excels at what it sets out to accomplish. The jungle assault scenes and the chases are thrilling and have energy and excitement, but they don't quite reach the same level of Spielberg's top tier. Javier Bardem is strong as the ambitious and greedy main character, providing a nice twist on the protagonist being the good guy, and the romance subplot between JGL and Penelope Cruz is fine if a bit rushed. All in all I had a good time, but the film is more like disposable entertainment than anything else. Some re-watching value, but there should have been more there.

Allowing Bardem's character to escape and allude to him returning to finish the job was a nice touch for the ending.