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by Leonard Heldreth

 

Western, science leads to thrilling fictional fantasy
Our films span a variety of genres this month—western, science fiction, fantasy and thriller. Each film takes the genre components and rearranges them to make the pattern fresh and interesting.

 

3:10 to Yuma
3 :10 to Yuma is a remake of the 1957 film directed by Delmer Daves and starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. James Mangold, director of the current version, previously directed Girl, Interrupted and the Johnny Cash biopic, I Walk the Line, so it may seem a little unusual for him to direct a western, even a remake.
Both versions are based on a 1953 story by Elmore Leonard, and the current version draws on the earlier screenplay sufficiently to give screen writing credit to the original authors.
Mangold’s version expands the original story by introducing Logan Lerman as the boy William Evans, and forcing him to choose between the two lead characters as a role model. It also adds several action sequences, including sections in the middle of the story that deal with an Indian attack and a railroad building crew. Some of these may not have been necessary, but they bring the film from its original ninety minutes to the two hours that now is more traditional.
The plot concerns an attempt by a group of lawmen to bring a killer, Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), from Brisbee to Contention, where he will be put on a train to Yuma for trial. Wade’s gang is determined to rescue him, and Wade is determined to escape.
Among the men bringing Wade to the train is Dan Evans (Christian Bale), a Civil War veteran who lost a foot in the war. Evans has agreed to be part of the posse because he needs money to save his ranch. Wade and Evans strike up a curious relationship as they travel toward Contention, and in the town, where Wade’s gang has surrounded the hotel, they talk in an upstairs room before making a climactic, bullet-riddled run to the train. The ending holds a few surprises.
New Zealander Crowe is excellent as Wade, switching from charming to ruthless in the blink of an eye. He quotes poetry, sketches birds, dawdles too long with a barmaid, and calmly kills people. Matching him in acting is Bale, born in Wales, as Dan Evans. Bale has the phenomenal ability to look handsome and muscular in roles such as American Psycho and Batman Begins and then to look lean and worn down in Rescue Dawn as well as completely emaciated in The Machinist.
In this film, he looks as if he could have stepped out of a Matthew Brady Civil War photograph. These two actors slide into their Western characterizations as easily as if they had been born in the West, and their acting turns what could have been a routine film into something much more interesting.
Ben Foster plays Charlie Prince, Wade’s right-hand man, and his role as a psychopath and a dandy is either dead-on or over-the-top (reviewers were about equally divided). While it isn’t the most original performance I’ve ever seen, he makes it believable.
Peter Fonda is outstanding as grizzled bounty hunter Byron McElroy, in a role similar to that played by John Hurt in the Australian western, The Proposition. Alan Tudyk (the pilot in Firefly) provides some humor as Doc Potter, the veterinarian forced to work on humans, and Gretchen Mol and Vanessa Shaw do as much as they can in their relatively small parts as Evans’ wife and the barmaid. Logan Lerman is fine as Evans’ son William. Overall, it’s a solid cast.
Each time a Western has been released in recent years, reviewers ponder whether it is the film that will mark a “rebirth” of the Western, whatever that means. Only time will tell whether audiences will pay to see a new round of shoot-outs or psychological dramas in the saddle. In the meantime, check out 3:10 to Yuma. It’s a solid film, whether it marks the rebirth of the Western or not. Top

Sunshine
Danny Boyle seldom repeats himself as a director. Starting with a hair-raising view of drug addiction in Trainspotting, he then made the charming Millions and then the gross-out semi-zombie horror film, 28 Days Later. His most recent film, Sunshine, is a science fiction film that at times reflects Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey and at other times is more like a psycho-in-space odyssey. Its merits, however, generally outweigh its problems.
The plot begins simply enough with the spaceship Icarus 2 on a journey to launch a powerful bomb into the sun to break up something that is decreasing the sun’s energy output.
No one knows if the scientists’ understanding of the phenomenon is accurate or if the bomb is strong enough to do the trick, but the alternative—to do nothing—is unacceptable because the earth and everything on it will freeze to death.
All those on board know they may not make it back to earth after completing this mission, but they are willing to accept that possibility. As they approach the sun, various complications arise that make that possibility a near certainty. Then they receive a distress signal from a ship identifying itself as Icarus 1, a vessel that left on a similar mission seven years before and disappeared mysteriously.
Should they try to link up with the original ship and perhaps use some of its parts to repair their own damaged spaceship, or should they focus exclusively on continuing and completing their mission, whatever the price? The crew makes a decision and consequences follow—some totally unforeseen.
Unlike many science fiction shows of recent years, e.g., Star Wars and Star Trek, this film attempts to present a voyage through space as realistically as possible, even to the point of hiring and generally following the advice of a scientific adviser. The Icarus, like the ship in 2001, is long with a large section at the front, and it adds a sunshield.
As in Kubrick’s movie, there are problems with mental processing (although it’s not the computer this time), there is an attempt to enter the ship by shooting into an airlock. One shot pays homage to 2001; it is preserved in the “deleted scenes” section and shows two men playing chess.
Like the earlier film, Sunshine has scenes of striking beauty. The gradual approach to the sun presents our star, even through filters, as a brilliant, bubbling mass of gold and red gas.
The flow of light across the ship’s surface often is beautiful, and other scenes, both inside and out, are striking. The surround sound picks up the creaks of the ship’s frame as it expands and contracts in the heat of the sun.
The acting is solid. Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, Batman Begins and Breakfast on Pluto) is fine as the bomb expert, Capa; Michelle Yeoh as Corazon, the person in charge of the oxygen garden, is the other familiar face. Hiroyuki Sanada is the ship’s captain, Kaneda; Mark Strong plays Pinbacker, the second in command; and Benedict Wong is Trey, a man eaten by guilt over a very human but deadly mistake.
Despite the attempt late in the film to ratchet up the suspense (as though a crew on a dead-end mission needed more suspense), the film generally works well, and the visuals never are less than interesting.
Anyone who enjoys a science fiction film that relies more on science than on space opera (at least most of the time) will want to take a look at Sunshine. Top

Stardust
Stardust is whimsical British fantasy told from the adventure viewpoint of graphic author and novelist Neil Gaiman. First a four-part graphic novel, then a regular novel, then a film with a screenplay by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn (who also directs), the production sometimes seems as if it were a huge suitcase bulging with too many things jammed in together.
Most of the time, however, the sparks given off by these random collisions add to the film rather than detract from it. Michael Vaughn directed Layer Cake, a clever variation on the British gangster film, and worked with Michael Ritchie on Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Sometimes the humor of these earlier films shows up in strange places in Stardust.
The essential plot is simple but has enough subplots and diversions to keep it moving forward at what seems like a rapid pace. There’s the vacant throne and a series of tasks to claim it; there’s the damsel in distress and the love-struck swain; there are the wicked witch(es), a unicorn, a flying galleon, a chorus of ghosts and lots of other nicely done special effects.
Vaughn adds humor in the form of a goat turned into a man who keeps nibbling things, another man turned into a barmaid who is intrigued by his own female shape, and a supernatural inn that collapses around a man taking a bath, leaving him bare in a bathtub in the middle of a field.
The hero, Tristan (Charlie Cox), has the usual mysterious origin (his father nipped over the wall for a roll in the wagon with a witch’s slave), as well as the usual naivety and a foolhardy determination that ultimately carries him through.
As usual, people take a liking to him and help him with magical gifts, etc., and over the course of the adventure, he grows up a great deal, becomes smarter and ultimately finds out who he is, although most viewers will figure it out long before he does.
What makes this fairly traditional film succeed is the gusto with which Vaughn directs his actors and the relish they seem to take in giving these stock characters some individuality. Michelle Pfeiffer is the best example.
As the archetypal wicked witch Lamia (her two evil sisters add to the Shakespeare references), Pfeiffer vamps it up, chews a little scenery, shoots green fire from her fingers and chases the heroine, Yvaine (Claire Danes), with the intention of cutting out her heart and eating it. This tasty morsel will give Lamia and her sisters back their beauty and extend their lives indefinitely.
Magic must be exhausting, because each time Lamia uses it, she loses some of her youth and beauty—her face wrinkles, her hair falls out and her breasts sag dramatically. Pfeiffer virtually steals the film.
Cox is cute enough as the awkward hero, but Danes didn’t quite work for me as the heroine—she perpetually seemed to be offended when people were trying to save her. British comedian Ricky Gervais plays Ferdy the Fence in a role clearly written for him, and Rupert Everett is fine as Secundus, a prince who will do anything to get the throne.
The most outrageous casting is Robert De Niro as Captain Shakespeare, and perhaps the most fantastic sight in this film is seeing De Niro dance the can-can in drag with a feather boa. Granted, Johnny Depp plays Captain Jack Sparrow successfully with a wink and a smirk, but Depp can look fey and make it work; I’m not sure it works for De Niro, although reviewers were divided, so you’ll have to decide. There’s also Peter O’Toole as the dying king, who looks as if he’s having too good a time pitting his sons against each other to die.
Gaiman’s vision of faery has a hard-edged quality to it that partakes more of adventure than enchantment, but it charges ahead and generally succeeds; the excellent special effects are the icing on this layer cake. Most viewers will enjoy the energy of Stardust. Top

Eastern Promises
Canadian director David Cronenberg established his reputation with low-budget horror films and then became successful commercially with films such as Scanners, The Dead Zone and the remake of The Fly. Films such as Videodrome enhanced his critical reputation, but only with his last three films—Spider, A History of Violence and now Eastern Promises has he begun to combine critical and commercial success.
The screenplay by Steve Knight explores the same seedy underside of London that Knight described in his Dirty Pretty Things, a powerful film about traffic in body parts. This one focuses on prostitution and various other crimes, the title referring to the lies that criminals tell young Russian girls to lure them away from home and into prostitution.
Anna Ivanova (Naomi Watts) is a nurse in the hospital where a young prostitute, Titiania, gives birth to a daughter and dies. Anna finds a diary written in Russian, together with a card from a prosperous Russian restaurant.
Naive, she asks her Uncle Stepan (played by the director Jerzy Skolimowski) to translate the diary, and she goes to visit the restaurant, hoping to find some lead that will enable her to connect the baby with its family. The diary turns out to be an account of how the girl was lured into slavery, and Anna has become involved unwittingly with the Russian Mafia, the Vory v Zakone.
The local head of the Vory v Zakone is Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a smiling, completely ruthless man whose son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel) drinks too much and thus is the weak link in the organization. Serving officially as the driver and unofficially as the hit man is Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), teaming up again with Cronenberg after their successful A History of Violence.
Nikolai develops an interest in Anna and tries to shield her when her knowledge becomes a threat to the mobsters. The bloody murder that opens the film sets up ramifications with other mafia families, and these play out in unexpected ways in the film.
Some things are resolved by the final scene, but others remain open-ended, and a number of reviewers felt the film needs more wrap-up. The ending seems realistic and appropriate to me, but more information might have been interesting—certainly most directors would have taken it further.
Mortensen is up for an Academy Award and certainly deserves the nomination, both for this role and for his acting in A History of Violence last year. He disappears completely into the part and manages to say more while being almost immobile than most actors can achieve with a lot of lines.
Armin Mueller-Stahl won an Oscar for his role as the father of the pianist in Shine, and he is totally at ease as the head of the crime syndicate, charming one minute and cold as ice the next. Naomi Watts is fine, although her role does not demand much emoting, and Vincent Cassel is believable as the crime heir apparent. This film ranks with the best of the gangster films, such as the Godfather series.
Any review of a Cronenberg film must address the violence and bloodshed as well as the set piece. Killings are carried out with the kinds of knives normally used for opening boxes, and several throats are cut, a couple of them quite graphically.
But in Cronenberg’s films, the violence is shocking and usually serves a function, unlike the gratuitous violence in other films. Also, just as the videotape inserted into a man’s stomach was the identifying scene of Videodrome, so a scene in a Russian bathhouse always will be identified with Eastern Promises and will set the standard for knife fights for future directors.
Nikolai (Mortenson) is in the steamroom wearing only a towel when he is attacked by two men with knives in black leather coats. He loses the towel and, stark naked and unarmed, fights the two men and survives, but the scene is extremely intense.
Any one who enjoys mob films or knows Cronenberg’s work will want to see this film. It’s tough, realistic and full of fine acting; it also demonstrates that Cronenberg is one of the best directors working today. Top
—Leonard G. Heldreth

Editor’s Note: All films reviewed are available on DVD or VHS from local stores. Reviews of earlier films cited can be found at www.mmnow.com

 

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