At the Movies - Patrick Hall

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

It’s never easy making a sequel, a storyline has to move forward and balance enough of what worked in the previous installment while delivering something new, but unfortunately, ‘Bourne Legacy’ does neither.

Directed and co-written by Tony Gilroy and starring Jeremy Renner as government super-agent Aaron Cross, ‘Legacy’ intertwines with events in 2007’s ‘Bourne Ultimatum,’ during which Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) finds closure and escapes his government tormentors.

Since the operations “Treadstone” and “Blackbriar” that spawned Bourne have been exposed, the Central Intelligence Agency is trying to cover its tracks by dispensing of other agents, including Cross. When they try to kill him, he goes on the run and action-movie stuff ensues.

Pulling the strings is Eric Byer played by Edward Norton, who we never really learn anything about, but is just like all the other baddies in the previous three films. He spouts platitudes about protecting America and the usual “spy” lingo.

Running with Cross is genetic scientist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who is the film’s most unique character and its most interesting.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

Granted, there are still a few blockbusters to come this month and next, but arguably, the most important films of the year, in terms of awards and lasting impact, will be hitting theaters this winter.

Director Steven Spielberg’s biopic on Abraham Lincoln entitled, “Lincoln,” is set to open Nov. 16 and has a pretty spectacular cast, including the greatest actor alive, Daniel Day-Lewis, in the roll of the 16^th President.

Written by Tony Kushner and an original screenplay by Paul Webb, the film is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

It’s obviously unclear how much Spielberg will stick to the book’s themes, but given the fact we’ve had to put up with “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter” this year, it will be nice to see the talented director take a serious look at one of our nation’s heroes.

With Day-Lewis leading the cast, his first film since he won an Oscar for Best Actor in 2007 (“There Will Be Blood”), you can bank on at least his otherworldly skill being the anchor of the film.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

Director and co-writer Christopher Nolan concludes his Batman trilogy with a finale that maybe falls short of masterpiece “The Dark Knight” but delivers such an outstanding conclusion, it’s only fault is being less-than perfect.

In “The Dark Knight Rises,” which picks up eight years after 2008’s “Dark Knight,” Gotham City is without organized crime and believes Batman responsible for District Attorney Harvey Dent’s (Aaron Eckhart) death.

Thus Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is a recluse in his mansion, visibly incapable of adjusting to a life without Batman. Trouble brews as the unstoppable mercenary Bane (Tom Hardy) moves in with an elaborate plot to turn Gotham into a chaotic mob-rule “society.”

At almost 3 hours long, “Rises” begins with scenes that jump around introducing Bane, new gung-ho Gotham Police officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) the mysterious "cat burglar" Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), businesswoman Miranda Tate (Marian Cotillard) and the usual suspects we already know: butler Alfred (Michael Cane) and Police Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman).

Friday marks the completion of director Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of Batman films with “The Dark Knight Rises” and his first two installments look at real world terrorism, the pursuit of bringing them to justice, and whether sacrificing an ethical code in the process is justifiable.

Since the start in 2005, with “Batman Begins,” Nolan has set Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) against villains and their schemes that are reminiscent of real world terrorism.

Plots by villains in the films include bioterrorism in “Begins” to blowing up buildings, using suicide bombers and holding large passenger ferries hostage with bombs, in “The Dark Knight.”

Following 9/11, anthrax attacks killed five people and infected 22, terror suspects were arrested in Denver for attempting to poison water supplies and terrorists have been using suicide bombers and blowing up buildings for decades. Nolan's films ask the tough question of whether unethical means are allowable when hunting down such evil individuals.

In upcoming “The Dark Knight Rises,” the villain Bane (Tom Hardy) exploits a more recent fear, economic ruin by attacking a stock exchange. He’s also seen blowing up a football stadium and assuredly creates even more death and destruction.

The terrorist villains possess goals ranging from lofty ideologies to the simple desire for wanton destruction and societal decay. “Begins” villain Ra’s Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) wanted to destroy Gotham City using a massive biological attack, while “Dark Knight” villain the Joker (Heath Ledger) was out to show how inadequate authorities are in dealing with terrorism given the lawful and ethical boundaries they must operate within.

Perhaps it’s too early for a reboot of the Spider-Man franchise, which Sony began in 2002 with “Spider-Man,” but the restart with “The Amazing Spider-Man” features a side of Peter Parker that’s welcome and more interesting, making his web-slinging hero side, that much more powerful.

Sony went back to square-one with ‘Amazing,’ starting with Peter Parker, played by Andrew Garfield, watching his scientist father and his mother leave unexpectedly. Peter grows up with his Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen).

Peter meets a scientist, Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), who worked with Peter’s father Richard on cross-genetic research. He also develops a friendship and love interest in Gwen Stacy, played by Emma Stone.

But when Connors uses a revolutionary serum that he and Peter co-create to repair his amputated right arm, using reptile DNA, the good doctor turns into a misguided monster, “The Lizard.”

The film separates itself well from the previous trilogy, showing a more troubled Peter Parker than before. While Tobey Maguire’s Parker was smitten by his love interest, he isn’t necessarily displayed as a teen struggling with the obvious issues that would come along from losing his parents so early.

After a stint on vacation, I caught “Brave” in our local theater over the weekend, which despite some laughs, the movie presents more of the same: misunderstood princess, overbearing royal mother, witless father and their path to realizing each other’s true worth.

Directed by Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman and Steve Purcell, the latest release from animating juggernaut Pixar, “Brave” is the story of Princess Merida, voiced by Kelly MacDonald, as she struggles with being a princess and her mother, Queen Elinor, voiced by Emma Thompson.

When Merida is informed she is to be married to the eldest son from one of the other three clans, she of course, hates the idea of an arranged marriage and runs away, finding “help” from a witch (Julie Walters) who gives her a magic cake to change her mother’s mind.

Of course, Merida gets far more than she bargains for and for spoiler’s sake I won’t tell you what happens to her mother. But, the mother-daughter pair finds themselves alone in the woods, discovering more about one another and coming to appreciate one another.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

“Big things have small beginnings,” declared David in “Prometheus,” a science fiction adventure with inspiring vision and sinister overtones that faces the very beliefs and ideas we hold most dear, but delivers a tense ride.

"Prometheus” tells the tale of the 17 crewmembers of the titular science exploration spaceship as they travel to a distant moon after archaeologists discovered ancient drawings all depicting the same alien civilization.

The crew is seeking the answers and origins of human life, but finds far more than they bargained for in the end. Directed by Ridley Scott and superbly written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, “Prometheus” is a prequel to Scott’s 1979 film “Alien” but tells it’s own mostly-unique story.

The crew is led by Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Dr. Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) who made the archaeological discoveries on Earth. Coming with them is android David, played brilliantly by Michael Fassbender.

Upon arriving on the moon, the crew enters an ancient stone structure that houses eerie silence, strange life forms and hidden dangers. The crew certainly finds what they’re looking for, but that knowledge comes with a heavy price.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

Fairy tales are designed to tell us a story, often with a lesson to be learned at the end, but “Snow White and the Huntsman” is a slight deviation from the original tale and delivers excellent settings and interesting visuals, but the problem with fairy tales are the one-dimensional characters.

In this telling, Snow White, played well by Kristen Stewart, is a princess who is locked for years in the tower by her evil stepmother, Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron). When Snow White escapes, the witch-like Queen finds out from the magic mirror “on the wall” that only Snow White can prevent her from obtaining immortality.

Enter “The Huntsman” played by Chris Hemsworth, who stumbles around drunkenly, but is capable in a fight. He’s enlisted to track Snow White through the incredible Dark Forest to bring her back to be killed by Ravenna.

Director Rupert Sanders handles the film’s major settings with outstanding flair, bringing a gloomy, haunting forest to life, and its counterpart, a beautiful and visually enchanting, er, Enchanted Forest.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

It’s been quite a while since the first “Men in Black” film deputed in 1997, and 10 years since the sequel, but “Men In Black III” was a pleasant surprise that did more to scratch away at the titular characters than the last installment.

“Men in Black” follows returning stars Agent Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) and Agent Jay (Will Smith) who, like before, are busy protecting the earth from any alien bad guys.

But when an alien criminal, Boris “The Animal” (Jemaine Clement) escapes from prison and seeks revenge on Agent Kay, Smith’s Jay must travel back in time to stop Boris’ schemes, including meeting up with Kay’s 1969-self, played by Josh Brolin.

The film’s highest achievement was the ability to convey more about the heroes, their pasts and pry away at Kay’s emotional defenses. While you may need to brush up on the character after 10 years of separation, Kay isn’t exactly an open-book even for his partner.

Jones and Smith play the typical buddy-cop tandem, with Smith supplying the loud-boisterous jokes and comedic relief while Jones has two expressions: seriousness and an intriguing look of a man who carries more weight than the films ever reveal to the audience.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

There has to be a number of difficulties to adapting a board game where players randomly select points on a grid to hit or miss an opponent’s secretly-placed nautical force, and “Battleship” certainly pays homage to the game, but achieves little else in terms of enjoyment.

“Battleship” is based on the classic Hasbro game that actually dates back to World War I, when it was played with pencil and paper.

The film depicts wayward hero Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), his brother and U.S. Navy Commander, Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgard) who must repel an alien invasion during international Pacific war games off Hawaii.

The film starts by laying out the reason why the faceless and nameless antagonists come to earth. NASA sends a signal into space to a planet similar to earth, in hopes of contacting life. They succeed and bad things happen.

Nothing really happens for the first half-hour except attempts to show that Alex is a guy without much direction, while Stone is the polar opposite and gets his brother to join the Navy to give Alex some structure. Even though the opening is trying very hard to establish the characters, they’re still pretty one-dimensional.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

After eight films together, director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp seem to have perfected how to mesh their talents, but it’s too bad their latest venture, “Dark Shadows” is pretty underwhelming and features quite a few one-note characters.

“Shadows” is the story of Barnabas Collins, a wealthy man in Maine in the late 1700s (Maine became a state in 1820), whose family built the town of Collinsport from the ground up, literally.

After spurning a young woman Angelique, (Eva Green) who turned out to be a witch, Barnabas’s true love Josette (Bella Heathcote) is bewitched to walk off a cliff and Barnabas is cursed to live as a vampire, buried for centuries.

He awakes in 1972 Collinsport to find the remnants of his family a shut-in ruin and his old home in disarray. Barnabas must learn to cope with the 20^th century and defeat the witch Angelique to return his family to their former glory.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

I had to see “Marvel’s The Avengers” twice over the weekend, once to fully absorb all of its splendor and a second time trying to figure out how to objectively review what is the greatest comic book movie ever and also, the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater in years.

I’m a huge comic book nerd, so I’m not even going to pretend that I won’t slip into a bias on why “Avengers” was so good, but I’ll do my best here.

Of course, if you haven’t heard, the film puts our heroes Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) against Thor’s conniving brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston).

Loki is out to obtain the “Tesseract” or “Cosmic Cube,” a source of unlimited power, and hopes to lead an army of aliens called the “Chitauri” to conquer Earth. The heroes must assemble to stop his machinations and learn to work together in the process.

The strength of “Avengers” was on the shoulders of its writer and director Joss Whedon, to manage the actors and top tier characters in such a way that is convincing and true to the great history they have.

Whedon succeeds with flying colors in dealing with the major characters Iron Man/Tony Stark, Thor, Captain America/Steve Rodgers and most splendidly Hulk/Bruce Banner.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

One month from today, this summer’s potentially biggest blockbuster is opening in local theaters, and “The Avengers” will signal the comic book movie industry’s greatest achievement, after over a decade of billions earned.

While the film certainly doesn’t need more hype, “The Avengers” is the story of a group of clashing personalities and grandiose heroes coming together to fight a common enemy. It’s a huge gamble for Marvel Worldwide Inc. (Marvel Comics) and Disney (who now owns the comics giant).

The film is the culmination of about four years worth of planning by Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, who has produced all of that studio’s films thus far, and many others.

PATRICK HALL 
The Wilson Post

“The Hunger Games” raked in tons of cash at the box office this past weekend, and while complaints about the teen violence seem to be racking up, too, the film presents a strong female heroine, robust characters hints at some major social commentary.

The film, which is based on the first in a trilogy of young-adult novels by Suzanne Collins and directed by Gary Ross, tells the story of a dystopian futuristic North America, now known as Panem. Collins, Ross and Billy Ray wrote the script for the movie. The nation is divided into a wealthy, decadent “Capitol” city and 12 dirt-poor districts that toil for resources that the people living in the Capitol need.

What payment do the district inhabitants receive for giving the Capitol all the necessities they need? They have to offer one male and one female, age 12 to 18, each year to the “Hunger Games,” so that they can fight to the death in the mass-media public spectacle to “honor” their district.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

As the final credits rolled for “21 Jump Street,” I was asking my wife how I would appropriately review a film that was less like the original television show and more of a recent comedy filled with sexual jokes, gratuitous violence and language, but the film did entertain.

I will go ahead and point out this movie definitely earned its R rating.

“Jump Street” is loosely based on the late 80s, early 90s television show featuring young-looking police officers sent into local high schools undercover to crack cases among teens and often dispensing a moral lesson or public service announcement afterward.

The film certainly abandons the public service announcement angle opting instead for a recent formula that has brought success to comedies about high school or college-aged characters.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

Civil War veteran and strange treasure-hunter, John Carter, is captured in Arizona by the U.S. Army, seeking his help to fight back against Apache attacks on citizens.

Carter manages to escape with troops hot on his tail before a skirmish with the Apache leads to Carter dragging a U.S. Colonel to safety in a cave where an otherworldly man wielding a strange weapon ambushes him.

Quickly, Carter kills the man, who with his dying breath, utters a phrase as Carter clutches a medallion being held by his attacker. With the last syllable, Carter suddenly wakes up on Mars.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

Sunday marks the 84^th annual Academy Awards and while I already tabbed ‘War Horse’ to win Best Picture, I expect ‘Midnight in Paris’ to win two Oscars for the legendary Woody Allen and surprise contender ‘Moneyball’ to grab an Oscar for young actor Jonah Hill as well as Best Adapted Screenplay.

‘Midnight in Paris’ is a film written and directed by Allen, about struggling writer Gil Pender, played by Owen Wilson, who while on a trip to Paris, falls in love with the city, and takes an unorthodox journey every midnight. Pender meets all of his favorite artists, writers and longs for the “Golden Age” of the 1920s.

The film delivers many of Allen’s famous humor side-by-side with a strong look into the notion that the past always seems more romantic than the present. For Gil, 1920s Paris was the only time worth living in, and while he finds inspiration and joy in his time-traveling midnight strolls, he also discovers important truths about himself and the life he’s living in the present.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

Since the 84^th Annual Academy Awards are coming up on Sunday, Feb. 26, I’m looking at a few contenders for Best Picture, starting with “War Horse,” a film directed by Steven Spielberg and distributed by Touchstone Pictures.

I always make picks on who will win each category, and some years I do great, like in 2009 when I got behind “The Hurt Locker,” which won six Oscars. I also do poorly sometimes, such as 2008 when I was predicting “There Will Be Blood” would clean house, but only won two of its six nominations.

This year my favorite and who I’m hitching my wagon to is “War Horse,” a story of young Albert Narracott, played by Jeremy Irvine, and the thoroughbred horse he names Joey. The two forge a remarkable bond through Albert’s training of Joey and their determination to prove that Joey can carry his weight on the family farm despite not being a plough horse.

Joey is then “drafted” into the British Cavalry on the eve of World War I and later Albert also enlists. Although the war and many miles separate the two, the film depicts a friendship and determination in both Albert and Joey that was absolutely stunning.

By PATRICK HALL
The Wilson Post

Andrew Detmer’s drunken father attacks him in the basement, hovering over the teen, assailing his son with physical and verbal abuse. Suddenly, the father is thrown against the wall, Andrew pins him there by the throat as the teen’s new telekinetic powers turn the tables on his abusive father.

“Chronicle” is a film following Andrew, played by Dane DeHaan, his cousin Matt Garrety, played by Alex Russell, and Steve Montgomery, played by Michael B. Jordan, as they develop the power to move objects with their minds and levitate their bodies to the point of actually flying.

I’m a movie guy, thanks to my father, who sat me down and got me to watch all these black-and-white classics and some color ones too. At a young age I was in love with films such as “Witness for the Prosecution,” “Mutiny on the Bounty,” “Casablanca,” “Ben-Hur,” and I still am.

While I grumbled at first having to watch a movie without color or a movie made so long ago, I dispensed with the misconception that old movies just weren’t cool and enjoyed every minute of them.

I loved when my dad would ask, “want to watch this movie?” Of course I took the opportunity to spend quality time with him, even if he fell asleep halfway through whatever we were watching. He could never sit through a whole movie, even if he loved it!