Archive for April 7th, 2013

GI Joe: Retaliation

All Braun and no Brains

Following on the success of 2009 GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra, featuring Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller, comes the delayed release of GI Joe: Retaliation directed by Jon M. Chu teams Dwayne Johnson with Bruce Willis along with some newcomers including D. J. Cotrona as Flint and Adrianne Palicki as Lady Jaye and is supported by Ray Stevenson (fresh from playing a Ukranian gangster on the series Dexter) as a fiendishly deranged Southerner, Firefly the muscle for the Cobra group and a little seen Channing Tatum as Duke, one of the original GI’s and Ray Park as Snake Eyes.

With a convoluted plot involving an imposter American president played with evil cynicism by Jonathan Pryce, reprising his megalomaniac villain Elliot Carver from the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, this film is nothing more than a homage to all the weapons of mass destruction, and to a male-orientated obsession with weaponry, arms and naturally testosterone fueled combat. All types of weapons are on display in this film from samurai swords to high-calibre machine guns and whilst GI Joe: Retaliation is a great action packed film to watch, one hopes that it does not inspire some unwanted teenager to randomly gun down a group of strangers in a Mid-Western American mall. Sadly in the wake of the Sandy Hook School shooting in Connecticut and the massacre at the Aurora Theater in Colorado both in 2012, Gi Joe: Retaliation‘s overemphasis on weaponry surely points to a society which is unwilling to relinquish its right to bear arms despite the many casualties.

Gi Joe: Retaliation action spans the globe from Pakistan to North Korea, from Washington DC to South Carolina, and whilst the plot resembles a twisted version of Diamonds are Forever without the glamour and whilst there are some great moments provided by Willis and Stevenson, most of the film is filled with explosions, knife fights, infinitely explosive gun battles, exhilarating boat and car chases and perfectly provides a cinematic reason to showcase all the weapons of retaliation stockpiled by any of the G8 nations, a fill arsenal of destruction, capable of flattening any major capital city in the globe, from London to Tokyo.

Fun to watch, without much thought behind it, GI Joe Retaliation will definitely find a following in its target audience and is not as good or slick as the original film, the slightly more sophisticated GI Joe, Rise of the Cobra. GI Joe: Retaliation has some fantastic sequences in it especially the ninjas on a Japanese mountain and the odd quirky dialogue naturally involving Bruce Willis, but the script is a bit too outlandish to be taken seriously and should really be viewed in the context of a some fun Saturday afternoon entertainment. Definitely recommended mainly for bored teenage boys and young men who like the action thick and fast without much thought.

Nights in Rodanthe

Romance is reinvented in the 2008 screen adaptation of the successful American author Nicholas Sparks novel Nights in Rodanthe, set on an island off the Outer Banks of the spectacular coastline of North Carolina, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane. These two accomplished actors were previously seen together in the brilliant film Unfaithful and are now back together demonstrating that mature love stories are an everlasting draw card for audiences. Nights in Rodanthe directed by George C. Wolfe is a beautifully shot film about the turmoil of human emotions that ordinary people suffer from loss, regret, love and the general difficulties of balancing a family with the demands of a stressful career in contemporary society.

Diane Lane plays Adrienne Willis a Carolingian housewife whose husband abandoned her months ago, leaving her to deal with two children whose life is changed forever when she goes to Rodanthe a small coastal community to look after a friend’s gorgeous Bed and Breakfast for a couple of days only to fall in love with the one guest who arrives to solve a crisis of conscience, Dr Paul Flanner, a doctor from the city of Raleigh who is seeking to make amends with a man who blames him for his wife’s death. Both characters have emotional troubles and are certainly at turning points in their lives, when they spend a couple of nights together slowly revealing each other secrets and the tragedies that they have left behind.

Charlotte, North Carolina,

Fall 2005

Admittedly I am at a slight advantage in reviewing this film, because I have had the privilege of meeting the author Nicholas Sparks in Charlotte, North Carolina in the fall of 2005 and also having read some of his other novels, most famously The Rescue and The Notebook, starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams the latter of which was also turned into an historical love story, all set in Sparks home state of North Carolina. All his novels were international bestsellers and as a writer he has found a niche market, well-written romance novels about ordinary characters living under extraordinary circumstances as they deal with themes of love, redemption, loss and eternity.

As a film, Nights in Rodanthe is placed firmly in the tradition of Love Story and will primarily appeal to the female viewer, but what elevates this film is the extraordinary performances by both Gere and Lane who give maturity and significance to their brief affair, made more poignant by love letters written between them after Gere’s character Dr Flanner goes to Ecuador to make amends with his only son. The art of letter-writing so virtually extinguished in this digital age, is cherished here as are the simple pleasures of reflective contemplation, soul-searching and the emotions that accompany those that have discovered true love later in life, beautifully evoked with spectacular scenery of a turbulent coastline and an astonishing setting.

Deception

The 2008 film Deception is a subtle psycho-sexual thriller, directed by Marcel Langenegger set in the corporate world of New York City, starring Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams interweaving themes of illicit anonymous dating, with identity theft and corporate money laundering.

It is by no means a particularly bold film, but will nevertheless keep the viewer entertained with a sinister love triangle that is hinted at between McGregor, Jackman and Williams’s characters as they enter into a series of deceptive encounters and sexual intrigues stretching from New York to Madrid surrounding a corporate dating agency called the List, which promises the hard-working corporate clients late-night hook-ups with anonymous respondents. No names, no conversations, just murky and unquestionable sexual desire being completely gratified.

Charlotte Rampling, the queen of psycho-sexual thrillers, so disturbingly good in such movies as Swimming Pool and Basic Instinct 2, makes a far too brief appearance as one of Ewan McGregor’s first encounters, who tells his character Jonathan McQuarry, that anonymous dating provides the clients with intimacy without the intricacy.

As the film progresses first impressions are ultimately deceiving and the shadowy midnight world of corporate sexual encounters develops into a far more sinister tale of murder and international financial embezzlement. All the scenes in New York City are mostly shot at night, with locations in bleak office buildings, pale apartments, dingy subway stations or dimly lit hotel bars and bedrooms. McGregor’s character McQuarry transforms from a dull introverted external auditor to a cunning and resourceful anti-hero.

With hints of the 1980’s classic thriller Bad Influence and the more recent film with Jennifer Anniston and Clive Owen Derailed, Deception is certainly not an original story, but its fascinating film noir qualities combined with themes of sexual intrigue, and the undertones of corporate power and identity make the film a worthy cinematic visit. By the end, you won’t want to trust that casual acquaintance you have made at work or indulge in any seemingly anonymous sexual activities. Deception definitely and darkly reveals that in most cases intimacy without the intricacy is really an illusion.