The final installment of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy was, indeed, awesome. And yet… after watching the extended versions of Fellowship and Two Towers the last two Mondays in the theater, it was also just about what I expected, nothing more nothing less. Few surprises there are, but those are generally pleasant ones.

Let’s face it: You don’t need me to tell you that this is a movie worth seeing. All I can do here is offer my handful of thoughts about specific parts of the movie.

Regarding Faramir: The Two Towers’ extended-version inclusion of the Faramir/Boromir/Denethor flashback is absolutely vital to understanding the relationship between Denethor and Faramir that we see in Return of the King.

One of the things this movie did especially well was conveying a sense of bigness to things. The oliphaunts? Big. The seige weaponry and their projectiles? Way big. Minas Tirith? Awesome. Rocks are lobbed through the air, land, and generally do large-rock-like things to buildings and people in their path. Very, very cool stuff this is.

On a technical side note, Peter Jackson clearly had total faith in his team’s skill with compositing. Wow. Check out Gandalf’s arrival at Minas Tirith.

By the way, I hate spiders. Especially spiders that stand taller than a hobbit while on all eights. (I wouldn’t say “all fours,” now would I? Hmm?)

I’m pleased to say that “Gimli, Comic Relief Dwarf” is at least genuinely funny part of the time… mainly because the lines aren’t so badly written as to require a forced delivery, unlike many of the quips in the first two films.

Watch out for the pair (trio? did I lose count?) of false endings. The screen goes dark… for several seconds… and then it’s time for another scene! This happens more than once! Bleargh! It’s as if the filmmakers couldn’t decide where to end this thing, so they strung along a series of ending scenes for as far as the eye could see, then randomly picked a place and dropped the knife on it. Or something. Minor quibble, but it’s a sad way to leave the theater after such a great movie experience when your head’s reeling from the endings.

When you’ve just sat through and dissected the qualities of the two previous films’ extended versions, you’re naturally going to think about what bits were probably excised from this film that might reappear for its extended edition release. It’s almost certain that there’s more to see of Aragorn’s transition from the ranger who arrives with the Rohirrim and the King who knocks on the Black Gate. One suspects there’s more to see of the fight between orc and Uruk-hai at that guard tower. And so on, and so on.

One also suspects that Christopher Lee won’t be entirely appeased if his appearance in this film is restored when the DVD comes out. We could’ve done without the Smeagol flashback that started the movie, and seen Saruman’s last scenes instead. Ah well.

All told, this is a film… a set of films, to be more accurate… that will stand as the high water mark for genre moviemaking many years from now. It’s an outstanding movie experience, despite quibbles over what was and wasn’t included from the source material.

In a way, I’m glad it’s over. All the weight of years of anticipation is lifted, and the decades of nitpicking can begin at last…

There isn’t much I can say about this movie that hasn’t already been better said elsewhere, really. I’ll just touch on the key points:

• For a two-hour-plus movie, very little time is wasted. Not often did I have pause to wonder about the time.
  
• I’ll join my voice to the chorus of those who state that even out of an otherwise quite-good action adventure flick, the opening sequence is one of the coolest damned action bits ever filmed. Through the whole thing I was thinking, “Yes, yes, that is how he’d do it, that’s how that talent could be used.” Efficient, no, but if you wanted to make a powerful impression and that was your skillset… hell yes.
  
• A surprising amount of the movie was devoted to… building up for the next movie. We get foreshadowing in practically the second scene. They did it well, mind you, but every time the subject came up I was thinking, “Boy, they’re banking heavily on that next set of contracts, aren’t they?” I’m not saying they didn’t handle that plot thread well, but it was glaringly obvious.
  
• Related to that is the sad loss of impact of what should have been the climactic sequence of the film. We all know it was a soap-opera ending. Even folks who have no real background on popular X-Men comicbook storylines can tell that it was a gyp. It’s the script’s one glaring failure, dramatically.
  
• Does Wolverine once again own the movie? Yes. Does anyone mind for a second? Hell no. And that’s all that needs saying about that.
  
• Cameos, cameos, cameos. Spot Dr. Hank McCoy in a televised interview! See Colossus go metallic! See Shadowcat fleeing through walls! And so on, and so on. You know, in the third movie we’d better get to actually see Kitty’s face…
  
• I adored the way they used mutant powers in low-key, comedy-beat, every-day fashion. Among the coolest (pun intended) is the quiet moment where Logan hands Bobby his bottle of product placement for a quick chill treatment. Nicely done.
  
• You both like and loathe Magneto more in this movie, and that’s as it should be. Charming, clever, ruthless, manipulative, and always playing the game as deep as he can, he’s far more in this movie than just the megalomaniac from the first one.

And yes, I think that about covers it. Unless you’re allergic to effects-laden action movies with decent characterization and a touch of wry humor, you should see this film.
X2 movie website

Yes, the original title is “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” I’m using the Americanized title to denote the fact that what I saw was the dub release.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, let me tell you about the movie release from one of the more celebrated anime TV series in the last, oh, whatever period of time you prefer.

The movie takes place between episodes late in the series timeline (for reasons obvious to anyone who’s seen the end of the series), and plays much like a (very) lengthy episode itself. All of the classic elements show up here, from hand-to-hand combat and aerial dogfights to windy philosophizing and bitch-and-moaning. Of course the talky bits are drawn out impossibly long, while the cool action bits are about the same length as they’d be in a regular episode. The talky bits are cheaper to animate, I suppose.

The plot? A wacky messed-up bad guy wants to do very bad things, and since there’s a bounty on his head the intrepid (and wildly ecclectic) Bebop crew go after him. As usual, the main story is Spike’s while the other characters bob and weave around him. Jet grumbles about how unappreciated he is, Faye staggers from disaster to disaster in that fanboy-baiting little outfit of hers, and Ed… is Ed. You know it’s a bunch of misfits when the genetically-engineered Welsh Corgi is the sane, well-adjusted one of the group.

Side note: Why did they change the song? Ed’s supposed to sing Pi, not… whatever that gibberish was. *sigh*

Another side note: I couldn’t help being amused at the teasing of the aforementioned fanboys. For an instant it seemed as if we’d get to see Faye-Faye’s ta-tas on proud display, and yet… denied. (And a vast groan rose up from the male members of the audience. Heh. Yeah, I said “members.”)

So how does the scoring go? You get ten points for it being Cowboy Bebop in all of its Beboppy glory. You lose one and a half points for philosophical mumbo-jumbo where real dialog and plot could have been. You lose another point for making a charicature of poor unappreciated Jet. Another one-point-five points are lost when Faye is used more as a damsel in distress than quirky femme fatale. One full point comes back for the clever use of those three old guys.

If you love Cowboy Bebop, or if you generally like action-oriented anime, you should see this movie. If you really love Bebop, you’ve probably already seen the movie and don’t need me to tell you what to do. If you’re sort of indifferent to Bebop or other forms of anime, find a way to see the series first and then, maybe, watch this movie. It’s good. It’s just not the greatness that we might have expected.
Cowboy Bebop Movie Site

So, Daredevil. Yeah. The Man Without Fear. Mari, Doug and I saw it this afternoon. It was good for a few laughs, most of which were probably not intended by the film’s creators.

Is it a bad movie? Well… not entirely. Clearly a number of people worked very hard to make this as good-looking a movie as they could. There are three major problems that sabotaged months of hard work.

One. The script. It’s bloody damned awful. When it’s not trite, it’s overwrought. When it’s not trying too hard for a laugh, it’s earning the kind of laughs you get when the audience is trying to shrug off severe psychic trauma. Oh yeah, and it so shamelessly rips off from Spider-man that it’s painful. (The stupid-as-all-hell “backflips to dodge thrown projectiles” sequence was done better in Spider-man and I didn’t like it there, either. Puh-leeze.)

Two. Jennifer Garner. I’m probably going to earn a lifetime of flames from Alias fanboys for this, but as near as I can tell she can’t act. If she can, great. It’s entirely possible that the script simply gave her nothing to work with. Then again, if Colin Farrell could work with the miserably written role of Bullseye, Ms. Garner should have made a similar effort. There are a few moments when she actually looks like a living, breathing human being, but for the most part her face is a blank mask. (Yes, I was looking at her face. I don’t distract quite that easily, thank you.)

Three. Ben Affleck, but not for the reason you might think. Oddly enough, I did believe him in the role. His mannerisms, facial expressions, all of that physical acting stuff worked. What failed were the words coming out of his mouth. The script, again, is mostly to blame for this. The writers put the stupidest words on his tongue, and poor Mr. Affleck had to spit them out. As Matt Murdock, he was glib and easygoing and quite convincing. As the costumed vigilante, he had to mouth absurd garbage. What’s worse is that he doesn’t sound like a superhero, instead coming off as a suburban yuppie trying to cop an attitude.

And you thought Tobey McGuire had problems sounding like a superhero. Oi vey.

There are lesser problems with the film, including a string of connected absurdities (“Gee, he fights really well for a guy with a nasty stab wound.”) and the trademark leaping-from-a-building scenes (“That’s the longest standing leap I’ve EVER seen!”). Oh, did I mention the “homages” to certain anime? Watch for the “Kaneda Jumps Onto The Bike And Kicks The Rider” scene and the “Spike Falls From The Broken Stained-Glass Window” scene. I’m not saying those scenes are bad or wrong, but it certainly distracted this little grey anime fan.

Let’s not forget the handful of cameos and in-jokes placed solely for the benefit of comic book geeks. I probably didn’t get half of them, really, but I got enough of them to notice the effort. (Check out the name of the fighter Matt’s dad is in the ring with.) Like the anime homages, they were just a bit distracting. In a better movie they might have been more enjoyable, while here they’re simply a reason to perk up and pay attention for a few moments.

What, if anything, saves this film? As I said in the beginning, a number of very talented people worked very hard to make this film good. Set designs are quite good, as are almost all of the outdoor locations. You never have a problem with the authenticity of a given location. The “DD-vision” technique is inspired and effective. Michael Clarke Duncan, for all that he’s given very little to do, makes just as good of a Kingpin as I expected. Colin Farrell, for all that he’s given the same crappy copy of the script everyone else got, wrings an enjoyably intense performance out of the material.

Yes, I do believe that’s it. The bad guys, the production values, and a scant handful of clever bits. I can only hope that the rest of the year’s genre fare is better than this. You’d think, perhaps, that it’s inevitable, but that trailer for League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen didn’t exactly leave me begging for more…

Let me get right to the meat of the review: Spirited Away is an absolutely gorgeous piece of animation. It looks beautiful from start to finish. The action is fluid and dynamic. The design of scenery and characters is imaginative and detailed.

A coworker pointed out that she favored “Princess Mononoke” over this film. My reply was that “Mononoke” is to “Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind” as this film is to “My Neighbor Totoro.” This is a child’s film, albeit a wonderfully detailed and imaginative one.

The story is that of a young girl, Chihiro, trapped in a world of spirits and monsters. She starts out weak and afraid, but spurred by the desire to rescue her parents she finds an inner determination and generous nature that see her through an amazing series of challenges. Showing the value of determination, politeness and caring seems to be the driving principle of the movie.

Not everything is sweetness and light. Yu-Baaba, the matron of the bathhouse, is quite the intimidating and dangerous woman. Genuinely scary things happen to and around Chihiro. There’s even a rather disgusting sequence involving regurgitation. You’ve been warned.

I’ll briefly touch on the quality of the dub. Disney did right by this work, harnessing superb voices to a talented voice director and a quite decent script. Names were mostly unchanged, and the occasional instances of off-camera speaking used to explain certain cross-cultural elements weren’t jarring. I admit that I’m dub-agnostic when it comes to anime, so your mileage may vary. The zealots in the crowd will likely disagree with me, but the zealots probably aren’t reading this review.

So is the movie perfect? Perhaps not, but the downsides are subjective. Chihiro’s transformation from incapable to indomitable seems a bit sudden in some ways, though there are key events that spur this transformation. There are a couple of “huh?” moments in the movie, but those could be explained by an incomplete grasp of cultural cues. Maybe. Little things, subjective things, are all that keep this movie from being a perfect 10. Yes, it’s really that good.

“Spirited Away” is only in town through Thursday the 17th of October. As of this writing, that’s three more nights’ worth of chances to see this film in the theater. It is absolutely worth it. This is a splendid film.
Spirited Away at Nausicaa.net

Wendi and I went to see the Escaflowne movie at the Clinton Street Theater a couple of weekends ago. And yes, I’m so lazy that it took me this long to write up the review.

“Escaflowne” is a movie about giant robots that manages to almost entirely not be a movie about giant robots. A young semi-suicidal girl is brought over to another world, Gaia, where everyone thinks she’s the Wing Goddess destined to summon the Dragon Armor known as Escaflowne to either save or destroy the world. Oh, and this loner-hero named Van is on a mission to kill his brother who usurped the throne or something.

You see, while the plot isn’t what you would call terribly complex, you’re not really given any sort of real bead on the background involved. You also get the impression that there’s an awful lot of backstory and character development that you’re missing out on so that the movie’s running time can be kept short.

Or, put another way, you feel like you’d be a lot better off watching the televised anime series instead of this movie adaptation. (For the record, I’ve only seen two episodes of the American dub on Fox Kids so I really don’t know that much about what the story’s supposed to be about.)

What was good about “Escaflowne,” the movie rendition? Great action sequences. Nice character and machine designs.

What wasn’t quite so good? The sense of missing backstory and character depth. A rushed feel to the sequencing. No sense that the heroine has any impetus for the changes she appears to go through.

It’s not a bad movie. I’m glad I was able to see a subtitled version, since adding a bad dub to an already-underwhelming film would probably have made it unwatchable. On the other hand, it’s not something I’m going to pay to own when it comes out on DVD. Maybe I’ll see about borrowing the series instead…

Escaflowne Movie Site