You guys might not know that I love boxing. I do more MMA but I really love punching out my angst and frustration!
So I was perhaps more excited to see Creed than you might initially guess.
If you don’t know Creed is the newest entry in the Rocky series (the 7th film to be exact). In this film we focus on Apollo Creed’s son Adonis or Don and his boxing journey. Apollo died before Don was born and his Mother left him an orphan.
The wife of Apollo played by Phylicia Rashad adopts Don and tries to keep him away from boxing but he feels the drive to compete in the ring. He’s had a tough life and feels because he was the product of an affair he was a mistake.
Don goes to Philadelphia to meet Rocky still played by Sylvester Stallone and convinces him to help him train as a boxer and for the big fight.
All of these elements could and probably should have been tired and formulaic but in the hands of director Ryan Coogler it is such an entertaining film. Michael B Jordan redeems himself from Fantastic 4 and is terrific as Don who is a sincere but wounded young man.
Sylvester Stallone is fantastic as Rocky. I don’t want to give any spoilers away but the character arc he takes is raw, vulnerable and moving. I cried on multiple occasions. I honestly think he should be considered for best supporting actor. It’s a great performance.
Director Ryan Coogler gives the film a surprisingly indy feel for such a mainstream franchise. The single take feel of the final fight in particular is such a great watch. I also loved how unpredictable the final fight was. I really didn’t know who was going to win or how it was going to play out.
At their heart Rocky movies have always been about relationships and this is between Rocky and Don and I found it very sweet and compelling. Without sounding corny they both kind of rescue each other.
The only real flaw I had in the film was the girlfriend Tessa Thompson I thought was kind of forgettable and I didn’t see much chemistry between her and Jordan.
But that’s about it. Creed is the kind of movie that if you like this kind of thing you will love it. If you don’t usually it still might win you over.
I must confess I have absolutely no memory of the 2010 Chilean mining disaster that evidently captivated the entire world but yours truly. This fact probably helped me to enjoy the film The 33 more because if I had known the details going in it would have felt very predictable.
It’s not a perfect film but I had an ok time watching it. If you are in the mood for a cheesy inspirational film you certainly could do worse.
It basically tells the story of 33 miners who after a collapse are stuck beneath the ground in a mine in Chili. The men must use the small supplies they have to survive and try to get along in the hot, tense cramped quarters.
Meanwhile above ground their families are trying to get more help and Laurence Golborne (Rodrigo Santoro) the minister of mining is trying to manage expectations and find a way to drill down to the men.
For the most part I liked the performances of the actors playing the miners. Antonio Banderas is good as the leader and Lou Diamond Philips as the safety officer who feels he let the men down by not insisting on safety to management.
Above ground the acting is more dicey. Juliette Binoche is completely miscast as the estranged sister of a miner. There are also a lot of caricatures that made me cringe like 2 women that are in love with a miner- one wife, one mistress. Gabriel Byrne appears as an engineer and he is pretty good.
There are a couple of choices the director Patricia Riggen made that felt odd to me. First of all, some characters speak Spanish with subtitles but the majority speak English with a Spanish accent. I found that very distracting. She should have just gone with one or the other.
Also she could have done more to create a sense of claustrophobia in the mine. It felt hot but never the kind of thing that would make a man crazy. The audience for the film also feels a little muddled. A few times it feels like it is aiming for a faith based audience but then you have things like mistresses and a weird segment with the men hallucinating their females feeding them that evangelical purists will not like.
It’s also way too long. 127 minutes really started to drag and should have been more like 90. There was no need to include multiple scenes with them rationing food or multiple scenes with bigwigs shouting about giving the men ‘false hope!’. The Juliet Binoche scenes in particular could have been cut out and it would have been much better.
That said there were strong moments particularly from Banderas and I did feel inspired by the end of it. The late James Horner score helps add to the inspiring feel. I did want to see them succeed and get rescued and it was exciting when (spoiler alert) they were!
I guess it is one of those films you take it for what it is- a cheesy inspirational story. That’s what I thought I was going to get and that’s what I got. So if you are in the mood for that watch it!
I’m working on coming up with a new grading system but for now The 33 gets a
Overall Grade- C (which in my world means I liked it but it has some major problems)
It’s movies like Spotlight that make me wish the Academy Awards had a Best Ensemble award because every single player in this journalism expose film is about as good as it gets. This whole movie is without a doubt one of the best of the year and I really think it is an important movie for all to see.
Spotlight is based on the 2001-2002 investigative journalism done by a wing of the Boston Globe called spotlight. They spent nearly 2 years researching abuse in the Catholic Church and by the end uncover 70 predators and the widespread cover-up that allowed this evil to persist.
But that might make it sound depressing and it is certainly sobering but I was surprised how many times I smiled. The script is so well written and the performances so great that it feels like we are following real people who of course are going to smile and laugh on occasion even when investigating this awful thing.
It will also rip your heart out at sections but that is again because the writing allows for the softer moments and gives us a chance to breathe and take it all in. There is never a sense of being manipulated because some of the characters even realize their lack of reporting in the past was part of the problem. It is not like Steve Jobs which was good but left me feeling cold because it was so one-sided. Here are fully dimensional people investigating lead after lead after lead.
If Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer don’t get nominated for Best Screenplay than it would be the scandal of the year. These reporters and most of the other characters were so compelling I felt like we had been through an experience together and I knew them after watching the movie. It was that natural and real.
I love movies about work and this is an amazing one. You could feel the hard work weighing down their faces but their drive and ambition, even arrogance also feeding in.
Mark Ruffalo- as Michael Rezendes, one of the main investigators, amazing performance and a scene where he talks about how much he used to like going to church made me sob.
Rachel McAdams- as Sacha Pfeiffer, the lone woman in the Spotlight crew who goes to church with her Nana and makes a personal investment in interviewing and getting to know many of the victims.
Michael Keaton- as Robby Robinson, head of Spotlight who is a great leader and uses his ins within the Boston community to uncover many things he wish he didn’t have to know about or find.
Liev Schreiber- as Marty Baron, new editor for the Globe and pushes the Spotlight team on the case. He is Jewish and there is a feeling he is trying to use this case to make a big name for himself, which may be partly true. It’s a brilliant performance.
John Slattery (from Mad Men)- Ben Bradlee Jr, one of the heads at the newspaper.
Stanley Tucci- as Mitch Garabedian is nomination worthy as a lawyer who takes on these long shot victims cases. Initially you think he is out for only the notoriety of suing the Catholic church but there is more to it.
The list could go on and on. It’s truly remarkable how these reporters felt like real people and I was completely engaged as they dug one level and then another and another.
Now most people know I am a person of deep and abiding faith, so it might rightly be asked if watching such a film about a corrupt branch of a faith is difficult. It is tough, but I absolutely think that is a reason to watch it not to stay away. If I had my way this film would be required viewing for anyone of faith. It’s like the old quote by Edmund Burke says:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
To hear how men supposedly of God could rationalize and make excuses for molesting and harming children is sickening. I don’t know how that can not be the case. But it is also sickening to hear about people who could have done something to stop it and kept their mouth shut, or in some case silenced those who were willing to speak out. That is not what Jesus would have us do. He protected the little children above everything else. He blessed them and brought one back from the dead. Yes, he forgave the woman caught in adultery but that was only after she faced near death as a punishment. He showed mercy but he did not for a second turn a blind eye to sin especially when it came to children.
Watching something like Spotlight it does tear your heart out and make you think about what you would do. We all like to think we would do the right thing but an entire city for decades didn’t and that is a sobering thought. It took the brave efforts of these reporters to finally get something done. They are true heroes in my book.
Here’s some of the actors and the actual reporters.
But I can’t overstate it enough this is a sobering but not depressing film. I left feeling inspired, wanting to make a difference in the world, wanting to be a better person, and I really did laugh more than you’d think. It’s a great movie and I loved it so much.
As far as content surprisingly it is a very mild R rating. There’s a little bit of language and some scenes where molestation is discussed openly but it’s minimal and I think definitely appropriate for mature teens. Go see it!
So I was so looking forward to the new movie Suffragette and you could say it let me down. It’s such a shame because it had so much potential. My main problem was the constant use of shaky cam and extreme close-ups. It really ruined the film for me. I don’t have time to do full write up on here but here is my youtube review.
Spectre is an interesting film to review because it succeeds at being what most of the 24 Bond films are but it fails at being what in my opinion the two best Bonds films , Casino Royale and Skyfall were- emotionally compelling. It’s a solid Bond movie but it just doesn’t have that layer of complexity the earlier films in the Daniel Craig Bond films did. To me at least those films succeeded because Bond felt like a real person with emotions and feelings, which made the action much more engrossing because it was happening to someone I actually cared about.
Most Bond movies aren’t so rich but are silly action movies with quippy one liners, cool gadgets, ridiculous stunts and beautiful women. You get all of that in Spectre but I was a little let down by Sam Mendes’ latest offering because I wanted more than that. The previous movies spoiled me! (In fact, I picked Casino Royale as my action movie choice to introduce someone to film in this fun post here)
In Spectre we even get the martini shaken not stirred line when in Casino Royale he is asked that and says ‘Do I look like I give a d…” I prefer the previous but I guess it makes sense when Casino Royale was supposed to be a prequel or an origin story for Bond. I suppose he has been growing into the agent we saw in earlier incarnations of the character. Too bad…
But that said, let’s talk about the movie we did get, not the movie I wanted. The plot to Spectre is very similar to Mission Impossible 5. The movie starts out with a dynamite sequence in Mexico City during a Day of the Dead celebration. The action is terrific with sweeping pan shots and a helicopter fight scene that blew my mind.
James Bond is hunting down a secret organization called Spectre from a clue that he found from the M played by Judi Dench in previous films. When he returns to London the 00 organization is being merged wtih MI6 and the new M played by Ralph Fiennes is having to deal with C played by Andrew Scott who Sherlock fans will recognize. I liked them both in their roles
James is supposed to stay in London but through the help of Q and his cars and gadgets (more of that kind of thing in this than the previous films) he makes it to Europe and then South Africa to investigate the Spectre.
Along the way James meets a woman named Lucia played by Monica Bellucci and then the main Bond girl Dr Madeleine Swann played by Lea Seydoux. They are all fine but again the typical old school Bond girl, nothing more. There’s nobody even close to Rebeca Ferguson in MI-5.
The villains are a big disappointment. So far I have yet to see a great Christoph Waltz performance (his Tarantino films are too violent for me) but it really isn’t his fault here. He is off screen for most of the movie and when he was there it was a standard campy Bond villain with elaborate ways to kill people instead of just shooting them. There’s also one of those old school Die Hard style bombs with the digital read out. Are those ever going to go away? Dave Bautista literally says one word and is the more predominant force trying to stop Bond. They do have an amazing fight sequence on a train so that was entertaining but hard to feel bonded to a villain who doesn’t talk.
There were times when I got a little bit bored and like in MI-5 there are a lot of plotholes and moments where you scratch your head wondering ‘how did they get here? How did they know to go here? How did they survive that?” Perhaps that wouldn’t bother me if this hadn’t been the 7th movie this year asking me to take such silly action leaps and again the previous films were so good! Sigh…
Anyway, Spectre is what it is. It’s an old school Bond movie with some good action, some silly banter and beautiful women. If that’s your thing than you’ll probably like it. If you are hoping for a little more depth than you might be disappointed.
As far as content there is some sensuality in two scenes and a lot of over the top action and fighting. Minimal profanity so base your viewing of the film on how offensive you find the Pierce Brosnan or Timothy Dalton Bond films.
Also the score by Thomas Newman felt very old school Bond as well.
Overall Grade- C+ (which I remind you a C+ means I thought it was slightly above average)
If you didn’t know yesterday was Back to the Future Day! Basically in Back to the Future 2 when Marty and Doc go back in time they go to October 21, 2015.
To honor this occasion my local theater and the Salt Lake Film Society put on a Where’s My Hoverboard marathon event where we watched all 3 Back to the Future films. On my regular blog I will post about the event itself but I thought I would post my reviews of the films here.
Back to the Future is what I think of as basically a perfect blockbuster film. I am sure they exist (and I will doubt hear from some of them as that always happens) but in my personal life I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t like Back to the Future. There are a lot of reasons why it works so well.
It is of course the story of Marty Mcfly and Doc Brown and his deloreon time machine. Doc invents the time machine but then an accident causes Marty to get sent back to 1955.
Then Marty gets involved with his parents who he must bring together or his entire existence is in question.
There is also the bully Biff who we meet in both 1985 and 1955.
Marty and Doc must also figure out a way to get him back to 1985 using the 1955 technology and a bolt of lightning!
There are a lot of reasons Back to the Future works so well. Michael J Fox is charismatic as Marty with a likable rebelliousness to him. The rest of the cast is also great with most of the action focusing on 5 people- Marty, Doc, Loraine (Marty’s mother played by Lea Thompson), George (Marty’s father played by Crispin Glover), and Biff (Thomas Wilson).
This works so well for a time traveling story because the ripple effect of the changes they make and have to fix are relatively small and contained. It also helps you to really bond with the characters and feel invested when they succeed.
There is also a great undercurrent of heart to the film. Marty has come to see his parents as real people that aren’t so unlike himself. There is even a bit of an oedipal complex with Marty seeing his mother as an attractive woman and vice versa.
The other key to making Back to the Future work is the writing and pacing. There isn’t a wasted scene. There isn’t a moment where I am bored or over-thinking the science of it. It’s also very funny with an amazing script by director Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale.
The music is also helpful with an iconic score by Alan Silvestri and great song Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News. Here’s some clips from the movie with the song.
Last night the entire theater was cheering throughout. It’s the kind of movie you leave with a big smile and probably didn’t need sequels but we got them nonetheless.
Overall Grade- A+
In Back to the Future 2 we get most of our original cast back except for Crispin Glover as George McFly. The producer and directing team are all back and it is an entertaining film but my least favorite of the 3.
In this sequel Marty goes to the future to try and help his son from going to prison. In 2015 he finds all kinds of new technology like flying cars, hoverboards and easy lace shoes.
Marty gets to see his future self, house, family and life and we learn that Marty has a temper particularly when people call him chicken (not sure why they added that personality trait but they did).
Unfortunately Marty has a scheme to buy a sports almanac so he can win on betting sports back in 1985. Biff as an old man hears about this almanac and steals the time machine to go back to 1955 and give it to his young self.
Not aware of Biff’s plans they go back to 1985 but it is altered into a hellish place where Biff rules all as a Donald Trump like mogul.
They then have to go back to 1955 and stop Old Biff from giving the almanac and not run into themselves from the first movie.
This movie works mostly because of the fun technology we get to see and the vision for the future. Also the likable cast and nods to the first movie are a lot of fun.
However, we just get too much of Biff. There are 4 versions of him in this film, so instead of being joyful with Marty and Doc, it feels dark, angry and unpleasant at times. That may work for a dystopian novel but for a fun popcorn flick it is too much of a downer.
The pacing is also not as tight and there are a lot more plotholes because we are dealing with 4 different time periods and a mogul who influences many people instead of just 2 people falling in love.
Still I don’t mind watching it and find it overall entertaining.
Overall Grade- C+
Back to the Future 3
Then we get to the final in the series. It’s kind of a silly entry but it is more joyful than the 2nd so I enjoyed it more.
In this film Doc Brown gets sent to 1885 west while Marty remains in 1955. Marty learns through a letter that Doc is living as a blacksmith and is perfectly happy. Unfortunately Marty also learns at the library he is going to die in a weeks time, so Marty heads back to the Old West to save his friend.
Now the question becomes how do they get back to 1985 with 1885 technology and they meet MadDog Tannen the relative of Biff who doesn’t like either one of them and challenges Marty with the chicken nonsense from 2.
To everyone’s surprise Doc meets a school teacher played by Mary Steenburgen and they share an interst in Jules Verne and fall in love, creating a whole new level of problems.
There is a lot of silliness in Back to the Future 3. This is in no way a gritty accurate Old West. It is from a movie set if I’ve ever seen one full of just about every western cliche you could imagine. However, it also uses those cliches for humor like Marty’s character being named Clint Eastwood.
Even for a popcorn series the ending is too ridiculous to work for me but the final train sequence is entertaining.
At least in 3 there is a spirit of fun back into the series and we get less of Biff (although I could have used even less). It’s mostly about these 2 friends, Marty and Doc, and how they help each other as strangers in the Old West.
Alan Silvestri’s score in this one incorporates some Western themes which I appreciated and I love the inclusion of ZZ Top and their song Doubleback. It’s very catchy.
I also like the chemistry between Christopher Lloyd and Mary Steenburgen. After the grimness of 2 it is nice to have a love story back at the forefront of the series.
Like I said it is a silly movie but I enjoy it and find it entertaining.
I think I should start off this review saying I have never read a Goosebumps novel; although I was certainly aware of them. They became popular when I was in or nearing high school so I missed the target age group for the series nor would I have been interested in them regardless because I didn’t like scary stories as a little girl.
So I can only speak about the movie and not any relation to the books. If you want to read a review by someone who has read the books check out my friend AJ’s review here.
Over all I’d say the Goosebumps movie was a pretty entertaining film. I think it did what Pixels was trying to do but was too stupid to pull off- give an 80s style movie with creatures chasing our heroes around with humor mixed in. (Some say it has a 90s nostalgia but to me it felt more like Gremlins, Ghostbusters, The Burbs- movies like that from the 80s).
It’s pretty simple story. Basically Goosebumps is about high schooler Zach (Dylan Minnette) who moves with his Mom (Amy Ryan- who was also in Bridge of Spies) when she becomes vice principal at his school.
The house next to theirs is a little creepy and there is a girl named Hannah there who seems to have an overbearing maybe even abusive father. At one point Zach calls the bumbling cops over because he hears Hannah screaming.
It turns out Hannah’s father is reclusive author RL Stein and he has all of his scary stories carefully guarded and individually locked. Zach and his friend Champ (Ryan Lee) unlock one of the books and the creature from the book comes alive and tries to kill them.
Then a character called Slappy, the dummy, gets awakened and he unleashes all the characters and burns the books so there is no way to get them back without Stine writing a new story that does just that.
Basically the rest of the movie is the group getting chased by one creature and then another until the final showdown at the high school. But it is all done with enough charm and humor that I was entertained.
One does have to wonder if Stein knew this could happen why not have the story already written ready to go just in case? But I’m overthinking it.
A lot of the credit to the films success goes to the 4 leads. Jack Black is really funny and a little creepy as RL Stein and I really liked Ryan Lee’s Champ, who consistently made me laugh.
It’s definitely pretty scary but I think it is always in a spirit of fun and there is no doubt they will all be okay so I don’t think most kids will have a problem with it. The dummy Slappy was the scariest of the creatures.
Some of the special effects were good and some could have been better like the wolfman I thought looked particularly cheesy.
It also looses some points because it starts to feel a little repetitive. Despite tons of creatures being released, most of the time it is everyone in the town frozen and the 4 leads getting chased by one creature, they outwit that and then another appears, and the cycle repeats.
It might have been nice if for one of them they had to use their brains, one had to run fast, one had to be strong etc like some of the challenges or creatures in Harry Potter. Or if the 4 leads had each brought something different to the table but they pretty much just all run around screaming from one threat to another.
That said it’s funny enough and the action keeps going fast enough that I was entertained. I think kids that like this kind of thing will really like it, and I don’t think adults will be miserable watching it.
Like I said, it could have very easily gone down the Pixels route but, this is so much more entertaining.
There is also one part in the ending I didn’t really buy but it is spoilery so I wont’ say anything. I did also like the relationship between Amy Ryan’s Mom character and her son Zach. They seemed like believable Mother-Son team.
Did you guys read the books? Are you excited to see this? I’d be curious to know what you think and if your kids find it too scary.
Today I had the chance to see the new Steven Spielberg film, Bridge of Spies, and to be honest I was a little disappointed. Maybe even a lot disappointed.
When you have a movie directed by Steven Spielberg, based on historical events, co-written by the Coen Brothers you expect it to be one of the best of the year but I found it kind of a dull procedural. In fact it was both a dull courtroom movie and diplomatic negotiation movie in one…The trailer is also very deceptive in making you think it is going to be a tense thriller when it really isn’t.
Tom Hanks is great as Jim Donovan who is assigned to represent a Soviet spy Rudolf Abel played by Mark Rylance. Abel is a character that will either work for you and you will find charming or will seem false. For me it was the latter, but I’ve heard a lot of people rave about the performance . I can see the Coen Brother’s influence particularly on that character. He’s very deadpan and funny, but I found him kind of one-note after a while.
Hanks is normally an insurance lawyer and is hesitant (along with his wife played by Amy Ryan) to take the case but decides ‘everyone deserves representation’. That brings us to the first hour of the film which is a fairly standard court procedural. The acting is good and you see the pressure Donovan is under to help this guy that everyone hates. The two form a bond but again Abel is so deadpan that I didn’t sense any closeness on his side, only sympathy from Donovan.
It’s a fine but fairly routine courtroom drama and Spielberg does a good job staging it but it wasn’t anything new or that different from say Woman in Gold earlier this year (there were a lot of things in this movie that reminded me of Woman in Gold, which really isn’t a good thing in my book).
Eventually Donovan argues before the Supreme Court and the resulting verdict ends the first half of the film. It also reminded me during the courtroom sections of The Conspirator in its attempts to relate to modern issues but not as awful as that film did. It’s fine if a movie relates to current situations but don’t beat us over the head with it. There is a lot of speechifying in the first half of the movie mostly by Hanks but others as well.
Spielberg is great at capturing little details. It almost reminded of Mad Men in that regard. Like it is the only movie I’ve seen from that era where you see the flash bulbs littered around the photographers covering a story.
There are also segments that are picked up once and then never talked about again. For instance, we get a little story about Donovan’s daughter going on a date with his assistant and then that is never talked about again. We get little bits with his kids and at their school showing Doomsday videos but that is never really addressed again. Someone shoots up Donovan’s house but we never hear anything about that or any further danger to the family or him again. Those kind of things bothered me.
The second half of the film is when 2 Americans are detained by Communists- one by Russia, one by East Germany. The US Government recruits Donovan to work with Russia to get fallen soldier Gary Powers and they don’t want him to get the American student from the Germans. However, Donovan believes in ‘saving the one’ and meets with reps from both countries until a prisoner swap is orchestrated (which is telegraphed by the opening scene of the film when Donovan is discussing a 5 motorcycle crash with another lawyer).
There are some good things about this section. Spielberg does a great job creating a sense of cold and Hanks feels very human as he is making these negotiations without any real experience as a diplomat. You feel his fatigue and frustration.
But I think part of the problem is I didn’t really get to know either of the prisoners so I didn’t care that much what was happening to them. It is kind of like Woman in Gold in that sense. I loved Helen Mirren’s character but everyone else I didn’t really care about. Same here with Hanks and the prisoners. Also the other CIA guys seemed one note and predictable stick in the muds.
I also thought a section where a plane is shot down looked kind of cheesy. I expected better special effects from Spielberg.
It does end in a satisfactory way and over all it isn’t a terrible film, just disappointing. I actually nodded off twice which is a bad sign in the movie (only for a few seconds). It was nearly 2 1/2 hours and most of that is just people talking with little suspense or intrigue.
I know I’m in the minority on this one but perhaps this will be my 2015’s Birdman or Gone Girl where I disagree with the critical mass. It’s not awful but I was let down.
You guys know me. I’m a softee. I like a good inspirational story. I’ve even been known to enjoy a corny made for TV movie on Hallmark or Lifetime. So this is a girl that doesn’t mind a little bit of cheese in her films. Well, that’s good because it is certainly what you get in Robert Zemeckis’ new movie The Walk. It is based on the story of Philippe Petit’s wire walk between the World Trade Center Twin Towers in 1974. This was made into an excellent Oscar winning documentary in 2008.
The thing that made the documentary work is Petit is a unique person. He can be dishonest, unfaithful, rude and yet also quite charming and funny. So really it was more the man than the walk which made the documentary compelling. The documentary isn’t trying to inspire us but just tell Petit’s story.
Unfortunately Zemeckis in both his direction and screenplay don’t seem to get this and Petit ends up feeling bland and another guy with a dream. You could play a drinking game and get very drunk with how much the movie says the word dream.Justin Gordon-Levitt is a little disappointing as Petit. Much has been made of his french accent but it is pretty bad. It’s too bad Oscar winner Jean Dujardin is probably too old for the part because he would have been perfect for Petit. It’s hard to fault Levit too much because he is given a pretty corny bland character and the staging device of him telling the story, breaking the 4th wall, from the Statue of Liberty amplifies this cheese.
That’s not to say I hated the film. I actually found it entertaining. It’s just a little disappointing because it could have been great with a few tweaks.
Much of The Walk is spent with him training and assembling his “accomplices” for the big walk. His girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bon) seems unrealistically supportive of this crazy scheme as do everyone else (I wish I had such an unabashedly cheering section for my crazy endeavors!). Ben Kingsley as Papa Rudy, a famous wire-walker, is the only one who really challenges Petit and actually suggests he use a safety cord.
All of this is fine if a lot corny building up to the big walk. And I have to say the last third when he is actually pulling off the illegal walk is incredibly compelling. Cesar Domboy I thought was particularly good as Jeff, Petit’s accomplice who is afraid of heights of all things!
Zemeckis handles the special effects and the tension and the majesty of the actual walk perfectly. I saw it in IMAX 3D and there were moments where I couldn’t help but gasp. You feel the height and when he keeps repeating the walk (4 times) it gets more tense and scary. With the IMAX 3D it feels like you are there on that wire and it is almost like an amusement park ride (think Soarin California at Disneyland). If you are motion sick or afraid of heights it may not be the movie for you because the walk goes on a long time but it worked the entire time for me.
Unfortunately some of the New Yorkers especially the cops are silly cliches with overdone accents but it isn’t a big deal. The walk is compelling enough to ignore such details.
I’m not even a New Yorker but I have to say every time they showed The Twin Towers I cried. There were a few scenes where Petit leans on the facade of the building and I was practically weeping. I wasn’t expecting to have that response but just seeing the buildings again got to me.
I guess enjoyment of The Walk depends on how much you can tolerate a cornball movie. As I said, it is a bit frustrating because it could have been so much better but I still had a good time and enjoyed the film. The walk itself is so well done and so compelling that it makes up for other flaws like the narration and some of the weak character development.
The other thing I’ve been thinking about with this film and perhaps it is an unfair criticism is-was it art or was it a stunt? Petit tries to sell it as art and that he is not a circus performer. But people do brave stuff all the time like climbing Everest and we don’t call them artists.
I suppose with the Twin Towers symbolizing such a loss, I felt a little conflicted with a film trying to pass a stunt off as bravery and inspiration when much more brave things were done at those buildings. No movie is made about them (or no good one so far).
A side of me kind of wishes Petit had taken all that bravery and done something that actually matters. I mean if you look at other inspirational stories like Imitation Game or Theory of Everything those were men who actually changed the world. This could be thought of as a crazy stunt but it doesn’t really help anyone in their lives.
But I know that is being unfair. Did Picasso help people with his art? Probably not but he certainly inspired people and helped them be more creative, which is a form of help. So I guess it comes down to is Petit’s walk art or is it a stunt? What do you think?
All that said, if you want to go to an experience at the movies than definitely see The Walk. The special effects are astonishing and in the IMAX 3D it feels like you are walking as Petit walks. The rest of the film is fine and certainly watchable if flawed.
As far as content there is a tiny bit of language but the main objectionable scene is when Petit strips down so that the accomplice on the tower can see him better to shoot the wire across to him. It’s done in a way where not much is shown and it is relatively brief and humorous but it is there.
Overall Grade- C
My friend Matthew posted his review of both the book and movie you might find interesting.
You guys might not know that I love boxing. I do more MMA but I really love punching out my angst and frustration!
So I was perhaps more excited to see Creed than you might initially guess.
Don goes to Philadelphia to meet Rocky still played by Sylvester Stallone and convinces him to help him train as a boxer and for the big fight.
Sylvester Stallone is fantastic as Rocky. I don’t want to give any spoilers away but the character arc he takes is raw, vulnerable and moving. I cried on multiple occasions. I honestly think he should be considered for best supporting actor. It’s a great performance.
Director Ryan Coogler gives the film a surprisingly indy feel for such a mainstream franchise. The single take feel of the final fight in particular is such a great watch. I also loved how unpredictable the final fight was. I really didn’t know who was going to win or how it was going to play out.
