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Movie Reviews
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, Cradle of Life (2003) to be released on DVD November 18, 2003.
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An underwater earthquake off the coast of Greece reveals an archaeological site that draws not only archeologists but treasure hunters. Among these is Lady Lara Croft who, using common sense, divines exactly where to search for the site. Once there, she finds an orb - which is actually a key to the location of Pandora's box. However, Asian criminals kill her two diving partners and her boat pilot, and leave her for dead. She survives and intends to track down the killers and find the orb. The plot thickens when agents of the FBI inform her that the orb was stolen by men in the employ of a supercriminal called Reiss who intends to release the terrors of Pandora�s Box on the world.
I enjoyed this film, but it must be admitted that it is suspend-your-disbelief (aka mindless) entertainment and nothing more. (Much like Once Upon A Time in Mexico.) Angelina Jolie is a modern day Emma Peel - she can stand toe-to-toe with vicious killers and slug it out, she can shoot bullseyes from horseback (riding sidesaddle, yet) and even punch out a shark. Okay - the punching of the shark was a bit ridiculous. (Try to throw a punch with your arm under just a foot of water in a swimming pool - it doesn�t go very fast or land very hard, does it?).
The flaws of Cradle of Life are the flaws of almost every modern day action adventure from James Bond onward - anything that has preceded it must be �topped.� The action is therefore non-stop - the stunts are spectacular, the fight scenes are great. But there is precious little subtlety or intelligence or even just plain common sense in use by the characters. Lara Croft throws herself into situation after violent situation trusting in luck (and skill) to see her through, whereas with a little bit of thought she could achieve her means by non-violent means. But it�s the violence that today�s audience is conditioned to want and expect.
All of the actors do a good job in this film. It was hard for me to separate actor Chris Barrie from his persona in the British comedy series The Brittas Empire, but that�s a minor quibble. Angelina Jolie was excellent - not only with the physical aspect of the role (one could almost believe she was actually capable of all the stunts she did in this movie) but also with the few times when she was actually allowed to �act� - especially at the end when she has to choose between the man she loves and the survival of the rest of the world. She makes the right choice.
Once Upon A Time in Mexico (2003) a sequel to Desperado (1995) also starring Antonio Banderas as El Mariachi.
Desperado - Buy Now
Ads for movies as shown on television or as trailers in front of other movies are usually misleading. Such is the case of Once Upon A Time In Mexico. The ads shown on tv in the United States, at least, made it seem as if Johnny Depp were the star, and that the film was going to be a caper film, with characters played by Depp, Salma Hayek, and Antonio Banderas as a trio out to steal a fortune from people unknown.
Such was not the case.
First off, of course, is the prominence Salma Hayek was given in the ads. She enters a room, she twitches aside her skirt to reveal knives sheathed in her garter, she punches out a few guys. It seems she�s going to be a strong female character. Watch those ninety-second ads, and you�ve seen about as much of Salma Hayek as you�ll see in the movie. Blink, and you�ll miss the other sixty seconds of movie screen time she has.
There�s another female character in the movie, who has about as much screen time as Hayek. She�s also supposed to be strong - she�s a police officer, after all. But she isn�t given much to do.
Here�s the plot of the film. The president of Mexico is in danger of being deposed by a General Marquez. Johnny Depp playsa CIA agent who has a Machiavellian plan in mind. He recruits El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) to kill Marquez - after Marquez has killed the President. Since Marquez had killed El Mariachi�s wife and child, El agrees to do the job.
Meanwhile, Marquez is in the pay of Barillo, a psychotic drug kingpin (Willem Dafoe) who wishes to disappear into the safety of anonymity. Depp also recruits a retired FBI agent who has a score to settle with Barillo.
Then Depp recruits the female police officer. To her he says that he intends to steal the fortune in pesos that Marquez was going to use to pay the mercenaries whom he�d hired to help him depose the President. Why he thinks she would be �turned� was never made clear, but he did think it and she did �turn� very easily. Too easily, as Depp finds out to his sorrow later on in the movie.
Once Upon A Time In Mexico is non-stop, mindless, psychotic violence. It is too �ostentatious�, as Mrs. Peel would say. People are not only killed once, they are killed several times (i.e., shot once and clearly dead, with four or five more bullets pumped into their bodies for no reason except to excite the audience). Johnny Depp as the CIA agent shoots a chef because he cooks too well (which lost him my sympathy right then and there). Shoots another man because an accident reveals that Depp wears a fake arm (why this knowledge is automatically a death sentence is never made clear. It�s just an excuse, first for Depp to kill someone and then for the audience to get a cheap laugh as Depp searches the body - in various places - for a hidden bit of information.)
Antonio Banderas as El Mariachi comes across as the hero he is supposed to be. Indeed, this film is a sequel to The Desperado (1995), also written and directed by Rodriguez, in which Banderas and Hayak played the same characters.
Once Upon A Time In Mexico has a complicated plot, and will keep you puzzled and guessing until very near the end. The actors are uniformly good (unless Johnny Depp�s arrogance annoys you extremely, which it does me), there are touches of genuine (as well as crass) humor, and the ending is very satisfying. The bad guys get theirs, and that�s all one can hope for in this day and age. If you�re a fan of Depp�s, or Antonio Banderas, go see the film. If not, stay away.
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Pirates of the Caribbean is another Johnny Depp film, and while he is the same annoyingly posturing character in it as he is in Once Upon A Time In Mexico, I didn�t mind it so much. In fact I enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean quite a bit. Keira Knightly the strong female character in this film.
What do I mean when I say �strong� female character? It�s not a woman who is shown standing toe-to-toe with a guy and exchanging blows - although that seems to be the trend in today�s movies and television. One would hope that it would be a woman who uses her intelligence to outwit her opponents - male or female, without having to resort to violence. (But that�s not what today�s audiences are conditioned to want to see.)
Here, Elizabeth Swann, a noble�s daughter, is in love with a nobody - the boy she helped fish out of the ocean years earlier. She is fascinated by pirates and reads all about them. When she fished the boy out of the ocean she appropriated a gold medallion that he wore around his neck. Now...pirates are after that medallion and lay seige to Port Royal, where Elizabeth Swann lives, and where Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has come. Elizabeth Swann is kidnapped by the pirates, who need her to fulfill their destiny.
Pirates is a violent movie, but it�s also a fun movie. The violence comes in the form of fencing, and there�s a purpose for it.
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