Summer Movies 2001 (Part 1)
(05/24/01)
It’s
hard to believe that it’s been almost a year since I published the first installment in
last year’s summer movies series.
Yet here we are, faced with another summer and the crop of movies it
brings. Personally, I’m looking forward
to the arrival of “Planet Of The Apes” (Tim
Burton, you are my hero!) and “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within,” feeling
ashamed to admit that I think “Tomb Raider” looks kind of interesting, anticipating
slightly belated viewings of “Memento,” “Spy Kids,” and “Amores Perros,” and
dreading “Pearl Harbor” and “Jurassic Park III” but at the same time waiting for
their arrival with a sort of sick fascination.
But until such time as I can report on the previously mentioned films, I
come to you with my first three movies of the summer: one dreadful, one decent,
and one so divinely awe-inspiring that I command you to drop everything you are
doing and go see it as soon as you stop reading this review. Agreed?
Then, perfect, let’s move on.
(Kudos to anyone who can name the movie that featured that quote...)
One
of the first bona fide blockbusters of this summer (and, thus, the first I saw)
was “The Mummy Returns,” a sequel to 1999’s delightful, bubbly adventure
romp “The Mummy.” Almost a decade has passed since the first
film in what it sure to become a lucrative series, and heroes Rick and Evie
(Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz) are now married with a young son. But their conjugal bliss cannot last long,
or else we wouldn’t have a movie. This
time, some eeeeeeevil archeologists (one of whom is the reincarnation of
Anck-su-namun, the Mummy’s lost love) are trying to reawaken the Mummy (Arnold
Vosloo) for their own nefarious purposes.
It seems that if they can get him to defeat another ancient Egyptian
dead guy, the Scorpion King (the Rock—I don’t know what he was doing in this
role, but it sure wasn’t acting), they can take control of his army and rule
the world. Our heroes are enlisted to
save the day amidst Big Nasties, bigger bangs, even bigger explosions, and one shameless
and astonishingly blatant “Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon” ripoff which almost made me walk out of the theatre when I
saw it.
Okay,
so it’s a big, dumb summer blockbuster, and as such isn’t going to rock anyone’s
world. But “The Mummy Returns” isn’t as
bad as the critics made it out to be, honestly. It doesn’t live up to the original by any stretch of the
imagination (it lacks its goofy self-awareness and sense of self-deprecating
fun, for one thing), but it doesn’t completely suck, either. The heroes have lost some of their depth,
but the Mummy has gained fathoms (his final scene, in particular, is a lovely
little touch). The villains are
cardboard cutouts, but Rick and Evie’s son is a delightful and believable
character who is anything but the old whiny-child-in-jeopardy stereotype. For every absurd scene (such as the one where
the heroes literally outrun the rising sun—oh, please!) there’s a nicely
executed one to balance it out (such as what has to be one of the most
nauseatingly cool kisses in cinematic history...). In the end, I’d say the good wins out over the bad, but not by
much.
It’s
a good thing, too, because “The Mummy Returns” had one of the biggest opening
weekends ever and is sure to spawn a franchise all its own. Personally, I think that if they make a
third movie they should drop all the resurrection-of-the-dead crap and make it
a story about Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr), warrior of God, who was one of the best
things about both movies, but that could just be my predilection for mysterious,
noble, long-haired men getting in the way of my critical objectivity. Buy a matinee ticket if you’re looking for
fun, and decide for yourself. The
Verdict: Could be better, could be worse.
Not a bad start to my summer, all in all. 3 out of 5.
Now
in my own defense, Summer Blockbuster Number 2 was not my choice,
honestly. I pushed for “Memento,” but
the people I was with insisted on seeing “A Knight’s Tale.” I’m sure you’ve seen previews and ads for
this, with sellout critics who were apparently smoking crack in the screening
rooms praising “its excitement and sense of fun.” It’s completely inescapable, and for good reason; if it weren’t
being hyped to death by marketers, no one would see this piece of crap if it
were a free show.
The
movie stars Heath Ledger as William, a peasant who pretends to be a noble in
order to compete in medieval jousting competitions. Along the way, he meets the Gratuitous Love Interest, the Evil
Treacherous Rival, the Silly Comic Relief Sidekicks, and Geoffrey Chaucer (I
kid you not!), who promises to spread his legend far and wide after he beats
the crap out of all who oppose him. So,
it’s a VERY loosely adapted Canterbury Tale.
It’s also “Gladiator”
for middle schoolers and stupid people.
It’s also so painfully historically inaccurate that my eyeballs began to
twitch almost as soon as the movie began.
Never mind that people didn’t fence with live steel in the Middle
Ages. Never mind that they didn’t joust
against human opponents, either, because even then they knew it was too
dangerous. (Honestly, jousting as this
movie portrays it is more the invention of Renaissance Faires. I’m a SCAdian. Believe me, I know these things.) And don’t even get me started on the rest of
it. Medieval spectators singing “We
Will Rock You” and doing the Wave? Nobles
doing a rave dance to David Bowie? Our heroes
entering the “stadium” to the strains of Bachman Turner Overdrive? Everyone in the movie talks and behaves like
21st-century Americans, and it’s dreadfully jarring.
I
know, I know, it’s not supposed to be a history lesson. It’s supposed to be fun and light. But even ignoring the sheer horrendousness
of these anachronisms, “A Knight’s Tale” isn’t fun at all. The plot is hackneyed and thin, the acting
wooden, the characterization one-dimensional.
Maybe good action sequences would salvage it, but the problem is that
there are none of those either. Once
you’ve seen one joust, you’ve seen them all: Two guys get on horses, ride to
opposite ends of a track, charge at each other, and hit each other with big
wooden sticks. This gets repeated
approximately 200 times throughout the movie’s interminable 2½-hour running
time, becoming less and less suspenseful and interesting every single
time. And every time the movie shows
glimmers of going in a vaguely interesting direction (William’s relationship
with his father, or the character of a female blacksmith), another joust
happens and shoots the whole thing to hell again. It’s a dull, predictable movie to begin with, and the utter
disregard for any modicum of realism makes it even worse.
“A Knight’s Tale” is quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. Yes, it’s even worse than “Wild Wild West,” even worse than the stuff they used to tear to shreds on “Mystery Science Theatre 3000.” There is not a single redeemable moment, scene, character, line, or performance to be found throughout the entire thing. If you want to like this movie anyway, I’ll respect your tastes and your decision. The only thing I can’t respect is a Hollywood that would allow utter drek such as this to escape the bowels of writer-director-producer Brian Helgeland’s mind, then praise it and promote it like the next “Citizen Kane.” Wake up and get some taste, people. This movie owes me (and everyone else who is unfortunate enough to see it) $4.50 and 2½ hours of my life back, which were so wasted by this load of donkey manure smeared on celluloid that I don’t even want to think about it. The Verdict: The worst part about the whole thing? I could have been seeing “Memento” instead. 0 out of 5 (and if I had a negative rating available, this movie would resoundingly deserve one).
(However, one good thing
about “A Knight’s Tale” was that it gave me a great idea. If this movie proves that butchered, skewed
Canterbury Tales can make millions of dollars and earn the admiration of big
names like Roger Ebert, Harry Knowles, and Peter Travers, you
know what that tells me that this world has been needing? A movie version of “The Miller’s Tale!” After all, this obscene little number’s got
fart jokes, buttock-branding, and literal ass-kissing aplenty, so it’ll fit
right in with “Freddy Got Fingered,” “Say It Isn’t So,” and all those other
big-grossing gross-out comedies! Give
top billing to Tom Green and Jim Carrey, set them loose, and watch the dough
come rolling in! I think I’ll make this
screenplay my summer project...or maybe not...but I digress, big-time.)
After “A Knight’s Tale,”
my faith in movies was shaken so badly that I had some serious qualms about “Shrek,” the latest computer-animated comedy/family movie to
show up at the multiplex. But my
friends dragged me along once again, and I’m glad they did. If they hadn’t, I would’ve missed what is
sure to be one of the best movies of the summer.
Shrek (Mike Myers, in a
voice perhaps a bit too reminiscent of “Austin Powers 2”’s Fat
Bastard) is an ogre with a face even a mother couldn’t love and no apparent
social skills. He’s perfectly content
to live alone in his swamp, until it is invaded by hordes of refugee fairy tale
creatures, including a wisecracking donkey named, well, Donkey (Eddie Murphy). The scheming Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow)
agrees to return Shrek’s swamp if he’ll do his dirty work and rescue the lovely
Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), who turns out to be a wonderfully realized
character with a strange secret. Of
course they fall in love, and the result is a delightful, tongue-in-cheek deconstruction
of “Beauty And The Beast” legends. (The
Canterbury Tales and deconstruction in the same column...wow, I AM an English
major.)
“Shrek” isn’t a perfect
movie; its inexplicable love for fart jokes, in particular, won’t age well once
America gets over its cinematic enamoration with bathroom humor. It’s something better: pure magic. The list of hilarious lines, pop culture
references, and gut-bustingly funny scenes would stretch for pages. (Two sequences, involving a gingerbread man
and a bluebird, are well worth the price of admission alone.) The animation was four years in the making
(which explains the Riverdance and Macarena references, I suppose) and looks
like nothing you can imagine. Even the
soundtrack, which on paper seems like a somewhat uninspired collection of pop
songs, comes together perfectly to produce some beautiful moments. (One montage in particular, featuring Rufus
Wainwright’s transcendent cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” ranks among
the most moving things I’ve ever seen in a movie.) And the ending is so spectacular that I don’t want to ruin it by
saying too much. This is a film you
simply must see for yourself to believe.
I really can’t explain
the resonance that “Shrek” had for me.
But it might help to know that I (like many other people I know) will often
rewatch movies based on my mood. I have
“sad movies” for when I need cheering up, “existential dilemma movies” for when
I need to be reminded what life is all about, “sense of wonder reviving movies”
for when I need to feel like a little kid again...well, you get the
picture. Anyway, my number-one “lonely
movie” has always been “The Fisher King,”
which tells me that even shy, nerdy people like Amanda Plummer’s character can
find a knight in slightly tarnished armor to sweep them off their feet. Well, “Shrek” has given even that (one of my
top 5 movies of all time) a run for its money when it comes to keeping a
lonely, ugly girl from feeling too sorry for herself and gently reminding her
that maybe she’s not so alone (or so ugly) after all. The Verdict: If you’ve ever felt like a freak, this movie
will speak to your soul. See it. Now.
4.5 out of 5.
Copyright (c) 2001 by Beth Kinderman. This is my original work, so please respect it.