An European love affair

Hi guys, sorry I went MIA this week, but I've been thrown off my routine and struggling to be productive. Hopefully I'll stumble across my work ethic sometime next week. As X mentioned in his un-reviews (without mentioning to me), I went to see From Paris with Love and the Wolfman on Friday night. I was suffering from a sneezing spell at the beginning and missed the first ten minutes of From Paris with Love, and I wasn't feeling too well through most of the night, but I don't think it compromised my ability to enjoy (or unenjoy?) either of these films. Anyway, just to be safe and compensate for my possibly impaired judgment, I decided to be a little lenient and rated them:

From Paris with Love - MEHHH
The Wolfman - RECOMMENDED



This movie started out very strong, and looked poised to join the ranks of over-the-top, adrenaline pumping, action thrill rides with lots of snarky and inappropriate humor mixed in. Alas, like most beautiful things, From Paris with Love looked much better from a distance. It began somewhere near True Lies and fizzled out towards the end to wind up on the level of Wolverine.

There's not much plot in this movie, in fact it worked better when it didn't care much about a story. All you need to know can be determined from the poster you see above. Allow me to spell it out for you in bullet point form:

Who - two secret agents, one by-the-book pretty boy, the other a bald badass with a bazooka
What - they team up to stop some bad guys from doing some bad things
When - present
Where - Paris
Why - because they have extra unused ammo

John Travolta is undoubtedly the better half of this odd couple. From the moment his character steps on screen you can tell every scene he's in will at least have something funny to look at. He literally explodes onto the screen, blinding everyone with his sparkling bald head, ridiculous goatee and an incredible ability to construct long, flowing sentences using only four letter epithets. The sequence in which he instructs a French customs agent on the different grammatical functions of the word "motherfucker" is definitely the highlight of the movie. The character (Charlie Wax) is littered with prototypical rebel action hero tropes exaggerated to the max. Strapped with his trusted pistol, he storms into nests full of baddies with machine guns, escapes without a scratch (although he does need to reload and eventually runs out of ammo), snorts cocaine, has sex with prostitutes, and still manages to find time to crack cheesy one-liners and sneer at his goody two-shoes partner.

The film features some slick gun play. A couple of scenes of Travolta Ramboing through a Chinese restaurant and a garment shop are awesome to watch, reminiscent of John Woo flicks and the heydays of Hong Kong gangster cinema, and a chase scene with Travolta hanging out of the side with a bazooka will have you on the edge of your seat (if only for the amazing driving skills). However, this movie really became quite dull at some points. The love story, although quite central to the plot line, feels completely extraneous, and the Jonathan Rhys Meyers character (Reece) is just plain annoying. It seems as if the film makers decided that three-quarters into the movie that it needed some deeper message about the human condition, thus shifting to focus on Reece's (totally unconvincing) internal conflict about his actions. Instead of continuing its course as a gratuitous but fun action comedy a la the original Rush Hour, the film misguidedly develops a conscious and becomes self conscious. I guess it feels guilty about killing too many Chinese and Pakistani terrorists, compelling it to resort to cliched debates about ends and means, and how violence changes people. Ultimately the film's shortcoming lies in the way it tries to balance the importance and screen time of the two leads. It wants to make Reece Wax's partner when he should have just stayed a sidekick.



Let me begin by saying that the most disappointing aspect of The Wolfman is that this shot is the only time we catch a glimpse of Emily Blunt's cleavage. In fact you can't even see it in the actual movie because it's so dark. But anyway... I know only the most superficial details of the Werewolf/Wolfman legend - some guy turns into a werewolf when there's full moon. This is one of the reasons I decided to give this movie a RECOMMENDED rating. From what I have read, it is a pretty faithful adaptation of the legend, but those of you who know the mythology well can let me know if that's actually true.

The Wolfman absolutely excels at setting the mood of a horror/thriller film. The attention to detail in this film is astounding. Through a mix of ominous lighting, gorgeous and intricate production design of Talbot Hall (the main characters' home) as well as the entire town of Blackmoor, and solemn music, the movie instills in the audience a lasting and pervasive sense of danger and foreboding. The weather - it's always either overcast or raining, setting and timing - most of the movie takes place at night or indoors, costume - the brightest color is the shade of green on Emily Blunt's dress in the poster above, all help to convey the Gothic tone of The Wolfman. That being said, the oppressive atmosphere, along with its two hours plus running length can make it unpleasant to sit through the entire film.

This movie would certainly have benefited from being twenty to twenty-five minutes shorter. As it is right now, too much time and attention is paid to the feel and texture of the film, without really much going on. As I see it there are six major segments, starting from the death of his brother that drags Lawrence Talbot (played by Benicio Del Toro) back to a distant place and father (portrayed by Sir Anthony Hopkins) that he has long sought to leave behind, to his affliction with the curse that turns him into a werewolf and the ensuing conflict, and subsequent confrontation with his past, culminating in the final reconciliation of beast and man. All this can be told in the span of an hour and a half to an hour and forty-five minutes without losing any important character development or plot details, while quickening the film's pace and heightening its suspense.

In terms of what to cut, besides excessive shots of the changing moon, and repeated flashbacks of the same events (I know they show slightly different things, supposedly revealing various layers of Lawrence's childhood, but the technique was unnecessary and ineffective), unfortunately I would have to say the love story between Lawrence and Gwen (played by Emily Blunt) should also be included. The writers criminally underused a vastly talented Emily Blunt, and offers no convincing reasons as to why her character falls in love with Lawrence so soon after her brother's death. Gratitude, or even affection perhaps, but love doesn't seem to be justified under the circumstances. They try to make her more central to the plot later on by using Lawrence and Gwen's tenuous (and dubious) love for each other as an anchor for Lawrence's humanity, and a potential route to his salvation. This attempt however, seems to have been aborted midway and doesn't really have much impact on the ending. Therefore, with the flaws in the love story, as much as I would regret eliminating Emily Blunt, I would have to say her absence would improve the film overall.

Instead, the denouement should come about as the result of an epic three way showdown between Lawrence, his father and inspector Abberline (played by Hugo Weaving). In fact the entire movie should focus on these three men. Benicio Del Toro gives a strong but not extraordinary performance as Lawrence. He delivers his lines well, exuding the sense of someone with a scarred and unresolved past. However, since he is described as a celebrated Shakespearean actor, I would have expected Lawrence to exhibit more mystery and panache, which he is sadly missing. On the other hand, Anthony Hopkins and Hugo Weaving are spectacular in their portrayals of Sir John Talbot and Inspector Abberline. Hopkins delivers an eerie and haunting performance that becomes better appreciated as the story unfolds, while Weaving nails his performance as a London inspector skeptical of small town legends and superstitions becoming slowly enveloped by the curse of the Wolfman.

Finally how can I talk about The Wolfman without mentioning the Wolfman? The actual beast is terrifying and brutal when it rampages through the streets, mauling down everyone in its path, but even more so when it lurks in the dark forest, stalking its prey before bursting out of the shadows. For fans of gore, you will be very happy to know that the Wolfman is not a vegetarian. In appearance, the Wolfman looks like a horrible monster, an actual wolf + man, unlike the werewolves in Twilight which resembled oversized puppies. Even more impressive are the transformation sequences that show how Lawrence changes into the creature. In summary, The Wolfman is not a perfect movie by a long shot, but it is well worth a viewing, especially for those unfamiliar with werewolves lore.