This 900-plus-page novel by Leo Tolstoy is supposed to be a joyless, tragic slog. No one told director Joe Wright (Atonement), screenwriter Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) and the rest of this amazing crew.
They took a dusty, turgid Russian love story and added life and theatricality. They took risks and they succeeded.
In 1870s Russia, Anna (Knightley) is dutifully married to one Alexei (Law), a religious Russian politician. Another man – an aristocratic soldier also named Alexei (the younger, livelier Taylor-Johnson) – persistently woos Anna. Against her better judgment, she falls in love with the handsome soldier. In the meantime, she and her husband both lecture people on the difficulties of fidelity and the need for forgiveness.
The filmmakers decided to present this all in theatrical devices, with heavily staged scenes, sets, music choreography, and secret meetings in the wings and fly space. This makes sense, because one of the consequences of infidelity in Imperial Russia was a loss of social standing. It’s breath-taking to watch and fills the plot with life. I found myself thinking, “Is this really Anna Karenina?”
In fact, this film is the clear front-runner for the Oscar in art direction. Expect Wright and Stoppard to also be mentioned. Jacqueline Durran’s costumes and Dario Marianelli’s sumptuous score deserve note. Finally – in a story whose dated themes may rob it of emotional impact – Jude Law gives us one of his most beautiful, nuanced performances ever.
Why is this movie being gushed over? It feels like a lauded writer-director got too much leeway.
Andrew Dominik first made The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford, a well-performed movie that was more mood than substance.
Want even more mood? This violent meandering through the mob underbelly feels indeterminable, even at 97 minutes. Also, Dominik tacks on a messy comparison between mobsters and the Wall Street bailout.
The plot: three idiots think they have the perfect crime. They hold up a mob card game once knocked over by Ray Liotta, knowing Liotta will get the blame the second time. The game’s organizer (Jenkins) then hires hit-men Pitt and Gandolfini to kill lots of people and put the poker games back in business.
The acting – sometimes long-wides – is always skilled. A couple shots are also astounding. In fact, one slow-motion car crash is a brilliant feat of digital film work.
Then there are the problems. The editing is distractingly “artsy.: The continuity people forgot to check drink levels and hairstyles, which keep shifting. Scenes of people confessing random sins do nothing for the razor-thin plot. Finally, there are a dozen unsubtle cutaways to politicians discussing the bailout, and a final monologue that tries to shoehorn everything into a single, coherent picture.
Too late; you didn’t kill anything softly, you just killed it.
Did you know that Santa Claus is Prussian and that yetis build the toys, not the idiot elves? How about that the Easter Bunny was Australian, he’s got a magic boomerang, and large egg-shaped statues that guard his lair? Also, Santa, Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman can kick some serious butt.
Rise of the Guardians is adorable and action-packed. But there’s not much sense to all its distraction and action, except to occupy kids’ brains for a little while.
In the beginning, no one has ever seen Jack Frost (Pine). That’s because, even though snow days are fun, Frost doesn’t do much memorable besides kill crops and create icy patches to fell the unsuspecting. However, Frost is called to be a hero when Pitch Black, the boogeyman (Law), comes out of wherever he’s been hiding to try to take over the world.
Dreamworks does a colorful job with a multitude of chase scenes. The story is less impressive, stretched to make a children’s book into a full-length movie. The voices are okay, and certain elements are cute, like the Baby Tooth fairies – small hummingbirds that collect the teeth every night.
“Cute” is, in fact, a word that could be used over and over. However, with the focus clearly on Frost and Claus, it feels as though Dreamworks was shooting for the phrase “holiday classic.” Like any given snow day, Guardians is cool but not entirely memorable.
