Johnny English: Reborn

First Hit:  This film will make you laugh at some point or another during it's 101 minutes and it stays entertaining through the outtake during the credits.

Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is an ostracized MI-6 agent who messed up an assignment in another country. He was excused from the agency because he was lured away from protecting the President of Mozambique by a beautiful woman, which led to the assassination of said leader.

At the beginning of the film we find Johnny in an Asian monastery learning meditation and martial arts from Ting Wang (played by Togo Igawa). There are riffs in these segments on the Kung Fu television series which most people won’t remember, but nonetheless, are funny.

Another agent is in trouble and trusts only English to help him, so Johnny is inducted back into the agency. English works for Pamela (played by Gillian Anderson) who is tough on him. His perceived agent friend Ambrose (played by Dominic West) turns out to not be a friend but the audience knows this early on.

Johnny gets assigned a new agent (Agent Tucker played by Daniel Kaluuya) to assist him in figuring out the next assassination plot. Through trial and error Agent English bluffs, fights, cajoles and uncovers the plot, but not without a lot of goofball mistakes along the way.

I particularly enjoyed the chair scene in the meeting with the Prime Minister. The cat scene was also precious. While English works his particular magic to figure out the plot, the Agency tries to see if he is simply a ditz by using a psychologist agent named Kate (Rosamund Pike) to monitor his actions through facial expressions.

Atkinson is wonderful as a smart, yet sometimes idiotic, agent. Igawa is funny and good as his Asian master. Anderson is adequate at the head of MI-6. Pike is very good as the psychologist that actually sees the brilliance and stupidity of English. Kaluuya is charming as English’s supportive agent in the field. West is perfect as the charming egocentric agent that is looking for more. William Davies and Hamish McColl wrote a funny and nicely sequenced script. Oliver Parker directed English in a way that gave him the freedom to be both brilliant in character and amusing to watch.

Overall:  This is an entertaining film and is easy to watch.

Colombiana

First Hit: Zoe is beautifully lithe and athletic, but I’m not sure this form was the best vehicle.

Zoe Saldana was the best character in the film Avatar; sublime in every way. In Colombiana she plays another physical character and she is great at it.

The problem with this film is the subject. It starts in Columbia when a young 10 year old Cat (Amandla Stenberg) watches the death of her father and mother. They were killed because her father who was an assassin for a Columbian drug lord and decided he wanted to retire. 

After her parents are killed, she is questioned about something her father might have left behind, she stabs the interrogator in the hand and bolts out the window. The foot chase in these opening scenes sets up Cat's character as an adult.

Older Cat (played by Saldana) is now an assassin for her uncle who sets her up with the people she kills. She leaves a calling card which assists the FBI into finding her, but she’s good and has been baiting the FBI to publicize her calling card so that the Columbian a drug lord will try to come find her to kill her. She gets her wish.

Unfortunately as the film unfolds towards its obligatory ending I realize how preposterous the assassinations are. First there were too many killings unrelated to the point of the film, and these scenes were create just to show the audience that Cat is fully capable of getting into any place and completing her assignment.

The saving grace of this film is watching her move.

Saldana is fun to watch and therefore I enjoyed what she did. The story line wasn’t the best so from an acting point of view this was a good physical role for her. Stenberg was fantastic as young Cat She showed great athleticism and determination when running away from her father’s assassins. Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen wrote the screenplay which was, to me, just obviously grouped setups for for the final scene. Oliver Megaton directed this film and from an action point of view it was well done, from a storyline point of view is suffered.

Overall: It was entertaining and well worth a look on pay per view or on DVD.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

First Hit: Somewhat better than Part 1 but frankly, I’m glad this long winded tale is over.

Thrusting children who are the bringers of light and lightheartedness to our planet into an ever increasing darker set of circumstances as they get older is part of our life on this planet; or so it seems.

The Harry Potter series of films reflects this transition in a different way and I’m not sure if it is (or was) to our benefit or entertainment. The tales took the mystery of magic and attempted to make it a real life thing and being embodied in a select few children. 

The series of films only focused on the selected few therefore we rarely were able to see or sense the difference between this magical world and non-magically gifted children or adults. This was one of the problems I had with this series of films. Where as the Hobbit tales were all fantasy.

These films originally started in a world where regular people were part of the story but they ended up being only fantasy until the very last scene when the main character's children are in a real life railway station heading off to Hogwarts School.

This film took started where Part 1 left off. Whereas Part 1 of the final chapter was long winded, boring and attempted to set-up our characters for the final resolution; Part 2 was filled with CGI action. Harry (like Luke Skywalker) was connected to the dark force of Lord Voldemort and had to be willing to kill himself to save Hogwarts and all the special magical kids who attend. One has to be willing to lose oneself to find oneself and this is true in the Harry Potter world as well as our own.

Anyway this film was dark (both in concept and visually), long, and, in some ways, filled with senseless action.

Daniel Radcliffe (as Potter) was good to watch in the first couple of films, but became limited and shallow as the series went on. He lacked depth of character in Part 2. My guess is (and I could very well be wrong) he’s glad to be through with this film series because it showed. Rupert Grint (as Weasley) probably won’t have much of an acting career after this last installment, there is nothing engaging about him or the character he played. Emma Watson (as Granger) was and is the strongest actor of the main three characters and will continue to have success as an actor. Alan Rickman (as Snape) is always enjoyable to watch and here he makes his character intriguing. Ralph Fiennes (as Voldemort) is good as the story’s evil dark character and it wasn’t because of the lines but because of his skill at creating presence. Steve Kloves wrote the screenplay from J.K. Rowling’s novel and some of the dialogue felt stiff. David Yates directed this and there seemed to be the belief that the more crap you throw up on the screen the more of it will stick. One scene particularly felt out of place, was when Harry was coming down some stairs after an intense encounter with the vision pool and Ron and Hermione are sitting there. Why were they there, how did they get there, why would they be sitting there as if they were having a private “together” moment in the middle of the battle for their school? Then they get up and after a couple of stilted lines, the three of them get more engaged with the war against evil again.

Overall:  I waded through all of the films and only one or two were noteworthy and engaging. This one excelled only in the amount of CGI stuff thrown up on the screen.

Thor

First Hit: This attempt at complicating a simple story resulted in a thud.

Kenneth Branagh has never been an actor or director that touched me with his work. I found his work pretentious and felt I could see through his acting. This attempt by Branagh to make money will probably succeed, but for storytelling, it just was overwrought – like Branagh.

The overt complicating of stories or characters doesn’t make great acting or directing. Clarity of vision with clarity of execution does tend to make good and watchable films.

In Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth), the arrogant namesake acts like most cocky kids, strong, idealistic, and quick decision making. Experience and wisdom, which cannot be willfully passed on through generations, is what he lacks. He has a brother, Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston) who obviously is not of the same blood, that Thor truly loves and admires.

Their father, Odin (played by Anthony Hopkins), banishes Thor and his hammer to Earth for his exuberance in killing people and displaying his power. Because of the 9 vectors in space (yeah right), he gets banished to Earth via a wormhole. After Thor is banished, Odin falls into a coma like sleep and Loki decides to seize the throne from his father.

Loki plots to have his father assassinated by the Ice Giant people who are from another planet. But his real plan, we think, is that he wants to be seen as saving his father at the last minute from this assassination. This act, he believes, will make him worthy of the crown. Loki also discovers that he is originally from the Ice Giant planet that his father conquered years earlier. Odin found Loki as a baby and saved him as an act of humanity. 

All the while, Thor meets up with some scientists who are studying phenomena in New Mexico. The scientist, Jane Foster (played by Natalie Portman), finds Thor roaming the desert. He happens to speak English, as do all the characters do no matter what planet or solar system they reside, and continues with his arrogant ways on Earth. The havoc from Thor and his hammer landing on the ground bring in a secret government agency to find out what is going on.

The government agency steals Jane’s materials, Thor likes Jane so he tries to get the materials back, Loki visits Thor and tells him Odin is dying, Thor gets humble and saves the day by fighting an all metal flame belching 20 foot tall robot sent by Loki to kill Thor, Thor goes back home through the wormhole promising to return but ends up killing Loki by destroying the wormhole machine.

Finally, Odin wakes up from his coma, is proud that Thor learned his lesson, and they are all sad that Loki ended up being dead because of his lust for power and wanting to prove to Odin he was deserving of being King.

Hemsworth made a good Thor. Being well built and self-effacing enough, he did a good job with a screwed up story. Hiddleston was OK and was a good enough villain. Hopkins was a great king and ruler of their kingdom – simple voice inflections and inner strength made his character work. Portman was not very believable but funny enough in this throw away role. Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz wrote a screwy script. They could definitely take some lessons from other Marvel stories which have been more interesting and fun to watch. Branagh doesn’t really know what to do behind the camera and his intelligence should have given him a better feel on how to make this character and story come alive.

Overall: Some nice special effects but beyond this the film is a flat liner.

Hanna

First Hit: Saoirse Ronan was beautifully believable as Hanna, which made this film work.

The opening scene has Hanna, in deep snow and obviously in the far northern reaches of the planet, stalking a deer; her piercing grownup eyes watching the cautious deer foraging.

She releases an arrow which finds the deer in its chest. The deer runs and Hanna runs after it in the deep snow, by now the audience is aware that she has some extraordinary skills. The deer is dying, she apologies for not hitting the deer in the heart, pulls a gun and shoots the deer.

She guts the dear, collecting rib bones when a man appears behind her and says, “You’d be dead.” It is her dad Erik (played by Eric Bana) and they begin to fight. He is teaching her how to survive. They live in a minimal cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Hanna tells her dad that she is ready to leave. He digs up a box that has a switch on the top and tells her that her enemy will come after her the moment she flips this switch. She flips it; Erik packs a small bag, puts on a suit and heads out into the snow.

A US covert unit led by Marissa (played by Cate Blanchett), comes after Hanna. Capturing her they place her an a round observations cell. The agency sends in a woman pretending to be Marissa and Hanna kills her and then escapes the inescapable building.

The race now is on to capture Hanna and Erik. There are shots of Hanna that are amazingly haunting. Her look, lack of fear and her capability to learn quickly is amazing and all this from a young teenage girl.

Although there are some faults with the film, including the way Blanchett played Marissa, I enjoyed the whole film and the music by The Chemical Brothers fit the way it was shot and directed.

Ronan was amazingly cool, complex, and interesting to watch as Hanna. I could not think of another young teenage actress that could have pulled it off the way she did. Just some of her facial looks were powerful and haunting. Bana was very good as Hanna’s father. Blanchett or the way she was asked to play this role was the weak link in this film. Seth Lochhead and David Farr wrote an interesting script. Joe Wright didn’t quite have a handle on Blanchett’s role but all else was wonderful. I really liked the pacing, the use of different types of sets and buildings, and most of all how he made Ronan this perfectly normal/abnormal girl who also killed people.

Overall: This wasn’t a great film but it was good and very interesting to watch. I think it could have been a great film, but I’m not sure how.