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    TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

    July 7th, 2009

    Transformers2So, I was halfway through watching TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN in a theater in Toronto when my wife called me.  My father-in-law, who had been ill, was not doing well and she really wanted to leave for Los Angeles to see him.  RIGHT…NOW!

    Sensing the urgency in her voice, I left the theater in the middle of the film.  This was last Wednesday.  I just got back last night.  The good news is the my father-in-law is doing much better.  The better news is that I didn’t have to watch the rest of TRANSFORMERS 2.

    Okay…that’s a cheap shot and lazy writing.  As long-time readers of this space know, I’m a stickler for story logic.  I hate when things happen in scripts because the writer wants or needs them to happen, and not because the story has earned the right for that event to happen.   Even up to the halfway mark, TRANSFORMERS was so rife with unexplained events, illogical plot points, bad characters development, and by-the-numbers dialog that I had started squirming in my seat.  Before my wife called me I literally couldn’t wait for this movie to be over.  Characters were doing things and acting in ways completely inconsistent with what was happening around them, all for the sake of the joyride that this movie was supposed to be.  I felt like if the writers didn’t care what was on the screen, why should I?

    It was on the plane to Los Angeles that I got to thinking about the movie in greater detail.  It dawned on me that TRANSFORMERS might be something more than just another bad movie.  The writers were the same guys who wrote the new STAR TREK, one of my favorite movies of the year.  What the…?   How could they have written both?

    Were they really this bad and STAR TREK was one of their broken clocks (under the idea that even a broken clock is right twice a day)?  Maybe STAR TREK was polished (uncredited) by better uncredited polishers than TRANSFORMERS?  It’s possible.

    I then looked at the talent behind the camera.  Michael Bay.  Steven Spielberg.  Don’t these guys know how to tell a story?  Of course they do.  I’m spitting distance from nobody.  Don’t they know at least as much as I do about structure, character, and story logic?

    And then I started to think, what if the illogical action, the unmotivated character turns and reactions, even the awful and unfunny comic relief characters…what if they were the herald of a new sensibility in storytelling?  I’m not kidding.  What if TRANSFORMERS 2 is actually a NEW FORM OF STORYTELLING?

    I remember watching MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING and marveling at how concise the setup was: Scene 1, Julia Roberts says that she has a deal with a friend to get married if they’re both single at the age of 30; Scene 2, Julia Roberts goes home and gets a phone call from said friend saying that he’s getting married and wants her to come to the wedding; Scene 3, she’s on the way to the airport to break up the wedding.  Back in the old days there’d be 10 minutes or so spent on establishing the Julia Roberts character; what she’s like at work, the state of her love life, her life as a single woman.  And after a few scenes you’d hear about the deal with the friend.  And a few scenes later she’d get the phone call.  And a few scenes later (after some agonizing) she’d be on the plane.

    But here was all of that story development delivered one, two, three.  I was elated! It felt to me as if the filmmakers were saying “Hey!  We’ve had 100 years of cinema.  We all know what’s going to happen, so let’s just get there and have some fun.”

    Could the braintrust behind TRANSFORMERS be doing the same thing?  ”Screw the logic!  This is the biggest action movie of the year.  DEAL WITH IT!”  Perhaps the seeming willful abandonment of logic is not laziness but a new paradigm of storytelling?  Let’s call it “rollercoastering.”  When you get on SPACE MOUNTAIN, you don’t need to know how the damn thing works.  As a matter of fact, you want the rollercoaster to do wildly unexpected things that seem to defy the logics of mechanics.  I’m upside down!  I can’t see the track!

    Perhaps TRANSFORMERS doesn’t have logic because the filmmakers felt it doesn’t need logic.   People are going to this particular ride for the lights and special effects around the rollercoaster car, not the track beneath it.  And certainly, TRANSFORMERS isn’t being punished at the box office.

    Perhaps logic in an action movie five years from now — having seamless story structure in a $200 million dollar SFX extravaganza —  will be the exception and not the rule.   Or there will be a new category of action blockbuster for those who crave the thrill and care less about story.   Actually, there already is a category of movie like that.  Porn.  Another cheap shot, I know.

    Regardless, it will be interesting to see how other big-budget blockbusters handle storytelling moving forward from this point.  Is TRANSFORMERS the start of a rollercoastering trend — a new paradigm of storytelling — or just a bloated, poorly written movie that is the right movie for the right audience at the right time?

    I don’t know, but I’ll be watching to see how it pans out.  Bottom line is that my father-in-law is doing better, and one of the storytelling conventions that hasn’t been beaten out of me is the happy ending.

    – Jeffrey Alan Schechter

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    Posted by totallywrite

    SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

    February 9th, 2009

    lector2

    Overall Impression – A dark classic, analyzed  for us by guest reviewer Len Massar.

    THE FOUR QUESTIONS

    Who is your main character? – Clarice Starling.

    What is she trying to accomplish? – Professional: Catch Buffalo Bill. Personal: Please her father-figure boss. Private: Move past her traumatizing childhood memory of lambs being killed.

    Who’s trying to stop her? – Buffalo Bill.

    What happens if she fails? – The Senator’s daughter will die and more deaths will come.

    THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

    Orphan – Clarice feels alone in the world.  Her Sheriff father is long deceased and her father-figure FBI Chief Crawford is stern and a hard taskmaster. She accepts a temporary assignment to engage the uncooperative Hannibal Lecter for the benefit of the agency’s behavioral sciences unit. Lecter is quite smitten and dangles clues for the attentive pupil to find. She suddenly doesn’t feel so alone (“I’ll help you catch him, Clarice”).

    Wanderer – Clarice accompanies Craford to W. Virginia and help in the identification of what appears to be yet another Buffalo Bill victim. She discovers a cocoon inside the victim’s throat and a subsequent follow-up visit to a museum yields her a fresh clue. Clarice discusses these with Lecter, who demands a quid pro quo in revealing details about herself. Following the abduction of the Senator’s daughter, the opportunistic Dr. Chiltern conspires with Lecter to shut out the FBI. Forced into deviousness, Clarice manages a last interview with Lecter but this is cut-short by Chiltern and she returns home dejected.

    Warrior – Forced into deviousness, Clarice manages a last interview with Lecter but this is cut-short by Chiltern and she returns home dejected.  She decides to revisit the Ohio home of the first victim and uses her instinct to find a new clue. She relays this to Crawford who reveals that the team is on the way to capture Buffalo Bill. Doggedly tying-up loose ends, Clarice interviews a friend of the Ohio victim and learns about the work for nearby resident Mrs. Lipman. When she comes calling at the Lipman address, unknown to Clarice the door is answered by Buffalo Bill. He invites her into the run-down house and when she begins to suspect his true identity, he flees into the dark interior.

    Martyr – Clarice enters the house’s basement. Hearing Catherine’s screams for help, Clarice is now absolutely certain of Buffalo Bill’s identity and whereabouts. The lights go out and Clarice is pursued in the dark by Buffalo Bill and his night-vision goggles. Sensing his presence, she turns on instinct and shoots him dead. At her Academy graduation, she is congratulated personally by Crawford. Hannibal Lecter calls her on the phone to do the same.

    AND, IN THE END…

    What is basically a simple story is made into the classic it is by the characters of Ted Tally’s Oscar-winning screenplay. 

    The script draws us fully into Clarice’s head and her world.  We first see her running alone at the Academy, pushing her physical limits. There are easily five minutes of unscripted action off the top where we become familiar with Clarice and her environment.

    Her descent into the cellar is masterful writing and obviously compelling viewing.  It seems that the action of the third act is very compressed, hitting Contour’s four Act Three plot points in rapid succession; she knows that Gumb is Buffalo Bill (Big Yes), then he flees (No) and then the lights go out when she’s most vulnerable (Big No). The serial killer’s eventual defeat, the saving of the the Senator’s daughter and graduating with Crawford’s (and Lector’s!) final words of approval (Final Yes) all serve to underscore Clarice’s achievement of all her goals. 

    – Len Massaar

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    Posted by totallywrite

    WALL-E

    January 29th, 2009

    wall-e

    Overall Impression – Why I wasn’t more impressed with this when I first saw it, I don’t know.  But now, having seen it again on Blu-ray…WOW!

    THE FOUR QUESTIONS

    Who is your main character? – WALL-E

    What is he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Clean up earth so that people can repopulate it. Personal: Rescue EVE. Private: Get  EVE to love him.

    Who’s trying to stop him? – AUTO, the auto-pilot on the space cruiser.

    What happens if he fails? – Earth doesn’t get repopulated, Eve is destroyed, the humans lead useless lives, and he never finds love.

    THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

    Orphan – WALL-E is all alone on earth, 700 years after everyone has left.  It appears that the only creature left beside him is a single cockroach.

    Wanderer – After EVE arrives, WALL-E tries to figure out how to win her trust.  They bond, but almost immediately she goes into sleep mode after she discovers the single plant WALL-E has found.  He tries to wake her up, stays by her side, and eventually tags along with the space probe that recovers her.

    Warrior – WALL-E now fights to stay with EVE and wake her up.  When she reboots after the plant is recovered from her storage compartment, WALL-E and EVE fight to keep each other safe and to thwart the plans of AUTO who seems intent on keeping the ship from returning home.

    Martyr – WALL-E literally destroys himself trying to keep a chamber open that will accept the plant and start the journey back to earth.  And this is only one of the martyr moments.  Eve is willing to give up her directive to save WALL-E, the ship’s Captain gives up his life of being pampered like a baby to do the right thing, even the secondary robot character sacrifice in order to get the ship back to Earth.

    AND, IN THE END…

    I remember sitting in the theater watching TOY STORY when it came out and hoping that it would never end.  It was, and still is, the perfect story.  Expectations on subsequent Pixar movies thus ran very high.  Sometimes they were met (FINDING NEMO, THE INCREDIBLES) and sometimes they weren’t (CARS, BUG’S LIFE).  But even when I was disappointed, it was only relative to how high Mr. Lasseter and crew set the bar.

    WALL-E was heralded as some amazing, transcendent movie.  Something for adults much more than for kids.  I remember seeing it with my kids who were mildly bored throughout large parts of the movie.  Between their fidgeting and my high expectations, poor WALL-E never stood a chance.  And then I saw it again a few days ago.

    It’s a brilliant movie on a number of levels, but the one to focus on is the opposition to WALL-E’s goals.   If his goal is to get EVE to love him, the lesser way to challenge him would be for there to be another robot, all shiny and glittery, trying to woo her.  There isn’t.

    If his goal is to get the people back to earth, the lesser way would be for there to be some mission or directive that needs the people OFF of earth, such as the creating the conceit that the robots running the ship need the humans to generate energy to power themselves as in THE MATRIX.  There isn’t.

    There are no stock villains or stock villainy.  The opposition to WALL-E’s desire line isnot only reasonable but intense.  An important principle is that the antagonist is the hero of his or her own story.  In WALL-E there are no bad guys, only various beings — human and robot — doing what they believe they need to do, all anchored by one little robot named WALL-E doing what he needs to do.  Love someone and be loved in return.

    – Jeffrey Alan Schechter

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    Posted by totallywrite

    GRAN TORINO

    January 20th, 2009

    torino

    Overall Impression – Despite the evidence, Eastwood never gets old.

    THE FOUR QUESTIONS

    Who’s your main character? – Walt Kowalski.

    What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: save his Hmong neighbors from the local gang.  Personal: teach Thao to be a man.  Private: find a reason to keep living after his wife’s death.

    Who’s trying to stop him? – The gang and, to a lesser extent, himself.

    What happens if he fails? – The gang will tear the Hmong family apart, if they don’t kill them first.

    THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

    Orphan – Walt is a widower who wants nothing to do with his two disrespectful sons, whom he doesn’t consider good men.  He’s also a racist living in an increasingly Hmong dominated community.

    Wanderer – Walt catches Thao (the teenage Hmong boy next door) stealing his Gran Torino as part of his forced initiation into a gang.  When the gang later tries to take Thao, their fight spills onto Walt’s property and he warns the gang to get off his lawn.  Not only does Walt put himself in the gang’s sights, he’s now the reluctant hero of the local Hmong.  They adorn him with gifts, even though Walt just wants to be left alone.  In town, Walt involves himself further when he saves Thao’s sister from thugs.  They become friends, Walt learns about the Hmong family, their culture and the problems they face with the gang.

    Warrior – Walt opens up and agrees to take Thao under his wing to let him atone for attempting to steal the Gran Torino.  The punishment turns into a friendship, and Walt takes an interest in teaching Thao to be the kind of man his sons should have been.  However, the gang continues the trouble Thao, and when Walt learns that he’s dying, he seeks to protect Thao by taking the fight into his own hands.  Unfortunately, the confrontations escalate until Thao’s sister is raped and the gang does a drive-by on the Hmong neighbors’ house.  Walt realizes that Thao’s family will never have a life unless he stops the gang for good.

    Martyr – Walt literally sacrifices himself by tricking the gang into killing him in front of witnesses, ensuring that they go to jail for good.

    AND, IN THE END…

    I enjoyed Gran Torino on a number of levels, but the movie’s tone had me on edge.

    I was particularly uncomfortable when it came to Walt’s racist remarks, and not merely because they were racist remarks.  It’s because I found them funny.  I even laughed out loud sometimes – and I certainly wasn’t the only audience member.  Walt’s racism is comically delivered, which leads me to think that the makers wanted the audience to laugh, or at least feel awkward about wanting to.

    If I was forced to experience discomfort by laughing at racism, then I felt discomfort because of racism – which feels like it should be right.  But is it?  Was the filmmakers’ tactic fair?  I’d never laugh at that in the real world.  Maybe that’s part of the ‘movie experience’.

    – Dan Pilditch

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    Posted by danpilditch

    HOTEL FOR DOGS

    January 18th, 2009

    hotel

    Overall Impression – Never trust anyone over 17.  Or human.

    THE FOUR QUESTIONS

    Who are your main characters? – Bruce and Andi.

    What are they trying to accomplish? – Professional: Rescue all the stray dogs of Central City. Personal: Not be split up.  Private: Find a real family of their very own.

    Who’s trying to stop them? – Alternates between their foster parents and the animal control officers at the pound.

    What happens if they fail? – They are split up and all the dogs are destroyed. 

    THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

    Orphan – Bruce and Andi are real, honest to goodness orphans.  

    Wanderer – Andi and Bruce discover the abandoned hotel and try to figure out how to take care of all of the dogs they seem to be collecting.

    Warrior – As the number of dogs grows, they have to stay a step ahead of their step parents who are suspecting that something’s up, as well as animal control whom they thwart by getting to the strays before they do.

    Martyr – Once split up, Andi leaves her Dickensian Home for Girls and gets Bruce from his Dickensian Home for Boys where they make a daring rescue of all the dogs who are now in the pound.

    AND, IN THE END…

    All writers of children’s stories eventually face the dilemma of having to write a “Dad’s An Idiot”  story wherein kids are preternaturally smart and one or more adults are insufferably stupid.  HOTEL FOR DOGS elevates this concept to new heights (or new lows, as the case may be) by making almost every adult in the story not  only stupid, but evil.

    Why would adults — presumably the demographic who made this movie — make a movie that paints them in the worst possible light?   For the money?  That’s like me taking the gig to do an adaptation of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”  The real crime here is that some really heroic, compassionate people such as foster parents and people who work for animal control are portrayed as scumbags.  If you want to see a good movie about orphaned kids, people who work with animals, and foster parents re-rent FREE WILLY.

    Beyond this, HOTEL FOR DOGS does a disservice to writing in that it panders to its youthful audience.  The gaps of logic and story glue are so pronounced that you can almost hear the creators saying “That’s okay, it’s for kids!  They won’t notice.”  And judging by the kids I saw this with, they didn’t.   It’s not unlike BEDTIME STORIES in that way.  It’s the story logic version of Woody Allen’s observation of the systematic lowering of standards.  It used to be that a kid’s story was LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE or CHARLOTTE’S WEB.  Now it’s HOTEL FOR DOGS.  

    The problem is that the next generation of writers will learn their craft from fond memories of movies like this.  We’re mortgaging our storytelling future on the cheap, I fear.

    – Jeffrey Alan Schechter

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    Posted by totallywrite

    VALKYRIE

    January 14th, 2009

    tom-cruise-valkyrie

    Overall Impression – A mostly solid tale about personal sacrifice… if you can forgive Germans speaking in American and English accents.

    THE FOUR QUESTIONS

    Who’s your main character? – Claus von Stauffenberg.

    What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: assassinate the Nazi power players and stage a government coup.  Personal: free Germany from its real enemy – the Nazis.  Private: fight for a cause that’s worth risking his and his family’s lives for.

    Who’s trying to stop him? – The Nazis and some members within Stauffenberg’s own coalition.

    What happens if he fails? – Stauffenberg and everyone he knows will be executed, including his family.  Germany will remain under the control of the Nazis, and any hope of a peaceful end to the war will be lost.

    THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

    Orphan – While Stauffenberg is a solder thrust into bureaucracy, he’s alone because he questions the very cause he’s fighting for, while everyone around him is dangerously loyal.

    Wanderer – Stauffenberg is brought to a secret society that plans to assassinate Hitler.  They flesh out an amended operation “Valkyrie”, but to make it official Stauffenberg needs Hitler’s signature.  If that weren’t daunting enough, they must convince certain high-ranking Nazis to join their cause in order to succeed.

    Warrior – The plan is put into action, but when it fails (nothing ever goes according to plan), they’ve got to come up with another before they lose their opportunity.  After the deed is carried out, Stauffenberg and his men launch the coup, gradually assuming control from the Nazis.

    Martyr – After that plan fails (nothing ever goes according to plan), Stauffenberg and his men fight to the bitter end as the Nazis wrench back the control they momentarily lost.  

    AND, IN THE END…

    Valkyrie is about sacrifice.  What drives a person to become a martyr?  What does it mean to be a martyr?  These are all questions that should be asked about the heroes of the past if we’re to understand what they did, and why they did it.

    Did Valkyrie ask these questions?  Arguably, yes.

    I say ‘arguably’ because it’s a matter of opinion (and of historical knowledge).  We know that Stauffenberg and his team are doomed to failure before we see the movie, and one could argue that this robs it of any real dramatic tension: there’s no ‘will they/won’t they succeed’ dynamic. 

    One could also argue (as I’m more inclined) that this worked in the movie’s favor.  Since we know they’re going to fail, we can better identify with Stauffenberg because deep down, he knows that they’re going to fail too.  I would argue that Stauffenberg understood he was making the ultimate sacrifice before he even decided to fight the Nazis, and everything after that point is a window into the mind of a martyr.  

    – Dan Pilditch

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    Posted by danpilditch

    NATIONAL TREASURE 2: BOOK OF SECRETS

    January 14th, 2009

    treasure

    Overall Impression – It’s THE 39 CLUES for adults that is so winningly cast and so slickly produced that you barely realize that nothing’s at stake.

    THE FOUR QUESTIONS

    Who’s your main character? – Ben Gates.

    What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Find the City of Gold. Personal: Prove that his great-great-grand father was not involved in killing Lincoln (really!)  Private: Get back together with his wife. Interestingly, the private goal is obvious, however because Ben is not coming out and saying it directly to anyone, it qualifies.

    Who’s trying to stop him? – Mitch Wilkinson, who also wants to find the City of Gold to make his mark on history.

    What happens if he fails? – The goals themselves are really weak. The world’s not going to end if he doesn’t find the City of Gold, and he’s not going to be sent to prison for a million years if he doesn’t prove that his great-great-grandpappy didn’t help kill Lincoln.  It’s the steps he has to go through on the road to resolving these very low-stakes goals that bring any jeopardy to the story.

    THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

    Orphan – Ben is separated from his wife and living out of boxes at his father’s house.  He is a famous historian and treasure hunter who believes that his family name is besmirched by the revelation that his great-great-grandfather’s name appears on a missing page from John Wilkes Booth’s diary.

    Wanderer – Ben puts together his team including his father (played by an actor who once played FDR in a movie) as he starts to pursue clues.  He eventually learns that the information he needs is in the Book of Secrets, which is only viewable by the President of the United States.

    Warrior – Ben kidnaps the President (played by an actor who once played JFK in a movie) in order to get access to the book.  He’s now wanted for kidnapping the President and is on the run as he fights to get to the location of the City of Gold.

    Martyr – Inside  the City of Gold, Ben faces off against Mitch and is willing to give up  his life for his team, including his mother (played by an actress who once played the Queen in a movie).  Ultimately, the bigger martyr beat goes to the bad guy who, I guess, wasn’t as bad as he was supposed to be.  Unless he was.  

    AND, IN THE END…

    The power of the franchise meets the power of the thrill ride! As we’ve seen with PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, a really good first movie can devolve into not much more than sound and fury in the sequels, but be so much fun that nobody cares about the stakes.  Is there is a group of treasure hunters more fun to hang with than Nic Cage and company?  No!  The characters are so endearing and the action and locales so entertaining that they compensate for how uninvolving the stakes are.  Do you care what people think of your relative of 150 years ago?  Does that really change anything in your life? 

    NATIONAL TREASURE 2 makes a valiant effort at showing just how much this means to Ben and his father, but it’s obvious that it’s just smoke and mirrors.  Watching this movie is not unlike going to an amusement park with a group of your best buddies and having so much fun that you don’t care nothing important has been said the entire day.

    – Jeffrey Alan Schechter

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    Posted by totallywrite

    AMADEUS

    January 10th, 2009

    amadeus

    Overall Impression – An impressive film, can’t get enough of it. One of the best movies of the famous composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, ever made… in my opinion.

    THE FOUR QUESTIONS

    Who’s your main character? — Salieri

    What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Prove that he’s a superior musician to Mozart.  Personal: Destroy Mozart’s and prevent him from getting a job at the court. Private: Punish God by destroying His creation, Mozart.

    Who’s trying to stop him? – God (according to Salieri)

    What happens if he fails? — Salieri will be a frustrated composer who will always feel that he’s a mediocre failure.

    THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

    Orphan — Salieri is an unhappy child. He wants to be a great composer. His father, however, doesn’t allow him to study music and so, Salieri prays to God to make him a great composer.

    Wanderer — Salieri’s wish is granted, according to himself. His father dies and Salieri travels to Vienna to study music. Some years later, he becomes the court composer of Emperor Joseph of Austria. Salieri is happy being a famous composer, until he meets Mozart.  He recognizes in Mozart real genius, and tries to figure out how channel and control Mozart without letting on to the rest of the court that Mozart’s music is superior to his own. 

     Warrior – Salieri is angry at God because He gave not him, but “a monkey”, the bigger musical gift.  It is as if God is laughing at him!  From now on, he and God are enemies. He decides to destroy God’s creation by first ordering a beautiful requiem from Mozart and then kill him. During Mozart’s funeral he then will perform this requiem under his own name so the whole world will know that he, Salieri, is the greatest composer that ever lived!

    Martyr — As Mozart lies dying, Salieri helps him work on his Requiem, seemingly softening on and almost willing to give up his vengeance (the martyr moment), showing a real tenderness and appreciation to the man and his talent that he’s destroying.  Still, it’s not enough and Mozart dies.  Many years later, now an old man, Salieri tries to kill himself, asking Mozart for forgiveness. He adored Mozart, it was God he hated!

    AND, IN THE END…

    I have seen this movie so many times since it came out many years ago and never realized that it is in fact about Salieri and his struggle with God. It’s however great to see how Mozart does his tricks, like hearing a musical piece only once and then performing it even better than Salieri wrote it in the first place! And what about the scene in which he improvises on a given melody in the style of other composers; beautiful!

    – André van Haren

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    Posted by totallywrite

    SEVEN POUNDS

    January 6th, 2009

    Will Smith and Rosario Dawson

    Overall Impression – Bewildering!  Frustrating!  Then I gave up trying to figure out why everything was happening and actually started enjoying it.

    THE FOUR QUESTIONS

    Who’s your main character? – Ben.

    What’s he trying to accomplish? – The movie gets its drive by withholding an answer to this question. Why is Ben doing all these crazy good deeds?  WHY!?  Until all is revealed at the end, Ben alone knows the answer.  So, with the benefit of hindsight:

    Professional: improve the lives of seven strangers to atone for killing seven people in a car crash.  Personal: (I think) develop a relationship with Emily, one of said strangers.  Private: find a reason to keep on living.  Or achieve some measure of atonement before he kills himself…  this one’s up in the air.

    Who’s trying to stop him? – It might be Emily…  Ben feels he needs to give away everything, including his life, to atone for his past.  But how can he do that when he falls in love and entertains the possibility of living? Ben’s brother is a lesser obstacle, and we don’t even know he’s an obstacle until the end.

    What happens if he fails? – He kills himself, I guess.  Truth is, these stakes didn’t exist until the end of the movie, since I had NO IDEA what he was trying to do until then.  Even after that, I still wasn’t sure.  

    THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

    Orphan – Ever since Ben caused the deaths of his wife and a bunch of innocents in a car accident, he’s cut himself off from his family and friends.  Now he’s an IRS agent, universally shunned by all.

    Wanderer – When he’s alone, Ben’s chronically depressed, tormented by… something.  But in his IRS get-up, a faux-chirpy Ben seeks out complete strangers, judging whether they’re “good” people worthy of his help.  One of these good people is Emily, a heart patient who takes a liking to Ben.

    Warrior – Ben’s good deeds escalate beyond mere tax extensions to giving away his house, his kidney… and more.  As Ben and Emily’s relationship grows, she struggles to understand his motivations, and we get vague hints of the event that triggered everything off.

    Martyr – Well… Ben has been giving away everything the entire movie, but if he’s planning to kill himself, are these really sacrifices?  Another muddled martyr element is that Ben eventually wants to be with Emily (I think), but after learning that she’ll die if she doesn’t get a transplant, he has to give up his heart to save her. Only… he just happens to be the one-in-a-million donor she needs.  If Ben deepened their relationship knowing that he probably wouldn’t be around for her, isn’t that just cruel?  He could have donated his heart and not broken hers.  Or… his.  My head hurts.

    AND, IN THE END…

    Don’t get me wrong, there are some great elements in SEVEN POUNDS, but the lack of clear answers to the FOUR QUESTIONS, or more specifically, where they are answered, robs these elements of any overriding significance.  I really, really wanted to know what everything meant, but by the time I found out, I didn’t care.

    I’m so used to understanding the hero’s ultimate goal from the start of a movie (or at least, not at the end), that I was determined to guess Ben’s by observing his actions.  This was novel for a while, but his goal turned out to be so out there that I felt dumb for even trying.

    That being said, the movie asks some interesting questions about what makes a good deed “good”, and it’s fascinating to watch how completely different people react to a life-changing offer from Will Smith, no strings attached.  

    – Dan Pilditch

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    Posted by danpilditch

    BOLT

    January 5th, 2009

    bolt

    Overall Impression — A solid piece of work, a lot of fun, but one which requires a willingness to overlook some underlying logic holes.

    THE FOUR QUESTIONS

    Who’s your main character? — Bolt.

    What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Get back to Hollywood.  Personal: Rescue Penny.  Private: Accept that he’s not a dog with super powers.

    Who’s trying to stop him? — Various people and forces along the way, but there’s no one, clear antagonist.  In the “movie within the movie”, however, it’s the Green-Eyed Man who is the villain.

    What happens if he fails? — At first he thinks that Penny is in danger, but eventually the stakes become that he and Penny will be separated.  .

    THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

    Orphan — Bolt believes that Penny has been taken away from him, and in the process of trying to go after her gets knocked out and shipped to New York where he knows no one.

    Wanderer — Bolt hooks up with Mittens the cat and forces her to help him.  On their travels they find Rhino the hamster who joins in Bolt’s mission to “save” Penny and make it back to Los Angeles.

    Warrior — Bolt and Mittens are both captured by Animal Control.  Bolt escapes with the help of Rhino, and together they go and rescue Mittens so their journey can continue, even though Bolt now knows that he doesn’t really have super powers.  Freeing Mittens they eventually get back to Las Vegas.

    Martyr — Bolt is willing to give up the new life Mittens imagines for them in Vegas in order to be with Penny.  He leaves for LA and Mittens and Rhino follow (giving up the bounty of Vegas for Bolt.)  Back in LA, Bolt risks his life to save Penny from a studio fire.

    AND, IN THE END…

    BOLT isn’t a bad movie, but it’s a familiar movie.  Borrowing from TOY STORY (Bolt is like Buzz Lightyear, a delusional character who thinks he’s really a pretend character) and TOY STORY 2 (Mittens is like Jesse, a once loved member of a household who was abandoned), Bolt returns to the well that Pixar dug so nicely.  The fact that this is the first movie to come out of John Lasseter’s tenure at Disney has to be more than just a coincidence.

    Similarities aside, it’s got it’s own charm but the story feels like it runs out of steam along the way.  Ultimately, I think it’s because we understand that there’s really nothing at stake.  We know Penny isn’t in jeopardy, and unlike TOY STORY there’s no Sid around to really threaten our characters.

    Too bad Disney didn’t borrow from that well, too.

    NOTE OF CONDOLENCE — John Travolta, as usual, does a wonderful job voicing Bolt, and our deepest condolences got out to Mr. Travolta, his wife and family over the loss of his son, Jett.

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    Posted by totallywrite

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