Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 (52 page)

That said, to my mind,
Return of the King
was actually the weakest of the three films in the trilogy. Too many plotlines were given short shrift so as to leave plenty of time for the perpetual battle sequences. Why is Eowyn standing next to Faramir at the end of the film? Those who never read the novels (and there
are
one or two such viewers) wouldn’t have a clue. A few more of these character-enriching areas should have been explored. If the filmmakers needed to save screen time, they could have lopped off a few of the movie’s extra endings.

Perhaps I am just in the mood to be a naysayer. Dare I opine that screenwriter Steve Kloves and director Alfonso Cuaron did just as good of a job adapting another whopping big novel called
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
? Oh, there are still problems with expunged plot elements here. And such antics can annoy fans of the novel as well as possibly confuse those who haven’t read the adapted source material. Nevertheless, this third, beautifully moody and atmospheric film in the Potter series shows that the young wizard’s maturation saga still has the power to delight young and old alike. (Although Richard Harris’s Dumbledore is sorely missed!)

Another sequel that can be enthusiastically enjoyed by both children and adults is
Shrek 2.
With Shrek and his now ogre-ish bride happily married, where’s the conflict? It emanates from Fiona’s royal parents (that is to say, Shrek’s horrified in-laws), of course. Then there’s the numerous machinations of an avaricious fairy godmother with her own family agenda to promote. Besides little life lessons on self-acceptance—this time for Shrek as well as Fiona—the movie has plenty of cultural references, witty banter, and a few interesting new characters like Antonio Banderas spoofing his Zorro success as Puss in Boots.

Although the novelty of the characters is lost in
Shrek 2,
the film makes up for the loss with a ceaseless sense of fun and our continuing affection for the story’s characters. The same could be said for another second in a series,
Spider-Man 2.
Although there is nothing cartoonish about the way return helmer Sam Raimi and screenwriter Alvin Sargent tell their comic book-inspired tale.

When we meet Peter Parker again, he is a student struggling to make a living, keep up with schoolwork, and still maintain his rigorous self-imposed duties as Spider-Man. Something’s gotta give. For starters, Peter forgoes developing his relationship with his true love, Mary Jane. But as his life continues to unravel (and his powers become erratic, at best) Peter decides that it’s his Spidey identity that needs to be jettisoned from his life.

Superherodom is not, however, easy to quit. So Spidey continues to battle his own demons, as well as a new unintentional supervillain, Doc Ock (well played by Alfred Molina).

Can
Spider-Man 2
be that rare sequel that isn’t just as good, but is actually better than its predecessor? I think so. Sam Raimi’s direction is even more assured and stylish than in the first outing. And Tobey Maguire’s endearingly conflicted hero is someone we deeply care about and can easily relate to.

It’s a little harder to identify another comic-book lead appearing in his first movie. He is a Dark Horse comic hero, created by Mike Mignola, called Hellboy. The film version, written and directed by the very talented Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, has to spend a great deal of time on story background and setup, but never loses the audience for a minute. It seems that during World War II, Nazis, Rasputin, and several scary assorted cronies had attempted to open up a portal to hell in order to summon all manner of dark forces forth in aid of the Third Reich. A plucky band of Allied foes, including a paranormal scientist named Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm, manage to foil the plot. But not before the gates of hell opened long enough for a red monkey-ish devil baby to pass through. Broom saves and raises the creature.

Decades later, Broom (John Hurt) is still fighting the good fight against dark forces. And he is now aided by his adult adopted son, Hellboy (Ron Perlman), along with government agents and other, shall we say, unusual cohorts.

The plot of
Hellboy
is both complicated and simple. It’s your basic good versus evil (and I mean
way
evil) story. The difference between
Hellboy
and, say,
Van Helsing
is that the action isn’t unrelenting. We are given a chance to breathe, soak up the fantastical atmosphere, and learn to care for the characters. Notable among these is the titular hero. Hellboy looks bizarre, and often sounds like something out of a hard-boiled detective pulp. Yet there is a melancholy gentleness about him, too. (Clearly, this was the perfect role for Mr. Perlman!)

You wouldn’t expect a big red guy with a club fist and horn stumps on his forehead to be a romantic hero. But when you see Hellboy with Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), his even more melancholic and pyrokinetic sweetheart, you realize that’s exactly what he is.

A movie that so deftly mixes action, horror, comedy, and romance deserves a wide audience and, yes, even a sequel. Not so other comic-book heroes to launch onto screens in 2004.

One of the biggest duds in this category is the Halle Berry vehicle,
Catwoman
. The screenplay by John Brancato, Michael Ferris, and John Rogers is an out-and-out mess. And the direction, by Pitof, is neither playful nor exciting. As for Ms. Berry, she is as beautiful as ever, but she is never able to find her character. She is never believably mousy as her ad designer true self. And although she looks mighty hot in dominatrix leather, her superhero alter ego never really convinces, either.

Bouncing off of walls is a nice trick, but having a personality and a purpose is even more important. As for
Catwoman
’s predictable romance with a generic cop (Benjamin Bratt), it is about as emotionally involving as one of those cans of tuna her confused character gobbles down.

The utter failure of
Catwoman
in 2004 as well as other high-profile projects like 2005’s
Elektra
have caused some to speculate upon the impracticality of the female action hero as a box-office draw. Although it’s true that the base audience for superhero action movies is probably adolescent and male, I doubt that the reason
Catwoman
failed is that young men don’t really want to see empowered kick-ass women.
Catwoman
failed because it was a bad movie.

If the writers and directors of Hollywood (also mostly male) can ever create a good movie with a convincing female action hero, I predict that audiences of all genders and ages will embrace it. But for now, the female-centered fantasy films that are released tend to be of the gentler and more romantic variety.

In 2004, one of these starred
Elektra
and
Alias
star Jennifer Garner. Clearly wanting a change of pace from kicking asses right and left, Ms. Garner made her romantic-comedy screen debut in a little, very
Big
-ish movie called
13 Going on 30
.

The film opens with a late-eighties pubescent lass named Jenna facing down her birthday, hoping to be accepted by her school’s clique of popular girls. Her best friend and would-be suitor, Matt, tries to tell her to stay original, but she wants only to be cool. When her party turns into a humiliating disaster, Matt’s gift of wishing dust allows her to jump past the awkward years and become “thirty, flirty, and thriving.”

She’s got the career and the wardrobe and the sexy boyfriend. But somewhere during that time leap, Jenna lost her soul. And the rest of the movie consists of our heroine peeling back the bitchy, glam career gal, and refinding her inner child, as well as her first boyfriend (adult Matt, played by Mark Ruffalo).

Screenwriters Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa (who also did a number on the modern working woman in their 2000 fantasy,
What Women Want
) don’t make it clear how sweet young Jenna became the harridan her coworkers perceive her to be. Perhaps just growing up and becoming successful is enough to make a woman into a treacherous, adulterous, secretary-terrorizing shrew.

If Jenna’s time-warp character makes little sense, luckily no one told Jennifer Garner. She has charm to burn, and a knack for physical comedy. She almost makes the movie work. Almost.

An even better fantasy with a female hero can be found in a fractured fairy tale called
Ella Enchanted,
starring another equally appealing actor, Anne Hathaway. Given the “gift” of obedience by a very inept fairy shortly after her birth, the plot consists of Ella’s quest to get the curse lifted and to save her home from the cruel control of her evil stepmother and her two nasty stepsisters. Of course, a prince comes into play, along with his power-hungry uncle (played, in a nice twist, by the
Princess Bride
’s leading man, Cary Elwes). Into the mix goes oppressed ethnic groups (in this case, giants and elves), who find an able champion in Ella.

It’s all undeniably silly, and quite entertaining. Forget about
Catwoman
. Here’s real girl power.

Girls and boys, and teens of all description, are obviously the target audiences for many fantasy films. In 2004, there were a wide array of films pitched to the young. Some, like
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events,
had a built-in audience. Yet in the case of that film, written by
Men in Black II
’s Robert Gordon from three of the best-selling children’s books, the ready-made audience was likely disappointed. Although the opening and closing animated sequences were a perfect match, not so the live action. The problem is partially tone. But in large part the issue is the film’s big-name star, Jim Carrey. Histrionic without being particularly humorous, Carrey was probably urged by director Brad Silberling to ham it up to his heart’s content. Alas, this ends up being a disservice to the film as whole, and to the development of the Baudelaire orphans in particular.

A Series of Unfortunate Events
is less than good, but at least it’s not as bad as
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed,
an idiotic little tale for the teenybopper set. It’s not even worth mentioning, except that as I watched I realized that the biggest problem the film had was that it was trying to bring a cartoon to life. Which begs the question, why would anyone
want
a cartoon brought to life? Similar ruminations came to mind while watching another 2004 feature,
The Polar Express.
Directed and cowritten (with William Broyles, Jr.) by fantasy and science fiction master Robert Zemeckis, the film is considered a breakthrough in “performance capture”—the translation of human action into computer animation. It was supposed to be magical, but it gave me the creeps.

This holiday yarn about a train visit to Santa is populated by children with crossed, cold eyes, and a flat emotional affect to match their dull unnatural skin tones. It’s kiddies and Kris Kringle in the Land of the Living Dead!

Perhaps I’m just a reactionary. But I don’t want anyone to make my cartoons real. I embrace the artificiality and otherworldness of animation. But I still want a full-length cartoon to have something to say about real life.

Such is the case with one of the best films of the year,
The Incredibles.
Written and directed by Brad Bird,
The Incredibles
was the filmmaker’s first foray into computer animation, following his brilliant 1999 drawn animation feature,
The Iron Giant.
When I first heard that one of the great last hopes for traditional animation had gone over to computer graphics, I was dismayed. Would he make his family of forcibly retired superheroes too “realistic”? Not a chance!

Although Bird made full use of technology’s talent for achieving deeply detailed environments and textures, he never lost sight of the power of out-and-out fantasy. His Parr family, lead by Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) and Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) look like plastic action figures and not at all like flesh-and-blood people. But that doesn’t mean that Bird isn’t able to express fully human emotions through his characters.

In fact, amidst the exciting save-the-world adventure story, this amiable little cartoon says a great deal about the dangers of mediocrity and hero worship, and provides plenty of subtle commentary on family dynamics, gender roles, and countless other aspects of modern life.

Although Brad Bird seems to have found the perfect way to inject humanity into synthetically produced art, other filmmakers are still feeling their way—especially as they work to have live actors interact with CGI environments and characters.

One of the most ambitious films to tackle this challenge is Kerry Conran’s
Sky Captain and the World ofTomorrow
. Conran’s small cast of actors worked almost entirely in a blue-screen environment. Later, some eighty visual effects wizards created the astounding two thousand effects shots that would provide the backdrop and most of the set for the live action.

Visually,
Sky Captain
is a remarkable achievement. Conran admits that he “stole” from everything from comic books to B science fiction films to
Citizen Kane
. The resulting World of Tomorrow is a glowing and ominous art deco wonder. The story is slightly less inspiring. For although Angelina Jolie shines as a cocky, no-nonsense British squadron commander, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow sometimes seem a bit lost in their retro roles and their artificial sets.

Since Will Smith seemingly has enough swagger to dominate any movie, you might think that he would have an easier time in
I, Robot.
But he, too, has a tough time holding his own. The CGI robotic lead, Sonny (injected with the voice and on-set performance of actor Alan Tudyk) is actually far and away the most interesting character in the film.

I, Robot
is one of those movies that requires a total disconnect from its literary forebears. If you expect the film to have any resemblance to Isaac Asimov’s important collection of linked stories, or in any way deal with philosophical and psychological conundrums posed by those stories, you are bound to be completely outraged by the movie directed by Alex Proyas and written by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman. However, if you can just watch it as a well-crafted, dumb summer flick, then
I, Robot
actually entertains—at least until its very limp ending.