Short Reviews: "Alice" and "Green Zone"

"Alice in Wonderland" is delightful, zany, entertaining and just plain fun to watch. Johnny Depp captures the madness of the Mad Hatter, and Mia Wasikowska is terrific as Alice. All in all, a lot of eye candy with the wonderful story of a young girl with dreams, who's "gone around the bend?" as she wonders with her imaginative father, and who later becomes a young lady determined to chart her own course in the face of social and family pressure to knuckle under and marry the young man everyone expects her to marry.

For entertainment value, "Alice" is high on my list, with plenty of laughs and a fine message for young women.

I saw it in old-fashioned 2D (sorry about that) - friends tell me that I should see it in 3D - I may just do that.

Worth seeing, for sure, either way.

But don't wait for Netflix - see it soon.

"Green Zone"


If you want a kick-ass message, please see "Green Zone" starring Matt Damon as Chief Miller, a soldier doing his duty - looking for WMDs in Iraq, coming up empty-handed at every site, beginning to wonder what's up with intel. He begins to raise questions and finds himself enmeshed in a deadly clash between Bush Administration officials and the CIA.

Greg Kinnear, as point person for the Bush Administration adds another brilliant role to his resume. Playing a political slime-ball more interested in PR than truth, Kinnear brings a deadly rationality to a blood-thirsty role. God save us from such evil monsters. I couldn't help but think of ultimate slime-ball, Paul Reiser, in his brilliant performance in "Aliens" as Carter Burke, a man who would gladly sell his grandmother, his mother and everyone else to promote his rise to power and wealth. Or the latest Mr. Corporate Slime Ball, "Avatar's" Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge.

One the classic roles goes to Brendan Gleeson, a Michael-More look-alike, the CIA guy on the ground, who sees through the Bush Administration lies, as does Chief Miller. They hook up and seek to bring some truth to the whole mess, but ultimately, they fail, as we did in Iraq. The Bush Machine plowed on, telling us one lie after the other, and we were were helpless to stop it.

Another must-see film ... but, be prepared; it'll make ya' angry!

Avatar

“Avatar” is a remarkable film, with incredible special effects, great acting and a tremendously relevant and painful story.

Somewhat on the size and scale of “Lord of the Rings,” with its own native language and vast struggles of good and evil, it’s not quite as sophisticated or as subtle, but don’t take this as a criticism of “Avatar,” but only as praise for Peter Jackson’s “Rings” trilogy.

And speaking of Jackson, “Avatar” is the movie his “District Nine” tried to be. Hats off to James Cameron for a stunning piece of work, and if you can, see it in 3D, though, thankfully, the 3D stuff enhances the story rather than the story being a vehicle for 3D (as was Brendan Fraser in last year’s "Adventure at the Center of the Earth").

The blend of animation and live acting is seamless, and these days, the audience demands nothing less. Expensive? For sure, but there's no going back, and Cameron's "Avatar" has upped the bar considerably.

If you like big stories, we have it here.

If you like special effects, it’s all here.

If you like solid acting, you’ll be pleased.

First up, Sam Worthington plays Jake Sully a wheelchair-bound marine who accepts a deep-space assignment on Pandora where human beings are engaged in precious ore mining, with only one problem: the natives’ home sits right on top of the mother lode.

So, what’s a stock-holding enterprise to do? Well, as one line goes, “If someone is sitting on something you want, make them your enemy.” The story "enjoys" two bad guys - first, the manager, who sees only the bottom line, played ably by Giovanni Ribisi whose character possesses a cruel innocence, a cruelty of distance, cold and determined to promote the company's purpose. I found myself recalling Paul Reiser's Carter Burke in the 1986 "Aliens" (another James Cameron spectacular effort).

The second bad guy is all hands-on - Colonel Miles Quaritch played spot-on by Stephen Lang, all muscle and a lot of brain to boot - and the man loves war. He can hardly wait to pull the trigger on these savages.

The company has been creating avatars - bodies that look like the natives, but also possess the DNA of the person who's thoughts will animate the avatar via thought-projection machinery - the human lays in a bed of high-tech bells and whistles in base-camp, safe from the hostile atmosphere of Pandora, while the avatar can explore and engage the natives.

Jake's avatar is assigned to reach the natives with a simple message: leave or be destroyed. But Sully is no mean-spirited man; he's a solder, of course, all the way, but in time, his encounters with the Na'vi and their ways opens his mind and heart to the beauty and the value of their ways. We witness his transformation from a marine hired by the company to a man who sees the world through other eyes. As he grows in understanding and love, Sully realizes the crime in which he's involved. By way of comparison, who can forget a similar transformation in Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves" (1990)?

Sully is found in the wilderness by Neytiri wonderfully voiced by Zoe Saldana of "Star Trek" fame. Her animated character is remarkable, and you can guess where it all goes. She takes him under her wing to teach him the lore and wisdom of her people. Her contempt for Sully and his guns is magnificent. In her eyes, he's only a child who knows nothing. And she's right.

If there’s one criticism, and it’s slight, the story is so painfully obvious, cleverly mixing, however, multiple stories with a singular theme: the white man’s burden (to liberate the savage from his world) and colonial pillaging of the native environment for gain, backed up by a vastly superior firepower.

Aside from this simple caveat, the story grabbed me powerfully. I felt the pathos of Sully and Dr. Grace Augustine played skillfully by Sigourney Weaver (who can forget her in the "Alien" series?) who's education and personality are filled with sympathy for the natives. 

James Cameron and crew create an alternative universe to play out the stories of our world – the large-scale stories of war and colonialization and the intimate stories of love, jealousy, hope and courage.

A rare combination of high action and a deeply moral story. For those who are not into action and violence, well, there’s plenty of it, but it’s choreographed carefully for the sake of the story.

Clearly intended to lay the foundation of a sequel, “Avatar” really works.

Don’t wait for Netflix on this one – it’s a must see.