Third Person

The action takes place in Paris, New York and Rome.  It has Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Adrien Brody, Maria Bello and Kim Bassinger.  It was written and directed by Paul Haggis, who did Million Dollar Baby and Casino Royale. It has to be great.  Right?  WRONG!

Third Person is a mess of a movie.

 

It’s about beautiful, but disgusting and/or stupid people, who only their mothers, if even them, could care about. And, after a while, it wasn’t just that I didn’t care about them, they bored me. 

What’s more, the Cinematographer Gianfillipo Corticelli has the dubious distinction of making Mila Kunis, Maria Bello and Olivia Wilde look unattractive.  For an Italian artist to do that is unforgivable.

If not for Olivia Wilde, I would have done something I have rarely ever done…walk out of the theater. But, then, I wouldn’t have learned that maybe not everyone was such a loser. 

Spoiler Alert... They were almost all figments of the imagination of the writer played by Neeson. So, a creep, creating creeps.  But, it seemed his book was going to be published.  Maybe lots of creeps, after all.

It’s a shame someone with Haggis’ talent would waste his time on this piece of junk.

I give Third Person a 1+ out of 5.

How To Train Your Dragon 2

Sequels are often not as good as the original and, to some extent, that is the case with How To Train Your Dragon 2.  However, that doesn’t mean Director Dean DeBlois’ film is not good.  It’s just not as good as the first film because it’s not as joyful.  Darken forces are at foot and that brings in a happy surprise, but also, a sad event, as well.

If you like dragons….and I do…, you will enjoy the variety of flying animals and the coming-of-age of both Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his flying friend Toothless, plus the animation is fabulous.

I give How To Train Your Dragon 2 a 4 out of 5.

22 Jump Street

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have created a sometimes hilarious sequel to 21 Jump Street with 22 Jump Street.  And, the end-credits portend more than 3-dozen subsequent adventures of Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum), including Beauty School and computer games.

 

The team is sent to college to handle the same type of drug problem they previously handled in high school.  So, essentially, the plot is the same…just the jokes are different.  But, that’s okay.  The audience is there to have fun.  And, fun there is.  Plus, there’s more of Ice Cube (Lieutenant Gibson) and that adds to the enjoyment.

The only criticism is that the film needed fresh eyes for some pruning.  Too much time was spent on Schmidt’s personal pity-party.  But, Jonah Hill was the prime Producer and Story Writer, so I doubt this was the fault of Editors Keith Brachmann and David Rennie.

22 Jump Street gets a 4 out of 5.

Edge Of Tomorrow

Director Doug Liman’ Edge Of Tomorrow is a taut, action-packed thriller with a unique plot and an interesting brand of alien vermin that has infested Western Europe and is preparing to move east and west over the Earth.

Tom Cruise plays against type as Major Cage, who is responsible for PR and whose only combat training was in ROTC.  When he tries to get out of being embedded with the troops going into battle with the aliens, General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) has him forced into the invasion as one of the troopers.  Killed within minutes of the fighting, Cage is caught in a time loop and forced to re-live the day over and over.

Why that is is cleverly revealed in the deft screenplay written by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth.

 

While it would be easy to compare the plot to Groundhog Day, the stakes are higher and the best action happens when Cage comes out of the loop. 

Cruise, eventually, comes into his super-hero form and is matched all the way by Emily Blunt, who is absolutely fabulous as the heroine of a previous invasion, when she was caught in the time loop, as well.

Doug Liman is a master of action, but his true mastery is in being able to keep the viewer clear as to what is happening and why.

I give Edge Of Tomorrow a 4 out of 5.

The Fault In Our Stars

When I was very young, I was told there are only 3 ages…child, adult and dying.  Director Josh Boone’s The Fault In Our Stars bears this out with its main characters, 17-year-old Hazel Grace (Shailene Woodley) and 18-year-old Gus (Ansel Elgort), both dying of cancer.

They and others in their support group think and act in ways far different than their contemporaries.  And, when Writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber are on, which is most of the time, we get to experience the different world of the dying, yet noble, teens.

Nat Woolf as the blind youth Isaac, Laura Dern as Grace’s mother and Lotte Verbeek as Lidewij, the kindly secretary of the teens’ favorite novelist Van Houten (Willem Dafoe) add to the excellent performances of Woodley and Elgort.

Though Director Boone and Cinematographer Ben Richardson are on most of the time, as well, I was expecting even more from this film.  After all, one could have a hit with the amazing Shailene Woodley reading from the phone book.

Nevertheless, I give The Fault In Our Stars a 4 out of 5.