Tag: Andrew Garfield

Hacksaw Ridge

Can Mel Gibson’s movie about faith justify its amount of gratuitous violence?

hacksaw_ridge_posterCan a movie about non-violence be violent? That’s the question that tormented me as I watched “Hacksaw Ridge,” a war film of immense power that’s inspiring and emotional but also endlessly brutal. How does director Mel Gibson square the film’s religious values with the film’s gratuitous bloodshed? What amount of gore crosses the line, or is the question moot?

Many war films before “Hacksaw Ridge” have depicted unspeakable horrors on screen, all with the conclusion that war is bad, but the context and the means are what separate the good films from the bad, the noble from the tasteless. In fact, Gibson faced similar questions with his film “The Passion of the Christ.”

But “Hacksaw Ridge” does justify the means. The film is one-dimensional in its value system: life can be disturbing and painful, but those who stay true to faith and belief can do real good in this world. There’s much that can be said about the nature of religion in this film, the absence of other forms of belief than a Christian god, the short sighted approach to the values of the Japanese soldiers, let alone the secular American soldiers as supporting characters. But Gibson so earnestly believes with old-fashioned charm and honest storytelling that such a message is worth sharing, no matter the bloodshed the story requires. Continue reading “Hacksaw Ridge”

The Amazing Spider-Man

What people really like about Spiderman isn’t the web slinging or the red-blue spandex or the zippy one-liners; its that beneath the mask there is a smart, witty, nerdy, likeable and relatable kid in Peter Parker.

Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire knew that for their 2002 film “Spider-Man,” and Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield seem to know it here for “The Amazing Spider-Man,” which is essentially a remake of Raimi’s film. But Garfield’s Peter Parker doesn’t have the boyish charms of Maguire’s, and his mixed persona makes for a film that suffers from its other clichés and hokey gags.

I’m dating myself when I realize that “Spider-Man” is in fact 10 years old, and there are likely a new generation of 12-year-olds who will watch this version and appreciate it just fine. But everyone else may have fatigue at just how familiar this origin reboot is.

Peter Parker is left with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben (Sally Field and Martin Sheen) after his parents are forced to leave in a hurry, never to be seen again. Now as a bright high school teenager, he’s rediscovering his father’s past and tracks down an old colleague, Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), who transforms into a monstrous lizard thanks to a genetic algorithm provided by Peter. It’s then Peter’s job to stop him after he’s bitten by a genetically mutated spider that gives him enhanced strength, reflexes and an ability to stick to walls.

What’s tiring is how boilerplate Peter’s backstory is. Of course he has to deal with the obnoxious bully in school, stumble through awkward conversations with the cute Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and rehash the boring pseudo-science that explains his mutation.

And while the original “Spider-Man” is no less guilty of these clichés, Director Marc Webb (“500 Days of Summer”) overdoes it. The high school drama consumes the entire first half of “The Amazing Spider-Man,” and for every visual gag, there’s an added cinematic punch line in case you forgot how to react, be it in a cheerleader’s bubble gum popping over her face or a Coldplay song cueing in to fill the gooey void.

Garfield handles all these moments with a peculiar attitude. On the streets in his costume, he’s notoriously smarmy and glib, and then at home or around his girlfriend, he shuts up into an awkward ball of angst. Garfield emanates so little chemistry with Stone that you wonder why Gwen is so drawn to him.

“The Amazing Spider-Man” also lacks a moment as instantly iconic as Spiderman kissing Mary Jane upside down in the rain, and Webb is not the visual technician that Raimi is, so a few shots from Spidey’s POV as he careens through the air look plain cartoonish.

Maybe it’s the 12-year-old me talking, but I was able to take the original “Spider-Man” somewhat seriously and still realize it was a goofy popcorn movie. It was as if Peter Parker never forgot how dopey he really is just by putting on that mask. “The Amazing Spider-Man” on the other hand is cornball all the time and thinks itself otherwise. It forgets who’s inside that spandex suit.

2.5 stars

The Social Network

“The Social Network” is both a vivid, inventive fantasy and a dramatically realistic portrait of the 21st century. It succeeds at being both because Director David Fincher has touched on a subject that has become so ingrained in the subconscious of everyone who’s ever heard of the Internet while expanding on the biopic subgenre in a way as revolutionary as the idea of Facebook itself.

The film is not about Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), the founder of Facebook, or Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Mark’s one-time best friend, or Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the inventor of Napster and co-owner of Facebook or even about the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler (both played by Armie Hammer), who claim Mark stole the idea of Facebook from them. Aaron Sorkin’s inspired screenplay weaves through time and different perspectives to create a powerful story about no hero, villain, victim or winner.

“The Social Network,” with all its rapid-fire, whip-smart dialogue, is a stirring metaphor for the complexities and tragedies of life on a web site where everyone is connected. And yet it is not pro or anti Facebook, the Internet or technology. It is a character sketch for what happened to these people in this screenplay in a time where the only friends Zuckerberg has are the ones we see, and not the 500 million users around the globe. Continue reading “The Social Network”