The third week in January appears to be all about kicking a little ass. I suppose Contraband started the trend last week as the lone exception to the horror movie flood of early January, but this week seems to be all about violence and redemption.
Haywire: First of all, you’ve got to love the preview: classical music plays over a man and woman sharing what appears to be a romantic rendezvous over a glass of champagne and then make their way to a hotel room. Seemingly preparing for a fling, the woman removes her shoes in the hallway. As she enters the door, the piano abruptly becomes synthesized and electronic, coinciding with the shot in the back of the head she takes from her date’s forearm. Crumpling to the ground, she takes down her man and the kung-fu interspersed grappling match ensues before Michael Douglas’ exposition explains that “Negotiations broke down.”
The commercial moments of Soderburgh’s career, Traffic and the Ocean’s franchise are stellar, but throughout he’s been more of a risk taker, acceptable of success, but never seeming to crave it. Traffic garnered Oscars, but the triumph of the film is the way in which it’s shot. Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen are fun but built more around a dream team of actors and actresses. I’m not sure if they’re good, but they seem organic, something not often seen in movies with such star power. The Girlfriend Experience wasn’t great, but it was Soderburgh showing how the director can create a performer, as opposed to a perfomer creating a film – very Hitchcockian in a sense. In Haywire, he seems to be doing much of the same: Cara Gugino, a real-life MMA fighter, is not an actress, but she will be in this movie. Don’t expect her to have a lot of deep, meaningful lines, but expect Soderburgh to cash in on Gugino’s ability to legitimately kick some ass. Truthfully, this film should be a lot of high-powered, action-packed fun that will remind us all what Mr. and Mrs. Smith could have been.
Red Tails: Is there anyone who thinks of the Tuskegee Airmen and their historical significance without thinking of Lucasfilms? Hands down, please; the question was rhetorical, but the fact this connection exists explains why this movie will be utterly terrible, and it explain why the planes depicted in the trailer more closely resemble animated graphics in an updated version of the arcade game, “1941,” which I’m sure will eventually be made into a movie as well. (Why not? They’ve already begun promoting Battleship.)
The premise for Red Tails is that U.S. military bombers are being shot down well before they can reach their targets, so Major Dad (Gerald McRaney) needs “pilots who will put the bombers ahead of themselves.” In a simultaneous storyline, African Americans have been prohibited from flying airplanes in the military. Enter Cuba Gooding Jr., who still looks as young as he did in Boyz in the Hood, but is subtly aged via a prop pipe (sheesh). Add some Terence Howard who reminds his men that “One bomber, that’s ten men. We count our victories by the bombs we get to their targets, by the husbands we get back to their wives?” I’m sure there’s a stab at poignancy here to go along with the tagline that “Courage is Colorblind,” but aren’t Howard’s words of encouragement a bit incongruent with equality and justice? Isn’t this more akin to what was referred to in South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut as “Operation: get behind the darkies?”
Underworld: Awakening: For the purpose of full disclosure, I’ve only caught snippets of the first four installments of this franchise, and while Kate Beckinsale encourages me to watch the film on mute, the action sequences might be worth streaming this movie on Netflix eventually if you can hook your computer up to your television – providing you have a large enough television and a decent enough sound system for optimal enjoyment. If not, don’t spend your money in a theater. The upshot of 3D movies was evanescent, has waned considerably in the last two years and really only benefits the studios. You pay $18, a few things feel like they’re flying toward you, but you know they’re not, so the process is really just habitual reactions to things you’re supposed to think are cool. They’re not. If you want meaningless action, violence, blood, and vampires, check out Daybreakers. No, really.
Coriolanus: Based on Shakespeare’s play of the same name, this Ralph Fiennes directed film is a modern day imagining set in Rome. Coriolanus (Fiennes) finds himself moving from a soldier to a ruler to the overthrown in a game of political chess. Aside from the Harry Potter franchise, we haven’t seen much of Fiennes in a while, so we might catch a few glimpses of his acting ability that has been stowed away since 2002’s Red Dragon – which, admittedly, is not a good movie, but he plays Frances Dolarhyde rather solidly – or maybe even 1993’s Amon Goeth, one of the most disturbing villains in cinema history.
