Reel Entropy

If The Conjuring is the first horror movie you ever see, it might actually be scary.

The film is based on the most malevolent supposedly-true preternatural encounter experienced by real-life demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson). In the new Rhode Island home of Carolyn and Roger Perron (Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston), self-shutting doors, stranger-than-usual sleepwalking sessions and obviously dead apparitions have them searching for the Warrens’ brand of help.

Haunted shenanigans continue and escalate through the film. There are some sub-plots. You know. Sit there for a couple hours, and a feature-length film just sort of happens.

The Conjuring relies heavily on clichés established in better movies. The Exorcist, The Sixth Sense and Paranormal Activity are all more entertaining and more important, and The Conjuring is essentially a mash-up of the three with the scariness, meaningfulness and importance as a film toned way down.

There seems to be a lot about this movie that was only good in theory. Director James Wan uses a bunch of strange shots that are supposed to give the movie a scary atmosphere, but just come off as weird. The Warrens give seminars and talk to journalists to refer to a larger world and make the movie seem more real, but in practice it’s just filler material. About a third of the way through, ghosts with scary makeup show up, but their visual portrayal underwhelms relative to their buildup. They are much scarier before actually hitting the screen.

There’s really no dress to put onto this film. The Conjuring is 112 minutes of telegraphed scares, obvious and tired clichés and boredom. There is nothing distinguishing this as a film and no reason to watch it over the movies it’s obviously imitating.

Joshua Knopp is a formerly professional film critic, licensed massage therapist, journalism and film student at the University of North Texas and a staff writer for the NT Daily. He can very easily put a price on fuel efficiency. For questions, rebuttals and further guidance about cinema, you can reach him at reelentropy@gmail.com. At this point, I’d like to remind you that you shouldn’t actually go to movies and form your own opinions. That’s what I’m here for. Be sure to come back later this week for a review of The Wolverine.

Pacific Rim is the best movie of the summer by a country mile.

I could expound on the plot, but it doesn’t matter. It’s giant monsters vs. giant robots. A wormhole opens in a fracture in the Pacific Ocean and giant monsters come out of it and attack coastal cities. After American armor takes six days to stop the first one, the world’s armies throw aside their differences to build… yeah. Giant monsters vs. giant robots.

It’s actually much more intricate than that. The giant robots are too complex to control mechanically, so they have to be controlled mentally. But they’re too big to be controlled mentally by one person, so each “jaeger” has two pilots assigned to it who have to be in synch with each other at all times. This aspect adds a human element and context for complex relationships and a plot.

The film takes place after jaegers have fallen by the wayside because “kaijus” are emerging from the ocean faster and better adapted to fight, to the point that the mechas aren’t economically feasible and the U.N. has decided to build a giant wall around the ocean.

Early in the film, a kaiju is shown getting through the wall in about an hour, so clearly that’s not going to work. The four remaining jaegers must find a way to collapse the portal before the kaijus are coming too fast to handle.

Go see this movie. Want to see fantastic martial arts sequences? Go see this movie. Want to see the truest, least contrived cinema romance in years? Go see this movie. Want to see a giant monster choke to death on the husk of Ron Perlman? Go see this movie.

Pacific Rim is everything a blockbuster should be, and more importantly, these days at least, it’s nothing that a blockbuster shouldn’t be. Every summer, film after pulpy film slithers through the theatres, its every action sequence marred by obvious physical impossibilities, its every special effect obviously a computer graphic plastered onto film. Audiences walk out with their big action itch satisfied, but somehow still feeling cheated by the lack of care or thought put into the movie. This is a genre that is inexorably and inexplicably monopolized by the stupid and the careless. But this film has neither affliction.

The dialogue, while never really the focus, is clever enough to not take away from the main event — giant monsters vs. giant robots. Just enough context is added that the audience cares about the outcome, and the big kids are off to the races, but the dialogue is good enough that it feels like there’s more than that going on. It feels like there are real people piloting and commanding these mechas, and a real world that stands to be destroyed by the Godzilla-surrogates

Writer/director/producer Guillermo Del Toro is spot on with his creatures here — every kaiju and jaeger has its own on-screen personality and soul. But he knocks the script and non-giant scenes out of the park, too– a rarity for a director known for cool creatures but not much else. Charlies Hunnam and Day, alongside the incomparable Idris Elba, deliver sterling performances that drive the surprisingly OK dialogue.

Pacific Rim is a movie you can watch out of the corner of your eye, a movie you can latch both eyes on to and a movie you can actually think about without losing value to the viewer. It’s Godzilla without the camp and semi-racist context. It’s Transformers without Michael Bay.

There’s too much narration at the start, but that’s the only problem. That’s it. It is almost flawless, and simply being flawless within its oft-flawed genre makes Pacific Rim perfect within greater moviedom.

Joshua Knopp is a formerly professional film critic, licensed massage therapist, journalism and film student at the University of North Texas and a staff writer for the NT Daily. Unlike the State of Florida, he does not think it’s OK to murder suspicious-looking teens. For questions, rebuttals and further guidance about cinema, you can reach him at reelentropy@gmail.com. At this point, I’d like to remind you that you shouldn’t actually go to movies and form your own opinions. That’s what I’m here for. Be sure to come back later this week for a review of The Conjuring.

Despicable Me 2 is just so wonderful.

The sequel to the 2010 hit sees Gru (Steve Carell) returning to action to help the Anti-Villain League. The league has lost a mutating agent, and to catch a supervillain, they feel they need one. Gru’s calm life as a single father is thrown out the door as he hunts villains, his daughter’s suitors and love.

In American sequels, producers typically try to identify the best part of the first movie and accentuate it. Oddly, while minions are clearly the best part of Despicable Me, they are minimized in the sequel. They have their own scenes, and those are funny, but the majority of the screen time is dedicated to Gru and Lucy (Kristen Wiig). But that implies there’s something wrong with Gru and Lucy’s romance, and really there isn’t. I wish the minions were in it more, but that’s the only gripe.

Despicable Me 2 carries all the super-absurdity anyone could expect from cartoons since The Incredibles and Megamind set the bar for the niche genre.

It’s a bit of a tap-in from the studio, but that doesn’t matter. The film is delightful and wonderful without qualification, and everyone should enjoy it.

A spin-off film, Minions, is set for 2014 release.

Joshua Knopp is a formerly professional film critic, licensed massage therapist, journalism and film student at the University of North Texas and a staff writer for the NT Daily. He loves Moira Applebaum soooo much. For questions, rebuttals and further guidance about cinema, you can reach him at reelentropy@gmail.com. At this point, I’d like to remind you that you shouldn’t actually go to movies and form your own opinions. That’s what I’m here for. Be sure to come back later this week for a review of Pacific Rim.

Say this, at least, for The Lone Ranger: they got a really, really pretty horse.

The controversial blockbuster, based on the long-running radio and television series of the same name, is a strange exercise in poor filmmaking layered on top of great, which is layered on top of poor again. The main source of controversy is Tonto (Johnny Depp in redface), a spiritual American Indian who finds John Reid (Armie Hammer) dead at an ambush. After a horse tells Tonto Reid is a great warrior and brings him back to life, the duo travel together hunting Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner), who lead the ambush.

First thing’s first: When is redface OK?

Never. Redface is never OK.

Depp, who “believes” he has some Cherokee in him and was adopted by the Comanche Nation during filming, steps into the most recognized American Indian role in fiction — and the most pejorative. Tonto speaks in a pidgin, is pretty stupid when not using his psychic Indian powers, and won’t stop feeding the taxidermy raven he wears on his head. He’s the iconic Magic Red Man character, and having him played by a man who is caucasian as they come and in real life embodies the maybe-I’m-an-Indian-maybe-I’m-not-who-cares stereotype because Gore Verbinski wanted to direct Captain Jack Sparrow again is pretty edgy.

It’s a shame Depp’s mere presence is a problem, because he acquits himself quite well, as do Hammer and Fichtner. They do so despite a script that is weird and full of too many different things. Helena Bonham Carter’s madam character and a subplot with Ruth Wilson as Rebecca Reid both intrude frequently on and take away from the main plot. The movie is long, and it feels long.

The Lone Ranger wants so badly to be a blockbuster. It wants to have action and comedy and romance and racial equality metaphors and it just doesn’t. The romantic subplot feels like a spare part, and all attempts at comedy are awkward at best. It delivers on the action, particularly with its wonderfully chaotic finale, and the racial equality metaphors … ah …

The Lone Ranger’s main story uncovers a plot in which a wild west gang and a railroad tycoon use agent provocateur tactics to start a war with the Comanche so they can get their hands on a silver mine. The Comanche in the film, Tonto aside, are portrayed completely without racism, which is always a difficult thing to do when you absolutely have to address their race. Tonto calls out white men for various flaws, all of which are both embodied and subverted when the entire cast is taken into account. With the American Indian genocide is a backdrop for the main story, it’s very difficult to pin this movie down and call it racist. There are certainly racist things in it, but the movie itself? It’s difficult to say.

Stupid lines, random poop jokes and spots where the director obviously told Depp to just be weird for a few minutes pervade and drag The Lone Ranger down, but beautiful shots and powerful story sequences are sprinkled in randomly. The difference is jarring, and it’s hard to know what quality of film to expect from scene to scene.

For me, the action, the camerawork and the nostalgia-driven story outweigh the poor technical work. Though I can’t say it’s good, the movie definitely has soul.

Joshua Knopp is a formerly professional film critic, licensed massage therapist, journalism and film student at the University of North Texas and a staff writer for the NT Daily. He is beyond embarrassment and well into amusement with regards to the Texas State Legislature. For questions, rebuttals and further guidance about cinema, you can reach him at reelentropy@gmail.com. At this point, I’d like to remind you that you shouldn’t actually go to movies and form your own opinions. That’s what I’m here for. Be sure to come back later this week for a review of Despicable Me 2.

It seems like someone at Disney Pixar realized their target audience is too young to remember their hay day in the late 90’s.

The studio’s newest production, Monster’s University, is a prequel to 2001’s much better Monsters, Inc. It chronicles Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) meeting James Sullivan (John Goodman) in college. Initially at odds with each other because they were heavily edited to fit snugly into conflicting stereotypes, the duo bands together to win their way back into the school’s scare major after being kicked out by Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren).

The movie isn’t particularly bad, but it continues Pixar’s string of mediocre productions that could leave older fans wanting. After the studio’s initial decade churning out knockout hit after knockout hit, they seem to have hit a bit of a wall, focusing on sequels that are not The Incredibles 2.

Monsters University will do what it’s supposed to do — occupy small children. The creatures are colorful and mostly non-threatening, though Hardscrabble is quite sinister. The antics are wacky enough, the situations are silly enough, and the pace is fast enough to keep kids entertained.

It really is a shame though that’s all the movie tries to do. As recently as 2009’s Up, the studio was moving grown men to tears, and now they’ve made the cinematic equivalent of a rattle. The film’s lack of ambition is in stark contrast to its brilliant advertising campaign, which included an entire school website trying to get people to register for the titular college.

For parents who think their children are particularly impressionable, I would actually steer them away from this movie because of how heavily it reinforces stereotypes and because of the muddled, poor messages it sends. Sullivan’s entitlement doesn’t pay off, but neither does Wazowski’s hard work. At no point do the main characters succeed outright. I don’t think every movie has to ascribe to a particular moral code, but for a movie that doesn’t really have entertainment value past pre-school, this one is kind of sketchy.

Background characters (along with the college itself) exist only to affirm stereotypes, something the film heavily relies on instead of actually developing its characters. Even the don’t-fit-in-to-a-broad-category group the audience is supposed to sympathize with because you like to think you don’t fit into a broad category is filled with caricatures.

Monsters University is a movie I wouldn’t take kids to, but also a movie that was designed specifically to entertain kids. Kind of a Catch-22.

Joshua Knopp is a formerly professional film critic, licensed massage therapist, journalism and film student at the University of North Texas and a staff writer for the NT Daily. He’d like to congratulate the 2013 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks. For questions, rebuttals and further guidance about cinema, you can reach him at reelentropy@gmail.com. At this point, I’d like to remind you that you shouldn’t actually go to movies and form your own opinions. That’s what I’m here for. Be sure to come back next week for a review of The Lone Ranger.