cedric_owl

This is a classic, very clean American rom-com, full of all the fairytale trappings of the genre, but also missing the anarchic undercurrent that makes for the best films in that tradition. It's a fairly amusing hour and a half, but not much else.

Part of the problem stems from Will Smith's status as producer on this film. He seems completely unwilling to get his feet wet. Until the last ten minutes, you'll see none of the zany-sexy energy that made his work in Fresh Prince show compelling. Instead, you get the cloying, metro sexual, sleazy-charming Will Smith.

This could have been funny if the film had given more opportunities for the Hitch character to trip in a pile of his own BS. But 90% of the film treats his womanizing posturings with complete sincerity, undermining the comic possibilities. The erotic tension, battles for sexual dominance, and love-hate fireworks that make for the best rom-com pairings are startlingly absent between Smith and Eva Mendes. It's as if Smith the producer tried too hard to reign in Smith the comedian, and undermined countless laughs because of it.

Kevin James fares much better in the role of a schlubby accountant trying to win the heart of his heiress client. Surprisingly, his impeccable timing translates even better to the big screen than the small. It's telling that his Smith's chemistry with James is much stronger than with Mendes--he seems to be the only scene partner where Smith wants to let loose.

For some reason, all the wackiness that was lacking for almost all of this film seems awkwardly crammed into the last ten minutes. The result is an embarrassingly executed finale. Smith's desperate attempt to win Mendes' heart, which is supposed to be Hitch's most heartfelt moment, feels utterly insincere after the romantic iceberg of the past 90 minutes.

Strange, opaque and deeply unsettling, the War Zone is the only way a film about a topic as horrifying as incest should be. Tim Roth, realizing that the family of the film is too far gone to elicit much empathy from the audience, simply tries to convey the story as truthfully as possible. With crushing results.

At the beginning of the film, we're introduced to a nameless clan: a genial father (Ray Winstone), a mother exhausted from recently giving birth (Tilda Swinton), a sullen teenage boy (Freddie Cunliffe), and his strikingly beautiful older sister (Lara Belmont). All four have recently moved from London to the remote, seaside village of Devon, leaving the two kids feeling isolated and adrift.

What follows for the next hour or so is a brilliantly confusing experience--Roth presents a series of odd quirks about the family that makes the audience question what is merely eccentricity and what hints at something darker. Why, for example, does the family walk around naked most of the time? Don't those siblings seem slightly too "affectionate" given that they're teenagers? What exactly does the boy see his father doing with his sister in the bathroom that bothers him so? All of this mystery leads up to an absolutely harrowing scene which leaves no mystery as to the dynamic between father and daughter. More emotionally explicit than physically so, the scene is rightfully regarded as one of cinema's more horrible acts of on-screen violence, yet doesn't feel gratuitous in the slightest.

This film is as sparse as possible, with almost no inflection or melodramatic effects. Scenes are generally shot in long takes with a static camera (gorgeously framed in widescreen). There is little excess dialogue, and almost no music. Often we are placed into the middle of confusing scenes that are open to numerous interpretations. We more or less have to come to our own conclusions about what is going on. The teenagers are as inexpressive and introspective as teenagers in real life, which makes there unexpected emotional outbursts all the more powerful.

Why Roth hasn't made any other films is beyond me. He has a lean, cinematic sensibility which is unmatched by any other actor-director. I hope he gets an opportunity to use it again soon.

I left this film feeling high. Not because I literally ingested anything before arriving at the theatre, but because the movie provided that familiar feeling of one's brain being reduced to a muddled receptor for bright colors and funny noises.

So about the story: boy robot leaves his home for the big-city, must defeat evil robot trying to control the robot world. During this epic quest he encounters a series of Disney-ish archetypes, including: wacky robot sidekick (voiced by Robin Williams, natch), bland robot love interest (Halle Berry, spending all of maybe three hours in the recording studio), and a spunky tomboy robot (voiced by some unmemorable tween star).

The storyline, such as it is, could probably fill a single half-hour slot on Nickelodeon. There are a few funny bits of dialogue (provided by off-Broadway scribe David Lindsay Abaire), but mostly the script is just the filler before the next elaborate visual sequence dreamed up by the animators.

And don't get me wrong: those visual sequences are pretty cool. I can't quite decide which is more impressive: the hyperkinetic ride through the immaculately detailed robot city or a complicated sequence involving thousands of dominoes. The art department clearly put a mind-boggling amount of effort into creating a fully realized world.

But that, unfortunately, is all there is. An awesomely rendered environment with nothing in the foreground. Many of the characters, particularly the protagonist, feel like little more than rough outlines. The relationships between characters feel like tacked-on afterthoughts. This is compounded by the most lackluster and non-distinctive voice work I've ever heard from major movie stars (Ewan McGregor and Halle Berry sound so bored, I would have preferred they hire interns from the accounting department).

I recommend this film slightly, simply because of the stunning visuals. But otherwise, with the success of truly subversive CGI films like The Incredibles and Shrek, Robots just doesn't cut it.