It's Soft, But It Keeps The Atmosphere, The Chill, The Terror. "Let Me In" Mostly Surprises.

"LET ME IN" ☆☆☆

I was on the fence about this American remake, a noirish horror drama very much in the same style (and faithfully adapted near verbatim) as the original, the 2008 Swedish "Let The Right One In," about troubled kid Owen who befriends odd, nice Abby, the reclusive girl who lives next door to him in the same apartment complex, in a New Mexico winter in 1983. She only comes out at night and barefoot in the snowy complex playground where lonely, distressed Owen retreats and where both him and Abby will eventually meet. The hook, as it is in both versions, is that she is a vampire, with a solemn adult caregiver who pass themselves off as father and daughter.

I wanted to like this film more, and at times like it less. Director/writer Matt Reeves US version "Let Me In" (a US title change I prefer, actually) succeeds at recreating, and mostly staying true to, the chilly atmosphere and tone of that Swedish film, with the intriguing characters, visceral horror, and that effective ever-present bleak undertone that made that first film work so well. And "Let Me In" surprises us from the Swedish version. It works as a good horror movie. Before the lights went down, the theater previewed several upcoming horror/thriller potpourri, and I felt that most of them won't come close to the terror that their trailer might represent. "Let Me In" scares you, and it's probably this fall's ticket to the best horror shocks you'll get in a cinema right now. I had less feeling for movies like "My Soul To Take" or "Paranormal Activity 2" or "Saw 3D."

However, what I was on the fence about is that "Let Me In" often plays it softer than it's predecessor (a beef most critics had, and most who rated the film positively), and why that hits so hard is it does it with Owen and Abby, the two leads who we need to get seeped into. The scenes with them weren't deep enough, or frightening enough, or consequential enough, that it would matter, and in contrast the scenes with Owen and his sadistic school bully, Kenny, are better and work as half of the film's suspenseful punch. Whenever Kenny gave Owen the evil eye (and it was evil), and confronted him in the school locker room, and composer Michael Giacchino cued a deep single brass note every time, I feared for the worst. (SPOILER! And the ending when it seemed that Owen had won over Kenny and his posse, he plans back with vicious and near deadly force in a school indoor pool. Of course, as predicted, Owen is rescued and it doesn't go well for them.) The two adult leads, one played by Richard Jenkins as The Father and the other by Elias Koteas as The Policeman investigating the several murders linked to Abby, don't get as much thought put into them, or have as many scenes as they should. The Father maybe, but he leaves the film way too early, and less so The Policeman, who when he finally exits I didn't really care. (CONTINUED SPOILER 2! To me, both ended up just as more bodies on the mounting pile that Abby rakes.)

And what I liked mostly included that the film was recreated near flawlessly in tone and color palette, often better from the original, of dull blue interior and meek orange exterior (used to extreme in director Guillermo Del Toro's whimsical fantasy/horror mishmashes), and over-coated in absolute bleakness (the DP for this movie is Creig Fraser, who I think mostly imitated the work of DP Hoyte von Hoytema from the original, but while giving this film a crisper look. I liked the lens flares, honestly). And the setting transfers very well here with the original in a Sweden suburban, and here a New Mexico suburb, both snow laden and dismal. I like that you couldn't tell one setting from the other. Or one film from the other! And Hey, if you don't recognize the actors and have the film subtitled you might mistake this for the original! Is it all that bad that it mimics "Let The Right One In" to a fault, scene for scene, line for line, and picture for picture? Nah. Except that maybe why have a remake? Eh, I don't mind. In fact, I would have liked Reeves' film better had he gotten those leads right. He might have wanted to co-write the script or hand it off to someone else, is my thought. (In my defense, why I would have liked this version more is I saw "Let The Right One In" dubbed. It was terrible. I knew it killed it, but I never gave the movie a second chance in Swedish.)

(CONTINUED SPOILER 3! I also want to mention the political transfer now being Reagan's America of "good vs. evil." Reeves made a good choice here, and he makes a lot of good ones in the movie. Actually, my hopes rose in the first ten or so minutes of movie, from the first shots of a snowy, fogged, mountainous New Mexico, with swirling, whining sirens emerging from the distance, to the out of focus inserts of a brutally harmed man in a emergency vehicle hightailing it to the hospital, all the way up to The Policeman's sour visit, with Ronald himself on a TV screen talking it up about the "evil empire" that is the Soviet Union in his famous NAE speech...That meeting took place in March, so it's safe to say, in the dead of winter, that it was actually playing on everyone's TV's the time this movie took place. "Let Me In's" best is in these first ten minutes, after that great, fogged opening wide-shot and the last after this poor man takes a plunging fall out the hospital window to his death. The movie's opening had the kind-of European slow, calculated, terrified pace that the rest of the movie, though shot that way, seemed to lack. Reeves has the right aesthetics, but not the right punch. Those kids! Even though the kid actors, Kodi Smit-McPhee of "The Road," and Chloe Moretz of "Kick-Ass" fame, are two of the hottest young actors around, and they really are terrific here. They just needed to make us feel for them.)

I'll mention the score here: As much as I love Michael Giacchino, he could have killed half the music in this, because it mostly killed the suspense. Silence, at most times, works best. Except for that deep brass note! (CONTINUED SPOILER 4! Another great suspense scene when Owen stands up to Kenny, and the subsequent discovery of yet another body, at a frozen pond, was killer with Michael's music!)

(CONTINUED SPOILER 5! And, I think the one scene, if there was one, that left me more satisfied with "Let Me In" than I was is it's final, which ended the way the original did, too, and which I liked more here. That Owen is now in The Father's position. That it's a sad, viscous circle that maybe Abby can't seem to holt. Owen is damned, but blissfully destined he thinks, to look after Abby for as long as he lives. Or horrifically meet The Father's seemingly eventual deadly fate. )

"Let Me In" works as a genre horror film, and it jolts you and holds you, and never as much with Owen and that bully, (and should have with Owen and Abby) and not near as much as that near final scene in the pool, which was in the original, but was held for so long in this one I feared it would never happen. I was glad, and terrified, it did. (CONTINUED SPOILER 6! Of course Abby was going to save Owen and brutally murder his school enemies. It shows that they were meant to be, and that Owen is doomed to take care of Abby forever.)

Ah, vampire romance. Suck it Edward!

You Don't Get To 500 Million Friends On Facebook Without Being A Complete Ass-Wipe. "The Social Network" Is Smart, Quick, Witty And Dangerous.

"THE SOCIAL NETWORK" ☆☆☆ 1/2

It hit the web faster than it's subject matter. A movie about Facebook was bound to be made. It's a multibillion dollar web company. It's a worldwide craze. It's inception a story about Harvard college kids, guys barely twenty who made something that caused the cool internet-using world youth to bow to their knees. And it's a you-can't-believe all-powerful drama of mania, stardom and thunderous repercussion. A movie to ultimately be considered for Oscar glory, which - maybe before it's release, before the script was written, before anything but a greenlight and a simple, solid title, "The Social Network," were announced - was considered a great movie in the making. It's a no brainer for most. Sadly, I don't think "The Social Network" is a great movie. But it is one hell of a movie.

"The Social Network," David Fincher and Sony's seemingly award's worthy Facebook movie - with playwright/screenwriter-rise-to-fame Aaron Sorkin and a great young cast: Jessie Eisenberg as Facebook's billionaire founder Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Garfield (the new Spider-Man) as his partner, soon-to-be cheated out best friend Eduardo Serverin, and Justin Timberlake as cool, savage Napster guy Sean Parker - is the hot, hip, dialogue-savvy and actor-menacing fast ride of the spiteful Harvard undergrad who launched the new fad social network phenomenon known as The Facebook, the youth-induced popularity and relationship status-fueled obsession it created (and soon to be worldwide ground-shaker), and the many equally mean, nasty and pissed-off Harvard smarties who wanted their share of the cut, or wanted blood, or both; including twin gentleman Harvard elites and crew-rowers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoos (played in double by Armie Hammer) and their meanie business colleague Diyva Narendra (Max Minghella, son of the late director Anthony Minghella), and also Eduardo himself, in two suits against Mark, both wanting large amounts of compensation.

This movie is about business and friendship relationships flaming and crumbling, lost to money, fame, and for Jessie Eisenberg's tragically naive Mark Zuckerberg, his closest relationships, and even his sought after recognition. And that's what's ironic and tragic about Zuckerberg. He doesn't know what he wants. He thinks he wants girls, wants money, wants fame, wants to get even. He doesn't know. We don't know. No one knows. Mark Zuckerberg is the most sadly tragic character of the movies this year. Is he a good guy? An asshole? A good asshole? A guy who tries to be nice, or an asshole? Or doesn't know he's nice or an asshole, or can't even know? Eisenberg does a bang-up job with this character: the fast-talking, juvenile, naive, hoodie-wearing, borderline ass-monger who can't keep any relationship close. And the only one he has to hold, his best buddy Eduardo - the only sane, grounded and nice guy (though not as brilliant as Mark) out of Mark's inanity and the boozy, sniffing party animal/smooth talker, bitch-slapping Napster starter Parker - who ends up suing for half the stake, and who Zuckerberg inadvertently, it seems, pushed out of partnership, and friendship. The movie's first, and best, scene has Zuckerberg trying, and failing like hell, to woo a girl, Erica Albright, in a Harvard pub with his fast-talk and smarts, and even impress her with maybe future credentials as a member in elite, hard-to-get-in fraternity clubs (including the Winklevoos' crew club). This scene brilliantly sets up "The Social Network." It's quick-cuing dialogue, it's bitter feuds, and this girl setting up Mark as an unknown by calling him an asshole. And, after this failed attempt to get laid, Mark's motivation, who thinks FaceMash, a precursor of Facebook, will be enough to get back at Erica for calling him the asshole. Maybe even get an apology. A kiss-and-make-up. It's something we might think is what Mark so obviously wants. In a scene where, in Facebook's early stages, he tries to get that apology from Erica, it just doesn't work. Is this why he took Facebook as far as he did? Why he wanted to get more friends than anyone? Why it so ultimately blew up in his face, where he lost his friends? And when Facebook hit that so sought after, cherished milestone mark of 100 million users, that he could give two shits about it? And why, at the end of the movie, he keeps hitting the refresh button?

This is a movie about the ridiculous rage even college guys can conjure up (if almost how accidental). About the ludicrous, ever-expanding opportunities of the internet. About the absolute insanity that the young (and old) obscenely care about who other people are screwing, who they're with, everyone else's personal preference and personal lives as much as profession, and, of course, the mortal consequences it takes. As smart as this movie is, as fast, witty, well-written and well acted and directed, it gains that as cool as the whole Facebook idea was, as many people joined (millions), and as many dough as it dished out (much more than the amount of users), it doesn't hold to the sardonic tragedy that relationships were lost, and for Mark the most important. That things as big as they are have their retribution. That as fast as something hits the waves, snowballs or grows to unimaginable possibilities, anyone will be ready to sue with a court order and as many accusations as can fit on a bill. Something as big as Facebook doesn't happen without consequence. It's a cool, but dangerous idea. People change in relationships. In relationship status. And in the computer age. Facebook users, beware. Will you think about Facebook, and social networking, the same way again? Will all of Mark Zuckerberg's friends delete him off their profiles, as portrayed as he is here? Will he finally feel the total mockery of having no one? Will this movie be the ironic martyr of Facebook? I don't think so. This move plays it more safe than it boasts. Anyway, all you Harry Potter suing, money hounds eat your hearts out!

David Fincher holds his signature approach for "The Social Network." All of his movies he mostly has a visible hand in it. Like many stylized directors, his camera is all over the place. But he lays back here and lets Sorkin's brilliant dialogue and the cast's terrific, super-quick delivery take over. And Sorkin has written his best script yet, after his great, break-out scrpit with "A Few Good Men," based on his stageplay, back in the 1993 ("You can't handle the truth!"). Sorkin's script for "Network" is just too smart, too witty, and too swift not be taken notice of. His characters, though twisted from their reallife counterparts (but real dialogue was taken from court transcripts!), are whole, and with the cast, ominous. Sorkin deserves an Oscar nod. If anyone in this movie deserves a nod, or a win, and almost all of them do, Sorkin should be the one to walk up to the podium.

As for that ominous cast, Jessie Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and the more wowing Justin Timberlake, and Hammer and Minghella are also great, hit the rights notes, cut Sorkin's lines with a sharp edge and read them faster than he put them on the page. It might be them, or Sorkin, or Fincher, who made them so brilliant here than in any other movie they've been in, but either way they were terrific.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's upbeat, suspenseful, sad, techo-crazy score helps comment the fast editing by Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall. And that's commented by Fincher's quick-cutting style, no less. And there's his noticeable touch! Zuckerberg's narration, read super-sly, super-fast by Eisenberg, flies through the movies first twenty minutes (added with that brilliant, somber first scene), as the music jams and the editing jumps, through the launch of FaceMash, after a drunk Zuckerberg recruited his computer programming/hacking buddies to help bring the site viral through Harvard campus, including Joseph Mazzello (little Tim from "Jurassic Park," if you can recognize him) as Dustin and Patrick Maple as Chris, and of course, Eduardo, who initially didn't want the site live as nothing good might come of it. And he was right. It crashed the Harvard computer network! The scene intercuts with Mark, Eduardo, Dustin and Chris launching FaceMash with various Harvard kids, doing various naughty college-kid things, getting hold and watching, and letting, it spiral out of control...Poor Eduardo. He might not be the smart business major that he was (he did sign those papers), but he was a nice guy. Zuckerberg, you brilliant, genius ass-wipe!

"The Social Network" isn't that great movie we might have expected, not as perfect, or as masterful, as most to all critics raved it as. The movie was never as great as those first twenty minutes. The characters were maybe not as rounded as we might have wanted them to be. And maybe the movie might have been too quick for it's own good (I did have a hard time catching all that great back-and-forth quip in the first scene!), and maybe Trent Reznor's score (who's music for this movie has garnered a rave and following of it's own) might be too jazzy, too techno. And Fincher might have wanted to bring all he could to "The Social Network." That's one I don't think much of. If Fincher allowed himself to hold back for better of the material, than Reznor, the cast, and Sorkin, could too. I won't hold much on that idea. "The Social Network" didn't need style. It had it all it's own. But style is a dangerous idea.

See this movie, if you had to pick one. It's better than most garbage out right now. It might not be as well shot as most of that stylized trash. And I don't know if it was intentional, for Fincher to hold back on it too, but the cinematography was ugly! (Sorry, Jeff Cronenweth) But "The Social Network" is certainly better. Way better. And it will get those nominations. Oh, you bet.