Show Some Love For "Persia"

DVD REVIEW:

"PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME" ☆☆☆

I haven't written on this blog in a while. I feel I owe you that. However, not due to lack of interest, or boredom, or anything close to not sharing my thoughts on movies with you all. The fact is I'm broke. Put in a corner. Shamed. Why? I'm a recently graduated, out of work college student, and for the past summer since my completion at school I've done little to jack but flock to the movies and spend all of what spare money I had on them, all for the joy of telling you about how I feel on the latest releases. (And how could a movie buff not resist going to the movies?) But hey! Things are looking up for me recently! After I spent all my change and haven't had a chance to see anything, but instead sit on my butt scouring the internet day and night, thinking about writing a screenplay but not even getting past keying the slug line, I had a sobering thought. With no movies to see, with no basis to write about them, and nothing else better to do - and, seemingly more final, a dead car that I've somehow been waiting with horror to ultimately give out - I finally decided it was time to leave the cold coop that is Chicago for the warm, high-altitude climate that is the West, or more importantly for us movie guys, Los Angeles - Hollywoodland. I fly out this coming Sunday. But no fears! The great thing about writing internet blogs is you can do it from anywhere. All I need is my laptop. And a movie theater...

Anyway, enough say-so on my soon-to-be rising multimillion dollar movie career, lets talk about movies. And in this case, "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time." First off, as you may know, it didn't do much. Not for box office, or for critics. Consensus is more like a virus than just tons of infected cells getting together to cause one; as soon as one scathing review hits, all the rest are bound to follow and infect as well. Critics, and audiences, too, love to bash movies, especially ones that are expensively mounted, fixedly marketed, and, like most big-budget movies, meant to start an ever continuing successful franchise. And certainly ones that plummet and shatter into a million pieces.

No, "Prince of Persia" didn't start a franchise, and with a modest income of $335m worldwide it probably only just made everything it had spent with little to gain. And that makes us all happy and relieved, for some reason. Because don't we want to see a big, calculated risk fail? For huge, Hollywood summer tyrants, often based on popular, existing material, to fall off there tentpoles? For Disney, Jerry Bruckheimer and Jake Gyllenhaal to finally have a fluke at the box office? And why? Because we should be jealous at such ludicrous numbers that they get? That it's such a lavish production, made with all the best intentions, with some of the most talented guys in showbiz hurdling their craft at what we secretly hope will be a embarrassing failure, because we get off at seeing huge Zeppelins crash and burn, despite how lovingly and meticulously they are built, sometimes from the ground up?

"Prince of Persia" wasn't built from the ground up, but despite that it doesn't deserve such nonsensical criticism. It's a good show, often spectacular and dazzling, but all the while an entertaining medieval fantasy that might be the most beautifully constructed Middle-Eastern romantic epic ever made. And I really think it's only flaw, though quite major, is it's lack of concentration on character, and also relies too heavily on the action and glamour and audacious stunt work. But it's a fine effort, written with no action/fantasy cliches or meaningless gimmicks in sight, and directed with canny fun by Brit Mike Newell (of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"). The movie is more often decent and wittingly written than ridiculously penned, the actors play with hammy panache, and it all results in just pure over-the-top epic fun. Everyone seemed to have had a blast making this summer movie.

"Prince of Persia" isn't exactly memorable, nor does it leap the bounds of it's formula, like popular McGuffin quest adventures Indiana Jones or The Lord of the Rings, but it's a bang for your buck. It might not be worth that second viewing, but it's certainly worth the first. Give it a chance. You can spend more than a dollar at the Redbox or $4.99 a month on Netflix. Like $10 at the theater?... And hey, haven't you been meaning to see this on DVD anyway?

Dreams within dreams, within dreams, within a well-constructed movie labyrinth; "Inception" is a movie lover's paradise

"INCEPTION" ☆☆☆☆

I didn't expect anything out of "The Dark Knight" when it was released two summers ago. At least, not anything spectacular.

I was at work opening day, and my friend had phoned me vigorously until I finally picked up on break, in a bathroom stall. He said he had just seen it the night before, at Thursday midnight (breaking an arrangement we had to see it together), and excitedly stated that once I got off shift that we must go and see it, must, right then, not a second sooner. For him to bathe in movie honor again, for me to go to the best moviegoing experience of my life (for him, anyway). He also didn't leave out that it was the best, the best, movie he had ever seen. Several times, in fact. And several times more on the car ride over to the theater. Even then, sitting in what was a packed movie house at early morning, my expectations weren't all too high. I had wanted to see "The Dark Knight" - the new, then second and highly-anticipated Batman movie proclaimed a comic-book movie masterpiece after exploding reviews had stamped it, with a red-hot poker, "genius" and "masterful" - but wasn't as excited to see it as those critics were, and decided to wait, after my friend's dire persistence, until the following Saturday to finally watch it.

And, like every critic and movie fanboy, found "The Dark Knight" a fantastic entertainment. Not really a bat-masterpiece (as some have coined), but instead a well done, thoroughly cooked, genre crime film, and succeeding better as a full-out immersive experience. The cleverly layered, vigorous intercutting caper, captured in downtown Chicago/Gotham City in all it's architectural glory, with more wow-induced stunts, exploding car-chases, an involved (though not impressive) ensemble cast, and vamped-up script, then any smaller budgeted crime drama would get; and all-out villainy run by Heath Ledger's crazy/master madman Joker, a role that popularly proved his talent as a diverse actor, and prematurely after his sudden death only months before the movie's release. And director, co-screenwriter Christopher Nolan, who helmed the first franchise reboot "Batman Begins" (of which I didn't like as much), and turned the Batman legacy itself into the majestic noir fable of youthfully wronged millionaire/vigilante Bruce Wayne, and his caped alter-ego Batman, ridding Gotham City of evil tyranny, something far from the comic-books, or even Tim Burton's fun Goth spin, or even beyond the dreams of what executive producer Michael Uslan had dreamed, who had made it his sole goal to produce a "serious" Batman film.

And still, even after "The Dark Knight," going into Christopher Nolan's new massive-scale noir/science fiction blockbuster, "Inception," starring Leonardo DiCaprio and another array of popular actors, in the all-too-real world of ambit and limitless dreams, I didn't expect any type of greatness out of it. That Nolan could be the next Spielberg, or Lucas, or Kubrick, and that "The Dark Knight" was just a once-every-so-often success, possibly proving Nolan as the heir to Spielberg, and those others, as the king of popular, and mind-bending, movie entertainment.

And, still, I was wrong again. "Inception" is the type of mass-popular entertainment (or extravaganza), and quality film, with the level of complexity and depth, that so immerses us, like the world of dreams itself, that we can't possibly get out of it, or want to. A world of tangible dreams, of actual boundaries and mathematical sureness, that the dangers are all-too-real. If you get hurt in a dream, you feel the pain. If your body moves while you dream, your dream-self moves with it. Like Joseph Gorden-Levitt, fist-fighting in a classy hotel corridor as the space turns over and about like a fun-house circle, and Gordon-Levitt floats in the air like an astronaut, as if hovering on a shuttle in orbit, as his real body goes through free fall, all the while spinning out of control, and for us in agonizing/mesmerizing slow-motion, ticking down the time until all drastically ends. Ends into what? Into death. And when you die in a dream, you may not die in real life, but you go "in limbo," the dreaded unconscious hyper-sleep where dream and reality merge, and minutes seem like years, moments like life times, where whole cities are built from the ground up and crumble in front of your eyes, and where you may very well lose your sanity. These are the very real consequences of Leo DiCaprio and his skilled team of "extractors," dreamscape specialists who invade the minds of unsuspecting persons and steal their "secrets" and sell to the respected employer, and who here brave the mind of rising-up young business mogul Robert Fisher Jr. (Cillian Murphy) to instead "plant" an idea, called "inception," so he would believe it is his own, and by-and-large change the world, and cause the dismantle of his inherit conglomerate. "Inception" is a tricky business, to successfully and convincingly make believe the concept was the person's own, something that could easily be traced back to the dreamer, or "architect," of whom creates the actual physical world of the dream itself to bring the hapless subject in to make feel at home, or believe that his dream is his, is benign, while these extractors go about inhabiting and manipulating like a virus, a comparison DiCaprio's master extractor Cobb believes is similar to what ideas actually are. But it's also dangerous, with "projections" that come in with the dreamer's emotionally compromised subconscious as skilled assassins or deadly loved ones as guilty memories; and delving into layers, dreams within dreams, to further deepen the sleep of Fisher, and to subject him to the weaknesses of his own subconscious, in order to successfully plant the idea. But it could mean for Cobb and his team, as well as Fisher himself, to fall into limbo, and never wake again.

The movie "Inception" is like the various layers of the dream, well-constructed, diligently detailed, and wholly convincing. A movie that once it gets further into the dreams with Cobb, into the various levels and depthless pits of the psyche, drags us along with it, drenching us in it's complexity and network of catacombs and mazes. In "Inception's" ultimate payoff climax, where it excitingly careens us on the edge of our seats, Cobb's crew goes deeper than they ever imagined, having to get out not just three layers, but four; a van-free fall, a death-spinning hallway, a snow-glad mountain fortress shootout, and Cobb's own memories, his dead wife Mal's fatal lair of hate and despair. Like "The Dark Knight," Nolan, with his swift editor Lee Smith and Hans Zimmer's booming music cues, madly intercut between it all, and by this point the movie becomes so engrossing that by the end of it you might feel walking out of the theater you were in an unescapable dream, living in a virtual hell, and that the only way to get out is death, or worse.

"Inception's" main architect is Chris Nolan, the writer/director, who knows the world he is creating, loves it to death (he spent years writing the screenplay), and stylishly takes us through it like this were a cool "Ocean's Eleven" heist, and Dicaprio and team, Gordon-Levitt, Murphy, Ellen Page, Ken Wantanbe, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, and a group of other well known actors, are the George Clooney's, Brad Pitt's, and Matt Damon's. And with Lee Smith's rapid editing, Hans Zimmer's ferocious synthetic/orchestral score, Wally Pfister's steely photography, and Guy Hendrick Dyas ironclad production design, puts us into this brazen and bold world just as well. And for Nolan personally, "Inception" is a much bolder, bigger, and hugely imagined film than even "The Dark Knight," and far better than "Batman Begins" and his "The Prestige," another mind-cruncher about merciless rival magicians, and their highly sought after secrets, in early 1900's London. And you'll all have to tell me about "Memento," a supposed mind-boggler masterpiece (other than maybe "Inception," no doubt), by a novice Nolan, I haven't seen (I'll get around to it).

While it has a cleverly structured script and deft directing from Nolan, I still feel there were flaws in "Inception." The characters, even DiCaprio's Cobb with his visual representation of his guilt ridden conscious as Marion Cotillard's tragic Mal, are all pretty weak, and aren't as deep as the dreams they so immensely dive into. And the first half of the film, before the movie takes us into Fisher's mind with Cobb and team, and so entrapping us, was a bit slow-paced with insipid exposition (just not as cool or satisfying as "Ocean Eleven" expositional planning). Not a bad first half at all, but put "Inception" off to a less-than-fantastic start.

And the ending, even with how clever and perfectly whole an idea that brings all of the thing full circle, was too predictable, and I saw coming even before the movie started. It could have been how discreetly the film was marketed that I was looking for something to be a little off, or maybe I was more clever than the idea itself. Anyway, the ending is perfect, and beautifully symbolized. You couldn't go wrong.

Many critics will see this film again, and many moviegoers, too, and I certainly will. Not really to catch anything I've missed (actually, "Inception" isn't as mind-bending or twisty-turny as most have said it is, at least not in the film's plot), but just to experience it again, and see a film that is a true movie lover's delight. Chris Nolan I don't think is the next great pop director, but loves the movies just as much as we do. He knows what we want to see.

To submerge us in ecstatic movie dreams. Go see it. Go see it twice. "Inception" is a marvel of a movie.

RECENT MOVIES: Disney's new "based on" fantasy flick, "The Girl" returns, and "Winter" chills you to the bone

"THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE" ☆☆

All the "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" needs, Walt Disney's new kid-action fantasy, is the beloved "Fantasia"/Mickey Mouse cartoon (and famous classical piece), and a similar sequence in the updated movie itself, to merit an $150 million budget, with extensive CGI, high-powered car-chase stunts through downtown Manhattan, and Nic Cage stylishly getting us through it all as centuries old, cool master sorcerer Balthazar, who needs to find the Prime Merlinian, a foretold young wizard who will one day destroy evil before they vanquish the world by rising the undead (called the, uh, Rising) and killing everybody. And Disney, as well as director Jon Turtletaub and producer Jerry Bruckheimer (the dream-team that did "National Treasure") seem to think that's all they should offer. It isn't good enough, for adults or kids, to the classy entertainment that this show, and Nic Cage's Balthazar, thinks it is.

College-guy Dave Stutler, played by type-cast dweeb Jay Baruchel, is "the chosen one" who will, and must, stop the evil, and who, just like us, can't seem to get why he should. What does he owe to save mankind from zombies and the supposedly very dangerous, formidable sorcerers and sorceresses, including Salem's own Abigail Williams, who have been inside an ancient doll, called the Grimhold, for so many years? Because he is The Chosen One? Because he is a nerdy dork who needs to prove his worth, and get the girl, of whom he's wanted to woe since he was ten, when Balthazar himself halted the process by introducing himself into Dave's ordinary life with a silver dragon ring and a destiny that means confronting and once and for all stopping evil for the sake of good, where all else will fail? Why should he care? In the moment where Dave would walk away from Balthazar, and sorcery, and his supposed magical destiny, he decides to stay, because he thought that the magic was cool. Is that why we should care, too? Why we should stay in the movie theater? Because we thought the magic was cool?

Actually, I didn't think the visual effects were that impressive.

The Disney short, with Paul Dukas' famously whimsical orchestral piece, is a much better entertainment, and far better aesthetic piece, then the movie it's "based on," with Mickey as the Apprentice, in his notable blue-starry pointy hat and red cloak, controlling a mop magically to pail water, when the whole thing turns disastrously wrong as the mop multiplies to hundreds and swamps The Sorcerer's dungeon with raging water, and Mickey desperately trying to stop it, and the majestic Sorcerer coming to halt the mad procession in one swift, masterful hand, just in the nick of time. "Fantasia's The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is one of the world's best known pieces of perfectly synced images, animation, and classical music (from a guy who doesn't know much about classical music or animation), and could beguile me on dozens of viewings then 2010's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" could only halfway through.

Like most blockbuster entertainment this year, it's a poor movie, with uninspired acting/directing that's too hammy, with an uninspired script (with that great inspired piece?) that's just as fuddled in plot gimmicks and devices like most of kid entertainment out right now, and that some kids may find too silly to even like. A flying, steal eagle? Chinese dragon puppets coming to life? The Grimhold? The Rising? Abigail Williams? The only motive to bad-guys is to take over the world? And the only one to stop them is "the chosen one?" Who is always a young hero? Magic shouldn't exist and be known to anyone, but the climatic battle blasts out in the middle of Washington Square?

And "The Prime Merlinian!?" Give me a break.

"THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE" ☆☆☆

Not as good as it's predecessor, the smart, chilling Swedish whodunit crime thriller "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," about morally wronged Lisbeth Salander, the virulent young goth-girl with a scared childhood, and her fare colleague and on-and-off lover, Mikael Blomkvist, the assiduous "Millennium" magazine editor and amateur sleuth, solving murder while we get closer to Lisbeth's past, on her reason's for despising men (though loving Blomkvist), and confronting new villains for sake of others and her horrible past. That first film, directed by Niels Arden Oplev with screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, and the acclaimed novel by Stieg Larsson, is a a well-crafted thriller, with terrific suspense and compelling characters, Mikael Blomkvist, the various suspects, involving Nazis and old family feuds, and of course Lisbeth herself, who overtakes her chaperone, vicious rapist Nils Bjurman, and as we learn more about her she steadily and mercilessly begins to unwind. In "The Girl Who Played With Fire," Lisbeth is framed for murder of "Millennium's" new reporter and his girlfriend, as they were uncovering sex trafficking, and while that is something Lisbeth would be against someone has placed her prints at the scene of the crime. But why? And why does it involve Bjurman? And is it to do more with her troubled family history? She and Mikael try to solve it, while Lisbeth is hunted by a large albino with an abstinence for pain, the cops try to track her down, and Mikael begins to uncover the mystery of who is "Zala."

"Girl Who Played With Fire" isn't as catching a story as "Girl With Dragon Tattoo," and this one, now directed by Daniel Alfredson and written by Jonas Frykberg (though with the same book/writer in the novel series) isn't as chilling or involving, and it could be the director wasn't as steadfast or the book was just weaker than the first. Anyway, I didn't like this one as much. But it's still an engaging mystery/suspense movie, with a throughly engrossing climax (although it ends too soon). I think we can see the payoff in "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" do better, and aren't seconds in trilogies weaker anyway?

"WINTER'S BONE" ☆☆☆ 1/2

An indie film, with a true indie cast and crew, that relies on it's sheer force to persuade. Persuade us of 17-year-old Ree Dolly's (a great Jennifer Lawrence) plight to keep her younger brother and sister, Sonny and Ashlee, from depravity in rural Missouri, where the winters are stark chill and devoid of any life, warmth, solitude, and sense of security. Where drugs causes her dad to go missing, and his involved family business to become an unflinching barricade to the truth, of horrible red-neck monsters, higher on the chain of command like an organized mob of true killers. Ree can't stop finding her father, even if it means her own safety. The two younger Dolly's will go hungry, and missing dad, Jessup Dolly, put up their home as collateral for his bond, and a ditched court date will submit Ree, her siblings, and disabled mom, to the streets if he doesn't show, which is why Ree has to find him, and why she has no choice. The army won't take her, the possible economy down-spiral can't get her a job, and the seemingly endless miles of vacant, skeletal woods, rundown lower-class houses, and the bitter dead of winter that seeps hope out of us just as it might Ree, is why she no choice, and why she can't give up. Braving the haunting rural landscape and the vicious cretins that will go to any lengths to keep their drug trafficking out of the law, Ree needs to find her father, of whom she hates, her drug-induced, cooking, good-for-nothing lowlife of a dad, to keep Sonny and Ashlee feed, and warm for winter. With only the help of friendly, giving neighbor Sonya, girlfriend Gail, and well-meaning uncle Teardrop, where Ree's and his relationship is something odd and special to behold, can only keep Ree up for so long before she makes her own choices.

However, "Winter's Bone" ends the way you would expect, everything resolved, and things back to the way they were, which doesn't defeat the movie, but keeps it from a truly perfect moral conclusion. Ree never makes a choice. Well, if only to stay with her sibs and not go into the army, something she has always wanted (with 40,000 big ones to help her family along), but we'd expect that. (SPOILER ALERT!: Maybe losing the home, giving Ashlee and Soony away, and going out on her own, in those endless, dark, dank, unforgiving woods, to an uncertain future, would have suited it's story better) Anyway, the film relies on it's impact, on Ree, and those woods, to frighten us, and chill us, to the bone. It works like hell.

RECENT MOVIES: Evil needs to be more evil, Night descends, but Knight makes us laugh, Karate Kid makes us cheer, and Ridley Scott reglorifies a legend

"DESPICABLE ME" ☆☆ 1/2

A better title than idea, about underground-suburbanite, James-Bondian villain Gru (who in the advertising trailers looks like the silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock) trying to steal the moon, and beat his nemesis, younger, pretentious nerd, Vector, for the # 1 spot as super-baddie of the world. And in order to do so adopts three darling orphans, hopeful, but disdainful Margo, troublesome Edith, and all around cuttie pie Agnes, from the local shelter, and he hopes to use the kids and just as easily dispose of them for his master plan. And the kids hope to warm Gru's heart, and ours, to find the adoptive father in Gru they, nor he, never knew he had. Can we hope, too?

The gags are all funny and relatively light (no potty humor, thank you), the story follows a good arc, the characters are rounded okay (I had my problems with Mr. Nerfario, who jumped from compliant gadget maker of Gru to being his aggressive outer conscious), but the sentiment, however trying to get there, doesn't pull our heart strings enough. "Despicable Me" could have used deeper moments with Gru and the kids, having finer ground to feel for them. And with that, to make the movie better from there, a bit more whimsy, more funny, and more character stuff. Maybe make Vector less pompous and idiotic and more venomous, and evil banker Mr. Perkins more menacing making him the real villain of the movie, and orphanage warden Miss Hattie more like the abominable chaperones of "Harry Potter's" the Dursleys; and why isn't Gru more of a spiteful scoundrel than just a troublesome school bully on the playground, possibly making him a more attractive, or unattractive, character? The little yellow minions were funny enough, but could have been just as hysterical as Universal had marketed them to be. The girls, Margo, Agnes and Edith, are easily the most interesting because they are the center of the human factor in this (and they are really cute!). But despite them, we still needed more bittersweet.

I didn't like the idea, but it works enough, I just would have wanted to see the "Despicable" that was in the title, with the more balancing wit and emotion. The pop songs were good, though. Groove on, Pharrell Williams!

"THE LAST AIRBENDER" ☆

M. Night Shyamalan is a writer, director, and producer with the privilege to even write, direct and produce at all. A once talented and intriguing moviemaker, Shyamalan is now a confectuous self-promotor whose works turn inside out once torn apart by outside common sense, aka the critics who once admired him and the audience who flocked to every original pic he dished out. Since then, he has fallen victim to his own "genius," making movies that are flat, poor and fail on every level. M. Night's latest, the CGI fantasy "The Last Airbender," a property that he didn't originally create, is another on his failing resume, and possibly is his worst. There is no going into it much, everything about the movie stinks.

Except for the crew: DP Andrew Lesnie (The Lord of the Rings); effects house ILM, with Pablo Helman as the VFX supervisor (Stars Wars, among various films for Steven Spielberg); production designer Philip Messina and costumer Judianna Makovsky. They all do top-notch work here, and composer James Newton Howard's score made the movie a little better at times.

Still, even with all that talent, "The Last Airbender" is atrociously bad. Sorry kids, go back to watching reruns of the animated show...That includes you, too, Night.

"KNIGHT AND DAY" ☆☆☆

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz serve up classic hollywood actor chemistry, entertaining the audience and allowing us to laugh at the very reckless/brainless plot that doesn't make much sense. That's why it works. Still, the movie could have used more logic.

"THE KARATE KID" (2010) ☆☆☆

I haven't seen John G. Avildsen's 80's "The Karate Kid," another rise-up underdog story that got audiences as easily as Avildsen's own "Rocky" did, and this new "Karate Kid" - directed by Harald Zwart with terrific newcomer Jaden Smith (just like his dad, Will Smith, and he was also the film's Executive Producer) as Kung-Fu Kid Dre Parker and Jackie Chan (possibly the role he was born to play, he just needed to wait a few years) as Zen Master Mr. Han - is another grandstander as well. It's the type of movie, with a house-raising finale, we've seen before, a hundred, a thousand times, where the underdog overcomes his fears, wins in glory, earns the respect of his opponents, friends and family, and gets the girl. We've seen it so much we know the formula better than Hollywood does, and if it doesn't please us the way a good crowd-pleaser should, than we can't really say it was pleasing at all. "The Karate Kid" follows that tradition, and in turn earns our respect, that we know what we want in an underdog sports drama, to jump and cheer and rout for Dre Parker and be charmed by him and be touched by him, and feel and be mystified by Mr. Han. This "Karate Kid" hugely succeeds on that level. The movie could have been shorter, though.

"ROBIN HOOD" (2010) ☆☆☆ 1/2

This is the glorified version of Robin Hood, done in that terrifically chilled, gritty and romantically mesmerizing style that director Ridley Scott can only do and all others, mostly patchy imitators, fail at. Of lush landscape, cold and mystifying woods, formidable fortresses, and bang-up action. Scott has made some of his best work when doing high genre works like this: "Alien"/"Blade Runner" for science fiction, "American Gangster" for the old-fashioned 70's crime drama, and "Kingdom of Heaven"/"Gladiator" for the medieval epic, and the styles of those, as well as Scott's signature retro pace, is some of the best you'll see around.

A great A-list cast, Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, William Hurt, Max von Sydow, among others, with Scott's impeccable crew, and Brain Helgelad penning the script (the guy who wrote "Mystic River"), create the best Robin Hood yet.

I could care less that it tries to be historically accurate (What?), "Robin Hood" is a rousing, roaring medieval action film that works up to being a true heros' legend.

However, I would have preferred more of Robin stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Maybe that comes with the half-baked history.

With a terrific finale, "Toy Story 3" ends the world's favorite toy franchise grandly.

"TOY STORY 3" ☆☆☆☆

A gloriously bittersweet end to our beloved films, where kid Andy, now grown-up, says farewell to his steadfast and plucky toys, cowboy Woody, spaceman Buzz Lightyear, cowgirl Jesse, Rex the dinosaur, piggy bank Hamm, Mr and Mrs. Potato Head, Slinky Dog, and Barbie. And he says goodbye to those he just meet, breezy Buttercup (plush toy Unicorn), hammy thespian Mr. Pricklepants (stuffed porcupine in Robin Hood get-up), happy go-lucky Trixie (simple plastic triceratops), and more levelheaded Dolly (a, um, doll). There is also "Girl Toy" Ken (Finally!, with Michael Keaton doing a sassy impression), and some wicked toys, though we're more happy to see them enter a sort-of toy quietus, with Lotso' Huggin' Bear (a great Ned Beatty) stealing it all as a bitter strawberry stuffed teddy bear holding a hurt that seeped too deep and a menace that will never stop, and pushing his comrades to the edge, including his accomplice, quiet, terrorizing Big Baby, who has also shared the pain with him. (Lotso' is another great Pixar villain, with the menace to match, having our heros watch their back to the hindmost brink of peril.)

Andy says goodbye to them all, and we say goodbye, too. After growing up with these toys as much as Andy did - I saw the original "Toy Story" in a packed theater, on a foldout chair, when I was nine years old - it's just as hard for me, and maybe you, to let them go. In "Toy Story 3's" last achingly tearful scene, we can't help but feel that we are Andy, slowly and painfully releasing the memories we have cherished for so many years. It's a heartbreaking ending, and a grand coda, including an exciting, terrifying climax with Andy's toys fighting for their lives in a trash incinerator. As much a climatic finale as the other two "Toy Story's," (after Buzz and Woody magically "falling with style," and Woody and Jesse adventurously escaping a plane before it goes airborne!). And this "Toy Story" ups the stakes and the resolve, and it paid off tremendously! Pixar knows how to go off on a high-note. And they should anyway. They're Pixar. Is it that much of a surprise?

So, as a loyal fan and devotee to Andy's Room, "Toy Story 3" gets my humble applause once again for the Pixar folk. To you, pals! Once again!....

(SPOILER ALERT!; Talking of great "Toy Story" cliffhangers, my favorite moment in the incinerator is all the toys, holding hands, exchanging quiet, terrified looks in beaten resignation, as they wait for their imminent doom, with Randy Newman's score beating down dangerously. Oh, was I on the edge of my seat! And I would have held someone's hand, too, if I thought it wouldn't have felt too weird)

Two months ago, I went to a screening for "Toy Story 3," where Disney did a promotional thing to have only college kids in selected cities, at selected schools (boy, was I lucky), go and watch the first seventy minutes of the movie. To my surprise, in that initial screening, I didn't think much of it. Yeah, I know. At the time, it just wasn't as exciting, or witty, or emotional. I felt it didn't have the same spark like the other two "Toy Story" films (Lee Unkrich took over for John Lasseter as director). Of course, there was something missing. How I wish I could have seen the ending then! The screening was cut short (because it was a "Cliffhanger Screening"). I, nor the rest of the audience, got to see what happened in the third act. I felt cheated, and not being impressed with the first 2/3 of the movie that I saw, was ready to submit "Toy Story 3" as the first Pixar stinker. Almost.

Now, having watched all of it, that last third of "TY3" made it up for me. It was just as exciting and emotional as I dreamed it would be. And having that special relationship with Woody, Buzz, Jesse, and the rest, since I was nine in the back of that theater on a cold foldout chair, that exhilarating climax and tearjerking resolution hit harder than I would have ever imagined. It made it up for the deflated other two-thirds. However, I wouldn't say that now. The whole experience of "Toy Story 3," with that great last half, brought back the witty gags, the tender conflicts, the dark tyranny of Lotso', that Acts 1 & 2 seemed to miss in that initial screening, and all of Andy's toys, given equal share of screen-time, putting out their spunk, daring and spirit! And not to mention, diluted Buzz is back!, as a romantic Senor in Spanish mode! (And doing a toe-tapping cha-cha-cha with Jesse to a Spanish rendition of "You've Got a Friend In Me" for the end credits!)

Pixar's "Toy Story 3" is such a charming and delightful entertainment, and as beguiling as the toys that we have grown to love forever, that I don't think that as a kid, or an adult, you could ignore the first-class storytelling, humor and grand sentiment that Pixar has been at the forefront of and continuously strives for, and raises the bar for, every time. Hurrah!

To Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Estelle Harris, Wally Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Laurie Metcalf, John Morris, John Lasseter, director Lee Unkrich, writer Michael Arndt, producer Darla K. Anderson, composer Randy Newman, and the rest of the great "Toy Story" team thats been just as loyal to Andy's Room as we have. Thanks for all the memories, guys.

And goodbye, Andy's Room.

EDGE OF DARKNESS ☆☆☆

"Edge of Darkness" is a revenge movie with not much new to offer. But it's smart, and packs a punch!

A-list action director Martin Campbell knows his stuff. He did two really good Bond movies, "GoldenEye" and the recent reboot "Casino Royale." And though there are a few not so great (the "Zorro" films and "Vertical Limit"), he can pack a wallop: scenes brimming with tension and heightened action. And it helps he has a good script from William Monahan (writer of the Oscar-winning "The Departed," among others) and Andrew Bovell, and also that Campbell himself knows the material better than anyone ("Darkness" was an award-winning TV miniseries that he directed back in the 80's). Also, the mass of emotion and brute-killing force from Mel Gibson, back in form after nearly a decade off the job while helming mass-popular films "The Passion of the Christ," and "Apocalypto," and I wouldn't really count "Signs" much of an actor's movie, so it's been longer. So, let's forget the gap. Mel Gibson is back! With a vengeance! Literally. I guess a revenge piece seems appropriate for Gibson's return, and he doesn't disappoint. Welcome back, Mad Max!

Also, a great acting nod to Ray Winstone, who has one of the best characters in the movie next to Gibson's Craven as shady corporate assassinator Jedburgh. I could watch a whole movie centered around Winstone's Jedburgh. Ray was a great choice for the role, and it's easily his best.

THE WOLFMAN (2010) ☆☆ 1/2

"The Wolfman" was as I expected, not a very good film. This has almost all to do with the formulated script, which I was able to follow along par to the simple and predictable plot structure: Man comes to town, Man gets bitten by werewolf, Man turns into werewolf, Man falls in love, Man and Woman are doomed to be. The End. A tale of Beauty and the Beast. Very easy.

The screenplay was written by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self. Walker is famous for writing "Seven," and writer of another goth adaptation, "Sleepy Hollow" for Tim Burton in 1999, and I loved Self's script for "Road to Perdition," but he also wrote the adaptation for the remake "The Haunting of Hill House," "The Haunting," for director Jan De Bont. So, you can see why both writers were chosen to pen "The Wolfman," and in retrospect "The Haunting" and "Sleepy Hollow" were not bad films, or that badly written. Actually, they were very well written. "The Wolfman's" script, however, wasn't. So, I was surprised to sit through the first half-hour of "Wolfman" and follow through a cliche, Hollywood formula plot that didn't have many greats moments or dialogue (I didn't like the dialogue period. Too much Victorian dialect), and only meant to throw out surprising twists here and there. The rest of the story's surprises are all visual, though not to well served: The werewolf gruesomely killing hapless townsfolk. Director Joe Johnston (the last thing he did was "Hidalgo" and before that "Jurassic Park III") seems to think all he should offer is great looking goth/Victorian settings, with lots of fog and shadows and dim candle light, and each time the wolfman roams the craggy moors and city streets of London to have him maul to death as many people as possible, because it looks really awesome with enhanced CGI. Um, how about no? I would have preferred a PG-13 "Wolfman" that plays more on the suspense and terror, rather than the R-rated version we have here given it's due for lots of claws slashing into bellies, pilling intestine all over, into faces, pulling off arms, and dismembering heads, all with lots of blood-letting....

The other thing wrong with the movie could be the huge number of problems on the production, like treks to find a director, constant re-edits, different tones considered, and so forth. I doubt it. That's giving "The Wolfman" an excuse. Johnston should have studied the original 1941 "Wolf Man" more, and Walker and Self, too. Though, maybe it wasn't them, but Universal, who might have forgotten about their legacy of those really good, but campy, old monster movies and just wanted a techno action Wolfman. What? How else would you approach that? As a fast, quick European copout action flick like "Taken" or "From Russia With Love?" A classic horror tale, of beauty and the beast, of love and terror, is really only one thing, especially filmed the way it has been. German Expression. That's the only thing done right about this update, and let's be happy it honors old monster movies that way, and that it is what it is, and shouldn't be anything else.