When I think back to the Daredevil comics I read in my childhood, I remember that they were somehow less interesting than they should have been. The premise was undeniably cool—the idea of a man’s blindness giving him superhuman sensory powers was original, and it provided the ultimate cover for his secret identity as a crusading lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen—but there was always something lacking compared to other comics like Spider-Man. In that respect, at least, the Daredevil film is just like the comic.
Like its two most obvious influences—Tim Burton’s Batman and Alex Proyas’s The Crow—the film wants to be a dark superhero story for adults, the kind of thing that takes place in a crime-ridden dystopia where the sun never seems to shine, and where the hero is a costumed variation on the flawed detective of film noir. Unfortunately, those movies are both tough acts to follow, even without the added pressure from a more recent superhero flick—Sam Raimi’s spectacular Spider-Man. To make matters worse, Daredevil bears all the scars of studio tampering. But if you can see through the heavy editing, watered-down script and of-the-moment cast, just enough remains to make for a moderately entertaining movie.
Considering how high director Bryan Singer set the bar three years ago with his adaptation of the X-Men comic book series, it’s not surprising that subsequent live-action Marvel mayhem like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil haven’t topped it. Only Singer, it seems, could outdo Singer—and that’s just what he’s done with X2. Upping the ante in cast, plot, action, and effects, Singer serves up a movie that is everything a superhero sequel should be.
The Core is like one of those Fizz candies. There’s a brittle surface of sci-fi premise and save-the-world adventure plot, and a few effervescent special effects that provide a brief sensory thrill once you bite it, but after that quick burst of fizzy stuff wears off, you’re left with nothing but a hollow centre and an upset stomach.
At one point in this film, Ben Affleck’s character says, “Sometimes God just likes to put two guys in a paper bag and just let ‘em rip.” What he means, of course, is that sometimes writers like to put two guys in a paper bag—in this case, Ben Affleck and the always-watchable Samuel L. Jackson. On paper it has the makings of an entertaining bout of Celebrity Deathmatch, but writers Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin get muddled up trying to figure out exactly what the fighting is about.
Sadly, Enough isn’t a film about the perils of celebrity overexposure. But if it were, wouldn’t the casting of Jennifer Lopez be perfect? Enough indeed. Lately, I’ve found myself muttering that very word whenever I see yet another image of J.Lo on the cover of some supermarket-newsstand magazine or hear her on the radio, writing cheques with her attitude that her thin voice can’t quite cash.
When it comes to comedy, the only thing more tiresome than a lack of wit is an overabundance of it. There’s definitely an overabundance of wit in The Importance of Being Earnest. Adapted from Oscar Wilde’s notoriously witty play by Oliver Parker (who first went Wilde with 1999’s An Ideal Husband), the film is a 19th-century laugh riot, full of the patented one-liners and cynical observations that make the play Wilde’s decadent masterpiece. If you know any of Wilde’s best epigrams, chances are they’re from Earnest. (My personal favourite: “I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.”) That’s the good news. The bad news is that in this case, the lines read better than they play.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a thirtysomething singleton without a boyfriend (or at least a sport-fuck), must be in want of one.
What do you want first, the good news or the bad news? The good news is that Randall Wallace, the director of this film, wrote Mel Gibson’s Oscar-winning Braveheart. The bad news is that Wallace also wrote Michael Bay’s crap extravaganza, Pearl Harbor. The really bad news is that We Were Soldiers, Wallace’s look at the first important American skirmish of the Vietnam War, is a lot more like Pearl Harbor than Braveheart. Shamelessly combining violent and gory battle scenes with schmaltzy sentimentality, it’s an emotionally manipulative piece of propagandistic trash—all slick packaging and no substance.
Maybe it’s his oft-mentioned movie-hero handsomeness, or his dignified screen presence; or maybe it’s his morally upright nice-guy image. Whatever it is, something about Denzel Washington makes him the perfect choice to play the role of good cop. And in plenty of his films—1991’s Ricochet, 1998’s Fallen and 1999’s The Bone Collector among them—he’s done just that, offering up minor variations on the same earnest, dedicated detective character. Which is why watching him play bad cop in Training Day is such a blast. Attacking the role with savage gusto, Denzel doesn’t just deconstruct his good-cop persona; he kicks it in the teeth, shoots it five times at close range and leaves it battered and bleeding on the sidewalk. Too bad the rest of the movie lets him down.