Change Your Image
BushLiedMarinesDied
Reviews
Juno (2007)
Lackluster, Self Absorbed, Geeky, Clunky
I'd heard so much about Juno that I curious why I was so disappointed. It took re watching it & a long time thinking to come up with the answer.
For a start its got some of the same feel as Napoleon Dynamite, yet somehow it misses the mark. What struck me early on was the way colours were used, specifically red & gold, it is everywhere. While such visual sub texts can be subtle yet stunning in setting up an atmosphere (best exemplified by the 'eyes' in Blade Runner) in Juno it is too obvious & definitely overdone.
There's other "Director's class 101" stuff, note how the very pregnant Juno stands opposite Bleeker who has his hands in his sweat jersey pockets making his stomach area bulge too. it's supposed to show empathy, but its simply too obvious.
As for the plot, I don't get where its going nor do I care for the characters much. Juno McGuff, the lead character, seems to just drift through it all as if its not really happening to her, much the way that Bleeker does. This is a 14 year old pregnancy, where's the angst? Even the stereotypical "rock" of Brenda 'Bren' MacGuff, Juno's step mother, seems to be some sort of attenuated personality. Her biggest dream is for when Juno moves out s she can buy 2 dogs. This is truly geeky in the extreme. In fact almost everyone seems to be adrift in some way or another & if this is the message of the film then it is portrayed very badly & could have been done a lot better.
The Lorings at first come across as almost normal by contrast, but soon degenerate into yet more clichéd by-the-numbers Tortured Middle Class stereotypes. However I do have to say that Jennifer Garner as Vanessa Loring & Jason Bateman as Mark Loring distinguish themselves in their roles quite well, even give the creaky script. Garner is especially creepy as the obsessive adoptive mother to be & you can see why Mark Loring eventually has second thoughts & leaves.
This does touch a genuine theme, that when it comes to children quite often men's wishes & aspirations can be left behind or remain repressed by pressure of expectation, only appearing later when the situation becomes untenable & too much of life has passed by to remain in what for many men is a trap. I wish this had been explored more but we are left with the gaping dysfunction unresolved.
And this brings me to another point, the stereotyping of men in a lot of Hollywood productions, note Juno's pretty much dumb father, the rock steady step mother, the obsessed adoptive mother, the irresponsible I-Want-My-Freedom adoptive father who steps out of a marriage. Its feminised & hence sexist.
This isn't as bad as say Married with Children but this is sickeningly main stream these days. Look at that mobile phone TV advert where the father (who provides for his family) hands out phones to everyone & is seen as desperate for attention yet he is absolutely ignored by everyone. If this were a joke about stereotypical mother in laws or dumb blondes there would be outrage. But men are supposed to take it & say nothing.
Personally I think it is inexcusable & proof that the director, writers & producers of this film were lazy in the extreme & that's what sums it up. Its lazy, lazily shot, lazily written & lazily acted (mostly). The great sound track does rescue it, but I could generate the same interest from my iPod without sitting through Juno.
The Astronaut Farmer (2006)
1 (awful) doesn't do this pile of garbage service. Minus 10 is about right
Words defy my ability to convey how awful this film is. It is written with a meat cleaver, edited & directed with unbelievable large buckets of cliché & entirely predictable.
It panders to the worst post Ronald Regan collective delusions; ie, brave American individual will always triumph & overcome adversity, while governments will stifle creativity & achievements. To that end note how the NASA & FBI employees are shown as weak, snidey individuals who threaten & coerce the fiercely individual & brave "Farmer" character.
This film not only feeds off this sentiment it returns the favor by feeding into it too in a truly narcissistic manner.
The story line is pathetic, unbelievable & utterly trite. It gets just about everything wrong that it possibly can. I'm not sure if people know this but you can't just sit a rocket on the ground (even if it's on NOT BIG ENOUGH as shown here) & set it off. It will rip itself apart due to the concussion reflecting off the ground if you tried that.
The laughingly named "Farmer" character (Oh hey & did you guess he's a farmer, oh how funny!) that Billy Bob Thronton plays is selfish to the extreme & places his entire family & their future in jeopardy for his own self centered reasons (which fits in the Ronald Reagan's vision of America for sure).
I admit to one thing, I didn't see the end. I was so sick of it's cloying, saccharine sweet story that I left shortly after the rocket blasted off. I imagine that there was a harrowing re-entry period when the radio blackout happens & just when all seems lost & although Billy Bob is beaten & bruised, he steps out of the capsule standing tall. I bet he even drives off the landing site in his pickup into the sunset to stirring music.
Not even Titanic managed to turn my stomach so badly that I got up & left. That's saying something about this diabolical heap of excrement.
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007)
Awful, nonsensical story & blatant product placement.
I wanted to treat the kids & had read some good reviews to base my choice on, but what a disappointment it was. Even my 3 year old son gave up, wandering off beneath the cinema seats instead of watching it & my 5 year old daughter kept looking up at the projector booth window seeming to find that more interesting than what was on the screen.
The story is complete tripe, things happen for reasons that remain totally baffling. The store is alive... why? Magorium wants to leave... why? (a reason is given but it makes no sense at all). Natalie Portman brings it all back to normal again... how & why? The most obvious features of the film are the blatant & utterly awkward product placement. This is excruciatingly obvious & sinks to a whole new level of manipulation. Note to the manufacturers concerned I WILL NOT BUY YOUR PRODUCTS FOR A YEAR IN PROTEST!
We also get plot lines just hanging in the air like so much confetti frozen in space by some "Bullet Time" special effect. Portman is a frustrated pianist but we don't really know why, or why she's in the store, how, or even IF, the ending resolves her predicament. We get no clear idea where Magorium gets his toys from, some are seen to be made by some sort of magic book, but does this include the Hot Wheels toy cars too or does a delivery truck drop those off once a week? Who is the guy in the basement & why is he there? Magorium also claims he has something vitally important to tell Jason Bateman' character, but then gives up with a shrug before he can do so, saying he'll have to work it out for himself. As for Eric Applebaum taking an ADULT back to his BEDROOM
. What kind of message is that sending???? The list simply goes on & on & to go through them all here would take far too long.
Next is the stunning proof, if it were still needed, that apart from a few notable exceptions (Hook, Rainman & The Graduate) Dustin Hoffman is totally overrated & a dreadfully wooden actor. GASP! go see this film & sit in wonder as Dustin Hoffman gives a really stupid grin & wears funny hair
amazing stuff! If that isn't proof enough then watch as a 9 year old kid manage to act Hoffman off the screen with Zach Mills as Eric Applebaum managing to do so quite easily without the usual saccharine sweet "cute kid" syndrome rearing its ugly head.
Natalie Portman gives a sadly predictable performance as Molly Mahoney who inherits the store. Jason Bateman, as "The Mutant", an accountant Magorium hires to put the books in order, is also sadly predictable. The biggest problem for all concerned is that the script is such a thin soup that there's no real substance for the actors to get involved with & show their capabilities. Its almost like watching someone stand in line & wait for a bus, It could be John Gielgud for all you know but it doesn't matter, he's stood in line waiting for a bus & nothing interesting is going to happen no matter how long you look at them.
Finally the screen is constantly fizzing with eye popping CGI, but this can't make up for the dog poo script. After a while even this became utterly boring. A lot of "kid" films these days contain jokes that only adults would get (such as "Far Quad" character in Shrek) to keep parents happy as well but these jokes were missing from this feeble movie that is mainly an excuse for product placement.
Spend your money elsewhere, you'll get far more entertainment for your dollar.
Black Sky: The Race for Space (2004)
So much fanfare for so little achieved
First of all this is a pretty good documentary, but too much of a love-fest for Rutan.
Spaceship 1 has achieved very, very little. It got up to over 100km, the edge of space, but it wasn't going fast enough to even complete one partial orbit. Compare this to 60 years ago, when Werner Von Braun sent a rocket sent his V2 rockets almost as high & traveling a darned sight faster. True there was no passenger & no attempt at a controlled re-entry, but this was 60 years before & there was no "first stage" to get it up t 30,000ft unlike Spaceship 1. This is "progress"???? Basically Spaceship 1 expended all its energy on getting high, there was no attempt to orbit, which is a feat that requires a lot more speed & a considerably larger expenditure of energy.
Rutan did the absolute minimum possible to win the prize, I doubt the original people behind setting the criteria imagined that anyone would simply throw an object up & then wait for it to come down. This was all about orbital space flight, which Spaceship 1 clearly failed to do.
I dislike his "aw shucks" hick mentality when it comes to government, a trait betraying his narrow mindedness & ego centric mentality. I remember a sign being waved (albeit not by Rutan) when Spaceship 1 landed, it read "Spaceship 1, Government 0".... so what about all the Mercury, Apollo, Spacelab & Shuttle flights? Shouldn't that sign read Spaceship 1, Government 120??? Rutan also has a cheek with regard to development. He knew what he was getting in to, thanks to the government funded space program. Back in the 1950s & 1960s no one knew for sure & progress was hesitant. If he hates government so much for being so "slow" one assumes that he can show how he simply ignored all this work & found it all out for himself, to show how it can be done "properly"???? So how about the advances in materials & computing stemming from government space programs? Did he start from scratch there too? This is where Rutan undermines & devalues his own genius. While he has achieved & continues to achieve much his attitude shows that he is arrogant & full of self importance. He sets up Straw Men to knock down & then crows about his talent.
And in the end if privateers such as Rutan are the future of space & they can do it all better, blah blah blah, why aren't they? Who has put a satellite into space? Who has even done one orbit? No one, unless they buy cheap launchers that stemmed from government programs (such Sea Launch). No one has started from scratch, designed & built a launcher & sent it into orbit.
If Rutan is right then private operators would have done this years ago. Right? And they'd have built their own launchers. Right? Oh & when he finally (or "If") he ever gets an object into orbit let's see how his design fares with re-entry. Folding the wings will not work then, despite Rutan's ego there will be a lot of heat generated & that will need to be either resisted (like the Space Shuttle) or dissipated (like ablative heat shields). maybe then we will see what Rutan is really made of.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
What is the point of this?
This is the worst kind of by the numbers Hollywood junk saved only by a handful of competent scenes & some good acting from 2 of the cast. This is a pity, especially given the presence of Greg Kinnear who has shown his talent in the past.
For a start Alan Arkin shaves his head, scruffs up & plays, a scruffy, bald Alan Arkin. He's the same in every movie I see him in & he bores me to tears. Will this guy ever take acting lessons & play a character for once that ISN'T him in jeans/ T-shirt... suit....army fatigues.... etc etc? Greg Kinnear plays a motivational speaker who's so afraid of "losing' that he is unable to win. Sadly this is a common theme in the US today, few, if any, such saps stop to think that not everyone can be a millionaire (because your millions will become devalued by the cash all the other millionaires are throwing around) & not everyone can rise to the top (who would clean the streets & stock our supermarket shelves?) etc etc.
The saddest thing about this pile of horse poo is it follows the same, old, tired, sexist line. See how all the male figures in the group are flakey in some sort of way. The son doesn't speak, the grandpa is a coke head & degenerate, suicidal Frank is... well suicidal, dad Richard is delusional about his motivational guff & so on. Only mommy holds things together, in a quiet, suppressed screaming way kind of way.
It is completely to very tired & highly sexist formula.
Olive, the daughter, seems almost like a doll dragged along, completely without any direction of hr own. Anyone can guess the outcome of her pageant appearance. Boring! Also predictable is the device of the dead body. This has been done a thousand times before & often a lot better, most notably in that laugh-until-you-need-oxygen Fawlty Towers episode.
Correll as Frank shows some talent, completely different from any of his previous appearances (something Alan Arkin could learn about). Dano as Dwayne must have had a hard time not talking on camera his face having to carry much of his emotions, but his lines must have been real easy to learn. His eventual implosion/explosion was impressive too.
Othe than that I see nothing new, it is an assembly of threads & scenes all seen & done before. Why on earth this is up for an Oscar I'll never know.
American Chopper: The Series (2002)
What's the point?
The only marginally amusing or interesting part of this series is how the younger Teutuls outmaneuver their awful father, someone who's managerial & personal skills are ideal for inside the ring at a WWF wresting match but nowhere else.
As for the rest? Well this week they build a hard tail, stretched out chopper. Next week they build a hard tail, stretched out chopper. For the BIG season finale they build (GASP!) a hard tail, stretched out chopper.
They don't make the engine, they often don't make the frames, they don't make the forks & they often take in pre made "tin works" ie tank, fenders etc. What do they actually do apart from cosmetic work & a lot of hammering when it doesn't fit together? Not a lot.
I'd like to see them do something different, use a pair of Harley engines, or a jet engine, or make a Sports Bike, or SOMETHING different! But it's like watching a pizza parlor... it's all the same base (here it's always the same frame, engine etc), but you can have any topping you want (ie cosmetic work).
B-O-R-I-N-G.
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
Awful, amateurish, hypocritical & plain dumb
The hero, Charlie Brown, supposedly is disappointed at the comercialisation of Christmas. Funny how in the original the Coca Cola logo appeared so prominently! This has been edited out & the recent versions don't show this blatant comercialism at all. A slight improvement, but not much.
What I dislike about this cartoon so much makes for a long list. First of all is the poor animation, then there's the wooden voices of the kids reading the lines, then there's the sappy story line, the cheap music & finally the screechy singing.
On 2 occasions there's music the characters on screen are supposedly dancing too, but the actions bear no resemblance to the sounds. The animation is also spastic & repetitive. I am reminded of a spoof I once saw (I can't recall who made it) with a cartoon Super Hero called "Cheap-o Cartoon Man". I have to say Charlie Brow's Christmas is actually worse on all the points lampooned in Cheap-o Cartoon Man.
I don't know what people see in this, the story line is sappy &, as usual, the sentimentality is layered on thickly to cover the mindless theme. Some seem to think it a classic, but I cannot agree. It is obviously as cheaply & poorly done as possible without rendering it unwatchable & it shows. The original version, with prominent advertising, even undermines the message it supposedly tries to convey.
Flushed Away (2006)
It helps if you're British but still a great laugh
Oen of the things I noticed was I laughed in a lot of places where the rest of the audience didn't. Plenty of the jokes were lost on my US friends, eg, they did not know what a "Jammy Dodger" was (but I left the cinema with a Jammy Dodger fixation... gibber gibber) nor such throw away lines as Toad's "Shut that door!" (the catch phrase of the camp UK entertainer Larry Grayson). There were also plenty of scenes where the foreground action was supplemented by silly things going on in the background which seemed to mainly get overlooked.
Having said that it was still well received, with plenty of jaw aching bely laughs throughout the whole film. You wondered at first if the story would run out of steam & fall flat, like Austin Powers: Goldmember, but the hectic pace kept going strong with both action & comedy at full throttle the whole way.
When you have tripe like "Happy Feet" which follow the same tired old clichés over & over again, cloyingly sweet with fake sentiment, this film is a refreshing change.
Finally, again for the UK fans, note that Dick Clement & Ian LeFrenais helped with the script have been one of the main stays of comedy writing in the UK for over 4 decades (The Likely Lads/Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads, Porridge/Going Straight, Not Only...But Also, The Dick Emery Show, The Tracy Ullman Show etc etc)
Also note that owners of the last Ardmaaan DVD (The Curse of the Wererabbit) got a glimpse of Flushed Away, where the characters of Roddy & Rita were clearly identified as rats. Later here in the US this was fudged in some publicity so that Roddy was called a mouse & Rita was not defined. Now the publicity seems to avoid calling them anything, although the script still calls them rats.
Grizzly Man (2005)
When Stupid Met Wildlife
This film has the attraction of a train wreck. It is at the same time fascinating, but gruesome because you know where it is leading & you can see it coming a mile off even if you didn't already know how it would end up.
Timothy Treadwell most definitely ran away from society & people, living in his own private fantasy that the bears were somehow his friends & that he was protecting them. For a start the bears were not his friends, they were just not hungry & tolerated him as unthreatening. Basically since he wasn't chasing females & every bear had a full stomach he wasn't worth wasting energy upon. Second, I did not see anything he did that actually protected any bear.
For sure he filmed some fascinating behaviour, no doubt to be picked over & studied by zoologists for a very long time. From the movie sequences & the stills he took too it is plainly obvious that he was talented with a camera of any sort. In difficult circumstances he often achieved stunning photographic results. You can also admire his ability to survive in the wilds, although it is obvious that he had quite a well supported camp site & he wasn't always alone, as he continually tries to claim throughout the film.
However his repeated statements that he is "researching" ring hollow. Sure, he recorded some stunning material which is probably unmatched & won't be repeated for a long time, but where are the results from the "research"? What outcomes were developed from all this filming. Bears are cute? Bears are our friends? Animals rule? Maybe there is more, but I doubt it as Werner Herzog seems quite diligent in running the whole story down & if there had been some scientific aspect to Treadwell's expeditions I'm sure we would have heard it.
Treadwell's sanity also has to be questioned. Clearly he was either outright delusional or deeply lost in his own fantasy. I am reminded of a friend of mine who once claimed he knew what he was doing climbing mountains, as he had never been avalanched or fallen into a crevasse. Then one day he was shown exactly how wrong he was by a real expert. It wasn't a case of knowing where the crevasses & slide risks were, it was merely a case of having been lucky for so long that you think you know what you're doing & that you are safe.... so you keep doing it, making the same mistakes & being lucky. It is a dangerous mind set because by the time you find out you're dead wrong it is too late. The same goes here, only a crevasse won't hunt you, an avalanche won't change course & follow you. A bear will.
What was Treadwell running away from? We hear about his drink & drug problem & also some odd rants about being straight, not gay. This latter piece has an uneasy feel to it, that there is something there that he is bringing out, yet keeping veiled & then ultimately rammed shut again. It is the case that he was not merely confused about his sexuality, but deeply tortured by it? Was he gay or bisexual & repressed his feelings? Maybe the drink & the drugs was one was one way he dealt with this dilemma, later replacing his chemical addiction with the life he lived among the bears. We can surmise, but it is obvious he was messed up about something & replaced one dangerous lifestyle with another.
There is someone who claimed that he "Got what he deserved". Like most I think this is wrong. But I do think he got what was coming to him. Like a kid that runs across the road in a game of chicken, if you keep doing it & getting away with it for long enough you might end up thinking you're indestructible, that you know what you're doing. But in reality so far you've simply been lucky, just like my climbing friend with his avalanches & crevasses.
Treadwell should have been warned when he saw the remains of a bear cub killed by a male. There is nothing noble about them, there is no friendship or partnership, not even to the next generation, to offspring that may even be your own progeny. There is simply survival, expediency & the next meal. When one bear regarded Treadwell as that next meal that was the end of the story & Treadwell go what everyone else could have told him would eventually happen.
I also do not share the opinion that he had no death wish, a notion expressed in the film. I think he was self destructive & knew deep down that he was sooner or later going to die in one way or another. That he died in the Bear Maze is, I am sure, what he wanted all along. I am also sure he believed it would be something romantic & that his bear friends would weep over his body. But in the end reality caught up with him & his death was brutal & nasty.
Troy (2004)
Not only the Horse is wooden
Where do you start with this dog? First of all it is pretty pleasing to the eye, with lots of action & spectacle. But that's about it. This is History as viewed through the lens of a Schwarztnegger movie.
For a start Achilles never entered the walls of Troy, he died outside. Also Agamemnon lived well beyond the battle well before the fall of Troy. There's lots besides that, including the usual rubbish of sword play. Has anyone EVER tried to stick even the sharpest sword into someone? I was lucky that I never had to bayonet anyone, but I've spoken to people who have & they all told me that you just can't go up to someone & go "HAH!" & have a blade go right through. Don't forget you've got to add in the protection of armour & the fact that the ancient Greek blades wouldn't have been as sharp or tough as modern examples. We know from Roman chronicles that the legionnaires weren't so stupid as to have their swords bounce off the enemy, they went for the legs, preferably the ankles, to drop your opponent where you could cut his throat or just let them bleed to death. The fight sequences shown in "Troy" are, as a result, totally fatuous.
There's lots of sneering, grunting, clunky dialogue & even worse acting. This has to be the Pitts for Brad, I've never seen him so one dimensional, it is as if he didn't want to be there at all. Brian Cox goes a long way to rescuing the characterisations on screen with his Agamemnon & Sean Bean does what he can with the role of Odysseus (a role so truncated as to be almost erased from the story altogether) but the supporting cast of various sorts just get by as if going by-the-numbers.
Peter O'Toole makes a watchable Priam, but his age seems to get the better of him, his sonorous repetition of "The Gods" this & "The Gods" that seldom allow him to rise above the mediocre. However that is something of an achievement give the standard of the rest of the cast.
Diane Kruger as Helen is eye candy, end of story. Orlando Bloom shows promise as Paris, but the part seldom allows him to develop. However I do like the fact that he shows barely disguised fear when entering into battle, which is probably something closer to the truth than the romaticised tales handed down by the Greek poets who recorded these events at the time.
Of course the big sticking point with anything dealing with Greek history is the touchy subject of homosexuality. The Greeks placed such a high value on female virginity that recreational sex had to find an outlet somewhere & man-on-man action was the only alternative, assuming you had no captive women to be your sex slaves. The latter is clearly mentioned, but not shown, the former doesn't even appear by inference, but Greek records are clear that this was a normal & every day affair. However, as we have already seen, Hollywood has little respect for the truth or accuracy (which is why such awful tripe as U517 got made).
Finally the CGI is often obvious & clunky, especially when the large formation so Greeks or Tojans are shown marching. I've seen better animations in Role Playing computer games. This is definitely not up to the superb standard of CGI in The Lord of the Rings. But then if it was smooth & natural it would seem out of place amongst the creaking script & the clunky acting.
Chug lots of beer & settle down with a pizza if you want to make this an enjoyable experience. If you've any previous knowledge of Greek history then avoid this or you'll throw up, no matter how much beer you've had.
Finding Neverland (2004)
A Bit Dreary: Good for a snooze
This 20 minute film is somehow stretched out to over 1hr 40 minutes. There's little to get excited about in that time. For those who know the story of how J. M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan there's nothing new. It might hold interest for those who don't know how it was derived.
The internal demons & driving forces that spill out are undoubtedly responsible for a timeless masterpiece, unless you saw it as a dark tale, which I did even as a child. The more I find out about Barrie the more the darkness seems obvious. Just like the classic "It's a wonderful life" scratch away at the surface cheer & seemingly happy message & you will find that it is under-laid with sadness, sorrow & regret. Fear of aging, the loss of innocence & the desire to escape from the world all pervade Peter Pan.
For me these avenues are not adequately explored, although they do at least get a mention, which is something of a first.
The best part of this film was Johhny Depp, closely followed by Kate Winslet, at last shedding her the stigma of her role in the truly God Awful Titanic. Depp is almost always watchable & makes interesting films. He even shows that he's able to master a passable Scots accent, although it was decidedly shaky at times (I used to live there, I should know). Winslett is still playing the solid, dependable type, which she needs to break away from if she's not to become typecast. But again she's watchable & assuredly professional, unlike the plethora of "Stars" that crowd the screen these days who basically recite lines & can't actually act (are you listening Mr DiCaprio?).
Julie Christie, a lifetime away from her role in Dr Zhivago, is brittle & edgy as Mrs Barrie, but Dustin Hoffman's role as the indulgent theatre producer, Charles Frohman, seems to at last have found that third rank niche that he truly deserves. For far too long he's traded on his part in The Graduate, seldom rising to that level & never exceeding it. He does act with restraint, something that must have been difficult for him & there's thankfully no breathless grandstanding from him as in truly boring "Outbreak".
It is interesting that Hoffman also played "Hook" in the film that explored that character a little further in the Peter Pan tale.
Despite all the positive aspects I still can't see the attraction of the film. For me the best part were the out-takes, where Depp, Christie & Winslett, along with various members of the cast, all fool around. The scenes with the dog were surely worth the price of the DVD rental alone, Depp turns the fluffs into pure comedy, mindful of exactly how it will look on the screen even though it will never be shown. This man is a genius & you have to wonder if he will ever find a project that will fully exploit his creative talents. The mistakes with the actors flying gear are also hilarious.
This is a chick flick, so guys be prepared to be bored. If you've been forced into watching this by wives or girlfriends make the excuse to go & get some tissues (they'll need them for the weepy bits) & don't come back before the end of the film, then sit & watch the extras & out takes.
The Aviator (2004)
DeCaprio Recites Howard Hughes' Lines, Badly
I really wish I could be more inclined to like The Aviator. Howard Hughes lead an interesting, if somewhat strange, life. He covered an era of enormous change & discovery in the world & America, as well as developing & promoting many great developments himself (noteably the cantilever bra for Jean Harlow!).
I also love Marting Scorsese, he's made some marvelous films. Even Leonarod DeCaprio showed great promise after Catch Me if You Can. Yet this films lacks that "something", this assembly of parts is less than you would expect when viewed as a whole.
First of all lets start with the good. Alan Alda is terrific, snarly & mean as Sen. Brewster & after this performance Kate Blanchet would surely be the top choice for anyone wanting to do the life story of Katherine Hepburn. Gwen Steffani as Jean Harlow does a passable job, but lacks the uh, "assets" that so enamored Harlow to Hughes & Jude Law continues to build up a great body of work as Eroll Flynn. It is admittedly hard to portray such well know people on screen, when you have actors portraying actors.
This is what is so unforgivable about DeCaprio. Hughes is largely unknown to the public, we have seen some old footage resurface with the release of this film, mainly the congressional hearings he was involved with. But DeCaprio simply does not capture the voice, the mannerisms or the look of Hughes. Is it as if he's still at the "reading through the lines" stage, not acting at all. What we are left with is Leonardo DeCarpio reciting Howard Hughes' words in a flat, soul less manner. What we are seeing is DeCaprio, only what we hear is Hughes.
Some of the CGI is also flaccid, the crash that played such a central role in the way Hughes' life developed is obviously fake, much like the Japanese aircraft in Pearl Harbor (which would have looked more convincing if they'd been on strings!). Some people get carried away with CGI special effects, they are captivated with the cleverness of what they can do, without realising that the final footage can look simply uninspiring. These directors can learn a lot from such classics as The Battle of Britain for tips on how to film flying sequences that pack an emotional punch, all without a single kilobyte of CGI.
Also the story line is somewhat sanitised. The poster for this film says that "Some dreamed of the future, he built it" yet this does not line up at all well with Hughes' insistence on pursuing the Spruce Goose project. This was done both at great public & private costs, leading to a technological dead end. This was obvious for a very long time, yet Hughes wouldn't face up to reality & stuck with outdated technology while the world around him changed. He didn't build the future, he built the past. Whatever his previous achievements were this showed his inability to move on past a certain period of time in his life.
This film ranks along with such other Guff-Monsters as Titanic & Pearl Harbor, although it is a far better effort than either of those two dreadful films. None the less Aviator is in this category because it should be good, could have been fantastic, but in the end it is simply acceptable