The Brothers Bloom. Adoration. Angels and Demons. Which is worthy of your money?
Reviews: New Releases
The Brothers Bloom (Summit Entertainment) Release Date: May 15, 2009
The five words I hate most in the universe are perhaps the same words that best describe The Brothers Bloom: It’s this year’s Napoleon Dynamite. Ugh…[insert self-loathing here]. Two stylish con men, Bloom (Adrien Brody) and Stephen (Mark Ruffalo), ready themselves to make one final score before leaving the racquet altogether. They’re going to sweep heiress Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz) off her feet, then take her for all she’s worth. Along for the ride is every hipster boy’s wet dream—a quirky, with a capital “Q,” Asian chick (played by Rinko Kikuchi) that looks like sex in Chanel shades and doesn’t say a damn thing for the duration of the trip. What happens next is a Buster Keaton-type comedy of errors that leaves you wondering who’s really playing whom. Director Rian Johnson proves that he’s a fierce, relatively new voice in Hollywood. He takes the eccentricities of Wes Anderson’s movies and reinvents them with his own crazy style. The cast is a perfect one. No one outshines the other, but everyone is dynamic. Kikuchi will hopefully net herself a few more roles with this performance that shows she’s a brilliant comedienne as well as dramatist (given her previous work in Babel).The Brothers Bloom is chic, funny and well done from open title sequence to end credits.
Grade: A+
Adoration (Sony Pictures Classics) Release Date: May 8, 2009
A teacher (Arsinee Khanjian) encourages a student (Devon Costick) to weave a tall tale falsely implicating his dead parents in a would-be terror plot and perform it as an assignment in French class. This act sets the stage for a whole lot of drama in Atom Egoyan’s Adoration. Sabine, the instructor, has her reasons for working with Simon—her pupil. This ulterior motive winds up costing her a job. It also thrusts the teen into a growing online forum of angry bystanders who question and question him in post-9/11 suburbia. Scott Speedman (The Strangers) plays the boy’s uncle—a tow truck driver and conservative. The situation causes a ripple effect in his upbringing of his deceased sister’s only child and also forces him to come to terms with his own demons. Adoration is a truly engrossing film from start to finish. Costick is a natural onscreen. He’s incredible to look at and very charming for someone so young. Speedman is equally compelling—though his character is a man of few words, the actor uses that to his advantage, carving out a multi-dimensional portrayal of Tom. And Khanjian with her wild mane of hair and handsome features is gentle and sympathetic, forcing the viewer to really see her viewpoint as opposed to vilifying her for allegedly leading a youngster astray. Egoyan’s films have always been a bit heady, but it seems he’s finally found the perfect combination of art-house pretension and mainstream salability to get a decent hit on his hands.
Grade: B
Angels & Demons (Sony) Release Date: May 15, 2009
Poor little dead horse. They’ve beaten your lifeless body to a pulp and show no signs of stopping. I think that’s the best way to describe Angels & Demons—the sequel to the blockbuster The DaVinci Code. Two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks is back as super sleuth, Professor Robert Langdon. In the film, the Pope has died around the same time that a schmokin’ hot scientist named Vittoria (played by Ayelet Zurer) and her crew of eggheads have perfected the creation of anti-matter, better known as “the God particle.” Somehow, a secret society called the Illuminati has learned of the discovery. They employ a mercenary who steals the anti-matter AND still finds the time to kidnap and kill several Cardinals next in line to rock the Papal ring. This very bad man uses an ancient threat, along with the “hubris of science” to send Langdon and his leggy sidekick on a tedious game of cat and mouse to recover the missing men and wayward science project. Meanwhile, team Langdon works with the cooperation of handsome Camerlengo Patrick McKenna( Ewan McGregor) who was the second in command to the former pontiff. You really have to pity the guy—hair that perfect and eyes that green all caged up within the Vatican can’t be an easy life. The Camerlengo had it made in the shade ‘til the pope died; now the other priests just want him out of the way while they prepare to look for a new leader. Tsk, tsk: crazy queens and their bitchy ways… But wait! There’s another glitch. See, the anti-matter is a highly volatile substance which will turn deadly if not kept in check by a charged battery which can’t be changed unless retrieved from the kidnapper. Good lord… Despite the fact that Angels & Demons is filled to the brim with plot, that isn’t why it’s a pill. It’s the little things that make this one a disappointment. Hanks has become ridiculous spouting one-liners and long-winded explanations of symbols and theology. There’s also the feeling that the movie is a tired PR stunt initiated by the Catholic Church to gain sympathy for itself, which is stupid. Reasonable people don’t dislike Catholics—they hate the sickos who use the religion to conduct and cover up dirty deeds. Still, I don’t need scenes where clergymen beg for fair treatment of Catholics. Give me a break! You could’ve just sent me an email reminder and saved Sony Pictures a few million in overhead. But perhaps the greatest abomination of this film falls on bad casting. Ewan McGregor as a priest? Did you people not see Trainspotting, The Pillow Book or Young Adam? He was the least believable thing in Angels & Demons and that speaks volumes.
