"A Walk Among the Tombstones" Proves More Than Your Typical Liam Neeson Actioner

Liam Neeson gets to do more than just snarl his way through this one.

Since the runaway success of the original Taken six years ago, Liam Neeson has appeared as a stoic tough guy in anywhere between eight and a dozen movies depending on how you view the likes of Clash of the Titans, The Lego Movie and A Million Ways to Die in the West.

Considering that, it would be easy to shrug off A Walk Among the Tombstones as another in a long line of stock actioners meant to capitalize on audience fondness for Bryan Mills and his extremely abductable family.

However, while Neeson is still playing an intimidating ass kicker, A Walk Among the Tombstones is very different from Taken, Non-Stop and all the other cookie cutter crap he's been churning out the last few years. As far as this action phase of his goes, this one fits most comfortably alongside The Grey, another film that took this hardass archetype and actually ventured into thoughtful reflection and interesting characterization.

Based on one of the books from Lawrence Block's popular detective series, A Walk Among the Tombstones isn't even much of an action movie -- it's a dark, slow-burn character piece. Box Office Mojo compares it to Prisoners, and while I don't think it's quite in the same league as that film, the comparison is apt. Another analog would be The Lookout, the only other film ace screenwriter Scott Frank (Minority Report, Out of Sight) had directed before this one.

Plotwise, the film sounds like a movie you've seen before. It follows Matthew Scudder (Neeson), a disgraced former police officer who works as a non-licensed detective when he's not attending AA meetings, as he investigates the murder of a drug kingpin's wife. Combined with his taking a street kid under his wing, the case ultimately provides Scudder a chance at redemption.

But a film like this isn't so much about plot as it is about mood and tone, and Frank and Neeson get all of that right (besides a voiceover during the conclusion that ham-fistedly ties in the 12 steps of AA). Neeson still gets to be the grizzled badass here, but there's a humanity to the guy that really plays. And in a film of this ilk, that can go a long way. B

"The Lego Movie" Is Awesome

The main protagonists in The Lego Movie recall those in The Matrix.

The Lego Movie is the best film based on a toy or game since Clue. In and of itself, that doesn't mean much – the likes of Battleship, Dungeons and Dragons, and the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises don’t set the bar very high, and stretching the concept to include films based on video games doesn't help raise it any.

It’s more telling to say The Lego Movie is a good film period, but it’s worth comparing the film to these other toy-based entries. Doing so helps spotlight the accomplishment of writer-directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street), two guys who have made a habit of churning out the unlikeliest of good movies.

This could’ve easily been an awful endeavor, but Miller and Lord clearly put a lot of thought and hard work into making a movie that doesn't just feature Legos, but that gets at exactly what makes them so popular and then develops a worthwhile story around that. Lego sets come with directions, but anyone who played with them as a kid knows the best part was mixing up the pieces, joining pirates with knights and star fighters and using your imagination to create something original. The Lego Movie starts with that idea and then expands upon it.

As odd as it might seem to believe this, The Lego Movie is a film with a lot on its mind. Overall, it’s a critique of everyday fascism and a treatise against conformity, a film that stresses individualism, creativity and thinking for yourself. At the same time, it functions as a critique on counter culture movements, suggesting that individualism doesn't mean isolationism, that marching to the beat of your own drum is great but that teamwork is needed to affect change.

I know it sounds pretty heady for a kid’s movie, but there’s also a lot of fun to be had here. The film has a very witty and funny script, and the main story is the type of adventure a child might dream up. It focuses on President Business (Will Ferrell) and his evil plan to end the world with the help of an overzealous henchman Bad Cop/Good Cap (Liam Neeson, having a blast) and a weapon known as The Kragle.

Batman is Emmet's romantic competition. He's also a bit of a douche. 

Lacking an understanding of imagination and creativity, President Business has slowly indoctrinated the masses in his town of Bricksburg to always follow the directions, using mindless entertainment like the hit tune “Everything is Awesome” and the hit TV show “Where Are My Pants?” to lull the populace into becoming complacent consumer drones not that far removed from the characters in The Stepford Wives or Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Standing in opposition to President Business are the master builders, Lego people who believe in freedom, being unique and using your imagination to build whatever you want. They are led by wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) and badass babe Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), but their numbers also includes Batman (Will Arnett), Unikitty (Alison Brie), and countless pop culture references like Shaquille O’Neil (Shaquille O’Neil). They wait in the shadows for the emergence of The Special – the smartest, most talented, most interesting person in the world – a Lego person who will find the mysterious object known as the Pièce de résistance and defeat the evil overlord once and for all.

Stumbling into the middle of all of this is Emmett (Chris Pratt), a mediocre, run-of-the-mill schlep who gets the Pièce de résistance stuck to his back and is assumed to be The Special. Parents will be reminded of The Matrix (comparisons between the two films can be found here), but kids may be thinking more about Kung Fu Panda. Either way, the film turns the whole “chosen one” trope on its head, suggesting anyone who believes in themselves can be special, that there is no one chosen one.  For a great examination of this idea and the troubling gender politics of it all, check out this thought-provoking read.

As if the film wasn't already overflowing with ideas, a third act twist that recalls a similar development in Happy Feet adds even more thematic dimension. (If you are the type who doesn’t want spoilers, it’s best not to read the next three paragraphs).

Professor Business means business.

After Emmett sacrifices himself to save the master builders, the film transitions to live action, and it is revealed the entire adventure has all come from the imagination of a little boy who is playing with his toys.

Scratch that; he’s playing with his dad’s toys. Ferrell plays the dad, and if that doesn't make it clear enough that he is the boy’s inspiration for President Business, the father’s insistence that his son keep away from his toys and not imaginatively build whatever he wants certainly does. To the father (known to Emmett as The Man Upstairs), Legos are not toys, they are a “highly sophisticated, interlocking brick system,” and he is in the process of gluing them together like he would model planes (The Kragle is actually a tube of Krazy Glue with a few letters scratched off). The entire thing plays like an indictment against a generation who look at toys as collectibles to be looked at but not played with.

This section also flirts with some interesting notions about imagination and creativity, about how stories and characters can begin to take on a life of their own. Although most of the film would seem to take place inside a child’s head, there is the fact that Emmett jumps off the table. It’s all very Pirandello, and while it’s not the focus of the story (as it was in the wonderful Ruby Sparks), it is in there.

Serving this many ideas so well goes a long way toward making me, as a viewer, OK with the fact that the whole movie is basically one long commercial. I’m naturally inclined to dislike this type of all-consuming product placement, but when woven so well into the fabric of the story, it’s hard to be all that annoyed. Plus, I mean, come on. Lego’s are super fun.

I’ve gotten this far into this review without mentioning the zippy animation, and that’s just ridiculous, because as dense as this film is thematically, it’s even more so visually. The frame is constantly packed with visual splendor and the animators have a lot of fun populating the world with all sorts of nostalgic nods. Of particular note is the way this team has so hilariously rendered Lego water and fire.

In addition to being the best toy-based movie since Clue, The Lego Movie is the best animated film since Wreck-it-Ralph, and flat out one of the best films of 2014. It’s really funny, crazy beautiful and absolutely brimming with inventiveness and ideas. I’m tempted to say those adapting toys to movies should take note, but really anyone making movies should do that. This is great entertainment for all ages. A  

"Battleship" Sinks To Lowest Echelon of Alien Invasion Movies

How many guesses would the average person need to

arrive at which board game inspired this screen still?

It would be easy to dismiss Battleship, the movie based on the Hasbro board game, because of its source material (or rather, it’s lack thereof). That, I think, would be short sited.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and Clue are proof of the fact that a very entertaining film can be culled from a flimsy source like a theme park ride or a kid’s game. And films like Crimson Tide, The Hunt for Red October, and U-571 have more than proven that consumers will pay to see enjoyable naval-based films. So there was certainly a chance this could turn out good.

It didn’t, but there was a chance.

In many ways, adapting such a non-detailed brand could have been quite a boon for a creative filmmaker. Unlike the likes of GI Joe and Transformers, Battleship has very little structural necessities other than the general concept of naval warfare. In other words, it offers instant name recognition with the masses without any cumbersome pre-established characters or overriding story arcs. 

A Battleship movie could have really gone in any direction*, provided it offered a few interesting characters and ultimately featured some sort of intense naval standoff. And so, of course, when given this tremendous amount of freedom to toil in a cool genre, the producers turned the whole thing into a dumb, Transformers-cribbing, alien invasion movie.

* I’m envisioning something in which a mutiny erupts and a sect of disgruntled Naval officers overtake a fleet of boats, particularly the battleship and submarine, in an effort to carry out some sort of terrorist plot that involves holding some important person or peoples on the accompanying aircraft carrier hostage. And standing in their way would be a motley crew that somehow managed to commandeer the small but speedy destroyer and a patrol boat. This heroic group could be led by a young cadet and some disgraced and colorful rouge past his prime (who just happens to have a hidden agenda or a complicated history with the lead terrorist, who can’t be positioned on the battleship, because at some point he needs to declare “You sunk my battleship!”). You know – mostly The Rock with a dash of Pirates of the Caribbean thrown in... I don’t know. I’m just spitballing here.

This guy and Brooklyn Decker are given a boring B-plot

that's only worth the time invtested because Decker is hot.

The problem with this approach is that it makes for a confusing marketing campaign that became an instant butt of jokes in a way that I don’t think a “more realistic” take would have. However, while the alien angle likely helped increase the inherent silliness and thus lead to a huge financial losses for Universal, it isn’t the main culprit for why the movie wound up being so bad. In that respect, the fault lies in the “human” story, which focuses on Lieutenant Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) whose hotheaded and rebellious demeanor disappoints his brother Commander Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård) and fails to impress the high-ranking Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson), who just so happens to be the father of Sam, Alex’s mega hot fiancée-to-be Sam (Brooklyn Decker).

In and of itself that central story isn’t even a bad one, but the way it’s handled is beyond awful. None of these characters (as well as a slew of other supporting naval officers, including Rihanna and Turtle from Entourage) are developed in a way to engender viewer loyalty or sympathy; in fact, most come across as cloying. For an excellent example, look no further than the opening scene, which offers a blueprint on how not to do a “meet cute” (Sam enters a dingy bar by herself looking for a chicken burrito and the chivalrous Alex decides to break into a gas station to steal her one).

To be fair, while the first half-hour or so of this movie is a real chore to sit through, once the action starts kicking in, it actually gets somewhat watchable in a “meh, ok, that’s not totally terrible” kind of way. There’s a fairly humorous nod to the game that sees the main characters taking shots at alien crafts and declaring “hit” or “miss,” and its is actually somewhat engaging. And the climax, which sees the protagonists recruiting some geriatric veterans to utilize an old-time battleship, is endearing in its cheesiness. The special effects are pretty strong as well, and although all of her scenes are pointless b-story filler, Brooklyn Decker is just as fun to watch.

Throughout my Battleship viewing experience, I kept thinking of two things:

1)      Battle Los Angeles, a middling alien invasion movie that had some very effectively rendered action sequences. Except then I remembered that film had some characters worth caring about, including a bad-ass lead played by Aaron Eckhart, and I realized, ‘Wow Battleship doesn’t have nearly as much to offer as Battle Los Angeles,’ which basically serves as a good indicator for just how far down the list of alien invasion movies this thing has to be.

2)      Why exactly did a director like Peter Berg agree to do this thing? He’s generally been very solid (The Kingdom, Friday Night Lights, Very Bad Things), and considering he was coming off of his biggest hit (Hancock), I’d have thought he would have his choice of projects, especially if he was going to follow it up with a big budget studio picture. I later read this article, which made sense of my initial query. In short, he held his nose and did Battleship so he could direct passion project Lone Survivor.

Taylor Kitsch probably should consider a new approach

in this whole movie busiess thing.

However, now, in the wake of the colossal bomb, my lasting thoughts on the film mostly concern Kitsch who made a name for himself on the Berg-produced Friday Night Lifts TV series. With both Battleship and John Carter striking out this year (not to mention Savages doing pretty piss poor as well), he’s in a tough spot career-wise.

Orlando Bloom’s ascent to the A-list was stalled when he double bombed with Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown, both of which were actually smart career choices, seeing as they were from heralded filmmakers. And Bloom had two franchise successes – Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean – in his back pocket, so who knows how this will affect Kitsch moving forward considering he hasn’t earned such good will? On the plus side, he has a fan in Berg, who is bringing him along in a supporting role on Lone Survivor. If he gets good notices there, things could be looking up. If not, Kitsch's stock may totally plummet.

Anyway, getting back to Battleship – it’s a worthless movie that somehow manages to take a simple and possibly promising idea and turn it into convoluted garbage, without making it so bad that it becomes a guilty pleasure (ala something like In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale). As is, it’s mostly just Transformers without the cool robot-on-robot fight scenes and even more of the pointless human drama. D