Reitman Delivers a Misfire With "Men, Women & Children"

Roy from The Office shows up for this one scene. Don't even think
he speaks. Very weird.

After the increasing success of his first three films (Thank You For Smoking, Juno and Up in the Air), Jason Reitman has gotten himself on to a bit of a cold streak. Young Adult scored with critics but bombed with audiences and Oscar voters, and then Labor Day mustered little support of any kind. The writer-director has tumbled even further from grace with Men, Women & Children, the biggest critical and commercial flop of his career.

The film, which employs an interconnected ensemble in an attempt to explore the alienating forces of technology, found its way onto its share of 2014 worst of lists, but it's not that bad. There are some good characters here, and the film circles a topic worthy of continued exploration, even in the wake of Spike Jonze's brilliant Her. However, the film's positives are outweighed by an overbearing, self-important approach that really has very little to add to the conversation of how technology is changing modern life.

The film focuses on five family units in a small Texas community. Here's the rundown:

1. Chris (Travis Tope), a football player who has become so desensitized by internet porn that he can't get excited for real sex (this concept was handled with much more nuance and humor in Don Jon) and his unsatisfied parents (Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt doing the best they can) who seek extramarital affairs via the internet.
2. Cheerleader Hannah (Olivia Crocicchia), an aspiring starlet who posts inappropriate photos to a web site with the help of her misguided mom Joan (Judy Greer) in the hopes of jump starting an acting career. 
3. Tim (Ansel Elgort), a football star who quits the team after his mom abandons him and his father Kent (Dean Norris, so damn good) for life with a new man across the country. Tim spends most of his time playing an online role playing game and openly discusses the insignificance of life in the context of our massive universe. 
4. Brandy (Kaitlyn Dever), an emo sort whose overprotective mother Patricia (Jennifer Garner) obsessively monitors her every move via regular social media reviews, GPS tracking and a whole slew of other intrusions. 
5. Allison (Elena Kampouris), a cheerleader with an eating disorder who hooks up with the callous jock who teased her before she lost weight. 

Clearly, there's a lot going on, and that's before we talk about the story overlaps -- Tim and Brandy, Chris and Hannah, and Kent and Patricia are all paired off romantically. The only odd fit is Allison's story, which is bluntly drawn and entirely unconnected to the rest of the narrative. There's very little technological hook to this one (beyond a chat room of other users giving tips on how to avoid eating food), and it plays like a tacked on thread considering she's the only kid who doesn't have a prominently featured parent (J.K. Simmons is wasted as her father).

Overall, the film suffers as a message movie (all the technology connections are pretty much just window dressing) and works best as a community melodrama, but even then, it's extremely flawed (it's like a vastly less successful Little Children or The Ice Storm).

The problem is that the bulk of these characters are basically just representing different ideas, so they end up with almost no dimension. The exceptions to that rule are Tim, Brandy, Kent and Joan. There's a good movie here about a father and a son dealing with abandonment with the help of two romantic interests dealing with their own shit, but it's muted by all the other fluff filling up the bulk of the run time.

When Elgort, Dever, Greer, and Norris are onscreen, especially in combination, the film really shines. Otherwise, Men, Women & Children offers a bunch of junk-time for unengaged audience members to scroll through their phones. C

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" Improves Upon Very Good Predecessor

Caesar brandishes a gun in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

I posted a tentative list of my top 10 films of 2014 on New Year’s Eve knowing that as I continued to see more and more 2014 releases, it would drastically change.

We’re barely two weeks into 2015, and the list is already out of date, and it's not because I saw one of the many acclaimed films (Selma, Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler, Birdman, Boyhood, and The Imitation Game to name a few). Instead, the change comes courtesy of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a film I was highly anticipating but did not realize would be nearly this damn good.

Dawn deepens and expands upon the highly enjoyable and affecting Rise of the Planet of the Apes, taking the narrative further down the bleak path that’s all but necessary if these prequels are seriously meant to align with the iconic Charlton Heston film.

The film picks up roughly a decade after the first film, with most of humanity having been killed off by the simian flu (all the major ape characters from the previous film return, while all the major human characters are long dead). The surviving humans are seemingly immune to the virus, and have etched out an existence in a rundown San Francisco under the leadership of Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) and Malcom (Jason Clarke). In dire need of a power, these survivors aim to restore a nearby dam, but in so doing, they encroach on the developing ape community that Caesar founded in the Muir Woods at the end of the first film. In an effort to avoid war, Malcom and Caesar attempt to forge diplomatic relations, but pressures from untrusting extremists in each group make that very difficult.

That’s all I’ll say for the plot. As was the case with Rise, the humans comprise the weaker part of the story, but the script takes time to give almost every character of consequence, be they ape or human, some level of dimensionality. Like most science fiction, the Planet of the Apes series has always been bluntly allegoric, and that hasn’t changed here. The inevitability of war, the folly of racial hatred, and anti-gun sentiment are just a few of the ideas jostling around in this thing.

Thematics aside, this is one hell of an action film. The pace is pretty relentless, and the special effects and action set pieces are downright dynamite. A sequence in which the apes make an assault on the human fortress is one of the most jawdropping action scenes I've ever seen – even better than the great bridge battle that ended the last film. Not only does it look great, but it’s just so damn innovative in its choreography.

But, on top of all that, this is also a rock solid character piece. Combined with Rise, this is basically a clinic on how to do a prequel origin story. One need only look at how successful Caesar has been fleshed out here to realize just how awful a ball drop those Star Wars prequels were. Prior to this series, Caesar was probably one of the most iconic antagonist in film history – but now, courtesy of Serkis and some great work from the effects team, he’s also one of the most well-developed, empathetic and relatable heroes your likely to come across. And, Star Wars isn’t the only touchstone the film brings to mind – the narrative is extremely Shakespearean, and Julius Caesar is an obvious point of reference in the central relationship between the magnanimous Caesar and the vengeance-seeking Koba (Toby Kebbell).

Frankly, It's a shame this film didn't receive more end-of-year love. I know it’s a science fiction film, but so is Snowpiercer and that’s showing up on all sorts of top 10s. As far as the Oscars go, the film got a well-deserved special effects nomination today, but it would've been deserving in a few more places. I understand it's a reach to assume at this point that Serkis could've cracked the very crowded best actor field, but would this not be the perfect year to give the guy an honorary Oscar? He's given his best ever motion capture performance here, and the technology is being increasingly embraced in the industry, with big name actors like Vin Diesel now embracing the form as a way to move outside the box their actual screen persona puts them in.

 Regardless of the year-in-review recognition it's getting, I’ll bang the drum for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Although there's a great chance Dawn will ultimately fall out of my top ten, it's in there right now. This is a total must-see, and one of the best films of 2014. A-

Former SNL Players Deliver the Goods in "Skeleton Twins" and "Obvious Child"

Skeleton Twins utilizes the time-honed chemistry of its leads.

From Bill Murray to Will Forte, there’s a long tradition of SNL performers who have made a successful transition to dramatically-tinged films. The other night, I took in two of the latest movies to give former not-ready-for-prime-time players such a spotlight – Skeleton Twins and Obvious Child – and I came away very impressed with the results.

In Skeleton Twins, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader star as Maggie and Milo, two mid-thirties twins who have been estranged for a decade. After Milo botches a suicide attempt, the siblings become reacquainted, with Maggie offering Milo the chance to move from California back to New York where he can stay with her in their hometown while he recovers.

To most onlookers, Milo would be the clear black sheep of the family. He’s a suicidal, failed actor – “another tragic gay cliché” as he says – while she seemingly has everything – steady job, nice house, and an affable and eager husband (Luke Wilson in his best performance outside a Wes Anderson film) with whom she’s trying to conceive a child.

But things aren’t really that rosy for Maggie, which is something that’s hinted at when we first meet her (she’s contemplating swallowing a handful of pills when she gets interrupted by a phone call about Milo’s attempted suicide), and that becomes increasingly clear as we learn more and more about her self-sabotaging behaviors.  Both Maggie and Milo are living lives filled with crippling isolation and regret, and they need to come back together if they have any chance of healing.

That all reads pretty heavy on its own, and it doesn’t even account for Maggie and Milo’s screwed up upbringing, which is highlighted by their father’s suicide, a sex scandal involving a pedophiliac teacher, and abandonment by a new age mother.

Although the laundry list of family issues may seem like one or two too many skeletons in the closet, the film handles it all well enough, and, mercifully, this isn’t one of those direly dark films comedic actors sometimes make to prove dramatic bonafides. While Wiig and Hader carry the dramatic material with aplomb, Skeleton Twins is also a very funny film, chiefly due to the time-honed chemistry between the two costars. There’s an intuitive connection there, and I’d be shocked if several of their scenes – particularly one set in a dentist office – weren’t at least partially improvised. 

In a lot of ways, the film plays like an adaptation of a book (I could easily imagine Skeleton Twins as one of those every-other-chapter-narrator novels that jostles back and forth between two points of view). This is a layered film with a lot of depth, but I won’t lie: things do fall off a bit as the film reaches its conclusion.  Although momentum builds tremendously toward a wrenching and raw blowout between the leads, everything is then quickly tied up in an unbelievable climax.

Still, there’s a something great about watching Wiig and Hader inhabit these characters together, and both deliver in ways they haven’t before. Wiig, for all her greatness, has never seemed this real on film, while Hader does revelatory work as the sardonic misanthrope who is simultaneously goofy, vulnerable and relatable. He’s long been a scene-stealer, but Skeleton Twins doesn’t just mark his first dramatic role – it marks his first role of real substance period. With this role, Hader proves that as great as he is at hitting one note jokes, he’s more than capable of handling three-dimensionality.

Jenny Slate is both hilarious and touching in Obvious Child.

Jenny Slate accomplishes that same feat in Obvious Child, the debut film from writer/director Gillian Robespierre. Unlike Wiig and Hader, Slate isn’t an SNL icon. Her stint lasted only one season, and she’s probably best remembered for accidentally saying the F-word during her first on-air appearance.

Nevertheless, Slate has made numerous recurring appearances on the likes of Parks and Recreation and Bob’s Burgers (my two favorites!) since leaving SNL, killing it in the type of comically broad roles that wouldn’t be out of place on the late-night sketch show. But with Obvious Child, she’s been given the chance to play something far more nuanced.

Slate plays Donna, a late 20s book store employee who moonlights as a stand-up comic. After her boyfriend dumps her and she loses her job, Donna has a one-night stand with an earnest nice guy (Jake Lacey, who people might recognize as Jim 2.0 from the later seasons of The Office). The experience causes Donna to get pregnant and she decides to get an abortion, all the while the guy keeps trying to hang out with her.

The film has become known as the abortion comedy, and that is and isn’t an apt description. Yes it contains an abortion, but few people would call Fast Times at Ridgemont High a movie about abortion, and it's the same here.

Obvious Child takes no stance – political, moral or otherwise – on topic; it just so happens to be about a woman who, finding herself unfit to be a parent, decides to have an abortion, grows a little from the experience, and then begins a relationship with the man who inseminated her. It's like a Woody Allenesque take on the romantic beats of Juno... except with adults... and an abortion.

Slate is a revelation as Donna, carrying the film on her small shoulders while embodying a whole series of contradictions (adorable and crude, aloof and neurotic, vulnerable and strong). Like any good comedian, Donna is daring on stage, with barely any filter, sharing everything up there, including intimate details of her personal life (and the lives of those closest to her). This movie is about how she learns to share and open up when she's not on stage.

Obvious Child is a really funny, almost feel-good film, which is odd to say given the narrative, but there it is. It's a top film of 2015 for me, even though I do have some reservations about the overly rosy finale -- everything resolves so unbelievably perfectly for the lead that it began reminding me a bit of Pretty Woman.

That said, the movie earns a lot of good will, and the final scene is a perfect way to close out the particular story their telling here. This isn't really about abortion, just like Pretty Woman wasn't really about prostitution. A proper tonal and thematic comparison would be something like Frances Ha or Girls, since Obvious Child is actually exploring the process of a young woman trying to find her footing in the world.

Skeleton Twins B, Obvious Child B+

Angelina Jolie and a Ballsy Theme Help "Maleficent" Play Up

Angelina Jolie acts opposite her daughter Vivienne in Maleficent.

It would be easy to pre-judge Maleficent as just another piece of junk on the increasingly growing list of live-action cash-ins adapted from animated classics. I did that myself when the film came out, but I recently caught up with it on DVD, and while I can't say I think Maleficent entirely works, I was pleasantly surprised by how ballsy an adaptation it turned out to be.

Growing up, I always thought Sleeping Beauty, its villain especially, was dumb. The idea of the villain cursing a princess to an impending deep sleep because she was mad she didn't get invited to the girls christening just seemed lame. The creators of Maleficent seem to have realized this, as they've altered the story to make the title character's decision to curse an infant far more understandable.

Here, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is originally a kind fairy whose actions are motivated by revenge against the girl's father Stefan (Sharlto Copley), a former love interest who, in his power-hungry quest to ascend to the throne, drugs her and cuts off her wings to garner favor with a dying king looking to name an heir. When Princess Aurora (Vivienne Jolie-Pitt as a child, Elle Fanning as a teen) is left in the hands of three bumbling fairies, Maleficent begins to covertly care for the girl as a sort of fairy godmother, coming to regret her curse and yet seemingly powerless to stop it.

Despite this being a Disney film, the wing-cutting plays like a metaphor for rape, a fact that Jolie herself commented on in a BBC interview, saying it was a story about "how the abused then have a choice of abusing others or overcoming and remaining loving, open people."

That's some heavy stuff for a kids' movie, and while I certainly question if it’s appropriate, that aspect of the film works pretty well due to the conviction of Jolie's performance. Although this is clearly a money gig for her, Jolie brings her A-game and single-handedly elevates the movie. The woman is a phenomenal actress, and she’s more than capable of bringing nuance on cue, but there’s something about the playful wit she has on screen that registers especially well here.

Sticking with positive attributes, I did enjoy the twist the film puts on the traditional fairy tale ending, even if it was lifted straight out of Frozen. There’s also brevity to the film that definitely bodes well – Maleficent is the rare film in this genre that doesn’t overstay its welcome. However, that is sort of a double-edged sword – there’s a whole lot of telling and not much showing.

All that being said, I have one big issue with the film, and that is how severely it sucks the magic right out of this classic fairy tale. A lot of that starts with character. While Maleficent is fleshed out nicely and Aurora fairs ok (even if she’s basically a pleasant plot device), almost every other character suffers in this translation. This interpretation of Stefan is a disaster, and as much as I’ve liked him in other things, Copley doesn’t deliver here. I’m not sure how much of that is his fault – there’s no dimension to the role – but he’s far too important to the story to feel so blah.

Meanwhile, the concept of giving Maleficent’s raven sidekick occasional human form is interesting but ultimately very awkwardly handled. And then there’s the fairies – the totally tone deaf fairies. These three were a treasured part of the the Disney animated classic, but here they are an annoying afterthought.

Outside of some flourishes by Jolie, there’s just no fun to any of this, and fairy tales, especially ones marketed to kids the way this film has been, should be fun. There's still a lot to like here thematically, but Maleficent is not as fleshed out as it needs to be, and there's ultimately a sense of ambition overreaching grasp. B-

"Draft Day" Wants to Be Football Movies' Answer to "Moneyball," but Falls Way Short of the Goal

Kevin Costner does his best to make Draft Day enjoyable.

“Draft Day is to football as Moneyball is to baseball.” 

That’s how I imagine Draft Day was pitched and sold, but while both films focus on the front office maneuvering and domestic issues of general managers, they don’t represent a correlation worthy of a verbal reasoning test. Better to say Moneyball is to a great film as Draft Day is to some ludicrous fantasy scenario with overzealous editing tricks that’s propped up and made serviceable by the charms of Kevin Costner. That probably wouldn’t get put onto any test either, but at least it’s honest. 

Costner plays Sonny Weaver Jr., the GM of the Cleveland Browns who has drawn the ire of fans for firing the beloved long-time coach of the team, a man who also happens to have been Sonny’s dad and who also just happened to die a week before the draft. 

With the seventh pick in the draft, Sonny is debating between Vontae Mack, the flashy linebacker he’d like to take, and Ray Jennings, the running back the fans and current coach of the team (Dennis Leary) want him to choose. Then he gets a call from the Seattle Seahawks with an offer: they’ll give him the first pick in the draft, which he could then use on heralded quarterback Bo Callahan, for his next three first round selections. Despite having a veteran quarterback coming off an injury who he believes in (Tom Welling), Sonny makes the deal because his owner (Frank Langella) has told him to make a splash. Then he spends the rest of the movie trying to convince himself why taking Callahan is a bad idea. 

For most of its length, Draft Day is satisfactorily amiable, even if it goes way overboard with overlapping scene editing and all the damn domestic issues plaguing Sonny on this of all days. That his budget person/secret girlfriend (Jennifer Garner) would tell Sonny she’s pregnant – on this of all days – seems odd enough, but then throw on top of that the fact that his mother would throw a stink about spreading his father’s ashes on the field – on this of all days – and it just comes across as a wee bit much. I mean seriously – on this of all days? 

However, the film really runs into problems with the climax, which takes a look at the far-fetched domestic pile up, and says “You want to get ridiculous? Fine. I’ll get ridiculous. Nothing is more ridiculous about this movie than me. ‘Ridiculous’ is my middle name.” (warning: spoilers coming). 

Draft Day employs a whole lot of overlapping split screens to liven
up what is mostly a series of phone conversations.

Convinced that Callahan doesn’t have what it takes, Weaver goes with his gut and takes Mack. When Callahan starts falling down the draft board, it begins to look like Seattle could end up with the consensus number one pick and Sonny’s next to first rounders – a true boon for Seattle’s GM, who has been getting crushed by the fans for giving up the rights to drafting the league’s next great quarterback. 

That's when the movie starts slinging bullshit. It becomes obvious Callahan will fall to the Jacksonville Jaguars at six, but their rookie GM is shitting his pants, unsure of what to do and nervous to pick Callahan since other teams are passing on him. Sonny calls the guy and offers him a safety valve against making a disastrous selection – trade Cleveland the sixth pick for three years of second rounders. Miraculously, the Jacksonville GM takes the deal, and then Sonny calls the Seattle GM. He offers him the chance to trade for the sixth pick, draft Callahan and calm the vitriol of the Seattle fans, provided he return the three first round picks back to Cleveland. Seattle takes the bait, Cleveland picks Jennings, and Sonny comes out of the whole thing looking like a genius. 

The problem here is that this whole climax is utter nonsense – it’s the type of thing only a genie could make happen, and even then I’m not sure. There is no way in hell the Seattle GM would just cave and give up the picks like that. He’d probably call the bluff, noting that Weaver passed on the quarterback once, and he’d probably do it again. 

And even if the Seattle GM would be spooked into doing what Sonny wanted, there is no way three second round selections would garner a top 10 pick in the draft. And even if the rookie GM was an idiot willing to do that, he’d still have a slew of advisers telling him, ‘No.’ And even if the team in Jacksonville did decide to trade the pick, they’d almost certainly use all of the allotted ten minutes to find a better deal (perhaps with Seattle, who would have all sorts of picks to deal). Instead, they trade with Cleveland before they are even on the clock – an awful decision that occurs solely so the movie can allow Sonny enough time to call Seattle and make a trade. 

Although it was criticized for being too inside-football for mainstream audiences, Draft Day, like Moneyball before it, tries to make things as digestible as possible. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but unfortunately, while Moneyball opted to focus on the simpler aspects of a complicated system, Draft Day flat out dumbs things down. Although reality isn’t something I really require in my movies, and it’s definitely not something I require in my sports movies, Draft Day is just too damn much to take. C-

Phillip Seymour Hoffman Delivers One Final Great Lead Performance in the Brilliantly Measured "A Most Wanted Man"

A Most Wanted Man reminds us (as if we needed reminding) 
that Phillip Seymour Hoffman was an acting titan.

The life of a spy is not a glamorous one. It is not a life filled with globe-trotting chases, torrid love affairs and action-packed shootouts between dapper physical specimens, but rather a great deal of clerical work, slow surveillance and back-alley conversations between anonymously ordinary folk. It doesn't get the heart pumping; it systematically devours it. At least that's the approach taken by novelist John le Carré, whose take on espionage features a lot of political maneuvering and frustration, but very little sense of fun and adventure.

While that probably doesn't sound like the best sales pitch for a film, it's most certainly an apt one. And although such an approach might not seem the best for a movie, I can tell you that films based on le Carré's work have been some of the best of the last several years.

That doesn't mean they're for everyone. For instance, while I found Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to be one of the more rewarding films of 2011, Candace fell asleep around the halfway mark. It's hard to blame her -- we watched it in the middle of a five-film binge, and, on top of that, it is dry, dense and not easily penetrated (I had a similar experience with Zodiac, another moody, slow burn that I should really revisit at some point). 

I say all this as a lead up to a review of A Most Wanted Man, the latest le Carré adaptation and one of my favorite films of 2014. It's cut from the same cloth as Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, but the story isn't half as sprawling, so it feels more focused. For what it's worth: Candace did not fall asleep.

The story revolves around the efforts of an off-the-books terrorist investigation unit in Hamburg, Germany led by the disheveled and jaded Gunther Bachmann (the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Gunther prefers to play the long game, collecting information and making contacts within the Muslim community. This puts him at odds with Mohr (Rainer Bock), the leader or a rival unit with a more aggressive and entirely short-sighted approach, not to mention his superiors, men who allowed the 9/11 attackers to operate a home-base in Hamburg right under their noses and have thus developed an itchy trigger finger.

Willem Dafoe and Rachel McAdams bring dimension to their roles.

When Chechen-Russian immigrant Issa Karpov (Grigori Dobrygin) arrives in Hamburg seeking asylum and a large inheritance of dirty money, he becomes a prime target for both units. However, while Mohr wants to bring him in on suspicions of being a jihadist and go to work on him, Gunther wants to keep Issa free and covertly coerce him into donating his money to a supposed Muslim philanthropist (Homayoun Ershadi) to see if the philanthropist will reroute some of the funds to a shipping company Gunther believes to be a front for Al Qaeda.

The idea is to ensnare the philanthropist then use him to get to the actual terrorists, and a tacit agreement with a string-pulling CIA agent (Robin Wright Penn) buys Gunther three days to do things his way. That's no easy task considering he must turn a banker (Willem Dafoe) and Karpov's human right's lawyer (Rachel McAdams) in time to carry out the scheme. Plus, there's the question of if Gunther can even trust these outside officials to stay out of his way, especially in light of a previous failure in Beirut brought on by such bureaucratic cooperation.

This material fits director Anton Corbijn like a glove, as his last foray behind the camera was the similarly muted and restrained, yet atmospherically textured The American. Like that under-appreciated George Clooney gem, A Most Wanted Man is first and foremost a thoughtful and tightly-calibrated character study of a weary professional in a shady, soul-crushing line of work.

It's also a fitting last lead role for Hoffman. Perhaps the preeminent actor of his generation, Hoffman was an actor of tremendous range, but he specialized in playing bleary-eyed, inward sad sacks fighting against irrelevance. It's clear Gunther has made many personal sacrifices for his work -- for proof, just look at his relationship with his second-in-command (Nina Hoss), a woman with whom he shares a shorthand banter and more than a few longing looks. A scene in which the two share a kiss to avoid blowing their cover is as sad as it is charged, because it hints at the connection both have given up in their commitment to "make the world a better place."

Hoffman is as controlled and precise as he's ever been here, and yet the film grants him one last opportunity to nail blustery rage in his final scene. It's the tonal opposite of the scene that concluded Zero Dark Thirty, but intriguingly still hints at the same thematic point -- the hopelessness and disillusionment inherent in the spy game, a profession that takes and takes, but rarely gives back. A

Both "Under the Skin" and "Snowpiercer" Prove Memorably Off-Beat, But Earn Vastly Different Grades

Under the Skin has been hailed as a masterpiece by some. Not me.

As I stated in my review of Sex Tape, the more movies I see, the tougher it is to sit through mediocre ones with nothing interesting going on. There’s a lot of cookie cutter stuff out there, films aimed right down the middle that are shot, acted and scripted just well enough to be passable entertainment.

Yet I still watch plenty of movies, and I try my best to review them when I can, because everyone once and a while, a movie hits a nerve or does something really cool or surprising, or, even better, something truly worth remembering or discussing.

That doesn’t always mean the movie is good or that I even enjoyed it. A few months ago I caught a really bizarre flick called Under the Skin. It features Scarlett Johansson as an alien who preys on young single men in Scotland so that she can take their insides and send them up to the home planet leaving only their skin behind.

The logline sounds cool, and the film is popping up on a slew of end-of-year top 10 lists, but I found the film pretty boring and opaque. It’s just a bit too ponderous for me, but at the same time, I respect the audacity of writer/director Jonathan Glazer’s filmmaking. Under the Skin features some striking imagery and haunting sequences, and it manages to remain intriguing despite the drawbacks of being such an arty endeavor.

Much of the credit for that belongs to Johansson who delivers a nicely calibrated piece of acting that serves as an interesting counterpoint to her stellar vocal performance in last year’s Her (that one was all voice, this one is almost entirely physical). A few years back, when her sexpot ScarJo vibe was at its apex, it seemed like she might be destined to follow in the footsteps of Jennifer Lopez, a gifted actress whose screen credibility was destroyed be her off-screen persona. That didn’t happen, and Johansson has emerged an actress equally at home in big budget action films as she is in these more personal independents.

Snowpiercer has a game cast of great actors.

Of course, I prefer when a movie does something unique, and I actually enjoy it as well. Snowpiercer, the English-language debut of writer/director Bong Joon-ho, is a prime example.

Set in the aftermath of an experiment that brought on an ice age that killed almost all life on Earth, the film takes place entirely on the Snowpiercer, a massive train that continuously loops around the globe and that is inhabited by an elite class in the front and a poor class in the back.

Conceptually, the film is relatively familiar end-of-days tale with the interesting twist of setting all the action aboard a locomotive. It also joins the growing number of futuristic science fiction films that make overt social commentary on the haves and have-nots (see also Elysium and In Time).

But what distinguishes the film isn’t so much the story it tells, but the way it tells it. The film moves along a predictable path with the insurgents moving from the back of the train to the front, but the moments and beats it hits along the way are just so specifically and wonderfully weird. In his review of the movie, pal Nate Adams wrote of the film’s “odd, shaggy loose strands,” calling particular attention to a scene in which the rebels come face to face with a mob of armed opponents who, in lieu of immediately attacking, make a spectacle of ritually gutting a fish.

It’s a great moment, but there are many others as well – like the way both sides in the aforementioned battle (once the fish gutting is out of the way) stop the violence to recognize the milestone of the train completing another orbit around the world, or the oddity of the bald guy pushing a cart full of eggs or the crazy frequency Tilda Swinton is operating on in this thing.

There is just so much interesting stuff going on throughout Snowpiercer that it’s hard not to be entertained. The plot has a clockwork precision to it that impressively becomes clear during the final 20 minutes. But what really seals the deal and elevates the film from “hey, that’s cool” to “man, this is downright transcendent” is the way Jong-ho intermixes the craziness with shockingly good character beats, most specifically the last act monologue by Chris Evans who plays the defacto leader of the train’s poor inhabitants. It’s a moment you won’t easily forget, and it’s definitely a peak moment for Evans, an actor who just seems to be getting better and better.

Due to producer dissatisfaction over the final cut of the film, Snowpiercer barely got much of a theatrical release. That’s unfortunate, but Netflix and Redbox have it, so you should definitely check it out. It’s totally worth seeing, but more than that, it’s pretty damn good too.

Under the Skin C, Snowpiercer A