Iron Man - A Review

“Making of a Hero”
“One Man’s Legacy”

“Peace. I love peace. I’d be out of a job with peace.” –Tony

From the previews alone, you had a sense that Iron Man was going to be a different sort of comic book adaptation. The cast alone told me that the creators were playing for keeps: Robert Downey, Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man), Terrence Howard (Jim Rhodes). Gwyneth Paltrow (Virginia “Pepper” Potts). Jeff Bridges (Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger). Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury--stay through the ending credits). Directed by Jon Favreau (Hogan). Even if you had no sense for who this super hero was, there was an inherent intrigue about this movie.

Tony Stark is a different sort of potential superhero. Visionary, genius, handsome, billionaire, winner of the lottery of life, he’s a modern day Renaissance man and playboy, the kind of man who has a deployable stripper pole in his private plane. Though there have been other millionaire super-heroes (Batman, Green Arrow, Blue Beetle – how else can they afford all of those cool toys), Tony Stark is truly a man who “has everything and nothing”: no core, no substance, and no one to share his life with. He battles his demons from budding alcoholism to living in the shadow of his father to the specter of corporate greed to his inability to develop meaningful relationships (he’s so narcissistic that whether he’s talking to a model or the technology around him, he’s really just talking to himself).

During a trip to Afghanistan to demonstrate his latest high tech weapons for sale, he’s captured by terrorists and mortally wounded in the process. His method of escape sets the stage for his alter ego.

Even in the comic book, the character of Tony Stark always struck me as a little one note and smarmy and the producers cast the right guy to play him. The story of Stark’s fall and redemption curiously echoes the tale of the actor portraying him, Robert Downey, Jr. He has wrestled with his own share of personal demons and finds himself on a comeback from the professional and personal brink. Despite being fast talking, glib, slick, and rehearsed, Downey, Jr makes these qualities charming, but also manages to humanizes the character.

“It’s an imperfect world, but it’s the only one we’ve got.” –Tony

The typical (super) hero origin story arc follows a simple trajectory: the first half of the movie is spent establishing the everyman (think Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man, Bruce Banner in the Hulk or Matt Murdock in Daredevil) with the second half of the movie spent in big budget effects proving that said man can climb walls, smash big things, or kung fu his way through armies of men (to the point where there’s no point in asking if so-and-so can play the hero, such as the endless Batman debates, but rather can they play the alter ego).

Like all great heroes, Tony Stark has an epiphany moment, that time when he re-evaluates his life. As the leading designer and dealer of weapons, the bulk of his father’s fortune, the empire he inherited and expanded, was built on war profiteering. Selling the sticks in a “he who has the biggest sticks keeps the peace” world, the movie quickly becomes a commentary on how easily “our” sticks fall into the hands we wouldn’t want. No supervillains per se, but rather facing off against corporate greed and terrorism, from all of the double dealing (passing around sticks).

“I shouldn’t be alive unless it’s for a reason.” –Tony

All heroes need a crossroads, or end of self, moment: when he looks in the mirror and realizes that he isn’t where he was meant to be, not doing what he was meant to do, not living how he was meant to live. Tony’s brush with death forces him to not only re-evaluate his life’s purpose and direction, but also to contemplate what his legacy will be.

“There is the next mission and nothing else.” –Tony

The movie, quite literally, is about the making of a hero. Like Batman Begins, it is more about the journey to establish the path of the new hero than a typical “spandex” string of fight scenes masquerading as a plot (see Spider-Man 3). First, the hero has to realize the system we are trapped in: the “empire,” with its values and its control and order, this social and governmental impotence easily steered by corruption and greed. Next the hero has to figure out their identity. What it means to be human, in his case, what it means to be Tony Stark. Then the hero has to define their mission, in his case, what it means to be Iron Man. At this point, the hero’s life becomes one of continual mission as they hones their gifts and work with their strengths and talents to fulfill that mission.

Tony: “Thank you for saving me.”
Yinsen (Shaun Toub): “Don’t waste your life.”

Funny and taut, Iron Man moves at a good clip, slickly re-telling his origin. It’s not the kind of super hero movie one might expect, especially if you’re thinking all there is to it is putting on the costume and getting to iron butt kicking. The move is both modern and relevant (and full of nerd moments: Jarvis, the X-Men’s Blackbird reference, S.H.I.E.L.D., the terrorist group calling itself the “ten rings” a la the Mandarin, not to mention the after the credits allusion).

I’m going to have to revisit my top ten favorite comic book adaptations list, though I’ll probably wait until the end of the summer considering that Wanted, The Dark Night, The Incredible Hulk, and Hellboy 2 are all coming out.


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The Forbidden Kingdom – A Review

“Lord of the Staff”

I have friends who don’t like movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers because they can’t get behind all of the flying kung fu fighters. Somehow they weren’t able to suspend their disbelief for such fighting sequences, however, if one of the protagonists been bitten by a radioactive spider, it would have been all good. In short, movies like Forbidden Kingdom are no different than a super hero movie, except with samurai gear and monk wear instead of spandex.


While it has been advertised as a vehicle that teams Jackie Chan and Jet Li (FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!), there is a plot attached to the movie and it revolves around Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano who basically does a Shia LaBeouf (Transformers) imitation as he plays Frodo in this adventure). Bullied Jason goes through the Gate of No Gate as part of his journey to return the divine staff of legend to its rightful owner.

Based on the Chinese epic story 'Journey to the West', The Forbidden Kingdom truly comes to life with Jackie Chan’s appearance and subsequent fight scenes, recalling his Legend of the Drunken Master role. After he shows up, it’s only a matter of time until Jet Li and we get what we paid to see. Granted, this vehicle is something we would have liked to have seen earlier in their respective careers, not when they are both a bit past their prime. They all but don long white, kung fu master beards in this one.

Like all great super hero team ups, there is a fan-demanded battle between the heroes, a misunderstanding, of course. Like all great kung fu movies, there must be a training sequence as our hero manages to learn a lifetime’s worth of kung fu in under a week. This one, however, is filled with laugh out loud moments.

The true story of the movie is the story Jason finds himself in.

“It is their opium.” –Jade Warlord (Collin Chou)

Jason finds himself caught up in the whispers of prophecy, the opium/hope of the people under siege by the ways of the ruling empire. The imperialistic power takes the form of the Jade Army, led by the Jade Warlord. The Jade Warlord is like the spiritual aspect to evil taking on a personal dimension in the form of "the adversary." This evil one is given dominion over the kingdom until the return of their great King.

In the meantime, the Monkey King challenges the reign of the Jade Warlord, his example and disobedience going against the ways of the empire. At one point, the Jade Warlord demanded that the Monkey King bow to him. Their battle seemingly ends with the Monkey King defeated for a time, trapped in stone, awaiting t seeker to find him.

“Go free yourself.” –Monkey King (Jet Li)

What’s interesting to note is that Jason’s quest isn’t for eternal life, the elixir of immortality, but that is a part of what he gains as a part of his journey. His seeking is the point, the end goal unto itself. In some ways, the gospel is analogous to the kung fu training he so desperately wants. It can be had by all, takes many forms, can be found by seekers, adapts to the culture and to circumstance of the seeker, Master and student walking side-by-side (in the way of discipleship) and ultimately, it frees the seekers.

In so pursuing, Jason becomes an instrument of prophecy despite the fact that “He’s not even Chinese.” He, the Silent Monk (Jet Li), the Lu Yan (Jackie Chan), and Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu) form a band of misfits, yet it is so often how the gospel is carried forth, through flawed vessels. Such counterintuitive ways are how the ways of the empire are subverted. “Vengeance has a way of rebounding upon itself,” the Silent Monk warns. Violence and recrimination continue the cycle of evil, but the honesty of confession and forgiveness break the cycle. The key to defeating evil is truth and reconciliation; the power of forgiveness and love.

To be honest, the fight sequences are sometimes too cartoony. The special effects aren’t exactly seamless and you could practically see the guide wires during some action. When the effects over take the fighting, it robs the specialness of, well, the outlandish violence we come to expect from these movies. We still see flashes of what made these two kung fu movie legends great, in fact, The Forbidden Kingdom may make you want to go out and rent some of their classic movies. Still, it's quite the crowd pleaser of a romp.


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Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – A Review

"A Bloody Parable"

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, based on the Stephen Sondheim's 1979 musical, tells the infamous story of Benjamin Barker, who returns to London as Sweeney Todd to set up a barber shop in order to exact his revenge on those who wrongly imprisoned him. The legend of this partnership between love-robbed vengeance seeker and the widowed baker, Mrs. Nellie Lovett, who assisted him by grinding up dead customers into meat pies has been around for over 150 years.

This proves not so odd a subject/plot for a musical as it had a bit of a grand guignol vibe to it. And for director, Tim Burton, it combines a lot of his favorite elements: his life partners (figuratively) Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean) and (literally) Helena Bonham Carter in the lead roles; the ghoulish and macabre, replete with 19th century London as an industrial Gothic backdrop ; the fantastic (forget the cannibalism, he has the entire cast doing their own vocals); and love, no matter how perverted. With their ghastly pale make up, the leading duo makes the movie seem like a live action Corpse Bride except with more blood. Much more blood.

Perhaps the grimness of the subject matter is simply easier to take with impassioned lyrics set to alternately sweeping and brooding melodies.

“That man is dead. The name’s Todd. Sweeney Todd and he will have his revenge.” –Sweeney Todd

As a barber framed for a crime he didn’t commit, imprisoned for 15 years, by a judge (Alan Rickman) who lusted after his wife, the story has parallels to the Biblical story of David and Bathsheba. In it, King David is struck with lust for the wife of one of his top lieutenants, Uriah. After bedding the man’s wife, David wrongly has him sent to the front lines of a war in order to have him killed. So, Sweeney Todd would be the equivalent of Uriah surviving the attempt on his life then going after David … if Uriah could give a proper shave.

In truth, Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a parable on forgiveness, or rather, how hate can consume you if you can’t find a way to move past it. Someone once said that “refusing to forgive someone is like drinking poison, and expecting the other person to die.” Sweeney Todd, consumed and twisted by hate, lives this out to the bitter end.

“The mystery of the world. Learn forgiveness and try to forget.” –Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd’s simple theology is laid out like this: “There’s a hole in the world,” “It’s man devouring man,” and that “we all deserve to die”. Though he recognizes the broken/fallen state we find ourselves in, as well as our own culpability for the choices that we make, in his paradigm, there is no hope for redemption. No color, no love, no joy in his gray, cruel world; a world without forgiveness. He is trapped in a prison of his own hatred and though he seeks to be free, both of his past and of his nightmare life. For him, there is salvation only in spilt blood, except that he who is spilling others’ blood.

The mystery of Christ’s work on the cross models the power of forgiveness. Forgiveness is neither easy nor simple. Through forgiveness we let go, we join with divine grace, and are called into a new life of wholeness. Forgiveness brings closure, allowing us to let go and begin the process of healing. Ultimately, forgiveness grants us peace, perhaps even getting to the point where we can even pray for our enemies and those who did us wrong. (Though there is something to be said for the not often talked about imprecatory prayers.) Forgiveness forms you into someone who is free, whereas, to not forgive, to hold onto the hate and the pain, continues to distort and punish you.

“Think on your sins.” –Judge Turpin

You’d think serial murders done to sweet ballads would be more disturbing than they are in this movie. With necks being slit, flesh ground into hamburger—all set to jaunty tunes, Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is perfectly suited for those who thought Friday the 13th would’ve been better as a musical. The movie has lush production, an exhilaration in the film-making, and acting so good—from the lust-frenzied judge to the huckster Italian barber, Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat)—it brings out the macabre humor underlying it. What happens must happen, we know that going into this dark revenge tragedy; but the pleasure, if that is the right word, lies in watching the melodrama unfold.


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I Am Legend – A Review

“Light up the Darkness”

Adapted from the classic (1954) Richard Matheson horror novel of the same name, this is I Am Legend’s third incarnation on the screen. First there was Vincent Price’s 1964 The Last Man on Earth, then Charlton Heston’s 1971 The Omega Man and now it comes to us on the impressive shoulders of Will Smith. And yet, I couldn’t stop making comparisons to the movie Castaway, with Tom Hanks (you know, if you ever thought to yourself “Castaway was a pretty good movie, but it really needed vampires to liven it up a bit.”) I can’t imagine what an Arnold Schwarzenegger starring / Ridley Scott directed vehicle might have looked like (since this script was originally written when they were attached).

The movie veers between haunting and terrifying. Set in a desolate Manhattan, in the near future of 2012, nature slowly reclaims the concrete jungle with grass breaking up the roads and escaped zoo animals running free. Alone in this environment, we have a man and his dog. Will Smith, as Robert Neville, fills his day hunting, searching for other survivors, and striving for a cure for the disease that has left all but him either dead or changed. At night, he seals himself away against the roaming vampires (though they are never called that). Like Hanks, we are caught up in his spell of likeability and charm, the relatable everyman.

“God didn’t do this. We did.” –Robert

The movie is steeped in spiritual overtones and imagery, ever interesting considered the amount of science fiction in this horror work. Once again, we are presented with the consequences of the over reach of man tampering with the natural order of things, the same the same hubris presented in stories from the biblical, the Tower of Babel, to the classic Frankenstein. In this case, KV, the virus originally reprogrammed as a cure for cancer, instead spreads a different sort of infection. Survivors of it develop red eyes, reduced pigmentation, heightened aggression, and a sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation (sunlight). In other words, they become vampires in place of the zombies from 28 Days/Weeks Later. Military scientist, Robert Neville, proves to be immune from the effects of the virus and remains behind to try to find a cure.

“Everything just fell apart.” –Robert

KV dehumanizes humanity, reducing them to vampire-like “dark seekers”. It is a contagion of social de-evolution. Spread from person to person until all have been affected. It is the condition that everyone finds themselves in, no longer what they were meant to be, no longer living how they were created to live, and no longer capable of communing with one another, much less anything else, they way they were meant to.

Though still outwardly human, they have lost the essence of their true humanity. They suffer from a profound loneliness, this loss of existential connection, that even Robert is are driven slowly mad just wanting so bad to hear someone just say “hello.” He tries to forge the semblance of connection with his dog (Sam) and even mannequin (Fred) [which again, was reminiscent of Tom Hanks losing his ball in Castaway or how attached we all got to the mouse in that other Hanks vehicle, The Green Mile]. Routine and discipline anchor him to sanity, living in hope of finding other survivors as well as a cure.

“If we listen, we can hear God’s plan.” –Anna (Alice Braga)

Despite the tragedy, the loss, the death, the destruction, and the seeming unfairness of life, God still has a plan and His Spirit still moves among people for a reason. Posters in the background of the movie continue to remind us that “God still loves us”.

“I can still fix this ... I can save everybody. Will you let me save you?” –Robert

Robert tells the story of Bob Marley’s theory on curing racism by “injecting music and love into people’s lives … the people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. Why should i?” That’s the core message of the movie, that one man can make a difference, can provide hope for a new way of living, through blood and sacrifice to defend the cure. Through sacrificial love, by injecting love to light up the darkness, life can be lived in light of hope, be it a new colony or a new earth, a quieter earth, with the chance to do things right as a legacy to that sacrifice of love. Robert Neville is a Messianic figure that passes into legend.

Will Smith carries the movie through its long silences and terrifying sequences, displaying quite the range of emotions, especially in the scenes with him and his dog. Thankfully they put away the shaky camera pretty early on. While the desolation of New York after the devastation continue to haunt and the dark seekers terrify, it is the character driven nature (as Robert wrestles with both his faith and loneliness) and thoughtfulness of the plot that bring this movie home.


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Hitman – A Review

Based on the eponymous video game, I had high hopes for Hitman. This is the season of the ponderous Oscar bait, but just because it’s fall doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a good popcorn movie. However, it’s a bad omen for a movie when the opening scenes seem to feature stock footage from the long-canceled television show, Dark Angel.

The back story, such as it is, revolves around a group known as “The Organization”, so secret that no one knows it exists (except just about everyone in this movie). They train killers and have contacts with every government. Why? Okay, essentially this is a “just cause” movie: stuff happens … just cause. Anyway, our hero, professional assassin (of course he’s the best there is) Agent 47 (Timothy Olyphant) kills his target except that his target gives a press conference later that same day. He’s pursued by an earnest Inspector of Interpol, Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott) and rescues a prostitute who he needs for some reason, Nika Boronina (Olga Kurylenko). Then there’s a whole lot of other stuff thrown in to make us think we’re watching a coherent production.

I guess I should have just boiled down the plot summary like this: Lots of largely unnecessary exposition to give the illusion of an actual story line punctuated by a brief action sequence to make sure you’re still paying attention. Repeat for an hour and a half.

Not enough intrigue in the movie. A sprawling cast of players does not equal intrigue. It actually only means there is a confusing storyline (confusing, as opposed to complex). No one has anything approaching a motivation other than the inspector. There’s not even an exploration of the mythology of the Organization. "Just cause" carries the day. Thanks to the murky photography and pedestrian direction (featuring a lot of back-of-the-head shots to evoke the video game experience), the lulls between action scenes lacked suspense and bogged the movie down further. A guy taking a bullet does not equal action. And just because the filmmakers know their demographic is mostly young men, one can’t simply throw in a young woman—whose outfits are so short they make Ally McBeal blush—who has no chemistry with the lead. Even for the sake of gratuitous nudity, because random nakedness does not equal sexy.

My biggest gripe with Hitman was the ho-hum factor . That’s not a sly reference to Nika, but rather just how boring this action movie was. Keep in mind, earlier this summer featured The Bourne Ultimatum, so we’ve seen this schtick done before and better. Action movies need to have a certain over-the-top quality to them. A sheer ridiculous, defy-the-laws-of-physics factor that causes guys to shout out loud or high five each other from their seats or otherwise be so intense guys are rooted to the screen. The movie gives us one, ONE!, such moment with the squaring off of four hitmen in a sword duel.

“Are you a good man? … How does a good man decide when to kill?” –Agent 47

Like all of us, since we’re all heroes in our own story, Agent 47 sees himself as essentially a good man. What makes him good? We’re not really sure. He shows compassion to an innocent woman caught up in a situation she had little to do with. He never has sex with said victim. He was moved to show mercy on the inspector who had been trailing him. It’s not like he actually killed anybody, well, anybody who didn’t deserve it, well, anyone for whom the check didn’t clear. Agent 47 is trapped in the circumstances of his own choices and doesn’t even realize the prison he’s in. The most he strives for is escape from the immediate threat to his freedom, deciding to focus on the tree rather than the forest.

“Knowing how this ends, was it worth it?” –Inspector Whittier

Hitman raises mediocrity to hopeful box office heights, so the answer to that question is no. I give it two naps up, however, because that was the amount of times I was nudged awake during it.


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The Mist – A Review

To be honest, I approach movie adaptations of Stephen King’s work with a certain amount of trepidation. For every Misery, Stand by Me, or even 1408 there is a Sleepwalkers, Maximum Overdrive, or The Mangler. However, Frank Darabont, who has specialized in Stephen King prison movies (Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile), has proven that he understands Stephen King. And The Mist, based on the eponymous novella, is vintage Stephen King.

The Mist is an apocalyptic tale of an experiment gone awry and mysterious door being opened. After an electrical storm, a small town in Maine sets about to repair itself when this mist engulfs them, bringing with it all sorts of unimagined horrors and trapping several residents in a supermarket. As fear, desperation, and dwindling hope set in, the denizens face threats from within (as they begin to turn on each other) and without (with increasingly nasty attacks from the creatures in the mist).

The movie comes back to two ideas: fear of the unknown and the depravity of man.

“You guys don’t understand. Or you’re trying real hard not to.” –David Drayton (Thomas Jane)

Pitting rationalists, led by Brent Norton (Andre Braugher) against religious fanatics, led by Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), artist/voice of reason David Drayton has to find his own way. The mist represents mystery and how humanity confronts things they don’t understand. There is a degeneration as we wrestle with the unknown and come to the limits of our ability to control things. Be it a man made or natural disaster, we’re used to solving our problems and managing our situations. We’ve been blessed and cursed with a need to know and often our need for proof goes to war with our need for faith. As I wrote before:

You can have all the facts you want, you can debate facts, and, frankly, you ought to. Faith doesn’t mean the turning off of one’s brain: things should make sense and continual questioning is a valid exercise unto itself ... Sometimes faith means that we have to come to the conclusion that we don’t have many things figured out. That we have to learn to get comfortable with that and the idea of mystery (read: the great “I don’t know”). Some people need proof.

Although one character in the movie puts it more succinctly: “You can’t convince some people there’s a fire even when their hair is on fire.”

“Let me shine your light. Some can be saved, can’t they?” –Mother Carmody

We are told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Ultimately, horror is about the fear of death and horror is excited by the reality of evil. We fear for our lives and the lives of those we love. We live in fear of good being consumed by evil (and frankly, evil should be feared as we live with the consequences of evil all around us).

We often sense, if not experience, and existential terror, a gnawing emptiness that claws at our souls. A darkness, the deep, that threatens to suck the joy for all aspects of our lives, that can lead to a spiraling sourness to life that makes us want to crawl into bed and never get out.

As we approach our “end of self,” we may begin to hear (or spout) the “it ain’t my fault” refrain as we frantically point the finger of blame everywhere but at ourselves. Times of trying and testing can reveal an ugly side to our nature. I echo the sentiments of the character who answered the question “You don’t have much faith in humanity, do you?” with “None whatsoever.” In fact, the movie is bitterly pessimistic in what it has to say about the nature of mankind.

“I believe in God, too. I just don’t think he’s the blood thirsty asshole you make him out to be.” –biker

However, make no mistake, as the movie points out and criticizes, depraved acts can be cloaked in the name of religion. Religion, much like politics, has been and can be perverted to people’s own agenda and ends. People can go mad with fear, so that ideas such as expiation get twisted, to put things charitably. They can get “too Old Testament” a perspective on things, because if “you scare people bad enough, you can get them to do anything.” Leading them to get caught up in the idea of trying to earn their salvation … by any means necessary.

There probably should be a sense of “terror” or awe of seeking a relationship with something larger than we can conceive of with our finite minds, something beyond our measure and control. Which is why the notion of working out our salvation in fear and trembling can be such a messy proposition.

On a final note—and I’m going to make this as spoiler free as possible—the thing about horror movies and novels is not so much that you want a happy ending, but after investing in characters you care about (and few people can create characters like Stephen King) for any length of time, you want some semblance of hope. Though sometimes unrelentingly bleak endings are called for, but only when they are true to the story. So you will leave feeling it needlessly cruel, a big flipping off of the audience; or with the feeling of a slap to the face, but the good kind of pain.

The parting thought I had after seeing this nihilist movie is that there has to be more to this life than this, more than the depravity of man when left to our own plans and devices. Or else if I’m wrong, to quote Brent Norton, the joke really is on me.

Mutant insects, Lovecraft-inspired dinosaurs, unhinged religious fanatics, and people simply fearing for their lives, The Mist has plenty of villains to choose from. Buoyed by humor, despite its fatalistic explorations of humanity under siege, the movie’s roller coaster antics propel, if not always sustain, it. There are plenty of yell-at-the-screen moments, plenty of gross out moments, and plenty of genuine scares, even the though the movie veers into heavy-handed territory with some of its ponderous dialogue.


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Beowulf – A Review

“Fallen Hero”
For many people, reading Beowulf marked when poetry, much less English class in general, became interesting. Adapted and reimagined by Neil Gaiman (comic book scribe of Sandman and The Eternals, much less fantasy novels such as American Gods) and Roger Avery (co-scripter of Pulp Fiction), Beowulf comes to us via "performance capture," the Robert Zemeckis technique he developed for his 2004 movie, Polar Express. The lush animation serves this story well, for Beowulf is set in a time of night monsters and demons.

Until the demon known as Grendel (Crispin Glover) came to spoil their party, King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) ruled alongside his much younger wife, Wealthow (Robin Wright-Penn) over a community of fun loving Danes. In a nude fight scenes awkwardly reminiscent of Borat (or juvenile jokes out of Austin Powers), our hero, the heroic Geatsman, Beowolf (Ray Winstone) severs the arm of Grendel. In the name of greater glory, he—backed by his right-hand man, Wiglaf (Brendan Gleeson)—is sent on a mission to dispatch Grendel’s mother. Unfortunately, Grendel’s mother is a nude Angelina Jolie who emerges from the water of an underground cavern, with water pouring off her like golden milk chocolate (what we’re going to call “the money shot” - and yes, the movie managed to rate a PG-13).

“Nothing is as good as it should have been.” –Beowulf

In this tale of the hero who would be king, Beowulf—with his weakness for monster chicks—is tempted by lust and power; he succumbs to his desire to be the greatest king by “bowing” to Grendel’s mother. Beowulf knew what he was born to be, a hero, yet his pride got in the way. Time and time again he boasted of his conquests, told tales of his derring-do, all to make himself a hero through his own efforts before taking his rightful place as king.

“The demon is my husband’s shame.” –Queen Wealthow

Beowulf was a fallible and flawed man cursed because he believed the lies from her lips “full of fine promises”. Because she was never truly vanquished, The Temptress remained with them. He paid the price of eating the fruit of the dragon by having to deal with the consequences of his sin—the “something you left behind” or “the sins of the fathers”—which continued to have repercussions on him and those around him.

“What we need is a hero.” –King Hrothgar

After such a fall, there is the need for redemption and Beowolf attempts his self-salvation scheme. It takes him the course of the movie, and many years, to realize that it takes self-sacrifice to be a real hero. (Though the movie seems to hint that the old ways of the hero, the ways of Odin, were on the verge of making way for newer definitions of the hero, the ways of the Christ-god; going so far as to whisper the need for people to “accept him as the one and only God.”)

We have to wonder if this is a glimpse of film-making to come, this merger of film and video games (though far from the Final Fantasy days). Luckily, we’re still far away from computers capturing the subtleties of human expression, unless we’re more dead-eyed than I give us credit for being. Well, maybe not that far away, but it’s not here yet. We’re left with creepy looking animation, rather apropos here, that brought to mind the image of this being 300: the animated series. Beowulf has fewer battle scenes, than one might expect, but also reaches for deeper themes than the storyline allows for. For all of the technological mastery, the movie lacks a certain spark of vitality, although, maybe I should have watched the 3-D version.


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American Gangster – A Review

"A Dream Spoiled"

If you’ve ever watched the HBO show, The Wire, you have experienced some of the finest that television has to offer. With its well-written cast of characters, the show breaks down the economics of the drug trade, the lives that the drug trade impacts, and why it is so hard to win this war on drugs. However, it’s not like this war on drugs was declared this decade. No, this is a war that has been waged for decades with one of its rises being in the 1970s. This is the territory that American Gangster covers.

On the flip side of the morally ambiguous world of police and crime for which he won an Oscar with Training Day, Denzel Washington portrays Frank Lucas. At once debonair and affable then ruthless and brutal, Lucas inherits the Harlem crime empire from his boss/mentor, Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams III). Taking the American Dream by the throat, he corners the drug market by cutting out all of the middle men then selling a product (heroin) that was twice as good for half the price.

This puts him in the crosshairs of police detective, Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) who pursues Lucas at the expense of his family. The script, adapted from a New York magazine piece by Mark Jacobson, was by Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List and All the King's Men). The way the story is structured, there isn’t much of a reunion between the star of Virtuosity, presumably to heighten and contrast the similarities between the two characters.

“You think you’re going to heaven because you’re honest.” –Laurie Roberts (Carla Gugino)

When you can’t tell the crooks from the cops you’re going to have a problem. In “the game”, there isn’t much that passes of a code of ethics. Any semblance of an elevated sense of morality is done to the denigration of everything else, as good values become twisted and misapplied. Frank Lucas becomes a folk hero, a Robin Hood of Harlem, as he embraces honesty, integrity, hard work, and family. He employs/takes care of family, takes his mother (played by Ruby Dee) to church every Sunday, keeps a low profile, turns out a quality product, and even passes out turkeys at Thanksgiving. Richie earns the scorn of his brother officers by finding nearly a million dollars and turning it in rather than sharing the dirty proceeds.

“You are what you are in this world, that’s either one of two things: either you’re somebody or you’re nobody.” –Frank

Frank takes on the level of myth, with not-always-subtle racism providing his cloak, as stripping the drug trade from the Mafia couldn’t possibly be done by a black man. Frank had money, power, beautiful wife, all the trappings of success, yet he ultimately failed in his responsibility as the older brother. Instead of looking out for them, his example corrupted and destroyed them. He failed the example of Jesus’ words when he said "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:49-50)

“I don’t think they want this to stop. It employs too many people.” –Ritchie

The reality is that the drug trade represents too much money, an economy fueled by the misery and degradation of others. The so-called war on drugs, despite the sincerity and best intentions of its architects, is fought with too few honest people. At the street level, it is waged on people who have little hope in the American Dream, disenfranchised from the system. At its highest reaches, too much money lines the pockets of that very same structure.

Drugs are a systematic corruption. They represent an enemy within, a temptation of our inner weakness, as well as an enemy without, with the consequences of those choices. The ripple effects of an individual’s choice to do drugs damages a lot of lives. Organizations formed to fight the effects of that corruption, though made up of flawed people, have to be about their mission or else they need to be the first cleansed (the corruption rooted out).

Any time the movie veers from Frank Lucas doing business or Richie Roberts dogged pursuit of him (such as the scenes between Roberts and his wife), the movie loses some steam. An engrossing story with two actors at the height of their gifts: Denzel with his charismatic charm and Crowe with his sloppy hang-dog jovialness. Which leaves only two real complaints: one, it was too bad the leads shared so little screen time actually together; two, it was too bad the rest of the talented cast wasn’t given more to do besides service the story.


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Lee Strobel’s the Case for Christ – A Commentary

Not too long ago, Anne Rice, horror author of Interview with a Vampire, released a book entitled Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, a novel about Jesus' life at age 7. During the course of her research, the one-time Catholic turned atheist, her spiritual journey took a different twist. After compulsive study, the historicity of Christ’s resurrection became hard to deny. She then found herself re-connecting with her faith.

Her story parallels the journey of journalist-turned-author-turned-evangelist Lee Strobel as his best-selling book The Case for Christ has been made into a DVD. Strobel, too, was a one-time committed atheist, set out to investigate the claims and history of Jesus Christ and during the course of his journey converted to Christianity. He brought to bear his journalistic tools and investigated the claims of the Christian faith.

The Case for Christ is a documentary that would have made a good story. It’s almost like the faith it dissects: facts vs. the conveyance of those facts (though it would be hard to imagine a movie of this that didn’t have a lot of exposition, but that’s neither here nor there). As a part of his investigation, he sought out the experts and weighed their opinions. He examined the eye witness testimony, the nature of oral tradition, the corroboration outside of the original copies/documentation, and the historical Jesus, including his claims to be God as well as his miracles.

The Case for Christ has too much of a talking heads structure to it, broken up only by dramatic shots of Lee Strobel continuously crossing the street. It’s the kind of thing you’d watch as the intro to a book study. That being said, it brings up a lot of good things to consider.

Skepticism wormed its way into the fabric of our culture, including church so the idea of a logical and rational “case” leading to faith doesn’t surprise me. The beautiful thing about faith is that we’re continually trying to figure things out. You can have all the facts you want, you can debate facts, and, frankly, you ought to. Faith doesn’t mean the turning off of one’s brain: things should make sense and continual questioning is a valid exercise unto itself.

It’s like having faith isn’t enough. It has to be reasoned, defended logically, with everything dissected, taken apart and put back together in some sort of systematic structure. Faith imbues facts with meaning, or, better said, it’s hard to get to the truth of the Christian faith through objectivity. Sometimes faith means that we have to come to the conclusion that we don’t have many things figured out. That we have to learn to get comfortable with that and the idea of mystery (read: the great “I don’t know”). Some people need proof, although miracles in the age of David Blaine and CGI is not going to impress me.

The film is also an introduction to apologetics (the pragmatic defense of Christianity), useful to folks just learning to articulate a cohesive defense of their faith. (I’ve never been one for defending “the faith”: if “the faith” needs me to defend it, we’re all in a lot of trouble. Plus, I’m more of an experiential guy at this point in my walk, not so much about documentation). My apologetics are pretty basic. The apologetics of man: using women as witnesses in an age where they had next to zero credibility, having a conspiracy where no one talks/leaks, people dying for what they know to be a lie, the growth of Christianity in face of adversity. I believe people to be, well, people, and this goes against my experience of how people operate. The apologetics of transformation: I need to see a change, the fruit of evidence in the lives of those impacted by it. This would still be along my experiential model in that I need to see truth lived out because truth has a personal and social dimension to it. In this same vein, the Church is seen as a treatment center, giving a kind of “chemo” against an insidious cancer that afflicts us all.

I also appreciate an apologetics of love:

The irony of Christian love is that it is characterized by self-donation; it gives itself up to find itself. A love-centered rationality will have as its character an appropriate humility, a personal and social situatedness that takes human embodiment seriously (i.e., it is not a disembodied rationality) within an over-arching Gospel narrative and, above all, is characterized by an interest in the welfare and perspective of others.

And there is room for the kind of apologetics along the lines of The Case for Christ. In this modern age of rationality and scientific methods, it is no surprise people of faith want to take up the same tools to defend themselves, especially after being demeaned as unthinking people. For people going through a doubting phase, this sort of approach tends to help them.

The bottom line is that when it comes to our spiritual journeys, we need to investigate for ourselves. Have an open mind and go where the evidence takes you. There’s no such thing as a cookie cutter faith: each journey looks different and we ought to give each other the freedom to explore as we need to. You may not find the answer to every question or know who was right on every issue; that’s not the point. It’s the journey that counts. Love and do your best and trust that God will help you work out the rest.


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30 Days of Night – A Review

“28 Vampires Later”

Good vampire flicks can still be made. I’m not necessarily looking for Citizen Kane, I don’t even need brooding romantic figures (please, spare me anymore emo vamps). I’m talking something dark, brutal, and efficient, a la Near Dark. I’m not even a gorehound, but I know what I want from certain movies.

Based on the eponymous comic book by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, 30 Days of Night follows a set of vampires who besiege the small, isolated town of Barrow, Alaska, during the month of no sun. The constantly shrieking bunch of vampires is commanded by Marlow (Danny Huston), in full pasty Euro-trash mode as they launch into a full-scale slaughter of the town. The Gary Cooper-esque sheriff, Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett ), leads the surviving, though equally pasty, townsfolk.

A lot of the blunt, visceral action is reminiscent of 28 Days Later (even the look of the blood-drenched vamps with their maws of incisors are more zombie-like). The similarities are made moreso by the jittery camera work that conveys the frenetic speed, strength and thirstiness of the violent night wraiths. The vivid images flash by so that you can’t take in the entirety of the horror, all done to a jarring, amelodic soundtrack.

“Folks have a hard enough time in the dark.” –Lucy Ikos (Elizabeth Hawthorne)

30 Days of Night boils down to being a tale of survival during an undead apocalypse. It seems like all of the forces of creation are lined up against the surviving batch of humanity. First from the vampires themselves, this outside evil—the supernatural other of powers and principalities. As Marlow relaties, it took them centuries to make people believe they were little more than bad dreams and the reality of them would be too great and cause people to actively fight against them. Second, Nature itself. The night and the cold, though perfectly inherent to the system, now seem allied against them. Thirdly, they have to wrestle with themselves. Their very natures, including their weakness, from cowardice to selfishness, provide constant obstacles for them. And yet, through all of this, they fight to keep their humanity or, more specifically, what makes them human.

“That cold ain’t the weather. That’s Death approaching.” – The Stranger (Ben Foster)

Preceding the arrival of the vampires is their brown-toothed forerunner, a John the Baptist-type preparing the way for them by helping to further isolate the town. All of his actions are in the hope of the reward of eternal life through the power of blood promised to him and we all learn the lesson of being careful who you put your faith in.

“There is no escape. No hope. Only pain and death.” –Marlow

What was attempted, with mixed result, was presenting the idea of vampires as the ultimate nihilists. For them, the world, especially the bulk of human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. And that neither God nor a "true morality" exists, leaving Marlow to proselytize “God? No God” when a woman cries out for divine intervention. As such, they leave a bloody wake as they merrily trip through life seeking to sate their pleasures. So what the movie truly seems to be about is the idea of unchecked freedom.

Barrow represents a smorgasbord for the blood-dining crown. They can roam about at will, eat from a buffet line of trailer homes, and basically give into their gluttony and excess. Their lives are reduced to wild, wanton wastes of wants and needs, being driven solely by desires, much like children without any parental supervision.

“When a man meets a force he can’t destroy, he destroys himself instead.” –Marlow

Self-control and restraint are the sphere of adults. Lust burns hot until it burns through and burns out. There’s a reason people live by laws, not so much to restrain freedom but to serve as guard rails. A guard rail won’t keep you from going over the edge, but it provides a line to help people stay on the best side for them and help them not abuse the gift of their freedom.

“I just couldn’t stand being on my own.” –Billy Kitka (Manu Bennett)

Lastly, the movie is about the nature of community and love. It is a story of continual self-sacrifice, of one man laying down his life for his brother, continuous acts of love staving off the darkness for another day. Each action serves to remind folks that they are still connected. The epitome of such sacrifice arrives when Eben takes on the burden of blood, taking the evil onto him, bearing the brunt of it, sacrificing himself to defeat evil. The ultimate salvation in the sun’s light; until then, we just reflect it as best we can.

30 Days of Night suffers mostly from its episodic feel (the slow stretches as we wait for the next batch of townfolks to end up as snackables) and the unrelenting bleakness of the story. We don’t care about any of the characters, not even the supposed romantic tension between the sheriff and his estranged-but-conveniently-stranded wife, Stella (Melissa George). Despite the arterial sprays (not having seen this much since the first Kill Bill), the movie actually fails to mine the true horror, as no one wrestles with the moral dilemmas of their actions or doing what they have to do to survive. In other words, while there is plenty of vampire romp, there’s not enough of a human element to draw us in.


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Wrong Turn 2 – A Review

I know what you’re thinking: just how many unanswered questions could there possibly have been from the first Wrong Turn? I know, I know. Wrong Turn 2 continues the movie franchise which is the latest incarnation of the slasher film sub-genre of horror movie. Franchises like Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and, more importantly, their derivative knock offs are the kinds of empty story-telling people think of when they think of horror. They are relatively inexpensive to make, thus easy to make their money back, and there is an audience who gets off on such cheap thrills.

The premise, such as it is, approaches something clever: a group of reality game show contestants compete in the woods to see who will be the "survivor" of an imagined apocalypse. Then they are hunted one by one by a family of inbred hillbilly cannibals. So, obviously this is a Merchant Ivory production released just in time for Oscar consideration.

"It’s funny, cause you never know when your life’s gonna change." –Jake (Texas Battle)

The movie works by the kind of rules deconstructed in the Scream movie franchise (You may not survive the movie if you have sex. You may not survive the movie if you drink or do drugs. You may not survive the movie if you say "I'll be right back." You may not survive the movie if you ask "Who's there?" You shouldn't go out to investigate a strange noise if you wish to survive.). We’re given clichés as characters: the soldier babe (lesbian, of course), the male chauvinist jerk, the athlete, the Hollywood diva, the Girl Next Door.

Thus half the time the movie comes across like some sort of crazed Old Testament-styled punisher of sins—sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, unfaithfulness, making gods of themselves—with the cannibal family being instruments of God’s wrath. (The movie even carries its own social message: take care of our environment because poisoning it has its consequences. Granted, among such unintended consequences could be more of these movies, so for the love of God, PLEASE RECYCLE!!!)

"I’m thrilled that I actually get to live another day." –Mara (Aleksa Palladino)

At its core, horror is about fear, an attempt to get a cathartic release from dealing with what scares us - be it the unknown or ultimately, our fear of death. Life is unpredictable, out of our control, and death possibly lurks around every corner, bush, or wrong turn. While the premise of the game (the game being a metaphor for life—if we want to speak of this movie in terms of ideas like "metaphor") is about survival of the fittest, the lesson driven home is that no one can go through life on their own. Surviving on your own, in isolation, eventually leads to one’s deformity, as illustrated by the hillbilly cannibals. Yes, I’ve just used the phrase "hillbilly cannibals" as a metaphor of the destruction brought about by believing the lie of hyper-individualism. My job here is done.

Alright, you know what you are getting into when you decide to go see a Wrong Turn 2. It’s slasher flick by numbers. No surprises, not even in the creativity of the impalements that passes for its plot. You get what you rented it for: forgettable thrills.

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Two Weeks – A Review

For my dad’s 50th birthday, my sister and I did a videotape interview of him. We wanted to capture what he was like, his story, any words of wisdom, and just preserve a general sense of the man who raised us so that he could leave a legacy for his grandkids. Because we never know how much time we have left on this earth, to be with our love ones, and we never want to take that time for granted.

In the same vein, Two Weeks follows what happens when a group of siblings come together to watch their mother, Anita Bergman (Sally Fields) die from ovarian cancer over the aforementioned time span. The various family tensions that bubble up, the sibling rivalries, the dealing with impending grief, and pulling together as a family. Though I loathe the term “dramedy”, that is what the movie aims to be, though it has too little of the comedy and the drama is done with the subtlety of an intense afterschool special.

“You can’t problem solve your way out of this one.” –Anita

The dying process (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) is an individual matter. Terminal illness completely takes over daily living and normality seems to cease. Months of agonized waiting, treatments, and resignation tinged with anger (at the body’s betrayal, at having to depend on others, at being a burden). Feelings of fear (of loneliness, of the unknown) and anticipatory grief over loss (of friends, self-control, identity) mix, and contradict, with feelings of hope, determination, and acceptance.

They face the loss of integrity as an individual, which in one of the most painful forms of suffering we experience. This loss of dignity leads to feeling isolated and lonely as the disease progresses. This is the reality of dying. That very reality, the realization of our brief time on t this earth should lead to some weighty reflection.

“Mom’s dying. That’s what religion is for.” –Emily (Julianne Nicholson)

The tone of Anita and her family's lives changed as they realized how precious their time together was. Petty bickering and even the internal familial stress of caring for the dying are put aside as well as put into perspective as the whole family has to struggle to come to terms with the painful reality of saying goodbye.

Death is the one enemy that can’t be beaten and can’t be thwarted, at least not by running from it or trying to out-maneuver it. Dying reflects our ultimate lack of control. Yet even in the embers of life, we find meaning in the support system we have built with our life, the relationships we have forged. Like how family and friendship are beautiful forms of love, providing genuine opportunities for our need for intimacy to be met and serve as a protection against isolation and loneliness.

“There’s an instruction manual … it’s too bad no one ever comes back and tells these guys if they got it right.” –Keith (Ben Chaplin)

Death may be our ultimate destination, the great nothing that awaits us all, however, it isn’t the end. A verse in the book of Isaiah (25:8) tells us that “He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken.” If nothing else, we know that we were created as relational beings and that we live in the context of family. And with them we have and leave a legacy of love.

It must be that time of year for downer personal movies. Like Self-Medicated grew out of the personal experience of its writer/director, in this case, Steve Stockman. For such a universally relatable topic, the movie falls rather flat. There are a couple of clever bits—the playing cards for left over meds, the redefining of the phrase “blow me”—none of which manages to save the movie. Sadly, the movie lacked a spark, any intense performance this type of movie is especially suited for, without which it seemed interminable. Instead of grief, we’re left with indifference. Two Weeks felt so much like true life random family moments, your time would be just as well spent calling together a family dinner. And enjoying what time you have left with them.


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Self-Medicated – A Review

“For the Want of a Father’s Love”

Movies about addiction, from Requiem for a Dream to Trainspotting, pretty much demand an intense and intriguing main character in order to carry us through the inevitable harrowing battle against addiction. Self-Medicated follows that same model in the form of out-of-control teenager, Andrew Eriksen (played by 24 year old Monty Lapica, a triple threat as first-time star, writer, and director and inspired by his true story).

Caught up in a spiral of depression and self-destruction because he mourns the loss of his father, Andrew has passed out of his mother’s, Louise (Diane Venora), ability to handle his increasingly erratic behavior. So much so that he ends up in an intervention nightmare that ends with him in a hospital-cum-detention center, with the threat of being deposited in Samoa if he doesn’t get his mind right.

“I think that this life is hell. Not hell as in it sucks, but hell for real.” –Trevor (Noah Segan)

Andrew is guilty of what many of us are guilty of: a know-it-all arrogance replete with a complete trust in ourselves. Such reliance on self has its weaknesses, like solely depending on yourself to get out of trouble. Turning to pot, alcohol, or even prescription pills, we self-medicate as an ersatz self-salvation scheme, not realizing that we’re junkies of different stripes.

We so desperately want to find a way to stop the hurting, we don’t mind the trade-off of our dulled dreams and our lives being reduced to the escape. I’m reminded of this quote from C.S. Lewis (from Weight of Glory): Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Why do we so often have to hit rock bottom before we have our end of self moments? Those times when we look in the mirror and realize that we aren’t where we were meant to be, not doing what we were meant to do, not living how we were meant to live. In short, when we realize that we aren’t the people we were meant to be - and we try and figure out why.

“If you think drugs are gonna make things go away, you’ve got another thing coming, buddy. That’s like shooting cortisone into a blown rotator, right? I mean, sure the pain’s gonna go away for a little while, but the injury’s still there and sooner or later those drugs? They’re not going to work anymore.” –Keith (Greg Germann)

One of the steps the program Alcoholics Anonymous asks its participants to take is to try to get in touch with his or her "higher power," whatever that may be, in order to help overcome the powerless feelings that many alcoholics experience in relation to drinking. There is no definition of that higher power, but it is a way for them to get outside of themselves. Which is why Andrew’s mom says “You have the ability, with God’s help, to turn your life around.”

Andrew continues his search of his father’s love, like we all do: looking for one who would watch out for us, send ministering spirits to us, love us even when times seem at their darkest (grieving alongside us in the silence), and above all, never leave us. Putting the magic in magical Negro is the timely arrival of homeless man, Gabe (William Stanford Davis). I’m sure him sharing the name of the Biblical angel Gabriel is strictly coincidental:

Gabe: It ain’t easy. It’s true.
Andrew: Yeah, why is that, man? I mean, for some people, why does everything have to be so unfair?
Gabe: Good question. Afraid God’s the only one who can answer that one.
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t know about all that. I used to believe all that. I just don’t see how, if there was a God, how could he let so much …
Gabe: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. And he will direct your path.

There is a hole in us that misses our spiritual father. We have this sense of lost-ness, an incompleteness, a vague confusion and longing, what Augustine called the God-sized hole within each of us. We try to fill with all manner of distraction, from the pursuit of materialism and the trappings of success to family and relationships. Yet the terror, the ache in our soul, remains. As relational beings, we are hard-wired for intimacy; we seek that communion, that connection with Him as well as with others.

Gabe: You and your daddy were pretty close, weren’t you? … One day you’re gonna be with your daddy.

Self-Medicated--despite it being full of first-timer mistakes and its after school special verve--engages. Perhaps it is the sheer force of will passion of Lapica’s performance, story, and direction, but the movie runs on the momentum of its need to be told. Has a raw, desperate intensity that, much like the kinds of questions it asks, has no real solutions. Only the promise of journey.

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Balls of Fury - A Review

You don’t go into a Balls of Fury looking for something the Academy Awards may have accidently overlooked. You go to have a good time. You go to laugh at the stupid. Save the talk of lowbrow humor, you cultural elitists. We want sight gags. We want the ridiculous. We want something at least approaching wit. We want a movie we can watch on a guy’s night out.

Balls of Fury had none of these things.

I really wanted to like this movie, but it movie was stunningly laughless. The short version of this review goes like this: at best, you saw the best jokes in the trailer, and the other hour and twenty five minutes are filler. Yes, yes, I know most folks took one look at the trailer and thought “that looks stupid” and passed, but every now and then, we hold out for the possibility of witnessing the next Police Academy or Caddyshack.

“Remember, you suck when you’re nervous.” -Master Wong

Balls of Fury was obviously nervous, however, much about the movie sounds funny as a concept. Dan Fogler plays Randy Daytona, former ping pong child prodigy, who after a spectacular collapse in the 1988 Olympics is reduced to ping pong parlor tricks. He is recruited by the FBI (in the person of George Lopez who seems determined to follow what I’m calling the Bobcat Goldthwait movie career track) to enter the shadowy world of underground ping pong.



Since Daytona has lost his mojo, he is taken to Master Wong (James Hong) a blind instructor (excuse my nerd moment: think the mentor known as Stick to the super-hero Daredevil). After defeating a name opponent, he is finally invited to the big tournament hosted by evil mastermind, Feng, Christopher Walken dressed like a cross between Ming the Merciless and a drunken geisha wardrobed by Elton John. Christopher Walken deserves a better (read: funny) vehicle or at least given a random dance scene. His caricature of his own acting ticks and cadence amounts to about the only engaging thing about the movie, but that might simply be because he brings his own sense of cool to any role. However, that’s not enough to save this film.

“Believe in yourself when no one else does.” -Master Wong

Since I’m forced to have to think through this dreck, the best spiritual connection I can come up with is the idea that Randy Daytona failed to live up to his destiny, his calling, and whether he realized it or not, was in need of redemption. He, like all of us, had been gifted but he squandered his talents and was left filled with self-doubt. This sense of lost-ness or incompleteness hints of there being some greater story and purpose about life that we might be missing.

Our journey begins by appreciating who we are and our own gifts. As Eikons of God, created in His image to relate to Him and to others, we were created for a purpose. So Daytona turns to a Master-Teacher to learn how to use and hone his gifts so that he might be a blessing to the world rather than use them for his own meager self-interests.

“It would be an honor for me to give you my life.” –Maggie (Maggie Q)

We can't escape the power of learning in community. We've lost the idea of journeying with our teachers, that teaching and knowing have a relational component. The master-student relationship is an important one when it comes to the idea of "making disciples". In a lot of ways, people have gotten away from what the picture of making a disciple looked like. It called for a teacher to walk alongside their disciples, live life with them. The master/teacher embodies, incarnates if you will, the teachings and faith is lived out in the context of a community.

The goal of the student is to become as much like the teacher as possible; it’s how disciples are made. Discipleship would involve a changed in three areas: belief (as we turn to our Master-Teacher), behavior (as our lives become slowly transformed, centering our lives around living out what we’ve learned; putting action to our faith and knowledge), and belonging (we join a specific community of learning).

Written by Reno 911's Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant (with Garant doubling with director duties) the film mixes up kung-fu movies, those inspirational “you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all” sports dramas, and ‘80s nostalgia, thus having plenty of targets to take aim at. Yet the movie doesn’t seem to rise above crotch shots, blind jokes, and an “Asians are funny” level of humor. The overall idea was funny, but the movie was poorly executed. This is the sum of every bad movie I stayed up late watching on Cinemax as a teenager. Balls of Fury is a broad, over-the-top brand of comedy that still manages to miss its mark. I’m only sorry I couldn’t warn you sooner.


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