Review: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

* * *
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, Penelope Cruz, Josh Gad

Murder on the Orient Express is a delightfully old fashioned movie. This isn't just because it's based on a novel from 1934, but because it feels like a throwback to the era when studios would throw all their top flight contract players into an elegantly rendered, dialogue-heavy production, and because it is filmed in a very classic style and fashion. I've never seen the other adaptations of the novel, so I have no opinion on how this one stacks up against them, but I can say that I enjoyed this one immensely. It's an easy movie to enjoy - filled with stars, turning on a plot that's luridly engaging without being too complex, and it looks great - and it's a pleasure to watch a high profile movie that doesn't feel like it's aimed at appealing to men aged 14 to 25 first and everyone else well afterwards.

Netflix Recommends... Transcendence (2014)

* *
Director: Wally Pfister
Starring: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Morgan Freeman

We can do anything now that scientists have invented magic. But, oh, this is not cause for celebration, for the future brings nothing but despair according to Transcendence, a film pitched not merely at the level of panic, but at sheer hysteria in its nightmare vision about the slippery slope of technology. Once we create a self-aware AI, there's nothing it won't be able to do! We'll have to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater just to stop it! All that will be left is destruction, darkness, and a backwards leap into a pre-technological age. Transcendence has an interesting premise, which is perhaps to be expected from a film whose screenplay once appeared on Hollywood's famed Black List, the annual roster of the best unproduced screenplays in any given year (though given that this year's critically reviled Dirty Grandpa also once appeared on the Black List, as did such beloved classics as The Other Boleyn Girl, Wild Hogs, All About Steve, Clash of the Titans, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, it's perhaps not the prestigious list it sells itself as being), but it doesn't do anything very interesting with it.

Review: Black Mass (2015)

* * 1/2
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton

Black Mass is one of the more curious films of 2015 in terms of its pop culture trajectory. When the trailer came out, people seemed to be abuzz and ready to declare that Johnny Depp was back, after years spent in the wilderness of schticky, make-up dependent characters, to being a serious, risk taking actor (never mind that this role also requires him to wear a lot of makeup, this is a serious role, after all, not a wacky one). Then the film came out and reviews were decent and there was some talk about an Oscar nomination for Depp, but no one seemed particularly excited about the film, and then it just sort of seemed to fade away. Having now seen Black Mass, I can sort of understand why. It's a fine movie, in the way that gangster movies living in the long shadow of Goodfellas can be fine, and Depp gives his best, most engaged performance in some time, but the film has a fatal flaw that keeps it from being anything more than so-so: it has tailored itself to fit the character played by the star instead of the character who is the story's true protagonist, and as a result struggles to tell a story.

Review: Corpse Bride (2005)

* * *Director: Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter

For a film about the living dead, The Corpse Bride is actually pretty sweet. The story of a meek groom and his two brides - one living, the other dead; neither of whom he becomes betrothed to by choice - told through stop-motion animation, the film is reminiscent of Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, but with a little less edge. Fortunately, it still has plenty of charm.

Review: Ed Wood (1994)

* * * 1/2
Director: Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau

It's sometimes hard to remember now, when their colaborations have become increasingly soulless and empty, but Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movies used to be as genuinely interesting and meaningful as they were stylistically odd. Ed Wood, a loving tribute to history's "worst filmmaker," is a movie about misfits, a visually interesting piece that doesn't sacrifice the story or the characters to that visual aspect. It's one of the best films in either Burton or Depp's filmographies, and still somehow seems special nearly 20 (!) years after it's initial release.

Review: Dark Shadows (2012)

* *
Director: Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter

Is there any more bizarrely specific subgenre of film than the Tim Burton fantasy story where Johnny Depp plays a pale weirdo? I should think not. Dark Shadows is their latest outing, a film which didn't really seem necessary when it was first announced and seems even less so now that it's been made. An adaptation of the soap opera from the 1960s/70s that ratchets up the camp factor to about 110, Dark Shadows is a funny movie, but one which never seems to have a sense of purpose.

Review: The Rum Diary (2011)

* *
Director: Bruce Robinson
Starring: Johnny Depp, Michael Rispoli, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, Giovanni Ribisi

The Rum Diary has the feeling of being a labour of love. Originally set to begin filming in 2000, the project ended up stuck in development hell until finally being filmed in early 2009 and then having its release delayed until now. The novel on which the film is based has a similar history, having been written by Hunter S. Thompson in 1961 but not being published until 1998. The film version plays like a love letter to Thompson, but one which unfortunately never reaches a level of cohesiveness that matches its affection.

Review: Rango (2011)

* * * 1/2
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp

Judging by the respective box office takes of Rango and Cowboys and Aliens, I'd say there was only room for one Western hybrid movie this year and apparently a cartoon chameleon > Indiana Jones and James Bond. Reteaming director Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp (who worked together on the first three Pirates movies), Rango is a smart, funny, and great looking film.

Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

* * *
Director: Rob Marshall
Starring: Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Geoffrey Rush, Ian McShane

My history with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is, admittedly, incomplete. I saw The Curse of the Black Pearl during its theatrical run and loved it. I saw Dead Man's Chest when it was out on DVD and remember almost nothing about it except that there was a sword fight that went on for, like, an hour. I never bothered to see At World's End. So what compelled me to see On Stranger Tides? I dunno. Seemed like the thing to do, I guess. Verdict: It was all right. I liked it but I don't feel terribly enthusiastic about it. Nice Judi Dench cameo, though.

Review: The Tourist (2010)

* * *
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Starring: Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie

This time of year inevitably brings a string of films that are the cinematic equivalent of a hearty feast. The Tourist is like the sugary desert - not as filling or as nourishing as anything else on the table, but tasty nevertheless. The reviews for this film have been terrible and, I have to admit, it's not a particularly good movie - but I liked it. Many of the plot turns don't make any effing sense but I still thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie.

The story begins in Paris, when Elise Clifton-Ward (Angelina Jolie), who is under surveillance by a Scotland Yard team led by Inspector Acheson (Paul Bettany), receives instructions from her ex-boyfriend, a fugitive named Alexander Peirs. He advises her to board a train to Venice, find a man with roughly his build, and make the authorities believe that that man really is him. The man she meets on the train is Frank (Johnny Depp), a math teacher from Wisconsin, who is enthralled enough to accept her invitation to stay with her at her hotel once they arrive in Venice. However, things quickly get out of hand when the henchman of gangster Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff), whose money Alexander stole, show up and try to kill Frank, thinking that he's Alexander.

What follows is a series of captures, escapes and chase scenes. The action sequences that ensue - particularly an extended boat chase - are very well-done. At a time when all action sequences seem to be CGI and quick cuts that leave you with only a blury impression of what's going on, it's nice to see a sequence unfold in such a way that you can actually tell what is going on, where characters are in relation to each other, and who is doing what. The events leading up to these set-pieces might be nonsensical, but the result is solid.

The Tourist has three credited screenwriters: director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Christopher McQuarrie, and Julian Fellowes. All three have proven themselves to be excellent writters in the past - von Donnersmarck with The Lives of Others, McQuarrie with The Usual Suspects, and Fellowes with Gosford Park - but this particular film doesn't boast a strong screenplay. The story does not stand up to any kind of scrutiny and the "twist" at the end really only makes sense if you ignore everything that came before it. The Tourist is a spiritual cousin to films like Charade and To Catch A Thief but it only emulates the glamour and superficial beauty of those films, not their intelligence or the soundness of their construction.

The story of The Tourist may only be a throw-away excuse to have Depp and Jolie running around on location, but it's still an enjoyable film. I much prefer Jolie in films like this where she's in "movie star" mode rather than "serious actress" mode and I can't remember the last time I saw a movie where Depp was just... some dude. It was kind of unsettling at first to see him free of ticks, eccentricities, and tons of makeup, but he delivers a good performance as an everyman caught up in something far beyond his control (which is part of the reason why the final twist rings false but whatever). So, in short, the combination of Depp, Jolie, and beautifully photographed locations is winning enough that I'm willing to forgive all the ways that the screenplay is lacking.

Review: Alice In Wonderland (2010)

* *
Director: Tim Burton
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway

Oh, man. I'd been looking forward to Alice In Wonderland for months and even after reading a few less than favourable reviews, I still held out hope. I was prepared to be a bit disappointed in Tim Burton's rendering of the classic story, but instead I find myself feeling apathetic. I've tried to start this review about a dozen times over the past couple of days but when I try to articulate my feelings about this movie all I can think is... *shrug*.

After a brief prologue in which we meet the young Alice, haunted by memories of Wonderland which she believes to be nothing more than dreams, the film flashes forward 13 years to the teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska), who is on the verge of being married off to a less than desirable (from her perspective) suitor. She flees from his proposal and, chasing after a rabbit, falls down a hole where she enters a strange new world. There she meets a wide variety of characters who are willing to acknowledge that she's an Alice but are convinced that she's not the Alice. Meanwhile, she's convinced that it's just a dream, despite all painful evidence to the contrary.

Alice's return is of interest to both the benevolent White Queen (Anne Hathaway), who needs her to slay the Jabberwocky, and the tantrum prone Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), who wants to cut off her head because cutting off heads is her favourite past time. When the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is taken prisoner by the Red Queen, Alice infiltrates the palace as Um from Umbradge in order to rescue him. While she fails at this, she does manage to get the vorpal sword, the only thing that can kill the Jabberwocky, and escape with it back to the White Queen's palace, setting the stage for the great and final battle between good and evil.

The film plays fast and loose with Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, taking elements from both stories without strictly adhering to either. The film also tries to incorporate a bit of feminism to guide its narrative arc, essentially making the story about how Alice learns to stand up for herself. This element both does and doesn't work. As nice as it is to see a film about a heroic female lead, particularly one that emphasizes the importance of her making her own choices rather than blindly following a script imposed on her by outside forces, Alice's moment of triumph at the film's end is somewhat lacking in impact because she holds a position of disadvantaged advantage in society. She's disadvantaged because she's a woman but her class and wealth make it possible for her to take a defiant stance that a woman of lesser means wouldn't be able to afford. The last scenes are less "score one for womankind" than "score one for rich women" - it's nice for Alice, but kind of empty in the greater scheme of things. Not that I expected Alice to be a political symbol, but if the film is going to play at rooting itself in certain politics, it should do so in a less shallow, more nuanced way. And I don't even want to get into the ideological implications of the war between the Red Queen and White Queen and the ways that that undercuts what the film is trying to do through Alice.

There are things about Alice In Wonderland that I liked - anything involving the Chesire Cat, Depp's melancholic Hatter, Tweedledee and Tweeldedum - but ultimately I found the film so unrelentingly dour that it was hard to enjoy. I didn't expect it to be happy and peppy (this is Tim Burton, after all) but I did think it would be a bit more, I don't know, magical. There seems to be no joy to this particular cinematic exercise which leaves the product rather hollow.

Review: Public Enemies (2009)

* * * 1/2
Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard

Public Enemies is a slick, high-energy crime movie from Michael Mann, a director who specializes in slick, high-energy crime movies. Though much blood is shed and countless bullets sprayed from one end of the film to the other, it manages to be more than just a shoot-em-up, cops and robbers story. The film plays with the romanticized myth of John Dillinger in particular and bank robbers in general, asking why it is that we continue to find people like him so fascinating and worthy of celebrating.

Johnny Depp stars as Dillinger, bank robber and folk hero. As portrayed by the film, Dillinger is an intelligent man, loyal to his friends, living one minute at a time. Though he has no qualms about killing people, the robberies he plans are designed so that they can be completed without civilian casualties, which is in stark contrast to the robberies carried out by Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham), who is characterized as being so trigger happy that bank jobs seem like little more than excuses to shoot people. Obligatory in a film like this is a moment when the dashing criminal informs a civilian to hold on to their cash because “I’m here for the bank’s money” – and Public Enemies doesn’t skip this beat. Though the film tries to be critical of the adulation expended by the public on people like Dillinger it, too, falls under his seductive spell. I would be surprised to learn that someone came out of this film on the side of the law, depicted here as largely incompetent and increasingly brutal.

Between jobs Dillinger gets involved with Billie (Marion Cotillard), a spunky coat check girl who is excited by the danger than surrounds him but worried about what the future may hold. Depp and Cotillard have nice chemistry and create a believable enough relationship, but the fact that a role like Billie in a film like this is thankless is inescapable. The girl’s job is to worry and comfort and encourage and occasionally to cover – she’s an extension of the male hero and exists solely to meet his needs at any given time. The exception to this rule is a character like Bonnie Parker from Bonnie and Clyde, who becomes a driving force in the narrative and plays a very active role in the story. Parts of Public Enemies is reminiscent of Arthur Penn’s crime movie masterpiece, in particular the scene of an ambush of Dillinger, Baby Face and the gang at a motor lodge that turns into a bloody spectacle. The action sequences in Mann’s film are uniformly well-done, moving with high intensity without ever making the audience feel lost in the action. Even though things are happening fast, you always know what’s going on; it isn’t just a lot of flashing lights, colors and sounds.

Running alongside Dillinger’s escapades is the story of Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), an FBI agent on the rise who has been handpicked by J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) to bring Dillinger to justice. Though Purvis is the good guy, he isn’t presented here as a rootable character and is figured instead as a man so determined to capture Public Enemy Number One that he’s willing to take risks which put his FBI comrades as well as civilians in danger. Bale does well in the role, adding layers to the character to show how conflicted he is over the ways in which he’s achieved his mandate. The character is neither as charismatic as Dillinger nor as flashy as Hoover, whom Crudup seems to have a lot of fun with, but Bale ensures that he never feels superfluous.

The film works in large part because it creates a nice balance between action and story. When the action comes, it comes fast and furious but there are plenty of lulls in which the characters are allowed to be fleshed out and the audience is allowed to catch its breath. I don’t know enough about the real John Dillinger to attest to how accurate the film is, but the screenplay is well-written regardless and is especially strong in the way it makes clear that Dillinger presented a problem not only for law enforcement agencies, but for other criminals as well. Because his crime spree crossed over state lines, it became necessary to create a federal agency to deal with him, an agency that could also deal with organized crime syndicates which stretched from one coast to the other. As seen here, Dillinger is a criminal who needs to be shut down not only for the sake of the law, but also for the sake of other criminals.

The various elements of the story complement each other nicely and create a cohesive narrative. I don’t know that Public Enemies says anything that hundreds of gangster movies haven’t said before, but it’s a solid, entertaining film. The only real complaint that I have is that it seems to peter out a little bit at the end, but for the most part the film excels at building and maintaining tension.

Review: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has all the hallmarks of a Tim Burton film: it’s visually stunning, it’s dark and ghoulish, and centers on an outsider. It’s also curiously soulless and kind of disappointing. There’s a lot of dramatic material that could be mined here, but it’s all glossed over and the result is a film that is lacking in depth.

Sweeney Todd is probably the goriest musical you’ll ever see - it’s actually more like a horror movie that happens to have music in it. As for the music, I enjoyed the numbers “A Little Priest,” where Todd (Johnny Depp) and Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham-Carter) devise their plan to turn the residents of Fleet Street into meat pies, “By The Sea,” where Mrs. Lovett imagines herself and Todd getting married and going to a sea-side resort, and “Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir” which sees Todd pitting himself against rival barber Pirelli (Sacha Baron Coen); but otherwise found myself fairly indifferent to the soundtrack. Admittedly, this isn’t meant to be a toe-tapping, sing-along musical, but I do find that musicals, by and large, are more effective when the songs move you as you’re watching the film, and stay with you after you’ve left the theatre.

I think my problem with the film is that I didn’t believe in the characters’ relationships with each other. It’s hard to really grasp the full tragic potential of the last act when you don’t really believe in the characters feelings about it. After being falsely imprisoned in Australia, Todd returns to London to exact revenge on the man who sent him away, Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), and supposedly to avenge his wife and daughter, both of whom Turpin has ill-used. However, Todd seems more intent on punishing Turpin than on rescuing his daughter, obsessing more on when he’ll get to kill the former, than on wondering about the safety of the latter. I know that the point of the story is that Todd is so blinded by hate that he can’t see the bigger picture, but we have to first believe in his adoration of Lucy and Johanna before we can feel the force of the tragedy he brings about when he finally gets his revenge. Johnny Depp does what he can with the role, but the film ultimately limits it to one dimension. Sweeney Todd is angry. Sweeney Todd will have vengeance. Sweeney Todd is ridiculously self-centered and kind of tiresome.

Mrs. Lovett, as played by Helena Bonham-Carter, fairs a little bit better. Bonham-Carter brings a shade of humanity to the role, especially in scenes with Toby (Ed Sanders), the ward she takes in. She’s just as bad as Todd in terms of murderous misdeeds, but she still comes across as sympathetic. It’s perhaps because Bonham-Carter is allowed to play her character at various levels – she gets to be happy and sad, devious and regretful, lonely and later fulfilled in a pseudo-familial relationship with Todd and Toby – while Depp is limited to playing Todd as bitter/angry throughout, that she seems to come out better. Sacha Baron Coen is also good, adding a brief burst of color and life to the dark and drab world of the film, before becoming the first victim of Sweeney Todd’s blade.

Visually speaking, the movie is very effective. If there’s one thing you can say about Tim Burton, it’s that he fully conceptualizes his worlds before committing them to film. His vision of London is dark, full of dirty, narrow streets where vermin run free. There’s a running visual motif of Todd not being able to see clearly through glass – his mirror is broken, the windows of the shop are dirty and make the people outside look blurry – it’s the visual representation of his being blinded by fury. But, again, it lacks depth. It’s there, but it isn’t explored. There’s a lot of subtext to this story – the residents of Fleet Street avoid Mrs. Lovett’s shop until she starts baking her pies with her new secret ingredient; it literally demonstrates the figurative concept that not only are people willing to eat their own, they secretly want to – but it just lies there underneath the story, touched on then forgotten.

All that being said, Sweeney Todd isn’t really a bad movie, it’s just not the movie that it could have been. It’s mostly entertaining, it’s just not very filling – a snack rather than a feast.