What is it about Jackie Chan that makes him the most lovable person on the planet? If you consider other action stars, like Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger or even Bruce Lee, they just don’t exude that same cheerful charisma that Chan has. If  anyone could deliver some martial arts driven world peace, it’s him. And in his latest action epic, Dragon Blade, that’s exactly what his character, Huo An, wants to do.

Daniel Lee directs this grandiose spectacle of a historical action film and the ornate detail put into the visuals of the film are truly mesmerizing…and utterly distracting. Clearly Lee, who also wrote the film, is attempting to use the historical allure of the Silk Road and the mingling of cultures along that road to present a message of unity—no matter the rather loose historical accuracy of the events depicted or the bombast with which he presents it all. Dragon Blade is a thoroughly enjoyable film with laugh-out-loud moments, almost all of which I assume the director did not intend. The same slow motion glory with which the film’s final epic battle plays out also works to highlight every jowel-ripple moving across John Cusack’s face as he rides horseback. Proof positive that enhanced visual effects don’t always enhance a film’s quality.

Supposedly based on a historical person, Chan’s Huo An leads the Silk Road Protection Squad, peacekeepers of the Silk Road, whose mission is to prevent those many cultural clashes bound to happen on a busy trade road. In the film’s opening Chan hilariously faces off against the leader of one such clan, Cold Moon (Peng Lin), about to engage in a desert scuffle. Using fancy footwork and his forearm shield, he makes avoiding fighting this woman look amazingly intricate, showcasing that despite his age—61 and not quite doing all his own stunts anymore—Chan definitely still has it.

That crisis is averted but someone has it in for the Protection Squad and they are wrongly accused of corrupt practices and exiled to Goose Gate, a fortress along the Road in a state of disrepair. All the various cultures found in the area are represented, Hun, Indians, Turks, Mongols and more, and all are forced to work alongside each other to rebuild the city wall. Which of course leads to opportunity for the Protection Squad to use their training, albeit unappreciated by the others until the day a Roman army—led by John Cusack and his slow-mo’d jowels—shows up to invade. Huo An comes to the rescue, facing Roman leader Lucius (Cusack) in a sword fight and offering sanctuary when a sandstorm cuts their dual short.

In a rather quick turn of events, Lucius and Huo An form a sort of friendship. Lucius is traveling with deserted Roman army soldiers and a blind young Roman prince, Publius (played by Chinese child actor Jozef Waite turned blonde Roman and weirdly creepy), who is pursued by his tyrannical older brother Tiberius who has overthrown his own father and blinded his brother. In exchange for shelter and in preparation for Tiberius’s arrival, the Roman soldiers and workers of Goose Gate band together, using Roman technology to rebuild the city in a very short amount of time, and simultaneously learning the efficiency and joy of working as a team. If it wasn’t so elaborately shot and costumed, it would be a perfect fit for a Sesame Street segment.

Tiberius does indeed show up, clad in perfect Roman curls and played at his villanous best by Adrien Brody. The script shifts dramatically at this point, and after all the friendship-forming and singing—no, literally there is an extended scene where each of the different tribes sing the songs of their people and show their respects to one another—the sudden gruesomeness that ensues is dark indeed. Apparently that world peace Huo An seeks won’t happen without a fair amount of blood shed, all of which elicits laughs rather than gasps due to its over-the-top entrance into the film.

There is a satisfying showdown and large-scale battle to round out the film but once again the magnitude of it all detracts from any connection to the so-called story. Huo An remains the sole character for whom we hold any real connection, but the degree of his suffering hardly makes the battle feel worth winning. Strangely all criticism of Cusack or Brody has entirely to do with the writing material they were given and the silliness they are thrust into at moments. Amazingly, and this is of course a testament to Chan’s remarkable choreographic abilities, both men look completely at ease and totally tough in their fantastic fight scenes.

Any reason for seeing Dragon Blade lies firmly within a respect and adoration of Jackie Chan and relies on one’s ability to be patient waiting for the fight scenes. The film’s themes are as overt as a round-house kick to the face and no one who sees this film will be able to escape walking away feeling like they were subjected to the film equivalent of two hours on It’s a Small World—you know, but with blood and gore.

Jackie Chan fans can deal with the cheese that often accompanies the thrill of seeing the man in action, and those who like ornate flourishes may not mind the film’s style, but mostly this film’s biggest assets are the strange combo of Chan, Cusack and Brody and the accidental hilarity of a frilly film taking itself seriously. And perhaps there is a lesson in Dragon Blade after all. World peace may not equate to “good” guys winning over “bad” guys, or the people of the world combining in a united cause—it may simply be a matter of everyone getting over themselves and having a laugh.

The sheer ambition on display in Third Person, from Crash writer-director Paul Haggis, is staggering and admirable without question. It’s actually a very, very rare thing to behold, with Haggis carefully constructing an intricately woven ensemble love story set in three famous cities with just a hint of supernatural mystery blanketing the entire thing. Despite the film feeling earnest and being a clear labor of love, it also manages to feel absolutely wrong in so many ways that it’s quite painful to sit through. Haggis had a beautiful vision in mind, but the elements used to deliver it from his brain to ours are, frankly, unsightly.

Liam Neeson leads the ensemble of A-listers in the tri-story drama, starring as a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who’s struggling desperately with writer’s block while piecing together his latest novel in an extravagant hotel room in Paris. This battle with creation is one of the film’s two major themes, the other being the unmerciful nature of love and longing. Representing love’s viciousness for Neeson is Olivia Wilde, who plays his nutty mistress staying in a suite a couple floors below his.

Their story line consists of them alternating between them being comically cruel to each other and hysterically in love, having wild sex at the drop of a hat. Nothing about their relationship feels authentic, believable, or natural, with them pinball-ing from brutal to enamored way too quickly to take seriously. Yes, there are couples in real life who have similar up-and-down, abusive relationships, but Wilde and Neeson’s relationship is so hammy, desensitizing, and exhausting you’ll want to take a nap. They’re just not relatable enough to make investment in them worthwhile. The pair’s acting does have energy, however, and in isolated moments they’re quite magnetic.

More interesting is a second love story involving Adrien Brody, playing an American in Rome who’s so unimpressed with the city all he wants is a burger, which he waltzes into a pub called Bar Americano to find, but with no luck. Instead, he meets a beautiful gypsy (Moran Atias), the first thing he’s found in Rome he actually likes (though he claims the shot of limoncello they share to be the first as a pick-up line). His attraction to her is so strong that he’s compelled to help her when her daughter’s life is threatened and she must come up with ransom money somehow. This is easily the most enjoyable strand of the three stories, as it mixes elements of danger and betrayal with Brody and Atias’ potent chemistry. It also heavily recalls the work of Antonioni (one of Haggis’ favorites) in a good way.

Mila Kunis leads the third story as a hotel maid in New York entrenched in a custody battle over her son with a cold-hearted painter played by a vacant James Franco. Kunis’ character is positioned to be the film’s most sympathetic, with everyone in her life having zero belief in her, but again, the obtuse way in which her plight is presented derails it early on. The final showdown between she and Franco is as overblown and numbing as the climactic gunshot in Crash.

The supernatural element I mentioned earlier comes in the form of Haggis interconnecting the three stories when they couldn’t possibly be, as they take place thousands of miles apart. We see Kunis, who’s supposed to be in New York, clean up Neeson’s Paris hotel room, for instance. The revelation that makes sense of all this is clever and actually ties in to the film’s themes nicely, but by the time we get there we’re so depleted it barely leaves an impression.

Third Person trailer

Writer-director Paul Haggis (Crash, In the Valley of Elah) spoke with us in San Francisco about his new film, Third Person, which follows three interlocking stories of love, taking place in New York, Paris, and Rome. A labor of love, the script took two and a half years to complete, with Haggis writing and re-writing the intricately woven story incessantly. The film stars Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis, Adrien Brody, James Franco, Kim Basinger, Moran Atias, and Olivia Wilde.

In Part 1 of our video interview, Haggis speaks with us about the nature of love, his love for flawed characters, the selfishness of artists, the painful process of writing the script, the influence of Blow-Up, and more.

WATCH OUR PAUL HAGGIS INTERVIEW PART 2

Partway through The Grand Budapest Hotel, there’s an argument between Dmitri (Adrien Brody, looking brilliantly evil) and his deceased mother’s lawyer (Jeff Goldblum). The lawyer refuses to hand the dead woman’s fortune over to her son as the details of her murder haven’t been cleared up. Dmitri angrily leaves, and his henchman (Willem Dafoe) casually tosses the lawyer’s cat out of a window on his way out. It’s a cruel act, and a funny visual gag, until the lawyer peers out his window and the camera cuts to his cat’s splattered body below.

Writer/director Wes Anderson uses these shock moments of sudden violence more than once throughout the film. The dead woman (Tilda Swinton, unrecognizable with pounds of old age makeup) is Madame D., an old rich countess who frequented the titular hotel. Located in the mountains of the Republic of Zubrowka, a made up European nation, the hotel is a gorgeous and highly popular establishment. Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes) is the hotel’s concierge, a charming man who was also taking Madame D. to bed during her visits (one of Gustave’s many duties as concierge included sexually satisfying the rich old ladies who visited). When it’s revealed that she put Gustave in her will as the recipient of a priceless painting, Madame D.’s family frames him for her murder.

Gustave receives help from Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), a young lobby boy that Gustave has taken a shine to. The story, taking place in 1932 during some unnamed war ravaging the country, is narrated to us by an older Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) in the 1960s. He’s telling his tale to a young author (Jude Law) over dinner at the hotel, now well past its glory days. Law narrates the 1960s segments, which are actually from a novel being read to viewers in the 1980s by (presumably) a now much-older author (Tom Wilkinson). The nesting-doll structure may seem frivolous, but Wes Anderson’s films thrive on frivolity.

The multi-layered narrative also establishes Anderson’s attempts to comment on memory and nostalgia. Moustafa’s story in the 1930s, shot gorgeously in 1.33:1, is stylistically Anderson’s best work to date. The set design, meticulous framing, whip pans, quick zooms, and use of animation and miniatures, among Anderson’s other visual trademarks, operate at a level that more than matches his story’s large scale. Anderson and cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman are clearly having a field day, and it shows. The charming style also shows Moustafa’s nostalgia for this period of his life, as if these “good ol’ days” represent something that’s never to return.

Anderson is aware of how dangerous this way of looking at the past with rose-coloured glasses is, which is why he throws in scenes like the one with Goldblum’s cat. He is purposely breaking the spell his film casts, reminding viewers that the time period was still a tumultuous one. The hotel is not so much a shining example of long-lost civility and politeness as it is an escape from the harsh realities of wartime and poverty. These two worlds of fantasy and reality eventually come together, but through Anderson’s lens the stylistic flourishes still remain. The final scene of the ‘30s timeline, also the bleakest part of Moustafa’s story, switches to black and white, showing how Anderson still finds a way to fill his heavier moments with aesthetic quirks.

While Anderson’s toying with memory and nostalgia is interesting, it fails to make any impact to the film overall. The handling of violence makes for an awkward juxtaposition, one that’s more admirable in its intent than execution (I never thought I’d say this, but Anderson should take some tips from Quentin Tarantino in this area). The war going on in the film’s background is wiped of any details, save for some vague allusions to the SS. The obscuring of these elements only muddy the water, and the dense plotting of Anderson’s screenplay make his thematic points get swallowed up by the film’s aesthetics.

Not that the aesthetics are a bad thing; The Grand Budapest Hotel is still a treat to watch. Fiennes is perfect as Gustave, and Anderson’s script is filled with plenty of hilarious moments. The massive ensemble, where seemingly every role is filled with a well-known actor (supporting cast includes Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Saorise Ronan, Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson just to name a few), work together perfectly. While The Grand Budapest Hotel works well, it only does up to a certain point. What the film amounts to is nothing more than a well-done and admirable piece of fluff.

The Grand Budapest Hotel trailer

Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen’s latest film about a man who loves Paris and nostalgia which Allen gracefully provides in a whimsy and romantic manner. Allen does for Paris what he has done for New York in the past, cinematically capturing the city perfectly. Most people can agree, this is Allen’s best film in years.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is a Hollywood movie writer who is trying to give a shot at writing a novel but not having the easiest time with it. He is on vacation with his soon-to-be wife Inez (Rachel McAdams) in Paris, a city that he adores every square inch of, especially when it is raining. He brings up the idea of moving there once they are married but Inez does not share the same passion about Paris as he does and she hates being wet. In fact, the couple do not see eye-to-eye on much it seems.

The couple happen to run into some old friends who are visiting the City of Light as well. I decline to say mutual friends as Gil does not care much for Paul (Michael Sheen), a traveling professor who considers himself an expert on every subject on earth. Gil finds him very annoying whereas Inez finds him charming and fascinating. Paul asks if the two would be interested in going dancing and immediately they both respond with different answers.

While Inez and Paul are out dancing, Gil decides to take a walk around the city. He had a fair amount to drink that night so getting lost was not hard for him to do. He ends up on some church steps as the clock strikes midnight it’s bell rings. A few moments later a vintage car full of drunken Parisians pulls up and invites him in.

When the group ends up at a party that is when Gil starts to notice something a little…magical. The first person at the party he meets is Zelda Fitzgerald (Alison Pill). She is very eager to hear that he is a writer himself so she calls over her husband to tell him the news, Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston). He can barely believe what he is seeing.

He does not spend too much time trying to figure out how he ended in what he considers the golden age, the 1920’s, he just embraces it. Woody Allen does the same; he does not bother to explain how this time travel is possible as how is not the important part. Gil has always wondered what Paris was like in the 20’s and now he gets his chance to see it.

The next day everything goes back to normal but Gil can barely wait until midnight to see if the process repeats itself. He walks around until he finds the same church and waits for clock to strike midnight. When the bell rings sure enough the same old car pulls up transports him back in time. Gil runs into a long list of famous heroes including, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody). Gil realizes he finally found some people he trusts to critique his novel, something that he has never done before and what other perfect people do so than Stein and Hemmingway.

The story really picks up when he is introduced to Piacasso’s lover Adriana (Marion Cotillard). He instantly develops a crush on her. Gil and Adriana share one big thing in common; they both wish they belonged in a different time period. It is when Adriana fantasizes about being in Paris in another time than the 1920’s that he finally comes to a realization that life is a little unsatisfying and you can never think the present is the golden age.

Gil comes to this epiphany shortly after he heavily considers leaving his fiancé for Adriana. He does after all, get along with and share more in common with Adriana than we ever saw he did with Inez. The film does a great job making it about impossible to feel pity for Inez, she never seemed right for Gil from the start.

It is no secret that Woody Allen often portrays himself with protagonists in his films, Midnight in Paris is no exception, Owen Wilson might be the best actor to pull it off to date. Wilson may not come to mind as the perfect person for the role but he proved otherwise. He played the enthusiastic writer who is sometimes neurotically long-winded remarkably well. The rest of the cast also do a excellent job, especially Corey Stoll as Hemingway.

Wrecked is an indie thriller that stars Adrien Brody who wakes up and is trapped in a crushed car with no memories of what happened. It is often compared to 127 Hours and Buried and rightfully so, it does share many of the same core elements. A man is alone, trapped and is trying to escape. It may not be on the same level of suspense or emotion as those two films, but it is modestly compelling nonetheless.

A man slowly regains consciousness covered in blood and what appears to be a car wreck that somehow resulted in being in the woods. A quick glance around the car and he sees a man in the backseat who does not seem to be moving. We have no idea who it is, but neither does he. He makes no real attempt to talk to said person nor does he seem to have any real emotional connection with this person.

To make matters worse, he is stuck between the smashed front end of the vehicle against his legs and the seat. Not helping his situation is the door is jammed tight and will not budge. Only things in reach are available to him, searching around the front seat he finds a pistol.

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It is confirmed that the main character does not know the deceased man in the car when he manages to stretch back and remove the man’s wallet. He discovers the man is George and rhetorically asks if the two are friends. He does not remember anything, including this own name which is apparent when he etches “Hello my name is” and stops there. He must not carry a wallet himself.

After beating on the door for several days he finally is able to un-jam the door. His weak body falls straight to the ground but most importantly, he is free. His leg is severally wounded which currently makes standing or even walking an impossible task.

As he does his best to bandage his leg, he hears of the car’s radio that George, Raymond and Eric are wanted for a robbery of a bank and that they are considered armed and extremely dangerous. The car’s description matches perfect. He finds that the truck is filled with cash. Suddenly, he is starting to find out what is going on, but there are many questions still left unknown.

He befriends a stray dog that serves as his only companion. He asked the dog if it is a good dog or a bad dog. Interestingly, that is precisely the main point of the film, to find out if the main character is a good guy or a bad guy. He makes a tough decision when a small amount of food becomes available and he must decide to keep the little amount to himself or share with the dog. Sharing the food with the dog perhaps proves he does have a good side to him even though he is a fugitive on the run.

Adrien Brody does a pretty good job staying on screen for the entire film by himself much like James Franco in 127 Hours and Ryan Reynolds in Buried. Not only does he not have any human supporting actors but he must crawl through the woods because he cannot stand. He also did all of this own stunts including being swept down a river.

Director Michael Greenspan shows that he is able to create a fair amount of suspense from little dialog or actors and from a story that is not all that unique. Wrecked was shot in order in just 18 days. Improvements could have been made but ones that could be overlooked for a first time director. This film showed potential for a very promising start of a career.

Wrecked definitely felt like a short film that turned into a full-length feature film. The beginning and the end were enjoyable but the middle lacked enough content to fully achieve a high arch of a story. Still, you find yourself waiting to see what the outcome is and it may not be what you expected. The biggest downfall is that the film is mostly watching him survive out in the woods instead of building more of a storyline.