The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Staring: Lucas Black, Bow Wow, Brian Tee, Nathalie Kelley
Director: Justin Lin
Scheduled release: September 7
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift plays like the archetypal Western. A newcomer arrives in town, upsets the locals, plays with hearts, and rides around a lot before a final “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us” showdown sends him, or someone else, on their way. Of course, the movie is actually an Eastern: The frontier is Japan, the town is big enough for about 20 million, and there is plenty of horsepower, but not a mare or stallion in sight. Despite the setting, the basic principles remain unchanged. The stranger, Sean Boswell (Black), is an Alabaman High School student who can’t stop racing cars and the wild wild East of Japan is a paradise for the boy from the west, with its underground racing culture and scantily clad sirens. Sean meets Twinkie (Bow Wow), an iPod-dealing “army brat” who introduces him to the city’s racing underworld. Every night, groups of outrageously dressed young people take their outrageously painted cars out for some dynamically orchestrated races. The Yakuza is heavily involved in the races, and the Drift King, DK (Tee), is high up in their ranks. Of course, in grand Fast and the Furious tradition, Sean takes a liking to DK’s girl, Neela (Kelley), causing DK to take an extreme disliking to Sean. The two race, and the newcomer loses. However, DK’s business partner and seeming sage, Han (Sung Kang), sees a spark in the kid, and vows to train him in the ancient Japanese art of drifting (driving sideways). All Sean has to do in return, is run a few criminal errands.
To describe the plot of Tokyo Drift is more effort than it’s worth (and possibly more effort than it took to come up with). Plot, dialogue, character development: all are irrelevant. What clearly matters to the filmmakers, and one suspects, to those contemplating a trip to the theatre to see it, is the sound and fury of the thing. On this level, Justin Lin’s film is a grand achievement. The racing scenes are that good and that frequent that one can almost forgive everything else. It’s a Western: We know it’s junk; we just want the showdown. Joel Meares |
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The Host
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Starring: Byun Hee-bong, Song Kang-ho, Ko Ah-sung
Scheduled Release: September 14
Bong Joon-ho often criticises society. He often wins awards for it too. In The Host, the director jabs a big middle finger up at society, and in Korea it looks like a second wave of success is rolling in for its rising star. The Host is billed as a monster movie but the faceless brute is fast overshadowed by heavy political issues, beginning with a stern, white American scientist ordering his timid Korean assistant to dump gallons of formaldehyde into Korea’s Han river (a true story that must have incensed Bong enough to start his movie there and stick with a ‘Bad Americans’ theme throughout). Issue two tackles diminished people power (a common element to his films), which leads into single parenthood, environmentalism and deadly viruses. We could go on, but we’d be in danger of losing the plot – kind of what happens in the movie. After the sterile opening, action moves forward to a peaceful afternoon on the riverbank. Kids play as adults lounge, ordering barbequed squid and beer from Hee-bong (Byun Hee-bong) and his gormless son Gang-du (Song Kang-ho). Erupting from the waves (cue screams) comes Beastie, thrashing tentacles, and intent on dinner. Which turns out to be none other that Gang-du’s schoolgirl daughter Hyun-seo, played with real panache by Ko Ah-sung. Her death is mourned with unbearable melodrama, and the family, now including a bronze medal winning aunt and a young upstart uncle, are carted to the hospital for monitoring. A midnight phone call from a distraught but very alive Hyun-seo has the family begging help from authority figures which goes ignored, forcing them to a panicked trawl of the city’s sewers. The movie’s central characters veer from (oddly placed) humour to histrionics with alarming frequency and several laboured speeches are unnecessary. Stereotype cameos appear and disappear with irregularity and without explanation – a lazy-eyed Mr. Evil US doctor, for example. It may be admirable to try to include so many relevant concerns in one story but the result is tiring. And when an impressive CG monster is not the star of its own movie, surely something is
amiss. EK
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Lucky Number Slevin
Staring: Josh Hartnett, Ben Kingsley, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman
Director: Paul McGuigan
Schedule Release: August 31
 Pay attention. This is going to be confusing.
Everyone thinks the mysterious Slevin (Josh Hartnett) is Nick. The confusion is understandable; after all, Slevin does look like Nick, and he’s staying at Nick’s apartment for a few days while the real Nick (Sam Jaeger) is somewhere else – though nobody knows where, or even if he’s alive. The only person to know that Slevin isn’t Nick is Nick’s neighbor, Lindsey (Lucy Liu). She discovers Slevin when she knocks on Nick’s door to borrow ingredients, but accidentally she catches a glimpse of Slevin as he’s getting out of the shower – flames of lust ignite.
After Lindsey visits, thugs appear looking for Nick, but find Slevin. Slevin can’t prove he isn’t Nick because he lost his ID to a mugging. The disbelieving thugs grab Slevin, wearing only a towel around his waist, throw him into a car, and take him to meet a notorious mobster called The Boss (Morgan Freeman) to whom Nick owes money, apparently. Slevin – whom The Boss thinks is Nick – explains he doesn’t have the money because he isn’t Nick. Of course, The Boss doesn’t believe him, and demands his cash. Since Slevin can’t pay, The Boss requires murderous favors that will put him in the middle of a spectacular rivalry between The Boss and another mobster called The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley).
During all this, Slevin is under constant surveillance by a shady detective named Brikowski (Stanley Tucci), as well as world renowned assassin, Goodkat (Willis). Bear in mind, this is merely the setup. Where the film goes from here is for you to discover…
Don’t worry if you’re lost. Your chances of keeping up with the movie are decent. Although violent and bloody, Lucky Number Slevin doesn’t take itself as seriously as you might expect; thus, with its suave, casual style, it’s easier to follow on screen than it is reading its synopsis. Lucky for Slevin (now there’s a play on words), the writing is its strongest asset. Joshua Ralph’s cunning screenplay organises the chaos well, and when the film’s pieces finally create a complete puzzle, it makes for a satisfying conclusion. Especially notable is the film’s dialogue, which not only helps develop the characters in a fun and interesting way, but also adds an amusing spin on a rather familiar fable.
Though, the film’s humor is a double-edged sword. The casual approach and witty dialogue wound Slevin’s effectiveness. Director Paul McGuigan’s (Wicker Park) pacing is somewhat slack for a twisty thriller, and the humor – and a haphazard performance from Liu – makes the movie even less taut. Additionally, it’s hard to take the intense action sequences and themes of revenge seriously with all the foolishness going on. The end result is a movie that tastes like the butcher left too much fat on the roast.
Is Slevin’s roast worth tasting? It’s easy to admire the film for the script’s cleverness, although the twists are never difficult to predict. The casting decisions are flawless in some departments – especially with Kingsley, Freeman, and Willis – but Hartnett and Liu represent miscalculations of grandeur. The witty, original dialogue is a treasure, but the film struggles to find a voice when guns start firing and buildings start blowing up. It’s a close call – but Lucky Number Slevin is worth a look for its refreshing qualities. They don’t make enough twisty thrillers these days. If Slevin does well, maybe they’ll start making more. Blake French |
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Stormbreaker
Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Ewan MacGregor, Mickey Rourke, Bill Nighy, Missi Pyle, Sophie Okonedo
Director: Geoffrey Sax
Scheduled Release: Now Showing
What has Harry Potter started? If we are to expect a slew of teenage novel-to-movies, then Stormbreaker is first through the floodgates. Still, this is more James Bond lite than boys messing with magic and, accordingly, looks slicker. Blond and trendy, Alex Pettyfer plays Alex Rider, who, when his Uncle Ian (Ewan McGregor) is shot dead, unwittingly takes on his spy duties. Supplied with teenage gadgetry – a supersonic yoyo, vamped up rucksack and one-off Nintendo game system – he sets off on a mission to uncover the secret of the Stormbreaker computer system deep in the lair of Darrius Sayle (Mickey Rourke). The MI6 crew in charge of Alex and the villains form a stellar set, revelling in oddities and all kinds of delicious quirks. Bill Nighy as Mr. Blunt is brilliant in his delivery of stilted, fractured sentences. A simmering Rourke in blue eye-shadow, chewing a toothpick and looking with his burnt-brown cheeks like he just returned from a chemical peel, runs amok in his egotistical world. But it is Missi Pyle, as stiff Germanic sidekick Nadia Vole, who performs psycho best – every inch of her poised towering height, taut pencilled brows, and tight purple lips sneers badness. But characters aren’t enough to save a droopy story. The simple plot is revealed systematically with very few surprises and many of Alex’s escapes go unexplained. The action is pacey (its amazing what you can do with a mountain bike) and Donnie Yen’s martial arts moves add spark, but for anyone over age 10, venture to Stormbreaker only if you favour all things Potter. EK |
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Snakes on a Plane
Starring: Samuel L Jackson, Julianna Margulies,
Director: David R Ellis
Sheduled Release: Now Showing
Snakes on a Plane arrives riding a wave of internet-generated hype and, I gather, a massive confusion of expectations. The pre-release proliferation of art, videos, songs, T-shirts, and other DIY media celebrating the film’s unabashed conceptual simplicity (and fortuitous hiring of Sam Jackson in a leading, snake-busting role) indicates excitement, yes, but the nature of their devotion — what the “fans” actually want from this movie — remains something of a mystery. Are they hoping for an unintentionally awful cheesefest — a big-screen, Sam Jackson-starring version of a direct-to-video feature? Or something less low-rent — a campy but faintly self-aware horror show? Maybe an all-out self-parody in the vein of Con Air? Are the snakes on a plane faithful B-movie buffs or studied ironists?
The catch-all nature of Snakes on a Plane shouldn’t be a major surprise. As its title entices in the manner of a lost ‘50s or ‘60s exploitation film, it’s recalling a bygone era of drive-ins and double bills. Most of Hollywood’s cheesy B-pictures in the post-Bruckheimer era are pricier, star-heavier, and quasi-self-aware, with cheesy jokes in place of cheesy straight-faced seriousness.
Thankfully, some of the cheesy jokes in Snakes on a Plane work; director David Ellis has shown an affinity for giggly mayhem in Final Destination 2 and Cellular. The setup of Snakes is as cheerfully preposterous as Ellis’s previous films — in case you require more than four words, Jackson plays an FBI agent who must protect a murder witness (Nathan Phillips) on a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles; the murderers decide that the most effective penetration of the FBI’s defenses involves time-released crates full of poisonous snakes. Our awareness of the impending snakes makes the movie’s ridiculous first half-hour more fun than it should be; it’s almost inherently funny for a movie called Snakes on a Plane to have non-snake scenes at all.
Once those snakes finally slither loose, in a stunning and, if you’re still dealing with your brain at this point, mind-boggling variety, the film lets loose with an equally mind-boggling variety of snake-bite scenarios. The narrative isn’t as driven as Cellular, but Ellis knows his way around crowd-pleasing mayhem, dashed with a little gratuitous sex and gags. At this point, Snakes on a Plane has delivered absolutely everything that it promises. The rest of the movie — swift, fun, and somewhat less taut than you might hope — is just additional B-grade imitation-cheese topping.
Though Snakes on a Plane is never less than entertaining, the best snake action is (spoiler alert) mostly over by the final act, and once the excitement of violence, sex, snakes, and Jackson subsides, it’s admittedly difficult not to feel a little like a kid the day after Christmas.
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The Lake House
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Christopher Plummer
Directed by: Alejandro Agresti
Scheduled Release: September 7
Director Alejandro Agresti’s The Lake House, based on a South Korean film called Il Mare, takes the premise that launched movies such as Back to the Future and Frequency and asks, “What would a good boyfriend do with these powers?” The powers in this case involve a mystical mailbox that connects two would-be lovers who are living two years apart. Unfortunately, the answer to that question ends up being “Nothing interesting enough to last for almost two hours.”
Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves) is an architect living in Chicago who has recently bought the lake house built by his cold, uncaring father (Christopher Plummer). Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock) is a doctor living in Chicago who has recently moved out of the same house. She leaves a note in the mailbox for the next tenant, which is received by Alex who, puzzled by the note’s references to objects that aren’t there (yet), writes back. Eventually the two figure out that they are, in fact, living in different years – Alex in 2004, and Kate in 2006.
Being lonely workaholic types and apparently lacking a broadband connection, they decide to continue the correspondence. Rather than ask for stock tips or sports scores, Alex opts instead to do little favours for Kate, planting a tree that will later grow out in front of her apartment complex, or leaving graffiti for her on a wall that no one bothers to clean or write over for two years. As they grow closer, Alex discovers why he can’t be with Kate in his present,
while Kate struggles with trying to meet him in hers.
The Lake House is the type of film that could make a fantastic half-hour episode of The Twilight Zone, but needs to bring a lot more to the table if it wants to stretch to feature length. For starters, the dialogue does not sound like it came from the pen of a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, but that’s David Auburn’s name right there in the opening credits. Reeves and Bullock are serviceable in their roles, with Reeves playing 10 percent less wooden than usual and Bullock conveying forlorn with aplomb, but none of this is terribly new or interesting. If anything, Alex’s B-plot relationship with his father, which prompts a speech Auburn must have copied and pasted from a better script he had lying around, merits more screen time than the A-plot it barely services. 
Agresti’s direction at times results in some interesting visuals, including clever attempts to show the pair occupying the same space at different times in one shot. Meanwhile, attempts to have the characters verbalise their written correspondence just make them seem like they’re talking to themselves. And while the story has some fun with the notion of a postal bridge across time, the poorly concealed plot points make it seem like there’s some mystical mailbox at the end of the film sending us everything that’s going to happen before we’re halfway into the movie.
In the end, The Lake House is not a particularly bad film, but it’s not a particularly good one, either. It smacks mostly of wasted potential, and the sense that the phrase “close enough” informed too many choices. If I were sending letters back in time to someone advising them on which films to skip, I’d probably forget to even mention this. Pass the salt, Sandy. David Thomas
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On The Edge
Starring: Nick Cheung, Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Rain Li
Director: Herman Yau
Scheduled Release: August 31
 Returning to more normal policing duties, newly promoted Sergeant Harry-boy (Nick Cheung) lives under the shadow of the Triads after eight years of spying on the gangs. But during those years he tasted the camaraderie of the outlaws, a taste which now clashes with his responsibilities as a policeman. In a surprising move, Cheung abandons his usual comedy routines to meticulously portray a man in deep conflict. It is his detailed characterisation that keeps the movie on track and allows audiences to easily empathise with the story. Rain Li is quite new to the big screen, but expect to see lots more of her after a performance that nicely encapsulates the rebellious, emotional Cat. But Anthony Wong is the stand-out as Sergeant Lung, whose rude and reckless attitude covers a uniquely canny perception. This local actor is one of the best around and will no doubt seize audience attention as he did in the extremely popular Infernal Affairs. Speaking of which, with its triads, police, spying and Wong, definite echoes of that movie reverberate through On The Edge. Yet this latest from director Yau is spare of special effects or unexpected twists, relying instead on simple and direct storytelling. Which is its strength – it is precisely that which gives the movie its sense of intimacy and forges the bond between viewers and Sergeant Harry-boy: Yau succeeds with an unequivocal film well able to snatch an audience’s heart. Trevor Cheng Chun Hong |
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