LFM Reviews Pacific Rim

By Joe Bendel. At least they do not destroy New York City. For an apocalyptic film that constitutes real restraint. The bad news is it is only a matter of time before all of mankind finds itself on the business end of the next major extinction event in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, which opened Friday nationwide.

In the not too distant future, way down in Deep Thirteen . . . a mysterious alien race has begun rising through a breach in the Earth’s crust, sending gigantic monsters up to ravage Pacific coastal population centers. They become known as “Kaiju” in honor of the great Japanese genre monster movies. To combat this threat, the frontline nations joined forces to create giant Iron Man-like fighter-crafts they call “Jaegers” (the German word for hunters). For a while, the Jaegers were taking care of business, but the Kaiju evolved, becoming bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.

Nobody understands this better than Raleigh Beckett. Siblings like Beckett and his brother Yancey were often recruited as Jaeger pilots, because they are highly “drift compatible,” meaning they can form a strong neural bond with each other to control their massive fighting machines. Unfortunately, when Yancey dies in battle his surviving brother shares the experience. Shortsightedly, the Jaeger Project is discontinued in favor of a public works boondoggle of a barrier wall. When that predictably fails, Beckett’s former commanding officer Stacker Pentecost rounds up all the mouth-balled Jaegers and a motley crew of pilots for a last stand.

There are the odd environmental implications to Rim, but frankly the film only mentions the ozone depletion mumbo-jumbo explanation in passing. Of course, in old school Kaiju movies, the atomic bomb was always responsible for creating the monsters. Ironically, a nuclear warhead might represent humanity’s salvation in Rim, if Pentecost’s team can slip one past the goalie, deep enough down the breach.

Even if it is an effects driven tent-pole, most cineastes will be interested in any film starring Idris Elba and Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi. As one would expect, Elba is one of the very few name actors who has sufficient presence and masculinity to pull off the gruff on the outside, but slightly less gruff on the inside Stacker Pentecost (by the way, is del Toro’s Ronco character name-generating machine still under warranty?).

Yet the real breakout star is Kikuchi, who exhibits both acute sensitivity and legit action cred as rookie Jaeger pilot Mako Mori. Charlie Hunnam is basically adequate as the out-for-redemption Raleigh Beckett, but that constitutes a significant improvement from his embarrassing turn in the laughable atheism advocacy potboiler, The Ledge. Mana Ashida also deserves great credit for her tremendous green screen work as the young Mori, but viewers will start to absolutely despise del Toro for making her look so terrified.

From "Pacific Rim."

Obviously Pacific Rim is inspired by Kaiju classics, like the Godzilla and Daimajin franchises, but in terms of tone, the film feels more closely akin to anime, with its battling bots and angst-ridden crews. In fact, the Jaegers bear a distinct resemblance to the Eva units in the Evangelion series. Frankly, a cheesy j-pop theme song would have come as a welcome relief from Ramin Djawadi’s ridiculously ominous score.

The visual effects are suitably impressive, particularly when rendering a sense of the enormous mass and scale of the Jaegers and creatures. Still, it is too dark overall, never really giving viewers a good daytime shot of the Kaiju. You start to wonder if they are allergic to Vitamin D. As usual, the 3D adds little to the experience.

Frankly, the 3D surcharge might just price Rim out of a recommendation. Kikuchi and Elba are excellent and the concept of a big budget, updated take on the Kaiju genre is pretty cool. However, the script is rather workaday and a little of the bickering scientists’ comic relief goes a long, long way. For Kaiju fans looking to beat the heat, Pacific Rim opened Friday nationwide, including at the Regal Union Square in New York (screening both the 3D and glorious 2D versions).

LFM GRADE: B- in 2D/C+ in 3D

Posted on July 15th, 2013 at 9:34am.

Don’t Hock What You Can’t Afford to Lose: LFM Reviews Pawn Shop Chronicles

By Joe Bendel. How did we get so pathetically starved for entertainment as a society that we made reality TV stars out of pawn shop dudes? At least this slightly macabre anthology film puts hock shops back in their properly sleazy place. Everyone doing business at the General Lee Pawn Shop will be getting the shaft, but it will be fate and human nature doing the dirty work in Wayne Kramer’s Pawn Shop Chronicles, which opened Friday in New York.

Alton and his crony Johnson sit about the store grunting and guffawing, pausing to deal with the occasional pawn. Each transaction will cause big time trouble and regret for the General Lee’s walk-ins, like Vernon the meth head, who hocks his shotgun right before meeting up with his white supremacist buddies, Raw Dog and Randy, to hold-up their dealer. Of course, they are rather disappointed in his short-sightedness.

On paper, “The Shotgun” sounds like a cheap bit of hicksploitation, but it features some of the wickedest dialogue in the film, which Paul Walker and Kevin Rankin chew on with proper relish. Gleefully embracing cartoonish violence and a bizarre redneck brand of tolerance, PSC arguably puts its strongest foot forward first.

“The Ring” also has its exploitation merits, but viewers should be warned that it is the most explicit and disturbing installment of the film. Making amends for Crash, PSC’s pretentious evil twin, Matt Dillon plays a newlywed who chances into the General Lee, only to discover his presumably late first wife’s custom ring in the display case. Following the chain of wrongful ownership takes him into the lair of Johnny Shaw, the latest serial killer to be played by Elijah Wood.

Despite a sly riff on the crossroads legend, “The Medallion” is PSC’s weakest link. Seriously, a little bit of Brendan Fraser shticking up the joint as Ricky Baldoski, the low rent Elvis impersonator, goes a long, long way. Eventually, strands of the previous stories will transect this Faustian tale, but first viewers must sit through an extended gag involving the town’s rival barbershops that feels like it runs longer than The Winds of War.

Many have long awaited the film that features Wood, Lukas Haas, and DJ Qualls, but since they never appear here in the same scene together, we still cannot definitely say they are not one and the same person. Vincent D’Onofrio and Chi McBride are mildly amusing in the General Lee framing segments, but it is Walker, Rankin, and Dillon who are the film’s overachievers.

Much like a chaotic pawn shop, the inspired and the stupid comfortably sit side-by-side in PSC. To his credit, Kramer (in a radical departure from his excellent more-or-less feature debut, The Cooler) helms the madness with considerable energy and absolutely no shame. On balance, b-movie connoisseurs will enjoy checking it has appeared on VOD. It has also opened theatrically in New York at the AMC Empire and in Colorado at the AMC Westminster Promenade.

Posted on July 15th, 2013 at 9:32am.

Death By Webcomics: LFM Reviews Killer Toon

By Joe Bendel. Maybe those fuddy-duddies at the Comics Code Authority were not completely off-base regarding the corrupting influence of comic books. Take for instance Kang Ji-yoon’s webcomics. Her lurid depictions of supernatural vengeance are certainly popular, but they also seem to be coming true in real life. How exactly does she get her ideas? That will be the question in Kim Young-gyun’s Killer Toon, which opened Friday in Los Angeles at the CGV Cinemas.

Kang is not great when it comes to deadlines, so her editor Seo Mi-sook is initially quite relieved to finally receive her latest comic via e-mail. Then she starts reading it. Oddly, the first panels self-referentially depict her working late on the very same webcomic, but then flash back to her deepest, darkest secret. A malevolent presence starts terrorizing the understandably freaked out Seo, eventually forcing her to commit suicide, both in the comic and real life.

Responding to the call, Detective Lee Ki-cheol finds Seo’s body and the suspicious comic open on her computer. Having evidently never seen a horror movie before, he decides this could be a career making case. Logically, Kang becomes their prime suspect after she mysteriously arrives on the scene of another ostensive suicide foretold in her comics, at least until yet another interested party kidnaps her.

Like the E.C. Comics that obviously inspired it, everyone is guilty of something in Toon and therefore has it coming to some extent. Combining live action with liberal samples of Kang’s work presented in a motion comic style, Kim’s film clearly evokes Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt, but it takes the concept even further.

From "Killer Toon."

As a result, Toon looks very cool, but it has an unfortunate habit of contradicting itself. In fact, it seems compulsively driven to pull late inning switcheroos with the true nature of a primary character that simply become exhausting. Still, Kim consistently maintains the heavy atmosphere of portent, slickly transitioning between Kang’s comics and the film’s objective reality. The past clearly haunts the present, regardless of the exact nature of the machinations at work.

In probably his darkest role to date, musical theater veteran Um Ki-joon is surprisingly good as Det. Lee, an arrogant and ambitious man, but not a dumb flatfoot by any stretch. Likewise, popular rom-com movie star Lee Si-young is quite the convincing basket case as the gruesome graphic novelist. Kim Do-young’s ill-fated editor makes a memorable opening scene victim and Hyun Woo is also appropriately cold and clammy as Det. Lee’s twitchy junior.

Indeed, Toon boasts a strong ensemble and a darkly stylish look. Unfortunately, screenwriter Lee Sang-hak’s adaptation of Lee Hoo-kyung’s novel just doesn’t always add up. There are far too many “wait, why did …” moments. Still, for fans of horror movies and comics, there is some fun stuff to be found here, as well as some hardcore retribution to keep them on the straight-and-narrow. Recommended for genre enthusiasts who value visual flair over narrative logic, Killer Toon opened Friday in LA, at the CGV Cinemas.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 15th, 2013 at 9:31am.

LFM Reviews I’m Flash @ The 2013 Japan Cuts + The 2013 New York Asian Film Festival

From "I’m Flash."

By Joe Bendel. Rui Yoshino’s family heeded the advice of a certain science fiction novelist: they started their own religion. Perhaps ‘cult’ would be a more accurate term. Regardless, his telegenic looks have served the church well during his tenure as “Guru.” Unfortunately, scandal threatens to disrupt the family business in Toshiaki Toyoda’s I’m Flash, which screened as a co-presentation of this year’s Japan Cuts: the New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema and the New York Asian Film Festival.

The Guru has not been himself lately. Physically, he is fine. He walked away from the car crash that killed a motorcyclist and left his single young lady passenger in a coma. However, the incident has left its mark in other ways, as viewers will learn over time. To protect their frontman and their interests, the family sequesters the Guru in his tropical compound, recruiting three unnamed underworld types to serve as his bodyguards. Their services will indeed be needed.

A controversial figure in his own right, Toyoda bounced back from his unplanned filmmaking hiatus with two wildly idiosyncratic films. His hard-rocking period fantasy Blood of Rebirth is a redemption allegory of unusual power, which will reverberate in viewers’ heads, perhaps for all eternity.  His subsequent Monster’s Club, an austere invitation to sympathize with the devil, might have been more about exorcising some of his own tortured demons. Happily, I’m Flash is an eerie return to form and arguably Toyoda’s most accessible film since his “troubles.” In fact, I’m Flash often seems poised on the brink of a caustic noir portrait of corruption in the Chinatown tradition, yet it always remains slyly elusive.

From "I’m Flash."

Death Notes Tatsuya Fujiwara nicely hints at the imp of perverse lurking inside the not-as-dumb-as-he-looks Guru and Ryuhei Matsuda sets off all the right alarms bells as the bodyguard who is not too young and impetuous or old and cantankerous, but just deadly right. Kiko Mizuhara also keeps viewers thoroughly off balance in her flashback sequences as the mystery woman. Still, everybody wilts when sharing the screen with Michiyo Ookusu as the Guru’s Machiavellian mother—have mercy.

Like everything about Toyoda, I’m Flash is bound to be divisive. Those with a taste for intelligently challenging films will appreciate its genuine air of mystery. It is also a surprisingly handsome production, capitalizing on the evocative locale and subtly creepy set design, most notably the Guru’s villa, which looks as if it could grace the cover of both Architectural Digest and Cult Living.

Toyotarô Shigemori’s cinematography is also weirdly effective, in a way that is difficult to pin down. Over-used as a form of critical shorthand, the term “fever dream” does not really apply here. This is clearly our world, in broad daylight, but something still feels not quite right. Very highly recommended for the moderately adventurous, I’m Flash screened at the Japan Society on the opening night of this year’s Japan Cuts, in conjunction with the New York Asian Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on July 15th, 2013 at 9:30am.